"Flick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of wind, wandering through the damp and sooty obscurity over the waste of roofs and chimney-pots, touched his face with a clammy flick. He saw an illimitable darkness, in which stood a black jumble of walls, and, between them, the many rows of gaslights stretched far away in long lines, like strung-up beads of fire. A sinister loom as of a hidden conflagration lit up faintly from below the mist, falling upon a billowy and motionless ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... of him for the sill, found it. He lifted, facing his enemies inexorably, caught the lintel with his left hand, and was crouching outside. A sidewise flick of his eyes showed Naomi just reaching the ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... it to him. 'Face!' I called, as he spun it up. It twinkled in the air like a humming-bird, a score of francs to each flick of its wings, and his palm intercepted it as it fell. I leaned across to see; behind Rigobert's shoulder the waiter leaned likewise. The poor fellow had really no chance to practice those little tricks in which he is eminent. I had won. I drew the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... to pass, but it gave the final flick to her anger. "You are the kind of person, Henry, who is so monumentally selfish that you think everybody who dares to cross you in any way is himself monumentally selfish too. Now you come to me in a protective role to save me from 'this Tom Reynolds' with a mass of ill-natured slander—and ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... attributing to him things which he knows well enough he has no right to call his own. In a few years we shall neither use tobacco nor the grape, gifts of the good God, nor dance nor choose our own clothes nor laugh nor think. We shall scurry hither and thither before the flick of the devil's tail and be ready for the burning. We shall have sold our birthright of daring for an insipid mess of pottage: sold our right to choose and to spare, to slay and to leave alive, to be glad and to be sorry, ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... "that gives me an opportunity of making a confession. I have never really been able to understand what technical symbolism in art is. A symbol in the plain sense is something which recalls or suggests to you something else; and thus the whole of art is pure symbolism. The flick of colour gives you a distant woodland, the phrase gives you a scene or an emotion. Five printed words upon a page make one suffer or rejoice imaginatively; and my idea of the most perfect art is not the art which gives one a sense of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... moment—perplexed. My uncle bustled out and gave a few totally unnecessary directions to the cabman and got in beside her. "All right?" asked the driver. "Right," said I; and he woke up the horse with a flick of his whip. My aunt's eyes surveyed me again. "Stick to your old science and things, George, and write and tell me when they make you a ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... last while walking out of the room, with a toss of her head and a flick of her pretty skirts indicative of the independence and indifference she felt. She did not propose to be ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... expected him to be very busy. After all, if you haven't the brains or the inclination to work, it is something to have the nibs. These nibs, however, were put to better uses. There is a game you can play with them; you flick your nib against the other boy's nib, and if a lucky shot puts the head of yours under his, then a sharp tap capsizes him, and you have a hundred and one in your collection. There is a good deal of strategy in the game (whose finer points I have now forgotten), and I have no ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... clothes, and put to sleep on clean straw. In the morning this paste was rubbed in, and the horses brushed until their coats shone. The hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust the stable man ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... a trace of malevolence in either of their comments, only a resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which seemed to have been habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy paused to flick away some flies from the butter with ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... scholars suffer. He wields a rod rather than a filigree bow, as old romancers fabled,—no plaything, but a most business-like article, well-poised in the handle, and thence tapering into graceful, stinging nothingness; and not a scholar escapes at least a flick of it. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... me one, and I've had it," replied Burroughs, his eyes sparkling viciously at this flick of the whip. "What is the truth ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... of his long linen duster. Not that they need dusting; but as a gentle reminder of the extraordinary care he has bestowed upon us, in little things as well as in bigger, during our brief acquaintance with him, he dusts them off. That last attentive flick of his coat-tail is the finishing touch of an elaborate retrospective panorama we are expected to conjure up of the valuable services he has rendered us, and for which he is now justly entitled ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... flick his tongue and his head he'd shake, Over the misty sea, oh, Crying, "Gooseberry-pie! For goodness' sake Some gooseberry-pie ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... negro's compliment with one of his rare smiles, then turned, with just a flick of his gloves on his breeches legs, and marched up the walk to the door ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... one, without question or murmur. They were life. Life had no other meaning any more than it has for the omnibus hack, which cannot conceive existence outside shafts, and devoid of the intermittent flick of a whip point. The comparison is somewhat unjust; for Mary Ann did not fare nearly so well as the omnibus hack, having to make her meals off such scraps as even the lodgers sent back. Mrs. Leadbatter was extremely economical, as much so with the provisions in her charge as with those she bought ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... west, in the hot, hazy morning, full of women in light summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; the come-and-go of busy officials, greeting one another; the slow flick and swash of bunting in the heavy air; and the important man with a hose ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... knew what? Perhaps you would better tell me and let me judge for myself," she suggested; and out of the past came a flick of the memory whip to make him feel again that ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... technical training to know how to get part of the answer. He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever with the very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with a clicking so loud as to make an almost continuous ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... corrupt military oligarchy, so long as there were houris to divert their leisure, tribute of youths to swell their armies, and taxes wrung from starving subjects to maintain their pomp, there was not one of those who held the reins of government who cared the flick of an eyelash for the needs of the nations on whom the Empire rested, for the cultivation of its soil that would yield a hundredfold to the skilled husbandman, or for the exploitation and development of its internal wealth. While there was left in the emaciated carcase of the Turkish Empire enough ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... gave the horses a flick with the whip. The afternoon air was keen and the high-spirited team needed no further urging. They swung out of the farm gate at a pace that made Reggie cling to ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... to primeval chaos rudely hurled, She journey'd on amid the gath'ring gloom, A spectre form emerging from the tomb. Earth had no resting place—no worshipper— No dove returned with olive branch to her: Her lamp burned dimly, yet its flick'ring light, Guided the wanderer thro' the lengthen'd night. Oft in her weary search, she paused the while, To catch one gleam of hope—one favour'd smile; But the dim mists of ignorance still threw, Their blighting influence o'er the famish'd few, Who deigned to look upon ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... "Bold Sawyer." The coach-horn, sounding in the distance, was drawing rapidly nearer; we could hear the rhythm of the sixteen hoofs. Presently the horses swung round the corner; we saw the coachman flick his leaders so that he might dash up to the inn in style. Then as they galloped up I saw two well-known figures sitting ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... graceful arm upraised, and a gloved hand pressed against a blushing cheek under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little figure poised apparently in air, full-length above the crowd about her; so, for the merest flick of time he had seen her, and then, to his straining eyes, it was as though she were not. She had vanished. And again, as his carriage reached the Square, a feeling had come to him that she was near him; that she was looking at him; that he should see her when the carriage turned; and ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... had given the last flick to the restive courses of the Press on both sides of the Rhine. In his Reminiscences he has described his depression of spirits on hearing the news of the withdrawal of Prince Leopold's candidature and of his nearly formed resolve to resign as a protest against so tame a retreat before ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... from a bough overhead, and stopped just in front of the place where Archie sat. Archie looked at him; he looked at Archie. The squirrel put its paws together and rubbed its nose. It chippered a minute, twinkled its bead-like eyes, then, with a final flick of its tail, it was off, and up the tree again like a flash. Archie looked ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... warmer and his feet were thawing. Instead of the cold he felt ants creeping under the soles of his feet. They crept in among his toes, swarmed over his injured leg, then over the other, and reached his knees. In a mysterious way one had suddenly settled on his nose; he wanted to flick it off, but a whole swarm was sitting on his arms. He decided not to drive them away, for in the first place they were keeping him awake, and then he rather liked them. He smiled, as one reached his waist, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... he repeated, "and a flick of the wrist—very little more than would be necessary for a thirty yard putt ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pearl-powder and the faintest soupcon of rouge. I rubbed on her sweet lips just the suspicion of pink, liked by an elderly grande dame francaise, who has not yet "abdicated." I then made myself up more seriously: a blue shadow on the lids, a raven touch on the lashes; a flick of the hare's-foot under my eyes and on my ear-tips: an extra coat of pink and a brilliant (most injurious!) varnish on the nails. Then, with a dash of Rose Ambree for my companion's blouse and Nuits d'Orient for mine, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... so), and to sink into a sleep in every way worthy of a landowner of Kherson. Meanwhile Petrushka had taken his master's coat and trousers of bilberry-coloured check into the corridor; where, spreading them over a clothes' horse, he started to flick and to brush them, and to fill the whole corridor with dust. Just as he was about to replace them in his master's room he happened to glance over the railing of the gallery, and saw Selifan returning from the stable. Glances were exchanged, and in an instant ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea—and I was young—and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour—of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... whom I openly hold in some serious animosity, whom I am at the pains to wound and defy, and whom I estimate as worth wounding and defying;—the other, whom I treat as a sort of insect, and contemptuously and pleasantly flick aside with my glove. But, it turns out to be the latter who is the really dangerous man; and, when I expect the blow from the other, it ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Jimmy Rabbit exclaimed. He called to Sandy. But Sandy did not stop. He made no answer, either, beyond a flick of his tail. You see, his mouth was so full that he couldn't ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a sudden rush of bare feet upon the wooden floor, and Patty caught a flick of calico and a flash of bare legs as the girl disappeared around the corner of ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... but yet I linger still, Gazing with rapture on the face of night; And mountain wild, deep vale, and heathy hill, Lay like a lovely vision, mellow, bright, Bathed in the glory of the sunset light, Whose changing hues in flick'ring radiance play, Faint and yet fainter on the outstretch'd sight, Until at length they wane and die away, And all th' horizon ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... that's wanted is a small movable steel brush above the shears, to flick away the grass and keep them clear. Hang it all, a child could see it. By Jove, little woman, it'll soon be changed ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... if there was any one in the place they would probably recognize me at once as the missing convict. This choked me off, for though as a rule I have no objection to a slight scuffle, I felt that in my present condition the average housemaid could knock me over with the flick ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... see the race, I'm so groggy from the jolt Elsy hands me. Friendless breaks in front and stays there all the way. Lou Smith just sets still 'n' lets the hoss rate hisself. That ole hound comes down the stretch a-rompin', his ears flick-flackin' 'n' a smile on his face. He wins by five len'ths 'n' busts the track record fur the distance a ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... fingers were stiff; one arm was cast over his shoulders, and Andy heard the intake of breath which precedes a shriek. Not a long interval—no more, say, than the space required for the lash of a snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself—but in that interim the hands of Andy were buried in the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... This was the house of Reginald Van Der Voor, as Shirley knew. It was closed because its master, a social acquaintance of the club man's, was at this time touring the Orient in his steam yacht. No man should have entered that doorway. So, as the horse started under the flick of the long whip, Shirley peered unobserved through the glass window at ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... and send me hurrying Back by the sword-blade thinness of the bridge From paradise to earth, and in the middle Flick me down sideways to the fires ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... cried sharply. The crack of the pistol had given a flick to my nerves. Mine had been a sheltered life, into which hitherto revolver-shots had not entered, and I was resenting this abrupt introduction of them. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the horses waited by the roadside while the little party walked about or stood gazing up at the tall slender trees that seemed to tower to the very skies. Thomas was not fond of waiting, but he thought that he had the best of it in this case: it was more cheerful to sit in the carriage and "flick" the flies from Rex and Regina than to go poking about in the gloomy pine-woods. Yet, notwithstanding the darkness of its interior and the sombre character of its dense masses of evergreen foliage as seen from without—whence the name of "black timber," which has been ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... and, with a flick of the wrist, lifted the visor. Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying, was the forward part of the column. Far ahead, he knew, were the Knights Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars ...
— ...After a Few Words... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... though the speed of a train were decreasing as one looks out of the window. And how one view held for several seconds, a vast and wild mountain-range with glaciers and snow peaks by moonlight. When this faded gradually, the scenes began to flick by, more and more rapidly, and grew blurred. Phil and Ione were attacked by nausea until, again, they had to lie down. After that came the familiar succession: the wooden animals, the tangle of vines, the vast sea, the spheres, and more blurred scenes. Then came a pause, with the nebula and ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... till it was hurt, and there was even something of compassion in her face as Frikkie jumped from the stoop with a twelve-foot thong in his hand. It was, after all, the baboon that suffered most, if his yells were any index to his feelings. Frikkie could smudge a fly ten feet off with just a flick of his whip, and all the tender parts of the accomplished animal came ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Barrin' 'is paucity o' language, there wasn't a blemish on Jules. But what I wished to imply was, when we climbed into the back parts of the car, our Lootenant Morshed says to me, "I doubt if I'd flick my cigar-ends about too lavish, Mr. Pyecroft. We ought to be sitting on five pounds' worth of selected fireworks, and I think the rockets are your end." Not being able to smoke with my 'ead over the side I threw ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... "surely you must know—" He paused to flick a speck of soot from his knee, and then continued: "Did she tell you ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... living organism, a little articulate being. There is his spine, the root; his body, the stem; his limbs and head, the formative elements, prefixes and suffixes, case-endings and what not. Let him loose in the sentence, and see how he wriggles gaily from state to state: with a flick of the tail from nominative to genitive, from singular to plural: declaring his meaning, not by means of what surroundings you put about him, but by motions, changes, volitions so to say, of his own. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... "A flick with a feather-brush, as I took in thy letters—no more; my hand itched to be at thy papers, but see! not one is ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the monk around this scene of gloom The flick'ring lustre of his taper throws, He says, 'Such, stranger, is my destined tomb; Here, and with these, shall be ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... signs of courage of the age—to fail to put on overalls, if we look our best in them! After all, every reform is in our own hands. But most people seem so entirely helpless to do anything but, metaphorically speaking, flick a fly off their own noses, that they leave reformation to God, and look upon their own unbeautiful effect and the unbeautiful effect of other men as an act of blind destiny. So we, as it were, sigh "Kismet"—in front of garments ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... scrambled into the seat beside the driver, settling his bag between his knees; and, with a flick of the peeled hickory whip, the carriage rolled into the branch road and disappeared, scattering a whirl of mud drops as it splashed through the shallow puddles which lingered in the dryest season beneath the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... of the city, coming through the wall, gave the room plenty of illumination after sunset, but the simple flick of a switch could polarize ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... furious and so conflicting that they could find no expression, and on the other a restraint and a personality so complete and so compelling that they simply held the field and permitted no outburst. Her voice was cool and high and natural. Then he noticed her flick a glance at himself, sideways, and yet perfectly intelligible. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... came to my rescue. He had his pencil out, and contrived to flick a piece of paper into my lap unseen by ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... side, surveying their domain. There was not space in it, at this hour, for the shadow of the elm-tree in the angle of the hedge; it crossed the lawn, cut the flower-border in two, and ran up the side of the house to the nursery window. She bent to flick a caterpillar from the honey-suckle; then, as they turned indoors, "If we mean to go on the yacht next Sunday," she suggested, "oughtn't you to let ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... considerable portion of Maryland's old bond issue had been hypothecated by the Philadelphia and New York bankers with merchants in London. It was now Peabody's cue to show London that she must protect her own. His gracious presence and his logic saved the day. It is a great man who can flick a fly on the off-leader's ear, when ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... the heavy boats must make clamber somehow, or not a single timber of their precious frames is safe. A big rope from the capstan at the summit is made fast as soon as the tails of the jackasses (laden with three cwt. of fish apiece) have wagged their last flick at the brow of the steep; and then with "yo-heave-ho" above and below, through the cliffs echoing over the dull sea, the groaning and grinding of the stubborn tug begins. Each boat has her own special course to travel up, and her own special berth of safety, and she ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... General, with a searching note in his voice which seemed to probe coldly and with deadly accuracy among the strenuous emotions in the young man's mind. "Harris—you are an officer of promise. Don't cut that promise short." With a flick of his ashes to one side he turned away. The cigar went back into the corner ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... had disdained the material of which the ladder was constructed. Now that she was successfully landed upon the desired level and needed its support no longer, would she kick it aside entirely, with one flick of her slippered foot? As for their marriage: what had it really been? A delicately hand-wrought bond? A machine-made manacle? Indeed, the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... could hear the distant dying swish of silk, the rustling of the portiere, and then, with a flick, the lights came up again. Half-blinded by the sudden illumination Steel fumbled his way to the door and into the street. As he did so Hove Town Hall clock chimed two. With a cigarette between his teeth David made his ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... this afternoon to "cheer me up". She means well, but her cheering capacities are not great. Her mode of attack is first to enlarge on every possible ill, and reduce one to a state of collapse from pure self-pity, and then to proceed to waft the same troubles aside with a casual flick of the hand. She sat down beside me, stroked my hand (I hate being pawed!) ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... habit she couldn't get over. But it no longer gave her keen pleasure. She told herself that her three friends were deteriorating in their middle age. Lizzie's sharp face darted malice; her tongue was whipcord; she knew where to flick; the small gleam of her eyes, the snap of her nutcracker jaws irritated Harriett. Sarah was slow; slow. She took no care of her face and figure. As Lizzie put it, Sarah's appearance was an outrage on her contemporaries. "She makes us ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... and he threw the sun-bit away with a flick of his wrist. His hand ached with the impossible task of steadiness he had set it, and his finger and thumb burned and smoked. But the wound was ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... the ideal women of our country; which demands if it be but the semblance of the sureness of stationary excellence; such as we have in Sevres and Dresden, polished bright and smooth as ever by the morning's flick of a duster; perhaps in danger of accidents—accidents must be kept away; but enviable, admirable, we think, when we are not thinking of seed sown or help given to the generations to follow. Nesta both envied and admired; she revered them; yet her sharp intelligence, larger in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I shall never forget his first wild scamper over the moorland. He would persist in riding in his best London clothes, spotless broad white collar, shining silk hat, gloves, and all. Before mounting he even bent down to flick a little tiny bit of ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... of dust, sent a further graceful contribution of fine dirt on to the occupants of the car. It would have been difficult to accuse Gay of doing it on purpose, however, for she appeared blandly unconscious of the neighbourhood of fellow beings. She gave a little flick of her whip, and away she went over a great burnt-out patch of veld, leaving the long, white, dusty road to those who had no choice ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... feeling, next time, that there is another waiting for him there. That is one of the reasons why he is always hopeful, and so always happy. The fish he has caught, at this well-remembered spot and that, rise up out of the past and flick their tails at him; and all the stretches between—stretches of water that have never for him held anything but shiners, stretches of time diversified by not even a ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... got dere, de do' wuz stan'in' open; a lighterd-knot wuz flick'rin' on de h'a'th, en de ole cunjuh man wuz settin' dere noddin' in de corner. Dan le'p' in de do' en jump' fer dis man's th'oat, en got de same grip on 'im w'at de cunjuh man had tol' 'im 'bout half a' hour befo'. It wuz ha'd wuk dis time, fer ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Gay nodded pleasantly, and the wheels grated over the rocky ground by the well. With a slow flick on the long whip, the carriage crossed the three roads and rolled rapidly into the turnpike. And while she gazed straight ahead into the flat distance, Molly was thinking, "All this has happened because I went down the Haunt's Walk that April afternoon and ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... needle-ray. The impression came through so strong that I could almost read the filed-off serial number of the thing, but the guy himself I couldn't dig at all. I stopped to look back but the only sign of life I could see was the fast flick of taxicab lights as they crossed an intersection about a half mile back. I stepped into a doorway so that I could think and stay out of the line of fire at ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... of humorous discontent deepened into scorn as he gathered up his reins as if to charge the village and recklessly sweep it from his path, indicated a huge, rambling, obtrusively glazed, and capital-lettered building with a contemptuous flick of his whip as we passed. "Ef you're kalkilatin' we'll get our partin' drink there you're mistaken. That's wot they call a TEMPERANCE HOUSE—wot means a place where the licker ye get underhand is ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... patriarch was not given to joking. I can still see his serious face, his unclipped head of hair, often brought back behind his ears with a flick of the thumb and spreading its ancient Gallic mane over his shoulders. I see his little three-cornered hat, his small clothes buckled at the knees, his wooden shoes, stuffed with straw, that echoed as he walked. Ah, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... a ball, radiating long, sharp needles in all directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed too near a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tail flick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in his muzzle, where it had remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until it finally worked out. So he lay down, in a comfortable crouching position, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... as we gazed, and was gone with a flick, having missed the May-fly. But the wind of his passage, or the stir of wing, struck the merry dancer down, so that he fluttered for one instant on the wave, and that instant was enough. Swift as the swallow, and more true of aim, the great ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... she did manage to flick the raw place until she was really bitter against him. For the sudden thought came to her that he dare not have behaved to a girl of his own sort in the same way as he had done to her. It was because he looked down on her ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... her arrogantly, as if she were a straw to be drawn along in the wind of his progress. Doors flew open at a flick of his finger. ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... y'r ramrod independence! Bend a stiff neck, or you'll break a sore heart! Ride ahead, I tell you, you young mule!" and he brought a smart flick across ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Artless a start that would make him bound through it. Round and round they went, however, several times, with Artless rearing, backing, and plunging; but at last the whip came down at the right moment, just the slightest flick, Riley let go his head, and out he dashed in his indignation, the battle ending in a wild gallop up the street, with the car swinging behind him, and the whole of the Irish side of the road out cheering and encouraging, to the children's great delight. But their ebullition of glee was ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... her, the last verse of the song of Klein-Zach. When he drank too much gin or rack, You ought to have seen the two tails at his back, Like lilies in a lac, The monster made a sound of flick flack, Flic, ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... Suddenly a flick from the whip chanced to hit the bull in the eye. Quick as lightning the beast leaped to its feet, shook its head, and frantic with rage, rushed upon the horseman, and before he had had time to escape, struck him sideways, and with frightful force hurled him to the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... of the street. Bare desks and tables, some of them unpainted, homemade affairs, all of them cheap and old. A stove in the larger office, a few wooden-seated armchairs. Starr took in the details with a flick here and there of his flashlight that he kept carefully turned ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Flick, flick, flick! I guess it must be going to begin now, but it's queer the people don't stop talking: how can they expect to hear the pictures if they go on talking? Now it's off. PASSED BY THE BOARD OF—. Ah, this looks interesting—passed by the board of—wait ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... in the world is so fierce with imaginative energy. The stormy soul runs out storming in a night of the soul as mad as the elements. With him goes the invention of the Fool, the horribly faithful fool, like conscience or worldly wisdom, to flick him mad with ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... lash of a whip back into striking readiness ... a brutal nose broken askew, a blaster burn puckering across cheek to misshapen ear ... that, evil, gloating grin of anticipation. Flick, flick, the slight dance of the lash in a master's hand as those thick fingers tightened about the stock of the whip. In a moment it would whirl up to lay a ribbon of fire about Shann's defenceless shoulders. Then Logally would laugh and laugh, his sadistic mirth echoed by those other men who played ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... true—true as it is that Tours has always had its feet in the Loire, like a pretty girl who bathes herself and plays with the water, making a flick-flack, by beating the waves with her fair white hands; for the town is more smiling, merry, loving, fresh, flowery, and fragrant than all the other towns of the world, which are not worthy to comb her locks or to buckle her waistband. And be ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... know? It sounds like a tex. But what's th' matter wi' th' lad? Thee't hardly atin' a bit o' supper. Dostna mean to ha' no more nor that bit o' oat-cake? An' thee lookst as white as a flick o' new bacon. What's ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... to consider the moon," says John at last, And stops, to feel his footing and take his stand; "And then there's some will say there's never a hand That made the world!" A flick, and ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... brother to my Hans," the coachman used to say, and he would greet him with a specially condescending flick of his whip from his high seat. And the porter and his wife used to state with much satisfaction: "Yes, old Schlieben always touches his hat, and she, his lady, also says 'how do you do?' to us in a very friendly style, but the little one, ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... imagined, with elbows always flexed, and fingers always stretched apart. In due course his legs followed, of like purpose and absurdity. For swimming he only used his tail, but for balancing and steering, his feet and hands. Would he rise to the surface, he must flick his tail, and turn his toes and fingers upwards. Would he seek the bottom, he must depress them. Would he lie motionless, suspended in mid-water, he must point them ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... the star of sadness As behind the beams I peer'd; All was woe that seem'd but gladness Ere my gaze with truth was sear'd; Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness, Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... back the sound of his tread as he mounted, with eerie, wandering echoes. The grey walls glimmered with a ghostly desolation around him. Halfway up, he stopped to flick the ash from his cigar, and laughed aloud. But the echoes of his laughter sounded like voices crying in the darkness. He went on more swiftly, like a phantom imprisoned and seeking escape. The echoes met him and fell away behind him. The loneliness was like a curse. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... which amounts to intoxication and to recapture any glow of which older people have to be artificially stimulated. That is really the great dividing-line—when the sparkle, the lightness, the sharpened sense which stimulates brain and tongue and feeling, ceases to respond without a flick of help from the right touch of alcohol. That intoxication of sheer living was upon Ishmael now, as it had been on that long-ago evening when the Neck had been cried, as it had a few times since, with music, or a windy sun, or a bathe in rough sea, or ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... cheeses, tied in pairs and hung over a pole, look as though they were sitting in a saddle—cheese on horseback, or "cacio a cavallo." Then we ring in Lazy Lou's first assistant, an old, silver-plated, revolving Florentine magnum-holder. It's designed to spin a gigantic flask of Chianti. The flick of a finger and the bottle is before you. Gently pull it down and hold your glass to ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... an' lunterin', an' shorin' his kokero how he could koor the puro bengis' selfus, they shooned a guro a-goorin' an' googerin', an' the first covva they jinned he prastered like divius at 'em, an' these here geeros prastered apre ye rukk, an' the boro koorin' mush that was so flick o' his wasters chury'd first o' saw (sar), an' hatched duri-dirus from the puv pre the limmers. An' he beshed adoi an' dicked ye bullus wusserin' an' chongerin' his trushnees sar aboutus, an' kellin' pre lesters covvas, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... what a strange and deep emotion he found himself once more in the world! Driving in the dense and devious thoroughfares was like sailing on a cross sea outside a difficult headland. He could smell the brine and feel the flick of the foam on his lips and cheeks. It ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... voice breaks the treble of the neighborhood. But beyond these there are no men in sight save the pantalooned exception who mows the grass, and with the whirr of his clicking knives sounds the prelude of the summer. I'll say by way of no more than a parenthetical flick of notice that his eastern front, conspicuous from the rear as he bends forward over his machine, shows a patched and jointed mullionry that is not unlike the tracery of some cathedral's rounded apse. But I go too far in imagery. Plain speech ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... along—th' Spider's bringin' un. Ye see, he's a bit wore out same as I am—we been trampin' all th' arternoon. Look at me shoes, that's th' worst o' patent leather—they shows th' dust. Joe, my lad, jest give 'em a flick over ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... go to the bacon-flick, cut me a good bit; Cut, cut and low, beware of your maw; Cut, cut and round, beware of your thumb, That me and my merry men may have some. Sing, fellows, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... special favor, Johnnie would sometimes let his friends flick a few currants at his pet. And sometimes they would even pelt the old horse Ebenezer, who stood in the stall next to Twinkleheels. There was little fun in that, however. Ebenezer refused to kick. The first currant generally brought ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... flick of the officious napkin. "Now shall we say a chop, sir?" Here a smiling obeisance. "Or shall we make it a steak, sir—cut thick, sir—medium ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... mounted on small horses active as goats. Each horse was attended by a burroquero, literally a donkey driver. They were fine athletic fellows, armed with a rabo, a cow's tail at the end of a stick, to flick off the venomous flies which worry both animals and riders. They carried also cloaks and umbrellas, to shield their masters from cold and mist. We rode out of the town between walls covered in profusion with heliotropes, roses, geraniums, fuchsias, and other sweet-smelling flowers, often having ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Frenchman beside me, forthwith falls a-cursing in his vile tongue and gives a prodigious flourish with his whip. Now by reason of much practice they do become very expert with these same whips, insomuch that they shall (with a certain cunning flick of the lash) gash you a man as it were with a knife, the like of which none may bear and not cry out for the exceeding pain of it. "Ha, thou lazy dog!" cries he, "Think ye to snore and take your ease whiles Pedro is aboard?" And with the word ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... that the lash of scornful intolerance for all things hypocritical, the flick of which Barbara had never known before, was gone from Miriam's tongue. She moistened her lips and tried to speak, and had to try again before her ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... evidently desperately wounded. It was strange indeed that he could still sit there and flick his whip with so terrible an injury. In the back of his great red coat, just under the left shoulder-blade, was a gash in the cloth, where some weapon had passed, and all round was a wide patch of dark scarlet which told its own tale. Nor was this all. As he raised his whip, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... For a scientific, comprehensive treatment, libraries and students should have The Prevention of Tuberculosis (1908) by Arthur Newsholme, M.D. A popular book is The Crusade against Tuberculosis, by Lawrence F. Flick, of the Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Treatment, and ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... adored his mistress, and had spent the greater part of his life in the saddle. There was no more enjoyable kind of idleness possible for him than to jog along in the sunshine on one of the Captain's old hunters; called upon for no greater exertion than to flick an occasional fly off his horse's haunch, or to bend down and hook open the gate of a plantation with his stout hunting-crop. Bates had many a brief snatch of slumber in those warm enclosures, where the air was heavy with the scent of the pines, and the buzzing of summer flies made a perpetual ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... infra band, on the ragged edge of threespace, a scout ship could remain concealed until a critical moment, breakout into threespace—discharge her weapons—and flick back into Cth before an enemy could get a fix on her. Scouts, with their high capacity converters, could perform this maneuver, but the ponderous battlewagons and cruisers with their tremendous weight of armor, screens, and munitions couldn't maneuver like this. They simply ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... hesitated, tingling with the old desire to hurt him, flick him in the raw, make him wince in his exasperating complacency. Then, "I've said it anyhow. I'm trying to show an interest in you—as ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the driver, got out, and walked down the busy street. Here and there, nuaniam signs began to flick on, their garish blues, reds, and whites bathing the street in a glow of synthetic light. It was early evening, but already Spaceman's Row was getting ready ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... Mrs. Iggulden's a thought struck him—not heavily; only a light, reminding flick—and he stopped a minute to see what it had to say. It referred to his interview with Scotland Yard, some six ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... Indians danced and leaped about us, brandishing their weapons and chanting the captives' death song, and while the blue and yellow tongues of flame mounted from twig to twig, climbing stealthily to flick at us like little vanishing demon whips, I saw and heard and felt as one remote from all the torture turmoil of the moment. Through the dimming haze of sleeping sensibility the dancing savages became as ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the great world-plough which wins the world's bread up and up over the shoulder of the world—a spectacle, as it might be, out of some tremendous Norse legend. North of them lies Niflheim's enduring cold, with the flick and crackle of the Aurora for Bifrost Bridge that Odin and the Aesir visited. These people also go north year by year, and drag audacious railways with them. Sometimes they burst into good wheat or timber land, sometimes into mines of treasure, ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... subjection to that triumvirate of despots—the Butler, the Coachman and the Gardener. You hear the jingle of keys, the flick of the whip and the rattle of the lawnmower; and a cold, secret fear takes possession of you—a sort of half-frenzied impulse to flee, before smug modernity takes you captive and whisks you off to play tiddledywinks or to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... one of the woodcocks coming down the wind upon me like a flash. In that dim light I could not follow all his movements as he zigzagged through the naked tree-tops; indeed I could see him when his wings flitted up. Now he was passing me—bang, and a flick of the wing, I had missed him; bang again. Surely he was down; no, there he went to ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... colt who resents the liberty even of a touch. "By the end of the first session the thong will be cracked over his head, as he patiently assists in pulling the coach up hill, without producing from him even a flick of his tail," said Barrington Erle to an ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... with a grim smile; "but I do not see why he should receive two diamonds from them and give them money in exchange, and lastly why he should flick the two diamonds away into the dust as soon as he caught sight of ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... hammer so loud. If there are any spies lurking behind the bellows, I beg they come out. Dirty fellows!" The old Sergeant seizes a red-hot poker And advances, brandishing it, into the shadows. The rows of horses flick Placid tails. Victorine gives a savage kick As the nails Go in. Tap! Tap! Jules draws a horseshoe from the fire And beats it from red to peacock-blue and black, Purpling darker at each whack. Ding! Dang! Dong! Ding-a-ding-dong! ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... to trudge the three miles home in the boats: the slightest flick of the foot would have sent one of them flying beyond the eye of God or man. After a couple of miles the shoes began to tell, and I stood still and lifted up one foot behind me, craning over my shoulder to see if I could catch sight of the glimmer of skin through the heel of ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... won't take no account of you." And the lies of them which have turned into ropes of hempen shall come up and strangle they. But me and my child shall pass by all fatted up and clothed, and with the last flick, afore the eyelids of they drop, they shall behold we, and, a-clapping of the teeth of them shall they repent them of their sins. Too ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... even unto the vilest of the vile, the pig, into the company of which she was relegated for all eternity. She was then ordered to ground in a manner reminiscent of the tones used to bazaar dogs, which order was emphasised with a flick of the courbaash upon a part which had known ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... or long whip, in the air, and made it crack like a pistol, and the horses reared, and the oxen started and slowly bored in between them, for they whinnied, and kicked, and spread out like a fan all over the road; but a flick or two from the terrible kambok soon sent them bleeding and trembling and rubbing shoulders, and the oxen, mildly but persistently goring their recalcitrating haunches, the intelligent animals went ahead, and revenged themselves by breaking the harness. But that goes ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... exquisite things, such as flowers and fishes, and thrust them, not into a world where they could live out a peaceful and innocent life, but into the midst of dangers and miseries. Sometimes, beneath his windows, he could see a shoal of little fish flick from the water in all directions at the rush of a pike, one of them no doubt horribly engulphed in ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sonny boy here's askin' for him then?" He leaned over them, and his fingers grabbed and twisted at the front of Drew's threadbare shell jacket. "I ask yuh, Reb, whar at is this heah Shelly?" He seemed only to flick his wrist, but the strength behind that move whirled Drew away from Boyd, brought him part way to his feet, and slammed him against the wall—where the big man held him pinned ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... He shook his ears twice, then lopped after me like a dog, at a slow canter. At the point where he had tumbled I collected him again by the ears, lifted him, climbed the bank and restored him to his thicket, into which he vanished with a flick of his ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the firelight glare Strews flick'ring fancies round the hall, Replete, with what exotic fare No watcher by The Wall Had ever thought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... delicate of lemon puddings was cooling on the ice. Nothing more could be done for hours; but Polly resisted all her mother's efforts to induce her to rest, and roamed excitedly up and down the rooms, now and again pausing to flick a few grains of dust from the mantel, or to rearrange one of the graceful bunches of flowers ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... powder, and then upon the actual work. Carefully remove the tracing-paper; there should now be visible upon the surface of the material, in charcoal dust, a perfectly clear reproduction of the pattern. Should, however, the impression be blurred, it is quite easy to flick everything away with a duster and repeat the process. The causes of failure would most probably be that the perforations were too large or too far apart, or that there was some movement of either paper or material during the process. It is necessary for the pattern to be permanently ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing in upon the path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea of murmuring verdure. And from time to time a bough would flick us as though to say: "Speed, speed, or the rain ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... sweep of sand, and beyond that a strip of blue sea and a pale blue sky and a few fleecy clouds, simple enough material for a picture; but by my faith! could I only have put down the colour of that mid-day glow from the sand, and the feeling of space, and the two blues, of the sea and sky, and the flick of colour from a scrap or two of drapery on sunny brown figures tailing on to the long ropes of a Seine net! Out beyond the surf mere dots in the blue swell, were more figures swimming about the ends of the net splashing to keep in the fish, and in the edge of the white ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... into our blood and bones. It always remains outside of us. That's why we look with wonder at the past. And this persists even when from practice and through growing callousness of fibre we come to the point when nothing that we meet in that rapid blinking stumble across a flick of sunshine—which our life is—nothing, I say, which we run against surprises us any more. Not at the time, I mean. If, later on, we recover the faculty with some such exclamation: 'Well! Well! I'll be hanged if I ever...' it is probably because this very thing that there should be a past to look ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... intended to give a flick to his jealousy at the end of her letter she had failed. If she met fifty living bronzes and added them to her collection it was nothing to him. He compared his feeling when Braybrooke had suggested Seymour Portman as a husband ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... I should flick a few crumbs from my knee, perhaps. "It's odd," I should say, for the tenth or eleventh time, with a motion to rise, and we should get up and stretch ourselves, and, still a little puzzled, turn our faces towards the path that clambers down over the tumbled ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... calm about it, can ye? Be my arrangements nothing, then, that you should break 'em up, and say off hand what wasn't done to-day might ha' been done to-morrow, and such flick-flack? Out o' my sight! I won't hear any more. I won't speak to 'ee ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... pony flick its ears erect, and he followed its gaze to see on the plain's trail, far over near where it melted into the foothills, a ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a pound. Sally's heart seemed to stop beating for an instant. She looked again at the postal-order, and with a sharp movement put it inside her blouse. Then she put the letter in the fire, and watched it flame and blacken and flick to pieces in the draught. Slowly, thinking with all her might, she took off her out-of-doors jacket and hung it up. A pound! She was rich! With a pound you could do a lot. You could ... you could ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... small table—a plain cheap table with folding legs—and three playing cards. Business was a trifle slack. I thought that his voice crisped aggressively as we elbowed through, while he sat idly skimming the three cards over the table, with a flick of his hand. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... less and less amusing those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers, picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn't make her seem restless, and you knew she calculated that effect. A man who had had years with a real, living woman like Marise, didn't know whether to laugh or swear at such mannerisms ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... to the blowing Rows about us—"Lo, "Strolling," they say, "over the course we go, "And here or there we lightly flick the Ball, "Turn, and ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... does not,' says he. 'Mr. Flynn is beyond in Youghal and I borryed it in the dark dead of night over the yard wall. Faith, he'll run home like a flick of lightning, he's that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... the part. Then follow the "pumping" process described to the preceding exercise (Self-Healing) and fill the patient full of prana until the diseased condition is driven out. Every once in a while raise the hands and "flick" the fingers as if you were throwing off the diseased condition. It is well to do this occasionally and also to wash the hands after treatment, as otherwise you may take on a trace of the diseased condition of the patient. Also practice the Cleansing Breath several times after the treatment. ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... we dread in these camps is the imported "cold." Dr. Lawrence Flick was the first to show us the way in this respect as in several others. He put up a big sign at the entrance of White Haven Sanatorium, "No persons suffering from colds allowed to enter," and traced the only epidemic of colds in the sanatorium to the visit of a ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... indeed, also disposes of property. Roland has only to flick through two or three reports to see how patriotism furnishes a cloak for brutal license and greed. At Coucy, in the department of Aisne,[3271] the peasantry of seventeen parishes, assembled for the purpose of furnishing their military quota, rush with a loud clamor to two ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... reply to the curt question. He had turned and was closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like the flick of a whip ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde |
