"Gesture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a little cry. The nurse warned her into silence by a gesture. There was a pause. Maryllia looked from one to ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... there were no such men, that could either add to or take anything away from him, but such there were. He indeed overlooks and commands the admiration of posterity, but he does it from the tableland of the age in which he lived. He towered above his fellows, "in shape and gesture proudly eminent;" but he was one of a race of giants, the tallest, the strongest, the most graceful, and beautiful of them; but it was a common and a noble brood. He was not something sacred and aloof from the vulgar herd of men, but ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... him backward into the hall. Miss Garradice followed closely behind and at once extended herself in open order on Lady Beach-Mandarin's right. "Go and enquire," said Lady Beach-Mandarin with a sweeping gesture of her arm. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... and it is many years since I have seen such perfect dancing, as far as finish and accuracy of art and fulness of animal power and fire are concerned. Nothing could be better done, in its own evil way, the object of the dance throughout being to express, in every gesture, the wildest fury of insolence and vicious passions possible to human creatures. So that you see, though, for the present, we find ourselves utterly incapable of a rapture of gladness or thanksgiving, the dance which is presented as characteristic of ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... gesture with his hands. He also smiled respectfully. He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sara, though she had only ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not so much originality as force, but possess, however, enough of both to deserve a place here. "They commonly kept at a distance from the men, and seemed fearful of offending them by a look or gesture; they were the only persons in the family who had any employment, and several of them brought bundles of sticks and fuel on their backs. Their insensible husbands seldom deigned to look upon them, and continued in a kind of phlegmatic indolence, whilst the women sometimes indulged that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... and the bear was told by Nono, as usual, and the scene most vividly described by word and gesture. Decima did not pretend that she knew more than he did on this subject, and indeed he was quite her oracle in all matters. She thought Nono a pink of perfection; and well she might, for he had been her playmate ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... speaking bastard Spanish (Mexican) or Indian, with the Ute Indians there, he was as fluent as a native. Both Mexican and Indian, however, are largely pantomime, abounding in perpetual grimace and gesture, which may have helped him along somewhat. Next, when the rebellion broke out, he became a Union soldier, though the border was largely Confederate. He tendered his services to Mr. Lincoln, who at once commissioned him Colonel, and told him to take care of the ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... something in the nature of a widening of the experience. With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like, an acquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture—all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love—all these things are like so many objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walk beyond the horizon, to explore. He wants to get, as it were, behind those eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... went up. It was a characteristic gesture. "It doesn't make any difference what any one says. I'm ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... even with her breast, and swept it out and upward in the Indian sign-talk which meant "yes." Luck's eyes flashed appreciation of the gesture; he loved the sign-talk of ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... With a dramatic gesture, Vance swept aside from the opening in the cabinet the black velvet curtain. "It's a simple affair," he said indifferently. "As you see, it's open at the top and bottom. The medium sits inside on that chair, bound hand ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings, The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... His shadow lay, and moved not. From self-blame Not wholly free, I watched him thus; at length Subduing my heart's specious cowardice, 410 I left the shady nook where I had stood And hailed him. Slowly from his resting-place He rose, and with a lean and wasted arm In measured gesture lifted to his head Returned my salutation; then resumed 415 His station as before; and when I asked His history, the veteran, in reply, Was neither slow nor eager; but, unmoved, And with a quiet uncomplaining voice, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... blue night the unending columns press In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow, Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness. Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless, And turn with profound gesture vague and slow, As who would pray good for the world, but know Their benediction empty as ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... beauteous snowdrops Droop o'er the plain, The crocus opens Its glowing bud ... With saucy gesture Primroses flare, And roguish ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... places were alike destitute of property; and other reasons of the sort, which could merely derive their weight from malice. I listened to them more composedly than they expected, for they stood ready to fly the very moment that I should make a gesture as if I would seize their hair. But I replied quite calmly, and in substance, "that even this was no great injury to me. Life was such a boon, that one might be quite indifferent as to whom one had to thank for it; since at least it must be derived from God, before ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... nothing but this," said Muecke, with a sweeping gesture toward the desert through which we were traveling, "and therefore it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. We remained aboard ship so long. We marched away on the 28th. We had only a vague suspicion that the English might have agents here also. We could ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... here," he went on, with a little gesture of his left hand, between the fingers of which a cigarette was burning. "You are now in the temple of a patriotic society acting with no letters patent, but in the good cause of his Most Excellent Majesty King George III, to ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... scrambled into the stage through the door opposite the one at which the Red Rider was standing, and the road agent again raised his sombrero with a sweeping gesture worthy of D'Artagnan. ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... princely hand, Which he waved with a gesture bland (Instead of a gentleman's walking-stick it was carried, you understand), In splendor of girdle and shoe, In a glitter of gold and of blue, With the fair Su-See at his side came ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... there was no time to give warning. With one gesture Murdo had given his orders. The wagons spread as for a frontal attack; the men seized the children and with the women at their heels they ran as fast as their legs could take them. On the shore every one fell to his knees in prayer. The strongest men closed their eyes, too horrified to watch the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... grave under the mimosa trees, and with a queer elfin gesture he stooped down and kissed the lately disturbed sods, and made the sign of the cross upon his narrow little chest as he had seen his Spanish mother do. The dignity of the action, with its unconscious touch of foreign grace, and the boy's pathetic ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... to them, yet they never showed it in their conduct; they never stared at us, or stopped to enquire about us, but courteously saluted us wherever we went, and left us to make ourselves at home. We never saw an ugly or unbecoming gesture, and we never heard a rude, unmannerly word all the time ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... promise of a man's making a good sea officer. In the later period of written examinations an instructor of much experience said to me, "If a man's paper comes near 2.5, I always read it over again with a leaning towards a more favorable judgment on points;" and he accompanied the words with a gesture which dramatically suggested a leaning so pronounced that, it would certainly topple over the right way. Not strictly judicial, I fear, but perhaps practical. There were rare instances who played with 2.5, enticed perhaps by the mysterious ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Kazmah never once raised his head. Indeed, except for a dignified gesture of greeting and one of dismissal, he never moved. His immobility ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... like a little boy, a man as old as he is. And Englishmen are always so practical, capable. Oh! speak to him, Mr. Durward; you can, please. If I say anything he's at once so miserable.... I don't understand, I don't understand!" she cried, raising her hands with a little despairing gesture. "How can he have been like that in Petrograd, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... of the nation. But music was grating to the prejudiced ears of the Scottish; clergy; sculpture and painting appeared instruments of idolatry the surplice was a rag of Popery; and every motion or gesture prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion. Every thing was deemed impious but their own mystical comments on the Scriptures, which they idolized, and whose Eastern prophetic ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... down his bunch of keys, and turned to his prisoner. But Lord Vincent did not wait for the desecrating hand of the turnkey to be laid upon his shoulder. With a haughty gesture and tone he said: ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... sure!" exclaims Tim, with the gesture of one who clutches at the very words of his own lips uttered by another; "of course, that's ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... flow influence, reflux Fortis strong fortress, comfort Frango, fractum break infringe, refraction *Frater brother fraternity, fratricide Fugio, fugitum flee centrifugal, fugitive Fundo, fusum pour refund, profuse, fusion Gero, gestum carry belligerent, gesture, digestion Gradior, gressus walk degrade, progress *Gratia favor, pleasure, ingratiate, congratulate, good-will disgrace *Grex, gregis flock segregate, egregious Habeo, habitum have, hold habituate, prohibit ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Where learnt you so suddenly the trade of preaching? I thought you kept your wind for your running this two years past. You would make as good a talker among the Witan as Godwin himself. You give it us all, word for word, and voice and gesture withal, as if you were King ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... face in her hands, turned away, and walked in the slowest, stateliest manner towards the house. The prince ventured to follow her at a little distance, but she turned and made a repellent gesture, which, like a true gentleman-prince, he obeyed at once. He waited a long time, but as she did not come near him again, and as the night had now cleared, he set off at last for the ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... but we stayed him with a gesture. "There is another question, the last: '6. Do you care to convey any hints or suggestions gleaned from your personal experiences in the climb to success that may make easier the gaining of the heights ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... fly abroad further than upon the wings of any other art. There was a little vignette of Bewick's, which he had loved as a child, where a minute figure sits in a tiny horned and winged car, in mid air, throwing out with a free gesture the reins attached to the bodies of a flight of cranes; the only symbol of his destination a crescent moon, shining in dark skies beyond him. That picture had always seemed to Hugh a parable of music, that it gave one power to fly upon the regions of the upper air, to ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... coachman makes his professional salute with the whip; the guard even, though punctilious on the matter of his dignity as an officer under the crown, touches his hat. The ladies move to us, in return, with a winning graciousness of gesture: all smile on each side in a way that nobody could misunderstand, and that nothing short of a grand national sympathy could so instantaneously prompt. Will these ladies say that we are nothing to them? Oh, no; they will not say that. They cannot ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... peculiarly sedate and lofty, and something foreign in the fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments added to the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately form. Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their fingers; for Arbaces, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal gift of the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... do not know whether he heard much of my clack, and I got very tired of it myself at last. When I had finished my blackberries, he asked mechanically, in an echo of my former visit, with a repetition of his gesture towards the coffee-pot, "More?" I shook my head, and then he led the way out to the veranda, stopping to get his pipe and tobacco from the mantel on the way. But when we sat down in the early falling September twilight outside, he did not light his ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your pockets. [With a gesture of despair, he obeys and sits down again]. That's a good boy. Now tell ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... Calypso had involuntarily made a gesture, as though pleading to be spared the whole revelation—and then ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... nothing at all about it," said Stemm, bobbing his head at his master, and making at the same time a gesture with his lips, whereby he intended to signify that his master was making a fool of himself. Stemm was hardly more than five feet high, and was a wizened dry old man, with a very old yellow wig. He delighted in scolding all the world, and his special delight ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... hand!" said Macnooder, matching the gesture to the exclamation. "Straight to the point. Keen—Gad, you're devilishly keen! That's you, Bill, no one can beat you at seeing the kernel at once! Who wants a folding toothbrush? No one!" said Macnooder, folding his arms and beaming with delight. "Is there any reason any one should? There is not. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... old man was eating. The shepherd was very, very old, and deaf, but he understood the language of the boy's eyes, and as he had just milked the goats, he held out a cup of the milk to him with a friendly gesture, and broke off a piece of bread for him. Then he invited George to sit down beside him in the sun, which had been up ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the minister in his study rang the bell loudly and violently. The footman quickly opened the door leading to the hall, and, with a polite gesture, invited Gentz to step out. The latter, however, did not stir. He had hastily placed his hat on his head and was now putting on his gloves with as grave an air as if they were gauntlets with which he ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... to us. It was my childhood's home. Would it could again receive me as a child! It will cover my head for a while, at least, and that is something. We must leave this place. Here every thing offends me—every spot, every face, every look, every gesture." ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... communication and multiply pleasure. The well-being of the animal world largely depends upon the power of each member of it to communicate with others of the same species. They all do so by sound and gesture, probably to a larger extent than we generally imagine. A celebrated physician lately observed to me that "all animals have some language." How far mere signs deserve so high a name may be questioned. But man has great powers of intercourse, and it is much owing to his superior faculties in ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... heard him tell this story, and Garrick himself could not have reproduced a schoolboy's glee with more admirable accent and gesture. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... no sadder sight than that frail, lifeless little being, extended on the stones, and watched over by the impassive brute who repeated his account every time in the selfsame words, and every time made the selfsame gesture, throwing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the other a girl he had met on the hills of Connemara, a wonderfully pretty girl of seventeen. How should he know that the girl was Erris Boyne's daughter?—although there were times when some gesture of Boyne, some quick look, some lifting of the eyebrows, brought back the memory of Sheila Llyn, as it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... collar I had bought him shortly before his disappearance, so that had there been any doubt as to his identity that would have removed it instantly. On my calling to him, he turned quickly round and, with a slight gesture of the head as if bidding me to follow, he glided forward. My natural impulse was to run after him, pick him up and smother him with kisses; but try as hard as I could, I could not diminish the distance between us, although he never appeared to alter ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... act of brushing out the cloud of her dark hair, and with a strong young gesture ran the thread through the needle, knotting its end with a quirk of thumb ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... With a slight, fantastic gesture Pierre replied: "It was said that a devil entered into me at birth, but that was mere scandal—'peut-etre.' You shall think ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be actuated with some sense of fair-play, or else wished to continue in the good graces of the whites. Some of the men began to boil a kettle and to make tea. The chief picked up the bag of tea and made a gesture of inquiry of Rob. "Chi?" ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... have his promise to marry me, but you have his heart. Don't I know. Give me that bangle." And she stretched out her hand with a clutching gesture. ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... too. Let me teach you then that the ruder you are to a woman, the more she'll hate you—or love you. [She goes up to him and invites him with a gesture.] ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... I shall never be able to go in alone, without an excuse. Don't—don't repeat to Richard what you said to me, in joke, I am sure, about his music. Heavens! What will my husband think?" There was despair in her voice, but hopefulness in her gait and gesture, when ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the afternoon sunlight—the imperial carriage and the glittering escort trotting gaily—the beautiful woman with the always beautiful costumes—her charming smile—the Emperor, with his waxed moustache and saturnine face! It meant so much and it went so quickly. One moment," she made a little gesture, "and it is gone—forever! An Empire and all the splendour of it! Two centuries ago it could not have disappeared so quickly. But now the world is older. It does not need toys so much. A Republic is the people—and there are ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of us must go out into the waste places—oh, anywhere where the grass has room to grow and there are trees and birds and barns—I stipulate barns." Billy made a splendid, comprehensive gesture that took in all the points of the compass impartially. "One of us must take a few days off and go and hunt up a nice, inexpensive little Eldorado for us. There!—there, my friends, you have the solution of your knotty little ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... wife is apparently willing—having an interest elsewhere—and suddenly the bottom drops out of the affair, and Mildred poorer, also wiser, returns to her home in England. She has embraced the Roman Catholic religion, but you do not feel she is sincerely pious. It is one more gesture in her sterile career. At the end we find her trying to evade the inevitable matrimony, for she is alone, her brother dead, and she an heiress. Suspicious of her suitor's motives—it is the same faithful Alfred—she ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... her palms in a little gesture. "I'm here, ain't I? Waited table from seven to three last night, and came behind the counter here at five-thirty this morning. The boss'll relieve me at twelve o'clock. Guess I'll ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... masses of men has broken down the tradition of chivalry. War is now accepted with a sort of indifference, as a part of the day's work; "pas de grands mots, pas de grands gestes, pas de drame!" The imperturbable French officer of 1918 attaches no particular importance to his individual gesture. He concentrates his energy ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... curious to see that this was not done in the conventional, theatrical way, but with a grim stoicism which was not unimpressive. He was not in any kind of panic and was working hard in his fields. He meant merely to convey in gesture some expression like "those damned cutthroats of Germans." I left the Scherpenberg Hill with great regret. It was a wonderful "specular mount." As one stood by the side of the windmill and gazed over the battle-ground, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell the story nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter a sentence or a gesture. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... intimation of what was coming Betty had started off, as did the other girls. Mollie seemed to have a notion of rushing over to Alice and the others, but Grace, by a gesture, ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... of you to come, Miss Coryston." She pushed forward a chair. "Won't you sit down? I'm ashamed of this room. I apologize for it." She looked round it with a gesture of weary disgust, and then at Marcia, who stood in flushed agitation, the heavy cloak she had worn in the motor falling back from her shoulders and her white dress, the blue motor veil framing the brilliance of ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... greeting the statuesque natives with a friendliness that upset all calculations. It was evident that the meeting was prearranged. There was no attempt at secrecy; the conference, whatever its portent, had the merit of being quite above-board. In the end, the tall solicitor, lifting his helmet with a gesture so significant that it left no room for speculation, turned and sauntered through the broad gateway and out into the forest road. The three servants returned as they had come, by way of the bridle ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... gone spontaneously to fetch from a neighboring room; they did not look up at the noise, nor join in the laughter. Their attitude was that of persons at work and anxious not to lose any time. When invited by a single gesture to come and be measured, they obeyed in a wonderful manner, leaving off work at once, and moving with smiles, as if fascinated; they evidently felt pleasure in obeying, and an internal delight which came from the consciousness of being able to work, and of being ready to leave something ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... released the hand it had retained till now, and softly raised its own with a gesture of dismissal. Upon that, her shadow, still preserving the same attitude, began ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... sometimes of her. For he had not brought her the spontaneous, unalarmed, unspoiled spirit of his youth. He had come to her with a stain on his imagination and a wound in his memory. And she was holy to him. He had held himself in, lest a touch, a word, a gesture should ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Still not a word from Ikonin. All at once, however, a smile spread itself over his face, and he gave his long hair another shake. Next he reached across the table, laid down his ticket, looked at each of the professors in turn and then at myself, and finally, wheeling round on his heels, made a gesture with his hand and returned to the desks. The professors stared blankly at ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... too large. Ann crossed her tiny hands, wrinkled over with the black silk, with long, empty black silk fingers dangling in her lap, over a fine white linen handkerchief. She had laid her gloved hands over the handkerchief with a gesture full of resolution. "I sha'n't give way," she said to Paulina Maria. That meant that, although she took the handkerchief in obedience to custom, it would not be used to ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... attentively he looked at Gotama's head, his shoulders, his feet, his quietly dangling hand, and it seemed to him as if every joint of every finger of this hand was of these teachings, spoke of, breathed of, exhaled the fragrant of, glistened of truth. This man, this Buddha was truthful down to the gesture of his last finger. This man was holy. Never before, Siddhartha had venerated a person so much, never before he had loved a person ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... Stanislaus of Poland. He visited Catherine once in her capital, and was there munificently entertained by her. She was regally pleased to humor this gentleman of France, permitting him to bring down his fist in gesture violently on the redoubtable royal knee, according to a pleasant way Diderot had of emphasizing a point in familiar conversation. His truest claim to praise for intellectual superiority is, perhaps, that he was a prolific begetter of wit ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Paris; she knew that it was in her interest that he had come, but an instinct stronger than her will forced her to continue improvising the words of her part, and it was her pleasure to provide it with suitable gesture, expression of face, and inflection of voice. She could hear the fiddles in the ball- room, and wished the wall away, and the company ranged behind a curtain. And, as these desires crossed her mind, she pitied ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... very pure and clean; you are giving all your heart to my story; and it is a good and tender heart. You have not many sorrows except the sorrows of others," and then suddenly Herbert broke off with a vague gesture of the hand and looked at the Doctor with a bewildered look. "Finish what you were saying," said the Doctor with a grave look. "Nay, nay," said Herbert with a sad air, "you have sorrows indeed—the light changes and darkens—but they are ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... interpreter, it stopped, two bewildered children, frowsy and unwashed, in greasy homespun, sat down and gazed at Miss Torrance with mild blue eyes. She signed to a boy who was passing with a basket slung before him, and made a little impatient gesture when the man slipped ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... chairman of the Little Missouri Stock Association, Roosevelt on one occasion recovered two horses which had been stolen from an old Indian. The Indian took them, muttering something that sounded like "Um, um," and without a word or a gesture of gratitude rode away with his property. Roosevelt felt cheap, as though he had done a service which had not been appreciated; but a few days later the old Indian came to him and silently laid in his arms a hide bearing ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... minister of war. His bearing was gentlemanly, and there was an air of conciliation about it which bespoke the thoroughbred gentleman. His voice was low, and his manner in speaking ungainly; an awkward and finicking gesture with the right hand below the table, to which he advanced when speaking, gave an idea of pettiness of thought, which his manner in other respects aided. The Earls of Winchelsea and Fitzwilliam seemed very desirous to have something to say; no one seemed willing to listen, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... word. Keeping his sword still in readiness, he knocked with the muzzle of his pistol on the door by him. After a moment it was opened, and a head looked out. The face was Sir Thomas Clifford's; the door was flung wide, a gesture from Darrell bade me enter. I stepped in, he followed, and the door was instantly shut ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... here still,' he answered Evan's greeting, with a flaccid gesture. 'Don't excite me too much. A little at a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... frame of light at the other end of the stage. Presently she appeared there. She was bringing the little boy, the little girl, the nursemaid, and another young woman, who was at once to be known as the mother of the two children. The girl indicated the stage with a small gesture of triumph. When they were all seated uncomfortably in the huge covered vehicle the little boy gave Hawker a glance of recognition. "It hurted then, but it's all right ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... is something of the Universal Spirit, strangely limited by that which is finite and personal, but still there. Occasionally it makes itself known in a word, look, or gesture, and then he becomes one with the stars ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... their return from Italy, at the courts of Prague and Munich, in Flanders and the Netherlands, introduced the preposterous manner, the bloated excrescence of diseased brains, which, in the form of man, left nothing human; distorted action and gesture with insanity of affectation, and dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes." But though such as Golzius, Spranger, Heyntz, and Abach, "fed on the husks of Tuscan design, they imbibed the colour of Venice, and spread the elements of that excellence which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... his glass, emptied it, and, setting it down on the table with a gesture of hatred, proceeded ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... should be speedily and largely rewarded. They should have, instead of an indulgence which was of no legal validity, a real indulgence, secured by Act of Parliament. Nay, many Churchmen, who had hitherto been distinguished by their inflexible attachment to every gesture and every word prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, now declared themselves favourable, not only to toleration, but even to comprehension. The dispute, they said, about surplices and attitudes, had too long divided those ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your grandmere?' I once asked, as she stopped for breath, because this tale always excited her. She crossed herself devoutly, and answered with fire in her eyes, and a resolute gesture of her little ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the madness of his hurry, and scowling darkly back at Tom, shook his clenched hand at him. There are not many human faces capable of the expression with which he accompanied that gesture. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of fancy, Lyndsay and his wife had attracted the attention of Miss Carr, who never passed them in her long rambles without bestowing upon them a gracious bow and a smile, which displayed, at one gesture, all her glittering store of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... and pouring a goblet of wine down his throat it somewhat revived him. He was now suffered to breathe a little, and something given him to eat, which, with a second cup of liquor, recovered his strength. The husband now demanded his story; and the cauzee, assuming the gesture of a ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... so provoked," sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. "She says she's got a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set onto her,' whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but cold in the head and t'other two is about a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... house, Chub?" was the common inquiry of all the party. The dwarf looked at them for a few moments without speech, then with a whisper and a gesture significant of caution, replied— ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... confession—with an angry gesture sent him scattering up among the cool broad leaves ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... shrug of her lovely shoulders she made a gesture with her hands personating the casting of ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... French himself, this group might well have been called "The Angel of Generation." The winged figure, neither male nor female, but angelic, is veiled, suggesting the creative impulse as a blind command from unknown sources. The arms are raised in a gesture of creative command. It has wings, said French, because. both art and the conception demanded these spiritual symbols. The man and woman against the rock whereon the angel sits are emblems of the highest types created. The man looks upward and outward with one hand clenched, ready to grapple ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... her spouse—"don't send the gentlemen away at this time of night, and consign them to you know not what fate. Something can be managed. Tenez!" with uplifted hands and an inspiration, "ma bouchere! Mon cher, ma bouchere!" (Voice, exclamation, gesture, general inspiration, the whole essence would evaporate if translated.) "Ma bouchere has two charming rooms that she will be delighted to give me. It is only a cat's jump from here," she added, turning to us; "you will be perfectly comfortable, and ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... she reached the little house she did not go in at once. The March night was not cold, and she sat the step, hoping to see her mother's light go out in the second-story front windows. But it continued to burn steadily, and at last, with a gesture of despair, she rose and ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was half turned towards me, and his face seemed to be rigid with expectation as he stared out into the blackness of the moor. For some minutes he stood watching intently. Then he gave a deep groan and with an impatient gesture he put out the light. Instantly I made my way back to my room, and very shortly came the stealthy steps passing once more upon their return journey. Long afterwards when I had fallen into a light sleep I heard a key turn somewhere in a lock, but I could ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... and bade them have reason. "They must endure what could not be altered. Jobst was right: was the proud oak the worse because a rotten branch was lopped off? Were they to come before his Highness with such mien and gesture, why, he would straight order them all to be clapped into prison, and then, indeed, would disgrace rest on their illustrious name. No, no; for God's sake, let them rest here. His Grace was too full of wrath now to listen even to his preachers, the ministers of God. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... or no, yo' young devil," he said, and he made a threatening gesture. "We conna stand here aw neet. Promise ta will na tell mon, woman, nor choild, what tha heerd us say. When I say 'three,' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... gratification less to discern, after the subsiding of the showers of sawdust so gracefully scattered by that groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdicomb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of the ring, and commanding—with imperious gesture, and some slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment—the double-jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle! With what inimitable grace does ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... conversed in a low tone with the general. The crowd could see her. The Representative Raymond, who lived at No 4, Place de la Madeleine, saw her from his window. This woman was Madame K. The general stooping down on his horse, listened, and finally made the dejected gesture of a vanquished man. Madame K. got back into her carriage. This man, they said, loved that woman. She could, according to the side of her beauty which fascinated her victim, inspire either heroism or crime. This strange beauty was compounded ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... on the cot. Idris, Gebhr, and the two Bedouins fell on their faces and afterwards knelt with hands crossed on their breasts. The Greek beckoned to Stas to do the same, but the boy, pretending not to see the gesture, only bowed and remained standing erect. His face was pale, but his eyes shone strongly and from his whole posture and head, haughtily upraised, from his tightly compressed lips it could easily be seen ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... passing, and touched the wan little cheek. Whereupon one of those ineffable smiles which are the birthright of Italians lighted the little face, and the small hand was lifted with so captivating a gesture that Blythe, clasping it in her own, dropped on her knees ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... who demanded 'two shilling each horse in waggon', and a dollar each 'coolie man'. He then glided with fiendish noiselessness about the room, arranged the furniture to his own taste, and finally said, 'Poor missus sick'; then more chirruping among themselves, and finally a fearful gesture of incantation, accompanied by 'God bless poor missus. Soon well now'. The wrath of the cockney housemaid became majestic: 'There, ma'am; you see how saucy they have grown- -a nasty black heathen Mohamedan a blessing of a ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... One of the minority described his opponents as having disported themselves on a certain occasion like a herd of cattle. By that time the whole temper of the Council had been changed; the Pope himself had gone into the arena; and violence of language and gesture had become an artifice adopted ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... other in courtly Scotch, sought to vindicate their conduct, and to traduce and refute their former co-religionists. Some of the masters of the Old College also, as Bannatyne has recorded, hated the plain-speaking reformer, though "be outward gesture and befoir his face thei wald seime and apeir to favore and love him above the rest."[233] The Hamiltons especially seem to have given him considerable occasion to complain of their bitter and unguarded criticisms, and one of them, stung by his denunciations, challenged him to defend ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... alone with their dead. As soon as the last hushed footsteps of the retreating servants died away in the distance. The Duc de Marny seemed to throw away the lethargy which had enveloped him until now. With a quick, feverish gesture he seized his daughter's wrist, and ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... warship in whose presence each of the two parties wished to demonstrate how powerful it was. The carabinieri resolved to maintain order, and as an inmate of the seminary made, they said, an unpolished gesture at them from a window they went off and, with some reinforcements, broke into the Slav Reading-Room and damaged it considerably. The Italian officers and men at Zadar went about their duties for some time without permitting themselves to be drawn into local politics, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... smug look of generosity beamed on the man's face. Once more Jim motioned him to go, but Mosher did not heed. He thought the gesture was a refusal. His face grew threatening. "All right, if you won't," he snarled, "look out! I know you love her still. Let me tell you, I own that woman, body and soul, and I'll make life hell for her. I'll torture you through her. Yes, I've got a cinch. You'd better ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... scarcely perceptible gesture that the trouble was in the, house, and made room for Hawkins to pass. Then he put his face in his hands again and rocked himself about as one suffering a grief that is too deep to find help in moan ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rich and spacious sala of his Tondo house, Capitan Tinong was seated in a wide armchair, rubbing his hands in a gesture of despair over his face and the nape of his neck, while his wife, Capitana Tinchang, was weeping and preaching to him. From the corner their two daughters listened silently and stupidly, yet ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... had a single little gesture of the hand with which she dismissed all her waiting-women. She stood alone in the inner doorway with the Lady Cicely and the Lady Rochford behind her. The Lady Rochford wrung her gouty hands; the Lady Cicely set back her head ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... of feeling, and of will, which we rightly name the higher faculties, are not excluded from this classification, inasmuch as to every one but the subject of them, they are known only as transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction is but a transitory change in the relative positions of the parts of a muscle. But the scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of the highest ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Thereafter, with a gesture of disdain, this man of the abnormally broad nose, eyes floating in fat, and flaxen head shaped like a flounder's, resumes his way towards the porch of the church. As for the boy, he wipes his nose and follows him while the dog sniffs at our legs, yawns, and stretches ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... the cigars and went on to tell him of all that had happened since the murder of Crone. He was a good listener—he took in every detail, every point, quietly smoking while I talked, and never interrupting me. And when I had made an end, he threw up his head with a significant gesture ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... but that his faltering hand described circle after circle in the air until his followers understood the meaning. In the vernacular the name of the great viceroy and the word for circle have the same sound; the gesture signified that the dying monarch's last wish was revenge on the man who had ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... harboring militants and arms smuggling; in an attempt to improve relations afer unilaterally imposing a visa requirement on Algerians in the early 1990s, Morocco lifted the requirement in mid-2004 - a gesture not reciprocated by Algeria; Algeria remains concerned about armed bandits operating throughout the Sahel who sometimes destabilize southern Algerian towns; dormant disputes include Libyan claims of about 32,000 sq km still ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... much of the Cardinal; Although he is a holy churchman, and I quite admit his dulness. Well, sir, from now We count you of our household [He holds out his hand for GUIDO to kiss. GUIDO starts back in horror, but at a gesture from COUNT MORANZONE, kneels and kisses it.] We will see That you are furnished with such equipage As doth befit ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... manager, struggles with journalists; all of which require another twelve hours to the day. But even so far, nothing has been said of the art of acting, the expression of passion, the practice of positions and gesture, the minute care and watchfulness required on the stage, where a thousand opera-glasses are ready to detect a flaw,—labors which consumed the life and thought of Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, Clairon, Champmesle. ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... pointed across the hills and grinned. That grin went straight to my heart. Mechanically I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it. No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning of the gesture. He went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccountably familiar. It was the whooping ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... returned he, bowing slightly and drawing himself up with a proud yet injured air. Hattersley laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder. Moving from under his hand with a gesture of insulted dignity, Mr. Hargrave took himself away to the other end of ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... angry gesture Bar Shalmon stopped the captain, but he was sorely troubled. He recalled now that his father had often spoken mysteriously of foreign lands, and he wondered, indeed, whether Mar Shalmon could have been in his proper senses not to have breathed a word of his riches abroad. For days he discussed ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... paled by years of ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod, called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot, withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those corpulent little Breezes whom the old masters are so fond of depicting attendant upon the flight of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... little knew as I was looking at her, at the sound of a strange step. But hoo's come at last,—and hoo's welcome, as long as hoo'll keep from preaching on what hoo knows nought about.' Bessy had been watching Margaret's face; she half sate up to speak now, laying her hand on Margaret's arm with a gesture of entreaty. 'Don't be vexed wi' him—there's many a one thinks like him; many and many a one here. If yo' could hear them speak, yo'd not be shocked at him; he's a rare good man, is father—but oh!' said she, falling back in despair, 'what he says at times makes ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... thank you for many kindnesses, and for real patience," said Peter. He waved his hand at the dusty store in a wide-flung gesture of ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... and suited the gesture to the word. He seized the Eagle and advanced a step and those who watched him so keenly noticed how he trembled. It was to him as if the Emperor were there again. Some mystic aura of his mighty presence seemed to overhang the ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to ratify the queen's wishes," replied Robert, handing her the parchment with an imperious gesture: "you need only speak to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... graceful and brilliant creature he seemed to my boyish eyes, when I first saw him in 1867, nor how unlike what one had imagined a Head-master to be. He was then just thirty-four and looked much younger than he was. Gracefulness is the idea which I specially connect with him. He was graceful in shape, gesture, and carriage; graceful in manners and ways, graceful in scholarship, graceful in writing, pre-eminently graceful in speech. It was his custom from time to time, if any peculiar enormity displayed itself in the school, to call us all together in the Speech-Room, and give us ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... there alone, standing beside his desk. The curtains of his window were drawn and pinned together, and at his elbow was an unlighted lamp of violet-coloured glass. Narkom turned as his visitor entered and made an open-handed gesture toward something which lay ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... an impatient gesture. Every sentence led the florid practitioner farther and farther into the infinite. Another time the young surgeon would have derived a wicked satisfaction from driving the doctor around the field in his argument. To-day the world, life, was amove, and more important matters waited in the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... speak, but the tremendous blow and the baronet's gesture choked him. At the door he made another effort which shook the rolls of his loose skin pitiably. An impatient signal sent him out dumb,—and Raynham was quit of the one believer in the Great ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... painful to me than to come across virtue in a person in whom I have never previously suspected its existence," said Esme, putting down his tea-cup with a graceful gesture of abnegation. "It is like finding a needle in a bundle of hay. It pricks you. If we have virtue we should warn people of it. I once knew a woman who fell down dead because she found a live mouse in the pocket of her gown. A live virtue is like a live mouse. Indeed the surprises of virtue are ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... knee. The young man stood there motionless, bareheaded, his cap in his hand. There was a flash and a loud report; and the bullet cut the foliage behind him, a little nearer than he expected. He bowed low to her, and she, rising with an angry gesture, flung the weapon ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... "Sure." He fished in his pockets. "You dropped your notebook, though, and I came to give it back to you." He located the object he was hunting for and brought it out with the triumphant gesture of a man displaying the head of a dragon he has slain. "Here," he said, ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... not, child," and Mr. Brooke stretched out his hand, and drew her to him with a caressing gesture. "No: I like to have you here. But I thought you wanted to ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and this belief often rests on mere vanity, and often on the truth of the supposition. There are many men who systematically affect outward indifference in order to make themselves interesting in the eyes of the other sex, allowing a word, a look, a gesture, to betray at stated intervals that they are not indifferent to the one woman whose love they covet. They give these signs with the utmost skill and with a strange, calculating avarice. Women watch such men jealously from a distance, ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... persuadable, though dreadfully ill of rheumatism. They rouse Comte Maurice; and Valori, by this Comte's caprices, is driven out of patience. "He talked with a flippant sophistry, almost with an insolence" says Valori; "nay, at last, he made me a gesture in speaking,"—what gesture, thumb to nose, or what, the shuddering imagination dare not guess! But Valori, nettled to the quick, "repeated it," and otherwise gave him as good as he brought. "He ended by a gesture which ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... castle-home, can look upon the very spot on which the Conqueror stepped ashore. Presently he takes you to see the marks of the intrenchment, plainly visible to this day. With heightened colour and dramatic gesture the belted Earl tells how, on the fourth night after the arrival of the Roman fleet, that great storm which ever comes to Britain's aid in such emergencies, arose, wrecking J. CAESAR'S galleys, and driving them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... of the group gave a disdainful, incredulous gesture, but the others pulled him by the sleeve and argued with him in low tones and a strange tongue, which Adone thought was German. The leader of the group was a small man with a keen and mobile face and piercing eyes; he did not yield easily to ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... head, and laid his hand upon his lips. Then, by a gesture which I understood, he counselled that we should remain quiet for a short time, and see how ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... weather bow," "Another island ahead," "Ice on the lee bow," and so on. Evening at length approached. Walter for the first time became aware of the perilous position in which the ship was placed; yet his father stood calm and unmoved, as he had ever been, and not by look or gesture did he betray what he must have felt; indeed, he had too long been inured to peril of all sorts to be moved as those are who first experience it. Gradually, however, the sea began to go down and the wind to decrease, shifting more to the southward. A clear space appearing, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... antagonism in him had made itself felt; now there was only gentleness, as of a man too weary to fight longer. Helen's heart swelled with pity, and tenderness, and love. His weakness affected her as had never his strength. With an involuntary gesture of sympathy she placed her hand ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... such power and brilliancy that Henry Wilson, afterward Vice President, declared him "the bright particular star of the revolt."[372] He was not an impassioned orator. He spoke deliberately, and rarely with animation or with gesture; and his voice, high pitched and penetrating, was neither mellow nor melodious. But he was marvellously pleasing. His perennial wit kept his audiences expectant, and his compact, forceful utterances seemed to break the argument of an opponent as a hammer shatters a pane of glass. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... which were supported on a raised cushion before her. Her looks seemed to say, 'Come here, and let us have some conversation together;' and, with a bow of silent excuse to my little companion, I went across to the lame old lady. She acknowledged my coming with the prettiest gesture of thanks possible; and, half apologetically, said, 'It is a little dull to be unable to move about on such evenings as this; but it is a just punishment to me for my early vanities. My poor feet, that ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... laugh but even gave up that little gesture. "Another operation? No, it can't make ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner
... giving him the inharmonious title of "chief of a half-brigade" was one of those soldiers who, in critical moments, cannot be caught by the charms of a landscape, were they even those of a terrestrial paradise. He shook his head with an impatient gesture and contracted the thick, black eyebrows which gave so stern an ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... grotesque and mechanical jauntiness. There are some powerful and sinister passages in it, the final gesture, with its sudden tonic minor chord, capping the ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... it should have a fair trial, and I therefore assured these women that they could serve or not, as they chose; that if they chose to serve, the Court would secure to them the most respectful consideration and deference, and protect them from insult in word or gesture, and from everything which might offend a modest and virtuous woman in any of the walks of life in which the good and true women of our country have ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various |
