"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was too deep to be disturbed by the sound of footsteps or the rustling of garments. She neither stirred nor heard a sound till Annie laid her hand upon her arm. Then she awoke with a start, coming back to a realisation of time and place, with a flutter ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... was now astonishingly intimate, considering the short time he had been a resident, and his woodlore, applied to the maze of tortuous narrow alleys made him a hunter not easily baffled. He saw the flutter of a cloak as its wearer turned down a narrow lane, and a rapid mental picture of the labyrinth illuminating his mind, Wilhelm took a dozen long strides to a corner and there stood waiting. A few moments later a panting man with cloak ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... down the steps behind her. It was an adoring little freshman, who had caught the glimmer of her pink dress behind the tree. The special-delivery letter she carried was her excuse for following. She had been in a flutter of delight when Madame Chartley put it in her hand, asking her to find Elizabeth Lewis and give it to her. But now that she stood in the charmed presence, actually watching a poem in the process of construction, she ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky. In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling sweeping towards us nearer and nearer—growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck [of the stagecoach], a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go swinging away like a belated fragment ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... ruined, smiles bravely. It is a point of honour in the North not to whine, whatever happens. All day we work trying to save some of the wrecked cargo. Bales of goods are unwound and stretched out for hundreds of yards in the sun. Bandanna handkerchiefs flutter on bushes. Toilet soap, boots, and bear-traps are at our feet. The Fire-Ranger of the district, Mr. Biggs, has his barley and rice spread out on sheeting, and, turning it over, says bravely, "I think it will dry." Mathematical ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... the girl, so close that her soft furs brushed me and I could feel the flutter of her breath against my cheek. At Blenheim's proposition I glanced at her. She was measuring him steadily. Then she looked at me, and her eyes seemed to hold some message that ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... you open the box the rustles will escape, whether you are wearing a silk dress or not," said the man, seriously. Then he picked up another box. "In this," he continued, "are many assorted flutters. They are invaluable to make flags flutter on a still day, when there is no wind. You, sir," turning to the Wizard, "ought to have this assortment. Once you have tried my goods I am sure you will ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... sea-crane pearl, put them together with a whole bushel of ordinary pearls, and poured the lot out in the courtyard. Then a large yellow serpent and a black crane were fetched and placed among the pearls. At once the crane took up a sea-crane pearl in his bill and began to dance and sing and flutter around. But the serpent snatched at the serpent-pearl, and wound himself about it in many coils. And when the people saw this they acknowledged the truth of the wise man's words. As regards the radiance of the larger and smaller pearls it ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... crews of both fleets, victors and vanquished, joined in burying their dead on the shore of the bay. The sailors slain in the battle had been already sunken in the lake, but now to the sound of the minute guns from the ships, with the sad music of funeral marches, the measured dip of oars, and the flutter of half-masted flags, the last sad rites were paid to the fallen officers. Perhaps the Indians under Tecumseh who had seen with stupid dismay the great battle of the rival squadrons, witnessed this pathetic spectacle too, before ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... quake, shiver, totter, brandish, joggle, quaver, shudder, tremble, flap, jolt, quiver, sway, vibrate, fluctuate, jounce, reel, swing, wave, flutter, oscillate, rock, thrill, waver. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the later conference was also intense for Peter Baron, who quitted his editor with his manuscript under his arm. He had had the question out with Mr. Locket, and he was in a flutter which ought to have been a sense of triumph and which indeed at first he succeeded in regarding in this light. Mr. Locket had had to admit that there was an idea in his story, and that was a tribute which Baron was in a position to make the most of. But there ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little, and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the case of young engaged persons I knew, to look ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... writing the body of the address, and I am going to criticise Paleontological doctrines in general in a way that will flutter their ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... steps are led aright, but the Pacific zones are too broad for even winged wanderers. The fish that swarm on our coast do not seem to find home life or sporting places in this enormous sea. Only the flying fish disturb the silky scene and flutter with silver wings over the sparkling laces that glisten where the winds blow gently, and woo the billows to cast aside the terrors of other climes and match the sky of blue and gold in beauty; but, unlike the stars, the waves do not differ in glory, and the spread of their ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the street Thornton heard the clatter of horses' hoofs coming on rapidly. He paid no attention until they were close to him, so close that from the corner of his eye he caught the flutter of a woman's skirt. Then he knew who it was before she passed on. One was Pollard looking white and sick; the other, rosy cheeked and bright ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... hairy calices, looks as if it might be placed in a glass cup and make an excellent pen wiper. If the cultivated human eye (and stomach) revolt at magenta, It is ever a favorite shade with butterflies. They flutter in ecstasy over the gay flowers; indeed, they are the principal visitors and benefactors, for the erect corollas, exposed organs, and level-topped heads are well adapted to their requirements. That exquisite little feathered jewel, the ruby-throated hummingbird, flashes about the bright ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... said the Western fairy, with a bright, breezy flutter of her sea-green garments, "health—perfect health and strength of body, as my ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... as one under the influence of chloroform hears his attendants. He exhorted a stone. His words only seemed to beat and flutter faintly against me, like storm-driven birds against a cliff at night. My brain was only in my eyeballs; and the arms that worked mechanically at the oars belonged rather to the boat than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... and wife, and child together flutter Up to the great white throne, Where nevermore may Margaret ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... our party, I noticed that Owen Garningham was never himself again. Though he continued to flutter around Miss Edith, he never seemed to be so well pleased with me as before. Yet I do not think he had anything against me. I could only attribute the change in him to the cancelling of the contract for the use of the Sylvania for a year, though he had said very little about the matter. ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... such a day you may meet a caterpillar on the footpath, and turn out for him. The house-fly thaws out; a company of cheerful wasps take possession of a chamber-window. It is oppressive indoors at night, and the window is raised. A flock of millers, born out of time, flutter in. It is most unusual weather for the season: it is so every year. The delusion is complete, when, on a mild evening, the tree-toads open their brittle-brattle chorus on the edge of the pond. The citizen asks his neighbor, "Did you ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Jinnie first 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 joy! ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... Six months ago how she would have rejoiced at the prospect of having Miss Selincourt at Roaring Water Portage for the weeks of the short, busy summer. An educated girl to talk to would make all the difference in the isolation in which they were forced to live. Katherine felt herself thrill and flutter with delight, even while she trembled with dread at the thought of her father having to meet Mr. Selincourt face to face. She wondered if the rich man who was coming would remember her father, and if he knew of the wrong that the latter had done in keeping ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... and listened to thy song, And yet 'twas ever, ever new, With magic in its heaven-tuned string— The future bliss thy constant theme. Oh! then each little woe took wing Away, like phantoms of a dream; As if each sound That flutter'd round, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... thine—irrevocably thine—I swear. Thou hast refus'd a great and noble prey, To get possession of my closet key. Lo! here it is, and, when within thy maw, May'st thou much comfort from the morsel draw!" The polish'd steel upon the deck she cast, And off the raven flutter'd from ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... creeping up to her cheek, and felt herself tremulous in every limb, as Mr. Lansdowne approached and drew a seat near her. But pride came to her aid. One strong effort of the will, and the young creature, novice as she was in the arts of society, succeeded in partially covering the flutter and agitation of spirit caused by the sudden ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... coloured—which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from her work, cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in scattered pictures. An etching of a child playing with a Blenheim spaniel happened to flutter to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... came a long slow-growing silence; and then, with a flutter, she was beside him again, laughing in his ears ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... eye Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... swimming in ink. Rick kept his hands out in case of unexpected underwater objects, but forged ahead at a good speed. He kept track of his own rate of progress through the water by timing the number of flutter kicks per minute. At the count of fifty he turned to the left, heading directly into the creek's mouth. He could hear the steady beat of Orvil's motor. When he estimated he had covered the proper distance, he stopped and let Scotty catch up ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... all, lead ye amid the air, Lead on unto the thicket place where o'er the wealthy soil The rich bough casteth shadow down! Fail not my eyeless toil, O Goddess-mother!" So he saith, and stays his feet to heed What token they may bring to him, and whitherward they speed. So on they flutter pasturing, with such a space between, As they by eyes of following folk may scantly well be seen; 200 But when Avernus' jaws at last, the noisome place, they reach, They rise aloft and skim the air, and settle each by each Upon the very wished-for place, yea high amid the tree, Where ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... top of the hill—a famous coasting place—and it looked almost like a castle, with all its windows alight, and now and then a flutter of snowflakes falling between the approaching young people and the lampshine from the doors ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... foolish, which, for my part, I call a greater triumph than if he were performing the heroics we are more accustomed to. He has steady eyes, can gaze at the right level into the eyes of others, and commands a tongue which is neither struck dumb nor set in a flutter by any startling question. The best instances to be given that he does not lack merit are that the Jocelyns, whom he has offended by his birth, cannot change their treatment of him, and that the hostile women, whatever they may say, do not think Rose utterly insane. At any rate, Rose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... myself of a reason against it,' the Dauphin said quickly, yet with a flutter of timidity. 'This ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... in the hope that something might cool down a bit; however, he had to go in, so, shrinking into the smallest possible dimensions, he glided silently into the house, hung up his hat, and sat down. Sally was in a flutter, she was full, it must come:—"What hast ta been trying to do this mornin'?" she began, looking hard ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... he muttered, wearily; "whisky nerves, or the dying flutter of a starved love. Five years, now—and a look from her eyes can stop the blood in my veins—can bring back all the heart-hunger and helplessness, that leads a man to insanity—or this." He looked at his trembling hand, all scarred and tar-stained, passed ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... in a flutter. The "big green gates" could only have reference to the private entrance to the bishop's garden, which entrance his lordship used when attending the cathedral. That the bishop was in Helstonleigh, Ketch knew: he had arrived that day, after a ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... her, wus you? You who knew her man wus livin'! You, as mebbe has ha'f a dozen wives livin'. You wus good to her! Wal, you're goin' to pay now. Savee? You're goin' to pay fer your flutter wi' chips, chips as drip wi' ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... cowslip wine. Ragingly he spluttered and gulped, and then kicked the bins with all his might. While he was stooping to rub his toe, who should march in but Miss Elaine, dressed and ready for young Geoffrey. But she caught sight of her father in time, and stepped back into the passage in a flutter. Good heavens! This would never do. Geoffrey might be knocking at the cellar-door at any moment. Her papa must be ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime tree is in blossom And one small flower ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... ideas, and finding out their relations, and agreements or disagreements, one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the agreement or disagreement of ideas themselves, whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only in sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations. Mathematicians abstracting their thoughts from names, and accustoming themselves to set before their minds the ideas themselves ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... cousin? The least unworthy part of her conduct, some critics will say, was that desire to see Clive and be well with him: as she felt the greatest regard for him, the showing it was not blameable; and every flutter which she made to escape out of the meshes which the world had cast about her was but the natural effort at liberty. It was her prudence which was wrong; and her submission wherein she was most culpable. In the early church story, do we not read how young martyrs constantly had to ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Never a break from yours mysteriously, believe me. We wouldn't have come out at all if your partner hadn't insisted. He was so hot to have us butt in here and hand your heart a flutter that I just couldn't resist his pleading voice. It's a catchy jest, all right, and it's making me laugh. The way you two ducks josh each other is pitiful, but your secret is safe with me, Manager. I won't make no bad breaks, ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... an effort sent apart The blood that curdled to her heart, And light came to her eye, And color dawn'd upon her cheek, A hectic and a flutter'd streak. * * * * * And when her silence broke at length, Still as she spoke she gather'd strength, And arm'd herself to bear;— It was a fearful sight to see Such high resolve and constancy, In ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... given themselves up to the pleasures of the body, paying, as it were, a servile obedience to their lustful impulses, have violated the laws of God and man; and therefore, when they are separated from their bodies, flutter continually round the earth on which they lived, and are not allowed to return to this celestial region till they have been purified by the revolution of ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... linger. He was reluctant to admit it was wasted. In a few minutes he heard something fall to the ground, he knew not what it was, but with eager steps pressed towards the place, and when near it a slight flutter and rustling of wings led him to discover the partridge, uninjured except that one leg was broken; that by faintness or inability to hold its perch with one foot it had fallen to the ground. The darkness and rain of that night then closing around them were rendered less dark and disagreeable ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... in the room; the little door opened and closed; the bird, with a flutter of wings, flew back to its corner. Brandon looked up and saw a faint shadow of a man. He rose and took some steps towards the door, then he stopped because be saw that the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... were some curious, large black ants—the largest I have ever seen and quite harmless—that would slip in and out of the cracks on the veranda floor, wholly undisturbed by us. Now and then a light flutter of wind would come murmuring up from the trees below, and when the apple-bloom was falling there would be a whirl of white and pink petals that seemed a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... little fairies expressed great surprise that boys and girls ever should think of eating things which occasioned so much trouble. So the night was spent in singing and dancing, and our master would sleep as sweetly as you please. At last the lark—what a beautiful bird she is—would flutter against the window panes, and give the fairies warning ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... many outside his parish, had long ago given her to him, and said that she was worthy; while he had loved her, as only natures like his can love, since that week before Christmas, when their hands had met with a strange, tremulous flutter, as together they fastened the wreaths of evergreen upon the wall, he holding them up and she driving the refractory tacks, which would keep falling in spite of her, so that his hand went often from the carpet or basin to hers, and once accidentally closed almost entirely over the little, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... "Sh—sh—sh—sh!" A flutter of programmes in the pit was indignantly suppressed by the gallery. There was a movement of Poppy's right eyelid which in a larger woman would have been called a wink; in Poppy it appeared as an ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepp'd a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopp'd or stay'd he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber-door; Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber-door;— Perch'd, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... and plume your wings, and chirp and flutter, And swing, light-poised upon the pendant bough;— Fondly I deem he hears the calls ye utter, And stirs in his light sleep to ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... on, not breathing. The momentary flutter and hover of the machine was over. It was dropping down again in a wild, sliding swoop — yet Hal made no move to stop it even when it ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there alone for ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... fan-fa-rade and lines of soldiers gave forth inspiriting sounds, with many musical instruments. There was a stir and flutter in the crowd; and ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... nose, well-cut, yet fully outlined lips, and strong, finely 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... things precisely as she had found them. By this time her guards were seeking her everywhere, and they were amazed to find her up in the turret, for they said she could only have got there by magic. For three days nothing happened, but at last in the night the Princess heard something flutter against her window, and drawing back her curtains she saw in the moonlight that ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... pension bourgeoise our front door was hung with heavy black curtains, and our Maiden passed forth into the broad day for the first time in ten years. She went out unsmiling, uncooing, without flutter or quirk, and no date upon her pine coffin, for with her last breath she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the supple limbs of a young stag, and the mad, irresponsible movements of a colt. His dark eyes shine like two stars out of his sun-burnt face; his muscular arms encircle Elsa's fine waist with a grip that is almost masterful. The wide sleeves of his linen shirt flutter above his shoulders till they look like wings and he like some messenger of the gods come to carry this exquisite prey ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... gown—even Hayden's untutored masculine senses appreciated its wonderfulness—was of some clinging green material which embraced her in certain faultless lines and folds of consummate art. About the hem it was embroidered with silver butterflies, irregularly disposed yet all seeming to flutter upward as if in the effort to reach her knees. These also decorated her low corsage and spread their wings upon her sleeves. She wore no jewels; and her only ornament was a large butterfly in silver, upon ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... side is a festive company of ladies and cavaliers, with hawks and dogs, seated under orange trees, with rich carpets at their feet, all splendidly dressed. A troubadour and a singing girl amuse them with songs, amorini flutter around them and wave their torches. On the other side is another group, also a hunting party, on splendidly caparisoned horses, and accompanied by a train of attendants. On the mountains in the background are several hermits, who in contrast ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... advocate of some standing at the bar, but by no means remarkable for the brilliancy of his parts, or the extent of his legal knowledge, was in full expectation of being appointed to the vacant gown. This is done by a court letter, signed with the King's sign manual. In the full flutter of his darling hopes, he one day encountered an old brother lawyer, notorious for the acidity of his temper, and the poignancy and acrimony of his remarks. "Weel, friend Robby," said the latter, "I hear you're to get the vacant gown."—"Yes, Mr. C—k, I have every ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... he comes, loading his gun; Look out for the partridges—hush! there is one! Poor victim! a bang, and a flutter—'tis o'er,— And those fair dappled wings shall expand nevermore; It was shot for our invalid sister at home, Yet we sigh as beneath ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... a woman in a little house that gets a painful livelihood by spinning, if chance her geese be scattered o'er the common, she courses round the plain from side to side, compelling here and there the stragglers to the flock; they cackle loud, and flutter o'er the champaign; so Boyle pursued, so fled this pair of friends: finding at length their flight was vain, they bravely joined, and drew themselves in phalanx. First Bentley threw a spear with all his force, hoping to pierce the enemy's breast; but Pallas ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... turned out, but a brewer's relict at Southampton, with a couple of thousand pounds to her fortune: for honest Tom's heart was under such excellent control, that Venus herself without a portion would never have caused it to flutter. So he rode away on his heavy-paced gelding to pursue his jog-trot loves, leaving Esmond to the society of his dear mistress and her daughter, and with his young lord for a companion, who was charmed, not only to see an old friend, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... screen showed a race of boats which melted without warning to a mass of white uniforms packed about the raised square of a roped-in Platform below guns and a turret clouded with men. Two tanned giants in wrestling tights scrambled under the ropes. There was a flutter of caps. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... cheeks, the very personification of blooming, innocent, English loveliness. I watched her (I could not help it, when my interest was once awakened) through the whole scene. I marked her increased agitation: I saw her cheeks flush, her eyes glisten, her bosom flutter, as if with sighs I could not overhear, till at length, overpowered with emotion, she turned away her head, and covered her eyes with her hand. Mothers!—English mothers! who bring your daughters abroad to finish their education—do you well to expose ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... monotony of life at sea. As the General went over the side into the long-boat of the Saint-Ferdinand, manned by six vigorous rowers, he could not help looking at the burning vessel, as well as at the daughter who stood by her husband's side on the stern of the Othello. He saw Helene's white dress flutter like one more sail in the breeze; he saw the tall, noble figure against a background of sea, queenly still even in the presence of Ocean; and so many memories crowded up in his mind, that, with a soldier's recklessness of life, he forgot that he was being borne over the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... how to deal with Abbot Thurston. Lands belonging to the monastery lay beyond the fens, and on these the king laid the rough hand of royal right, as an earnest of what would happen when the monastery itself should fall into his hands. A flutter of terror shook the hearts of the abbot and his family of monks. To them it seemed that the skies were about to fall, and that they would be wise to stand ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... fights and falls, his fame no blight shall know, As long as through heaven's free expanse the breezes freely blow, As long as in the forest wild the green leaves flutter free, As long as rivers, mountain-born, roll freely to the sea, As long as free the eagle's wing exulting cleaves the skies, As long as from a freeman's heart ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... be looking at her. She settled on the plainest of them, - a pink short young man with a dish face and no figure, at whose admiration she could afford to smile; but for all that, the consciousness of his gaze (which was really fixed on Torrance and his mittens) kept her in something of a flutter till the word Amen. Even then, she was far too well-bred to gratify her curiosity with any impatience. She resumed her seat languidly - this was a Glasgow touch - she composed her dress, rearranged her nosegay of primroses, looked first ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, earnestly, "my heart sings as it has never sung since its earliest love-flutter. I feel like a stainless god in a sacred garden, listening for the first time to the dear madness of the nightingale. No subtle Neapolitan ever stirred me as this wood-nymph does with her flaming ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing and disappointment? What would become of him, if this fresh soul should stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out of the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires in the shadowy waters that hold her ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... around where there is a girl around, and spring around and lilacs around and a moon and music and joy around,—what is more natural in all this world than that in the fire struck by the simple joy of youth there should be the flutter of unseen wings around, and when the two had finished singing, with something passing between their hearts not in the words, what is more natural than that the girl, half frightened at the thrill in her soul, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... plodded toward the Club, "we should have disguised Mile End in bunting and blue fire. But perhaps it's a compliment. He knows his London, and it's no use trying to hide the facts from him. They must have queer notions of cities, those monarchs. They must fancy everybody lives in a flutter of flags and walks about under triumphal arches, like as if I were to stitch shoes in my Sunday clothes." By a defiance of chronology Crowl had them on to-day, and they seemed ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... perfume lingers with the rose, Even when its petals flutter to the earth, So clings the potent mystery of the birth Of that deep love from which all ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it against those pallid lips. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful-looking way; but Violet had seen her father look like that sometimes as he slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a long swoon, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... wait outside the Agency until her George should arrive and explain his mysterious message. But she was scarcely at the building when Miss Ram, also arriving, accosted her—took her upstairs. Miss Ram quite naturally regarded the meeting as evidence that Mary had come for help. Mary, in a flutter as to George's ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... but his ears now would be his surest signals. He could not see deep in the thickets, but he could hear any movement in the underbrush a hundred yards away. So far there was nothing but the hopping of a rabbit. The bird over his head sang on. There was no wind among the branches, not even the flutter of leaves to distract his attention from anything that ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all the grave exhortations to a greater reverence for the public—as if the passive page of a book, by having an epigram or doggerel tale impressed on it, instantly assumed at once loco-motive power and a sort of ubiquity, so as to flutter and buz in the ear of the public to the sore annoyance of the said mysterious personage. But what gives an additional and more ludicrous absurdity to these lamentations is the curious fact, that if in a volume of poetry the critic should find poem or passage which he deems more especially ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sped quite merrily away, and only the quick flutter of the lace round Wych Hazel's throat, told of something hidden and not at rest. Some European views for the stereoscope were brought out of their corner, and Rollo led the talk in the direction thus indicated, where he had ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... the prolonged quiet, flies from the open window to the back of Miss Penelope's chair, and settles there with an indignant flutter and a suppressed but angry note. This small suggestion of a living world destroyes the spell that for the last few minutes has been connecting the brain with a ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... that she had forgotten most of the particulars connected with that curious murder, but that she fully remembered the stir and flutter it had caused in a ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... leg, and smiling, and waving his arms, and causing the ample folds and sleeves of his smock to flutter until he seemed to be moving in the midst of a nimbus, Nilushka would sing in a halting whisper ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... to give him a dance, and, as a great favor, she allowed him the fifth waltz. Luckily it stood vacant on his programme. They danced it together, and there was a little flutter round the room. Bremmil had a sort of notion that his wife could dance, but he never knew she danced so divinely. At the end of that waltz he asked for another—as a favor, not as a right; and Mrs. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and underneath the quiet voice sounded a savage note and his teeth bit through his cigar, which he threw out into the dew-carpeted grass. Just then there came from up under the eaves a soft disturbed flutter of wings and a gentle dove note was answered reassuringly and tenderly ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... her time to recover from the slight flutter which he had detected in her manner on his proposal to leave; and she caught the tone, and threw the ball back. Mr. Lennox wondered how his brother, the Captain, could have reported her as having lost all her good looks. To be sure, in her quiet black dress, she was a contrast ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... all, with a semi-detached, ramshackle, whitewashed kitchen at the rear and separated from the main house by a narrow "gallery." Into the front chamber, which evidently did service also as a parlor, Mrs. Briskow led the way. By now she was in quite a flutter of excitement. For the guest she drew forth the one rocking chair, a patent contraption, the rockers of which were held upon a sort of track by stout spiral springs. Its seat and back were of cheap carpet material stretched over a lacquered frame, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the entire length of the umu with no single flinching of his muscles or flutter of his eyelids to betray pain or fear. He raised his wand when he reached the end, and, turning ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... seemed very elegant, if somewhat uninteresting people. Mrs. Mortimer Pegg frequently had carriage callers, and not seldom sallied forth herself in a sedate victoria from the livery stables. But beyond an occasional flutter of excitement when their horses stopped at our very gate, there was little in this prim couple to interest us. So neat and precise were they as they tripped down the street together, that we called them (out of Mrs. Handsomebody's hearing) Mr. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... brought him to Wardour Place, toward the residence of Jasper Lamotte. His features wore a look of complacent self-satisfaction, and he hummed softly to himself, as he drove easily over the red and brown leaves that were beginning to flutter downward and carpet ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... communicate what I have now to tell! My hand and heart still flutter so much, that the task of writing is almost impossible! Did I not say that he lived? did I not say I would not despair? How could you suggest, my dear Matilda, that my feelings, considering I had parted from him so young, rather arose from the warmth of my imagination than of my heart? O I was ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... little mound of smooth, sea-washed cobblestones round the base, and whitewashed them. Evidently he was a prideful little man, and liked to see things done in a seamanlike manner. And presently it became a habit with The Laird to watch night and morning, for the little pin-prick of color to flutter forth from the house on the Sawdust Pile, and if his own colors did not break forth on the instant and the little cannon boom from the cliff, he was ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... crab-catchers, but they are beggars for all that. They never wait for the sound of the bell which the good priest rings every day when it is time for them to be fed, but fly down to the pavement whenever they catch sight of a person with a bit of grain. They flutter down by twos and threes, and beg with their best ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... fill 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 Bird ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... skulked along a sandy towpath in solitude. Fens and field were round me, as the map had said; willows and osier-beds; the dim forms of cattle; the low melody of wind roaming unfettered over a plain; once or twice the flutter and quack ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... 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 not ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... scuffle, a flutter; Ike and Urb fled up the stairs, and the Phoenix swept out through the doorway. The children followed and the Phoenix settled on Robert, 'like a butterfly on a rose,' as Anthea said afterwards, and wriggled ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... sped down the stony stairs with a great clatter of board and flutter of skirts, winding up at the bottom ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... the prospect of being overtaken by darkness and tempest alone out in the wild, she used her best efforts to move with speed; but she could scarcely see to pick her steps or take a perfectly direct course, and now and again she was startled by the flutter of an affrighted night-bird across her path as she wandered among the sand dunes, toiling over the yielding soil, the booming of the waves and the melancholy cadences of the wind as it rose ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... calm as she had when she had shot the bull which threatened Ruth. Nothing seemed to flutter the Indian girl's pulse or to change her staid expression. Yet the girls noticed that Dakota Joe spurred his big horse to the white pony's side, and, unless they were mistaken, the man said something to Wonota ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... he wore a uniform, and treat him with more consideration, and perhaps they would be very anxious about him when he was away in battles, and very proud of him when he came home between battles, and went quite modestly with the family into the village church, and felt rather than saw the slight flutter in the pews as he walked down the aisle, and knew that the young ladies, the girl comrades of the district school, were watching him from the organ gallery, curious to see Phil, who had gone into the army. Perhaps the preacher would have a sermon against ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the first abashed and confounded, we remain on the mesh we are urged upon, ignorant, as yet, of the toils around us, and the sly, dark, immitigable foe that lieth in yonder nook, already feasting her imagination upon our destruction. Presently we revive, we stir, we flutter; and Fate, that foe—the old arch-spider, that hath no moderation in her maw—now fixeth one of her many eyes upon us, and giveth us a partial glimpse of her laidly and grim aspect. We pause in mute terror; we gaze upon the ugly spectre, so imperfectly ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the great ocean liner glided majestically out from the harbor amid prolonged cheers and a final flutter of farewells; but she was well out upon the tossing waves ere Miss Carleton turned from watching the receding shore to join her friends, as yet having found no solution of the problem perplexing her, nor even the meaning which she felt ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... that commotion and flutter, and surging to and fro above Him and on either side of Him? It is a detailed regiment of heaven, a constabulary angelic, sent forth to take part in that scene, and to execute the mandates that shall be issued. Ten regiments, a hundred regiments, a thousand regiments of angels; for on that day all ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... reply, but gazed at her with so earnest a look, expressive of such unconscious admiration and worship that she flushed, and with a nervous flutter of her fan rose. Bergmann rose also, bowed, and made a movement to retire. Ada opened her eyes in surprise, and involuntarily a word ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... plains where Persian hosts Laid down their lives for glory Flutter the cyclamens, like ghosts That witness to their story. Oh, fair! Oh, white! Oh, pure as snow! On countless graves how ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... mamma. He dashes the fair hair from his brow: he sits down to the piano, and plays one or two of them, warbling a faint vocal accompaniment, and looking as if he would be lifted off the screw music-stool, and flutter up to the ceiling. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mouth—"and it is quite time for you to begin dressing. You know you don't like to be hurried, dear;" with which speech the young housekeeper got up from her easy-chair, gave her sister a kiss as she passed, and went away, singing softly, to her toilette. Perhaps there was a little flutter in Lucy's heart as she bound it round with her favourite blue ribbons. Perhaps it was this that gave a certain startled gleam to her blue eyes, and made even her father remark them when she went down-stairs—"It ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... emergence of this possible love-affair—for the moment, ardent and deep as were the man's affections and sympathies, toward this Marsham household, it did but increase his sense of moral fatigue. If the flutter in the blood—and the long companionship of equal love—if these were the only things of real value in life—how had ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... views so wide it is difficult to be a dramatist or a novelist. If he is consistent the most portentous human tragedy must seem to him only a tiny gasp for breath, the most delightful human comedy only a tiny flutter of joy. Against a background of suns dying on the other side of Aldebaran any mole trodden upon by some casual hoof may appear as significant a personage as an Oedipus or a Lear in his last agony. To be ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... weeds grow," remarked Sister Reparata. Another of Dionea's amusements is playing with pigeons. The number of pigeons she collects about her is quite amazing; you would never have thought that San Massimo or the neighboring hills contained as many. They flutter down like snowflakes, and strut and swell themselves out, and furl and unfurl their tails, and peck with little sharp movements of their silly, sensual heads and a little throb and gurgle in their throats, while Dionea lies stretched out full length in the sun, putting out her lips, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... not the hand, but the wrist where the marks of his fingers still remained faintly. He squared himself, and gazed long and steadfastly into her eyes. In that moment he seemed to her positively handsome; and there was a flutter in her heart that she was unable to define. On his part he realized the sooner he was gone the better; there was a limit to his self-control.... He gained the street somehow. There he stopped and turned. Did the curtain move? He wasn't sure; but he raised his hat, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Pinus ponderosa, remarks: "In the arid and desert regions of the interior basin, we made whole days' marches in forests of yellow pine, of which neither the monotony was broken by other forms of vegetation, nor its stillness by the flutter of a bird or the hum of an insect."—Pacific Railroad Report, vol. vi., 1857. Dr. Newberry's Report on ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... of almanacs would deserve capital punishment. The Philosopher could better afford to lose one of his legs than to lose his almanacs. The room is kept scrupulously clean and neat. A waste paper basket squats between Mr. Greeley's legs, but one half the torn envelopes and boshy communications flutter to the floor instead of being tossed into the basket. The table at his side is covered with a stray copy of The New York Ledger, and a dozen magazines lie thereon. Here is an iron garden rake wrapped up in an Independent. There ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe |
