"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... family, the first act they do is to cut off a thousand out of sixteen hundred a month from his allowance. They state (though there was a great number of dependants to maintain) that six hundred would be enough to maintain him. There appears in the account of these proceedings to be such a flutter about the care of the Rajah, and the management of his household: in short, that there never was such a tender guardianship as, always with the knowledge of Mr. Hastings, is exercised over this poor Rajah, who had just given (if ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ears now would be his surest signals. He could not see deep in the thickets, but he could hear any movement in the underbrush a hundred yards away. So far there was nothing but the hopping of a rabbit. The bird over his head sang on. There was no wind among the branches, not even the flutter of leaves to distract his attention from anything that might come on ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... young Chapman found the padres having trouble to keep the flour which they ground in their new stone mill from being dampened by water from the mill wheel. Knowing something of machinery, the American remedied the defect by means of a flutter wheel, and ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... him, and Tom had just time to resume his seat and look as decorously grave as perfect happiness could permit, when the door opened, and Mrs. Harrington entered, with her usual flutter. ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... notes had aroused notice; all who were in the secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering information—the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed quite discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and whispering. His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery. It would be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... light. At length they burst out luminous and superb, when the day-star penetrates them with his burning splendor, illuminates them with a marvelous radiance, and crowns them with glory. But the Sun is generous. Having showered benefits upon these gorgeous celestial butterflies that flutter round him as round some altar of the gods, he grants them liberty to visit other ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... walk'd, and they flutter'd, they hopp'd, and they flew, And weary enough ere the evening grew: But a pure chrystal stream some refreshment afforded, [p 19] And each, in his crop, certain treasures had hoarded. Exerting their energies, both then proceeded, Tho' many ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... 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 a minute stopped or stayed he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... declared that they took it under their protection, and would suffer none to do it harm. It is certain we could not be far from land, for the butterflies continued to come on the following days, and flutter about our sail. We had also on the same day another indication not less positive, by a Goeland which flew around our raft. This second visitor left us no doubt that we were fast approaching the African soil, and we persuaded ourselves we would be speedily thrown upon the coast by ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... this part of the enclosure, one of the two groups falls into a great state of flutter. Nimble acrobats that they are, the little Spiders scramble up, one after the other, and reach the top of the stem. Here, marches and countermarches, tumult and confusion reign, for there is a slight breeze ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... They foamed and murmured, The sun poured down, as in haste, Flickering ripples of rosy light; Long strings of frightened sea-gulls Flutter away shrill screaming; War-horses trample, and shields clash loudly, And far resounds ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... bright as rubies and amethysts. I think he must have a magic glass, in which he catches the reflection of little cherubs with many-colored wings, very little and bright. Angels, in long crisp robes of white, surrounded with halos of gold, come and flutter across the mirror, and he draws them. He hears mass every day. He fasts through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through the storm, and pouncing ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and looking carelessly about, my attention was attracted by what I took to be a leaf flutter down close to the above-mentioned bamboo, and to my surprise disappear before it reached the ground. Wondering at this, I got up and approached the place, when from the aforementioned hole in the bamboo out darted a little bird; ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... leaped when she saw the teacher come down the long road. She opened the gate to go to meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee as she appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or trim serge skirt and tailored waist, was attractive enough to cause Phoebe's heart to flutter with admiration a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that the vision sent the little girl's heart pounding and caused a strange shyness to possess her. The semi-tailored ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... a few minutes, to learn the cause of a knocking at the outward gate, and on his return was so struck with the forlorn and ghastly aspects of his companions of the watch that he exclaimed, "Pity of my heart, my masters, how like owls you look! Methinks, when the sun rises, I shall see you flutter off with your eyes dazzled, to stick yourselves into the next ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... like the messenger in a novel, handed me a letter. It was from father. "Have everything in readiness to start to-morrow morning," he wrote. "I shall expect you at the house at six-thirty to-morrow night without fail." This letter threw me into a flutter of excitement. I was accustomed to short-notice orders from father, orders that carried no explanations; but they had always been sent through the mails. A messenger meant great need of haste. I recognized him as father's office-boy. Was my father ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... no blood; but he no doubt bled internally. I could detect not the faintest flutter of the heart, so we laid him gently down on the sofa. As we did so, a small stream of blood trickled out of his mouth, he sighed heavily, and his ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Old Bill came hobbling around the corner. Steps were heard on the gallery, and the visitor's face showed a slight uneasiness as he caught a glimpse of a certain spot now suddenly made alive by the flutter of a soft gown and the flash of a bunch of scarlet ribbons. Thither he gazed as directly as he might in ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... he had left too soon, and that his attempts to restore her had operated so sluggishly as only now to have made themselves felt? Barnet laid his hand upon her chest, and fancied that ever and anon a faint flutter of palpitation, gentle as that of a butterfly's wing, disturbed the stillness there—ceasing for a time, then struggling to go on, then breaking down in weakness ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... woods it ran. Yet in this particular instance the terror of the swine does not seem wholly inexcusable, if we know a wild duck as well as a pig, especially the duck that takes to haunting a solitary woodland pool, who, when intruded on, springs up with such a sudden tremendous splash and flutter of wings and outrageous screams, that man himself, if not prepared for it, may be ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... was cold, and gave back no pressure. Awe fell upon every heart in that hushed and stricken group; there was no struggle with the dark angel, for the silver chord was gently loosened. The calm gaze of those radiant eyes grew fixed, unchangeable—a faint flutter, and the heart's quick pulsations forever ceased—wings had been given that balmy eve to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... the animal was better also. All seemed better that bright day, and from a group near came the expression, "Crops were good this year." While the wealthier and more cultured members of the congregation had kindly nods and smiles for all, they naturally drew together, and there seemed a little flutter of excitement over the renewal of the sewing society that had been discontinued ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... reigned in the BRAUSTRASSE and its neighbourhood; from houses which had hitherto been clangrous with musical noises, not a sound issued. Familiar rooms and lodgings were either closely shuttered, or, in process of scouring, hung out their curtains to flutter ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... flutter I left my room and, descending the stairs, passed the Count's door very much at my leisure. There was just a chance that the beautiful songstress might emerge. I dropped my stick on the lobby, near their door, and you may be sure it took me some little time to pick it up! Fortune, nevertheless, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a lace mantilla thrown about her head and shoulders, the ends of which she now waved in token of farewell. Kate held up the little package with a smile; she responded with a deprecatory gesture indicative of its insignificance, then with another wave of the lace scarf and a flutter of Kate's handkerchief, they passed out of each ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... am," says Jack. "The fact is, I'm so excited and agitated, that I can't sit still anywhere for five minutes together. Ridiculous as it may appear to you, I'm in a perpetual state of nervous flutter. I can't, for the life of me, help fearing that we shall be found out. I fancy that every man who looks twice at me in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... ungrateful, but did all in his power to make Nancy sensible how much he was obliged to her. He soon learned to distinguish her, and the moment he heard her step into the room, he would flutter his wings, and keep up an incessant chirping. It is no wonder, therefore, if Cherry and Nancy became very fond of ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... A flutter in the canvas caught the captain's attention. "It 's the wind slacking; there's a bare capful," said the mate, "and I 'm afeard there's mischief brewing yonder." He pointed as he spoke a little to the south of east, where the darkness seemed to be giving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... and the little nests are hidden from all curious eyes, if we could look quite through the waving branches and rustling leaves, we should behold the little mothers sitting upon their tiny eggs in patient happiness, or feeding their young broods, not yet able to flutter away; while in the leafy month of June, when Nature is perfect in mature beauty, the young may everywhere be seen gracefully imitating the parent birds, whose sole purpose in life seems to be the fulfillment of the admonition to ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... sunny heavens. I watched them eagerly. Suddenly one turned over; a cloud of feathers streamed off down the wind; and then, before the sound of the first shot had reached my ears, a second pitched a few yards upward, and, after a heavy flutter, followed its ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... satellite we call the "Earth" occupied but a slight fraction of time. And of that fraction of time man occupies but a small portion. All the whole human drift, from the first ape-man to the last savant, is but a phantom, a flash of light and a flutter of movement across the infinite face of ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... company in Seamont! He made a stir generally in the old place, starting a gymnasium and organizing a "reading circle," and putting things generally in a whirl. He had a "voice," and he had a guitar, so that his "serenades" were famous; and he set Aunt Stanshy's heart all in a flutter one night when, awaking about twelve, she heard his well-known voice leading off in a serenade, while he twanged his guitar to the tune, "O dearest love, do you remember?" Will Somers was popular in a very short ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... Mile End in bunting and blue fire. But perhaps it's a compliment. He knows his London, and it's no use trying to hide the facts from him. They must have queer notions of cities, those monarchs. They must fancy everybody lives in a flutter of flags and walks about under triumphal arches, like as if I were to stitch shoes in my Sunday clothes." By a defiance of chronology Crowl had them on to-day, and they seemed ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... invitation! Go the way they point out to thee! The voice of Adsalis will not venture to compete with them. What indeed is my voice?—what but a gentle, feeble sound! Go! there also I will be with thee. And when the long manes of thy horse-tail standards flutter before thee on the field of battle, fancy that thou dost see before thee the waving tresses of thy Adsalis who has freed her soul from the incubus of her body in order that it might be ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... for something! just as, when going through deep meadow-grass, a bird flies ostentatiously up before you, you may know her nest is not there, but far off, under distant tufts of fern and buttercup, through which she has crept with a silent flutter in her spotted breast, to act her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... likes to be of consequence to the belle of the room. If one girl is more admired than another, he likes to flutter about her, and seem to be on intimate terms with her. That is his way, and I have not noticed anything beyond that in his manner to ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... dish face and no figure, at whose admiration she could afford to smile; but for all that, the consciousness of his gaze (which was really fixed on Torrance and his mittens) kept her in something of a flutter till the word Amen. Even then, she was far too well-bred to gratify her curiosity with any impatience. She resumed her seat languidly - this was a Glasgow touch - she composed her dress, rearranged her nosegay of primroses, looked first in front, then behind upon the other side, and at last ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I still kin see the trouble o' the PRESUNT, I kin see— Kindo' like my sight wuz double-all the things that UST to be; And the flutter o' the robin and the teeter o' the wren Sets the willer-branches bobbin' "howdy-do" thum Now ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... which filled the house after the minister sat down was broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls, it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of mourners, but the ransomed sons and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... said. "I had no idea I should be the only lady here. But Mr. Masters so often spoke to me of this restaurant that I have always meant to visit it." She did not flutter an eyelash as she uttered Masters' name, and her lovely eyes seemed wooing Holt to remain ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... of spring and autumn in the Middle States, are in their summer home and breeding-place. Warblers, named for the magnolia and the myrtle, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, blue-backed, and black-throated, flutter and creep along the branches with simple lisping music. Kinglets, ruby-crowned and golden-crowned, tiny, brilliant sparks of life, twitter among the trees, breaking occasionally into clearer, sweeter songs. Companies ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... 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 ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... a flutter of excitement throughout the school. This increased when the young woman confirmed, by her first efforts, all that her agreeable appearance and fascinating voice had promised. She declaimed a fragment from Gluck's "Armida" which other pupils ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... clergyman turned his face toward the audience and the light from the chandelier above him fell full upon him, a flutter of excitement ran throughout the room, while many persons were seen to exchange glances of undisguised astonishment, for they had recognized a popular young divine—the pastor of a church, which many of those present, together with their hostess, ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... 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 mind it. It is no less interesting to the by-standers, who like to witness this sort of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... whom it is unnecessary to mention. They cannot believe that there is "no deception"—that the time is correctly told—unless the works of the watch are bared to them: and this Richardson most undoubtedly does. Even in his 'prentice work, every flutter of Pamela's little heart is registered, and registered probably enough: nor could the registry have been effected, perhaps, in any other way that should be in the least probable so well as by the letter and journal method. Of course this analysis ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... door, his arms full of dry spruce wood. He stood smiling down at the face framed snugly in the fox fur; then he dropped his burden and knelt before the stove. In a moment there came a promising crackle, followed quickly by an agreeable flutter which grew into a roar as the stove began ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... This poor little flutter of rhymes would not have been let down the wind: the project would have been abandoned but for the too flattering encouragement of a responsible friend. I trust that he may not "live to rue the day," like Keith ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... was a great flutter in the band, and nothing but the name of Miss Temple was heard. All vowed they knew her very well, at least by sight, and never thought of anybody else. Some asked the Count to present them, others meditated plans by which that great result might be obtained; but, in the midst of ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... are a most helpful person. I really think I must—" I felt a touch on my cheek, lighter than the caress of a butterfly's wing, softer than the tip of a baby's finger, sweeter than the perfume of jessamine at night. For a moment the Queen continued to flutter close about me, radiant and shining. I shut my dazzled eyes for an instant. When I opened ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... and devour it: for the sagacity and smell of this bird enable him to discover his quarry at a great distance, though better concealed than I could be within a two-inch board. In a little time I observed the noise and flutter of wings to increase very fast, and my box was tossed up and down, like a sign on a windy day. I heard several bangs or buffets, as I thought, given to the eagle (for such I am certain it must have been that held the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... the EXOCETUS VOLITANS "does not fly; does not flutter its wings; can only take a prolonged leap," and so on. The misfortune attendant upon such books seems, to an unlearned sailor like myself, to be that, although posing as authorities, most of the authors ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... letter to Welsh, and then added, with a flutter of caution, "I haven't made up my mind yet. There are ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... was long and fatiguing; the anguish of her poor aching heart almost too much for endurance—a heart so heavy that even hope could scarce flutter it. It was dull damp weather, though in the middle of summer. The solitary traveller caught cold on the journey, and arrived in London in a high fever. Ill, faint, and helpless, the great city seemed to her unspeakably dismal—most stony of all stony-hearted mothers to this wretched orphan. She ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... looking at him for some time before I made out that he was there. So you may peer into a thicket a hundred times and see nothing, and then a trick of the light or a flutter of the mood and you see creatures where you had been sure was nothing. As children will, I had stayed longer than I need, looking and wondering into the wood, not observing but yet absorbing the effects of the lights and shades. The trees were sapling chestnuts if ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... warm breezes came whispering softly from the South, and all the earth was glad, the husband of this child-wife was in his grave, and she was alone. Alone? No; she carried in her tired arms the hungry babe, and beneath her heart she felt the faint flutter of another life. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... staff, and as he did so he cursed the missionaries for meddlers and the treaty officials for crazy fools. When the flag was at last in place, Fetuao and he drew away to get a better view of it from the beach. Standing there, in silence they watched the vivid colors flaunt and flutter against the wooded hills behind, while Jack, with a seaman's instinctive reverence for the flag, bared his head, and Fetuao clapped her hands ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... when driving On the west wind's path of copper, On the pathway of the rainbow, Swift I hastened as an envoy, With the king's note in my wallet, And his mandate in my bosom, In my charge the leader's orders, And upon my tongue the secret That the flags in breeze should flutter, And the lance-points smite in battle, And the swords should do their duty. What was that which came to meet me, And what horror to confound me? 'Twas an eagle came to meet me, Eagle fierce with beak hooked sharply; With his beak he sniffed around him, Through the mist he pushed his ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... they had now talked enough about fairies, and it struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. 'I can't think where she has gone to,' he said, rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's heart went flutter ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... as if she had a broken wing," Jack remarked, quietly; "and flutter along the ground in a way that couldn't help but make one try to catch her; but if you chased after her, it would be to see the old bird take wing pretty soon, and go ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the hour appointed for beginning the exercises, all the seats were filled and all the standing room in the church utilized, and the air was alive with whispers, low tones and the flutter of fans as the audience waited, with the best patience it could muster, for the opening numbers of the program. When President Atwood rose and announced the first number, all sounds ceased, and the great audience gave close attention to that ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various
... the Boers, and were prepared to join them as soon as they advanced. Many of these, indeed, during the past fortnight had trekked north, and were already in the ranks of the enemy. Presently Chris, who was constantly using his glasses, saw the flutter of a flag on a hill away to the left, and a minute later the signal to halt passed along the line. It had been agreed that signalling by shot should not be attempted unless the enemy seen were so far distant that they would not be likely ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... punctual and in his place; the curtain went up every day for the performance; but Frau von Greifenstein's theatre was silent and untenanted, not a voice broke the stillness, not a rustle of garments or a flutter of a programme in a spectator's hand made the silence less intense, not an echo of applause woke a thrill of pride or vanity in the heart of the solitary performer. And the poor actress was growing old, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... large congregation that had come to attend the last sad rites, while the great organ played Chopin's "Funeral March." The high vault and arches received the organ's tone, and a sombre light pervaded the interior. There was a slight flutter and a craning of necks among those in the pews, as the procession began to ascend the aisle. While the slow step of the pallbearers and those carrying the coffin sounded on the stone floor, the clear voice of the clergyman ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... should do to the utmost of its power. For the minds of those who have given themselves up to the pleasures of the body, paying, as it were, a servile obedience to their lustful impulses, have violated the laws of God and man; and therefore, when they are separated from their bodies, flutter continually round the earth on which they lived, and are not allowed to return to this celestial region till they have been purified by ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... pools and mills, and the gardens on its banks, shut in with willows and thick flower-gardens. There are fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands); little sand-pipers flutter whistling along the stony banks, which are streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs herons stand out in the ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... the strength of daily duty added to the joy of loving and being loved. Not that she reasoned much—she was not given to much analyzing of herself—she only knew that she was content, and found content in every thing—in the ripple of the river at her feet, the flutter of the leaves over her head, the soft blue sky above the colleges, and the green grass gemmed with daisies, where an old man was mowing on the one side, and a large thrush, grown silent with summer, was hopping about on the other. ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... who do the work of the gods; and so when I have brought her circling from round my shoulders to my waist and thence, with her masts all sloping inwards, to my knees, and lower still and downwards till her topmast pennants flutter against my ankles, then I, Nooz Wana, Whelmer of Ships, lift up my feet and trample her beams asunder, and there go up again to the surface of the Straits only a few broken timbers and the memories of the sailors and of their early loves ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... snow-flakes as they flutter down, softly, one by one, whisper soothingly, "Rest, poor heart, rest!" It is as though our mother smoothed our hair, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... was the more chary of meeting with the dead. A little beyond Honaunau, looking far ahead, he was aware of a woman bathing in the edge of the sea; and she seemed a well-grown girl, but he thought no more of it. Then he saw her white shift flutter as she put it on, and then her red holoku; and by the time he came abreast of her she was done with her toilet, and had come up from the sea, and stood by the track-side in her red holoku, and she was all freshened with the bath, ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chapel. This venerable community afforded me much food for speculation during my residence in this apartment. In the morning I used to hear them gradually waking and seeming to call each other up. After a time, the whole fraternity would be in a flutter; some balancing and swinging on the tree tops, others perched on the pinnacle of the Abbey church, or wheeling and hovering about in the air, and the ruined walls would reverberate with their incessant cawings. In this way they would linger about the rookery and its vicinity ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... eyes, then let the lids quickly flutter down again. He was afraid to look about him, for he was no longer sure where he might awaken after what seemed to him to have been no more than an ordinary night's sleep. Apprehensively he lifted one hand to his face and felt of his upper lip. There was no mustache upon ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... in Bareilly on a midnight. As I slept beside Father on the piazza of our bungalow, I was awakened by a peculiar flutter of the mosquito netting over the bed. The flimsy curtains parted and I saw the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... a crowd of small boats flutter O'er the intervening space, Bearing hearts too full to utter Thoughts that flush the eager face! See young Eric foremost gaining— (For a father's love athirst!) Every nerve and muscle straining, But to ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... indeed, are the watchmen of the dead. And all round the horizon this charming landscape passes into fainter and lighter tones, light-blue and grey. You cannot perceive clearly where the land ends and sea and sky begin. But here and there the white wings of a sailing vessel flutter or a slight puff of smoke ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... I'd go to, after I'd got my title, and was rigged out in Tight-fit's tip-top, should be—our cursed shop! to buy a dozen or two pair of white kid. Ah, ha! What a flutter there would be among the poor pale devils as were standing, just as ever, behind the counters, at Tag-rag and Co.'s when my carriage drew up, and I stepped, a tip-top swell, into the shop. Tag-rag would ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the Flight—the Massacre of the Innocents—is figuratively expressed by two winged boys, who, seated on a bough of the tree, are seen robbing a nest, and wringing the necks of the nestlings, while the parent-birds scream and flutter over their heads: in point of taste, this significant allegory had been better omitted; it spoils the harmony of composition. There is another similar group, quite as graceful, by David Hopfer. Vandyck seems to have had both in his memory when he designed the very beautiful Riposo ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... doorway and escape. Loring's imperturbable nerve and practiced fist had defeated that scheme and laid the deserter low, and Higgins was now languishing at Yuma, awaiting trial on triple charges. But Blake for a second or two had felt the clasp of soft arms about him, the wild flutter of a maiden heart much below his own, and Blake was human. Somewhere he had met that slender girl before. Twice he had danced at the bailes in Tucson, and once attended a masquerade, where for nearly an hour he had enjoyed the partnership ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... 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 ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 in his hand all the while he stood by the fence until he had looked back and bowed again. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... blood. These Missions are a Godsend not only to the sailor, but to the nation. No other agency has done the work they are doing. The Church is apt, to gather its robes round a cantish respectability, and call out "Save the people," and the flutter falls flat on the seats. These missions owe any success they have had to ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... and Bill yelling, and the angry crack and hiss of the fire. A few rods down I stopped, struck another match, and lit the grass. There was a sputter and flash. Then the flame flared up, spread like running quicksilver, and, meeting the pine-needles, changed to red. I ran on. There was a loud flutter behind me, then a crack almost like a shot, then a seething roar. Another pine had gone off. As I stopped to strike the third match there came three distinct reports, and then others that seemed dulled in a windy roar. I raced onward, ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... ripe—to the ordinary eye they are ripe, but the farmer is not quite satisfied—rise to the waist or higher, and tempt the hand to pluck them. Butterflies flutter over the surface, now descending to some flower hidden beneath, now resuming their joyous journey. There is a rich ripe feeling in the very atmosphere, the earth is yielding her wealth, and a delicate aroma rises from ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... flutter in his breast. It seemed to heave him upwards. The way grew steeper and more steep. The stream of grass, faithful so far, ended abruptly five feet below the top. Those feet were sheer, the chalk darkening to the blackness of soil, and the crest ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young. I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen, but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on a little further, until at last it rose up ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... rot, Harry," said Ranald, and sat down again to his desk. Harry went out in a state of dazed astonishment. Alone Ranald sat in his office writing steadily except that now and then he paused to let a smile flutter across his stern, set face, as a gleam of sunshine over a rugged rock on a cloudy day. He was listening to his heart, whose every beat kept singing the refrain, "I love her, I love her; she ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... wore on, and still he hung there, slowly dying; his very strength a curse. The second night crawled slowly down, and when, in the dawdling hours of darkness, a great Horned Owl, drawn by the feeble flutter of a dying wing, cut short the pain, the deed ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... would see to it that they got all necessary supplies; they would suffer no hardship, but, on no account, would a member of that household set a foot off the grounds. He ordered the babies put to bed and the curtains taken down in that room and the rugs taken out. Mrs. Martin obeyed his orders in a flutter of distress. She was frightened because her children had the scarlet fever and worried half to death at the predicament her passing guests were in. She had been so grateful to Gladys for taking her along in the automobile ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... of the {287} process of reduction, such birds might be expected to resemble in the state of their organs of flight our domesticated ducks. This is the case with the water-hen (Gallinula nesiotis) of Tristan d'Acunha, which "can flutter a little, but obviously uses its legs, and not its wings, as a mode of escape." Now Mr. Sclater[454] finds in this bird that the wings, sternum, and coracoids, are all reduced in length, and the crest ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... various excellent young men who were nothing and had nothing—neither name nor fortune; but Bettina had granted them a waltz, and, believing themselves irresistible, they hoped that they had caused a flutter ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... save as all men know Twitter of mating birds, flutter of wings In April coverts, and the streams that flow— One of the ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... short flutter of joys and pains, a bright glimmer of smiles and tears, and we are gone. But whence did we come? And whither do we go? Can ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... so there is for the Ego in Devachan the first flutter of psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual exhaustion of force passing into semi-consciousness and lethargy, total oblivion, and—not death but birth, birth into another personality, and the resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes that must ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... we naturally like, and therefore the Highlanders were unwilling to lay aside their plaid, which yet to an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress; for hanging loose upon the body, it must flutter in a quick motion, or require one of the hands to keep it close. The Romans always laid aside the gown when they had anything to do. It was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the same word which signified a gown signified peace. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... began Mr. Coyne with a very slight flutter of the eyelids. "Maybe my daughter told you—an' if she didn't, you may have found out for yourselves—as how this here house is properly speakin' four houses—nothing in common but the roof, an' the cellar, an' this room we're sittin' in. . . . Well, then, ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had feared. It was a boy, and had died in being born. They said the little waxen image bore traces of a pathetic struggle for life. As for the mother, she never rallied at all; I think she would not. She passed away quite calmly, with not a flutter of the eyelids to answer her husband, who prayed for a parting ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... they here forbidden to teach them other truths before they be baptized? This text as fairly denieth to the unbaptized believer heaven and glory. Nay, our author, in the midst of all his flutter about this 28th of Matthew, dare venture to gather no more therefrom, but that it may be strongly supposed. Behold therefore, gentle reader, the ground on which these brethren lay the stress of their separation from ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... women, mingled and consonant like the voices of the birds, but with a certain tone of trouble and expectancy. Every now and then one individual voice or another would dominate the general murmur, and would be followed by a quick flutter of sound denoting acquiescence or disagreement. From this they knew that most of their neighbors had arrived before them, having been summoned earlier in the journey of the messengers sent out from the distant home of the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... stony stairs with a great clatter of board and flutter of skirts, winding up at the bottom with ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... I will tell thee The song Creation sings, From the humming of bees in the heather, To the flutter of angels' wings. ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... paragraphs as to his views and conduct, published, contradicted, and reiterated, were not sufficient to sustain, and even stimulate, curiosity. That he was about to return to his native land, as the Legate of His Holiness, was an event which made many men look grave, and some female hearts flutter. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... look upon my melancholy record,—you at least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, in the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if it "were ready to crack" with its own excess of strain? What if instead of throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat again? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy will look upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what it is when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip of the bodice seems unendurable ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... wrong," she began, with a nervous little flutter of her pretty hands; "but I'm ready now to 'fess up, as the ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... good care he sha'n't want cunning or strength. It was ten o'clock instead of nine before he left, which he did with a feeling of triumph. Poor Patty remained behind, and shut up the bar, her heart in a flutter, and her hands shaking, while Dick was locking the front door. She hardly knew whether to laugh or cry; she felt the change which had come over him, and was half fascinated and half repelled ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... old woman when she comes to that road will find the miles beginning at the right end. We shall all bid our first real adieu to those brother-jesters of ours, Time; and Space; and though the handkerchiefs flutter, no lack of courage will have power to cheat or defeat us. "However amusing the comedy may have been," wrote Pascal, "there is always blood in the fifth act. They scatter a little dust in your face; and then all is over for ever." Blood there may be, but blood does not necessarily mean ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... fingers. Never before had he so poignantly realized that innate splendor of femininity that was uniquely hers, a quality more potent than any mere beauty. Her look met his straight and frankly, but he heard the breath flutter at her lips, and he thought to read in her eyes a question, a hunger, and a delight. His voice was under rigid ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... event acurd, you may imadgin that my busm was in no triffling flutter. Sleaplis of nights, I past them thinking of the great ewent—or if igsosted natur DID clothes my highlids—the eyedear of my waking thoughts pevaded my slummers. Corts, Erls, presntations, Goldstix, gracious Sovarinx mengling in my dreembs ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... awkwardly, 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, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... William Curtis, then a youth of eighteen, and his brother Burrill, two years his senior, was a noteworthy event in the annals of Brook Farm, at least in the estimation of the younger members. I shall never forget the flutter of excitement caused by Mr. Ripley's announcing their expected coming in these words: 'Now we're going to have two young Greek gods among us.' ... On a bright morning in May, 1842, soon after Mr. Ripley's announcement, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... that the Crown Prince was returning with his bride, set all the country in a flutter of excitement, and the General Election being concluded, and the meeting of the new Government being deferred until after the Heir-Apparent's return, the people of every city and town and province set themselves busily to work to prepare suitable festivities for the homecoming ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... sickening, unending suspense which caused the pulse to flutter and the breath to lag; the crowd gave tongue in a howl of hoarse delight. Then followed a peculiar shrilling chorus—that familiar signal known as the "dago whistle"—which was like the piercing cry of lost souls. "Who killa da Chief?" screamed the hoodlums, then puckered their ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... have proved satisfactory. She wanted to get out quickly, because she knew but few, and the stars were gossiping. Outside were carriages and some correct youths in attractive clothing, waiting. Carrie saw that she was scanned closely. The flutter of an eyelash would have brought her a companion. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... and a white Indian shawl. Miss Prunty had on her starchiest collar and most formal tie. Goneril saw it was necessary that she, likewise, should deck herself in her best. She was too young and impressionable not to be influenced by the flutter of excitement and interest which filled the whole of the little cottage. Goneril, too, was excited and anxious, although Signor Graziano had seemed so old and like a coffee-bean. She made no progress ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... A flutter of excitement was caused in this country the other day by the news that a Spanish officer had been inspecting our Southern coast defences, and had made sketches of some of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... could hardly make them out, but his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the sight. And as he watched he saw the hair swell like waves riding over the water, saw it drop and flutter, coil and uncoil of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... three men were dismissed, and as Claude and Charles were about to leave the house they looked stealthily round the hall. But no flutter of skirts nor any trace of woman's occupation rewarded them. Roberval noticed their glances, and as he bade them farewell he said, somewhat roughly: "St Malo is a dangerous place for women. I have left my niece at Court. ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... morn Sleeps in a shadowy close, Shut with a gate of horn, 'Round which the dreams she knows Flutter with rose ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... not much charm in the still, chambered society, the circle of bland countenances, the digestive silence, the admired remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They demand more atmosphere and exercise; "a gale upon their spirits," as our pious ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, given their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that he bought second hand over in town. He stays to dine with us two or three nights a week, but he has grown flexible, and our meals are very merry ones. Laugh softly to yourself, Experience Book, and flutter your leaves just a bit as I write, that of their own volition, Miss Lavinia and Martin have drifted from whist to piquet, as by natural transition, and Evan is free for ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... point is the lady herself," Andy murmured, edging behind Weary and Pink as the flutter came closer. "That's Florence ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... prolific. Fit, suitable, appropriate, proper. Flame, blaze, flare, glare, glow. Flat, level, even, plane, smooth, horizontal. Flatter, blandish, beguile, compliment, praise. Flexible, pliable, pliant, supple, limber, lithe, lissom. Flit, flutter, flicker, hover. Flock, herd, bevy, covey, drove, pack, brood, litter, school. Flow, pour, stream, gush, spout. Follow, pursue, chase. Follower, adherent, disciple, partisan, henchman. Fond, loving, doting, devoted, amorous, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... mutter, Strutting high aloof Where the sunbeans flutter Through the stable roof. Hear the chickens cheep, boys, And the hen with pride Clucking them to sleep, boys, On the ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... variety of its undress, Cutler striding vociferous in its wake, while a bugler ran himself out of breath, far to the eastward front, to puff feeble and abortive breath into unresponsive copper. And still the same flutter of distant, scattering shots came drifting back from the brakes and canons in the rocky wilds beyond the stream. The guard still pursued and the Indians still led, but they who knew anything well knew ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... snared him, Myrrha, once; let him flutter away! But to relinquish the wide earth at last, And flit a faint thing by a shadowy river, Or yearning without blood upon the bank—— The loneliness of death! To go to strangers— ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... having a boy around where there is a girl around, and spring around and lilacs around and a moon and music and joy around,—what is more natural in all this world than that in the fire struck by the simple joy of youth there should be the flutter of unseen wings around, and when the two had finished singing, with something passing between their hearts not in the words, what is more natural than that the girl, half frightened at the thrill in her ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... circumstance which did not escape the notice of the group, and confirmed all their suspicions, Mr. Avenel, with a serious, thoughtful air, and a slow step, approached the group. Nor did the great Roman general more nervously "flutter the dove-cotes in Corioli," than did the advance of the supposed X. Y. agitate the bosoms of Lord Spendquick and his sympathizing friends. Pocket-book in hand, and apparently feeling for something formidable within ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... scrub, stretching away to where, on the far horizon, some low hills cut the brazen sky-line. On the beach the so-called town of Sonmiani—a collection of dilapidated mud huts, over which two or three tattered red and yellow banners flutter in the breeze, and beneath which a small and shallow harbour emits a powerful odour of mud, sewage, and rotten fish. Every hut is surmounted by a "badgir," or wind-catcher—a queer-looking contrivance, in shape ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... and never did its sound deceive thee; never did my tongue raise the war cry, and the foe appeared not. Be warned then to beware the white man. He has fixed his serpent eye upon you, and, like the charmed bird, you flutter each moment nearer to ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... was finally decided to elect him to membership. His first appearance at a meeting of the club gave rise to an unforeseen situation, for the order in which the members sat about the table had become fixed by traditions of precedence, and the attempt to place another chair caused a flutter of debate in politely subdued voices. Worthington was kept standing while this discussion was going on, and suddenly astounded the company by gravely seating himself upon ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... out a little later, and soon the scrub was alive with voices and the noise of the searching. It was weary work, with many a flutter at the heart when a sudden call would bring Norah to attention, rigid and listening—forgetting for the moment that only the three signals agreed upon were to give evidence of success. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce |
