"Flitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to Jimmy that the shadowy and inchoate vision of a combat, a fight, a brawl of some kind persisted in flitting about in the recesses of his mind, always just far enough away to elude capture. The absurdity of the thing annoyed him. A man has either indulged in a fight overnight or he has not indulged in a fight overnight. There can be ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... out his neck, and slowly creeping forward; presently he gave a loud bark, and then bounded back into the fort. At the same instant the side of the hill below them appeared covered with black forms, who kept flitting in and out among the trees, making their way upwards. Bendigo shouted to them, but they only replied with loud and derisive cries and shrieks. They had evidently made up their minds to destroy the white men. Flourishing their spears, they leaped ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... her father, and built many a castle in the air. She was glad when she saw that this beloved garden was casting its charm upon her friend. It was looking very lovely in the afternoon sunshine. Butterflies were flitting amongst the flowers, and the hum of bees and many insects made the air musical with sound of happy life. A gorgeous dragon-fly sailed past them, wheeling round as if to show its wonderful glittering colours ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... separated, new unions, new confederacies will arise. And with respect to this, if there be any—I hope there is no one in the Senate—before whose imagination is flitting the idea of a great Southern Confederacy to take possession of the Balize and the mouth of the Mississippi, I say in my place never! never! NEVER! will we who occupy the broad waters of the Mississippi ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... young recruits reeled, but Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire still ran up and down the lines begging them to stand. They took fresh breath and planted their feet deep once more. Harry raised his rifle and took aim at a flitting figure in the smoke. Then he dropped the muzzle. Either it was reality or a powerful trick of the fancy. It was his own cousin, Dick Mason, but the smoke closed in again, and he did not see ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cares of the lingering day, When troubles around me be, Fond Fancy for aye will be flitting away— ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pilasters of the same metal, supporting a massive cornice and a coved ceiling, the wall panels being enriched with graceful designs in polished aethereum surrounding choice paintings in water-colour, while the ceiling was painted to represent a cloud-dappled sky, with cupids flitting hither and thither among the clouds. Handsome wardrobes, chests of drawers, wash-stands, toilet tables, couches, and chairs of most exquisite workmanship in frosted aethereum, upholstered in richest ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... expedition, was shot through both thighs. The log walls of the grim little blockhouse stood out black in the fitful glare of the cane torches; and tongues of red fire streamed into the night as the rifles rang. The attack had failed, and the throng of dark, flitting forms faded into the gloom as the baffled Indians retreated. So disheartened were they by the check, and by the loss they had suffered, that they did not further molest the settlements, but fell back to their strongholds across the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... they liked, playing tig among the trees, or sitting down at dinner-time on the soft, dry spines that made an elastic carpet everywhere. Domsie used to say there were two pleasant sights for his old eyes every day. One was to stand in the open at dinner-time and see the flitting forms of the healthy, rosy sonsie bairns in the wood, and from the door in the afternoon to watch the schule skail till each group was lost in the kindly shadow, and the merry shouts died away in this quiet place. Then ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... glories of the sunset die away, and live not upon canvas. How difficult, then, the task you have imposed upon me, amigo mio—to seal up in a wicker flask that moonlight; chain down, by words, that flitting and almost imperceptible perfume—to tell you anything about that music which, embodied in a material form, was ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... fingers flitting down the fine lines of the old gentleman's profile; "that's cool and nice, like the sea and the wind. Your face is like the ivory thing—smooth and—and carved. I think you really must be something different ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... pretty good work these two days," went on the German; but as the other appeared not to have heard he fell to the rear again, a sardonic smile flitting over his ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... does not know nor will correctly, but trying hard to do both the one and the other; and so on, back and back, till both difficulty and consciousness become little more than a sound of going in the brain, a flitting to and fro of something barely recognisable as the desire to will or know at all—much less as the desire to know or will definitely this or that. Finally, they retreat beyond our ken into the repose—the inorganic kingdom—of as yet ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... the latter process many flitting thoughts and affections arise and deeds are half-wittingly done which are not of the soul's true character; and in entire agreement with this, we read of the alchemical process, in the highly esteemed "Canons" of D'ESPAGNET: ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd: The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff; and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, [4] and meets a friend who hails him, "What! You're flitting!" "Yes, we're flitting," says the ghost (For they had pack'd the thing among the beds). "Oh, well," says he, "you flitting with us too— Jack, turn the horses' heads ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... harp of gold, Famous in Arthur's court deg. of old; deg.20 I know him by his forest-dress— The peerless hunter, harper, knight, Tristram of Lyoness. deg. deg.23 What Lady is this, whose silk attire Gleams so rich in the light of the fire? 25 The ringlets on her shoulders lying In their flitting lustre vying With the clasp of burnish'd gold Which her heavy robe doth hold. Her looks are mild, her fingers slight 30 As the driven snow are white deg.; deg.31 But her cheeks are sunk and pale. Is it that the bleak sea-gale Beating from the Atlantic ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... the joyous close of the flower adventure. He felt behind him a flutter as of the lightest wind and saw a white butterfly flitting about in the dimness between the thick trunks. He flew hither and thither in an uneasy quest, as if uncertain of the way. Nor was he alone; butterfly after butterfly glimmered in the darkness, until at last there was a host of white-winged honey seekers. But the first ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... virgin hours, Hew life into the likeness of themselves And wrest the stars from their concurrences. So firm his mould; but mine the ductile soul That wears the livery of circumstance And hangs obsequious on its suzerain's eye. For who rules now? The twilight-flitting monk, Or I, that took the morning like an Alp? He held his own, I let mine slip from me, The birthright that no sovereign can restore; And so ironic Time beholds us now Master and slave—he lord of half the earth, I ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... any long restraint was too oppressive while Caroline's sparkling eyes responded to his own, the Gentleman in Black entered on a conversation with his young companion, as aimless as the swaying of the branches in the wind, as devious as the flitting of the butterflies in the azure air, as illogical as the melodious murmur of the fields, and, like it, full of mysterious love. At that season is not the rural country as tremulous as a bride that has donned her marriage ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... the major followed him. When they entered the front door they saw the skirt of a woman's dress flitting away through the door at the end of the passage, and on entering the room to the left they found Mr Crawley alone. "She has fled, as though from an enemy," he said, with a little attempt at a laugh; "but I will pursue her, and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the clover and through the wheat, With resolute heart and purpose grim, Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet, And the blind bat's flitting startled him. ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... repeated again in a few hours and irregularly throughout the night, but with scenic changes behind the great sombre pall of the sky. North-west, northeast, and south-east it would elusively appear in nebulous blotches, flitting about to end finally in long bright strands in the zenith, crossing the path of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... With youth and valour's eager pace. On sped he by the path he found Dug by his uncles underground. The warder elephant he saw Whose size and strength pass Nature's law, Who bears the world's tremendous weight, Whom God, fiend, giant venerate, Bird, serpent, and each flitting shade, To him the honour meet he paid With circling steps and greeting due, And further prayed him, if he knew, To tell him of his uncles' weal, And who had dared the horse to steal. To him in war and council tried The warder elephant replied: "Thou, son of Asamanj, shalt lead In triumph back the ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... longer yours, and still not his as yet. I beg you, go; for this unwonted thing, As new to me as wine, has greater power, And makes me view my life and his and yours With other eyes than were perhaps befitting. (With a forced smile.) I beg you, look not in such wonderment: Such notions oft go flitting through my head, Nor dream nor yet reality. Ye know, As child I was much worse. And then the dance Which I invented, is't not such a thing: Wherein from torchlight and the black of night I made myself a shifting, drifting palace, From which I then emerged, as do the queens ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... everything lapsed into silence. That was a wonderful ride for Chad. It was all true, just as the school-master had told him; the big, beautiful houses he saw now and then up avenues of blossoming locusts; the endless stone fences, the whitewashed barns, the woodlands and pastures; the meadow-larks flitting in the sunlight and singing everywhere; fluting, chattering blackbirds, and a strange new black bird with red wings, at which Chad wondered very much, as he watched it balancing itself against the wind and singing as it poised. Everything seemed to sing in that wonderful land. And ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... from its path all those that fought against it or dared, however feebly, to resist it. But his mind, poised thus in this strange circle of slumber, came by imperceptible degrees to have a grip upon the past. Imitating the mind that is enclosed within a drowning body, it gazed upon the wildly flitting pictures of the years that were gone. Regent Street by night rose up before it. The doctor saw, painted upon the background of the dense gloom in which they sat, the huge and vacant thoroughfare in the last watch of the night. Faint figures wandered here and there, or paused ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... merchants, show their wares; Each several tree his blossoms bears, While bees, like officers, are flitting, To take from each what toll ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... merged into vague pictures flitting through her drowsy brain, she heard the plaintive, trembling voice of Morty Sands's mandolin, coming nearer and nearer, and his lower whistle taking the tune while the E string crooned an obligato; he passed the house, went down ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing in search ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... feet of the little creatures, so that he could observe every motion they made. He was soon gratified with a sight that determined his "point" for him. A swarm of small blue-winged flies attracted his attention. They were among the blossoms, sometimes resting upon them, and sometimes flitting about from one to another. He saw the birds several times dash at them with open bills, and pick them from their perch; so the question was decided—the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... seen her do when a little school-girl. Let her do just as she pleases, go where she pleases, stay as long as she pleases, in the open air and free sunshine; and mark my words, she will wear on her cheeks the steady bloom of the milkmaid, instead of the flitting rosiness of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... yourself, Rex—seeing is believing," said Pluma, maliciously, a smoldering vengeance burning in her flashing eyes, and a cold, cruel smile flitting across her face, while she murmured under her breath: "Go, fond, foolish lover; your fool's paradise will be rudely shattered—ay, your hopes crushed worse than mine are now, for your lips can not ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... face of her stern aunt, who loved not this sort of slipping away during times of ceremony; but she had her back to them and to the door, and was engrossed in the talk as well as in the stocking fabric upon her needles. Jemima and Walter were still talking unrebuked in a low key. Perchance this flitting could be accomplished without drawing down either notice or remark. To please Jacob, Keziah would have done much, even to running the risk of a scolding from her aunt. She had none of saucy Cherry's scorn of the big boorish fellow with the red face and ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... almost set, and the shadows lay long across the grass. The air was cool and unusually bracing for a day so early in September. But all this was lost on Bertram. Bertram did not wish to take a walk. He was hungry. He wanted his dinner; and he wanted, too, his old home with his new wife flitting about the rooms as he had pictured this first evening together. He wanted William, of course. Certainly he wanted William; but if William would insist on running away and sitting on park benches in this ridiculous fashion, he ought ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... be wild woodland nymphs, he thought, as, only half-awake, he lay there, and watched them flitting in and ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... impression was of cries and shrieks round him, as he gasped and panted, then saw as in a dream forms flitting round him, and then—feeling for the child and missing him—he raised himself in consternation, and the movement was greeted by fresh unintelligible exclamations, while a not unkindly hand lifted him up. It belonged to a man in a sort of loose white garment and drawers, with a ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... insolence. (5) Propitiation: the Dead. The sense of sin leads to the appeasing of the deities by offerings, attended with prayer. The offerings are gifts to the god, tokens of the honor due to him. The dead live as flitting shadows in Hades. Achilles is made to say that he would rather be a miserable laborer on earth than to reign over all the dead in the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... sea-coast, for at every sea-port city, grim monsters of war stood guarding the entrance to the harbor. Already the central, though despised Queen City, was feeling the fire of a fierce and cruel bombardment. Refugees were flitting hither and thither about the country, seeking peace and security, but finding none. Want and privation were even now beginning to menace a once luxurious people, and gloom and despair to enshroud the ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... sight of the glimmer of the broad river upon their left, while before they had only seen the streams which flowed into it. On the second occasion he pointed to where, on the farther side, they could see dark shadows flitting over the water. ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The flitting of the Townsends from the home of their ancestors was due to a sudden access of wealth from the death of a relative and the desire of Mrs. Townsend to secure better advantages for her son George, ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... the river, up the smooth lawns, between the trees, towards Castel Ventirose, a flitting ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... still evidently wasting away—like a candle burnt down to the socket, flitting and flaring alternately; at one time almost imbecile, at others, talking and planning as if he were in the vigour of his youth. O what a curse it must be—that love of money! I believe— I'm shocked to say so, Philip,—that that poor old man, now on the brink of a grave into which he can take nothing, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... on a summer's morn Whispering round his castle on the coast, Lured young Achilles from his haunted sleep And drave him out to dive beyond those deep Dim purple windows of the empty swell, His ivory body flitting like a ghost Over the holes where flat blind fishes dwell, All to embrace his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... terminating in an observation car, its rear platform guarded by a brass-topped railing behind which the privileged lolled at ease; and up ahead a wonderful dining car, where dinner was being served; flitting white-clad waiters, the glitter of silver and crystal and damask, and favoured beings feasting at their lordly ease, perhaps denying even a careless glance at the pitiful hamlet outside, or at most looking out impatient ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... the parrot screamed, And "Pretty Poll," repeated I, The while I stole a merry glance Across the room all on the sly, Where some one plied her needle fast, Demurely by the window sitting; But I beheld upon her cheek A multitude of blushes flitting. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... as the flitting sprite Passed their huts in the misty light, Bearing a turret huge and black, And said, "The old sea serpent's back Carting away, By light of day, Uncle Sam's fort ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... flower of girlhood. Without being really pretty, his model created the illusion of beauty by her youth, her abundant health and many little tricks of gesture and expression. Her role was that of the ingnue and she prattled childishly of many things, flitting like a butterfly from topic to topic, grave and gay with a careless grace which added something to the picture she made. Markham let her talk, interjecting monosyllables lulled by the inexhaustible flow, aware, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... crystal water over which they rowed was clear as an aquarium, and alive with gorgeous medusae whose pink tentacles seemed to flash with the colors of the sunset; to gaze down at them was like watching a flock of sea-butterflies flitting across ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... as he walked, flitting softly about him, like an attendant that needed more motion than his pace would afford, and seemed so full of thought and love, that, for the thousandth time, he wondered whether there could be anything but spirit, and what we call matter might not ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... hand, the flutter of a garment's edge? He could not tell, but it did not belong to any of those sights which he had seen so often in that place. It was neither the glancing of a moth's wing, the nodding of a wind-touched blossom, nor the noiseless flitting of a bat. It was a gleam merely, faint, elusive, impossible of definition, an intangible agitation, in the vast, dim blur of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... away, and there is a long silence. The forest is dark, with gleams of moonlight. Suddenly there is a faint note of music... the Nibelung theme. After a silence it is repeated; then again. Several instruments take it up. It swells louder. Vague forms are seen flitting ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... Flitting like a shadow almost, Tobasco ran from his hiding-place into the office that the prince had hurriedly left; and seeing the paper and envelope lying upon his table, hastily secured it and again ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... decided that Grace must represent her family at Miriam's wedding, and she was speeding upstairs to pack a steamer trunk. The mere glance at a huge cedar chest in which reposed her own wedding gown sent a chill to her heart. Listlessly she made her preparations for the flitting. She would take the noon train which would reach New York at nine o'clock that evening, provided her Fairy Godmother should decide not to go to the wedding. Should she do so, then they would probably wait until the following morning. At all ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... where is he now? In Switzerland, I think. He's the most restless being; always flitting about. But as for ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the planets. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... that gentleman; console yourself, he is not worth knowing. At the same time, my dear Meredith, he is very sincerely yours - for what he is worth, for the memories of old times, and in the expectation of many pleasures still to come. I suppose we shall never see each other again; flitting youths of the Lysaght species may occasionally cover these unconscionable leagues and bear greetings to and fro. But we ourselves must be content to converse on an occasional sheet of notepaper, and I shall never ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flame of her eloquence, flared into enthusiasm, and they fell to discussing which town or castle should be the chosen spot for their new court. Urach, Tuebingen, Wildbad, all were reviewed. They spoke no longer of whether the great flitting should take place; it was now merely a question of where and how it should be accomplished. From which it may be seen that Wilhelmine, as ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... who many days Hath journeyed 'mid Arabian deserts still, A dreary solitude far on surveys, And met, nor flitting bird, nor gushing rill, But near some marble ruin, gleaming pale, Sighs mindful of the haunts of cheerful man, And thinks he hears in every sickly gale The bells of some approaching caravan; At length, emerging ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... Hernando sharply avoided contact with the weakly, the old, and the decrepit, and wonder why the young people of either sex whom he brushed against should turn as if the touch of him waked suspicion and a something hostile. Thus they traversed the Haymarket, the Criterion pavement, and, flitting across to the Quadrant, the more popular side of Regent Street, among pushing groups, weary stragglers, and steady pedestrians. Lefevre had a mind to turn aside and go home when he was opposite Vigo Street, but he ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... There, flitting round the door, or occasionally peering through the windows of the tap-room, with pipes in their mouths and perchance a tankard in their hands, were seen the elders of the village, boatmen, and habitans, making use, or good excuse, of a rainy day for a social gathering in the dry, snug ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... taking a few moments of repose; but at the appointed hour he rose, was dressed, and entered his carriage. Soon after everything was silent in the chateau, and only a few isolated persons could be seen flitting about like shadows; silence had succeeded to noise, solitude to the bustle of a brilliant and numerous court. Next morning this deep silence was broken only by a few scattered women who sought each other with pale faces and eyes ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... wide-awake now to think of sleeping, and after paying his fare, sat down to watch the progress of the boat. By-and-by the moon sank, and it was dark; the chilly dawn soon came, and then long rows of sparkling lights appeared; the tall spires of the town; the masts of the shipping; the flitting ferry-boats, each with its green or scarlet blaze of lantern; rows of house-tops; docks; wharves; flag-staffs; sheds. This, then, was the ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... identical "first appearance" of hundreds. "Upon the first of our assembling," he says, "I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the anticipated honor of being styled 'the learned member that opened the debate,' or 'the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down.' All day the coming scene had been flitting before my fancy, and cajoling it. My ear already caught the glorious melody of 'Hear him! hear him!' Already I was practising how to steal a sidelong glance at the tears of generous approbation bubbling ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... after sunset it was seen in great briliancy between Aldebaran and the Pleiades; and on the 18th of March it attained an altitude of 39¼degrees5'minutes. Narrow elongated clouds are scattered over the beautiful deep azure of the distant horizon, flitting past the zodiacal light as before a golden curtain. Above these, other clouds are from time to time reflecting the most brightly variegated colors. It seems a second sunset. On this side of the vault of heaven the lightness of the night appears to increase almost as much ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, 5 Wakes not one ripple from ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... apparently lost in thought. All that I had read in an old book of my father's about the beautiful Magelona came into my head—how she used to appear among the tall forest-trees, when horns were echoing and evening shadows were flitting through the glades. I could not stir from the spot. She started when she perceived me and paused involuntarily. I was as if intoxicated with intense joy, dread, and the throbbing of my heart, and when I saw that she actually wore at her breast ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... much of scorn as it was possible for her to show. Anna tried to ask forgiveness for that feeling in the prayers which followed; but, when the services were over, and she saw a little figure in blue and white flitting up the aisle to where Arthur, still in his robes, stood waiting for her, an expression upon his face which she could not define, she felt that she had prayed in vain; and, with a bitterness she had never before experienced, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... will you kindly tell Josephine to pack our boxes. To-morrow we'll be flitting," her Serene Highness ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... the sun it was cool and pleasing in the forest, and they took their time riding under the great trees, some of which must have been fifty to a hundred years old. They saw a number of birds flitting about, but did not ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... despair of reaching him. This is a sample of the evolutions by which genius made amends for inferiority of force. The ablest military combinations were rendered abortive by an enemy that was ever slipping between columns, flitting in the front, hovering on the flanks, assailing the rear, and, with perfect knowledge of the country, was sometimes in the mountains and again in the plains, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... place his hands upon her, Fledra had gone down the plank. From the small boat-window Lem could discern the little figure flitting among the hut bushes; in another moment she had crawled through the open window ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... conditions, the second could easily have seen the one in advance, but now his view was obstructed, and though he gained rapidly, he had reached the entrance of the maple walk before the mist in front of him seemed to concentrate into a flitting shadow that resembled a woman's form. The young astronomer had been wandering for hours in a vain search for diversion, and the vision before him, embodying as it did the subject upon which his mind had been concentrated, caused him to ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... oyster Their two shells did roister, Like castanets flitting; While limpets moved clearly, And rocks very ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... had faded, but the moon was so bright and clear that the shadows of my solitary figure and the "telegraph-postes" were as black and sharp as at noonday. Bats were flitting about up and down. A white owl flew silently across the road. Rabbits were playing in the fields in the silver light. It was all very beautiful, but a little lonely and eerie. I hadn't passed a house ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... visit to Apia was a shock to me; every second person the ghost of himself, and the place reeking with infection. But I have not got the thing yet, and hope to escape. This shows how much stronger I am; think of me flitting through a town of influenza patients seemingly unscathed. We are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who had been flitting from veranda to veranda in their pleasant suburban environment, and been doing, with other ladies of her circle, some desultory work for the wounded soldiers of the future, now came down to the centre of the town and took up the work in good ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... the sunshine, a most beautiful butterfly fluttered in the air, in the very middle of the open window. When we first saw it, it was flitting gaily and happily amongst the plants and flowers that were blooming in the balcony, but it gradually became more and more slow on the wing, and at last poised itself unusually steadily for an insect of its class. Below it, on the window ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... flock of snow-birds came flitting through the air. As was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But,—and this looked strange,—they flew at once to the white-robed child, fluttered eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an old acquaintance. She, on her part, ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of pursuit the wearied brain perplexing, Fear-fraught, but ever met with spirit dedolent. The landscape reeled, there came a sense of slumber, And myriad shadows rose and wanned and waned, And flitting figures, visions without number, Took shape above the land till sight was pained, And floated round me till at last the ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... variety of an insect hitherto described as peculiar to Java and Amboyna was found in immense numbers, flitting among a grove of Pandanus trees, growing on the banks of a stream near the extremity of Cape Grafton, upon the North-east Coast of New ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... I write all this, my conscience gives me sundry little pricks as if I were wronging her, for in spite of her faults I like her, and like to watch her flitting through the house and grounds like the little fairy she is, and I hope the marriage may turn out well, and that she will improve with age, and not make so heavy ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... lightly and kindly, Charley was not elated over his unsought leadership. Vague suspicions were flitting through his mind, and his new responsibility was weighing heavily upon his young shoulders. As the evening wore on he still sat silent, buried in thought. The captain was reading aloud from an old newspaper he had brought along. Suddenly Charley straightened up, and a swift glance ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Madame standing bewildered, and darted upstairs to her little room. She flung herself on her bed and fought—fought with ghostly, flitting shadows that elusively leered from darker shades, grasped at fleeting phantoms that ranged themselves beside the minatory demons, until at last she grew ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... certain fly, unwitting Of this grandeur, came a-flitting To the Royal nose, and sitting Twirled his legs upon the same. Then the Rajah's eyes blazed fire At the insult, and the ire In his heart boiled high and higher. Slap! he struck, but missed ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... a step or two in advance of Edith, trailing his rifle in his left hand, while his form was half bent, and his head projected forward, giving him the attitude of constant and intense attention. His eyes were flitting constantly from tree-top to ground, from side to side, ahead and behind him, kindling with admiration and fire as they rested upon the form of his companion. The latter was enveloped in a large shawl, ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... time, indeed, I had sat quaking in my corner, all cold with the fear of a flitting figure, appearing here and there, seen with the tail of the eye, and then disappearing like the black cat I see in corners when my ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... the pasture to the house led through a tangle of shrubbery called by the negroes, the Haunt's Walk, and as he pushed the leafless boughs out of his way, a flitting glimpse of red caught his eye beyond a turn in the path. An instant later, Molly passed him on her way to the spring ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... the house. There were too few; and it needed but the first night's dinner to prove that the cook was third rate, though Lady Dauntrey carefully referred to him as the chef. In addition to this person, occasionally seen flitting about in a dingy white cap, there was a man to wait at table and open the door—a man, Dodo said, with the face of a sulky codfish; and a hawk-nosed, hollow-cheeked woman to "do the rooms" and act as maid to the ladies, none of the three having brought a maid of her own. Their hostess had ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... upon the distant, severed peaks, And on the smoking crest, That threatens still the ruins scattered round. And in the horror of the secret night, Along the empty theatres, The broken temples, shattered houses, where The bat her young conceals, Like flitting torch, that smoking sheds A gloom through the deserted halls Of palaces, the baleful lava glides, That through the shadows, distant, glares, And tinges every object round. Thus, paying unto man no heed, Or to ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... from which I presumed to look down upon these comrades? In my acquaintanceship with Prince Ivan Ivanovitch? In my ability to speak French? In my drozhki? In my linen shirt? In my finger-nails? "Surely these things are all rubbish," was the thought which would come flitting through my head under the influence of the envy which the good-fellowship and kindly, youthful gaiety displayed around me excited in my breast. Every one addressed his interlocutor in the second person singular. True, the familiarity of this address almost approximated to rudeness, yet even the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Bunny and Sue could hear them flitting through the tree branches overhead, and could listen to their songs. Sometimes birds with brilliant feathers flashed into view, disappearing in the thick, leafy trees on either side of ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... queer, high-shouldered horse, darkly silhouetted in the moonlight, lost to sight in the shadows of tall trees that looked taller in the dark, and then coming silently into view again, were like dim, flitting shadows in the night; like peculiarly helpless and insignificant shadows, restless and purposeless. The moon, soft and far away and still, seemed more alive than they did, and more ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... transferred to the tent, which presented a very pretty scene from without, looking through the drooping festoons of evergreens at the lamps and the figures flitting to and fro in their measured movements, while the shrubs and dark foliage of the trees fell into gloom around; and above, the sky assumed the deep tranquil blue of night, the pale bright stars shining out one by one. The Kendals were alone in the terrace, far enough from the gay tumult to be ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lolling in a low cane chair, fatigued by her drive, and longing aloud for tea; and Evadne was flitting about with her hat in her hand, laughing and talking more than any of us. She was wearing an art gown, very becoming to her, and suitable also for such sultry weather, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... hillside with greater spirit and dash than these, their descendants, facing the slope of Vaalkranz. In open order they moved across the plain, with a superb disregard of the crash and patter of the shrapnel, and then up they went, the flitting figures, springing from cover to cover, stooping, darting, crouching, running, until with their glasses the spectators on Swartz Kop could see the gleam of the bayonets and the strain of furious rushing men upon the summit, as the last Boers were driven from their trenches. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... (country apothecaries in old days enjoyed that title without authority of diploma), being a thin and agile man, was flitting about the room with his hands in his pockets, making himself agreeable to his feminine patients, with medical impartiality, and being welcomed everywhere as a doctor by hereditary right—not one of those miserable apothecaries ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... fact that nearly all very successful men have made a life work of one thing, we see on every hand hundreds of young men and women flitting about from occupation to occupation, trade to trade, in one thing to-day and another to-morrow,—just as though they could go from one thing to another by turning a switch, as if they could run as well on another track as on the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... he lay back in the padded seat between the sheltering partitions, watching the sickly yellow dregs of oil surging dismally to and fro with the motion in the lamp overhead, or the black indistinct forms flitting past through the misty blue outside, the pathos of his situation became all at once ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... a prolonged one. During this time Antoinette had been promenading the walk in front of the house, inhaling the jasmine-perfumed air, pouring out her heart to the night and to the stars. Her happy reverie was troubled only by the presence of a bat, flitting incessantly from one end of the terrace to the other, flapping its wings about her head. The loathsome creature seemed to be especially in quest of her, circling around and above her with obstinate persistency, even venturing to graze her hair in passing; Antoinette even fancied that she ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... slight twinkle in the old man's eyes as he watched Alma, all enthusiasm, flitting hither and thither, and ordering and planning like an experienced general, while it was plain to Pelle that she was as yet but a novice in the mysteries of gardening. He did venture to hint modestly that it was late—the middle ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... The ladies were flitting about the tree, giving it final touches that were never final. The Spangled Sisters were there in costume as Lady Violet de Vere and Marie, the maid, in their new drama, "The Miner's Bride." The theatre did not open until nine, and they were ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... while from the granite summits to the very path under our feet there is nothing but rock, rock, rock! It is as if we were passing where the foot of man had never trod before, so solemn is the stillness here in the midst of the "everlasting hills." To see one solitary bird flitting fitfully from point to point only makes the loneliness seem greater, and it is absolutely touching to find in a place like this the lovely little Ranunculus alpestris and Ranunculus glacialis forcing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... under a sheltering tree, looking at some flitting snow-birds, when from behind them came a curious sound. Bert looked back, and leaping to his feet, cried: "It's a snow slide! A snow slide! It's coming ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting, On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door; And its eyes have all the seeming of a demon ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... understand that his life was so strange that its details would be incredible. What these incredible details may have been, I have no means of knowing. It is enough that he was a strange unsubstantial being, flitting uncertainly about in the twilight regions of society, emerging by fits and starts into visibility, afflicted with a general vagueness as to the ordinary duties of mankind, and generally taking much more opium than was good ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Ned is now," thought the boy, and he hoped that he was having better fortune, and he glanced cautiously in the direction where he must be, but all was still; butterflies were flitting about, birds darted by, and the old goat, the only one of the herd now visible, still browsed ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... salon, the visitor actually found himself obliged to close his eyes for a moment, so strong was the mingled sheen of lamps, candles, and feminine apparel. Everything seemed suffused with light, and everywhere, flitting and flashing, were to be seen black coats—even as on a hot summer's day flies revolve around a sugar loaf while the old housekeeper is cutting it into cubes before the open window, and the children of the house crowd around her to watch the movements of her rugged hands ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... forest, a great flitting figure that passed swiftly, and now, that he was the trailer and not the trailed, all of his marvelous faculties were at their zenith. He heard and saw everything, and every odor came to him. The overwhelming ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... gently rose and went over to the other side. But there was a gap in the hedge, and Fred crept through; but on reaching the other side no butterfly could he see for a minute, when all at once it rose from a flower close beside him, and began flitting down the hedge-side again. At last it alighted upon a bunch of Mayflower, quite low down, a late cluster that ought to have been out in bloom a month earlier; and now Fred crept up closer and closer till he stood ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... wall of the gorge was steep, but not precipitous, and was covered with shrubs and trees—some of which leaned out over the little canyon, completely screening it, and among whose branches birds could now and then be seen flitting about. In that direction no mountains were visible, indicating that upon their side of the river there was an upland plateau or bench. To their right the river, the gorge, and the strip of meadow extended for a mile ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... hospitable appearance. The walls were whitewashed; the chairs, table, and bed were of polished oak; a good fire of logs crackled in the fireplace, and between the opening of the white window-curtains could be seen a slender silver crescent of moon gliding among the flitting clouds. The young man went at once to his bed; but notwithstanding the fatigues of the day, sleep did not come to him. Through the partition he could hear the clear, sonorous voice of Reine singing her father to sleep with one of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it to prove very conclusively to the bold minds of the age that tremendous profits—"purchases" they called them—were to be made from piracy. The Western World is filled with the names of daring mariners of those old days, who came flitting across the great trackless ocean in their little tublike boats of a few hundred tons burden, partly to explore unknown seas, partly—largely, perhaps—in pursuit of Spanish treasure: Frobisher, Davis, Drake, and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... great puff of smoke and a great shout of "Help! help! Molly to the rescue!" and when a little white-clad creature flitting past the door turned and brought into that quiet spot of leafy shadow the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, her golden hair, he said to her nonchalantly: "Just in time to head them off. Sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-brow I ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... succeeded peal, without intermission. The rain descended hissing and spouting, and presently ran down the hill in a torrent, adding to the horseman's other difficulties and dangers. To heighten the terror of the scene, strange shapes, revealed by the lightning, were seen flitting among the trees, and strange sounds were heard, though overpowered by the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I ever get along without her!" sighed the young nurse, as she watched Polly flitting about like a sprite, comforting restless little patients, hushing, with her ready tact, quarrelsome tongues, and winning every heart by her gentle, loving ways. Oh, the ward would be lonely indeed without Polly May! None realized this more ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... to say a last good-bye to their friends inside. Porters were hurling their last truck-loads of luggage into the vans; the guard was a quarter of the way down the train looking at the tickets; the newspaper boys were flitting about shouting noisily and inarticulately; and the usual crowd of "just-in-times" were rushing headlong out of the booking-office and hurling ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed |
