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Stirring   /stˈərɪŋ/   Listen
Stirring

adjective
1.
Capable of arousing enthusiasm or excitement.  Synonym: rousing.  "Stirring events such as wars and rescues"
2.
Exciting strong but not unpleasant emotions.  Synonym: soul-stirring.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Stirring" Quotes from Famous Books



... best moment,—well dressed enough to be pleased with herself, not so resplendent as to be a show and a sensation, with those varied outside influences which set vibrating the harmonic notes of her nature stirring in the air about her, and what has social life to compare with one of those vital interchanges of thought and feeling with her that make an hour memorable? What can equal her tact, her delicacy, her ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... implicated in that affair; he had at least given shelter in his chateau at Anet to all the accomplices of his son; and, forced to quit France to avoid the arrest with which he was threatened, he had wandered for several years through Italy and England, everywhere stirring up enemies against the Cardinal. The latter saw clearly that it was better to acquire a son of Henry the Fourth at a given price, than to prosecute him without the slightest advantage. After all, what did the Duke desire, and what were his demands when Mazarin ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... seen a soul-stirring sight. Of a sudden, a mass of Cuirassiers rushed forth from the invaders' ranks, flung itself uphill, and girdled the grim earthwork with a stream of flashing steel There, for a brief space, it was stayed by the tough Muscovite lines, until another billow of horsemen, marshalled by Grouchy ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... them early astir, to greet the glory of June sunlight over the shoulder of Storm King. A perfect morning, if ever any one was perfect since the world began—soft airs stirring in the forest, golden robins' full-throated song, the melody of the scarlet tropic birds they had named "fire-birds" for want of any more descriptive title, the chatter of gray squirrels on the branches overhead, all blent, under a sky of wondrous azure, to tell them of life, full ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... Pointe. Mr. S. Hall, the head of that Mission, writes (Oct. 12th): "I am glad that the providence of God directed (him) this way, and trust his coming into this region will be for the interest of Zion's Kingdom here. He appears to be a man of faith and prayer. I trust he will be the means of stirring up to more diligence in the service of our Master." What greater aid could be given to a lone far off Indian mission, than "a man of faith and prayer." When an observer in the vast panorama of the West and North has seen a poor ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... the drill husbandry is owing, in a great measure, to its enabling you to stir up the soil well during the progress of your crop; which stirring up is of no value beyond its effects in more minutely pulverizing the soil, increasing, as far as possible, the size and ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... downwards; his hands and his feet are bound separately, with strong cords, to each of the stakes, so far apart that his arms and legs, stretched in the form of St. Andrew's cross, give the poor wretch no chance of stirring. Then the executioner, who is ordinarily a negro, armed with the long whip of a coachman, strikes upon the reins and thighs. The crack of his whip resounds afar, like that of an angry cartman beating his horses. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... read a lesson to the crowd on the uselessness to unrepentant sinners of the plenary indulgences, for the sake of which they were wending their way to the Martyr's shrine. The rage of the multitude found a mouthpiece in a soldier, who loudly upbraided the Bishop for stirring up the people against St. Thomas, and warned him that a shameful death would befall him in consequence. The multitude shouted Amen—and one is left to wonder whether any of the pious pilgrims who resented Bishop Sudbury's manly truthfulness, swelled the ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... were feeding in the scant slanting shade of the dunes, Yvonne fell asleep. She lay out straight upon her back, her brown legs crossed, one wrist over her eyes. She slept so soundly that neither the breeze that had sprung up from the northeast, stirring with every fresh puff the stray locks about her small ears, or the sharp barking of a dog hunting rabbits for himself over the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of being grasped ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... die in peace," sank into insensibility, and in a short time, on the ground of his victory which for all time was to influence the destinies of mankind, gave up his life contentedly at the very moment, to quote Pitt's stirring eulogy, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... and ugly with the marks of shot and shell, And we knew that British Tommy had a stirring tale to tell, So we asked him where he got it and what disarranged his face, And he answered, blushing scarlet: "In a nawsty ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... opening of the Virginia convention, and in view of the possible defeat of his demand for amendments, Patrick Henry had formed a clear outline of this policy, even to the extent of organizing throughout the State local societies for stirring up, and for keeping up, the needed agitation. All this is made evident by an important letter written by him to General John Lamb of New York, and dated at Richmond, June 9, 1788,—when the convention had been in session ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... passed away, and it was now past twelve; the night was remarkably calm, scarce a breath stirring, so that any sound, such as that produced by the rapid movement of a vehicle, would have been audible at a considerable distance. For some such sound I was ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... Henry against Henry II. the castles of Tutbury and Duffield were held against the king, and in the civil wars of John's reign Bolsover and Peak Castles were garrisoned by the rebellious barons. In the Barons' War of the reign of Henry III. the earl of Derby was active in stirring up feeling in the county against the king, and in 1266 assembled a considerable force, which was defeated by the king's party at Chesterfield. At the time of the Wars of the Roses discontent was rife in Derbyshire, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... a stirring in the grass near the track. A glimpse of an animal that looked something like a fox and something like a wolf, and wasn't either one, a wild animal that was sneaking around the train for the odd bits of food that were sometimes left in its wake. As the pungent ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... Marshall, Kent, and others, it is not easy to conjecture to what elevated point he might have risen; but such was not his destiny; the bent of his genius, which had received its inclination at the stirring period of the world when he entered into active life, was military. But to show his persevering industry in his practice as a lawyer, and his power of enduring fatigue, even when almost an octogenarian, the following letter, written ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... people who possess this magnetic power. The moment we come into their presence we have a sense of enlargement. They unlock within us possibilities of which we previously had no conception. Our horizon broadens; we feel a new power stirring through all our being; we experience a sense of relief, as if a great weight which long had pressed upon us had ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged serpents. That's his hump. There, there, give it to him! whispered Starbuck. A short rushing sound leaped out ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... reverse some past events and to fling back into the heart of Virginia and Maryland their Sam Wards, Highland Garnets, J.W. Penningtons, Frederick Douglasses, and the twenty thousand who now shout hosannas in Canada—and we would soon see some stirring in the direction of Ubi Patria, ibi Libertas.—Anglo-African ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... Hood, "The Pauper's Christmas Carol," in seven stanzas; but it was entirely overshadowed and eclipsed by its fellow-song, so that it lay, as it has done for the most part since, almost unknown, unhonoured, and unsung. Yet it was as ringing and true as any of Jerrold's most stirring efforts in his championship of the poor. But the two friends were essentially different in their treatment and methods. Hood's satire was never personal, as Jerrold's was; and, unlike Jerrold, Hood would never tolerate the idea, much less practise it, of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... active in his department as I was in mine, and we soon had the Barbara ready for sea with a tolerably good crew. In those stirring days of warfare it was no easy thing to man a merchantman well, but Captain Hassall had found several men who had sailed with him on previous voyages, and they without difficulty persuaded others to ship on ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... bridge takes a long stride over the Grannoch lane, there was now a great black pot a-swing above a blinking pale fire of peats and fir-branches, and a couple of great tubs set close together on stones which he had not seen before. There was, too, a ripple of girls' laughter, which sent a strange stirring of excitement along the nerves of the young man. He gathered his books to move away; but on second thoughts, looking through the long, swaying tendrils of the broom under which he sat, he resolved to remain. After all, ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... been chiefly an agricultural region, and has adhered to conservative habits of thought. While various movements in theology, philosophy, and literature were stirring New England, the South pursued the even tenor of its way. Of all parts of our country, it has been most tenacious of old customs and beliefs. Before the Civil War the cultivated classes of the Southern states found their ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... arm it is!" exclaimed the widow. "And no wonder, or how would you be a terror to men? You naughty boy, to think of stirring! Here you'll lie." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... suddenly, began to stretch, and sat bolt upright in bed, staring wildly about the room. Pale morning sunlight drifted in the window. Downstairs he heard Ellie stirring in the kitchen. ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse

... introducing Lucy to our resident magistrate he said she was the coolest hand he had ever known. It was a bad case. It had ten per cent. too much of this, and fifteen per cent. too much of that, and the rest was the cheapest margarine and stirring. There wasn't a cow within five miles of her place and he didn't believe she had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various

... reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart felt ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... the creek where he had met with his stirring adventure the day before, he could not help smiling. It had shrunk to its usual volume, and was winding along as lazily as usual, the only sign of the violent freshet being the debris left along the bank and the slightly roiled appearance of ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... open a sugar storehouse. They mixed a barrel of sugar with one of rum, killed a hog, poured in his blood, added gunpowder, and drank the compound—to make them brave. Then with barrels of rum and sugar they changed a whole cistern of water into punch, stirring it with their sharpened hoes, dipping it out with huge sugar-boiler ladles, and ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... A gentle air was stirring the swell in the east, which soon filled our sail. We kept the boat's head away until she pointed in the direction of the African cape. And so we sailed away, with the echoes of that villain's voice ringing in our ears, calling forth fierce curses ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... again. This was Olive's opportunity. From the proximity of the drawing-room to the hall-door it was impossible for her to open it without being heard; the kitchen-door was equally, even more, dangerous, and she could hear the servants stirring in the passages; there was no safe way of getting out of the house ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... see the beginning of better times for his country. One of the first indications of that national awakening was the right spirit in which the public, for the most part, received Lord Wolseley's stirring appeal at the close of 1888, and Yule was so much struck by the parallelism between Lord Wolseley's warning and some words of his own contained in the pseudo-Polo fragment (see above, end of Preface), that he sent Lord Wolseley ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... for the baneful. Biography of the heroic type, exploration, adventure and charming romances like the "Waverley Novels" will help to lay sane and pure foundations of character. The missionary boards are now putting out books as thrilling and stirring in their situations as any yellow-backed novel. These the children devour and the spiritual heroism makes its silent appeal along with ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... kept his bed on Saturday morning. My room was close to the ancient tower, left standing in the parish churchyard; and, at five o'clock, the beautiful bells of St Marie's struck up, filling my little chamber with that heart-stirring music, which, as somebody has well said, "sounds like a voice from the middle ages." I could not make out what all this early melody meant; for I had forgotten that it was the Queen's birthday. The ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... loudest for crucifixion! Few of our commanders in the late war had bitterer evidence of this than McClellan. Idolized while victorious, he was vituperated with corresponding violence the instant fortune showed signs of wavering in her fidelity. At this distance from those stirring times we can easily perceive that the idolatry and the abuse were alike unjust and even ridiculous; the same wisdom that pronounces it unsafe to praise a man until death has set the seal to his earthly reputation, deems it no less a folly to bestow adulation ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... that, instead of cooling down, he seemed to grow more furious than ever. I had taken out my handkerchief to wipe the perspiration off my face. It was as hot as an oven where I sat. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the rays of the sun, glaring right down and then reflecting up again from the white clay, brought the perspiration out of me in streams. Every minute I was obliged to rub my eyes clear of it with ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... before I could get it out of my mind that some one had been cut from ear to ear. Then I remembered that they had told me that rowdy parties were often boating on the water above the first dam, as the weather grew warmer, and when I listened and heard no sound of any one else in the house stirring, I began to think that my half-sleepy ears had exaggerated the sounds. And then, just as I was about to close the window, a cloud rolled off the moon, and for a second or two there was a great bath of light on the slope, and back of the stable, among the old gnarled apple ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... chanced, that on this particular day, Sampson had neglected to pay his customary visit to the inn, an omission which was owing rather to the hurry and excitement occasioned by the stirring events of the morning, than to any wilful neglect of his steed. Nor was it until some hours after dark that, seized with a sudden fit of caressing Silvertail, whose glossy neck he patted, until the tears of warm ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... the hills, with nobody to talk to. But after a time you come to see a lot just here in this mite of a village. One's glasses become adjusted, as the doctor says, and you can see what you have never taken the time to see before. There's a stirring world up here on Grosvenor Flat! And the country is so lovely,—bigger and sterner than my old Virginia hills, but not ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... similar devoted type in Paris to work from the French end, and we should have a triumvirate that might achieve the impossible. God can use the foolish of this world to confound the wise—the wise being mostly engaged in stirring up new quarrels. Somehow the desirable Frenchman ready to devote his life to that cause was not forthcoming—and that deficiency I suppose was symptomatic of the disease. For my part, I have made my journey of Europe and taken a good look at that which it is proposed to reconcile. At the end I came ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... largely stored, had a certain unity of culture, which gave it stability and individualized its operations. Travels, voyages, narratives of heroic adventure, biographies of great men, had made the favourite pasture of his enthusiasm. To this was added the more stirring, and, perhaps, the more genuine order of poets who make you feel and glow, rather than doubt and ponder. He knew at least enough of Greek to enjoy old Homer; and if he could have come but ill through a college examination into Aeschylus and Sophocles, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... The stirring appeals of the great orator at first had little effect. There were many friends of Philip in the Greek states, even in Athens itself. When, however, Philip entered central Greece and threatened the independence ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... own works, not through books; he attacked, like Bacon, the dead faith in Aristotle, that instead of following his energetic spirit of research, lapsed into blind idolatry. Campanella strenuously urged that men should reform all sciences by following Nature and the books of God. He had been stirring in this way for ten years, when there arose in Calabria a conspiracy against the Spanish rule. Campanella, who was an Italian patriot was seized and sent to Naples. The Spanish inquisition joined in attack on him. He was accused of books he had not written and of opinions ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... my visitor of the night. As I approached her, the moon shone out again. She seemed all, as it were, spun out of half-transparent, milky mist,—through her face I could see a branch faintly stirring in the wind; only the hair and eyes were a little dark, and on one of the fingers of her clasped hands a slender ring shone with a gleam of pale gold. I stood still before her, and tried to speak; but the voice died away in my throat, though it was no longer ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... common in the warm regions of South America, where it inhabits the forests, leading a solitary life, and seldom stirring from its retreat during the day, which it passes in a state of tranquil slumber. During the night, its season of activity, it wanders forth in search of food, which consists of water-melons, gourds, young shoots of brushwood, &c.; but, like the hog, it is not very particular in its diet. Its senses ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... table, with a bundle of clothes and a few other articles in his hand, he slipped silently downstairs, thankful to find that his father was not yet stirring. Filling his pocket with some bread and cheese from the larder, he hurried out by the back door, which was not likely to be opened for some time, and made his way by by-paths in the direction of Keyhaven. He felt, it must ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.' Your first Military Escort has exploded self-destructive; and all Military Escorts, and a suspicious Country will now be up, explosive; comparable not to victorious thunder. Comparable, say rather, to the first stirring of an Alpine Avalanche; which, once stir it, as here at Sainte-Menehould, will spread,—all round, and on and on, as far as Stenai; thundering with wild ruin, till Patriot Villagers, Peasantry, Military Escorts, new Berline and Royalty are ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... by the fire, stirring up the coals with a pair of tongs. Every now and then, he would shrug his shoulders, like a man resigned to everything he heard, and had no answer, except, "I cannot help it. I can do ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... on Hugh Peters' trial, twenty years afterwards, that he had said his work, out of New England, was, "to promote the interest of the Reformation, by stirring up the war and driving it on." He was Cromwell's favourite chaplain, and preached before the Court that tried King Charles I., urging the condemnation and execution of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... balls at Clankwood were naturally in great demand throughout the county, for nowhere were noblemen so numerous and divinities so tangible. Carriages and pairs rolled up one after another, the mansion glittered with lights, the strains of the band could be heard loud and stirring or low and ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... Never were there such stirring times as these, never since the first tick of time have the hours been so crowded! Never before did so many men live nobly or die bravely. The young knights from many lands are seeking the Holy Grail, and finding it in forgetfulness of self and in sacrifice for their fellows. You and I are ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... stirring, "we are talking about Grace Noir. You say you don't want her; you've already drawn yourself out. That leaves her to poor Bob—he'll have to take her, unless the Joker gets the lady—the Joker ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... the subject matter of what we read. Nevertheless it is very stimulating to hear a selection well read, not because a model is thus supplied for our imitation, but because we get a grasp of the selection as a whole, and because the voice, which possesses great power in stirring the imagination and the feelings, thus prepares within us the mental and emotional state necessary ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... the old priest without looking up from his paper. "Early as it is you must be stirring if you would be clear of Dunwich by daybreak and keep a whole skin. I have set a taper in my sleeping-closet yonder, and there you'll find water to wash with and a stool to kneel on for your prayers, neither of which neglect, since ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... both most virtuous and most devout, were professed in one of the convents, he performing the ceremony, and I, by his desire, giving the exhortation. While preaching, although I said nothing to my mind very heart-stirring, I noticed that a venerable Priest who was present was so much affected as to attract the attention of everyone. After the ceremony, when we were breakfasting with the holy Bishop, the Priest being also at table, I asked ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... to Silvermills; the path came past the village with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there was nobody stirring. Here was my advantage, here was just such a conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west selvage, whence I could again ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... (1652-1685), author of "Venice Preserved," the most popular post-Shakespearian tragedy of the English stage. Hazlitt notes in this play a "power of rivetting breathless attention, and stirring the deepest yearnings of affection.... The awful suspense of the situations, the conflict of duties and passions, the intimate bonds that unite the characters together, and that are violently rent asunder like the parting of soul and body, the solemn march of the tragical events to the fatal ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... on their souls, and the injury they had done to his cause. Their prayers were heard. A pungent sorrow for their former sinful lives, was felt and expressed by old and young; this was followed by a general awakening among the children, which again had a powerful effect in stirring up the more advanced to seek a closer union with Christ, and to strive more earnestly after holiness. Children were now observed to retire to mountains and to vallies, where, on their knees alone, and in groupes, they besought the Saviour with tears to have ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... knew or did not know. If I should be jostled out of my drowsiness, who can tell what may be given me to see, to say, or to do? Let us make ready and get upon some high ground from which we may overlook the work of the world; for the secret of all mastery is dormant, yet breathing and stirring in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... they did not both cease invading his rights. But the people of Georgia were better balanced than their Governor. Under the leadership of such men as Cobb they rose to the occasion and did their part in what proved a vain attempt to conduct a "people's war." Their delegation at Richmond sent out a stirring appeal assuring them that Davis was doing for them all it was possible to do. "Let every man fly to arms," said the appeal. "Remove your negroes, horses, cattle, and provisions from before Sherman's army, and burn ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... little time for the solving of riddles. There was work to be done, work, which in these stirring times, might perhaps help ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... household and the friends who had gathered to celebrate and offer thanks at the Yuletide season, with all listening eagerly, young Gabriel Arthur, though unable to bring back any written record, told many a stirring tale. A swig of wine may have spurred the telling of how he had been captured by the Shawnees (in Ohio), of how he had been surrounded by a wild, shouting tribe who tied him to a stake and were about to put a flaming torch to his feet when he thought of a way to save his life. They were charmed ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... by stirring slaked lime with water and allowing the mixture to settle. Shake up some clear lime-water with a jar of the gas. Pupils will be made to understand that the milky colour will in future be considered the test ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... does not love Bible Stories? Even the words themselves bring back memories of past years, when, as children, we listened to stirring tales of those men and women of old whose names are so familiar, and of whom we were then first taught. Crude in style perhaps many of the stories were, but none the less interesting. Perhaps there were things we could ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff

... he know that he was already immortal? Was he—and are we— fallen angels, working our way back to our first estate through many trials and much suffering? Doctor Roslyn talked to me of these things till I thought I felt wings stirring within me. Wings! Wings! Wings to fly away and be at rest. Wings! they have been the dream of every race and every age. Are they a memory of our past greatness, for they haunt us, and draw us on and on, and higher and higher?—but why do you ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... alligator, when the thought of fiddlers, the frisking, tempting inimitable fiddlers, came to my mind so easily, that I was vexed so evident a thing could have been overlooked. At that moment Bob was stirring up the bear with a long pole. 'Bob,' said I, shouting across the yard, 'Bob! fiddlers!' 'Eh?' said Bob. 'Fiddlers, Sir, fiddlers, you rogue; run and get a bucket, a whole bucket full.' The fiddlers were soon ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... notwithstanding his charity, would have given his vote as freely as ever he did at an election, that any other house in the kingdom should have quiet possession of his guest) answered, "My dear, I am not to blame; he was brought hither by the stage-coach, and Betty had put him to bed before I was stirring."—"I'll Betty her," says she.—At which, with half her garments on, the other half under her arm, she sallied out in quest of the unfortunate Betty, whilst Tow-wouse and the surgeon went to pay a visit to poor Joseph, and inquire into ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... necessarily and naturally flows from his Omnipresence; he cannot but be conscious of every Motion that arises in the whole material World, which he thus essentially pervades, and of every Thought that is stirring in the intellectual World, to every Part of which he is thus intimately united. Several Moralists have considered the Creation as the Temple of God, which he has built with his own Hands, and which is filled with his Presence. Others have considered infinite Space as the Receptacle, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the untasted meat upon the ground, and his heart leaped to his lips, for surely something at last was stirring the waters! The oily surface had broken into circles; there was a movement, a little splash, a sudden vision of something black. A moment or two he sat breathlessly gazing; and then—was he asleep, or was he waking, and really saw it?—he saw above ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... her eyes. The spell of summer was in the air, the spell of life was stirring slowly in her ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... attitude towards men and matters reminds me of that august body. Anyone ignorant of recent inventions might be excused for thinking that The Paravane Adventure (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is the title of a stirring piece of sensational fiction. But fiction it is not, though in some of its disclosures it may be considered sensational enough. In this history of the invention of the Paravane Mr. CORNFORD hurls a lot of well-directed bricks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various

... within coo-ee in these wilds, and you must remember that your Maori Johnny happens to be Horoeka the tohunga (tohunga wizard priest), who has got the Aohanga Maoris at his beck and call. The surveyors say he is stirring up his tribe to make trouble over the survey of the Ngotu block, and they had some hair-raising stories to tell me of his superstitious cruelty. He is really half-crazed with fanaticism, they say, and if you bump up against any of his rotten notions, he'll stick at nothing in the way of vengeance. ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... this differs from the blue Mediterranean we saw a fortnight ago when riding from Genoa to Leghorn, under that cloudless sky of blue; in that stirring breeze, and an almost tropical temperature, tho it was late in December; along that rocky, tunnel-pierced coast, with deep olive groves bordering the way; the sea a boundless vision of water moving and resounding against the shore; whitecaps everywhere visible ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... degree of charitable consideration, because he labors hard for the public entertainment, and draws heavily on the treasures of his imagination, in order to supply the continual demands of the reading community. When the author has led a life of stirring adventure, his history becomes one of extraordinary and thrilling interest. I flatter myself that this narrative will be found worthy ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... things. He stared for a moment hypnotically on the incongruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he roused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continued saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had gone from his utterance, and the old man was stirring restlessly as though about to bring the conference to a close. Warned by this incident, he forced his whole powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but he must continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all the forces of ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... by the death of the tyrant! It is true that all Paris was astir at daybreak; that a sense of national vengeance seemed to pervade the vast masses that filled the streets, which now were scenes of the most exciting emotion. I can only account for the strange indifference that I felt about these stirring themes, by the frequency with which similar, or what, to me, at least, appeared similar scenes had already passed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... embracing six volumes, on which recent critics have bestowed unbounded praise, Swinburne in particular; he died in Florence separated from his family, and dependent on it there for six years; Carlyle visited him at Bath in 1850, and found him "stirring company; a proud, irascible, trenchant, yet generous, veracious, and very dignified old man; quite a ducal or royal man in the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... with Ans?" he inquired, looking down into the little tearful face with a strange stirring in his bachelor heart. "I believe ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... little Unitarian chapel was for a time more snuffed out than ever, a fate which this time it shared dismally with the parish church. As generally happened, however, in those days, the proceedings at this new and splendid St. Wilfrid's were not long in stirring up the Protestantism of the British rough,—the said Protestantism being always one of the finest excuses for brickbats of which the modern cockney is master. The parish lapsed into a state of private war—hectic clergy heading exasperated processions or intoning defiant Litanies ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... escape from the confusion and perplexity into which he had been plunged by the horrible events of the night, Chichester passed out into the yard, and stood bareheaded in the cool wind that was faintly stirring among the trees. The stars shone remote and tranquil, and the serenity of the mountain, the awful silence that seemed to be, not the absence of sound, but the presence of some spiritual entity, gave assurance of peace. Out there, in the cold air, or in the wide skies, or ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... to compose a narrative of its principal incidents, from the historical information which we possess, especially if aided by an examination of the ground. But it is far better to adopt the spirit-stirring words of the old chroniclers, who wrote while the recollections of the battle were yet fresh, and while the feelings and prejudices of the combatants yet glowed in the bosoms of their near descendants. Robert Wace, the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... May and June flew by as if on golden wings. The youths of Oxford, engrossed in study and in merry pastimes, seemed for a while to have cast away those graver thoughts which had been stirring them of late; or at least, if the current still ran, it seemed for the time being to run in silence. Perhaps the knowledge that the cardinal had set himself to the task of nipping in the bud the dangerous growth of incipient ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... on to better team work and to victory. The attendants at the hospital told us later that they never had had such a lively patient. He kept things stirring from start to finish of the gridiron battle. As the reports of the game were brought to him, he joined in the ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... of fortifications presented a stirring appearance that morning. The watch-fires that had illuminated the scene during the night were dying out, the red embers paling under the rays of the rising sun. From a wide circle surrounding the city the people had come in—many were accompanied ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... the gallant; let us hear him speak. What! can so young a man begin to prick?— Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects, And all the trouble thou hast ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... continued hostilities, stirring up the Indians and causing no end of trouble. His Majesty's government became sufficiently exercised to dispatch an officer of the line, Major General Edward Braddock, two warships in which were stowed a fine arsenal of powder, rifles, and cannon, and two regiments ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... in Leo's room, but he slept through it like the dead, never once stirring. I also slept fairly well, as, indeed, I needed to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all the horrors and wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was haunted by that frightful piece of diablerie by which Ayesha left her finger-marks upon her rival's hair. There was ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... man on watch, riding round them, strikes up “Bold Jack Donahoo” to steady their nerves a little. Drovers know that they must not sneak quietly about restless cattle—it is better to sing to them and let them know that someone is stirring and watching; and many a mob of wild, pike-horned Queensland cattle, half inclined to stampede, has listened contentedly to the “Wild Colonial Boy” droned out in true bush fashion till the daylight began to break and the mob was safe for another ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... to speak, and yet something urged and drove him to say out all that was stirring his soul. If any one of all those grave men who despised the world and among whom he had grown up, could ever understand him, he knew well that it would be Paulus; Paulus whose rough beard he had pulled ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Harold Bird. "Why, I was reading about you only yesterday, in the newspaper. You are the young fellows who helped to round up that gang of counterfeiters at Red Rock ranch. It was certainly a stirring piece of work. You deserve a great deal of credit." And then the young ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield

... Then there was a stirring on the floor, a creaking of the ancient joists. It was Kit putting on his clothes. He always knew where each article lay—dark or shine, it made no matter to him. He had not an embarrassment of apparel. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... himself that not a soul in England suspected the truth, for, by the Press, he had long ago been declared to be a patriotic Briton, because in his stirring public speeches, when he had put up for Parliament after the armistice, there was always a ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's—March 3rd—the Dean preached for the last time upon this subject in Westminster Abbey. After stirring references to the wonderful scene of national enthusiasm lately witnessed and to the gathering in St. Paul's Cathedral of representatives of every creed and religious division in Great Britain (except those of one ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... which we had at several times given our artificer to make baubles with. And now we talked of going forward to the coast to put an end to our journey; but our guide laughed at us then. "Nay, you can't go now," says he, "for the rainy season begins next month, and there will be no stirring then." This we found, indeed, reasonable, so we resolved to furnish ourselves with provisions, that we might not be obliged to go abroad too much in the rain, and we spread ourselves some one way and some another, as far as we cared to venture, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... trees, lying in what he calls a "promiscuous manner," formed an almost impenetrable abatis. An escaped prisoner told him that the French were coming to visit him with fourteen thousand men;[442] but Montcalm thought no more of stirring than Loudon himself; and each stood watching the other, with the lake between them, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... nothing stirring, and no sound except the drip, drop, drop, drip, of water trickling ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... has the story of this defeat been told, yet is the relation always stirring, always exciting, and the remainder full of romance and glory to all parties concerned. The only blot upon the ermine is, that the valorous boy who so distinguished himself should, a few years later, forget the lesson of honour and magnanimity he then learnt, and, by his disgraceful ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... western mind ought to make allowance for the fact. Sometimes we can discern in scripture records of an event, which to the stolid western imagination seems utterly incredible, a genuine historical truth. Such, for instance, are the passage of the Red Sea—a stirring and dramatic incident, thoroughly well told—and Joshua commanding the sun and moon to stand still. In the latter case we have two lines of poetry from a book which has been lost, and a comparison ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... silence there stole from the earth an uneasy sound as of some immense thing waking and stirring. Came a hissing note as of escaping steam. The tribes of the ape-men waited in silent rapture. Kirby saw Naida still looking down, and felt Ivana crouch against him, fainting. He held his rifle tighter, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... of the most fascinating romances of achievement under difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant endings, of stirring stories of struggles and triumphs. It gives inspiring stories of men and women who have brought great things to pass. It gives numerous examples of the triumph of mediocrity, showing how those of ordinary ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... most prominent nobles and retainers of the time, public men of the period and ambassadors of commerce. It is not surprising, therefore, that it figures in English history generally, and was particularly mentioned by Shakespeare. It certainly was the centre of many a stirring scene, and events of feasting and jollity, besides being a place where ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... soon found in the representative of the old family of the Nowels of Read, who, desirous of signalizing himself as an active and stirring justice, took up the case of these self-accusing culprits, for both made confessions when examined before him, with a vigour worthy of a better cause. On the 2nd April, 1612, he committed old Demdike, old Chattox, Alizon Device, and ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... me to call my scalp the king scalp, but no Indian will ever take it. Do you see something stirring down thar 'mong the little cedars? Young William, them glasses o' yourn ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... herself very comfortable on the verandah, and had no intention of stirring just yet. Go scrambling about over rocks, and tearing herself to pieces among bushes? Hardly. Besides, one glance had shown her that Professor Merryweather was uncommonly good-looking. She settled herself gracefully in her chair, and ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... gate, that was long and dark as a cave Bored out in the isles of the northland by the beat of the restless wave; And the noise of the winds was within it, and the sound of swords unseen, As the night when the host is stirring and the hearts of Kings are keen. But no man stayed or hindered, and the dusk place knew his smile, And into the court of the warriors he came forth after a while, And looked aloft to the hall-roof, high up and grey ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... had been regarding the sketches in silence, an uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction stirring in his mind. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... Crane, a Blackfoot warrior, painted by himself. These pictographs are very rude and are drawn after the style common among Plains Indians, but no doubt they were sufficiently lifelike to call up to the mind of the artist each detail of the stirring ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... into a school exhibition, our ears are deafened by declamation addressed to ambition. The boys have sought out from literature every stirring appeal to effort, and every extravagant promise of reward. The compositions of the girls are of the same general tone. We hear of "infinite yearnings," from the lips of girls who do not know enough to make a pudding, and of being polished "after the similitude of a palace" from those who do ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... a peculiar feature and rich with associations. Fleet Street, with its Temple, is not unworthy of being contiguous to the Strand. The fire of London has deprived us of the delight of a real old quarter of the city; but some bits remain, and everywhere there is a stirring multitude, and a great crush and crash of carts and wains. The Inns of Court, and the quarters in the vicinity of the port, Thames Street, Tower Hill, Billingsgate, Wapping, Rotherhithe, are the best parts of London; they are full of character: the buildings bear a nearer relation ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... The boy shed tears. If he had not gifts, he knew that he had personality, but there was something stirring within him that led his thoughts to seek the good ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... in the house, for not a servant as yet had thought of stirring. Eric pushed back the oak doors, which so effectually divided the nursery people ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... prairie schooners over the vast and desolate plains; the period of the Deadwood stage and the Pony Express; the making of homes in the face of fire and Indian massacre; United States cavalry on the firing-line, "Death to the Sioux!"—these are the great historic pictures of the Wild West, stirring, genuine, heroic. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... must have been some degree of sectional feeling among you," I said, more by way of stirring my old cattleman up than any nobler purpose; "coming some of you from the South, and others from the North, it would have been strange ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... that she detected the agreeable stirring of the brood of jealousy, and found it neither in her heart nor in her mind, but in the book of wishes, well known to the young where they write matter which may sometimes be independent of both those volcanic albums. Jealousy would have been a relief to her, a dear devil's aid. She studied the complexion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that "morality is not a method of happiness." The image in the mirrors in this tale produces a ghastly effect. I enjoyed the amateur anarchist, the English girl playing with bombs in The Informer; she is an admirable foil for the brooding bitterness of the ruined Royalist's daughter in that stirring South American tale, Gaspar Ruiz. Conrad knows this continent of half-baked civilisations; life grows there like rank vegetations. Nostromo is the most elaborate and dramatic study of the sort, and a wildly ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... into the story of the occupation of Rhodesia, which not only unfolds a stirring drama of development but discloses something of an epic of adventure. With most corporations it is an easy matter to get down to business once a charter is granted. It is only necessary to subscribe stock and then enter upon active operations, whether ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... be some slight and melancholy satisfaction to his sorrowing family, and his many friends, in the knowledge of the fact that Hobart Pasha, a short time before his death, had prepared for publication a memoir of his stirring life and adventures. The only fault, if fault there be, in this record, may lie in the circumstance that its readers may think it too brief. At all events, we shall be told what Hobart had been about ever since the year 1836. It is certain that he never was idle. Even before he had ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... held, which President Steyn opened with a manly speech, followed by a no less stirring one from our Commandant-General, both exhorting the burghers to do their duty towards their country and towards themselves by remaining faithful to the Cause, as the very existence of our nation depended ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... journey, and not oppressed with want of sleep, for in passing through uninteresting portions of the country she had given herself up to repose. The sense of weariness passed with the hours of night, and she was among the earliest stirring in the morning. Long before breakfast was ready she had her trunks partially unpacked, her mind meantime busy with plans for immediate action. At last her healthful appetite so asserted itself that she went down to the dining-room. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... arose from everybody on board the Summer Shelter. The propeller of the Dunkery Beacon was stirring the water at her stern, and she was moving away, her bow turned southward. Burke leaned over the rail, shouted to his men to get on board and haul up the boat, and then he gave orders to ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... that this dreadful eventuality was in Clara's mind also. He liked Charles's extravagance: it made him feel wicked, but also he was kind and could not bring himself to hurt Clara. He had never in his life felt that he was of the slightest importance to any one. Clara felt that sense stirring in him and she fed it; let him into the story of their struggles and the efforts she had made to bring her idealist to London, and urged upon him the vital importance of ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... path, and we were obliged to pick our way across the fields, and to search for bridges that spanned such of the water-ditches as were too wide for us to jump. More than an hour was spent in this work, till we came to a village wherein none were stirring, and here struck a road which seemed to run towards the mountain, though, as we learned afterwards, it took us very many miles out of our true path. Now for the first time we were able to canter, and pushed on at some speed, though not ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... remained as untouched by the men he encountered as by the events which were then stirring Europe. Alone, he influenced others, remaining the while a mystery to all. The most gifted of nations failed to understand the greatest of her sons. Isabella d'Este, the first lady of her time, seeking ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... had taken the colour out of the sandy road and the heather, and had painted black shadows by every boulder, and most things looked asleep except the rill that went on running. Only we and the rabbits, and the night moths and the beetles, seemed to be stirring. An occasional bat appeared and vanished like a spectral illusion, and I saw one owl flap across the moor with level wings ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... of people are to welcome Radames and witness his triumphal entry. Radames, with his troops and a horde of Ethiopian prisoners, comes into the city in a gorgeous pageant. The procession is headed by two groups of trumpeters, who play a march melody, the stirring effect of which is greatly enhanced by the characteristic tone quality of the long, ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... And quite right too! This shame must once for all close, Or Punch will plant some stirring kicks on—well, somebody's small-clothes. The scandal's getting far too grave, alas! to sing of gaily, But Punch in earnest will back up brave HAMILTON and BAYLY! Go it, BAYLY! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various

... delicious imprisonment, and from time to time grasping my prick with a pressure that very shortly restored it to its fullest vigour and stiffness. She was as hot as fire and responded immediately to the renewed life she found stirring within me. She gave way to her salacious lust with, if anything, a more passionate excess than the first time. My superb weapon seemed to stir up within her a force of lubricity that nothing could seem to satisfy. Her hands clutched my buttocks ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by), which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... a church somewhere in Europe of which it is said that if a certain brick were removed the whole edifice would fall in ruins. Pee-wee was not even an amateur engineer. That world-stirring consequences could flow from an act so casual and trivial as securing a fishing rod never entered his innocent and pre-occupied mind. He did not know that in the hasty calculations of Townsend all the component parts of this system of props ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... the concertina's melancholy string! Blow the spirit-stirring harp like any thing! Let the piano's martial blast Rouse the Echoes of the Past, For of Agib, Prince of Tartary, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of the measured English of an old and lovable book, just as you grew used to read in his face what he was to say, before the words had begun to flow. Never was there a face more quick to reflect the mind, more pliable to humour, more luminous at some stirring idea or deed, more indignant at the bare notion of a wrong inflicted, softer at the ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne



Words linked to "Stirring" :   stir, agitation, rousing, arousal, inspiration, moving, stimulating



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