"Twig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... llama. The crackling of the dry twigs that formed the substructure of the cunningly arranged pile, and the curling wreaths of fragrant smoke, soon showed that the wood was fairly alight; and as the little tongues of yellow flame leapt from twig to twig and gathered power, and the smoke shot upward from the altar in a thin perfectly straight column to the ceiling, the great building fairly resounded with the shouts of jubilation of the enormous congregation, for this was the last and most important omen of all. If the smoke ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... supposing a person, under circumstances forbidding the use of the voice, seeking to call attention to a particular bird on a tree, and failing to do so by mere indication. Descriptive signs are resorted to, perhaps suggesting the bill and wings of the bird, its manner of clinging to the twig with its feet, its size by seeming to hold it between the hands, its color by pointing to objects of the same hue; perhaps by the action of shooting into a tree, picking up the supposed fallen game, and plucking feathers. These are continued until understood, and ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... writer was once travelling with a black boy the latter produced from the lining of his hat a bit of twig about an inch long and having three notches cut on it. The black boy explained that he was a dhomka (messenger), that the central notch represented himself, and the other notches, one the youth sending the message, the other the girl for whom it was intended. It meant, in the words of Dickens, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... and it is mentioned in other stories.] Then at last having found the track, he went in hot haste after Mr. Rabbit. And both ran hard, till, night coming on, Rabbit, to protect himself, had only just time to trample down the snow a little, and stick up a spruce twig on end and sit on it. But when Wild Cat came up he found there a fine wigwam, and put his head in. All that he saw was an old man of very grave and dignified appearance, whose hair was gray, and ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... morning-glory vines in bloom, still dripping with dew. We saw a great many specimens of what I was told was the "long palm;" it looked to me like a kind of brake or fern, with drooping branches twenty feet in length. There were trees with hardly a leaf; but each branch and twig crowned with orange-yellow blossoms. Again we would see a tree covered with feathery, purple flowers. Along some parts of the way, was a profusion of "Indian shot," so called, I suppose, because the seeds are black, hard, and round, looking like large shot. Here and there drooped a vine with ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... by autumnal storms; Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds Profusely scatter'd from its waving heads; 350 The countless Aphides, prolific tribe, With greedy trunks the honey'd sap imbibe; Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big, And pendent nations tenant every twig. Amorous with double sex, the snail and worm, Scoop'd in the soil, their cradling caverns form; Heap their white eggs, secure from frost and floods, And crowd their nurseries with uncounted broods. Ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims, Breathes with new lungs, or tries his ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... it is nearly done, thrust a twig or wooden skewer into it, down to the bottom. If the stick come out clean and dry, the cake is almost baked. When quite done, it will shrink from she sides of the pan, and cease making a noise. Then withdraw the coals (if ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... back and forth between a rough tea-table set near the fire and an open cupboard-door in the wall. She was carrying dishes to the table, and now and then stopping to stir something good-smelling which hung over the fire in a pewter pot, with a strong bent twig for ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... do hang in zight, To mornen zun an' evenen light, The bird do whissle in the gloom, Avore the thissle out in bloom, But here alwone the tree do leaen. The twig that woonce did whiver there Is now a limb a-wither'd beaere: Zoo I do miss the sheaede above My head, an' ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... feet, and as the hawk rose with its prey in its talons they shot their arrows almost simultaneously. Amuba's arrow struck the hawk between the wings, and the creature fell dead still clutching its prey. Chebron's arrow was equally well aimed, but it struck a twig which deflected its course and it flew wide ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... of divining the intention of his adversary and the state of his moral. His power of drawing inferences, often from seemingly unimportant trifles, was akin to that of the hunter of his native backwoods, to whom the rustle of a twig, the note of a bird, a track upon the sand, speak more clearly than written characters. His estimate of the demoralisation of the Federal army after Bull Run, and of the ease with which Washington might have been captured, was absolutely correct. In the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... a blanket of snow. He hurried across the pond, his dog following. Near the far shore was a bare spot on the ice cut by one of the sleigh-runners. Up in the woods, opposite, was the Moss Trail. Sunlight fell on the hills above him. He halted, looking up at the tree-tops. Twig, branch, and trunk glowed with the fire of diamonds through a lacy necking of hoar frost. Every tree had put on a jacket of ice and become as a fountain of prismatic hues. Here and there a dead pine rose like a spire of crystal; ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... winter-walks, in the orchard or the wood, in the garden or by the rustic wayside. We have seen him, on still winter-days, flitting from tree to tree, with the liveliest motions and in the most engaging attitudes, examining every twig and branch, and winding over and under and in and out among them, and, after a few lively notes, hopping to another tree to pass through the same manoeuvres. Even those who are confined to the house are not excluded from a sight of these birds; one cannot open a window, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... suddenness. The only one of these which remains in general use is shoot: for sprout is now only appropriated to the young growth from cabbage-stalks; and spring is heard no more save in sprig, which is evidently a corruption of it, and which now denotes a small slip or twig as we say, sprigs of laurel, bay, thyme, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... zero weather that week, but bright and clear, with spicules of frost glistening on every twig; and I recollect how sharply the tree trunks snapped—those frost snaps which ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... had devoured the trees on either side of the beavers' pool. On all sides of us the bigger trees were still in flames, and from everywhere thick white smoke was rising, and over all the mountain-side, right down to the water's edge, there was not one green leaf or twig. Everything was black. The brushwood was completely gone. The trees were no more than bare trunks, some of them still partially wreathed in flames. The whole earth was black, and from every side rose columns and jets and streams of smoke. It seemed incredible ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... captin," he said admiringly; "don't tell me. I could twig that directly I see you. Ho, what's the use o' trying to come it over a poor 'ard-working ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... index of such a stride toward the ultimate pacification of mankind as was never made before. But it was the work done in the years 1783-89 that created a federal nation capable of enduring the storm and stress of the years 1861-65. It was in the earlier crisis that the pliant twig was bent; and as it was bent, so has it grown; until it has become indeed a goodly and a ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... lips to cling upon her own. A ray of sunlight pierced the leaves to shine Where her half-opened bodice let be shown Her white throat fluttering to his soft caress, Half-gasping with her gladness. And her pledge She whispers, melting with delight. A twig Snaps in the hornbeam hedge. A cackling laugh tears through the quietness. Eunice starts up in terrible distress. "My God! What's that?" Her ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... assistance it might have fared badly with the plucky Northamptons. As it was, the Boers finally withdrew with some loss. On December 10th we were delayed for some time at Enslin by an accident and I had a careful look at the position held by our men in this minor engagement. There was scarcely a twig or leaf in the orchard which was not torn by shrapnel and Mauser bullets. The walls of the house were chipped and pierced in every direction, and one corner of the earthwork had been carried off by a shell. Yet in the two companies there were only eight casualties! ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... eastern end of the ridge for no other reason than apparently that course was the one the savage had the least reason to take. He advanced hurriedly because every moment was precious. Not a crushed blade of grass, a brushed leaf, an overturned pebble nor a snapped twig did he find. He saw that he was getting near to the side of the ridge where the Delaware's trail had abruptly ended. Ah! what was there? A twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew brushed off. Bending beside the fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it was not crushed. A small plant ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... I have never seen one in the Islands as late as November. Both in the Vale and on the Cliffs in the higher part of the Island the Stonechat is very common, and the gay little bird, with its bright plumage and sprightly manner, may be seen on the top of every furze bush, or on a conspicuous twig in a hedge in the wilder parts of the Island, but is not so common in the inland and more cultivated parts, being less frequently seen on the hedges by the roadside than it is here, Somersetshire, or in many counties in England. In Alderney it is quite as common as in Guernsey, and I ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... King ought to punish Madame de Montespan, and, instead of censuring her, he wishes to make her a duchess! . . . Let him make her a princess, even a highness, if he likes; he has all the power in his hands. I am only a twig; he is ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... and the moon was bright, They had been roused from the haunted ground, By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound; They had heard the tiny bugle-horn, They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string, When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn, And the nettle shaft through air was borne, Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing. And now they deemed the courier-ouphe, Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground; And they watched till they saw him mount the roof That canopies the world around; Then ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... on a marsh eating raspberries. When he glanced up, a big black bear stood beside him. Robber Father broke off an osier twig and struck the bear on the nose. "Keep to your own ground, you!" he said; "this is my turf." Then the huge bear turned around and lumbered off ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... tree or Mountain ash, is used by the Scottish peasantry with the same view; and a small twig of it is sewed up in the cow's tail, to preserve the animal and its produce from the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... and, as a consequence, several persons may ultimately have proprietary interest in one house. In such a case the ground space is divided, often resulting in many twig-separated patches, as ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its twig. Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the Berthelinis came at length to pass the night. After an amiable contention, Leon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, and they sat down together on the first bench in silence. Leon made a cigarette, which he smoked to an end, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... madame. She listened and listened: to the stir of the leaves, to the dim murmur of running water, to the sighs of the night wind, to the crackling of a dry twig when Anne turned uneasily in her sleep. She listened and listened, but the sound she ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... men circling placidly round and round the rink. One bubble cloud rose and slowly swallowed up the sun. Suddenly I heard a sharp crack like the breaking of a twig. "What's that?" I said, stepping forward on to the balcony. "It sounded like ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... there was a series of crackling sounds, with a sharp rain of small broken branches falling on the bridge; a creeper with a great rustle snapped on the head of a boat davit, and a long, luxuriant green twig actually whipped in and out of the open port, leaving behind a few torn leaves that remained suddenly at rest on Mr. Massy's blanket. Then, the ship sheering out in the stream, the light began to return but did not augment beyond a subdued clearness: ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... five miles off; he postponed it. He wrote a line in pencil, put a boy upon his black mare, and hurried him off to the rendezvous, while he stayed and entered with strange alacrity into this affair. "Stay," cried he, "if he is an old hand he will twig the officer." ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... me, bearing brands of resined hemp, kindled from Carver's lamp. The foremost of them set his torch to the rick within a yard of me, the smoke concealing me from him. I struck him with a backhanded blow on the elbow as he bent it, and I heard the bone of his arm break as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With a roar of pain, he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there and singed him. The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gained sight of me, till I caught his fire-brand from his hand, and struck it into his countenance. ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... reptiles. With protruding and telescopic eyes, that move at will in the most opposite directions, with an ungainly head, a cold, dry, strange-looking skin, and a prehensile tail, the creature slowly steals along a branch or twig, scarcely distinguishable from the substance along which it moves, and scarcely seeming to move at all, until it has come within reach of its prey. Then suddenly, with a motion rapid as that of the most ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... about the surface of the still pools like gigantic frog-broods. There were on the ridges warrior trees burning in the vindictiveness of a long forgotten cause—a blaze of crimson scimitar thorns from root to topmost twig; and down again in the cool hollows were lady-bushes making twilight of the green gloom with their cloudy ivory blossoms and filling the shadows with such a heavy scent that head and heart reeled with fatal pleasure as one pushed ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... that he could not hear the pounding of our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions, but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an hour before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on the stillness of ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... Tobias and the Angel there by a painter whose name I most ungratefully forget. I saw a man yesterday carrying fishes in the market, each strung through the gills on a twig of myrtle: that is how Tobias ought to carry his fish: when a native custom suggests old paintings, how charming it ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... CIGAR CASE BEARER winters in its case attached to a twig. When the buds begin to open in the spring it moves to them, carrying its case with it, and begins to feed on the young and tender buds. By the time the leaves are well open, it has fed a good deal on the tender buds and young ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... one—must Rabelais's lighter talk have had, as he lounged—so the story goes—in his dressing-gown upon the public place, picking up quaint stories from the cattle-drivers off the Cevennes, and the villagers who came in to sell their olives and their grapes, their vinegar and their vine-twig faggots, as they do unto this day. To him may be owing much of the sound respect for natural science, and much, too, of the contempt for the superstition around them, which is notable in that group of great naturalists who were boys in ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... rustling in the bushes at one side of the garden, and the sound of a breaking twig, and, seizing a hoe which stood by the door, he sprang toward the point ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... also, but although I have the keenest sight, it was quite impossible to see anything except the ragged patches of moonshine between the great black shadows of the trees. My ears are as quick as my eyes, and once or twice I thought that I heard a twig crack; but you know how many sounds there are in a forest at night, and how difficult it is even to say what direction they ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... twenty or thirty hours at a stretch. All outdoor work or exercise was impossible. The outpost was nearly always shrouded in dense mist. Insect pests abounded. Scorpions and snakes invaded the buildings. Outside, from every blade of grass, every leaf and twig, a thin and hungry leech waved its worm-like, yellow-striped body in the air, seeming to scent any approaching man or beast on which it could fasten and gorge itself fat with blood. Certainly a small station on the face of the Himalayas is not a desirable ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... get it, drink water twenty times a day, while others will not perhaps drink more than once or twice during the same time. I have found a very effectual preventive to thirst by drinking a large quantity of water before breakfast, and, on feeling thirsty on the march, chewing a small green twig or leaf. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... by what are termed layers. To do this, nothing more is necessary than to select a shoot, as near the root as possible, and having partially divided it with a knife, make an upward slit in it, and then placing a bit of twig between the divided parts, press it down to the ground, burying the joint beneath the surface of the soil. To plant from cuttings, some care is necessary as regards green-house plants, but nothing is easier than to rear ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... you come in to the Chief," the man admonished her, with good-humored severity. "Have you not learned that babbling turns to ill, you sprouting twig? And waste no more time upon the road, either. Yonder is your shortest way, up that lane between the barley. When you come to a burned barn, do you turn to the left and ride straight toward the woods; it ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... skins, which were peculiarly fine, were cleansed and prepared by the armourer, who happened also to understand the trade of a currier. Two of them were hung up to dry, when it came into the brains of Tom Twig and Dicky Esse to clothe themselves in the skins, and in high glee they came prancing about the deck, baa-ing away, imitating two frolicsome lambs, with a tolerable amount of accuracy. They afforded much amusement to us, their messmates, and not a little to the men who ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... a mocking tone. "We don't allow any weak creature such as you are to stay under our shelter. Go away!" he said angrily, and, taking a dry twig, he threw it at ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... raise his own bow. Nor did he seem to take aim but let the arrow fly. And the arrow carried the twig and leaf ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... phenomenon. It is much more natural to attribute it to the cessation of vegetation, and the want of nourishment which the leaves experience at that season, when the course of the sap is interrupted. The vessels of the leaf contract, dry up, and soon after, that organ is detached from the twig on which it had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... fast at the bare idea that she could scarcely run. She stumbled, too, over a piece of twig which lay across her path, and falling somewhat heavily scraped her forehead. She had no time to think of the pain then. Rising as quickly as possible, she passed along the familiar road. How weary it was! How tedious! Would it never, ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... tree, and as involving a blank space that wants occupation; but the portions left are not made discordant or disagreeable. They are absolutely and in themselves as valuable as they can be, every stem is a perfect stem, and every twig a graceful twig, or at least as perfect and as graceful as they were before the removal of the rest. But if we try the same experiment on the imaginative painter's work, and break off the merest stem or twig ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... as the old gentleman, who represented Isidro, opened his mouth only to drule betel-juice, it was Isidro who, in Isidro's voice, answered the questions. In his role as Third Assistant he stood with legs akimbo before the pupil, a bamboo twig in his hand; as Isidro the pupil, he plumped down quickly upon the bench before responding. The sole function of the senile old man seemed that of representing the pupil while the question was being ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... of the stock to bear upon a young lateral or tip bud, which is much easier to start than dormant buds used either as buds or grafts. A short twig about an inch and a half in length is taken with some of the bark of the small branch from which it starts, and both twig and bark at its base are put in a bark slit like an ordinary shield bud and tied closely with a waxed band, although if ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... uncertain. As the noises within died down she relapsed from her tense pose and showed her face to Vaucher in the light of the lamp. It was Madame Bertin. She did not see him where he waited, and all of a sudden her self-possession snapped like a twig you break in your fingers. She was weeping, leaning against the wall, weeping desolately, in an abandonment of humiliation and impotence. But Vaucher was not moved when he told ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... excavators stopped to refresh themselves by nibbling at some succulent roots. While they were thus occupied, and apparently absorbed, from somewhere up the slope among the birch-trees came the faint sound of a snapping twig. In half a second the beavers had vanished noiselessly under water, down the canal, leaving but a swirl of muddy foam to ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... could hardly breathe, so great was their unnamed fear. During that time no other movements could be noted. Then Clee suddenly pointed to a bush only five yards away. Half a dozen leaf-tipped branches were bending slowly in their direction—and then a sharp crack, as of a broken twig, came to them ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... present with which I buy thee," and then he handed the present to her parents. Upon his head he wore a tuft of feathers, and in his hand a bow, emblematic of authority and protection. The bride held in one hand a green twig of the laurel-tree, and in the other an ear of corn—the twig indicated she would preserve her fame ever fair and sweet as the laurel leaf; the corn was to represent her capacity to grow it and prepare it for his food, and to fulfil all the duties of a faithful wife. These ceremonies ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... then wore a sword as a part of his dress. He is now contented with a regular stand-up fight, and exhibits a fist like a knuckle-bone of mutton—hard, coarse, and of certain magnitude. The bludgeon hammer-headed whip, or a vulgar twig, succeeds the clouded and amber-headed cane; and instead of the snuff-box being rare, and an article of parade, to exhibit a beauty's miniature bestowed in love, or that of a crowned head, given for military or diplomatic services, all ranks take snuff out of cheap and vulgar ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... watched his protege narrowly as they took their places against the forward rail of the ferry-deck, and the boat stood out into the crashing water traffic of North River. What Samson saw must be absolutely bewildering. Ears attuned to hear a breaking twig must ache to this hoarse shrieking of whistles. To the west, in the evening's fading color, the sky-line of lower Manhattan bit the sky with its serried line ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... placed in the graves; and I have even seen a confession of the faith written on paper and placed on a twig before the face of the dead. At the appointed seasons— especially at the great Feast of Sacrifice—offerings are brought to the grave. The family party passes through the cemetery, the women bearing baskets of bread and bottles of water, the men turning the head to the right and to the left ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... us that Jeremiah was to plant and build up. Here he planted, and here he did build. He planted and built a throne, a college, and a religion. Turn to Ezekiel, chapter xvi., and read the famous riddle. Tea Tephi is the tender twig that was cropped off from the high cedar, King Zedekiah, and planted among the merchants by great waters on the mountain of Israel. She was the tender one that was to take root downward. To Jeremiah, the Lord said, "Verily it shall be well with thy remnant." ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... silver glister of the ripples far out, shimmering in the full glare of the sun. The breeze, exquisitely fragrant, would blow fresh and free from the dense forests. The mockingbird, a feathered miracle to the Highlander, would sway on a twig above them and sing jubilantly the whole day through and deep into the night. The distant mountains would show-softly blue on the horizon till the sun was going down, when they would assume a translucent jewel-like lustre, amethystine and splendid. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the grasses were already springing, so quick is the all but tropical growth of the country. They might be safe, perhaps, for eight-and-forty hours. Fire would run only when the ground was absolutely dry, and when every twig or leaf was a combustible. But during those eight-and-forty hours there might be comparative ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... horseman—this latter feature accentuated by his high-heeled boots and by the short canvas cowboy coat that reached only to his cartridge-belt. His features she could not well make out, for the fire was little more than a bed of coals, and he fed it, Indian-like, with a twig or two at ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... let us ne'er forget the firm and earnest mind Which bore him swiftly onward in his course; How from a slender twig he built a bridge O'er which he safely hastened to the work Which youthful hope and courage planned. Think how the circle of his love embraced His children and his children's children, all, His highest joy ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... runaway waterfall leaping over boulders, like the topmost bamboo twig rustling in the ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... crept. Dick could see him picking his way like a dancer, so that he might step on no branch or twig which would break and give him away. Now he was almost at the side of the house. Dick saw him lean forward and cautiously peer ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... ahead, Teganouan," he said, "and you, too, if you will, Father Claude. Choose an easy trail if you can, and be careful that no twig flies back." ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... watch; it was six o'clock, and thus wanted two hours to daybreak. Hurriedly I left the inn and went out again. A rimy frost had come upon every twig and bush and tree, and in the light of the moon the ice crystals sparkled as though the spirits had scattered myriads of precious stones everywhere. But I thought not of this. I made my way toward the spot from which ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... garden at Thornton Chase was perfect in its artificiality. It sloped down towards Richmond Park in a series of stately terraces with box-hedge borders trimmed so evenly that not a twig or leaf offended against the canons of symmetry. They were groomed like a racehorse. Centred in a square of barbered lawn was a fountain where Neptune drove his chariot of sea-horses. The Apollo Belvedere, the Capitoline ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... with a twig in his hand, got it ablaze, and lighted his cigarette. He did not look at Billy Louise until he had taken a whiff or two. Then he stared at her for a full minute, and ended by flipping the charred twig playfully into her lap, and laughing ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... saying that they were now approaching the haunts of the wondrous bird; and consequently the doctor crept on behind him without so much as crushing a twig. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... night, this silence, bathed in moonlight. The cold was intense: below the bench where Pierre's homestead lay, there rose from the twisted, rapid river, a cloud of steam, above which the hoar-frosted tops of cottonwood trees were perfectly distinct, trunk, branch, and twig, against a sky the color of iris petals. The stars flared brilliantly, hardly dimmed by the full moon, and over the vast surface of the snow minute crystals kept up a steady shining of their own. The range of sharp, wind-scraped mountains, uplifted fourteen thousand feet, rode ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... wings about them one day, and a dazzlingly beautiful little bird thrust his long, delicate bill among the flowers; and while he held himself there in the air without touching his tiny feet to twig or stem, but only by the swift fanning of long, green-tinted wings, I offered him my best flowers for his breakfast, and bowed my great leaves as a welcome to him. The dear little thing had been here before, while yet the sticky brown buds which wrap up my leaves had not burst open to the ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... offered his son in sacrifice to obtain a victory over some pirates. The bodies were buried in groves, which thence were regarded as very sacred. One, called Odin's grove, near the temple of Upsal, was sacred in every twig and leaf. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... engineering feat. The birds inspect the branches many times before they make a decision. When they have decided on the site, the mother bird brings her first string or vegetable fiber and attaches it to a twig by winding it around and around many times, leaving one or both ends hanging free. I have nests where these foundation strings are wound around a twig a dozen times. In her blind windings and tuckings and loopings the bird occasionally ties a substantial knot, but it is never the result ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... be in class. But he'll know if you mention our names. Say we sent you, and that you won the new boys' race. Do you twig?" ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... then congratulate Solomon upon the agreement between the views of you two. However, I twig your intent: he means a wicked sinner; and of all forms of folly there is none so great as wicked sinning. For goodness is, in the end, more conducive to personal happiness—which is the sole ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... hope of return. The ant at last met one of his companions, who was also carrying a burden. They stopped, took counsel for an instant, bringing their antennae together, and started for the hillock. The second ant then left his burden, and both together then seized a twig and introduced its end beneath the first load which had been abandoned because of its weight. By acting on the free extremity of the twig they were able to use it exactly as a lever, and succeeded almost without trouble ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... blazin' idiots in Christendom is climbin' over me wantin' to know what I'll lay this and what I'll lay that. They're like a lot of blasted mosquitos. A rounder comes up an' makes a bet; if it's small p'r'aps I don't twig his mug at all, just grabs the dough an' calls his number. He may be Rockefeller, or a tough from the Bowery, it don't make no difference to me; all I want is his goods an' his number, see? But a bettor of the right sort slips in an' taps me for odds to a thousand. Nat'rally I'm interested, because ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... turbans and burnouse. Each of them offered a present of some kind. One of them brought a beautiful pair of Barbary pheasants, another a young wild pig in a crate; others, quaint arms, and one had a chameleon of a rare species, which he carried on the twig of a tree. An address of welcome to Morocco was read by one of their number and then they asked Paul he would not kindly walk on the water in the daylight for them as the soldiers had seen him do when he landed, so that all the people ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... for November," Pamela remarked as they took the road by Tweedside. "Look at that beech tree against the blue sky, every black twig silhouetted. ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... ventured out again, trembling at every bush I passed, and thinking each twig that touched me a savage. The next day I concealed myself in the same manner, and at night travelled forward, keeping off the main road, used by the Indians, as much as possible, which made my journey far longer, and more painful than I ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... quickly, the game was up. Now, therefore, taking a last hurried look at his dictionary, the German flew after the lady, crying out in a voice of despair—'Madam, since your husband, your most respected husband, have hopped de twig'——This was his sheet-anchor; and, as this also came home, of course the poor man was totally wrecked. It turned out that the dictionary he had used (Arnold's, we think,)—a work of a hundred years back, and, from mere ignorance, giving slang translations from Tom Brown, L'Estrange, and other ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... 5. In the above preparation after the test described, soak a hazel twig, fashioned in the shape of a fork. On meeting a child hold the fork with the V downwards in front of its face, and if the child exhibits violence and signs of terror, and falls down, the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... person in the world whom I wished most earnestly to avoid. She was standing on the edge of the cliff, her hands behind her, gazing seawards, and though I stopped short at the sight of her, and for a moment entertained wild thoughts of flight, it was not possible for me to carry them out. A dry twig snapped beneath my feet, and, turning quickly round, she had seen me. She came forward at once, and for some reason or other I knew that she was glad. She smiled upon ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... only had a straw or a reed!" thought the boy; but there was hardly a twig of the sage-brush to be seen, and he shook ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... haunched his horse as the certain coil sank in the Grizzly's hock, and checked the Monarch with a heavy jar. Uttering one great snort of rage, he turned; his huge jaws crossed the rope, back nearly to his ears it went, and he ground it as a dog might grind a twig, so the straining ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... stepped softly, as if he feared to alarm somebody or something. The moss beneath his feet gave no sound. Not even a twig snapped. Without knowing that he did so, Hodge imitated ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... was for the shubbery, his next across the little park to the wood beyond. He did not feel the wind of his running on his bare skin. He did not feel the hunger that had made him so unable to bear the lash. On and on he ran, fancying ever he heard the cruel Angus behind him. If a dry twig snapped, he thought it was the crack of the whip; and a small wind that rose suddenly in the top of a pine, seemed the hiss with which it was about to descend upon him. He ran and ran, but still there seemed nothing between him and his persecutors. He felt no safety. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... at no great distance, with its hiss, its snap of sound, and sometimes rifle-shots like the crack of a ball on a cricket bat broke through the thickets. They separated, spreading like beaters in a long line: "Soon," Trenchard told me, "I was quite alone. I could hear sometimes the breaking of a twig or a stumbling footfall but I might have been alone at the end of the world. It was obvious that the regimental sanitars had been there before us because there were many new roughly made graves. There were letters ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... family do I belong? To a large family called Flycatchers. Because some Kings are tyrants I suppose, they call me the Tyrant Flycatcher. Look for me next summer on top of a wire fence or dead twig of a tree, and watch me, every few minutes, dash into the air, seize a passing insect, and then fly back to the same ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... be seen or heard. At the feet of Karkapaha lay a tremendous bow, larger than any warrior ever yet used, a sheaf of arrows of proportionate size, and a spear of a weight which no Maha could wield. Karkapaha drew the bow as an Indian boy bends a willow twig, and the spear seemed in his hand but a reed or a feather. The shrill war-whoop burst unconsciously from his lips, and his nostrils seemed dilated with the fire and impatience of a newly-awakened courage. The heart of the fond Indian ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... birches had faded utterly, the stately beeches resembled dim ghosts of trees and only the spruces retained, imperfectly, their shape and form. Thurston was country bred, and, lifting high his feet to clear bramble trailer and fallen twig, he walked by feeling instead of sight. The beck moaned a little more loudly, and there was a heavy astringent odor of damp earth and decaying leaves. When beast and bird were still again it seemed as if Nature, worn out by the productive effort ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... shortly tell what happened a long time after.—that this Jokul fell in with King Olaf's men in the island of Gotland, and the king ordered him to be taken out to be beheaded. A willow twig accordingly was plaited in with his hair, and a man held him fast by it. Jokul sat down upon a bank, and a man swung the axe to execute him; but Jokul hearing the sound, raised his head, and the blow struck him in the head, and made a dreadful wound. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... found himself confronted by three gullies, which came down and met at that one point. He said he didn't know, but Elam, after looking around a little, started up one with as much confidence as though he had seen Tom when he came out. After some questioning from Tom he showed him a little twig, not larger than a needle, which he had brushed off in his hurried flight after he had thrown down his gun; and a short distance farther on he found the weapon, which Tom, in his excitement, had tossed clear across the creek. Tom was surprised ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... lion, was hungry and very savage. For two days he had not eaten and now he hunted in the ugliest of humors. No more did Numa roar forth a rumbling challenge to the world but rather he moved silent and grim, stepping softly that no cracking twig might betray his presence to the keen-eared ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a trained roping horse, stood, blown and panting, his feet braced, keeping the rope taut while Farrel dismounted and casually strolled back to the tree. He broke off a small twig and waited, while the hounds, belling lustily, came nosing across the meadow. Kay rode up, as the dogs, catching sight of the helpless cat, quickened their speed to close in; she heard Farrel shout to them and saw him lay about him with the twig, beating the eager animals back ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... business for the day was over, our plans for the morrow laid, our messages received, our messengers despatched, and those who had been conspirators and now bade fair to be saviours were sleeping. Sleep seemed to fold the world; each bough and twig was silent in repose; the spectral moonlight itself slept as it bathed the air. I alone wandered and waked. With me there were too many cares for rest; work kept me on the alert; to court slumber at once was not easy after the nervous tension of duty. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... series of cascades, and there is a mighty roar of waters. For many yards I have for a companion a little wren, that flies from twig to twig through the well-nigh naked hedge along the wayside, now hidden behind a bramble's crimson-spotted leaf, now mingled with a tracery of twigs and thorns. I can almost believe it to be the same wren that kept up with me years ago in English lanes, and since then has travelled with me so ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... consider the adding to any tugong bula they may pass a sacred duty, the omission of which will meet with supernatural punishment, and so, however pressed for time a Dyak may be, he stops to throw on the pile some small branch or twig. ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... deal in that," commented Haigh, blinking at the shabby black steamer thoughtfully. "You'd better pop down below in case he has ventured his little self on deck, and should happen to twig you. But still it's best to be on the safe side." He chose a cigar, lighted it and puffed for a minute, and then took it out of his mouth and grinned at the glowing end. "Look here. The fellow doesn't ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... the ice, which were four or five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore, and having fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being pulled through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, being pulled down, would show when he had a bite. These alders loomed through the mist at regular intervals as you ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... out over the lake, I was the only one to see a little commotion in the water, half hidden by the near branches, as of some tiny swimmer struggling to reach the shore. Rushing to its rescue in the canoe, I found a yellow-rumped warbler, quite exhausted, clinging to a twig that hung down into the water. I brought the drenched and helpless thing to camp, and, putting it into a basket, hung it up to dry. An hour or two afterward I heard it fluttering in its prison, and cautiously lifted the lid to get a better glimpse of the lucky captive, when it darted ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... Observation 23. A twig submerged in a ditch was scraped. Gemiasma verdans found abundantly with many other things, which if rehearsed would cloud ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... winds of misfortune, shew all your tyranny! Twist and split bark and twig, And break the tree of hope in two Stem and leaves are struck by this hail and thunder, The root remains till storm and rain have ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... of the woods a gentle wind was blowing, laden with the scent of earth and hidden flowers. Dewdrops twinkled in the grass and hung glistening from every leaf and twig, and beyond all was the ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... Twig bought a fine bow and arrow, And what did he shoot? why, a poor little sparrow, Oh, fie, little Tom, with your fine bow and arrow, How cruel to shoot at a poor ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... ses the dark man, shaking his 'cad; "if they was all as fly as you, I might as well put the shutters up. How did you twig I was ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... trees begin to bud and blossom, the sap rises and works its way up into every bough and branch and twig of the tree. Sap is a liquid which flows through the tree much in the same way that blood flows through our veins, and the sap is the life-giving element of the tree, just as the blood ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... wooden bench. There was a warm, still silence. Not a twig moved. A joy so infinite ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... We found also an incredible number of butterflies, so that for the space of three or four acres the air was so crowded with them, that millions were to be seen in every direction, at the same time that every branch and twig was covered with others that were not upon the wing. We found here also a small fish of a singular kind; it was about the size of a minnow, and had two very strong breast fins; we found it in places that were quite dry, where we supposed it might have been left by the tide; but it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... White Canyon. Seeing the white man's appreciation of this form of wind and water erosion, Jim told of a greater bridge known only to himself and one other Indian, located on the north side of the Navajo Mountain, in the Paiute Indian reservation. Bending a twig of willow in rainbow-shape, with its ends stuck in the ground, Jim showed ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... all the men followed. Not a leaf rustled beneath their tread. Not a twig broke as they crept up the side of the deep ravine and looked out at ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... in spite of the rough ground. Then, knowing we were drawing nearer the Senecas, we began to slip from tree to tree. The Indians did this like phantoms, and the French troops imitated. Three hundred men went through the forest, and sometimes a twig cracked. There was no other sound. We went for some time. We heard owls hoot around us, and knew they might be watch cries. Still we went on. We went till I felt the ground rise steadily under my groping feet. The Seneca stronghold was on an eminence. I gave the signal to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... thirteen short-styled plants under the net, which were not fertilised, produced twelve capsules, containing on an average 5.6 seeds. As some of these capsules were very fine, and as five were borne on one twig, I suspect that some minute insect had accidentally got under the net and had brought pollen from the other form to the flowers which produced this little group of capsules. The one uncovered short-styled plant which grew close to the uncovered long-styled ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... of the Convicts on board the Stanislaus hulk, Woolwich, 18 May 1797.] on behalf of the sovereign whose clemency they enjoyed. Broken on the wheel of naval discipline, they "did very well in deep water." Nearer land they were given, like the jailbirds they were, to "hopping the twig." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2733—Capt. Young, 21 ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... to call forth an expression of amazement and admiration. This statement admits of an easy illustration: for example, from some water containing aquatic plants, collected from a pond on Clapham Common, I select a small twig, to which are attached a few delicate flakes, apparently of slime or jelly; some minute fibres, standing erect here and there on the twig, are also dimly visible to the naked eye. This twig, with a drop or two ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... was soberly walking down the path looking spindly in every way: long, thin legs and a long thin body that were for all the world like a stick. Probably you have seen the Walking Stick many times and thought him just a twig. If you hadn't been in such a hurry you might have seen something interesting. Each time he picked up a leg, he seemed to wave it in the air before he put it down again. That was, I suppose, because ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... verbally reproached by a member of the household, one saw his head droop and his eyes cloud. Jan would wag his tail while being scolded, even vehemently, and five minutes later would require a second call, and in a sharp tone, before turning aside from an interesting scent or a twig in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... short December day was drawing to its close. The wind had gone down, but the snow was now falling in large, thick flakes. The evening twilight crept into the room. Antkowa was sitting in front of the fire; she broke off twig after twig of the dry firewood, and carelessly threw them upon ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... was high, and by his shadow Beltane judged it the noon hour; very hot and very still it was, for the wind had died and leaf and twig hung motionless as though asleep. And presently as he went, a sound stole upon the stillness, a sound soft and beyond all things pleasant to hear, the murmurous ripple of running water near by. Going aside into the green therefore, Beltane came unto ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... grapes like the fabled fruit of Canaan in the Old Testament, a single bunch of which required two men to bear it, drooped heavily from twining vines, while from many a bough and twig swung golden, crimson, and cream-colored fruit, which fairly made ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... heart within him fluttered, Trembled like the leaves above him, Like the birch-leaf palpitated, As the deer came down the pathway. Then, upon one knee uprising, 210 Hiawatha aimed an arrow; Scarce a twig moved with his motion, Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled, But the wary roebuck started, Stamped with all his hoofs together, 215 Listened with one foot uplifted, Leaped as if to meet the arrow; Ah! the singing, fatal arrow; Like a wasp ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... agony. And then, while we counted out the last seconds of the half, came a snap like that of a whip's lash, and the bowl of Richter's pipe lay smouldering on the grass. The noble had cut the stem as clean as it were sapling twig, and there stood Richter with the piece still clenched in his teeth, his eyes ablaze, and his cheek running blood. He pushed the surgeon away when he came forward with his needles. The Count was smiling as he put up his sword, his friends crowding around him, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I may be peculiar. School-committee-men who spell Jerusalem with a G, drill-sergeants who believe in black-boards and visible numerators, statistical fellows who judge of the future fate of the republic by the average attendance at the "Primaries," may not agree with me in my idea of bending the twig. I do believe, that, if Dame Nature herself should apply for a school, some of these wise Dogberries would report her "unqualyfide." I will not murder my pretty pet. So she be gentle, kindly, and loving, what care I if at sixteen years of age she cannot paint the baptism of John upon velvet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... at the Cape, Lucknow might have fallen, before there were forces to relieve it. That would have lit, for our rule in India, a bonfire in which Bombay would only have been a crackling twig. ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... from the tree to obtain even a single glance at the foe; for he knew how accurate is the aim of some of these Southern woodsmen. He had nothing to guide him but the rustling of the dried branches beneath his tread, or the occasional snapping of a twig under ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... hurled his furious words. He was more angry in that moment than he had ever been in his life. The force of his anger carried him along as a twig borne on a racing current. Till that instant he had forgotten that he carried his riding-whip. The sudden remembrance of it flashed like a streak of lightning ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... of glittering with the sunshine on the wet drops, and things smelling good, like they do after rain—leaves, and grass, and good earth. I tell you it made a fellow feel as if the whole world was his brother. And when Mr. Rob. lit on that twig and swelled his red breast as if he knew the whole thing was his, and began to let them notes out, calling for his lady friend to come and go halves with him, I just had to laugh and speak to him, and that was when ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for the best part of an hour. Then she got up, and according to her daily custom walked a certain number of times round the garden. Her mind was so full that she did not as usual observe every twig, almost every leaf, as she passed. Nor, now that she was alone, was that religious bias, which had so much to do with her daily life, very strong within her. There was no taint of hypocrisy in her character; ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... visible symbols in keeping the conscience alive. People were set before the public gaze, in the stocks, whipped in public at the whipping-post, and imprisoned in the pillory. Malefactors had their ears cropped; scolding women had to wear a forked twig on the tongue; other criminals to carry a halter constantly around the neck. But that this was only a hellish device, after all; that the inflictors of such punishment were arrogating too much to themselves, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... prowled softly, to avoid disturbing the little box-house. She had the guilty conscience of the prowler that sent her heart into her mouth at the crackling of a twig under her feet. She found herself listening, holding her breath in a small panic. No sound of wakened sleepers, but there must be no ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... of a thorn thicket two cock-pheasants were having a difference, and were enthusiastically settling that difference in the approved method of game-cocks. He lingered to see which might win, but a misstep and a sudden crack of a dry twig startled them, and they withdrew like two stately but indignant old gentlemen who had been subjected to ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... bandied about between the singing, and louder laughed the friars, for they were lusty men with beards that curled like the wool of black rams; but loudest of all laughed the Tinker, and he sang more sweetly than any of the rest. His bag and his hammer hung upon a twig of the oak tree, and near by leaned his good stout cudgel, as thick as his wrist and ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... our own, and for whose correctness we would stake our hump, we learn that James Burke, the honoured member of the P.R., was seen to walk home on the night of Tuesday last with three fresh herrings on a twig. After supper, he consoled himself with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... patiently things that many English are in the dark about, both because of the censorship and because of the prevailing superstition that the English resent being told—he stabbing and sweeping at the dust with a broken twig and making little heaps and dents by way of illustration,—I sitting silent, brushing away ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... up his stand in a tree, and explore its branches till he has caught every worm. He sits on a twig, and with a peculiar swaying movement of his head examines the surrounding foliage. When he discovers his prey, he leaps upon ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... cycle of German and Northern poetry, awoke little by little in my memory and laid claim upon my sympathy. It is a poetry of bracing quality, and acts upon one like a moral tonic. Strange charm of imagination! A twig of pine-wood and a few spider-webs are enough to make countries, epochs, and nations live ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... with the which, well-pleased and confident, He traversed the open sea; now he beholds it In eminent jeopardy among the coast-rocks, And hurries to preserve his wares. As light As the free bird from the hospitable twig Where it had nested he flies off from me: No human tie is snapped betwixt us two. Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived Who seeks a heart in the unthinking man. Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life Impress their characters on the smooth forehead, Naught sinks into the bosom's silent ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Giant; General Thumb, the Dwarf; Princess Zozo, the Serpent Charmer; Maggie, the Circassian Girl; and the rest of the side-show employees enter the tent. Then he removed his Number Eight mustache and put it in his pocket, and balanced his mirror against a twig. Mr. Gubb was changing ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... and closed the door—in the instant when he lost sight of her—his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals revived. At the foot of the house-steps he stopped again; plucked a twig from a plant near him; broke it in his hand; and looked about him uneasily, on this side and on that. The path to the left led back to his father's cottage—the way of escape lay open. Why ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... offered: "Mother Tulasi, be thou propitious. If I gather thee with care, be merciful unto me. O Tulasi, mother of the world, I beseech thee." This plant is worshipped as a deity,—the wife of Vishnu, whom the breaking of even a little twig grieves and torments,—and "the pious Hindus invoke the divine herb for the protection of every part of the body, for life and for death, and in every action of life; but above all, in its capacity of ensuring ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain |
