"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There was a flutter of excitement throughout the school. This increased when the young woman confirmed, by her first efforts, all that her agreeable appearance and fascinating voice had promised. She declaimed a fragment from Gluck's "Armida" which other pupils sang; ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... came another trouble. When Miss Gilby first came to our house there was a great flutter, which afterwards calmed down when they got used to her. Now the whole thing was stirred up afresh. I had never bothered myself before as to whether Miss Gilby was European or Indian, but I began to do so now. I said to my husband: "We must get rid ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... that the new form of city life does to injure poetry is to keep uppermost in men's consciousness a feverish sense of the importance of the present moment. We might call this sense the journalistic spirit of the city. How many typical metropolitans one knows who are forever in a small flutter of excitement over whatever is just happening, like a cub reporter on the way to his first fire, or a neuraesthete—if one may coin a word—who perceives a spider on her collarette. This habit of mind soon grows ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... naught else on earth. He manifested so earnest and genuine a desire to repair the damage of his ill-starred suggestion that Colannah, showing his age in his haste and his tremulousness and excitement, disclosed to him in a flutter of triumphant glee that he had a spell to work which naught could withstand—a draught from Herbert's Spring to offer to Otasite. Thither some fifty miles he had dispatched a runner for a jar of the magic water, and after drinking of it Otasite could ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was the impression of that long array of awed, pallid faces that at this moment I can recall them distinctly. There were strange little touches of mingled pathos and humor. Meadow-larks were hemmed in on every side, too frightened to fly far beyond the rude alarms. They would flutter up into the sulphurous air with plaintive cries, then drop again into the open spaces between the troops. At one time, while we were standing at our horses' heads, a startled rabbit ran to us for cover. The poor little creature meant a dinner ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Certainly before I was 9 I had a strong affection for a little girl playmate; our family lost sight of hers, and I saw and heard nothing of her for sixteen years; then, hearing she was coming to town, I experienced quite a flutter of heart, so strong had been the impression caused at even the early age of our acquaintance. Not that I mean to say I never wavered in between! Through the whole of my boyhood I remember persistent romantic ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... mallecho." On softly-stepping feline feet, the great sleek panther of psychological curiosity glides into very perverse, very dubious paths. The exquisite tenuity and flexibility of his style, light as the flutter of a feather through the air, enable him to wander freely and at large where almost every other writer would trip and stumble in the mud. It is one of the most interesting phenomena in literature, this sly, quiet, half ironic dalliance ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... the railroad you may still travel by diligence in Germany, and rumble along the roads in its stuffy interior. As you pass through a village the driver blows his horn, old and young run out to enjoy the sensation of the day, the geese cackle and flutter from you in the dust, you catch glimpses of a cobble-stoned market-place, a square church-tower with a stork's nest on its summit, Noah's Ark-like houses with thatched or gabled roofs, tumble-down balconies, and outside staircases ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... were shadows, the earth and the forests he returned to, viewed at evening, seemed still more unreal, the mere dusky flutter of a moth's wings in space, so filmy and evanescent that if he had sunk as through transparent aether into the void, it ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... hear the fall of timber From distant flats and fells, The pealing of the anvils As clear as little bells, The rattle of the cradle, The clack of windlass-boles, The flutter of the crimson ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... flutter of successive excitements, now certain that it was invulnerable, now fearing an immediate descent of the enemy, and always longing for peace. In England the Orders in Council which provoked the war were now revoked, and Malcolm Fraser wrote that this ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... brighter; but the year gone through, This skin must go the way, too, of all flesh, Or sometimes only wear a week or two;— Love's the first net which spreads its deadly mesh; Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days, Where still we flutter ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... The flutter of a veil from its window caused her to change her plans. He was not returning alone, but bringing lady visitors; therefore, she would ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... was gathering fast as we neared the stream. From the stagnant reaches above and below a fine white mist was rising, but the long shallows of the ford were clear. My heart was beginning to flutter wildly, but I kept a tight grip on myself and prayed for patience. As I stared into the evening my hopes sank. I had expected, foolishly enough, to see on the far bank some sign of my friends, but the tall bush was ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... within, went out to gain tidings of the poor mother. He called, but no one answered; and the door of the hovel in which she had taken shelter stood wide. Then, as he searched the fields, fearing the fever had driven her abroad, he saw the flutter of garments in a ditch; and lo! there lay the woman, dead, with her dead babe on her breast. She had lain down to die alone with God in the silence, that haply the living might escape; and ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he: not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... permission: the which I was glad to get, aware, as I was, of the hospitable meaning of my uncle's invitation and his sensitiveness in respect to its reception. So I got the ill-seeming black bottle from the locker, the tray and glasses and little brown jug from the pantry, the napkin from Agatha, in a flutter in the kitchen, and having returned to the best room, where the tutor awaited the event in some apparent trepidation, I poured my uncle's dram, and measured an hospitable glass for Cather, but with less generous hand, not knowing ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... at a flutter of light wings. A flock of doves rose from the branches, and I saw the burnished green of their plumes against the opal sky. Lawson did not seem to notice them. I saw his keen eyes staring at the centre of the grove and what ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... of complete absence," said Isbister. "Here's the body, empty. Not dead a bit, and yet not alive. It's like a seat vacant and marked 'engaged.' No feeling, no digestion, no beating of the heart—not a flutter. That doesn't make me feel as if there was a man present. In a sense it's more dead than death, for these doctors tell me that even the hair has stopped growing. Now with the proper dead, the ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... chafers whirring, A little piping of leaf-hid birds; A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring, A cloud to the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... flutter at the gate, and a pretty girl heliographed with her eyes that the parties of the other part were in sight. A minute or two later they came into sight of the window. Captain Barber, clad in beautiful raiment, headed the cortege, the ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... hour, though by his watch it was but nine minutes, that he sat watching the little flimsy streamer of white flutter to and fro in the lamplight, his heart beating heavily, as a father's will at sight of the sign of some ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... there!" nodding over her shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to see ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... look at it. There is love, of course, in an academic community; one frequently sees evidences of it; but it is love under control, properly subordinated to the all important business of uniting youth and learning—and to snatching time for an occasional rejuvenating flutter ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... pervades this cool, dark region, where few kinds of animal life find a congenial abode. Occasionally the stillness is disturbed by the Douglas squirrel, busily gnawing off the fir cones for his winter's supply, or by the gentle flutter of the coy wren, darting to and fro among the old, fallen logs. The higher forms of vegetable life are also restricted to a few odd varieties. The most common of these are such saprophytes as pterospora andromedea, allotropa virgata, ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... of festivity had been sought after and displayed. The air was a-flutter with party-colored streamers. Garlands rioted over colossus, peristyle, obelisk and sphinx without conserving pattern or moderation. The dromos, or avenue of sphinxes, was carpeted with palm and nelumbo ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... sea-crane pearl, put them together with a whole bushel of ordinary pearls, and poured the lot out in the courtyard. Then a large yellow serpent and a black crane were fetched and placed among the pearls. At once the crane took up a sea-crane pearl in his bill and began to dance and sing and flutter around. But the serpent snatched at the serpent-pearl, and wound himself about it in many coils. And when the people saw this they acknowledged the truth of the wise man's words. As regards the radiance of the larger and smaller pearls it turned ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... every grade, Of every age and style; Suitors flutter about the maid, And bask in her word and smile. She keeps them all, with a coquette's art, As suits her mood or mirth, And vainly wonders if in one heart Of all true love has birth. Ah, well! ah, well! I never ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tube-roses in her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown; violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago she had communed at ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... soon as it alighted there, a big, big ant came out of a hole and seized it and pulling it down into the hole. Just before you woke up, we saw that very butterfly come out of the hole again, and flutter over your face as before. And then it suddenly disappeared: we do not know where ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... shoulder, and seemed to brand him where he sat. He looked about for his hat and some excuse that would serve, and while he looked the sound of applause rose from the house. It was a demonstration without great energy, hardly more than a flutter from stall to stall, with a vague, fundamental noise from the gallery; but it had the quality which acclaimed something new. Arnold glanced at the stage, and saw that while Pilate and the hollow-chested slaves and the tin centurion were still on, they had somehow lost ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... shades and threw the shutters open. Moonlight filled the room dimly and fell upon the bronze image, sitting as expressionless as ever, immovable. Hortense's heart failed her. Nothing, she felt, would ever bring words to the closed lips or a flutter to the heavy eyelids. However, there was nothing to do ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... him and kissed his forehead,—a caress as brief and light as the passing flutter of a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... if he has found out the loss of the paper?" he thought. "He must have discovered it, and that's why he is in such a flutter. If it's spoilt his chances, so much the better. I owe him a grudge, and, if I've put a spoke in his wheel, I ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... movement another girl, who had been sitting patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the delicately modelled cheeks ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... visit, and the interest evinced by the renegade towards Theodora, were naturally indicative of some sinister intention. Theodora, however, recovering from her first surprise, involuntarily drew back as Bermudo advanced. Meanwhile Roque was at a loss what to think or to do; the flutter of his whole person plainly indicated how ill at ease he was with himself. He looked at his mistress, and perceiving her emotion, felt more afraid, though on what account he was perfectly unconscious. But Roque was not long suffered to remain in uncertainty ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... mean," retorted Willock. "You've lived in a hole in the ground most of your life, and are pretty near ripe to be laid away in another one, smaller I grant you, but dark and deep, according. We'll never get Lahoma back the same as when we let her flutter forth hunting a green twig over the face of the waters. She may bring back the first few leaves she finds, but a time's going to come...." He broke off abruptly, his eyes wide and troubled, as if already viewing ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... grouped in loving couples Stiff-limbed heroines and heroes.... Dolphins three pour splashing streamlets In three shell-shaped marble basins. Chestnut blossoms, richly fragrant, Fall like flames and flutter downward To be drowned within the basins.... Music, made by clarinettes and Violins behind the yew-trees, Seems to come from graceful cupids Playing on the balustrade, or Weaving flowers into garlands, While beside them other flowers Gayly stream from marble vases: Jasmin, marigold, ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... words would be quite so cheerful and stimulating to hear as those matter-of-fact words of Sue's. She soon reached the attic. She opened the door softly, and yet with a flutter at ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... substantial form. And so, dealing with the case of Milly, Henry James proceeds to cut behind it, lavishing his care on any but its chief and most memorable aspect. That may wait; meanwhile the momentary flutter of her nerves and fancies is closely noted, wherever her life touches the lives about her, or the few of them that are part of her story. The play draws a steady curve around the subject in the midst; more and more of this outer rim of her consciousness moves into sight. She is ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... Judge, with your hanging sleeves, your broken and drooping wings, feebly did you still flutter around for a resting-place to "lay your Weary Head in modesty." You fluctuated to a new widow, Madam Harris, and she gave you "a nutmeg as it grew," ever a true lover's gift in Shakespeare's day. On January 11th, 1722, this letter was sent to ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to the ledge; he was excited and emphatic. Philip could not imagine that they had detected him, but he feared lest Iris, in her agitation, might have moved. In that clear, calm air, not even the growing dusk would hide the flutter of a skirt or the altered position of a white face. A man in charge of the wheel replied to the officer with a laugh. The first speaker turned, glanced at the Brothers reef, behind which the Andromeda's boat had vanished that morning, and nodded ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... skimming over the river flat as the sun began his color play. Blackbirds dashed into thickets, and easily avoided his clumsy pounce. It was too early for the Mice, but, as he skimmed the ground, his keen eye caught the flutter of feathers by the trap and turned his flight. The feathers in their uninteresting emptiness were exposed before he was near, but now he saw the scraps of meat. Guileless of cunning, he alighted and was ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and dimpled cheeks, the very personification of blooming, innocent, English loveliness. I watched her (I could not help it, when my interest was once awakened) through the whole scene. I marked her increased agitation: I saw her cheeks flush, her eyes glisten, her bosom flutter, as if with sighs I could not overhear, till at length, overpowered with emotion, she turned away her head, and covered her eyes with her hand. Mothers!—English mothers! who bring your daughters abroad to finish their education—do you well to expose them to scenes like ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... snatched at us on either side, and the air was fragrant with broom, syringa, and lavender. Behind us the path closed and was hidden; before us it was too thick to see more than a few yards ahead. Here and there some bird would scold and slip away, with a flutter of feathers and a quiver of the leaves through which it fled; while ever present, though never in sight, the cuckoo followed us the whole day long. Suddenly and abruptly the path ended by the side of a stream where great oleanders spread their scarlet blossoms to the light, and kingfishers ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... rose—for Risler was no more desirous to stay than to go—the orchestra, consisting of a piano and several violins, began a peculiar refrain. There was a flutter of curiosity throughout the room, and cries of "Hush! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... considering each of the unredeemable multitude; and when morning light strikes the dark chimneys again and they rush forth, some that entered young have matured; some of the old have become infirm; many of which have dropped in singly issue as companies; and young broods flutter forth, unaccountable nestlings of a night, which were not in yesterday's blue at all. Then there are the missing—those that went in with the rest at nightfall but were struck from the walls forever. So all are altered, for while we ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... professor followed by Renouard joined the circle of all the inmates of the house assembled at the other end of the terrace about a tea-table; three white heads and that resplendent vision of woman's glory, the sight of which had the power to flutter his heart like a reminder of the ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... could board me, but it is not allowed. The Inn, I have been given to understand, has been bought outright by some person of great wealth, whose design is to pull it down and erect a block of apartments. Mrs. Honeyball is somewhat afraid of this person. She gets in a great flutter, about the twentieth of the month, over her accounts. Just now, however, she is placidly benevolent and hopes that author has slept well. He has and says so, and opening the outer door, an immense portal of heavy wood studded with big black nails, he steps down into the archway, where Mr. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... was always one of the events of the summer term. There was a concert at the end of the winter term, too, but it was not so important. To a great many of those present the summer concert marked, as it were, the last flutter of their school life. On the morrow they would be Old Boys, and it behoved them to extract as much enjoyment from the function as they could. Under Mr Mullholland's rule the concert had become a very flourishing institution. He aimed at a high standard, and ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... waving white cloth from a window near the top of the huge structure drew my eyes. A sudden fear struck my heart. Could that be my Zoorph, left there—could that be Carna? I felt sure it was, and something warm and pitiful seemed to flutter in my chest as I thought of her alone among those hopping Jivros. I got to my ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... affairs are satisfactorily done with their wings wither away, and thenceforth they have to content themselves with running about on the earth. Now isn't this a remarkable parallel to one stage of human life? Do not men and women also soar and flutter—at a certain time? And don't their wings manifestly drop off as soon as the end of that skyward movement has been achieved? If the gods had made me poetical, I would sonnetise on this idea. Do you know any poet with a fondness for the ant-philosophy? If so, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the Bird is ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... made their plans, and she was so loth to leave him that he was forced to remind her that they had passed the home of Lucy Gaines a full furlong or more. He left her at the door, his heart exultant, hers all a-flutter. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... others rather wanted to find fault, but it was hard, because the word "wings" raised a flutter of ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... 'court' presided over by the agent of a lord of the manor. Most of the dwellings were owned by their occupiers, who, each an absolute monarch of the soil, niggled in his sooty garden of an evening amid the flutter of drying shirts and towels. Freehold Villas symbolized the final triumph of Victorian economics, the apotheosis of the prudent and industrious artisan. It corresponded with a Building Society Secretary's dream of paradise. And indeed it was a very real achievement. Nevertheless Hilda's irrational ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... sister who clad her for her last sleeping, and made her chamber fair—the hand of no other touched her; and while 'twas done the tower chamber was full of the golden sunshine, and the doves ceased not to flutter about the window, and coo as if they spoke lovingly to each other of what ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you, Jim ain't been a readin' them books on the hill-top fur nothin'. I gad, every time he looks at her he flips a star." He walked about the room, shaking his head. "The po' feller's hit. I gad, when you flutter fine calico the preachers come a runnin' with the rest of 'em. She's caught him, but he'll suffer an' say nuthin'. It's mighty hard work to wring a squeal outen a Starbuck. In that respeck we air sorter like wild hogs. I've seed a dog chaw a wild pig all to pieces an' ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... not begin before the beginning. If he could know all that is inside the breast of that mean man who commenced the scurry, the cunning man who desires to steal a march, my young friend would not wish to emulate him. With nine-tenths of the men who flutter away after this ill fashion there is no design of their own in their so riding. They simply wish to get away, and in their impatience forget the little fact that a pack of hounds is necessary for the hunting ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... a little applause, all due to Ashmead's preliminary apology, but there was no real reception; for Germany is large and musical, and she was not immediately recognized at Homburg. But there was that indescribable flutter which marks a good impression and keen expectation suddenly aroused. She was beautiful on the stage for one thing; her figure rather tall and stately, and her face full of power: and then the very way she came on showed the step and carriage of an ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Anti-Fire-Fly would dump us out and flutter away into eternity, to leave our fate unexplained, or whether it would accompany us to our doom and be found gloating over the respective grease-spots that would represent all that was mortal ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... to the girl, so close that her soft furs brushed me and I could feel the flutter of her breath against my cheek. At Blenheim's proposition I glanced at her. She was measuring him steadily. Then she looked at me, and her eyes seemed to hold some message that I ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... the centre of the town. His way lay towards Market Jew Street, where he intended to hire one of the waiting cabs to drive him back to St. Fair. As he neared the top of the street which led to the square, his eye was caught by the flutter of a woman's dress in one of the narrow old passages which spindled crookedly off it. The wearer of the dress was his niece Sisily. She was walking swiftly. A turn of the passage took her in the direction of the Morrab Gardens, and he ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... fibrillation and auricular flutter are best shown by the polygraph and the electrocardiograph. The former is more exact as to details. Auricular flutter, which has also been called auricular tachysystole, is more common that is supposed. It consists of rapid coordinate auricular contractions, varying ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... almost before she could catch her breath, and landed her on the fifth floor. The man pointed along a hallway, and she followed this until a name in big gilt letters arrested her attention and caused her heart to flutter spasmodically. "Cornelius McVeigh—Investments," it read. And this was really her son's Eldorado! A mist crept over her eyes as she turned the brass knob and entered. A score of young men and women were before her, busily ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... new way of feeling things. Rosamund tells us she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them set by a young Athenian who's over here studying English. He catches the butterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn't jab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there's Cynthia! I hope she ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... means pleasing. You grinned at the individual just as you did at me when you went up to the cei—, pardon me, as I THOUGHT you did, when I fell down in a fit in your chambers"; and I qualified my words in a great flutter and tremble; I did not care to offend the man—I did not DARE to offend the man. I thought once or twice of jumping into a cab, and flying; of taking refuge in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse; of speaking to a policeman, but not one ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... debarr'd of festival delights, Am not allow'd to spend the perquisites? He's but a short remove from being mad, Who at a time of jubilee is sad, And, like a griping usurer, does spare His money to be squander'd by his heir; Flutter'd away in liveries and in coaches, And washy sorts of feminine debauches. As for my part, whate'er the world may think, I'll bid adieu to gravity, and drink; And, though I can't put off a woful mien, Will be all ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... subject to severe paroxysms of palpitation, occurring at irregular periods. Six or seven of these took place in a year. These turns were excited under stomach irritations or oppression from indigestible food. They came on instantaneously, and often left in a moment; 'the pulse was nothing but a flutter.' So great was the prostration, that, during the paroxysm, he was obliged to lie still upon the bed. The length of the paroxysm was various; sometimes an hour, sometimes ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... spirits falling from the bank of Acheron 'as dead leaves flutter from a bough', he gives the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair, without, however, for an instant losing his own clear perception that these are souls, and those are leaves; he makes no confusion of one with ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... kiss, warm firstling, to renew Embower'd sports in Cytherea's isle. Look! how those winged listeners all this while Stand anxious: see! behold!"—This clamant word Broke through the careful silence; for they heard A rustling noise of leaves, and out there flutter'd Pigeons and doves: Adonis something mutter'd, The while one hand, that erst upon his thigh Lay dormant, mov'd convuls'd and gradually 500 Up to his forehead. Then there was a hum Of sudden voices, echoing, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... Tacchi, what can I do for you?" He was gentle in his behaviour, and he soothed by his first words poor Miriam's flutter. ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... salubrious, the herbage odoriferous, every trodden step breathing immediate fragrance from the crushed sweets of thyme, and marjoram, and winter savoury: while the birds and the butterflies frolick around, and flutter among the loaded lemon, and orange, and olive trees, till imagination is fatigued with following ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... beauty, every sound into joy. Without needs, from beatitude to beatitude blissfully it floated. But, subjected to the double attraction of matter and of sin, the initiate saw the memories and attributes of its spirituality fade. He saw it flutter, and fluttering sink. He saw that in sinking it enveloped itself in garments that grew heavier at each descent. Through the denser clothing he saw the desires of the flesh pulsate. He saw them force it ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... other two were only a little behind. As they sprang over the rocks one after the other, it took Anerley back to the school sports when he held the tape for the hurdle-race. It was magnificent, the wild spirit and abandon of it, the flutter of the chequered galabeeahs, the gleam of steel, the wave of black arms, the frenzied faces, the quick pitter-patter of the rushing feet. The law-abiding Briton is so imbued with the idea of the sanctity of human life that it was ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... again into Estelle's white face, and presently there was a flutter of the eyelids. Then she opened her eyes, and gave a bewildered glance at the friends collected round her. She closed them for a moment, as if weary, but only to open them again and smile as she looked ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... even mean; that together we were able to make up an estate of between three and four thousand pounds a year, which was in itself equal to some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet the name of princess, and the flutter of it—in a word, the pride—weighed them down; and all these arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of my merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him a final answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened in my affairs which had caused me ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... business led him to revisit Calcutta, where his last unheard-of experience had overwhelmed his whole being, just eight days previously to his encounter with Doctor Bataille. He had found the Palladists of that city in a flutter of feverish excitement because they had succeeded in obtaining from China the skulls of three martyred missionaries. These treasures were indispensable to the successful operation of a new magical rite composed by the ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... door closing behind him brought him to the right-about in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... had not failed to observe the flutter of alarm that shadowed her eyes so swiftly, and that so swiftly was gone as she clapped her hands and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... in arms against tyranny!" Great placards, bearing these inspiriting words, are affixed to gallows-shaped posts, and flutter in the evening breeze, rendered scorching by the heat of the furnaces ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and watched him, and looked off between whiles to the wonderful green walls of the glen. The summer blue was very clear overhead; the stillness of the place very deep; insects, birds, a flutter of leaves, and the grating of Dr. Sandford's boot upon a stone, all the sounds that could ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... th' grocer came, Booath in a dreadful flutter, To save some, but they came too lat, It all wor ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... All life is brief; What now is bud will soon be leaf, What now is leaf will soon decay; The wind blows east, the wind blows west; The blue eggs in the robin's nest Will soon have wings and beak and breast, And flutter and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of that childless mother haunted him. She had been one of the hat-shop hands, a flighty, nervous thing, madly in love with Elbridge, whom she ruled with a sort of frantic devotion since their marriage, compensating his cool quiet with a perpetual flutter of exaggerated sensibilities in every direction. But somehow she had put Northwick in mind of his own mother, and he thought of the chance or the will that had bereaved one and spared the other, and he envied the little ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... With a strange flutter of emotion my heart responded to his sweet assurances, and, as a weary child confidingly rests upon its mother's breast, so did my tired soul trustingly repose in the safe haven of his manly love, and cast its anchor there! ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... houses along the way. Here lived burgesses who daily walked the fallow; shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of farmers' homesteads—a street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing with the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the purr of the milk into the pails—a street which had nothing urban in it whatever—this was ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... and round about all are entwined festoons of trailing creepers, or the loveliest of scarlet mistletoe, in which humming-birds build their nests. Blue macaws, parrots, and a thousand other birds fly to and fro, and the black fire-bird darts across the sky, making lightning with every flutter of his wings, which, underneath, are painted a bright, vivid red. Serpents of all colors and sizes creep silently in the undergrowth, or hang from the branches of the trees, their emerald eyes ever on the alert; and the broad-winged eagle soars above all, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... Barton. He would have been ashamed to own the flutter of spirits his appointment gave him. There was the childish delight of seeing London—that went a little way, and but a little way. There was the vain idea of speaking out his notions before so many grand folk—that went ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... standing, framed in the soft light shining through the doorway, looking out at him. He waved his hand. He saw her hand flutter and then ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... a flutter of excitement in the circle as the lady rose to take his arm, and a muttered sound of, "How very beautiful, quelle est belle, c'est un ange!" on all sides. I leaned forward to catch a glance as she passed; it was Lucy Dashwood. Beautiful beyond anything I had ever seen her, her ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... a flutter of excitement also. She seized one bandbox, and Sam the other, and they hurried out on the platform. They were just climbing up the steps, when the conductor asked, ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... across the path and was described with much fervour by the junior Tommy. Then there was a little greenfinch, just fledged, fluttering along the ground, and it seemed quite possible to catch it, till it managed to flutter under the blackberry bush. Hetty could not be got to give any heed to these things, so Molly was called on for her ready sympathy, and peeped with open mouth wherever she was told, and said "Lawks!" whenever she was ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... with his eyes. Beauty there was, grace there was, strength, and enough of the rest to drive better men than George Skinner to beat their heads on piano-tops—but for the new-found life of him Conroy could not feel one flutter of instinct or emotion that turned to herward. He put up his feet and fell asleep, dreaming of a joyous, normal world recovered—with interest on arrears. There were many things in it, but no one face of any ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... performances, except for a tendency to jumble up metaphors, that kept the audience from the Folly just awake enough to watch for them. The hearer was proud who could repeat by heart such phrases as "let us not, beloved brethren, as gaudy insects, flutter out life's little day, bound to the chariot wheels of vanity, whirling in the vortex of dissipation, until at length we lie moaning over the bitter dregs of the intoxicating draught." Some of these became household proverbs at "the Folly," under the title ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... memories of his triumphal tour through the Rhenish provinces, where the Union had struck widest root. Town after town sent its whole population to greet him. Roaring thousands met him at the railway stations, and he passed under triumphal arches and through streets a-flutter with flags, where working-girls welcomed him with showers of roses. "Such scenes as these," he wrote to the Countess, "must have attended the foundation of new religions." And, indeed, as weeping working-men fought to draw his carriage, and as he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... his way home from one of his spasmodic "jobs," dropped in to say "Hello!" and incidentally break the spell. Dr. Harlow woke and looked guiltily about him. His wife joined him, and Max and Archie shook the kinks out of their long legs, as the girls began to gather up their sewing and flutter about ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... stir among the crowd; a few went out, having witnessed the pageant; but there was a flutter of increased interest among those who remained, as a venerable man, in the garb of the Frari, mounted the pulpit on ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... for my sole and free use, with all that therein is—and above all other creatures the dear, sweet daughters of Eve!—and I can tell you, Margery, the women agree with me. I have only to open my arms and they flutter into them, and not to close them tight—that, Margery, is too much to look for; yet is there but one true bliss, and but one Ann, and the best of all joys is to clasp her to my heart and kiss her lips. I will keep faith with her; I will have nought ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... day arrived she felt an unusual impatience to see him. And she was in a strange flutter of nervous excitement. Should she tell him of those things which she had not been able to confide to him on the last occasion of their meeting? Could she? No; impossible! But she must see him, nevertheless. The desire ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... grey grass, on the bare forest edge, if the sun but come out for an instant from the fog and turn one steady glance on the frozen earth, at once the gnats swarm up on all sides; they sport in the warm rays, bustle, flutter up and down, circle round one another... The sun is hidden—the gnats fall in a feeble shower, and there is the ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... parks that make our city so attractive. Stepping from the car, he loosened his grasp upon the captive moth near a big syringa bush that adorned the entrance way. He watched the dainty white wings flutter down into the cool seclusion of the blossom then turned and boarded the car and pursued his homeward way conscious, let us hope, of a very pretty and graceful deed of kindness to a most insignificant claimant for ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... which the six couples were presently posed by the clergyman, in front of us and himself. That done to everybody's satisfaction, the Colonel stationed to give away the brides—an arrangement that caused a visible flutter of delight among them—and as many lookers-on accommodated within the building as could crowd in, the ceremony was proceeded with, the clergyman using an abbreviated form of the Episcopal service, reading it but once, but demanding separate responses. I noticed that he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and the anatomy is of a quality that must have given a severe shock to the artist's friend, Leonardo. Yet the grace, the movement and the joyous quality of Spring are in it all. It is a most fascinating picture, and we can well imagine the flutter it produced when first exhibited ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... dear," she drawled, "I love you to distraction! But as a daily companion?" Vaguely her eyebrows lifted. "As a real playmate?" Against the starch-white of her pillows the sudden flutter of her small brown throat showed with almost startling distinctness. "But as a real playmate," she persisted evenly, "you are so—intelligent—and you ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... man from meeting pleasant people amid pleasant surroundings? Well, it was not the work itself, it was simply the effects of that gross labor. On the American continent, at least, a man did not lose caste by following any honest occupation,—only he could not work with the workers and flutter with the butterflies. MacRae, walking down the street, communing with himself, knew that he must pay a penalty for working with his hands. If he were a drone in uniform—necessarily a drone since the end of war—he ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... night when men crouched over their rifle waiting to kill, when the owl had gone far from the slaughter and even not the fitful flutter of a bat sped through the dark pall. Only man: savage, primitive man, glared at where each remained hidden. The blood lust to kill, always to kill. Animal ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... decoration of it whimsical and| |graceful. | | | | Miss Lucille Watson, embodying the | |spirit of witty mischief, gives a very | |fine performance of the part of Mrs. | |Bayle, a "smart," good woman, and Miss | |Ruth Shepley is excellent in byplay and | |flutter as a silly, good woman. | | | | Cyril Scott is graceful and vigorous as | |a philandering husband, Dallas Anderson | |comical as a London clubman with a keener | |relish in life than he is willing to | |betray, and William McVey wise, paternal | |and weighty in that kind of a part. ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... the later conference was also intense for Peter Baron, who quitted his editor with his manuscript under his arm. He had had the question out with Mr. Locket, and he was in a flutter which ought to have been a sense of triumph and which indeed at first he succeeded in regarding in this light. Mr. Locket had had to admit that there was an idea in his story, and that was a tribute which Baron was in a position to make ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... mother hurried in in a terrible flutter, and said that the Queen had a frightful headache and begged ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... several times later) Mentone on its left hand and Monte Carlo on its right. A long winding path led up through its garden of olives to the front door, and through the mimosa trees which flanked this door we could see already a flutter of white aprons. The staff was on the loggia waiting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... supply facts to fill the sheets of blank paper; there was the reading out of results, with congratulations to those who had succeeded, and glum looks from Miss Rodgers to those who had failed; then followed the bringing down of boxes, the joyful flutter of packing, the last breakfast, and the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... came in. She was a thin woman in a red wrapper, with hollow cheeks, high cheek-bones, and hungry eyes; her dark hair hung loose, and one hand played restlessly with a fold of her gown. She took Noel's hand; and her uplifted eyes seemed to dig into the girl's face, to let go suddenly, and flutter. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... who had dwelt with the lovers in the court yard since first they had come there, sensing the flutter of the intruder's wings, took to his heels and slid between the bars of the great bronze ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... Kendrick was somehow a particularly interesting figure in the eyes of her young players, and she speedily discovered that they were all more or less excited at the knowledge that he was somewhere below the footlights. Olivia, indeed, was immediately in a flutter, quite as her mother had predicted, at the thought of Cousin Richard's eyes upon her in her masculine attire; and Roberta, in the brief interval she could spare for the purpose, had to take her sternly in hand. An autocratic Katherine might, then, have been overheard addressing a flurried Petruchio, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... naturally," said the second swallow. "First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... statesman's arts to conjure up a peace, Or military phantoms void of force, But scare away the vultures for an hour; The scent cadaverous (for, oh! how rank The stench of profligates!) soon lures them back On the proud flutter of a Gallic wing Soon they return; soon make their full descent; Soon glut their rage, and riot in our ruin; Their idols grac'd and gorgeous with our spoils, Of universal empire sure presage! Till now repell'd by seas of British blood." And whence the manners of the multitude? ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... indeed, from where I lay, with the men crowding together in front of me, to see at all was no easy matter. But this I saw clearly. The Captain stood in the corner, his blade raised to strike. BLUENOSE never stirred, but his breath came and went, and his eyelids blinked strangely, like the flutter of a sere leaf against the wall. There came a roar of voices, and, in the tumult, the Captain's sword flashed quickly, and fell. Then, with a broken cry like a sheep's bleat, the great seamed face fell separate from the body, and a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... "I tell you I had been watching her for several minutes before I saw you, and she never moved except for a flutter of the eyelids. She was standing back to, facing that mirror, so I could see her face quite plainly. More than that, she could see me. Of course, I wasn't quite sure, with all those others around. That's why I spoke to you. I wanted ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... hair had now an early sprinkling of grey in it, but was always arranged to the very best effect; and there was, people said, such a nobleness about him (his cleverness was undisputed) that when he rose to propose or reply to a toast, there was not a lady at the table who was not in a flutter of inward admiration. With his social advantages he could not, of course, fail to be in a position of considerable influence in the town, which again heightened his welcome ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... The first flutter of perturbation at going out into the darkness and the midst of armed men had given way to a more composed feeling. No one had stopped her, or offered to, no one had shown any symptom of surprise at her presence there at that hour. She began to hope that this immunity would continue ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... she seems, Sister of the winds that run through the rippling daisies. Sweet and clear her voice calls father and brother, And one whose name her shy lips will not utter. But a chorus of leaves and grasses speaks her heart And tells his name: the birches flutter by the wall; The wild cherry-tree shakes its plumy head And whispers his name; the maple Opens its rosy lips and murmurs his name; The marsh-marigold sends the rumor Down the winding stream, and the blue flag Spread the gossip to the lilies in the lake: All Nature's ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... big flaming placards were exhibited at the little provincial railway station, announcing that the Great —— Company would run cheap excursion trains to London for the Christmas holidays, the inhabitants of Mudley-cum-Turmits were in quite a flutter of excitement. Half an hour before the train came in the little booking office was crowded with country passengers, all bent on visiting their friends in the great Metropolis. The booking clerk was unaccustomed to dealing with crowds of such a dimension, ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... A flutter of approval went round the bystanders, and Mademoiselle Therese called out a parting word of warning to Barbara—just to show she was connected with the couple—before they moved off. Their progress down the street was as picturesque ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... so he writ; A tribe of tuneless praters follow, The Jay, the Magpie, and the Swallow; And twenty more their throats let loose, Down to the witless, waddling Goose. Some peck'd at him, some flew, some flutter'd, Some hiss'd, some scream'd, and others mutter'd: The Crow, on carrion wont to feast, The Carrion Crow, condemn'd his taste: The Rook, in earnest too, not joking, Swore all his singing was but croaking. Some thought they meant to show their wit, Might think so still—"but ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... rare occasions that the child was sent for. Nurse was in a flutter at once, putting on his best brown velvet suit, with his little cream-silk shirt, and brushing out his curls with ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... the doctor's voice, and the genuine shouts of satisfaction from the people, put the poor little queen in such a flutter that nearly all her courage forsook her, and she could scarcely reply. Nevertheless, she had a mind of ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... varying fortunes had taken him to Urbino, where the son Torquato grew up, surrounded by all the evidences of refinement and culture. He had been favored by nature with a tall and commanding figure, and his good looks had already caused more than one gentle heart to flutter, when, at the age of twenty-one, with his father's consent and approval, he entered the service of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este, and became at once a conspicuous figure in court circles. Almost instantly the youth, filled as he was with most romantic ideas and readily susceptible to the power of woman's ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... smile of small, fine lips, with a queer, winged movement of the moustache, a flutter of dark down. She saw his eyes, hard and keen, dark blue, like the blade of a ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... never before—asking awkward, burning questions, which put its seniors in a flutter. The seniors, under question, discover that they have no body of doctrine, and have never till now dreamt of the need of any. If they are wise, they will put away the taboo on politics and sit down with their juniors to hammer these things ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... at most, half-past. You see, if I am to make father as comfortable at home as he would be at a restaurant, I must flutter around a little." ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who's that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are they ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... The news was of the most astounding character, with just enough air of probability, in minor details, to pass muster with a dull reader. The effect was all he could wish—or rather more—and there was a general flutter in the camp. Of course the Governor-General and one or two others were in the secret, and mightily relished the diversion. But this pleasant and cheering intercourse was drawing to its mournful close. On her way back from Darjeeling, in November, 1861, Lady Canning (not then in Yule's care) ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... snow of the season began to flutter down from out a surprisingly clear sky, as Jan settled down in the buckboard, his chain passed down through a hole and secured to the step outside, an arrangement which struck Jan as highly unnecessary, since it kept his head so low that he could not stand up in the wagon. ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... rippling at the bows, the low sough of the zephyr through the rigging, the cheeping of blocks, as the sleepy helmsman allowed the ship to vary in her course, the occasional splash of a dolphin, and the flutter of a flying-fish in the air, as he winged his short and glittering flight. The air was warm, fragrant, and delicious, and the larboard watch of the tired crew of the Gentile, after a boisterous passage of forty days from Gibralter, yielded to its somnolent influence, and lay stretched about ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... and a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank was a small village populated by short people and long dogs. Out in midstream, making poor headway against the semi-gelid current, was a little flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing violently and kicking up a lather of lacy spray with its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind you of a very warm small lady fanning herself with a very large gauze fan, and only ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... mutter, Strutting high aloof Where the sunbeans flutter Through the stable roof. Hear the chickens cheep, boys, And the hen with pride Clucking them to sleep, ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... striding moodily along with his hands in his pockets, and his hat pulled down over his eyes, passing the old beech without a glance at it. Lucinda checked another sigh, gathered up an escaped flutter of voile, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... parent's love, startle a young family of quails, and watch the conduct of the mother. She will not leave you. No, not she. But she will fall at your feet, uttering a noise which none but a distressed mother can make, and she will run, and flutter, and seem to try to be caught, and cheat your outstretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken and wounded, and yet have just strength to tumble along, until she has drawn you, fatigued, a safe distance from her threatened children and the young ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... intoxicating to the blood of a northern wanderer. It was the Land of Promise indeed, flowing with milk and honey, a pastoral land of easy love and laughter, where man clove to woman and she yielded to him at the flutter of desire, yet all was sanctioned by the Providence which fashioned the elements and taught the very ivy how to cling. Was there not deep-seated truth, methought, in those old fables which told of the Loves of the Nymphs, the Loves ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... think he must have a magic glass, in which he catches the reflection of little cherubs with many-colored wings, very little and bright. Angels, in long crisp robes of white, surrounded with halos of gold, come and flutter across the mirror, and he draws them. He hears mass every day. He fasts through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jacques returned with a surgeon, and meanwhile Felix lay perfectly still. There was not the flutter of an eyelid, not the twitching of a muscle; only by placing a hand over his heart could one ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... Windsor Castle was hove-to, the courses of the enemy were seen to flutter a few moments in the breeze, and then the canvas was expanded. When the vessel had gathered sufficient way, she hove in stays, and crossed the Windsor Castle on ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hastened to the Kremlin, mounted to the top of the lofty tower of Ivan, and from its height looked with eyes of pride on the far-extending city. It was grand, that vision of palatial mansions, but it was mournful in its silence and gloom, the tramp of soldiery its only sound, the flutter of multitudes of birds—ravens and crows, which haunted the city in thousands—its only sign of life. Two days before Moscow had been one of the busiest cities in the world. Now it was the most silent. But the conqueror had this satisfaction, that while abandoned ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... which he was engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" in which he was entangled; and some of his portraits of the "divinities," the "blossoms," and the beauties of that day would make the subjects of them flutter with surprise in the church-yards where they lie. The writer was sated with the "tedious commonplace of fashionable society," and languishing to return to ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... present at least there was practically no chance of Pratinas recovering his lost property. And indeed, when Agias reached Rome once more, all fears in that direction were completely set at rest. The fashionable circle in which Claudia and Herennia were enmeshed was in a flutter and a chatter over no ordinary scandal. Valeria, wife of Calatinus, and Pratinas, the "charming" Epicurean philosopher, had both fled Rome two days before, and rumour had it that they had embarked together at Ostia on a ship leaving direct for Egypt. Of course Calatinus was receiving ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... his courage and his confidence as he approached the roaring crash, perpetual and always mounting, which showed him where the cube-army was busiest. The sound vibrated the very air, causing the bodies of Sarka to tingle with it, causing them to flutter and shake in their flight with its awesome power. But they did not hold back, flew onward through the gloom, leaving behind them the brightly lighted areas where Gens of Earth battled with the fireballs of the Martians, moving into the area of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... words of Adsalis. Go then! follow their invitation! Go the way they point out to thee! The voice of Adsalis will not venture to compete with them. What indeed is my voice?—what but a gentle, feeble sound! Go! there also I will be with thee. And when the long manes of thy horse-tail standards flutter before thee on the field of battle, fancy that thou dost see before thee the waving tresses of thy Adsalis who has freed her soul from the incubus of her body in order that it might be ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... is all that commotion and flutter, and surging to and fro above Him and on either side of Him? It is a detailed regiment of heaven, a constabulary angelic, sent forth to take part in that scene, and to execute the mandates that shall be issued. Ten regiments, a hundred ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage |
