"Gesture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very queen of coquettes. In the course of all her long experience, she had never, through all her flirtations, said one word too much. But no other woman living could imply so much by a gesture, a look or an exclamation. One morning Basil had called early, in the hope of escorting her to an exhibition of paintings. He found her alone, and while he was talking to her, a gentleman entered the ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to the grave under the mimosa trees, and with a queer elfin gesture he stooped down and kissed the lately disturbed sods, and made the sign of the cross upon his narrow little chest as he had seen his Spanish mother do. The dignity of the action, with its unconscious touch of foreign grace, and the boy's pathetic attempt ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... back in his chair, and coldly contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen captain. That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze, and fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... an impatient gesture by way of answer. Speech just then would have been worse than useless, for that tremendous roaring, crashing, thundering of all sounds, seemed to fall back and envelop the air-ship ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... to say to it. It seems a mad scheme, and yet I cannot say that it might not succeed. You seem to have worked it all out in your own mind. To carry it through will require not only pluck but unfailing watchfulness and presence of mind. A simple word or a gesture might ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... as that of Radway's scaler. His hand crisped in a gesture of disgust. The man had always ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... her thanks aside with a royal gesture. "Me! I be glad to be of use, oh, oui! Leetle Man'zelle mus' not make ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... have often thought your one want was gentleness,' said Miss Ada, with the gesture of her childhood—-her head a little on one side. 'And, besides, don't you know what Reggie used to call your ferret look? Well, I suppose you can't help it, but when you want to know a thing and are refraining from asking ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to champagne which cost thirty dollars and fifty dollars a bottle. When the rabble could drink no more champagne, he ordered every glass filled and placed on the bar. With one magnificent drunken gesture of vainglory he swept the glasses in a clattering crash to the {95} floor. There was still a basket of champagne left. He danced the hurdy-gurdy on that basket till he cut his feet. The champagne was all gone, but he still had some gold ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... put the paper into his pocket with a careful and loving gesture that well symbolised his passionate affection for the Society of which he was already the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the National Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... departure for London under the convoy of Mr. Wythan, Carinthia's long sight spied Kit Ines, or a man like him, in the meadow between Lekkatts and Croridge. He stood before Henrietta, and vanished light-legged at a gesture. Henrietta was descending to take her leave of her busied husband; her cheeks were flushed; she would not speak of the fellow, except to reply, 'oh, a beggar,' and kept asking whether she ought not to stay ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... restored, he desired me to recount my late adventure, which I did in the fewest words, and the most concise fashion I could. Although never interrupting, I could mark that particular portions of my narrative made much impression on him, and he could not repress a gesture of impatience when I told him that I was impressed as a seaman to fight against the flag of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... silence. She felt exactly as though she had been beating against a closed door. With a gesture of hopelessness she turned away, recognizing the futility ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... slightly in her fingers. Aratov observed also the expression of weariness which now overspread all her stern features. The first line, 'I write to you ... what more?' she uttered exceedingly simply, almost naively, and with a naive, genuine, helpless gesture held both hands out before her. Then she began to hurry a little; but from the beginning of the lines: 'Another! no! To no one in the whole world I have given my heart!' she mastered her powers, gained fire; and when she came to the words, 'My whole ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... to avoid aches and pains, and Ned leaned back against a stone with his hands behind his head, never once joining in the conversation. In fact, part of the time he seemed to be dozing, for his eyes were half-closed. At last, though, he started suddenly, made a gesture with his open hand as if catching a fly off ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Truscott. She colored painfully when it was mentioned in her presence. This only whetted the zeal and inquisitiveness of the inquisitors. In one form or other it was constantly being brought up in her presence, and her every look and gesture was narrowly scanned. Mrs. Turner grew wild with curiosity. Here was a mystery indeed! From Mrs. Stannard she could extract nothing. From Miss Sanford she received smiling, gracious treatment at all times, but nothing tangible in the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... a moment my words had appealed to her nobler nature; that she would outstretch to me her slightly uplifted hand and surrender utterly. But it was only for the moment; whatever wave of emotion may have moved her to the gesture, it was as suddenly swept aside by a return of the old ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... fine looking man, tall, grave, of dignified demeanor and courteous manners. He stood until his visitor was seated and with a gesture of deference invited him to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... was standing at the hearth, every button buttoned up, in a high, hard cravat, with a stiffly starched collar; his deportment had a vague suggestion of some parliamentary orator. With an orator's wave of the arm he motioned his daughter to a chair, and when she, not understanding his gesture, looked inquiringly at him, he brought out with dignity, without turning his head: 'I beg you to be seated.' Nikolai Artemyevitch always used the formal plural in addressing his wife, but only on extraordinary ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... immense relief, she opened her eyes at the sound of his voice, and turned away with a feeble gesture of fear and avoidance. "You have come back!" she moaned, "and with her! Oh, keep her away!... I can't bear it all over again!... ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... narrow street to an imposing portal. Suleyman whispered to a soldier there on guard, who smiled and bade us enter, with a gracious gesture. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... suddenly turning with a dramatic gesture. "I am an object lesson to teetotalers; a warning to topers; a modern helot made shameful to disgust youth ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... movement. The slow, regular, and inexorable character of the motion,—her look of force and self-control, which had the appearance of rendering it voluntary, while yet it was so fateful,—have stamped this poor lady's face and gesture into my memory; so that, some dark day or other, I am afraid she will reproduce herself in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... look as though she were experienced in flirtation or advances, made a brief, timid gesture. Then, as though discovered and ashamed, she ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... were. Perpetua sang psalms, already treading under foot the head of the Egyptian [seen in a vision; see preceding chapters]; Revocatus and Saturninus and Saturus uttered threatenings against the gazing people about this martyrdom. When they came within sight of Hilarianus, by gesture and nod they began to say to Hilarianus: "Thou judgest us, but God will judge thee." At this the exasperated people demanded that they should be tormented with scourges as they passed along the rank of the venatores. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... land wert thou enthroned of late, And they by whom the nation's laws were made, And they who filled its judgment-seats obeyed Thy mandate, rigid as the will of Fate. Fierce men at thy right hand, With gesture of command, Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay; And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not, Shrank from thy presence, and in blank dismay Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought; While meaner cowards, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... a yell of hatred, and an ugly charge toward the stairs; but the sight of the two revolvers held them there—motionless for a few moments. Those in front pushed back, while the shouters in the safe background urged them forward by word and gesture. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... aunt's an angel to me—no, it's been an easy day," Julia said, dropping into a chair, and pushing her hair back from her face with a feverish gesture. A second later she sprang up and disappeared into the assembly hall. "I thought I mightn't have locked the ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... the touch of this feminine genius convention vanishes altogether; the painting is direct from nature; the plot and incidents are saturated with probability; the personages might be met at the corner of any street in town or village; the very voice, gesture, and language are almost ludicrously familiar. No heroics, not much use of the pathetic; very slight landscape-painting and background; no psychology; there is no systematic attempt to introduce, under the story's disguise, the serious discussion ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... squabble betwixt Mrs. Isaacs and Mrs. Jacobs. Mrs. Isaacs pointed out with superfluous vehemence that her poor lamb had been mangled beyond recognition. Mrs. Jacobs, per contra, asseverated with superfluous gesture that it was her poor lamb who had received irreparable injury. These statements were not in mutual contradiction, but Mrs. Isaacs and Mrs. Jacobs were, and so the point at issue was gradually absorbed in more ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... which sat the ladies; and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. There were many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian,—and ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... I suppose it's true, but I never want to see her splendor shining through pock-marks." The reply won from him a gesture of approval, and this gave me a reckless tongue. "Why, if I were you, Lieutenant, she simply shouldn't go! Good Heaven! isn't she far enough away at the nearest? How can you tamely—no, I don't mean tamely, but—how can you endure to let this matter ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... with every gesture and appearance of insanity. "Go, then;" ... and he pointed the muzzle of the pistol to his mouth, and before any one could prevent him, he drew the trigger, and fell back a corpse. The spectators were motionless with surprise and horror; the captain was the first to recover ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... HERE, immediately beneath me, an unknown quantity— the gardener: how to communicate with the one and not attract the notice of the other? To make a noise was out of the question; I dared scarce to breathe. I held myself ready to make a gesture as soon as she should look, and she looked in every possible direction but the one. She was interested in the vilest tuft of chickweed, she gazed at the summit of the mountain, she came even immediately below me and conversed on the ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a gesture. Her manner was cold, and yet there was something in it that stirred him ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... pupil, too. Let me teach you then that the ruder you are to a woman, the more she'll hate you—or love you. [She goes up to him and invites him with a gesture.] Sit down. ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... a warning gesture.) Let you not be putting him in mind of him, or you'll be likely summoned if there's murder done. (Looking round at Mahon.) Whisht! He's listening. Wait now till you hear me taking him easy and unravelling all. (She ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... last secret Edict to behead Yuan Shih-kai, but that his faltering hand described circle after circle in the air until his followers understood the meaning. In the vernacular the name of the great viceroy and the word for circle have the same sound; the gesture signified that the dying monarch's last wish was revenge on the man who had failed him ten ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... a dramatic gesture, pointed to the glittering ornament that lay on the table between him and the New York crook. The stones glittered in the electric lights of police headquarters, for it was there, in the distant city, ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... tormentor went through a dumb show of sympathy and sorrow until the crone seemed like to burst with fury. At last he broke into a fit of shrill laughter, the first sound he had uttered, made a macaronic gesture, and capered off with the airiest gambols and antics, like a very devil's kid. A street-urchin teasing an old woman is no new sight, but the nimbleness, spirit, grace and gentleness of this young Pickle, the impossibility of guessing what he would do or where ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... tempting morsel with a shudder, and the action produced an oath from the ruffian, and an insulting gesture, so vile that I could hardly keep my hand from seeking the lock of my revolver and shooting him on ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... a row and the leader of the game takes his place behind them, beginning at the top of the row. He makes some absurd gesture and then asks the person behind whom he is standing "What am I doing?" If the player replies incorrectly, and he generally does, he is doomed to stand up and imitate in silence the gesture he could not guess, until he has leave ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the refinement of the young widow's expression, but rather added to it; Violet watched it in its ebb and flow and, seriously affected by it (why, she did not know, for Mrs. Hammond had made no other appeal either by look or gesture), pushed forward a chair and begged her ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... threatening gesture. He looked from Bristles to the rest of the group by which he was encircled. Then a grim smile broke ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Boyle's to hear Field and Dixey in a rivalry of imitations of himself in his favorite roles. Dixey was the more amusing, because he did and said things in the Irvingesque manner which the original would not have dreamed of doing, whereas Field contented himself with mimicking his voice and gesture to life. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... swamis, yogis, seers, and initiates, yet her voice had the real professional note. It was refined and optimistic; it was overpoweringly calm; it flowed on relentlessly, without one comma, till Babbitt was hypnotized. Her favorite word was "always," which she pronounced olllllle-ways. Her principal gesture was a pontifical but thoroughly ladylike ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Berry swung the street-door open with his left hand, and seemed with the same gesture to lay his clutch upon the porter's collar. "Fire him out myself!" he exclaimed, and with a few swiftly successive jerks and bumps the burly shape of the porter was shot into the night. "I want you to get me an officer, Jerry," he said, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... quickly, for all practical purposes, to a company of three. He lowered one of the upper beds, climbed into it, stretched himself out and lay in silence staring at the carriage-roof. His body was a shadow in the half-light, touched once and again by the gesture of the swinging lamp, that swept him out of darkness and back into it again. The remaining three of us did not during either that evening or the next day make much progress. At times there would of course be tea, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... and the most sensible among you to consider the situation." Standing at the moment with face turned to Liberals above Gangway; from Irish camp behind his back rose shouts of ironical cheers and noisy laughter, "Boo-oo!" CHAMBERLAIN stopped perforce, and with scornful gesture of thumb over his shoulder at mob behind, said, "Yes, to the others I do not speak;" then went on and finished ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... called him brother, so solemnly, and with such a mien! Of course the lady in the portrait, with the sparkling diadem, would hold out her hand the same way. Walter made an awkward gesture ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... back his head with a gesture he had kept from the days when the crest of raven-black hair had been wont to grow too long and encroach on his forehead. It was grizzled now, and much ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... where he lay, and he knew its meaning well. With a sinking heart he heard the heavy thump of the club as each warrior gave his cruel vote, until at last one chief, holding the club in the air, pointed with a meaning gesture—first at Tom, then at Rudolph and Kitty. The chiefs responded with a grunt of assent to his inquiry concerning the latter, but shook their heads when their attention was directed to Tom. Then the noble fellow knew that not his ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Billy gave a gesture of despair. Indian Joe had listened attentively, and now rose quietly from his position in front ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... in her room, Mrs. Treadwell sat down in a rocking-chair by the window, and clasped her hands tightly in her lap with a nervous gesture which she had acquired in long periods of silent waiting on destiny. Her mental attitude, which was one of secret, and usually passive, antagonism to her husband, had stamped its likeness so indelibly upon her features, that, sitting there in the wan light, she resembled a woman who suffers from ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... right," began the scientist, but at her imperious gesture he submitted, and she bathed his battered features with the healing lotion and painted ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... men, but not one of them saw her, they were all so busy in popping away at the Apaches. Just as she reached the large gap in the rampart, her hero cantered through it, erect, unhurt, rosy, handsome, magnificent. The impassioned gesture of joy with which she welcomed him was a something, a revelation perhaps, which the youngster saw and understood afterwards better than he did then. For the present he merely waved her towards the Casa, and then turned to take a hand ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... gesture full of tender grace And soft regret, she passed upon her way. A weary time it grew till on the summit Of Thug she stood, gazing bewildered round. No more she heard her lover's haunting call; But she herself cried out with aching voice, Whose sweetness dropped with every silver tone From the full ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... the Union, I see," replied young Pinckney with impatient gesture. "Your service in the regular army has weaned your heart from your native State, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... differentiating his parts. Take Mr Dennis Eadie, who has an extraordinary gift for changing his personality. Those who have seen this admirable actor as Henry Jackson in The Return of the Prodigal, as Lord Charles Cantelupe in Waste, and Mr Wylder in Strife, must admit that changes of voice, of gesture and manner, and general expression of countenance are of greater value than ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... it understood my words or the gesture of menace. The cilia fluttered about its spherical body. Bands of lambent color flashed. I could not rid myself of the curious certainty, that it was trying ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... This element dominated his slightest action. He strode over the concert stage with the haughty step of a despot who ruled with a sway not to be contested. Tearing his gloves from his fingers and hurling them on the piano, he would seat himself with a proud gesture, run his fingers through his waving blonde locks, and then attack the piano with the vehemence of a conqueror taking his army into action. Much of this manner was probably the outcome of natural temperament, something the result of affectation; but it helped to add to ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... away. You show your dancing, perhaps six times a year, at most; but you show your countenance and your common motions every day, and all day. Which then, I appeal to yourself, ought you to think of the most, and care to render easy, graceful, and engaging? Douceur of countenance and gesture can alone make them so. You are by no means ill-natured; and would you then most unjustly be reckoned so? Yet your common countenance intimates, and would make anybody who did not know you, believe it. 'A propos' of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... a breathless start. The women even stopped their outcry to look at her as she stood apart from them,—a desperate appeal in the very quiet of her gesture as she turned to look about her ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... twelfth-century Church was that it knew how to be illogical—no great moral authority ever knew it better—when God Himself became illogical. It cared no more than Saint Francis, or Lord Bacon, for the syllogism. Nothing in twelfth-century art is so fine as the air and gesture of sympathetic majesty with which the Church drew aside to let the Virgin and Saint Francis pass and take the lead—for a time. Both were human ideals too intensely realized to be resisted merely because they were illogical. The Church bowed and ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... A gesture and a look from the workingman showed the detective that the former did not think very highly of such occupation. Muller laid his hand on the other's shoulder and said gravely: "You wouldn't care to take service ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... in the Louvre with a picture of the dicephalous Kerberos. Upon the forehead of each of the two heads rises a serpent. Herakles in tunic and lion's skin, armed with bow, quiver, and sword, stoops towards the dog. He holds a chain in his left hand, while he stretches out his right with a petting gesture. Between the two is a tree, against which leans the club of Herakles. ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... With a gesture of impatience, H— shut his eyes, teeth, and hands, and lay perfectly still for some minutes. Then he turned his face to the wall, muttering in a low, petulant voice—"Too bad! too ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... to crackin' a box and croakin' a bull. You gotta do something before you can train wid gents like us, see?" The speaker projected a stubbled jaw, scowled horridly and swept a flattened palm downward and backward at a right angle to a hairy arm in eloquent gesture of finality. ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with a quick gesture of anguish and seemed to be crying, but when she looked at me again there were no signs ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... another use to which glass is put, Giusippe," said Mr. Cabot indicating with a gesture the red flash-light of a beacon far against the horizon. "Without the powerful reflectors, lenses, and prisms which are in use in our lighthouses many a vessel would be wrecked. For not only must a lighthouse have a strong light; it must also have a means of throwing that light out, ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... tears moved my very heart. "Only four years old," I thought, "and no playthings at home half as attractive as the bright ones we have here, so I must be very gentle with him." I put my arm around him to draw him to me and the gesture brought me in contact with his curiously knobby, little chest. What were my feelings when I extracted from his sailor blouse one orange, one blue, and two green balls! And this after ten minutes of repentant tears! I pointed ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... There had even been times when he had interested her despite herself, and she had forgotten the relationship in which they stood towards each other in listening to his deep, slow voice, till a word or a gesture brought back the fact vividly. Memories of moments when she had struggled against his caresses, and he had mocked her helplessness with his great strength, when she had lain in his arms panting and exhausted, cold ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and sell-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Mabel, however, is not like that. She is as unlike that as she is unlike the simpering misses that used to surround me as a child. She has plenty of brains; she is full of character; her mind and her tastes are cultivated; but it is all mixed up"—Mr. Cupples waved his hands in a vague gesture—"with ideals of refinement and reservation and womanly mystery. I fear she is not a child of the age. You never knew my wife, Trent. ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... early years was to supplement the family by drawing out the child and awakening the ideal side of his nature. To these ends doing, self activity, and expression became fundamental to the kindergarten, and movement, gesture, directed play, song, color, the story, and human activities a part of kindergarten technique. Nature study and school gardening were given a prominent place, and motor-activity much called into ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... spoke, Debby tied on her little blonde fichu with a gesture which left nothing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... noticed, on the first day I saw him, how he tapped his left breast with a proud gesture when he had done with a lot of customers and was about to march again at the head of his horse. That restored him from trade to his soldiership—he had saluted his Waterloo medal! There beneath his threadbare old ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... is very rarely knowingly indecent or addicted to lubricity," says Sir H.H. Johnston. "In this land of nudity, which I have known for seven years, I do not remember once having seen an indecent gesture on the part of either man or woman, and only very rarely (and that not among unspoiled savages) in the case of that most shameless member of the community—the little boy." He adds that the native dances are only an apparent exception, being serious in character, though indecent ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... approached and swung in toward the wharf in obedience to Gerda's imperious gesture. One of the polemen jumped ashore, securing a line to ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... side door, shooting a questioning glance at Aunt Jane as she passed. The look was full of mysterious suggestion and was accompanied by an almost imperceptible gesture. Miss Jane knew that certain articles were kept in the entry closet, and by this time she had become sufficiently expert in telegraphy to know that Rebecca's unspoken query meant: "COULD YOU PERMIT THE HAT WITH THE RED WINGS, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to heaven with a gesture of passionate adjuration. "Swear it on your lives! To stick to the rest of us, and never a man of ye give way till ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... faint slow utterances, so low that Bobus could hardly have heard a couple of feet further off, and with intervals between, and there was a gesture of tender perfect content in the contact with him that went to his heart, and, before he was aware, a great hot tear came dropping down on Jock's forehead ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... another hour, at the end of which we met with far less interruption from passengers than at first. The rain fell fast; the air grew cool; and the people were retiring to their homes. With a gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed into a bye-street comparatively deserted. Down this, some quarter of a mile long, he rushed with an activity I could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put me to much trouble in pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and busy bazaar, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... slung his weapon out and sent a wild shot into the lintel above Macdonald's head. The two of them on the ground had him at a disadvantage which it would have been fatal to dispute, and Macdonald, valuing a future chance more than a present hopeless struggle, flung his hands out in a gesture ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... Kingsland replied with a rapid gesture, and walked forward to the bed. His own face was perfectly colorless, and his lips were twitching with intense suppressed feeling. He bent above the ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... whether earthly or heavenly. There is not one of the circumstances of this capture of streams—the company, the water-rate, and the rest—that is not a sign of the ill-luck of modern devices in regard to style. For style implies a candour and simplicity of means, an action, a gesture, as it were, in the doing of small things; it is the ignorance of secret ways; whereas the finish of modern life and its neatness seem to be secured by a system of little shufflings ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... organization is essential to perfect health. Among the Greeks, beauty ranked next to virtue, and an eminent author has said that "the nearer we approach Divinity, the more we reflect His eternal beauty." The perfect expression of thought requires the physical accompaniments of language, gesture, etc. The human form is pliable, and, with proper culture, can be made replete with expression, grace and beauty. The cultivation of the intellectual powers has been allowed to supplant physical training ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... of us must go out into the waste places—oh, anywhere where the grass has room to grow and there are trees and birds and barns—I stipulate barns." Billy made a splendid, comprehensive gesture that took in all the points of the compass impartially. "One of us must take a few days off and go and hunt up a nice, inexpensive little Eldorado for us. There!—there, my friends, you have the solution of your knotty little problem ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... others, and a slight frown flitted across his face. He swept his arm toward them in a comprehensive gesture. "Who are these?" ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... and now the other, as though goaded by a troublesome thought which he wished to avoid, would of a sudden quicken his pace and break into a hasty, feverish walk, or, contrarily, as though held back by the chain of some unhappy reflection, lag in his stride and draw his hand across his brow with a gesture of pain. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: His gesture ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... Talbot, throwing out his arms with a gesture of impatience. "The place is full of money. It's pouring in from the mines, from the world outside. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... this wile of his prevail upon me, through a fear lest I should do amiss in withdrawing any sort of respect or honour from my father which was due unto him, that being thereby beguiled, I continued for a while to demean myself in the same manner towards him, with respect both to language and gesture, as I had always done before. And so long as I did so (standing bare before him, and giving him the accustomed language) he did not express—whatever ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... Addolorata not to sing sometimes, when she was all alone in her cell, though it was so strictly forbidden. Singing is a gift of expression, when it is a really natural gift, as much as speech and gesture and the smile on the lips, with the one difference that it is a keener pleasure to him or her that sings than gesture or speech can possibly be. Music, and especially singing, are a physical as well as an intellectual expression, a pleasure ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... Angelico's sweet blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of Duerer's accuracy of hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture, both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light in Duerer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... quick gesture of both hands, Latin, always Latin, he crossed the room to a small writing-desk, turned on the lights and sat down. He smiled as he took up the pen to begin his composition. Not one chance in a thousand. And after several attempts he realized that the letter he had in mind was not the simplest ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... contented myself with the brandy and water; but, forgetting for a moment his color, I motioned to the darky—who was as wet and jaded, and much more hungry than I was—to take the place offered to me. The negro did not seem inclined to do so, but the woman, observing my gesture, yelled out, her eyes flashing ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sapling she held in her hand, and flung it into the road. Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes her keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a gesture more proudly contemptuous. The Laird was clearing his voice to speak, and thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a half-crown; the gipsy waited neither for his reply nor his donation, but strode down the hill ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the chief emotional interest of the Passion is thrown not on the Apostles, scarcely on Jesus, but upon the two female figures, facing each other as in some fresco of Perugino, the Magdalen and the Mother of Christ. Facing one another, but how different! This Magdalen has the terrific gesture of despair of one of those colossal women of Signorelli's, flung down, as a town by earthquake, at the foot of the cross. She was pardoned "because she had loved much"—quia multo amavit. The unknown friar knew what that meant as well as his contemporary Dante, when Love showed ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Hertz's romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and displays ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... you have given of the lovely Harriet, has rekindled the flame she so early inspir'd me with, and I already feel myself all the lover; how then shall I feel, when I once more behold the dear maid, like the mother of mankind—"with grace in all her steps, heaven in her eye; in every gesture, dignity ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... away out of sight," said she demurely, with a pretty gesture which straying tendrils had made habitual, and the warm colour ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... indisputably the attributes of genius. Such was her power over the intention and feeling of the part, that the mere words were quite a secondary matter. It was the figure, the gait, the look, the gesture, the tone, by which she put beauty and passion into language the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... not tell, having been threatened with death by the witch if she confessed the fraud. But Glinda, sweet and fair though she was, understood magic better than any other person in the Land of Oz. So, by uttering a few potent words and making a peculiar gesture, she quickly transformed the girl into her proper shape, while at the same time old Mombi, far away in Jinjur's palace, suddenly resumed her own crooked form ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... whatever was the theme of his satire, all proved that he had a falcon's eye for detecting vice and folly in every shape, and talons for pouncing upon all as the natural prey of the satirist. On the boards he always took the principal character himself, and he was a comedian in every look and gesture. The "Malade Imaginaire" was the last of his works. When it was produced upon the stage, the poet himself was really ill, but repressing the voice of natural suffering, to affect that of the hypochondriac for public amusement, he was seized with a convulsive cough, and carried home ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... no sadder sight than that frail, lifeless little being, extended on the stones, and watched over by the impassive brute who repeated his account every time in the selfsame words, and every time made the selfsame gesture, throwing a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Riviere felt a little uneasy. As for Jacintha, she was evidently brooding with more ire than she chose to utter before a stranger. She just slowly unclasped her arms, and, keeping her eye fixed on Dard, pointed with a domineering gesture towards Beaurepaire. Then the doughty Dard seemed no longer master of his limbs: he rose slowly, with his eyes fastened to hers, and was moving off like an ill-oiled automaton in the direction indicated; but ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... as the introduction of a young man into Mr. Burns's private office was soon known all over town. The appearance of the new-comer was scrutinized, and every word and gesture watched. This Hiram knew very well, and bore himself accordingly. Wherever he went, whether on some business to Slab City with Mr. Burns's horse and wagon, or into the store, or about the village, he carried with him the careful, considerate air of one ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of wounded. I walked up and down that wide, deserted lawn of St. John's, where Charles I once gathered his Cavaliers, with an old friend, an Oxford tutor of forty years' standing, who said with a despairing gesture, speaking of his pupils: "So many are gone—so many!—and the terrible thing is that I can't feel it as I once did—as blow follows blow one seems to ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no reply, even by the slightest movement or gesture. The emperor's staff looked on in silence, and the French officers tried by their attentions to make the prisoner forget the treatment. Every one knew the cause of so much bitterness rising from Napoleon's heart to his lips. For the first time in his life ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... on the spot—nor turned to renew their flight till they had scalped him, though still alive and conscious. The Red dastards were yet in sight when the other hunters gained the spot, where they found their leader wounded and dying. With a commanding gesture, he sternly bid them forward, nor mar the chase for him, who had but a few moments to live. Fortunately, it so chanced that on the present occasion Big Black Burl was with the White hunters; therefore they left him to minister to his dying ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... offspring implanted in the female breast. She pressed her hands together as if she were wringing them in the extremity of her desolate feeling, as one whom Heaven had written childless. A large stag-hound of the greyhound species approached at this moment, and attracted perhaps by the gesture, licked her hands and pressed his large head against them. He obtained the desired caresses in return, but still the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... attends the presence of positive pleasure; we have found them in a state of much sobriety, impressed with a sense of awe, in a sort of tranquillity shadowed with horror. The fashion of the countenance and the gesture of the body on such occasions is so correspondent to this state of mind, that any person, a stranger to the cause of the appearance, would rather judge us under some consternation, than in the enjoyment of anything like ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that in their younger days this father and mother were the handsomest pair the town of Boston could show. This son of theirs was "rather tall," says Mr. Phillips, "lithe, very graceful in movement and gesture, and there was something marked and admirable in the set of his head on his shoulders,"—a peculiar elegance which was most noticeable in those later days when I knew him. Lady Byron long afterwards spoke of him as more like her husband in appearance than any other person she had met; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, "you are speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let me tell you one thing: that among those"—and with a sweeping gesture he indicated the silent circle of statues—"there were men as courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... hold-alls, they started up the main street of Sainte Lesse, three sunburnt, loud-talking Americans, young, sturdy, careless of glance and voice and gesture, perfectly self-satisfied. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... in his hands. With some trepidation I called out, "Hi!" But answer there was none. Then again I called, "Hi!" but this time with a sickening sense of failure and of doom. She replied only by a complex gesture, decisive in import if not easily described. A petulant toss of the head, a jerk of the left shoulder, and a backward kick of the left foot, all delivered at once—that was all, and that was enough. The red-headed boy never even ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Otto ran his fingers through his fair hair; which was a favorite gesture of the lieutenant's, and Hedwig blushed. After that she refused to look across at him, but sat staring fixedly at the stage, where Frau Hugli, in a short skirt, a black velvet bodice, and a white apron, with two yellow braids over her shoulders, was listening ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which produced these survives and flourishes to-day in the fondness of high-school pupils and university students for dramatic performances and recitations, and the number of schools of gesture, elocution, and the like, testifies to the abiding interest of the young in the mimic art. This is also evidenced by the number of child actors and actresses in the theatrical world, and the remarkable precocity of the members of the profession in all lands. In England, the pantomime offers ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain |
