"Twitching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is of women. In such cases the first care should be not to fasten this sense of rush on to anything; the second care should be to go to work to cure it, to relax out of that contraction—just as you would work to cure twitching St. Vitus's dance, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... old man, dressed in a shabby overcoat, a silk waistcoat, renewed twice in a score of years, and a very dirty pair of trousers, with a bald head, a face full of deep hollows, a wrinkled, callous skin, a beard that had a trick of twitching its long white bristles, a menacing pointed chin, a toothless mouth, eyes bright as the eyes of his dogs in the yard, and a nose like an obelisk—there he stood in his gallery smiling at the beauty called into being by genius. A Jew surrounded by his millions will always ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... sullen, and his lips were twitching nervously. "You care more for him than you do for your own flesh and blood, Jen. There's nothing to get mad about like that. I'll tell you when he's gone. . . . Let's—let's wake him," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... leisure to observe the man than had Aiken, for it is difficult to study the features of anyone when he is looking at you down a gun-barrel, and it seemed to me that the muscles of the man's mouth as he pressed it against the stock were twitching with a smile. As the side of his face toward me was the one farther from the gun, I was able to see this, but Aiken could not, and he answered, still more angrily: "I tell you, I'm the American Consul. Anyway, it's not going to do you any good to shoot me. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Leffingwell, John, his son, and Mr. and Mrs. Potter all rose to their feet, when Timmins walked in. Mr. Leffingwell would have another doctor; and while they waited five minutes for him (he was right in the building) Asa, suffering pretty badly, but not giving a sign of it, except for his twitching face, lay on the settee, with Timmins fixing his pillows some other way every second, and Barton off ordering a hot drink from the cook, who had taken a peek, and was crying ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... was in Gaston's face might puzzle a keen reader of character as to whether it were native, or the result of years of well-fought battles. Once the will was off guard, a certain softness of the eyes, and a twitching of the mouth muscles came into play; but the will was rarely off guard during Gaston's ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... my enemy's ironic enjoyment. I had a quite definite consciousness of my enemy. I had as a boy thought, you remember, of my uncle—and now, as I moved through the wood, I could hear the old man's chuckle just as he had chuckled in the old days, snapping his fingers together and twitching his nose...." ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... of Bologna, who was in delicate health. As the frogs were lying in the laboratory of the professor they were observed to twitch each time a spark was drawn from an electrical machine that stood by. A similar twitching was also noticed when the limbs were hung by copper skewers from an iron rail. Galvani thought the spasms were due to electricity in the animal, and produced them at will by touching the nerve of a limb ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... then a long time by the fire, very silent, and not loving, and never looking to each other for it. Melanctha was moving and twitching herself and very nervous with it. Jeff was heavy and sullen and dark ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... the cabin-table with an assumption of firmness which was completely belied by the ghastly pallor of his countenance and the convulsive twitching of his white lips. Grasping the table with both hands, he said in a voice which he in vain ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... and released the millions of gibbering, twitching idiots that inhabited Southern Europe, and he came out of the river bed in which he had ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... The Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean's expression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to say ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resemble the wreck of a woman as she lay out upon her bed, her hands twitching, her eyes closed, and Ross was profoundly alarmed. "You need the doctor," he ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... maintained unwonted stillness and save for a restless twitching of his fingers on the wheel of the car did not move. If, thought Steve miserably, he could summon the nerve to look up, he would know in a second from his father's face whether he was annoyed or angry. At last the situation became unbearable and come what might he raised his eyes. To his ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... He stood vexedly twitching at his cap-tassel, which fell over by his whisker, and continued: "Well, I am very sorry. In fact, I had something for him here."—Then drawing nearer, "you see, he applied to me for relief, no, I do him injustice, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... back," complains a mother, "we could hardly recognize for our strong, impulsive, loving son whom we had loaned to Uncle Sam this irritable, restless, nervous man with defective hearing from shells exploding all about him, and limbs aching and twitching from strain and exposure, and with that inevitable companion of all returned oversea boys, the coffin-nail, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... the ground-floor rooms which had French windows opening on to the drive, and it was to these French windows that I now made my way. An orchestra was playing something with a good deal of zip to it, and under happier conditions I dare say my feet would have started twitching in time to the melody. But I had sterner work before me than to stand hoofing it by myself on ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... even seem to hear. He played with lowered eyes and twitching mouth, and his hands shook perceptibly. The gambler's lust was ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a grape shot had struck him, and torn his belly open. There he lay in his bloody hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already departed, except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive contraction and distension of his nostrils. His brown ringlets still clustered over his marble forehead, but they were drenched in the cold sweat of death. The surgeon could do nothing for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... followed him down. We had to work all night. The Third was down there all the time under the boilers. He was an old chap; must have been sixty, with a moustache that was dirty brown at the tips and grey at the roots, and a crease down each of his cheeks that was always twitching while he chewed. He was lying on his side in a puddle of water, a slush lamp close to his head, working a ratchet-drill into the shell of the boiler. I had to crawl in alongside of him and help him. Me! And I'd been writing 'fitters' instructions' in the office ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... to it. Davy Spink had a very crestfallen, subdued look. He was about to follow, when a thought seemed to strike him. He turned hastily round, and Ruby was surprised to see that his eyes were suffused with tears, and that his features worked with the convulsive twitching of one who struggles powerfully ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from more directions than one. There was a rushing, sweeping noise against the window-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing against the door—out in the hall. Smoke advanced sedately across the carpet, twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot of the door. The influence that had destroyed the harmonious conditions of the room had apparently moved in advance of its cause. Clearly, something was ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Uncle George, that you can't stop this!" Teackle whispered with some heat, his eyes strained, his lips twitching. Here he faced Harry. "You sha'n't go on with this affair, I tell you, Harry. What will Kate say? Do you think she wants you murdered for a foolish thing like this!—and that's about what ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... still nearer, her peremptory tone forcing him to turn his long, twitching face toward her, "Miss Melody is about to marry my son. He will attend to any business you may ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... for the strange phantoms which are raised in his intellect by the disturbance of his natural functions. The man is placed upon the rack, but our compassion is aroused, not by feeling our own nerves and sinews twitching in sympathy, but by remarking the strange confusion of ideas produced in his mind, the singularly distorted aspect of things in general introduced by such an experience, and hence, if we please, inferring the keenness ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... through it all, simply stood there, his eyes wide and his face sharp with curiosity and incredulity, his body twitching now and then from the infection of the excitement which rippled over the room. That excitement had been there, though Bryce had not permitted himself to indulge in it in any visible way. He had showed Pierce a new facet to his operations, one which Pierce could not anticipate immediately, one ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... of the house while at the same time they could talk as they hammered and measured and screwed and sewed. They were gathered under the tree where the squirrel lived. As they established themselves, he was sitting on a branch above them, twitching his tail and making ready for a descent to search for ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... had it. Panic gas! Police did not use it because panic is worse than rioting. Calhoun felt all the physical symptoms of fear and of gibbering terror. A man whose mind yields to terror experiences certain physical sensations, wildly beating heart, tensed and twitching muscles, and a frantic impulse to convulsive action. A man in whom those physical sensations are induced by other means will—ordinarily—find his ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... the other side of the brush pile and then he knew. There was Old Klaws the House Cat, his tail twitching and his round eyes ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... this two months, and you'll about hit the mark. Uncertainty and suspense get on a man's nerves, in the long-run. Bound to. And never a word—the deuce a line—all these—— Poof!" He blows again, and beams. The Colonel, watching him out of the corner of one keen eye, says, with a twitching muscle in the cheek that is turned ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... soul, no more of this!" cried the master-player, with quivering lips. "Ye will make me out no man, or else a fiend. I cannot let the fellow go—I will not let him go." His hands were twitching, and his face was pale, but his lips were set determinedly. "And, Tom, there's that within me will not abide even thy pestering. So come, no more of it! Upon my ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... odd yellow face, who, with his steady unwinking eyes might have been a figure of wax save for the regular rise and fall of his breast, and the spasmodic twitching of his lips. T. B. judged him to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of seventy, and, if anything, older. His face was without expression; his eyes, which turned upon the intruder, were ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... robes, was a bizarre figure. The hood was thrown back, exposing his pale, black-bearded face, the wan eyes with dark circles under them, and the twitching lips. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... perfectly composed, but there was that in his aspect which instantly hushed all sounds in the crowded room, and drew the eyes of everybody in it upon him. The Kamloops doctor looked at him from a distance with a sudden twitching smile—the smile of a reticent man in whom strong feeling must somehow find a physical expression. Dixon, the young Superintendent, bent forward eagerly. At the back of the room a group of Japanese railway workers, with their round, yellow ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... would expect him to bear things: but neither of them had thought that morning, beside his box, that the first trial would come from Phil. This again made him so nearly cry that his uncle observed his twitching face, and, without noticing him, said that he, for his part, did not want to see little boys wise before they had time to learn; and that the most silent companion he had ever been shut up with in a ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... twitching his forelock, and making a scrape with his hind leg, 'nothing, your honour, but a scratch ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... who is now out of danger, have described the assailant. He is about eighteen, of medium height, slender, dark complexioned, one eye noticeably smaller than the other, nose long and pointed, has a nervous habit of twitching his shoulder. He wore a light brown suit and a gray cap. Send all information, or broadcast same to Police Headquarters, Willstown. Immediate detention of any ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... the summer house at that romantic hour when the first day stars arrive with the mosquitoes. It was always at such moments that the craving was strongest. She had begun by holding his wrist in a strong encircling clasp but the sight of his twitching contorted fingers had been too much for her sensibilities and her hand had slipped into a more ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... else, I sprang to his aid. As I leaped I felt the closing edge of the moon door graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man who had grappled with him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily to his feet, I heard shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as though some giant's hand ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... other hand, the face bore traces of his violent character. There was a set smile on his lips, but his brow was heavy and frowning, while his receding chin contradicted the strength of the upper part of his face. There was, too, a look of anxiety and restlessness betrayed by a nervous twitching of the lips. ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... of inquisitive idlers had gathered down on the steamboat landing when the boat swung in and lay by the pier. The pair of bays in the Loreng carriage stood tossing their heads and twitching and stamping as the flies tormented them; but at last they got their passengers and were given their heads, setting off with a wild bound or two that scattered those who had pressed too near. But in the carriage they could see the two strangers and the engineer, all three laughing and gesticulating, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... detailed, as a preventive, to hold your head. At all events, she quieted down the instant she was told by her sister to climb into the wagon again and sit still as a mouse and see that your face was kept cool and moist and shaded from the glare." And now Sergeant Wing's lips were twitching with merriment, and Drummond, hardly knowing how to account for his embarrassment, asked no more. His amateur surgeon, however, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... as if he were suffering some great emotion, and he stared at Rich wildly, his hand twitching and his lip quivering as he waited for her next speech, which seemed to crush him, as she asked ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... the impenetrable silence, was telling upon Westray; he tried again to rearrange his thoughts, but they were centred only on Lord Blandamer. How calm he seemed, with his hands folded behind him, and never a finger twitching! What did he mean to do—to fly, or kill himself, or stand his ground and take his trial on a last chance? It would be a celebrated trial. Hateful and inevitable details occurred to Westray's imagination: ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... queerly, Although so short a time out of the stable. Quiet him, WILLIAM, quiet him!—if you're able. This is no spot for him to fall. I dread The need—just here—of "sitting on his head." Cutting the traces Will leave us dead-lock'd, here of all bad places! Oh, do keep quiet, K-MB-RL-Y! You're twitching My cape again! Mind, ASQ-TH! You'll be pitching Over that barrier, if you are not steady. Fancy us getting in this fix—already! Cabbin' it in a fog is awkward work, Specially for the driver, who can't shirk, When once his "fare" is taken. I feel shaken. 'd rather ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... the bed, they passed out of the room, Ramo locking the door, listening sharply, with his ears twitching, as he caught a faint creaking noise made by a lock in the ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... the history of the place, showing the pictures and the chapel, exhibiting curious relics of the past—a restless and energetic figure, holding its own in effectiveness against men of greater stature and more commanding presence by an inward force which has something of the tang of a twitching bow-string. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... man, and lively, though ageing fast. The face was thin, rather wrinkled, dark and weather-beaten, with light untidy wisps of hair round the mouth. I was immediately struck by a curious twitching in his features, perhaps a relic of former bouts of drinking. Otherwise his expression was harsh and melancholy. His hands were red, swollen and calloused as if by years ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... the knife!" gasped Xavier, and one of his servants sprang forward to give it to him. But Otter was watching and started out of the press, naked sabre in hand: his fierce and ugly face was twitching with excitement, his black eyes shone, and his vast shoulders worked to and fro. To Juanna, fascinated by the fearful struggle, the dwarf looked like some black gnome, like a thing of supernatural power, half toad, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... Her long-tailed ponies stood twitching their ears on the road twenty yards away. The boy, Curnow, flicked flies off them occasionally. He saw his mistress go into the cottage; come out again; and pass, talking energetically to judge by the movements of her hands, round the vegetable plot in front of the cottage. Mrs. Pascoe was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... be kept from getting their proper supply of nourishment from the food-canal, the state of affairs is quickly revealed in the mouth mirror. Those muscles which open the mouth, instead of resting peacefully in the consciousness of duty well done, are in a state of perpetual fidget, twitching, pulling, wondering whether they ought not to open the portal for the entrance of new supplies of material, since the tissues are ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... the man stepped forward, his eyes on her, his hands twitching with a desire to clasp her to him, yet restrained by some undefinable power. "While I believed your brother story, I could have played the good Samaritan most beautifully, but after I talked with Willoughby I ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... woods, or I shall have you arrested," he said slowly, his face colorless, his lips twitching with anger. "Drive ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... turned around and looked at the Pah Utah. The latter was smoking his pipe, as if unconscious of the presence of any being or animal near him. Perhaps they were mistaken, but Howard and Elwood always affirmed that they detected a twitching at the corners of his mouth, as if he were ready to ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... him cordially; a bright color spread over the girl's face with a contented smile that seemed to speak intimately to him. He plunged into his business quickly, putting the case sympathetically before them. They listened without a word, the girl's face trembling and twitching slightly. Ruby had joined them, and Thornton interrupted his story, but Mrs. Ellwell motioned him to go ahead. While he was talking he hunted about for some bit of light to throw on the situation at ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... Take half a dozen persons at random, and there are sure to be one or two so impressionable and emotional that they cannot help contributing the slight initial impulse which gathers force as it goes. These nervous subjects cannot sit a quarter of an hour perfectly still without a twitching of the muscles, while the tense state of expectation which subtly transforms itself into a wish to see the table move and not have the experiment in vain, finally compels them, despite themselves, to start the "manifestations." Indeed, to think of a thing is half to do it. Every ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... full length on the turf behind the Lodge, literally biting the earth in spasms of joy. Stalky kicked him upright. There was nothing of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray muscle twitching on the cheek. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Pierre's face was twitching. "You no go back!" he cried. "Simon he kill you. No use to fight Simon. Him time not come yet. When him ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... the window. A group of white fan-tailed pigeons had lighted on the green plot before it and clustered about one of their companions who lay on his back, fluttering in a strange way, with outspread wings and twitching feet. Elsie uttered a faint cry; these were her special favorites, and often fed from her hand. She threw open the long window, sprang out, caught up the white fan-tail, and held it to her bosom. The bird stretched himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... a moment, thinking. He had heard of a sister of McKinstry's, sick for years with some terrible disease, whom he had nursed until the end. She was Sarah, most likely. Well, that was what his life had been given up for, was it? There was a twitching about McKinstry's wide mouth: Paul looked away from him a moment, and then, glancing furtively ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... into her husband's room at ten o'clock the next morning to find Billy radiantly presiding over a loaded breakfast tray, and the invalid, pale and pasty, and with no particular interest in food evinced by the twitching muscles of his face, nevertheless neatly brushed and shaved, propped up in pillows, and making a visible effort to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... his eyes blinking and his mouth twitching. What he had said I know not, but, despite the heaviness of his appearance, he looked ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... with which he busied himself in his chemical experiments, the convulsive twitching of his mouth from excessive eagerness, was but the result of the one burning thought that consumed him, and from which he sought relief in physical action. He cared nothing at all for these things about which he occupied himself, but long practice, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... he was thoroughly unaffected; in serious matters thoroughly sincere. He was, indeed (as he confesses), terribly shy; diffident, not awkward in manner; with occasionally nervous, twitching motions that betrayed this infirmity. He dreaded the criticisms of servants far more than the observations of their masters. To undergo the scrutiny of the first, as he said to me, when we were going to breakfast with Mr. Rogers one morning, was "terrible." His speech ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... without the twitching of a muscle in the brown face. He knew there was no use of an appeal for ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... his quaint face twitching strangely, "if anybody steals your apples, I'm afraid I'll swear at 'em, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... black and white cattle fantastically marked. One beast, with a white head and the rest of the body glossy black, came to the edge to drink, and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as I went by, like some sort of preposterous clergyman in a play. A moment after I heard a loud plunge, and, turning my head, saw the clergyman struggling to shore. The bank had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which you find in all copper places. Pretty unwholesome it looked, and the crowd, which had got round us again, was more unwholesome still. Fat Jew boys, with diamond rings on dirty fingers and greasy linen cuffs, kept staring at us with twitching lips; and one or two smarter fellows in riding-breeches, mine-managers and suchlike, tried to show their pluck by nervous jokes. And in the middle was Mackay, with his damaged frocker, drawling out his story in ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... where captive gladiators and martyrs satisfy the public longing for the sight of bleeding flesh and twitching nerve, the people of our day flock to the court-rooms ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Such shots would have blown them both in two, unprotected as they were by spacesuits. The small handgun merely jangled their nerves with a high-powered blast of accurately beamed supersonics. While they were still twitching, he went over and jabbed them with a ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... vein of humour which he had tried to assume passed off, and there was a twitching about the muscles of his ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... a second look, and then I thought his face somewhat cleared. His colour came back; his lips ceased twitching. ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... outburst of anger, followed by a brutal tirade over her carelessness in wrapping up the mantilla with the other pieces and leaving it behind her the night before. Instead, he came forward to meet her—his lean, nervous body twitching with expectation. ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was incapable of speech, her poor lips shaking, the hands twitching which lay helpless on ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the baron, who, as we know, pledged himself to protect the poor orphan, and should refuse to permit her to go just wherever she is bid?" As he spoke these words M. Perigord clutched the chair in which he sat as if to keep himself steady, whilst a nervous twitching seemed to convulse ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... Writhing and twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered them, ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... centre an inspired-looking creature whirled about on his axis, the black ringlets standing out in snaky spirals from his haggard head, his cheek-muscles convulsively twitching. Around him, but a long way off, the dancers rocked and circled with long raucous cries dominated by the sobbing booming music, and in the sunlit space between dancers and holy man, two or three impish children bobbed about with fixed eyes and a grimace of comic ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... and was silent. Tim stealthily opened the window and listened. Above the low harmonies produced by the instrumentation of the various species of trees around the premises he could hear the twitching of a chain from the spot whereon he had set the man-trap. But further human ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... know what the house walls had really held; or they visited with their neighbors in little groups. But this was a day of fall sunshine and drifting leaves. Miss Letty, standing at an upper window looking out on her pear tree, the leaves leathery brown, felt a twitching of the lips. She gazed farther over her domain, and it seemed to her that it had never been so pleasant before, so mellowed and softened by the last light of the year. She knew there were neighbors in the yard below, and could not bring herself to glance at them. A line of horses stood there, and, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... down her cheeks, and he saw from the twitching of her face that she was fast losing ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... our French on some Algerian troops who were lying wounded all over the platform. A rough tent had been made with waggon tarpaulins, and under this lay the worst cases—ghastly wrecks of men with blood-soaked bandages and blood-encrusted clothing, face muscles twitching convulsively as masses of flies settled on them. One French medical orderly with a strip of silver on his sleeves and an assistant seemed to be the whole staff ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... struggle for the first necessities of life, for the daily meal and the nightly bed. He had seen his comrades of letters die of actual privation. From childhood he had known no happiness. The half blind gawky youth, with dirty linen and twitching limbs, had always, whether in the streets of Lichfield, the quadrangle of Pembroke, or the coffee-houses of London, been an object of mingled pity and amusement. With a proud and sensitive soul, every day of his life must have brought some bitter humiliation. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... inch and glanced into the ward; Ivan Dmitritch in his night-cap and the doctor Andrey Yefimitch were sitting side by side on the bed. The madman was grimacing, twitching, and convulsively wrapping himself in his gown, while the doctor sat motionless with bowed head, and his face was red and look helpless and sorrowful. Hobotov shrugged his shoulders, grinned, and glanced at Nikita. Nikita ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... don't hurt him," urged Bertie, twitching the reins. But, then, looking at the patient oxen, he said,—"Will you please tell me why you don't have a cart instead ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... he sat writing, his savage gray eyes scanning the page, the ends of his ferocious moustache twitching nervously as his pen scratched on. Back of his heavy shoulders ran a shelf supporting a row of musty ledgers, and above a stout chest in one corner was a ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... eyes demurely toward her lap, turning her head slightly to one side, "I am afraid you did have an uncomfortable time anyhow. I was very sorry." She had flushed the least little bit, but her lips were twitching with amusement. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... were all in bed by this time, and Hamish and Shenac were alone with their mother. After a little impatient twitching of her thread, Shenac put aside her wheel, swept up the hearth, and moved about putting things in order in the room, and then she came and sat down beside her mother. She did not speak, however; she did not know what to say. Any allusion to the summer's ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... passed—pale, haggard- looking men, their lips twitching, showing little flecks of dried saliva caked in the corners of their mouths, their hands tight about the butts ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... hastily from his arm, and her countenance worked much—every nerve in it twitching as it were; then, placing her hand on his locks, she said with passion, "God bless you, my grandson," ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... was a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. But, spite his half-century of life, he was still the best and the most daring man of a company ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... this naive confession brought uneasy Sara to her sister's side; and with a hand on one of those restless, twitching little shoulders, she managed to keep her respectably quiet through ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... black eyes burned like live coals, his cheeks were pallid almost to ghastliness, the muscles of his face were twitching. ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... forget how to open the door he himself locked! It is well I know thee; it is well it was our word in the beginning, or I had been suspicious, silly! Wait but a moment"—putting her hand to her breast and beginning to unfasten her bodice—"wait but a moment, Monsieur Twitching-Fingers, and the thing ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of his levelled gun, and there at the edge of the jungle was a handsome half-grown tiger cub, beautifully marked, his tail switching angrily from side to side, and his twitching retracted lips and bristling moustache drawn back like those of a vicious cat, showing his gleaming polished ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Maxime gave himself up to their delighted eyes. They were in ecstasies over his complexion, his cheeks more filled out, his healthy look. His father threw his arms around him calling him "My Hero"—but Maxime sat with his fingers twitching nervously, and could not ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... up here," the Squire bade him. Dylks hobbled slowly forward, and painfully mounted the log steps to the porch, where Braile surveyed him in detail, frowning and twitching his long ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... Mr. Arnold, who had been twitching in uneasiness. "My sister is of a very sympathetic nature, and her heart has long been wrung by the injustice meted out to the Indian. When this unhappy boy wrote those—er—descriptive letters she had no reason to doubt their entire truth. Indeed, her conviction was ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... of godless lives mask the real spiritual death, which is the condition of every soul that is separate from God. Galvanised corpses may have muscular movements, but they are dead, notwithstanding their twitching. They that live without God are dead ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... eyes suddenly bright with tears, and his mouth twitching, and held out his hand, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... of the dance hall Doc Coffin and Honey Hoke, and plucked up heart at once. But Racey saw the pair at the same time, and said, twitching Peaches by the sleeve, "We'll turn off ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... not say a word, but her eyes kept getting larger and larger. About the corners of her mouth there was a nervous twitching and her whole slender body trembled. Suddenly she slid from her seat down to Innstetten's feet, clasped her arms around his knees and said in a tone, as though she were ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and placing it on the table before him, covered it with his handkerchief. Almost immediately a door at the farther end of the room opened and closed. A man in dark clothes, small, unnaturally pale, with deep-set eyes and nervous, twitching mouth, stood before him. Mr. Sabin smiled a welcome ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... suggested that all the white rabbits at least should have been saved—thinking of his own two in the warm nest in the barn. He was unable to see how white rabbits with twitching pink noses and pink rims around their eyes could be an offense, or, indeed, other than a pure joy even to one so good as God. But he gave in, with new admiration for the ready mind of Cousin Bill J., who pointed out that white rabbits could not have been saved because they ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... twitching that went through the frame of Cynthia Badlam dimly suggested to the old nurse that she was not making her slightly indiscreet personality much better by her explanations. She stopped short, and surveyed the not uncomely person of the maiden lady sitting before her with her handkerchief pressed ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said he, twitching an open newspaper off the table and folding it up—'I thought I asked to be allowed the privilege of opening my ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... man addressed, shrugged his shoulders. His mouth was still twitching under the influence of nervous excitement. But as they rolled along between the dark hedges, the carriage-lamps shining on their wet branches, green yet, in spite of November, he began to recover a half-cynical self-control. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Without slacking his speed he looked back over his shoulder. Willy's face was red, and his mouth was twitching. He was sobbing a little, and was tearing at the strings with his teeth as he ran. Then the strings came loose one after the other, the cartridges were shaken out over the ground, and Willy's face at once cleared up as he ran ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... cord, with its resultant evils, is one of the most common of the nervous affections originating in this cause. Tenderness of the spine, numerous pains in the limbs, and spasmodic twitching of the muscles, are some of its results. Paralysis, partial or complete, of the lower limbs, and even of the whole body, is not a rare occurrence. We have seen two cases in which this was well marked. Both patients were small boys and began ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... arm-chair. This arm-chair had been drawn to the window to catch the wintry sun, and pathos unspeakable lay in the contrasts of the picture—the eternal youth in the cold, dancing beams—the waste, the frailty of human things in the inert figure, the dim eyes, the folded, twitching hands. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... despatch I wrote about Harris coming like a curse, and chickens, home to roost." His hands were tremulous, his lips were twitching as he took from its envelope and unfolded a letter in the well-known hand of the field commander's favorite aide-de-camp. "Read it aloud," he said; "perhaps it won't sound quite so—reproachful from you." ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... more or less rudimentary condition.); and not a few muscles, which are regularly present in some of the lower animals can occasionally be detected in man in a greatly reduced condition. Every one must have noticed the power which many animals, especially horses, possess of moving or twitching their skin; and this is effected by the panniculus carnosus. Remnants of this muscle in an efficient state are found in various parts of our bodies; for instance, the muscle on the forehead, by ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... laughter driven sternly out of every muscle except one little twitching dimple at the corner of her mouth. "It was Sara," she exclaimed, "and she is pale as a ghost. She has never been so strong since waking up on that boat and finding a burglar trying to steal the ring off her finger ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... by a nervous twitching of the lips which Wyndham was at liberty to take for a smile, he held out his hand to Knowles ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... twitched oddly, but instead of his bursting into the laugh of enjoyment natural to him at the discomfiture of another, his mouth kept on twitching ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... suddenly a faint rustle made him start and turn round. Varvara Petrovna, whom he had left only four minutes earlier, was standing before him again. Her yellow face was almost blue. Her lips were pressed tightly together and twitching at the corners. For ten full seconds she looked him in the eyes in silence with a firm relentless ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of talk, in which women's voices predominated, ceased suddenly as we entered the court; and from the swaying and twitching of the curtains hanging in the front of the openings leading into several of the rooms, we inferred that we were undergoing a keen inspection. In response to a call from Tizoc, some men-servants came out from one of the rooms and received his order to ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... understood now; and that was all the reward she wanted. Sitting silent, she looked after his retreating back. She perceived, with a queer little twitching in her heart, that the polished spaces upon Mr. V.V.'s right elbow had thinned away into an unmistakable darning. And then it came over her quite suddenly that the reason he wore this suit to-day was probably ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... quick jolt, which the person would naturally labour to suppress, but in vain. He must necessarily go on as he was stimulated, whether with a violent dash on the ground, and bounce from place to place, like a foot-ball; or hopping round with head, limbs, and trunk, twitching and jolting in every direction, as if they must inevitably fly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... charge. But just then—crack! crack! crack!—three musket-shots flashed out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other three turned and ran for it ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... watched his agent for a moment in contemptuous curiosity. Estermen was walking restlessly up and down the few feet of carpet, his fingers and the muscles of his face twitching. His words had come with difficulty, as though he had suddenly developed an impediment in his speech. His sallow complexion had become yellow. His carefully waxed moustache was drooping, a speck of saliva ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fun," said Fancy, not one risible muscle twitching; "but go you'll have to. Mrs Bosenna has left one of ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... experiences—the Trojan family had not done with her yet. Garrett had been absent barely more than half an hour when the servant again appeared at the door with, "Miss Trojan, Miss Dahlia, would like to see yer and is waiting in the 'all." Her hand twitching at her apron and mouth gaping with astonishment testified to her curiosity. For weeks the house had been unvisited and now, in a ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... there with his eyes closed and his face twitching for violent emotion, and then of a sudden had a glare of gravity. "My friend, you're a dead failure! Be judged! Don't talk about 'swapping.' Don't talk about chances. Don't talk about fair starts and false starts. I'm at that point myself that I've a right to speak. It lies neither ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... sought, and at such times it often happens that even the comparatively unresponsive friend feels more or less definite sexual emotion (pudendal turgescence, with secretion of mucus and involuntary twitching of the neighboring muscles), though little or no attention may be paid to this phenomenon, and in the common ignorance of girls concerning sex matters it may not be understood. In some cases there is an attempt, either instinctive or intentional, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... this unpleasant old woman, seizing Mrs. Legrange's beautiful breakfast-shawl, and twitching it off the child's shoulders. "And where'd you git ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... was a tall, well-made man, with a clean-shaven face and deep-set grey eyes. He was pale and lined, and a nervous twitching of the eyelids testified to the strain through which he had passed, but it was a strong face and a pleasant face, and, when he looked at his wife, a face of indescribable tenderness. At the moment he was smiling, for it was always a pleasure ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nervous twitching of his face showed the struggle within, and it was a relief when the hot tears broke through and coursed down his cheek. Hardy was greatly affected. He loved George with an intensity of love like that which knit ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder |
