"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rattling on the ground, and now—no, there was no deception, the wounded man's chest rose under her ear, she heard the faint throbbing of his heart, the feeble flutter of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to bestir himself in the rural Cantonments eastward, is but a Royalist traitor; that Chateau-Vieux and Patriotism are sold to Austria, of which latter M. de Malseigne is probably some agent. Mestre-de-Camp and Roi flutter still more questionably: Chateau-Vieux, far from marching, 'waves red flags out of two carriages,' in a passionate manner, along the streets; and next morning answers its Officers: "Pay us, then; and we will march with you ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore: Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,— Perched upon ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the children, ready dressed for their parts, were in a tremendous flutter. Even the little wee ones were to do something. They were stationed at the parlor door with baskets, and charged not to let a soul come in, unless the pair of mittens were paid into one of the baskets. I warrant you they took very ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Taylor. Louise jumped up in a flutter. He didn't take any notice of her excitement. 'I heard that you were living here,' he said, 'and knowing what sort of an old place it is, I've come to see if I can be of any use to you.' Here he looked about at the cracks in the walls and the holes in the roof. 'And you'll pardon ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... money is to purchase comfort and freedom from minor worries. She had deliberately cut herself adrift from the social set to which she belonged by birth and education, and so had little temptation to spend her substance either in giving parties or enjoying them. The ladies who flutter round the Lord Lieutenant's hospitable court would as soon have thought of calling on a music-hall danseuse as on Miss Goold. Their husbands, brothers, and sons took liberties with her reputation in the smoking-rooms ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... flutter, Mollie opened her door and entered. But on the threshold she paused, with a shrill cry of wonder, terror, and doubt; for the padded walls and floor, the blind windows, the lighted lamp, the bed, the furniture, were ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the agitation of her manner, were so strange that the Carrier stood looking after her, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... there, the soft glow-fire of the jelly-fishes in the surf like the kerosene-lamp footlights I have seen in the new haole theatre! It was not the walk of a girl, but a woman. She did not flutter forward like rippling wavelets on a reef-sheltered, placid beach. There was that in her manner of walk that was big and queenlike, like the motion of the forces of nature, like the rhythmic flow of lava down the slopes of Kau to the sea, like the movement of the huge orderly ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... stared fixedly towards the black eastern hills through which they had passed. Belmont followed his gaze, and, yes-yes—there was something moving there! He saw the twinkle of metal, and the sudden gleam and flutter of some white garment. A Dervish vedette upon the flank turned his camel twice round as a danger signal, and discharged his rifle in the air. The echo of the crack had hardly died away before they were all in their saddles, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... right, son," said he. "Don't mind, but don't forget. Good men come and go; it's good deeds that live. Now, we're by no means first at this spot, and it's of no vast consequence now. We'll even let our little flag flutter here alone, till the snows come, and the slides give it its ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... and child together flutter Up to the great white throne, Where nevermore may Margaret Fuller ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... there was a sight on Lake George likely to cause a flutter of anxiety in the heart of Montcalm at Ticonderoga. In a line of boats, six miles long, the great English host came down the lake and, early on the morning of the sixth, landed before the fort which Montcalm was to defend. The soul of the army had been a brilliant young officer, Lord Howe, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... once her wandering regard detected something white in a crevice between two stones. At first she thought it the gleam of a bird or a chipmunk. The thing was some yards off from the spot where she stood, but the flutter persisted. So she approached it to ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the boys made little water-mills to be run by the force of the stream. We call them 'flutter-wheels.' But I made one so curious that it ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... the country. It was impossible for me ever to get quite rid of the idea that they were descendants of the old Scandinavian gods, holding counsel over the affairs of the nation, especially when some passing breeze caused their arms and robes to flutter in the twilight, and their heads to swing to and fro, as if in the enthusiasm ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... with a prolonged despairing shriek, out of the darkness; a flash, a rush and roar at his side, a plunge into the darkness again with the same despairing cry; a flutter of something white from one of the windows, like a loosened curtain, that at last seemed to detach itself, and, after a wild attempt to follow, suddenly soared aloft, whirled over and over, dropped, and drifted slowly, slantwise, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... heart was beating slowly, calmly, even faintly. He caught her wrist, pressing his fingers on her pulse—there was not the suspicion of a flutter. He let her go then. She stood before him; her eyes were raised fearlessly ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... Achilles' breast distilled nectar and pleasant ambrosia, that grievous hunger might not assail his knees, and then herself was gone to the firm house of her mighty father. Then the Achaians poured forth from the swift ships. As when thick snowflakes flutter down from Zeus, chill beneath the blast of Boreas born in the upper air, so thick from the ships streamed forth bright glittering helms and bossy shields, strong-plaited cuirasses and ashen spears. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... a noble counterfeit in that charity which comes from self-knowledge and an unarguable belief that no one of our gregarious species is alone in his longing for a friendlier world. So many of the grimaces men make at each other go with a flutter of their pulse, that they are not all of them important. And where so much is uncertain, where so many actions have to be carried out on guesses, the demand upon the reserves of mere decency is enormous, and it is necessary to live as if good will would work. We cannot prove in every instance that ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... course the matter will make a good deal of talk, but these things soon die out, and the county will welcome you back too heartily to care how your return has been brought about. You can rely upon my action in the part of town-crier, and I am sure to some of my patients the flutter of excitement the news will occasion will do a great deal more good than any medicine I could give them. Of course you ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... turned his head once while the tender was hastening toward the schooner. But there were no women in sight on the yacht's deck. There was an instant's flutter of white from a stateroom port, but he was not sure whether it was a handkerchief or the end of a wind-waved curtain. He faced about resolutely and did not look behind again. Shame, misery, hopelessness—he did not know which emotion was stinging him ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... put society in a flutter; for Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a favorite with the public not only for her graces of person and personality, her charming acting, singing and dancing, but she had that incalculable advantage for an actress—an appealing ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... in her horned head-gear and flutter of spangled veil, was almost swallowed up in his hearty embrace; and the fervency of his great love so far warmed her, that she clung to him, and tenderly said, 'My lord, it is long ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whispered Lottie, while Laura compared bracelets with Emma Houghton. "Oh, there, isn't he splendid? It's like the king coming down from his throne, when he speaks to you; it puts my heart in a flutter. How do you dare ask him to pass the butter? Now just tell me. Are you engaged to him? Tell me truly, only shake your head, yes or no. No? I don't believe a word you say. Mean to be? Then, I declare——Suppose now, only just suppose, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... shall we say then, but that earth threatened often Shall live on for ever that such things may be, That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften, And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea, That earth's garden may bloom round ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... elder brother was afraid, lest she should cast a spell on him, and rowing up the river for a distance he came upon her as she was bathing and shot at her. The arrow seemed to strike, for there was a flutter of feathers and the woman flew away as a partridge. But the younger did not forget the good she had done and sought her in the wood, where for many days they ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... sooner did the sound of music strike upon the ear of Ariadne than something in her action revealed to all the pleasure which it caused her. She did not step forward to meet her lover, she did not rise even from her seat; but the flutter of her unrest was plain to ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... favourite labour bureau, I found an unusual flutter among the bench-warmers. A big contractor wanted fifty men immediately. No experience was required, and the wages were to be two dollars a day. With a number of others I pressed forward, was interviewed and accepted. The same day we were marched ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... was at all times willing to talk of Old Grannis to anybody that would listen, quite unconscious of the gossip of the flat. McTeague found her all a-flutter with excitement. Something extraordinary had happened. She had found out that the wall-paper in Old Grannis's room was the same ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... answered twice at a distance, while again and again overhead there was the flutter and swish of wings, probably those of the oil-birds circling about the mouth ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... some—the stouthearted ones—departed talking loudly and with cigar in mouth; others, however, daunted in spite of themselves, lowered their voices as people instinctively do in church. And the Bedouin guides, who a moment ago seemed to flutter about the giant monument like so many black moths—they too have gone, made restless by the cold air, which erstwhile they had not known. The show for to-night is over, and ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... He's there!" nodding over her shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to see you for ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to her, wus you? You who knew her man wus livin'! You, as mebbe has ha'f a dozen wives livin'. You wus good to her! Wal, you're goin' to pay now. Savee? You're goin' to pay fer your flutter wi' chips, chips as drip wi' ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... and does not look forward to summer. With their annual loss of leaves, and renewal, oak and elm and ash and beech seem to stand by us and to share our thoughts. There is no wind at the edge of the wood, and the few flakes of snow that fall from the overcast sky flutter as they drop, now one side higher and then the other, as the leaves did in the still hours of autumn. The delicacy of the outer boughs of the great trees visible against the dark background of cloud is as beautiful in its own way as the massed foliage of ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... are entwined festoons of trailing creepers, or the loveliest of scarlet mistletoe, in which humming-birds build their nests. Blue macaws, parrots, and a thousand other birds fly to and fro, and the black fire-bird darts across the sky, making lightning with every flutter of his wings, which, underneath, are painted a bright, vivid red. Serpents of all colors and sizes creep silently in the undergrowth, or hang from the branches of the trees, their emerald eyes ever on the alert; and the broad-winged ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... any other girl of the port, Portygee or Yankee—had ever made Tunis Latham's heart flutter. He was not impervious to the blandishments of all feminine beauty. As Cap'n Ira Ball would have said, Tunis was "a general admirer of the sect." And as the young man passed the languishing Eunez with a cheerful nod and smile there flashed into his ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... are they so when one awakens to them, for the first time, in a novel and romantic situation, with the soft sweet air of a tropical climate mingling with the fresh smell of the sea, and stirring the strange leaves that flutter overhead and around one, or ruffling the plumage of the stranger birds that fly inquiringly around, as if to demand what business we have to intrude uninvited on their domains. When I awoke on the morning after the shipwreck, I found myself in this ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... as calm, his brow as placid, his cheek as rosy as ever, only his whiskers—those snowy, telltale whiskers, quivered spasmodically, very much as though endeavouring to do the manifestly impossible and flutter away with Mr. Brimberly altogether; yes, it was all ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... when the spectral sail was spread, That flutter'd to and fro; The hair would bristle on each head, Which awful fear did show. And when the moon-beam seem'd to kiss, That dreaded maiden's brow; Something each knew would go amiss, Nor judg'd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... fancy the flutter of pride in Dorothy's heart at the reading of such honors to her lover, and she settled down to await the turn of events with a lighter heart, while Hancock and Adams, with the other delegates, went on toward Philadelphia, their ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... living in excitement. I have seen women with nothing important to do come down to breakfast in excitement, give their orders for the day as if they were about running for a fire; and the standard of all those about them is so low that no one notices what a human dust is stirred up by all this flutter ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... from its wrappings the waxen figure of a little child. The rosy limbs were very life-like, so was the smiling face under the locks of shining hair. Both plump arms were outspread as if to scatter blessings over all, and downy wings seemed to flutter from the dimpled shoulders, making ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... silent! Poor dove, I can hear her foolish heart flutter against mine. Another moment decides our fate. Another moment: John Oakhurst and freedom, or Red Gulch and—she is moving. (To JOVITA.) I am harsh, little one, and cold. Perhaps I have had much to make me ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... he repeated after him. "That is scarcely our affair, is it? Promoters should not bother themselves with long views, Alan. These may be left to the investing public, the speculative parson and the maiden lady who likes a flutter—those props of modern enterprise. But what do you mean? You originated this idea and always said that ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... no longer passes, except with children, for the screen that hides from mortal eyes the glories of the celestial world. Only in poets' dreams or impassioned flights of oratory is it given to catch a glimpse of the last flutter of the standards of the retreating host, to hear the beat of their invisible wings, the sound of their mocking laughter, or the swell of angel music dying away in the distance. Far otherwise is it with the savage. To his imagination the world still teems with those motley beings ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... There was the very niche he had fallen from under the influence of the fire heat, the very recess, exactly in his shape in every detail, whence he had stood gazing into vacuity all those years. I left go my hold, and after the flutter in my heart had gone down, apologetically set him up against the wall of the cavern whence he had fallen; then built up the fire until twirling flames danced to the very roof in the blue light of dawn, and hobgoblin shadows leapt and capered about us. Then once ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Without a flutter, and without a blush, she escaped from his arm, and then made him an excellent little speech. 'Mr Broune, how foolish, how wrong, how mistaken! Is it not so? Surely you do not wish to put an end to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Base Ball Basket Quilt Block Album Brickwork Quilt Carpenter's Rule Carpenter's Square Churn Dash Cog Wheel Compass Crossed Canoes Diagonal Log Chain Domino Double Wrench Flutter Wheel Fan Fan Patch Fan and Rainbow Ferris Wheel Flower Pot Hour Glass Ice Cream Bowl Log Patch Log Cabin Necktie Needle Book New Album Pincushion and Burr Paving Blocks Pickle Dish Rolling Pinwheel Rolling Stone Sashed Album Shelf ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... his club with a strangled cry, and went down on his hands and knees. No reassuring flutter met the hand which he thrust inside the trampled bosom. That heart seemed stilled. He gathered the limp form in his arms like a child's and turned a dreadful face upon the beaten ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Tit[7] could write, and so he writ; A tribe of tuneless praters follow, The Jay, the Magpie, and the Swallow; And twenty more their throats let loose, Down to the witless, waddling Goose. Some peck'd at him, some flew, some flutter'd, Some hiss'd, some scream'd, and others mutter'd: The Crow, on carrion wont to feast, The Carrion Crow, condemn'd his taste: The Rook, in earnest too, not joking, Swore all his singing was but croaking. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Miss Maclaire as wearing. The colors, indeed, were not exactly the same, yet this difference was not sufficient to be noticeable at night by the eyes of a man who had no reason to suspect deceit. The girl was in a flutter of nervous excitement as she hastened about the room, donning her few requirements of masquerade, yet Keith noted with appreciation that she became perceptibly cooler as the moment of departure approached. With cheeks aflame and eyes sparkling, yet speaking ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... the wind, holding to the tips of the Hoheria and their white gowns flutter and swirl, and their ringlets float and sway, and sometimes in the joy of the dance a Lovely Lady lets go of her branch and ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... former blow had subsided, made a lunge at Mr. Brougham, and glanced an eye at Mr. Canning; mystified Mr. Coleridge, and stultified Lord Liverpool in his place—in the Gallery. It was rare sport to see him, "like an eagle in a dovecote, flutter the Volscians in Corioli." He has found out the secret of attracting by repelling. Those whom he is likely to attack are curious to hear what he says of them: they go again, to show that they do not ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... eye Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... saw Auntie Nan seated by his side, reading a volume of sermons. At the change in his breathing the old dove looked round, dropped the book, and began to flutter about. "Hush, dearest, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... there were many cubs to bring to the Looking-over. Mowgli always attended a Looking-over, remembering the night when a black panther bought a naked brown baby into the pack, and the long call, "Look, look well, O Wolves," made his heart flutter. Otherwise, he would be far away in the Jungle with his four brothers, tasting, touching, seeing, and ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... door opened and two little girls appeared, all in a flutter of dainty blue ruffles. Each carried a cushion, and one had what looked like an atlas ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution. Cocks, hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc., parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no dispatch; herons seem encumbered with too much sail for their light bodies; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burdens, such as large fishes, and the like; pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... infinitely prefer unrest to repose in art. He dearly enjoyed a tour de force in stone. He liked to deal with marble as though it were the most plastic of materials: to twist it this way and that, and rumple and flutter it as though it were merely muslin. To have carved a wig in a gale of wind would have been a task particularly agreeable to this class of artists; they would have done their best to represent each particular hair standing on end. They adored minutiae: ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... slightly, and then the shadows that lay across the white spaces of the land moved too. In this profound silence one sound only was audible, the sound of a slight but continuous breathing which never ceased, although it never rose and never fell. It continued after the birds had begun to flutter from branch to branch, and could be heard behind the first thin notes of their voices. It continued all through the hours when the east whitened, and grew red, and a faint blue tinged the sky, but when the sun rose it ceased, and ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... resembling the agreeable odour of the lemon verbena. It is produced by certain scales on the front border of the hinder wings of the male insects, and not at all by the females, who are, however, attracted by it, and flutter around the sweet-smelling male. Other male butterflies produce a scent like that of sweet briar, others like honeysuckle, others like jasmine, and so attract the females. Other butterflies are known which produce repulsive odours, and so protect themselves from being eaten by birds ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... him an hour, though by his watch it was but nine minutes, that he sat watching the little flimsy streamer of white flutter to and fro in the lamplight, his heart beating heavily, as a father's will at sight of the sign of some ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... anything of an equally amusing description, friends were sent out in all directions, as the beaters are sent into the woods to bring together the unfortunate birds for a battue, to find men. These circumstances will explain the flutter in Ursula's innocent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr. May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family reckoning, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... pastures green, Nelly and Tray delighted run, Chasing the yellow butterflies That flutter in the summer sun. ...
— My Dog Tray • Unknown
... maiden Spring? Who heard her footfall, swift and light As fairy-dancing in the night? Who guessed what happy dawn would bring The flutter of her bluebird's wing, The blossom of her mayflower-face To brighten every shady place? One morning, down the village street, "Oh, here am I," we heard her sing,— And none had been awake to greet The coming of the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... Snake get outside the cave, than she saw the Kookooburra fall like a stone from its branch, right on top of the Snake. For a second, Dot thought the bird must have tumbled down dead, it was such a sudden fall; but a moment later she saw it flutter on the ground, in battle with the poisonous reptile, whilst the Snake wriggled, and coiled its body into hoops and rings. The Kookooburra's strong wings, beating the air just above the writhing Snake, made a great noise, and the serpent hissed in its fierce ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... who saw, in after times, the Red above the Green Were withered as the grass that dies beneath a forest screen; Yet often by this healthy hope their sinking hearts were fed, That, in some day to come, the Green should flutter ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... do with me; or she might think that I was dull; or she might have work to do in which I hindered her; for she called Phillis, and bade her put on her bonnet, and go with me to the Ashfield, and find father. So we set off, I in a little flutter of a desire to make myself agreeable, but wishing that my companion were not quite so tall; for she was above me in height. While I was wondering how to begin our conversation, she took up ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... flutter of impatient anxiety was instantly excited through all the blue-stocking faction of the company, nor were the news totally indifferent to the rest of the community. The former belonged to that class, who, like the young Ascanius, are ever beating about in quest of a tawny lion, though ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... railway. Of course the railway, draining the labour market, could only itself have been at proportionate cost. Nevertheless, Mr. Trenchard, a Melbourne solicitor, projected "The Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway," an enterprise which, after some months' flutter of chequered life, expired for want of support from the over-busy colonists, who had other far more immediately pressing needs and chances for ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... troop the tempest rideth, The ghosts of heroes seek the Northern fjorde; There goes the iron-boat; the serpent glideth, The ravens flutter ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... the spirits falling from the bank of Acheron 'as dead leaves flutter from a bough', he gives the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair, without, however, for an instant losing his own clear perception that these are souls, and those are leaves; he makes no ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the tall honey-combed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through the dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he kept saying ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... of his manner restrained her, and his presence soothed the flutter of spirits; though she still devoted herself with a sort of wilfulness to bear all the blame, until he said, 'This is foolish, Albinia; it is of no use to look at anything but the simple truth. This affection of the spine must be constitutional, and if neglect have aggravated the evil, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chromatic oriental phrase is so strange that none of us can ever recall it or forget it! And the frantically nervous Luisita Puchol, whose eyelids spring open like the cover of a Jack-in-the-box, and whose hands flutter like saucy butterflies, sings suggestive popular ditties just a shade better than any one else ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... to lie here safe and warm, but there doesn't seem to be much breath to rock me," said Do, who lay nearest the little bosom that very slowly rose and fell with the feeble flutter of the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... He was an artistic gentleman named Crawley, the happy manager of a puppet show which used to bring joy into the hearts of the merry people thronging the famous Bartholomew Fair. One fine day, as the manager was standing outside of his booth, he was put into a flutter of excitement by the approach of the mighty Betterton, in company with a country friend. The actor offered several shillings for himself and rustic as they were about to enter the show, but this ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... more than any other this sensitiveness, inborn in women, to the approach of the critical moment in the affairs of the heart. The day may some time be past when she—is sensitive for herself—philosophers say otherwise—but she is easily put in a flutter by the affair of another. Perhaps this is because the negative (as we say in these days) which takes impressions retains all its delicacy from the fact that none of them have ever been developed, and perhaps it is a wise provision of nature that age in a heart unsatisfied should awaken lively ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... on with scarcely a flutter, however, and soon they were behind the lines, in a region pitted with the smoldering fires of ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich
... not dead, though near to death. His pulses flutter, the light of life still burns in his eyes, and though the blood runs from his ears, I think the skull ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... the honest villager, so simple that people like me do not understand it. It seems to us that human life and human souls are too complex to find room in it. Unfortunately we have not found anything to replace it, and consequently we flutter here and there like stray birds, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... sails actually fluttered. He couldn't see them, but he heard them rattling and banging above his head. 'No use! She was too slow in going off,' he went on, his dirty face twitching, and the damn'd carter's whip shaking in his hand. 'She seemed to stick fast.' And then the flutter of the canvas above his head ceased. At this critical moment the wind hauled aft again with a gust, filling the sails and sending the ship with a great way upon the rocks on her lee bow. She had overreached herself in her last little game. Her time had ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... fluttering of banners, and the clinking of the rings of the mail, that sounded like the falling of many drops of water into the deep, still waters of some pool that the rocks nearly meet over; and the gleam and flash of the swords, and the glimmer of the lance-heads and the flutter of the rippled banners that streamed out from them, swept past me, and were gone, and they seemed like a pageant in a dream, whose meaning we know not; and those sounds too, the trumpets, and the ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... down to the well is healed. I dwell with a strangely aching heart In that vanished abode there far apart On that disused and forgotten road That has no dust-bath now for the toad. Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; The whippoorwill is coming to shout And hush and cluck and flutter about: I hear him begin far enough away Full many a time to say his say Before he arrives to say it out. It is under the small, dim, summer star. I know not who these mute folk are Who share the unlit place with me— Those stones out under the low-limbed tree Doubtless bear ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... of the very bloom of our lives to be spent in the printing-office or the laboratory!" exclaim the dismayed band; and they flutter out of reach along the sidewalks of Beacon Street, or through the ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... flies with a little tremor of its wings, but without any motion of its body or tail. While its mate is sitting, the father wren will flutter slowly through the air, singing all ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... minutes," he confessed, "I was very angry. It brings great pain to a man to see the thing he loves droop her wings, flutter down to earth, and walk the common highway. It is not for you, dear one, to mingle with that crowd who scheme and cheat, hide and deceive, for any reward in the world, whether it be money, fame, or the love of country. You were not made for those things, and when I saw you ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... A flutter of approval went round the bystanders, and Mademoiselle Therese called out a parting word of warning to Barbara—just to show she was connected with the couple—before they moved off. Their progress down the street was as picturesque ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... vexed and mystified to find, on arriving at the camp, that he had been made the victim of some stupid blunder, and that no message had been sent from there. He was returning abstractedly through the woods when he was amazed at seeing at a little distance before him the flutter of Mrs. MacGlowrie's well-known dark green riding habit and the figure of the lady herself. Her dog was not with her, neither was the revival preacher—or he might have thought the whole vision a trick of his memory. But she slackened ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... that your nervous system is running down, or you wouldn't forget good manners in this way. You'd better take my advice, for I understand just what to do,"—and away sails Mother Magpie; and presently young Oriole comes home all in a flutter. ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... after nightfall of the sixth, Lee's army could only flutter like a wounded bird with one wing shattered. There was no longer any possibility of escape; but Lee found it hard to relinquish the illusion of years, and as soon as night came down he again began his weary ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... hills. Friedrich fancied himself in Germany, far back in the long ago, when he was madly in love with Hilda. The story unfolded before him like a panorama of some one else's life. It was, indeed, he who had loved Hilda, but he felt not a flutter of the emotion now. Now he knew what real love was. Yet this ardent, jealous lover was he, and she had jilted him for Maximilian. He went over again the old arguments in her behalf. Why shouldn't ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... apologized to Professor Binley; but she said she was honored beyond words. She had come to ask him a technical question in prosody, as from one professor to another; but she had forgotten it altogether—at least she put it off to another visit. She hastened away in a flutter, feeling slightly as if she had ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... like to eat bird seed, broken corn, or any kind of grain, and enjoy that kind of food much better than bread-crumbs. They need fresh water to drink, and will bathe now and then, like a canary, if they have a bath dish large enough to flutter in. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Frona held the egg-shell with a hand of steel. What they gained they held, and fought for more, inch by inch, dip and lift; and all would have been well but for the flutter of Tommy's soul. A cake of ice, sucked beneath by the current, rose under his paddle with a flurry of foam, turned over its toothed edge, and was dragged back into the depths. And in that sight he saw himself, hair streaming upward and drowned ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... Hellas and he Rome, such as they are at present. We flutter in the sunshine, and seize on all that satisfies our intellect or gratifies our senses: they gaze at the earth, but walk on with a firm step to seek power and profit. And thus they get ahead of us, and yet—I would not change ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wind to flutter the ribbons on her shoulders and bare neck, and to stir the tendrils of her powdered hair, a light breeze blowing steadily from the bay as the sun went down into the crimson flood. Bang! A cloud of white smoke hung over Pearl Street where the ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... she placed her arm behind me on the chair-back, a white ribbon, getting disengaged from her beautiful ball-dress, fell across my shoulder, where by my singing and Seraphina's soft sighs it was kept in a continual flutter backwards and forwards, like a true love-messenger. It is a wonder how I ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... listened to thy song, And yet 'twas ever, ever new, With magic in its heaven-tuned string— The future bliss thy constant theme. Oh! then each little woe took wing Away, like phantoms of a dream; As if each sound That flutter'd round, Had floated ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Arab in a flutter of agitation as to what was his duty. The man might be one of the friendly natives! ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... districts. The superiority of acetylene in respect of brilliancy and portability will at once suggest its employment as the illuminant in the "light" moth-traps which entomologists use for entrapping moths. In these traps, the insects, attracted by the light, flutter down panes of glass, so inclined that ultimate escape is improbable; while they are protected from injury through contact with the flame by moans of an intervening ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... terror for King Cotton no longer reigns supreme. The king is dead but the people rejoice as the scepter falls from his nerveless hand and a new monarch ascends the throne. Millions of royal banners flutter in the breeze glistening green with promise for the future and hope is high, and the hearts of the people light as they gather to pay homage to the new monarch, Her Imperial Majesty the Paper ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... the ladies, but Montoni had other engagements; and they embarked in the gondola for St. Mark's, where the same gay company seemed to flutter as on the preceding night. The cool breeze, the glassy sea, the gentle sound of its waves, and the sweeter murmur of distant music; the lofty porticos and arcades, and the happy groups that sauntered beneath them; these, with every feature and circumstance ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... wish you would, Aunt Adeline is so fond of Mrs. Wade!" I said in a positive flutter that I hope he didn't see, but I am afraid he did, for he hesitated as if he wanted to say something to calm me, then bowed mercifully and went on down the street. He didn't put on the hat he had held ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... little tallith against his forehead for a moment with upturned face and said, "Thou wilt start thy journey under seven stars. When they fade from the heavens stop by the roadside and take thy rest in sleep. Thou wilt be awakened by the flutter of wings and on opening thy eyes will see six birds. Follow their flight with the eye and thou wilt look to the east from whence cometh the light. Keep thee on the highway toward Bethsaida. When the sun is well risen shall thine eyes behold five palms, strong and stately. When thou comest near ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... dining with her the same day. She told me that, although born in Spain, she had been, as a child, in Rome; that it was she who preached that day at Ara Coeli, "an orphan, who would have perished of hunger had not a despised Jew given it shelter and food until it could flutter forth over the wild, restless sea." Next day I showed her over the Borghese gallery; and on the day before Easter we drove out to see the procession which initiated the Easter festival, and in the evening to Monte ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... say one and all; and straightway all was flutter and commotion, as in a duck pond when a hawk pitches and strikes in ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with ...
— Stray Birds • Rabindranath Tagore
... after Monaco: Monte Carlo—darling place! But the principality begins at Monaco of course. I told you how I stayed three days before I went to England. Almost everybody who lands at Marseilles wants to run on to Monte for a flutter, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... dust of the Riverton Road, with an old geography open on his knee, felt in his thin breast a faint flutter, as of wings. He looked at the sketch; he watched the Red Admiral finish his meal and go scudding down the wind. And he knew he had found the one thing he could do, the one thing he wanted to do, that he must and would do. It was as if the butterfly had been a fairy, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... after great oxen, singing as they toiled. The ground sent up heat intoxicating to the blood of a northern wanderer. It was the Land of Promise indeed, flowing with milk and honey, a pastoral land of easy love and laughter, where man clove to woman and she yielded to him at the flutter of desire, yet all was sanctioned by the Providence which fashioned the elements and taught the very ivy how to cling. Was there not deep-seated truth, methought, in those old fables which told of the Loves of the Nymphs, the Loves of the Fauns? Was there not ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... appearance of a traveller on the lonely mountain-road, revived hopes which had begun to sink into listless despair. There was no sign of Saxon subjugation about the stranger. At a distance she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed in the bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun over his shoulder, the claymore was swinging by his side with its usual appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... cousin with astonishment and at the same time looking at Argensola who, with a flutter of his eyes, seemed to be saying to him, "He is mad! These Germans are simply mad ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it was close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a sound of weeping; Defago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... find her way to the enchanted cave... Ralph, since then, had reached the point of deciding that he would never marry; reached it not suddenly or dramatically, but with such sober advisedness as is urged on those about to take the opposite step. What he most wanted, now that the first flutter of being was over, was to learn and to do—to know what the great people had thought, think about their thinking, and then launch his own boat: write some good verse if possible; if not, then critical ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... wing frighted from the ground At a step's too sudden sound, And her passion is a dove, Frighted by too bold a love. Mute as marble Hermes wait By the blooming hawthorn-gate. Thou shalt see her wings expand, She shall flutter to thy hand. On thy forehead thou shalt know Something like a breath of snow, Or of pinions pure that beat In a whirl of whiteness sweet. And the dove, grown venturesome, Shall upon thy shoulder come, And its rosy beak shall sip From the nectar of ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... later, when the good-byes had become nothing but a flutter of white handkerchiefs from deck to shore, and shore to deck, William drew ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... On Wednesday, 11th, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday, 4th ; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures. About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired. I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... than a flutter of the eyelids, but a flutter of the eyelids quite sufficient to take in the summing up of significant, unutterable ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... 'But just one flutter before we're done. Stiffen your lip and stand, my son; We'll take this bloomin' circus on: Ball-cartridge load! Now, steady!' With a curse and a prayer the two faced round, Dogged and grim they stood their ground, And their breech-blocks ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... see. At any rate, from my acquaintance with them, I shall not go to battle against them armed only with a broom-stick. But here we are in Melrose. Don't, for love's sake, talk of war. My heart's in a flutter. Cupid's conflict is worse than the ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... fellows that had bobbed their heads together through many and many a Spring; that had leaned their lofty and storm-stained tops together through many and many a Winter; that had stood, like mighty soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, in friendships knit through many centuries. The birds sing and flutter, fly in and out of the dark deep canopies of green, build nests, and make love in myriads. How the squirrels run and chatter and frisk, and fly from branch to branch, with their bushy tails tossing in the warm wind! Under ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... do not feel frightened; A flutter of gladness Awakes in my bosom, 'You brisk winter breezes, My thanks for your freshness! I crave for your breath As the sick man for water.' My mind has grown clear, 20 To my knees I am falling: 'O Mother of Christ! I beseech Thee to tell me Why God is so ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... making the lovely scene less solitary; the only sounds heard were the rippling at the bows, the low sough of the zephyr through the rigging, the cheeping of blocks, as the sleepy helmsman allowed the ship to vary in her course, the occasional splash of a dolphin, and the flutter of a flying-fish in the air, as he winged his short and glittering flight. The air was warm, fragrant, and delicious, and the larboard watch of the tired crew of the Gentile, after a boisterous passage of forty days from Gibralter, yielded to its somnolent ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... stranger whose face had been eloquent of gratitude as he offered to shield her with his life. Then she remembered his excited question as to the time of the marriage. "When?" Had her answer anything to do with the sudden and bold departure? Her heart was in a sudden flutter. She snatched the corncob pipe and tobacco pouch, and sped back again in a strange blending of fear and hope. She felt guilty that she could dare hope to see him, a Yankee, again. "But his smile was so pleasant and frank!" she murmured. "Oh, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... window of every house in sight of the train waved a handkerchief. The flutter of those white flags ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... variegated butterfly flutter over the lake, and lose itself among the flowers of the garden; the boat moved back towards the bank where it had before been placed. The abandoned Jussuf stood for some time, as if in a dream; but when ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... one more flutter on the way to the trenches. Two Huns come to sniff at us, and we dive ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... back. "Never a break from yours mysteriously, believe me. We wouldn't have come out at all if your partner hadn't insisted. He was so hot to have us butt in here and hand your heart a flutter that I just couldn't resist his pleading voice. It's a catchy jest, all right, and it's making me laugh. The way you two ducks josh each other is pitiful, but your secret is safe with me, Manager. I won't make no bad breaks, and ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... young ass," said one boy, whom the child, even in his flutter and misery, recognised as the boy who had accosted them at the door of Westover's that morning, "can't you answer without blubbering like that? Nobody's going to ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... sparrow was first, as usual, to inquire into their right to be out of their own tree. He came near them, alighted, and began to hop still closer. Not in the least startled by his threatening manner, the nearest youngster looked at him, and began to flutter his wings, to call, and to move toward him, as if expecting to be fed. This was too much even for a sparrow; ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... hand uplifted, And the creaking of a shoe:— A problem left unsifted For the teacher's hand to do: The murmured hum of learning— And the flutter of a book; The smell of something burning, And the school's ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... he heard the swishing flutter of other wings; he felt himself lifted from the floor; he was being floated out above the luminous pit by the flying things ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... out, dry as his own delectable bone, from under the tomb of Mistress Jean Grant, and nearly wagged his tail off with pleasure. Mistress Jeanie was set in a proud flutter when the Grand Leddy rang at the lodge kitchen and asked if she and Bobby could have their tea there with the old couple by ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... approached obliquely, set with gorgeous pillars as it seemed of clear amethyst, flowed a concourse of gay people and a tumult of merry cries and laughter. He saw curled heads, wreathed brows, and a happy intricate flutter of gamboge ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... promising. And I noticed how one fair Lady, who was seated on the Bench, did seem to arrange everything. And many beauties there, who I did gaze upon with satisfaction. To see them in such gay attire was a pretty sight, and did put my heart in a flutter. And I was pleased when the Court adjourned for luncheon; and it did divert me much to see what appetites they all had! Some had brought sandwiches, and, how they did eat them! But the Lord Chief Justice soon back again, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... little remaining modesty, which was nearly all the good which her unhappy education had left her, prevented her, until she found that she had no time beyond the present instant left for satisfying her curiosity on so important a point, when, in a considerable flutter of spirits, she whispered to Ellen, but in a voice sufficiently articulate to be heard by others—"Pray what did your papa say ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... of the satisfied world, limits lost in the hidden regions beyond the misty, purple magic where sky and desert met. And she felt as if her brain, ceaselessly at work from its birth, her heart, unresting hitherto in a commotion of desires, her soul, an eternal flutter of anxious, passionate wings, folded themselves together gently like the petals of roses when a summer ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... hand; and the priest sank down on the floor; but he saw the bird raise its wings for a flight, and just as the dark thing rose, and, as it were, struck open-mouthed, the bird sailed softly through the air, alighted on the lady's hand, and then with a light flutter of wings on to the bed and to the boy's face, and was seen no more; at the same moment the bells stopped in the church and left a sweet silence. The black form shrank and slipped aside, and seemed to fall on the ground; and outside there was a shrill and bitter cry which echoed ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ranging from the murmur of invisible gnats and midges, to the impetuous whirring of the great Libellulae, large almost as swallows, and hawking high in air for their food. Swift butterflies glance by, moths flutter, flies buzz, grasshoppers and katydids pipe their shrill notes, sharp as the edges of the sunbeams. Busy bees go humming past, straight as arrows, express-freight-trains from one blossoming copse to another. Showy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... satisfactorily done with their wings wither away, and thenceforth they have to content themselves with running about on the earth. Now isn't this a remarkable parallel to one stage of human life? Do not men and women also soar and flutter—at a certain time? And don't their wings manifestly drop off as soon as the end of that skyward movement has been achieved? If the gods had made me poetical, I would sonnetise on this idea. Do you know any poet with a fondness for the ant-philosophy? If ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Stanley shut the door instantly and went clattering down the iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his face of the sudden flutter beneath ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... you open the box the rustles will escape, whether you are wearing a silk dress or not," said the man, seriously. Then he picked up another box. "In this," he continued, "are many assorted flutters. They are invaluable to make flags flutter on a still day, when there is no wind. You, sir," turning to the Wizard, "ought to have this assortment. Once you have tried my goods I am sure you will ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... above admittin' that the news puts my heart to a canter. I'm brave; but conflicts with wild an' savage beasts is to me a novelty an' while I faces my fate without a flutter, I'm yere to say I'd sooner been in pursoot of minks or raccoons or some varmint whose grievous cap'bilities I can more ackerately stack up an' in whose merry ways I'm better versed. However, the dauntless blood of my grandsire ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... was precisely what he had intended to do from the very first, but now his plan had apparently fructified, he felt a vague horror at the result of his handiwork. He opened Cumshaw's shirt and put his hand over the man's heart. He could not detect even the faintest flutter. ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... A flutter of wings, a rustle of leaves,—was it a fairy alighting on the old cedar-tree? No, only an oriole; though some have said that this bird is a fairy prince in disguise, and that if he can win the love of a pure maiden the spell will be loosed, and he will regain his own form. This cannot ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... cavernous streets, in the great piazza, at the sindaco's, at college, at club, public offices, and hotels, at the grand old palaces, untouched since the middle ages—the glory of the city—at every house, great and small—flutter gaudy draperies; crimson, amber, violet, and gold, according to purse and condition, either of richest brocade, or of Eastern stuffs wrought in gold and needle-work, or—the family carpet or bed-furniture hung out for show. Banners wave from every house-top and tower, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... in our mind's eye the pert, pretty little faces, and the loves of bonnets which flirt and flutter along Broadway in the bright sunshine—Longum Vale! In the flesh we shall see them no more. No more oysters at Downing's, no more terrapins at Florence's, no more fugacious banquets at the Astor House. We have traduced the State, and for us there is no return. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... swift but silent movement another girl, who had been sitting patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the delicately modelled ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... tributes pilfered from the armory of heaven. I could praise her beauty with the tongue of men, and leave the tongue of angels out of the question; and if my muse were pleased here and there to take a wanton flutter, I knew I could give decorum the go-by with a ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... canaries and larklets in flannel before the fire when their proper parents would not attend to their infantile needs—mother tenderly feeding them with the point of a camel's-hair brush dipped in egg paste and weak wine and water before they were old enough even to 'peep' or flutter their nascent little wings. ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... was practically no chance of Pratinas recovering his lost property. And indeed, when Agias reached Rome once more, all fears in that direction were completely set at rest. The fashionable circle in which Claudia and Herennia were enmeshed was in a flutter and a chatter over no ordinary scandal. Valeria, wife of Calatinus, and Pratinas, the "charming" Epicurean philosopher, had both fled Rome two days before, and rumour had it that they had embarked together at Ostia on a ship leaving direct for Egypt. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of me as she had with Grindhusen, and that could only mean she was not displeased at seeing me again! So I thought to myself, and was glad to think so. But why had she not left off that unsteady glance, that flutter of the eyes, she had fallen into of late? If I were the Captain, now, I would speak to her about it. And her complexion, too, was not what it had been. There were some curious little spots about the temples. But what matter? She was no less pretty ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... had seemed so odd to her the night before, was already gathered round the table, still under the influence of sleep, and therefore uncommunicative, but her entrance sent a little flutter like a breath ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... and on the balconies. He discovered that signals were being sent from the first floor up to the second by changing the position of a flower pot on the railing of the balcony, and that these signals were answered by having a yellow cloth flutter on now a ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... windows were monstrous dragons' mouths, from which the darting forks came to play over golden stony lips, and lick the mullions and buttresses around. Then came a fresh explosion, as pent-up gases, generated by heat, burst forth to augment the fire with hiss, crackle, and flutter, as it seemed to gain its climax, and then sank down with a ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... above the roaring undertone of the cars, from far ahead floated back the treble bell-notes of the locomotive; there came a gritting vibration of brakes; slowly, more slowly the cars glided to a creaking standstill beside a sun-scorched platform gay with the bright flutter ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... be fed, Come and be fed like hens and cocks; Hither and thither with delicate tread, Flutter around me in fairy flocks. Come, little fairies, from far and near; Come, little fairies, I know you can fly; Who can be dear if you are not dear? And who is so fond of a ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various |
