"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feathers and rise on the surface, shaking themselves. Here comes a trio of late starters, flying up from the sea. They hover overhead a moment, crying out to the crowd below, which answers them with a general shout and a flutter of excitement. Didn't you hear ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... to say in his elaborately nonchalant manner, answering a question about the disappearance of the tea-things: "I thought I might as well wash-up while I was about it." And he did want Mrs. Haim to be put in a flutter by the news that Mr. George Cannon had washed-up for her. The affair would positively cause ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... and the proof that I do not despise it," said the captain, filling his glass, "is that I am going to take an adieu of it. To your health, chevalier; you may boast of having good wine. Hum! And now, n—o, no, that is all. I shall take to water till I see the ribbon flutter from your window. Try to let it be as soon as possible, for water is a liquid that does ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... is my father's axe you are sitting on, and I must take it back as fast as I can, or I shall get a terrible scolding from my stepmother.' She then crumbled the bread on the ground, and was pleased to see the doves flutter ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... parting, as the hollow foundations subside, and walls on which the paint is still almost fresh are shored up with dusty beams lest they should fall and crush the few paupers who dwell within. Filthy, half-washed clothes of beggars hang down from the windows, drying in the sun as they flap and flutter against pretentious moulded masks of empty plaster. Miserable children loiter in the high-arched gates, under which smart carriages were meant to drive, and gnaw their dirty fingers, or fight for a cold boiled chestnut one of them has saved. Squalor, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in a flutter, 'Oh! Indeed, it's very kind of you, but I am afraid ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... his sins! Imperial love, monarch and despot of the human soul, is become the servant of boys for the wage of a girl's first thoughtless kiss. If that is love let it perish out of the world, with the bloom of the wood violet in spring, with the flutter of the bright moth in June, with the song of the nightingale and the call of the mocking-bird, with all things that are fair and lovely and sweet but for a few short days. If that is love, why then love never made a wound, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... interposes Miss Ray in a flutter of amaze. That carriage is coming nearer every instant, driving like mad, Brent on the back seat and a whip-lashing demon on the box. There will be no time for love-tales once that burly warrior returns to his own. Yet she is fencing, parrying, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... think that one so exalted as you are, one whose high position is so rife in the eyes of all men, should have taken pleasure in my company. I will confess to a foolish woman's silly vanity in having wished to be known to be the friend of the Duke of Omnium. I am like the other moths that flutter near the light and have their wings burned. But I am wiser than they in this, that having been scorched, I know that I must keep my distance. You will easily believe that a woman, such as I am, does not refuse to ride in a ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... tell thee The song Creation sings, From the humming of bees in the heather, To the flutter of ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... have long used we naturally like, and therefore the Highlanders were unwilling to lay aside their plaid, which yet to an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress; for hanging loose upon the body, it must flutter in a quick motion, or require one of the hands to keep it close. The Romans always laid aside the gown when they had anything to do. It was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the same word which signified a gown signified peace. The chief ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... stiffly next to their fences. Let your eyes, last sparrows, flutter. Bluebottles alight on your face. Don't you, Kuno, feel the eternal mills— The unfeeling one bores holes in your head. Look once more at the ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... Jabez Rockwell, he strode proudly in the van as guide to the log cabin, and felt his heart flutter as he jumped to the head of the charger, while the general dismounted with the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... horror—this lethal chamber where prominent caterpillars are slowly eaten alive. Yet scenes like this occur all through Fabre, and are described with great relish. If he wrote of them in a dry professional way, it would sound scientific, and I could read it in a cool, detached spirit with never a flutter. But he does it so humanly that you get to be friends with these creatures, and then he springs some grisly little scene on you that gives you the creeps, and explains to you that the said little scene is going on all the time; and it makes you feel as though there were nothing but red fangs ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... is smoother and deeper, his thoughts more quick and surprising, his raptures more mettled and higher, and he has more of that in his writings, which Plato calls sophrona manian than any other heroic poet. And those who shall go about to imitate him, will be found to flutter and make a noise, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... most interesting of sights is to see one of the schools of minnows that fairly abound in Lake Tahoe. In the clear and pellucid water one can clearly see them swim along. As they pass a rocky place a trout will dart out and catch his prey. A flutter at once passes through the whole school. Yet, strange to say, the trout will sometimes swim around such a body and either stupify them with fear, or hypnotize them into forgetfulness of their presence, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... he answered. "But a few days after you got hurt they quit us cold with no explanation. When we fell down on that first big order of albacore, Winfield & Camby lost interest and I haven't been able to get a flutter out of them since. The other dealers seem to be afraid of us for some reason. They come down and look us over, but that ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... and he heard a flutter near by, when looking that way he caught a glimpse of a little figure passing into the rear of the cabin; as the door was open he could see what appeared to be a girl of some six or seven, slight of figure, and with the golden hair and ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... those times you speak of with the present. I am sure Doctor Schoolman frequently tells us what remarkable advance we have made over those times in every way. I hope you do not wish to go backward!" and Mrs. Gray felt a little flutter of triumph at her own unusual skill in argument. Nobody responded at once and she gathered courage ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... heard the news, Little Primpton was agitated. Certainly it was distressed, and even virtuously indignant, but at the same time completely unable to divest itself of that little flutter of excitement which was so rare, yet so enchanting, a variation from the monotony of its daily course. The well-informed walked with a lighter step, and held their heads more jauntily, for life had suddenly acquired a novel interest. With something new ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... wafted him up to a new realm, invigorating if severer. But now his youth would have its voice. He travelled up to town with Sir Abraham Quatley and talked, and took and gave hints upon City and Commercial affairs, while the honeyed Italian of the conventional, gloriously animal, stress and flutter had a revel in his veins, now and then mutedly ebullient at the mouth: honeyed, golden, rich in visions;—having surely much more of Nature's encouragement to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wings, go forth, and should you by chance meet her somewhere in the shadowy depths, revisiting her old haunts, be my messenger—" Thus much had I spoken when the frail thing loosened its hold to fall without a flutter, straight and swift, into the white blaze beneath. I sprang forward with a shriek and stood staring into the fire, my whole frame trembling with a sudden terrible emotion. Even thus had Rima fallen—fallen ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... heard that he wished to see her, she thought her heart could beat no faster, but his words made that small organ tattoo against her sides like the flutter of a bird's wing in fright. She could do something for him! Oh, what ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... Darrow and Prof. Foster debated on one of the major issues of reason a flutter made itself felt in the city—even among citizens indifferent to debate. Indifferent or not, one felt that a debate between Prof. Foster and Mr. Darrow was a matter of considerable importance. Things might be disproved or proved ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Besides, the countess seldom addressed a "hireling," except to utter a command or a rebuke. Maurice was greatly relieved when he perceived his grandmother's perfect indifference to the individual whom he had selected. Mrs. Lawkins had been thrown "into a flutter" by Madeleine's cautions and the prospect of being obliged to parry a series of cross-questions; but the reception she received quickly restored her equanimity. Count Tristan was sitting near his mother; the worthy house-keeper made her obeisance ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... distinguished literary men, his faculty for finding talent even where it was absent, his perpetual enthusiasm, his pulse that went at one hundred and twenty a minute, his ignorance of life, the genuinely feminine flutter with which he threw himself into concerts and literary evenings for the benefit of destitute students, the way in which he gravitated towards the young—all this would have created for him the reputation of a writer even if he had not written ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... these," I said to myself. "It would be delicious to visit in a garden-room"; but presently we slipped out of the shade into sunlight, and were in a town of brick streets, huge hotels, with flags all a-flutter in a spanking, salt-smelling breeze, gay little shops and houses such as grow up by the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... strange that the coronation as King of Bohemia of a man of such decided purposes—a country numbering ten Protestants to one Catholic—should cause a thrill and a flutter. Could it be doubted that the great elemental conflict so steadily prophesied by Barneveld and instinctively dreaded by all capable of feeling the signs of the time would now begin? It had begun. Of what avail would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... boy, and I own I am glad you were not—a man wants a daughter—I should have been quite willing to allow you your flutter on Wall Street, or your try at anything you felt you would like to handle. It would have interested me to look on and see what you were made of, what you wanted, and how you set about trying to get it. It's a new kind of deal you have undertaken. It's ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and turned over the leaves in such a flutter that she could not find anything, and she rose, in spite of all entreaties, leaving the place to her sister, who was, she said, "so much better a musician and not so foolishly nervous." Lady Castlefort said her "voice always went away when ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... sat up in bed, and knew that consciousness was wide awake in me once more. It had slept, and now rose refreshed, but trembling. Looking back, all in a flutter of new responsibility, along the misty path by way of which I had recently loitered, I shook with an awful thankfulness at sight of the pitfalls I had skirted and escaped—of the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... woman in a red wrapper, with hollow cheeks, high cheek-bones, and hungry eyes; her dark hair hung loose, and one hand played restlessly with a fold of her gown. She took Noel's hand; and her uplifted eyes seemed to dig into the girl's face, to let go suddenly, and flutter. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me, I beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... young face almost pathetic now with weariness, humility, and pain, yet very sweet, with that new shyness in the loving eyes, and, stooping suddenly, he kissed it, whispering in a tone that made the girl's heart flutter,— ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... Gill was most promising. And I noticed how one fair Lady, who was seated on the Bench, did seem to arrange everything. And many beauties there, who I did gaze upon with satisfaction. To see them in such gay attire was a pretty sight, and did put my heart in a flutter. And I was pleased when the Court adjourned for luncheon; and it did divert me much to see what appetites they all had! Some had brought sandwiches, and, how they did eat them! But the Lord Chief Justice soon back again, and more witnesses examined until four ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... Philippa, she was frightened at her temerity in having invited the minister to a Hannahless supper; her flutter of questions as to "what" and "how" brought the old woman from her bed, in spite of the girl's half-hearted protests that she "mustn't think of getting up! Just tell me what to do," she implored, "I can manage. We are ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... an impressive flutter of hidden silk. She was smiling a faint half-smile, sweet but indefinably teasing, and holding out a daintily gloved hand. It touched Neil's lightly and impersonally, not like a girl's warm hand at all, but like the hand of a society forever beyond his reach, held out patronizingly to ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... a classical fable. I had been making a visit to the mudir of the province through which we were passing, and, after pipes and coffee, and the usual ceremonies, I mounted my horse, and, at the head of my escort, rode out of the mudir's courtyard, when my eye was caught by the flutter of the robes of a woman in a garden across the road. Around the garden ran a high hedge of cactus, and as I leaned forward in my saddle to look through one of the openings, a girl's face presented itself to me at the other side of it, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall ...
— Stray Birds • Rabindranath Tagore
... many a Spring; that had leaned their lofty and storm-stained tops together through many and many a Winter; that had stood, like mighty soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, in friendships knit through many centuries. The birds sing and flutter, fly in and out of the dark deep canopies of green, build nests, and make love in myriads. How the squirrels run and chatter and frisk, and fly from branch to branch, with their bushy tails tossing in the ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... the only real enemy he has to fear. How his heart and his flimsy paper must flutter in the unruly gusts of a March wind! We only imagine him pasting up a "Sale of Horses," in a retired nook, and seeing his bill carried ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... freshness, chafers whirring, A little piping of leaf-hid birds; A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring, A cloud to the eastward snowy ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... an th' grocer came, Booath in a dreadful flutter, To save some, but they came too lat, It all ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... to the opposite point, Fig. 4; and I have a reptilian or dragon's wing, which would, with some ramification of the supporting ribs, become a bat's or moth's; that is to say, an extension of membrane between the ribs (as in an umbrella), which will catch the wind, and flutter upon it, like a leaf; but cannot strike it to any purpose. The flying squirrel drifts like a falling leaf; the bat flits like a black rag torn at the edge. To give power, we must have plumes that ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... second (during which he was calling on himself to be cool) he pulled the trigger. To his inexpressible satisfaction the bird stopped in mid-air and came down with a thump on the heather, where it gave but one flutter and then lay still. He turned to see what his companions had done, with their brisk fusillade. But he could not make out. They were still watching the setter, that was again being encouraged to go on, lest a stray bird or two might still be ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... intellect, and better fitted to receive them."—"'Tis too much!—too much," said I, in broken accents: "how am I oppressed with the pleasure you give me!—O, Sir, bless me more gradually, and more cautiously—for I cannot bear it!" And, indeed, my heart went flutter, flutter, flutter, at his dear breast, as if it wanted to break its too narrow prison, to mingle still ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... others altogether velvety black with spots of vermilion or emerald-green, the under side of the wings corresponding to the spot, while sometimes a shoal of turquoise-blue or wholly canary-colored sprites fluttered in the sunbeams; the flash of sun-birds and the flutter of butterflies giving one an idea of the joy which possibly was intended to be the heritage of all animated existence. In these openings I was glad for the moment to be neither an ornithologist nor an entomologist, so that I might leave everyone of these ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... half resented the putting off of the decisive moment He was in a dreadful nervous flutter, his hopes alternately flying like a flag in a high wind, and drooping in a sick abandonment of everything. And May was more ravishing than ever. She had stuck the stem of a rose in one little ear like a pen, and the full flower itself nestled drooping at her cheek. There was never ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... only on rare occasions that the child was sent for. Nurse was in a flutter at once, putting on his best brown velvet suit, with his little cream-silk shirt, and brushing out his curls with ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... moulded jaw and chin, all spoke the old Roman vigor and energy, while the flexible delicacy of all the muscles of his face and figure gave an inexpressible fascination to his appearance. Every emotion and changing thought seemed to flutter and tremble over his countenance as the shadow of leaves over sunny water. His eye had a wonderful dilating power, and when he was excited seemed to shower sparks; and his voice possessed a surprising scale of delicate and melodious inflections, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Bryce and the maid down the stairs, as fast as possible. Evidently a crisis had occurred below. All the girls in their white dresses and pink or blue sashes, all the boys in their white collars of ceremony, were grouped about on the lawn, around the base of a big shade tree. Pink hair bows were a-flutter with excitement. The patent leather pumps of the boys trod upon the white slippers of the little girls in their efforts to see what ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... thing. He was bewildered. He leaned a little further across the table. He found himself watching the faint blue veins of her delicate fingers, noticing the curious perfume of roses that seemed to come to him from the flutter of the lace ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown; violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago she had communed at an ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... three lashes with Spartan fortitude, but at the very first blow, Giton set up such a howling that his all too familiar voice reached the ears of Tryphaena; nor was she the only one who was in a flutter, for, attracted by this familiar voice, all the maids rushed to where he was being flogged. Giton had already moderated the ardor of the sailors by his wonderful beauty, he appealed to his torturers without uttering a word. "It's Giton! It's Giton!" the maids all screamed ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... heart would flutter, she could not stop it or ignore it. Norma found no answer ready, and though she lifted her cup to her lips, to hide her confusion, she could not taste it. The strangeness of Chris's sudden departure was no mystery to her; he had been shocked and stunned by her marriage, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... had grown suddenly cold with the chill which dogs the heels of a dying fire on an early winter's night. An icy breath blew in under the door, and made something flutter that lay on the floor close to the broken frame. Westray stooped to pick it up, and found that he had in his hand a piece of ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... a week after their piece of good luck, a maid brought a letter for Miss Lydia to her room. The postmark showed that it was from New York. Not knowing any one there, Miss Lydia, in a mild flutter of wonder, sat down by her table and opened the letter with her scissors. This was ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... ashore had taken their departure. Crowds of human beings clustered on the pier-head, and at the large doorways of the warehouse which stood open on the steamer wharf. As the big ship slowly backed out there was a fluttering of handkerchiefs from the mass on the pier, and an answering flutter from those who crowded along the bulwarks of the steamer. The tug slowly pulled the prow of the vessel round, and at last the engines of the steamship began their pulsating throbs—throbs that would vibrate ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... him. To the Finnish Bridge when driving On the west wind's path of copper, On the pathway of the rainbow, Swift I hastened as an envoy, With the king's note in my wallet, And his mandate in my bosom, In my charge the leader's orders, And upon my tongue the secret That the flags in breeze should flutter, And the lance-points smite in battle, And the swords should do their duty. What was that which came to meet me, And what horror to confound me? 'Twas an eagle came to meet me, Eagle fierce with beak hooked sharply; With ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... A flutter of approval went round the bystanders, and Mademoiselle Therese called out a parting word of warning to Barbara—just to show she was connected with the couple—before they moved off. Their progress down the street was as picturesque as Monsieur Pirenne could ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... leaves on the side of the line. Beyond the train we see the lines like curves of blue riband on the yellow and white quartz ballast of the track. Our little engine puffs up little rags of white against the blue sky. Add a touch of bright colour, a flutter of pink drapery, and a brown shoulder, a finely modelled arm and bangle at a carriage window, catching the cool draught, and you have, I think, quite a pleasant colour scheme. The track is so tidy that there are white quartz stones arranged along ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... your cheeks redden so, and your heart flutter like a bird caught in a snare?" cried the spinster, looking thoughtfully, almost sorrowfully, into Helen's soft, loving, hazel eyes. "That step doesn't cross my threshold so often for nothing. You would know it in ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... breezes, to pant through The first long kiss, warm firstling, to renew Embower'd sports in Cytherea's isle. Look! how those winged listeners all this while Stand anxious: see! behold!"—This clamant word Broke through the careful silence; for they heard A rustling noise of leaves, and out there flutter'd Pigeons and doves: Adonis something mutter'd, The while one hand, that erst upon his thigh Lay dormant, mov'd convuls'd and gradually 500 Up to his forehead. Then there was a hum Of sudden voices, echoing, "Come! come! Arise! awake! Clear summer has forth walk'd Unto the clover-sward, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... From his prostrate position behind the seat he was unable to obtain a view of the lawn, and stopped ringing the bell to listen. He heard a faint cry in the distance, and then the flutter of skirts. The next instant Betty was bending over him, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... glimpse of mountains purple almost to indigo with cloud shadows, and flecked with snow. Still higher—but for this we have to raise our head a little—the free heavens enclosed within the frame-work of the tawny travertine, across which sail hawks and flutter jackdaws, sharply cut against the solid sky. Down from the architrave, to make the vignette perfect, hang tufts of crimson snapdragons. Each opening in the peristyle gives a ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... anywhere but on top; and when, after an exciting tussle with your refractory pedal extremities, you again get them beneath the surface, your hands fly out with the splash and splutter of a half-dozen flutter wheels. If, on account of your brains being heavier than your heels, you chance to turn a somersault, and your head goes under, your heels will pop up like a pair ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... to flutter the ribbons on her shoulders and bare neck, and to stir the tendrils of her powdered hair, a light breeze blowing steadily from the bay as the sun went down into the crimson flood. Bang! A cloud of white smoke hung over Pearl Street where the evening gun had spoken; the flag on the fort fluttered ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... wet with the brook, Or the shining mountainous straw-load: there the summer moon would look Through the leaves on the lampless room, wherein we sat we twain, All London vanished away; and the morn of the summer rain Would waft us the scent of the hay; or the first faint yellow leaves Would flutter adown before us and tell of the ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... fixed or flowing, he is lord of you. That is the universal penalty: you must, if you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature: if you raise him to heaven, you must be his! Ay, look! I know the eyes! They can melt granite, they can freeze fire. Pierce me, sweet eyes! And now flutter, for there is that in me to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perfectly happy. She almost forgot her misery, and seemed to accept their love as a sort of symbol of pardon for her offence, though she never ceased to consider herself a dreadful sinner. They used to flutter at her window just like little birds, calling out: ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the snowflakes began for to flutter far at sea the ships were sailing with the seamen not another word did angel nanny utter her grandsire chuckled and ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... missionaries for meddlers and the treaty officials for crazy fools. When the flag was at last in place, Fetuao and he drew away to get a better view of it from the beach. Standing there, in silence they watched the vivid colors flaunt and flutter against the wooded hills behind, while Jack, with a seaman's instinctive reverence for the flag, bared his head, and Fetuao clapped her ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... coming downstairs, flounced and puffed and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows, with one long feather curling half way round it, and a white tuft sticking up straight on the top, ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... visited his room daily, as she visited all the others; she took notice of his likings and dislikings as touching their table arrangement,—but by no means such notice as she did of her father's; and without any flutter, inwardly in her imagination or outwardly as regarded the world, she made him one of the family. So things went on for a year,—nay, so things went on for two years with her, after Herbert Onslow had come ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... briskly rubbed, and the customary plans adopted to restore respiration, Bob Roberts eagerly taking his turn, till, to his delight, as he watched Ali's arms being worked up and down, so as to empty and fill his chest, there was a faint flutter, a sigh, and the doubts as to the young Malay's life being ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... was still under thirty, but doing the best work of his life. He never did anything finer than Squire Thornhill, although he was clever as Henry VIII. His gravity as Flutter in "The Belle's Stratagem" was very fetching; as Bucklaw in "Ravenswood" he looked magnificent, and, of course, as the sailor hero in Adelphi melodrama he was as good as could be. But it is as Thornhill that I like best to remember ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... flutter of impatient anxiety was instantly excited through all the blue-stocking faction of the company, nor were the news totally indifferent to the rest of the community. The former belonged to that class, who, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... creatures swooped down upon the swans, screeched in their ears, and obstructed their view with the flutter of their tiny wings. They made them dizzy with their fluttering and drove them to distraction with their cries of ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... held near the chimney to shelter them), amidst the joyful applause of all the girls and the laughter of the men. A sound of hammering rose, and then a sound of boards rending from the clutch of nails, and then a sound of pieces thrown loosely into a pile. There was a continual flutter of women's dresses and emotions, and this did not end even when the piano, disclosed from its casing and all its wraps, was pushed indoors, and placed against the parlor wall, where a flash of lamp-light revealed it ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... turf-built hut * Adieu, my little garden, too! I made, I deck'd you all myself, And I am loth to part with you: But since my arms I must resume, And leave your comforts all behind, Upon the hostile frontier soon My tent shall flutter in ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... that flutter'st the slow Winter by, To drop thy buds before his frosty feet, Dost thou not grieve to see thy darlings lie In trodden death, and weep their beauty sweet? Yet must thou cast thy tender offering, And make thy way above thy mourned dead, Or frowning ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... flutter very like The tickets that we took from Tatt. Quite possibly I'll make a strike; The odds are all opposed to that. Behind the dawn the Furies sway The mighty globe from which to get Those bullets which throughout the day Will winners ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... compelled, because of a mishap to the bridge across the Medway and the stormy weather, to stay in the inn with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, for one night only. They were on their way to London from Dover. The event happened on the 29th of November, 1836, and caused a flutter of excitement in the city and inspired the proprietor to add the words "Royal Victoria" to the inn's name, and to justify the adornment of the front of the building with the royal crest ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... at all times willing to talk of Old Grannis to anybody that would listen, quite unconscious of the gossip of the flat. McTeague found her all a-flutter with excitement. Something extraordinary had happened. She had found out that the wall-paper in Old Grannis's room was the same as that ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... a great flutter, wished to start for Austin Friars instantly, but they waited nearly an hour, by John's advice, before they departed. Tom made himself as spruce as he could before leaving home, and when John Westlock, through the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... watching her with the eye of a hawk. A smile dawned on the white face, the sad eyes began to lose their gloom, and my fool of a heart began to flutter. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... far advanced when, at last, Joe's eyelids began to flutter, and his eyes opened a very little, to close again immediately; even the subdued light we had let into the room being too much for him to bear after so long a darkness; but in that brief glance he had recognized me, and seeing his lips move, I bent ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... reckon I'd rush God Almighty if it came to a race over the ice. And yet I didn't rush you. I guess this fact is an indication of how much I do love you. Of course I want you to marry me. Have I said a word about it, though? Nary a chirp, nary a flutter. I've been quiet and good, though it's almost made me sick at times, this keeping quiet. I haven't asked you to marry me. I'm not asking you now. Oh, not but what you satisfy me. I sure know you're the wife for me. But how about myself? ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... and pupil; he saw her such as he had made her, with her great heart, her passionate frankness, her triumphant reason. And she was always present with him; he did not believe that he could exist where she was not; he had need of her breath; of the flutter of her skirts near him; of her thoughtfulness and affection, by which he felt himself constantly surrounded; of her looks; of her smile; of her whole daily woman's life, which she had given him, which she would not have ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... century, when all Italian ladies and gentlemen knew how to sing, the virtuosoship of song (and with it also the art of melody) reached its elevation. In Germany, however (until quite recently when a kind of platform eloquence began shyly and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was properly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical discourse—that delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one in Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or a word, in what ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... since the date of my first communication. At that period I was approaching to tranquillity, but had not reached it. I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of the first flutter was left; an unsettling sense of novelty; the dazzle to weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth, as if they had been some necessary part of my apparel. I was a poor Carthusian, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... but he no doubt bled internally. I could detect not the faintest flutter of the heart, so we laid him gently down on the sofa. As we did so, a small stream of blood trickled out of his mouth, he sighed heavily, and his ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... so unusual for one of this sober household to go out to a party, that a flutter arose, when Mrs Rookwood had ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... rather be an eagle," said Rita. "To flutter a little, here and there, and sleep in a barn,—that would not be a great life. An eagle, soaring over the field of battle,—aha! he is my bird! But what is this outcry? Has he ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... Pilgrim's Progress, for he put them on two summers ago, and has not yet worn the gloss off. I have taken a great liking to those black silk pantaloons. But, now, with nods and greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband's arm, and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away, after arranging sunset walks with their favored bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve of love. At length, the whole congregation is dispersed. No; here, with faces as glossy as black satin, come two sable ladies and a sable gentleman, and close in their rear ...
— Sunday at Home (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who avoids the light? Where the wild dreams that flutter in thy train? Alas! in vain I call thee, cruel Night! And flatter ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... scarlet mistletoe, in which humming-birds build their nests. Blue macaws, parrots, and a thousand other birds fly to and fro, and the black fire-bird darts across the sky, making lightning with every flutter of his wings, which, underneath, are painted a bright, vivid red. Serpents of all colors and sizes creep silently in the undergrowth, or hang from the branches of the trees, their emerald eyes ever on the alert; and the broad-winged ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... time he waited; each passing footstep caused his heart to flutter with expectation, only, however, to leave it to quieten in disappointment as the sounds receded and died away in the echoing ballroom above, or else mingled, maybe, in the turmoil of the busy kitchens below. No Dorothy ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... haunted him. She had been one of the hat-shop hands, a flighty, nervous thing, madly in love with Elbridge, whom she ruled with a sort of frantic devotion since their marriage, compensating his cool quiet with a perpetual flutter of exaggerated sensibilities in every direction. But somehow she had put Northwick in mind of his own mother, and he thought of the chance or the will that had bereaved one and spared the other, and he envied the little boy who ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... but there was a nervous flutter in the poor, wan fingers, as she still plied the needles, and two large tears rolled silently down her checks and fell upon the white kerchief ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... woman's eye for reading faces, and she was instantly struck by a certain gravity in Jacintha's gaze, and a flutter which the young woman was suppressing with tolerable but ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... pointing the telescope at the disk of the full moon on clear nights. On cloudy or foggy nights the birds fly lower, as may be known by the clearer sounds of their calls as they pass over; at times one may even hear the flutter of their wings. There is a {68} good reason for their travelling at this time, as they need the ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... rested with steady attention on the woman who had addressed her in those terms. Not the faintest expression of confusion or alarm, not even a momentary flutter of interest stirred the deadly stillness of her face. She reposed as quietly, she held the screen as composedly, as ever. The test had been tried, and ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... too warm for gloves, dear," he said, his hot breath on her cheek; and with throbbing, eager hands he drew one off. He kissed the soft fingers and felt them, flutter like a captured bird. A moment later he put his arm about her and drew her head down to his shoulder. She resisted feebly, turning from him once or twice, and then allowed him to kiss ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... of hair clouding Garrison's shoulder. He watched consciousness return, the flutter of her breath. The perfume of her skin was in his nostrils, his mouth; stealing away his honor. He held her ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... the vivacity of Lisardo; who, leaping about Lysander, and expressing his high gratification at the discourse he had already heard, and his pleasure at what he hoped yet to hear, reminded us of what Boswell has said of Garrick, who used to flutter about Dr. Johnson, and try to soften his severity by ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... great yellow cat, so soft and beautiful, springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and, purring, insists on caresses; in the large, clean stables where the horses munch the corn lazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croak and flutter, ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... There were breathing-spells, to be sure. Under the cover of this verbal bombardment she found time to inspect the stranger. The likeness, so close at hand, started a ringing in her ears and a flutter in her throat. It was almost unbelievable. He was bigger, broader, his eyes were keener, but there was only one real difference: this man was rugged, whereas Arthur was elegant. It was as if nature had taken two forms ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the rippling at the bows, the low sough of the zephyr through the rigging, the cheeping of blocks, as the sleepy helmsman allowed the ship to vary in her course, the occasional splash of a dolphin, and the flutter of a flying-fish in the air, as he winged his short and glittering flight. The air was warm, fragrant, and delicious, and the larboard watch of the tired crew of the Gentile, after a boisterous passage of forty ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... all consider the inclinations of her guests, she must not only make them as comfortable as the arrangements and limits of her establishment permit, but she must subordinate her own inclinations utterly. At the same time, she must not fuss and flutter and get agitated and seemingly make efforts in their behalf. Nothing makes a guest more uncomfortable than to feel his host or hostess is being put to a great deal of bother or effort ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Volsces; men and lads, Stain all your edges on me.—Boy! False hound! If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli: ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Hackney-road, who are incessantly at the pawnbroker's. I cannot say that they enjoy themselves, for they are of a melancholy temperament; but what enjoyment they are capable of, they derive from crowding together in the pawnbroker's side-entry. Here, they are always to be found in a feeble flutter, as if they were newly come down in the world, and were afraid of being identified. I know a low fellow, originally of a good family from Dorking, who takes his whole establishment of wives, in single file, in at the door of the jug Department of a disorderly tavern ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... anyway," he always said. "Their mother's money is tied up on them, though they don't get it except with my sanction till my death. I can't touch the capital. Why, then, shouldn't we have an occasional flutter when I have a good year, while we are all young and can ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... all aglow in the sunshine, and the red camellias are pushing against the hoary head of the old stone Hermes, and to go down the width of the mighty steps into the gay piazza, alive with bells tolling, and crowds laughing, and drums abeat, and the flutter of carnival banners in the wind; and to get away from it all with a full heart, and ascend to see the sun set from the terrace of the Medici, or the Pamfili, or the Borghese woods, and watch the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... closed the youngest has gained some new wrinkle, the oldest some added gray hair. A few years more and only a few tattering figures shall represent the marching files of the Grand Army; a year or two beyond that, and there shall flutter by the window the last empty sleeve. But these who are here are embalmed forever in our imaginations; they will not change; they never will seem to us less young, less fresh, less daring, than when they sallied ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... because they never had any thing, they want the point d'oppui, the springing-ground whence to jump above their condition, where, transformed by the gilded rays of wealth or power, discarding their several skins or sloughs, they sport and flutter, like lesser insects, in the sunny beams ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... surely called the very loves from Paradise or from the apple-trees covered with blossom, where they make their temporary abode. What love song were they singing, ere the music was frozen on their lips by a falling leaf or chance flutter of bird life calling them to turn, and ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... was a frightened flutter overhead, a shrill anxious whistle rose in the air, and all was silence. Augusta had stepped on a dry branch—it had broken under her weight—hence the sudden confusion and flight. The unknown man had sprung up, and his eye, after a moment's search, had found ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... found out the loss of the paper?" he thought. "He must have discovered it, and that's why he is in such a flutter. If it's spoilt his chances, so much the better. I owe him a grudge, and, if I've put a spoke in his ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... No sentiment was involved here. This was what made the arrangement possible. Sentiment involved caring; and, as Monte had once said, "It's the caring that seems to make the trouble." That was the trouble with the Warrens. How she cared—from morning till night, with her whole heart and soul in a flutter—for Chic and the children. In a different way, Marjory supposed, Teddy cared. This was the one thing that made him so impossible. In another ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... icy silence, Where the glacier's teeth hang white, And even the sun-god Baldur, Looks down in vague affright, You flutter like startled spectres, With a prayer on your lips for the goal— To stand for one thrilling moment At the awful, ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... paragraphs as to his views and conduct, published, contradicted, and reiterated, were not sufficient to sustain, and even stimulate, curiosity. That he was about to return to his native land, as the Legate of His Holiness, was an event which made many men look grave, and some female hearts flutter. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... to do from the very first, but now his plan had apparently fructified, he felt a vague horror at the result of his handiwork. He opened Cumshaw's shirt and put his hand over the man's heart. He could not detect even the faintest flutter. ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... next night we went to the same neighborhood, and revisited the two places already mentioned, and others also. As we reached the top of the stairway and passed into the front room of the place where they had invited us to return, there was quite a flutter of excitement, and we instantly saw that there was a number of girls present, all very young, and several mere children. On our left a fat, middle-aged Chinese man sat, with two or three little girls, one in his lap and one on either side of him, ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... easy matter. But this I saw clearly. The Captain stood in the corner, his blade raised to strike. BLUENOSE never stirred, but his breath came and went, and his eyelids blinked strangely, like the flutter of a sere leaf against the wall. There came a roar of voices, and, in the tumult, the Captain's sword flashed quickly, and fell. Then, with a broken cry like a sheep's bleat, the great seamed face fell separate from the body, and a fountain of blood rose ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... There was a flutter of caps through the vast shed. Every head stood bared, and bent. On went the parson towards the little platform with the railway. The furnace had sunk somewhat—its roar was less acute—— Laura looking at it thought of the gorged ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... early habits. Joseph is presented to us as wandering in the woodlands, lost in a melancholy fit, or waking out of it to note with ecstasy all the effects of light and colour around him, the flight of birds, the flutter of foliage, the panorama of cloudland. He and Thomas were alike in their "extreme thirst after ancient things." They avoided, with a certain disdain, the affectation of vague and conventional reference ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... may be we shall meet And count our days up-gathered, one by one, Like poppies plucked among the burnished wheat, Beneath the red gaze of the August sun; And all our scattered dreams shall flutter home At last. Oh! silent, age-long wandering What since your setting forth have ye become? What gift from those far waters do ye bring?— A splash of rain, salt taste of frozen foam, Green sea-weed trailing from a ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... thing is how men settle down after excitement. Birds do the same thing. A hawk swoops down on a hedgerow; there is a great flutter, followed by sudden silence. A minute later the chattering begins again, without any reference to one of their number being torn in the plunderer's beak. And so we; even Grim loosened up and gossiped about Feisul and ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... window, an' it's higher 'n' we ever dreamt of its bein', an' sweeter." "Tell Davie to lay listenin' to feet goin' up and down on stones is grand." "Tell Davie I hev seen the surgeon an' that I never thought a great man'd be so kind. I was all in a flutter over him, but when he'd come 'n' had seen me, whatever'd I do but tell him 'bout him 'n' Melindy Ethel, an' the meetin'-house, an' how the road runs by in front o' the farm. An' he said he knew, an' not to mind—as ma ust to. Ain't ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... well," said the Indian, in a sarcastic tone; "Peena is well named; and the Partridge, though the daughter of a Sachem, shall flutter through the air to do the bidding of the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the fashionable resorts, where families disport themselves at the foot of the mountains, than to the Alpine heights where he had generally found a more robust amusement. And wherever he went he bent his attention on the fairer portion of the creation, the girls who fill all the hotels with the flutter of their fresh toilettes and the babble of their pleasant voices. It was very mean and poor of him, seeing he was a mountaineer himself—but still it must be recorded that the only young ladies he systematically neglected were those in very short petticoats, with very sunburnt ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the instinct of the journalist, I opened it. The puzzle was explained. It was the Dining Hall of the Metropolitan Orphanage, and the children were at their seven o'clock supper. From the cathedral-like calm of the vestibule, I passed into an atmosphere billowing with the flutter of some five hundred small tongues. Under the pendant circles of gas-jets were ranged twelve long, narrow tables packed with children talking and eating with no sense of any speed-limit. On the one side were boys in ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... carrying a favour to Sir W. Coventry, for his daughter's wedding, and saying that there was others for us, when we will fetch them, which vexed me, and I am resolved not to wear it when he orders me one. His wedding hath been so poorly kept, that I am ashamed of it; for a fellow that makes such a flutter as he do. When we come to the Duke of York here, I heard discourse how Harris of his play-house is sick, and everybody commends him, and, above all things, for acting the Cardinall. Here they talk also how the King's viallin,—[violin]— Bannister, is mad that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... manuscript. "Why doesn't he tell me himself what he has discovered? Is he—" The leaves began to flutter in her trembling fingers—"is he angry ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... came in; he was a well-brought-up lad, and never meant to leave a speck on the polished floor. Now, however, he was aware of fragrant, newly rubbed spots that appeared as if by magic every time he returned through the entry after passing along it. Several times he saw a gray gown flutter and disappear through a doorway; but ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... "And the little birds flutter in the sun, and eat my crumbs and the great music swells out while you ask the garcon for another bock. Do you remember, father dear, the day ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... yourself, old fellow," replied my husband. "That's my wife's little flutter. Dare say the poor fool has had to promise her priest ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... built on the basis of 'family'; but I have learned from you that there are other things, like the trait I mentioned, for instance, that count more than lineage. Before we went abroad I knew Carey was interested in you, with the first flutter of a young girl's fancy, and I was secretly antagonistic to that feeling. But last night, David, I came to feel differently. I envied your mother when I read those banners. If I had a son ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... and looking carelessly about, my attention was attracted by what I took to be a leaf flutter down close to the above-mentioned bamboo, and to my surprise disappear before it reached the ground. Wondering at this, I got up and approached the place, when from the aforementioned hole in the bamboo out darted a little bird; and looking in I saw ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... was dictated by regard for decency, and not by a wish that it should be accepted, and gave the simplest excuse for not attending the funeral. But Ty, Prince of Yen, the most powerful and ambitious of them all, declared that he accepted the emperor's invitation. This decision raised quite a flutter of excitement, almost amounting to consternation, at Nankin, where the Prince of Yen was regarded as a bitter and vindictive enemy. The only way Wenti saw out of this dilemma was to send his uncle a special intimation that his presence at the capital would ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... it too thrilling?" cried Viola. "Oh! Tom, aren't you perfectly rigid with excitement? It makes Tom rigid, Mr. Merryweather, and it makes me flutter; we are so different. ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... up almost before she could catch her breath, and landed her on the fifth floor. The man pointed along a hallway, and she followed this until a name in big gilt letters arrested her attention and caused her heart to flutter spasmodically. "Cornelius McVeigh—Investments," it read. And this was really her son's Eldorado! A mist crept over her eyes as she turned the brass knob and entered. A score of young men and women were before her, ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... Stephen over his hostess's shoulder and seemed to brand him where he sat. He looked about for his hat and some excuse that would serve, and while he looked the sound of applause rose from the house. It was a demonstration without great energy, hardly more than a flutter from stall to stall, with a vague, fundamental noise from the gallery; but it had the quality which acclaimed something new. Arnold glanced at the stage and saw that while Pilate and the hollow-chested slaves and the tin centurion were still on they had somehow lost significance and colour, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... at the waist gently sustaining, Mrs. Horowitz sank rather softly down, her eyelids fluttering for the moment. A smile had come out on her face, and, as her head sank back against the rest, the eyes resting at the downward flutter, she gave out a long breath, not taking ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... history, and of showing how the stream of centuries has been diverted in one or other direction by events the most insignificant. General Garfield told his pupils at Hiram that the roof of a certain court house was so absolute a watershed that the flutter of a bird's wing would be sufficient to decide whether a particular rain-drop should make its way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence or into the Gulf of Mexico. The flutter of a bird's wing may have affected all history. Some students may see an immeasurable significance ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... is," he said, "unless one kills them at once. I have often felt angry with men for only half killing a bird. I hated to pick up the little warm body, and see the bright eye looking so reproachfully at me, and feel the flutter of life. We animals, or rather the most of us, kill mercifully. It is only human beings who butcher their prey, and seem, some of them, to rejoice in their agony. I used to be eager to kill birds and rabbits, but I did not want to keep them before me long after they were dead. I often stop ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... she retorted with a little flutter of a laugh. "My French heel caught on the stair; it was torn away. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... abode, I still restrained my natral curiossity, and sat down, and told my wundrus tail to the wife of my buzzom, and then placed the little packet in her estonished ands, which she hopened with a slite flutter, and then perdoosed from it Five Golden Souverings! If any other noble swells wants another Humpire on the same libberal terms, let ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... the gallant and gay speeches of Bigot, which seemed to flutter like birds round her, but never lit on the ground where she had spread her net like a crafty fowler as she was, until she went almost mad with suppressed anger and passionate excitement. But she kept on replying with badinage light as his own, and with laughter so soft and silvery that it seemed ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... stiff. Neither Dundas nor Wilberforce moved in the highest circles. Portland, Spencer, and Windham held somewhat aloof, and Leeds, Sydney, and others had been alienated. Accordingly, the news that Pitt was paying marked attentions to Auckland's eldest daughter caused a flutter of excitement. Her charm and tact warranted the belief that in the near future the Prime Minister would dominate the social sphere hardly less than ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last in his dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the Roman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to give him the late warning, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... partridge act as if she had a broken wing," Jack remarked, quietly; "and flutter along the ground in a way that couldn't help but make one try to catch her; but if you chased after her, it would be to see the old bird take wing pretty soon, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren |
