"Twitching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their hands. In other cases there may be a sense of numbness or partial loss of sensation, something akin to that experienced when a hand or arm "goes to sleep," as the popular phrase expresses it. In other cases there is manifested a peculiar jerking, twitching, or vibration of the hands and arms, sometimes extending to the whole body of some of the sitters. Sometimes the hand of the medium will begin to make motions as if he were trying to write, and a pencil ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... more, his mouth twitching now. "Jack," he said, "it's all through. I want to ask you. I ought to marry ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... the white rabbits at least should have been saved—thinking of his own two in the warm nest in the barn. He was unable to see how white rabbits with twitching pink noses and pink rims around their eyes could be an offense, or, indeed, other than a pure joy even to one so good as God. But he gave in, with new admiration for the ready mind of Cousin Bill J., who pointed out that white rabbits could not have been saved because they were not fish. He even ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... the room, with its silent, observant crowd, pressing to his breast the dead body of his child. Then he turned to Lafe, white, twitching, and suffering. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... did not appear to be hurt. The twitching of his muscles must have been caused by the cactus spikes embedded in him. There were drops of blood all over one side. Lucy thought she dared to try to pull these thorns out. She had never in her life been afraid ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... whistle last. Meanwhile some one skilfully fixes another whistle on a string to the player's back, and that is the whistle which is really blown. As it must always be behind him when it is blown, nothing but the twitching of the string is likely to help him to discover the blower (and the trick); and in a small circle where every one is moving and laughing it takes some time to notice the twitching ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... never a man was tended before. Trent himself had done his share of the carrying, ever keeping his eyes fixed upon the death-lit face of their burden, every ready to fight off the progress of the fever and ague, as the twitching lips or shivering limbs gave warning of a change. For fourteen days he had not slept; until they had reached Garba his clothes had never been changed since they had started upon their perilous journey. As he rode into Attra he ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... itself, for several minutes before I got rid of my cold sweat. Then the blessed solution struck me. I looked at the body lying near the doorway, and saw, just where the hollow of the throat joins on the shoulders, a muscle that had nothing to do with any man's regular breathing, twitching away steadily. The whole thing was a careful reproduction of the Egyptian teraphin that one read about sometimes and the voice was as clever and as appalling a piece of ventriloquism as one could wish to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... strangely affected by the words of her interruptions: a contraction in the throat,—a twitching about the eyes.... But he was able, and glad that he was able to catch eagerly at her opinion. "Yes, yes, I know, odious, hateful, and much more than that, cruel—conventions can be as cruel, as cruel as hell. I was just coming ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... spoke, vaguely wondering within her poor, broken heart when that cry of agony would escape his lips. His face had become ghastly in hue, his mouth was wide open as if ready for that cry; his twitching fingers clutched at ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at first trembled in drawing a pair of shears from a ragged pocket, appeared to satisfy Paul's curiosity for the present. But after a few moments' silent snipping, during which he could detect in the mirror some traces of agitation still twitching the negro's face, he said with ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... Maria looked at Miss Slome, and, to her utter indignation, the teacher's lips were twitching, and it took a good deal to make Miss Slome laugh, too; she had ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said Rios, his lips twitching so that the white teeth showed. "But you had best think. Many things might happen to a girl, a pretty girl like you, which are not pleasant for her to experience. You had better throw your arms about your countryman's neck and beg him to pay the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... Excitement, rapid heart action, restlessness, panic of apprehension, twitching of forearms and hands, possibly ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... man, nervous, white-faced and half-distracted, was brought into a little sitting-room. His eyes moved restlessly to and from the detective: his fingers were twitching uneasily. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... tobacco-pouch into separate pockets of his coat. A cunning smile hovered about his lips for a moment, as he disposed of his two packages in this manner; but it passed away again almost immediately, and was succeeded by a curious contraction and twitching of the upper part of his face. He began muttering once again that name of "Mary," which had been often on his lips lately; and quickened his pace mechanically, as it was always his habit to do when anything vexed ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the matter with him?" Mr. Baxter demanded. "Half the time lately he seems to be hibernating, and only responds by a slight twitching when poked with a stick. The other half of the time he either behaves like I-don't-know-what or talks about children growing whiskers in Iowa! Hasn't that girl ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... exaggeration of the normal contraction which occurs in sexual excitement. Even in the absence of sexual excitement there is a vague affection, occurring in both married and unmarried women, and not, it would seem, necessarily hysterical, characterized by quivering or twitching of the vulva; I am told that this is popularly termed "flackering of the shape" in Yorkshire and "taittering of the lips" in Ireland. It may be added that quivering of the gluteal muscles also takes place during detumescence, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Dinah North, came to my bedside with an intent to murder me." I paused, and fixed my eyes upon Mr. Moncton's face. The glitter of his bright orbs almost dazzled me. I thought, however, that his cheek paled for a moment, and that I could perceive a slight twitching movement about the muscles ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... on how his mother would expect him to bear things: but neither of them had thought that morning, beside his box, that the first trial would come from Phil. This again made him so nearly cry that his uncle observed his twitching face, and, without noticing him, said that he, for his part, did not want to see little boys wise before they had time to learn; and that the most silent companion he had ever been shut up with in a coach was certainly the least agreeable: and he went on to relate an adventure ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... to say to them, sir?" said the footman, a strongly built man, with shifty eyes and quickly twitching lips. ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... every venture made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his bold hand into the plexus of the money-market, he was delightedly aware of how he shook the pillars of existence, turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour in far countries, and set the gold twitching ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... blowing the fiercest of trebles (Just a seashore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles), Or a porcelain mouthpiece to screw on a pipe-end— 415 And so she awaited her annual stipend. But this time the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe A word in reply; and in vain she felt With twitching fingers at her belt For the purse of sleek pine-marten pelt, 420 Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe— Till, either to quicken his apprehension, Or possibly with an after-intention, She was come, she said, to pay her duty To the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... that sea of eager upturned faces as distinctly as I remember Mr. Moody's talk. The people sat so still, as though in a spell, with eyes big and shining with something wet, and occasionally a slight twitching of emotion and ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... he radiant as the sun, and a rose in his button-hole; she sad and somber, and with her very skin twitching at the thought of the explanation she had to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... not ungracious, snapped off short, wrung a heart that belied his cold exterior. Moreover, when all these had been sacrificed, he was his own judge how far he could without means pursue the life which he was living. Suspense, anxiety, sordid calculation were ever twitching his sleeve, and would have his attention. Was the claim a valid claim, and must it prevail? If it prevailed, how was he to live; and where, and on what? Would the Minister grant his suit for a place or a pension? Should he prefer that suit, or might he still by one deep night and one great ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... hurt him," urged Bertie, twitching the reins. But, then, looking at the patient oxen, he said,—"Will you please tell me why you don't have a cart instead of ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... a few other cases in which there is a playing upon sound, as where Demipho remarks that if he had such a good-looking girl as Pasicompsa for a servant, all the people would be "staring, gazing, nodding, winking, hissing, twitching, crying, annoying, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... before her, lean and lank, his gown flapping about his calves, his eyes smiling humorously, his lips twitching. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... the strange robes, was a bizarre figure. The hood was thrown back, exposing his pale, black-bearded face, the wan eyes with dark circles under them, and the twitching lips. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... voice, with a sunken eye that looked and saw not, told me what washes, gargles, pastilles, and inhalations she had proved most beneficial. From her I was passed on to her younger sister, Miss Elizabeth, a small and withered thing with twitching lips, victim, she told me, to very much the same sort of throat, but secretly devoted to another set of medicines. When she went away with Baxter and the bath-chair, I fell across a major of the Indian army with gout in his glassy eyes, and a stomach ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... captive gladiators and martyrs satisfy the public longing for the sight of bleeding flesh and twitching nerve, the people of our day flock to the court-rooms ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Mother," returned Frank, his lips twitching a little. "And they've got old Uncle Tim and half a dozen others ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... inside, and the young man gave a sigh of comfort in the pleasant warmth and light. There was a woman there who had a very conversable air, a sort of eventual sociability, as the young man realized when she looked up from twitching the white, clean cloths perfectly straight on the little tables set in rows on ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Heriz Magna kept silence for an instant; his eyes were twitching about the hall, in that stealthy way of his. Finally, "It is no use," said he. "A poor knave cannot afford the luxury of honesty. My life is not a valuable one, perhaps, but even vermin have an aversion to death. I resume my lackeyship, Lord Rokesle. Perhaps 'twas only the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... by seizing his head, buttoning it up inside his black coat, and holding his arm tightly over it, so that no struggles of suffocation could get it free. There was no more noise, but the little boy's legs, desperately twitching, kicked their dusty little boots against the cousin's shins, and he, standing at the salute with his body rigidly turned towards Majestat, was unable to take the steps his outraged honour, let alone the pain in his shins, ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... Bedard, impatiently, for Zoe had been twitching her hard to let her go. "Master Pothier can ride the old sorrel nag that stands in the stable eating his head off for want of hire. Of course your ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... or whether the rush of feeling on finding that his expectations were in vain, was too much for him, it is certain that he threw his long arms upwards, uttered a hoarse scream, and tumbled backwards with foaming lips and twitching limbs upon the ground. For an hour or more my poor mother and I did what we could to soothe him, while the children whimpered in a corner, until at last he staggered slowly to his feet, and in brief broken ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... innocent cherubs never studied in my school-house, nor played puss-in-the-corner in our back-yard. Childhood, when I was young, had rosy cheeks and bright eyes, as I remember, but it was also extremely given to quarrelling. It used frequently to "get mad." It made nothing of twitching away books and balls. It often pouted. Sometimes it would bite. If it wore a fine frock, it would strut. It told lies,—"whoppers" at that. It took the biggest half of the apple. It was not, as a general ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... concerned about it. But what caused him to look very grave was the fact that his patient also complained of feeling cold, and manifested symptoms of approaching delirium, while his whole body was now beginning to be convulsed, at rapidly shortening intervals, by spasms of violent and uncontrollable twitching. Without wasting a moment Dick now had recourse to alcohol, freely dosing his patient with neat brandy, in the hope of inducing a condition of intoxication—for he knew that if he could succeed in this the excess of alcohol in the system would neutralise the venom, and his patient ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... in the chair. She was trying; the sweat stood out on her forehead. Aarons sat tense, smoking, his fingers twitching as he watched the red and green cubes bounce on the white backdrop. Lambertson watched too, but his eyes were on the girl, not on ...
— Second Sight • Alan Edward Nourse
... did not even seem to hear. He played with lowered eyes and twitching mouth, and his hands shook perceptibly. The ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... his son, and Mr. and Mrs. Potter all rose to their feet, when Timmins walked in. Mr. Leffingwell would have another doctor; and while they waited five minutes for him (he was right in the building) Asa, suffering pretty badly, but not giving a sign of it, except for his twitching face, lay on the settee, with Timmins fixing his pillows some other way every second, and Barton off ordering a hot drink from the cook, who had taken a peek, and was ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... ponies stood twitching their ears on the road twenty yards away. The boy, Curnow, flicked flies off them occasionally. He saw his mistress go into the cottage; come out again; and pass, talking energetically to judge by the movements of her hands, round the vegetable plot in front ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... been trained, and unusually keen, the sight of the crouching animal would have escaped him. Its tawny skin was of a colour not unlike that of the tinged foliage of the branches of the chestnut upon which it was lying. There was an occasional nervous twitching of its tail, but otherwise it was as motionless as if it had been ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... his face in the hay to stifle his chuckles, the minister covered his twitching lips with his hands, but the little group of sisters gazed at the apparition with ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and flicked out of sight. And that was the way it went for hour after hour until we pulled out, our last torpedo fired and the crew on the ragged edge of exhaustion. Somehow, by some miracle compounded of luck and good pilotage, we were unmarked. And Chase, despite his twitching face and shaking hands, was one hell of a combat skipper! I didn't wonder about him any more. He had the guts all right. But it was a different sort of courage from the icy contempt for danger that marked Andy Royce. Even so, I couldn't help thinking that I was glad to be riding ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... his feet, &c. in which the guard manfully and zealously assisted the whole time, declaring that the coach should wait as long for me as I liked, in a very few minutes my labour and exertion was rewarded with symptoms of returning animation, by the twitching of one leg; upon which a fresh hot bottle was applied to his foot; we redoubled our exertion, and in another minute he opened his eyes and became sick. I now left him to the care of his son, the guard, and others, to continue the rubbing, while I went with the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... three persons were nervous of her aunt; the stout young man was amused perhaps at the general situation, but Mr. Magnus by the fireplace showed great emotion, the colour mounting into his high bony cheeks and his nostrils twitching like a horse's. Maggie had been always very observant, and she was detached enough now to notice that the drawing-room was filled with ugly and cumbrous things and yet seemed unfurnished. Although everything was old and had been there ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... find. His contracted cheeks, and lips always open, and eyes glowing in their sunken caverns, told a tale which even Sir Marmaduke, who was not of nature quick in deciphering such stories, could not fail to read. And then the twitching motion of the man's hands, and the restless shuffling of his feet, produced a nervous feeling that if some remedy were not applied quickly, some alleviation given to the misery of the suffering wretch, human power would be strained too far, and the man ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... rose and fell as if he were suffering some great emotion, and he stared at Rich wildly, his hand twitching and his lip quivering as he waited for her next speech, which seemed to crush him, as she asked in a ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... vulture between his large hands. If he pressed the heels of those hands together bones would snap, and Haw-Haw Langley knew it. And yet nothing but a wild delight could have set that glitter in his little eyes, just as nothing but a palsy of terror could have set his limbs twitching so. ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... gaze was focused upon what looked like a grained slab, like any other grained slab, if it had not all at once begun to twitch, and so—even then one could only make out the faint outline of a body—turn gradually into a wild cat asleep on his side. The twitching was not the result of a fit, but of dreams. Probably he had not meant to go to sleep at all—in a land of golden eagles! He had merely meant to bask in the sun, within instant spring of a handy hole between the stones if anything in the enemy line turned up. That very sun, however, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... feverish warmth of this trembling hand, and as he looked at her and remarked the paleness of her cheeks, the painful twitching of her lips, he was overcome by a feeling of deep wretchedness, of pitying sadness, and was obliged to turn his head away to conceal ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... her hands and stood quite still for the space of a few seconds, his face white and twitching. And then, to her utter amazement, he sank heavily into a chair and covered ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... sea and the flatlands with a feeling like thirst; and turned loyally back to Richard, who was standing silently on the hearth-rug watching her. The immobility of his body, and the indication in his flickering eyes and twitching mouth that, within his quietness, his soul was dancing madly because of some thought of her, recalled to her the night when Mr. Philip had stood by the fire in the office in Edinburgh. That man had hated her and this one loved ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about frippery young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... substance in riotous living, I was beginning to feel the first attacks of poverty, when I saw one of my companions in pleasure suddenly struck with a terrible disease. His knees could not sustain him; his twitching hands refused to obey him; his glazed eyes closed. Only horrible groans came from his breast. His mind, heavier than his body, slumbered. To punish him for having lived like a beast, God had changed him into a beast. The loss of my property had ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... pain, owing to the extreme soreness of the gums. This is, in extreme cases, attended with increased saliva and a gummy secretion in the corners of the eyes, itching of the nose, redness of cheeks, rash, convulsive twitching of lips and the muscles generally, fever, constipation, and sometimes by a diarrhea, which last is favorable if slight; difficulty of breathing, dilation of the pupils of the eyes, restless motion and moaning; and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... who apparently possessed the power to awaken men's disgusting folly. Her power had been proved in two instances already—the beastly innkeeper, and that man with moustaches, upon whom Mr. Jones, his deadly right hand twitching in his pocket, glared more in repulsion than in anger. The very object of the expedition was lost from view in his sudden and overwhelming sense of utter insecurity. And this made Mr. Jones feel very savage; but not ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered them, and the ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... well-trained English servant had dropped from him, and he stood revealed as a trembling elderly man with furtive eyes, and a painfully shaken manner. "I'll be glad to tell you everything," he declared, laying a twitching hand on the inspector's coat. "I've not had a minute's peace or rest ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... took it without the twitching of a muscle in the brown face. He knew there was no use of an appeal for mercy and he ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the tears drying on her cheeks, leaning forward to watch the twitching, purpled face of ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... manner, he was thoroughly unaffected; in serious matters thoroughly sincere. He was, indeed (as he confesses), terribly shy; diffident, not awkward in manner; with occasionally nervous, twitching motions that betrayed this infirmity. He dreaded the criticisms of servants far more than the observations of their masters. To undergo the scrutiny of the first, as he said to me, when we were going to breakfast with Mr. Rogers one morning, was "terrible." His speech was brief ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... thy soul, no more of this!" cried the master-player, with quivering lips. "Ye will make me out no man, or else a fiend. I cannot let the fellow go—I will not let him go." His hands were twitching, and his face was pale, but his lips were set determinedly. "And, Tom, there's that within me will not abide even thy pestering. So come, no more of it! Upon my ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... his own and the seance begins. Before long, the presence of Spiritual power becomes manifest by raps on the table, or by vibratory movements of the table, more or less violent, and by spasmodic jerkings or twitching of the Medium's arms or body. When sufficient Spiritual power has been generated, the Medium takes up the slate, and, still controlling with his left hand the hands of his sitters, places on it a minute fragment of slate pencil. No offer is made to show both sides (the prepared ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... She was twitching with excitement. Her fingers clutched the general's sleeve, and he found himself thinking of his youth. He released her fingers gently and she spared ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... Doctor Chalmers for Christianity—but not Christianity of one side. "Pray for those who despitefully use you," say the Corn Law Apostles to the famishing; and then, cocking their eye at one another, and twitching their tongues in their mouths they add—"for this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... lips twitching, hands trembling very much, put a shaky signature in each space indicated below Merelli's sprawling Italian dashes, while Nicholas and little Laroche ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... and broken something, and I hoped she was not hurt, and then they all began to laugh, and have not stopped yet," she added resentfully, as a fresh peal of laughter reached her ears. "And you are laughing, too," she said, glancing at Nancy's twitching lips. ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... the portier, and mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to his room. Flinging open the door, he beheld his wife dressed in one of her best silks, before the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching her back hair with her hand and twitching the bow at her throat into perfect place. She smiled at him in the glass, and ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as an example will show. The physician who has a female patient with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the company of other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not surprised when some morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical attack has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others have seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... or both eyes; dilatation of the pupils; gritting of the teeth; protrusion of the tongue; desire to vomit; nausea, retching and vomiting; collapse of the abdominal walls; scanty urine, which is sometimes milky; costiveness; trembling of the limbs; occasional twitching of the limbs on one side of the body, and apparent paralysis of those of the other side; painful turning inwards of the big toes, extorting cries from the patient; accelerated pulse, which soon becomes slower, irregular, intermittent and rather hard; these symptoms inform us that life ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... allow her to accompany him. At the end of an hour he returned and flung himself heavily into his chair. He was in a state such as she had never witnessed before, violently excited, with glaring eyes and twitching hands. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... quietly to this exordium; but a slight, nervous twitching of her lips every now and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... more determinedly, and trying hard to keep his twitching face straight. "But I can't do what you ask. It was hard enough coming along that path, while the light lasted. If I were to go back over it in the dark, I'd break my neck on a million mangrove roots. If it's just the same to you, I'll take my chances with the pistol. It'll be ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... answer at once. He stood looking at Mrs. Wayne under his lowering brows; he had stopped swinging his elbows, and was now very slightly twitching his cane, as an evilly disposed cat will twitch the ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... and driven on again. The same light, with the torches carried by boys, would reveal trucks and carts stopped, or slowly creeping forward. Cab-horses between the blotches of flame made by the cab-lamps were craning their necks forward, or twitching them from side to side. Through the press foot-passengers found their way across the street, and imaginably in the dark that swallowed up the sidewalks, they were going and coming on errands that could brook no stay. The wonder was ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... thoughts, from chaste and temperate modes of life. Horrible it is to hear fine lads talking familiarly about the "jumpy" sensations which they feel in the morning. The "jumps" are those involuntary twitchings which sometimes precede and sometimes accompany delirium tremens; the frightful twitching of the limbs is accompanied by a kind of depression that takes the very heart and courage out of a man; and yet no one who travels over these islands can avoid hearing jokes on the dismal subject made by boys who ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... but there was a watchfulness in his eye, a slight twitching of his nostril, which proved him to be not entirely at his ease. His ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... door an inch and glanced into the ward; Ivan Dmitritch in his night-cap and the doctor Andrey Yefimitch were sitting side by side on the bed. The madman was grimacing, twitching, and convulsively wrapping himself in his gown, while the doctor sat motionless with bowed head, and his face was red and look helpless and sorrowful. Hobotov shrugged his shoulders, grinned, and glanced at Nikita. Nikita ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... step; a second.... I stole along, my feet, heavy as though they did not belong to me, trod feebly and uncertainly. Stay! what was that sound? Someone sawing, somewhere, or scraping ... or sighing? I listened ... I felt my cheeks twitching and cold watery tears came into my eyes. Nothing! ... I stole on again. It was dark but I knew the way. All at once I stumbled against a chair.... What a bang and how it hurt! It hit me just on my leg.... I stood stock still. Well, did that wake them? Ah! here goes! Suddenly ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Bucky's revolver went through the heart of the outlaw; but so relentless was the man that, even after that, his twitching fingers emptied the revolver. O'Connor fired only once. He watched his opponent crumple up, fling wild shots into the upholstery and through the roof, and sink into the silence from which there is no awakening on this side of the grave. Then he went ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the first he had oppressed and offended Thesiger by his large and intolerably genial presence. The other, whom she familiarly and caressingly called Binky, was small and lean and yellow; he had a young face with old, nervous lines in it, the twitching, tortured lines of the victim of premature high pressure, effete in one generation. The small man drank, most distinctly and disagreeably he drank. He might have been the wreck of saloon bars, or of the frequent convivial cocktail, or of savage, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... his table, took up a sheet and began to write. When he had done he scattered the sand on it, and held it out to me, his mouth twitching ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... there between the woman and the horse. I have told you the spaewife—if spaewife you would call her, for I think sorceress fitted her better—I have said she came close to Chieftain's head, her black eyes fairly lowing; and as the brute, his skin twitching, gathered himself to rear on her, she hit him full on the mouth with her little brown hand, and hissed a word at him in her own tongue. As the word struck my ears I felt myself tingle to my finger-tips, and the world seemed to go ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... in the group and the sound of a heavy blow as Kalonay flung himself upon Erhaupt and struck him in the face, so that he staggered and fell at length upon the floor. Gordon stood over him, his fingers twitching at his side. ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... Yrtok to her feet. She pawed at him weakly, eyes as vacant as Ammet's. When he let go in sudden horror, she folded gently to the ground. She lay comfortably on her side, twitching one hand as if to ...
— The Talkative Tree • Horace Brown Fyfe
... far off for him to feel any interest in them; that which was foretold by the twitching of his limb must come much closer to answer ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... hand. The life of his eyes dulled to the gloom with which men of his fear saw the approach of death. But death, while it hovered over him, did not descend, for the rider waited for the twitching fingers, the downward flash of hand that did not come. Tull, gathering himself together, turned to the horses, attended by ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... reception or distribution of nervous power—a convulsive involuntary twitching of some muscle or set of muscles. It is an occasional consequence of distemper that has been unusually severe or imperfectly treated, and sometimes it is seen even after that disease has existed in its ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Pierre's face was twitching. "You no go back!" he cried. "Simon he kill you. No use to fight Simon. Him time not come yet. When ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... He watched me with twitching lips, his glare fixed upon me and a faint colour kindling in his face. He saw how easy the thing might be. Perhaps he recalled that he had heard that I was skilled in arms—having spent my youth in the exercise of them, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... he had finished reading. He spoke no other words. White-faced, the two men stared, Jan's throat twitching, Gravois' brown fingers crushing the ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... sing, or something," said Barrett, bending over to listen. The Teller swung his arm heavily over the side of the cot, the fingers never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay leaned down and gently moved the cloths so that the white, scarred lips were free. They moved steadily; they seemed to be framing the semblance of an old ballad that Meredith knew; the whisper grew more distinct, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... chance for flight. Would she allow me to crawl any nearer? Slowly, very slowly, I stretched forward on my hands, like a measuring-worm, until my body lay flat on the rocks, and my fingers were within three INCHES of her. But her wings were twitching, a wild light danced in her eyes, and her head turned toward ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... said, with a curl of his upper lip, and the cold and somewhat nasal tone which set every nerve in a boy's body twitching when he heard it raised in reproof, "I really cannot congratulate you on your appearance. I thought that the Sixth Form of Westminster was composed of gentlemen, but it seems to me now as if it consisted of a number of singularly disreputable-looking prize-fighters. ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... the dining room and from a decanter in the sideboard poured a glass of wine and, bringing it back, pressed it to her lips. She drank it, and the color gradually came back to her face and the twitching ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... he will be out soon ... You look awfully trampled on and—mashed, Jenny," she continued, twitching the child's hat on straight. "And my dear! Don't ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... made this fierce plunge was a panther of the largest size; and if Rene had not chanced to catch sight of its nervously twitching tail as it drew itself together for the spring, it would have alighted squarely upon the naked shoulders of the unsuspecting Indian lad. Rene's prompt action had, however, caused the animal to plunge into the water, though it only missed the canoe by a few feet; and when it rose to the ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... ask you—for your daughter!" In his turn now said the Baron To himself—he made a wry mouth As one playing on the Jew's-harp, And he felt a sudden twitching In his foot from his old enemy Podagra, and gravely said: "My young friend, your brain is truly Still affected with the fever. Hurry quickly to the garden; There stands in the shade a fountain, There is flowing ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel |
