"Gesture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... With a gesture which had once impressed him very favorably when exhibited on the stage by the hero of the number two company of "The Price of Honor," which had paid a six days' visit to Bury St. Edwards a few months before, he tore ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... strong enough for such heavy work, that he is reasonably intelligent and, most important of all, that he is not "working to accommodate." The latter is frequently voiced by members of decadent native families who resent the curse of Adam and like to assume that any gesture toward the hated thing, called work, is purely voluntary rather than necessary. If these words fall from the lips of a man you are considering for odd jobs and tilling of the soil, leave him severely alone and look for a good energetic individual who knows he was made to work ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... hours of physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, for I consider it well for women to have some one to counsel them frankly in such matters, when she interrupted me with a gesture ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... sir?" said Brock—emphasizing his parting words with a gesture of his hand—"why, Detroit taken, I shall return here, batter Fort Niagara—providing Prevost consents—and then by a sudden movement I could sweep the frontier from Buffalo to Fort Niagara and complete the salvation of Canada by the occupation of Sackett's ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... on her auditors, when moved by lofty or deep feeling, can never be transmitted to paper, (to use the words of another,) till by some Daguerrian act, we are enabled to transfer the look, the gesture, the tones of voice, in connection with the quaint, yet fit expressions used, and the spirit-stirring animation that, at such a time, pervades ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... manner of a somewhat monotonous and melancholy recitative. To hear a wild Punan, standing in the midst of a solemn circle lit only by a few torches which hardly seem to avail to keep back the vast darkness of the sleeping jungle, recite with dramatic gesture the adventures of a departing soul on its way to the land of shades, is an experience which makes a deep impression, one not devoid ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Happiness, says he, I have had from a Child, to have learn'd that most desirable Art, I mean Alchymy, the very Marrow of universal Philosophy. At the very Mention of the Name Alchymy, Balbinus rais'd himself a little, that is to say, in Gesture only, and fetching a deep Sigh, bid him go forward. Then he proceeds: But miserable Man that I am, said he, by not falling into the right Way! Balbinus asking him what Ways those were he spoke of; Good Sir, says he, you know ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... fled as breaking treacherously in upon such tidings; but a constraining gesture of her father obliged her to remain, and keep the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... struggles with journalists; all of which require another twelve hours to the day. But even so far, nothing has been said of the art of acting, the expression of passion, the practice of positions and gesture, the minute care and watchfulness required on the stage, where a thousand opera-glasses are ready to detect a flaw,—labors which consumed the life and thought of Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, Clairon, Champmesle. In these infernal "coulisses" self-love has no sex; the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... her hand with a pretty gesture. She was fully forty-five, but she was kittenish for her age. There was something almost girlish in her manner, and the long, dancing brown curls that hung below her very youthful hat added to the effect. When she had shaken Mr. Gubb's hand she half-skipped, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... to heaven, Di!" she cried, with her eyes fixed on the square tower of the old grey church. She wondered why sudden tears sprang to Diana's eyes as she said this. Miss Paget brushed the unbidden tears away with a quick gesture of her hand, and smiled at ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... be composed only of passers-by, so that the song was not finished, nor the collection received. The crowd dispersed. A great many men left the circle, singly, or two and two, turning toward each other with an imperceptible gesture of the hand, some by the Rue de Valois, some by the Cour des Fontaines, some by the Palais Royal itself, thus surrounding the Rue des Bons Enfants, which seemed to be the center of the rendezvous. In consequence of this maneuver, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... their own advantage. Among these, Mr. Savage was admitted to play the part of sir Thomas Overbury[64], by which he gained no great reputation, the theatre being a province for which nature seemed not to have designed him; for neither his voice, look, nor gesture, were such as were expected on the stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list, when a copy of his tragedy was to be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... your Majesty," replied the prisoner, with a reverential gesture, repeated at intervals, and each time at a less distance from the royal person, "I will not wound your Majesty's sensibilities by pleading a love of eggs; I will humbly confess my course of crime, warn your Majesty of its probable continuance, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... around him, the noise drew blood from the ears of those with him. Calm and immovable, he gave signals to the soldiers who were still occupying part of the ruins of Janina, and encouraged them by voice and gesture. Observing the enemy's movements by the help of a telescope, he improvised means of counteracting them. Sometimes he amused himself by greeting curious persons and new-comers after a fashion of his own. Thus the chancellor of the French ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... men were speaking about Charlie and Ping Wang, the Chinaman, innocent of any intention to be rude, made some gesture which one of the crew took for an insult. Instantly he rushed at Ping Wang and struck him a heavy blow in the face with his fist. He was about to strike him again, but Charlie pushed him roughly aside and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... a la Turk, not on the cushion, but on the floor, in front of his master, and, with earnest voice and gesture, related the story which Peter the Great had just ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... own contingent on the poplar slope she threw her arms out in a reckless, boyish sort of gesture to give force to the "Hello girls!" she called, but even that was much ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... seldom gets much thanks, I believe," was my grumpy comment, which he unexpectedly chose to accept as an apology and with a large, fine, generous gesture to ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... deep, true thought which the old painters had, when they drew John as likest to his Lord. Love makes us like. We learn that even in our earthly relationships, where habitual familiarity with parents and dear ones stamps some tone of voice or look, or little peculiarity of gesture, on a whole house. And when the infinite reverence and aspiration which the Christian soul cherishes to its Lord are superadded, the transforming power of loving contemplation of Him becomes mighty beyond all analogies in human friendship, though ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... rested on me with a divine compassion in them. She lifted her hand, and pointed to the photograph on my desk, with a gesture which bade me turn the card. I turned it. The name of the man who had left my house that morning was inscribed on it, in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... laughing, others were munching sunflower seeds and spitting out the husks with an air of dignity. Some of them ran along the platform to drink some water from a tub there, and when they met the officers they slackened their pace, made their stupid gesture of salutation, raising their hands to their heads with serious faces as though they were doing something of the greatest importance. They kept their eyes on them till they had passed by them, and then set off running still more merrily, stamping their heels on the platform, laughing ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... the most graceful cut-and-dried action. It matters not whether the orator personates a trip-hammer or a wind-mill; if his mill but move with the grist, or his hammer knead the iron beneath it, he will not fail of his effect. An impertinent gesture is more likely to knock down the orator than ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... east side. She stood there, her gray suit fluttering in the night wind, looking far and wide as if the view were new to her. Then she sat down on the ground, clasped her arms across her knees and bowed her head upon them. There was so much despair in the gesture that Jim could not ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... With a quick gesture, he swung to the door, and the spring lock snapped. An instant later the bolts were ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... "It's a gesture telling Captain Kenyon that the road is barred to soldiers, settlers, hunters, all of us. Far to the south we may still follow the gold trails to California, but here at the edge of this mighty wilderness we must turn back. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... as butterflies. Whether it is danced occasionally nowadays I do not know. It is said to be very difficult to learn. Six dancers are required for the proper performance of it; and they must move in particular figures,—obeying traditional rules for ever step, pose, or gesture,—and circling about each other very slowly to the sound of hand-drums and great drums, small flutes and great flutes, and pandean pipes of a form unknown ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... as their glasses were empty, they refilled them with a gesture of resigned weariness. But Mademoiselle Fifi broke his glass every instant and then a soldier brought ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... his eyes felt as if they swam in fire. He put out his hand in a gesture almost a command, his heavy eyebrows gathered in a frown, an expression of sternness in his homely face that made it ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... near, and I thought I recognised a friend in this traveller. The form, the gesture, the stature, bore a powerful resemblance to those of Edgar Huntly. This resemblance was so strong, that I stopped, and, after he had gone by, called him by your name. That no notice was taken of my call proved that the ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... he still wore, you might see a lurking and growing anxiety in his quick and restless eye. He was vexed with himself that he had suffered his wits to let fall his reins; and his disquiet was but imperfectly concealed under the careless gesture and rather philosophic swing of his graceful person, as, plying his silent way, through clumps of brush, and bush, and tree, he vainly peered along the earth for the missing traces of the route. He looked up for the openings in the tree-tops—he looked west, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... and urging the artillery forward with voice and gesture, Jackson passed through the ranks of his eager infantry; and then Rodes's division, rushing down the wooded slopes, burst from the covert, and, driving their flying foes before them, advanced against the trenches ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... scarlet coif, embroidered with gold; and tied with yellow, white, and crimson ribands, but otherwise wholly unconfirmed, swept down almost to the ground. Slight and fragile, her figure was of such just proportion that every movement and gesture had an indescribable charm. The most courtly dame might have envied her fine and taper fingers, and fancied she could improve them by protecting them against the sun, or by rendering them snowy white with paste or cosmetic, but this was questionable; nothing certainly could improve the small ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with intense disdain, and bade him draw near, that he might "give his flesh to the fowls of the air." The boy declined to accept this liberal invitation, and conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian gesture, upon which my brother drove him in with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the value of his protection, and assured us that we had really nothing to fear. He had heard, or would acknowledge to have heard, no rumours of the hostile intentions of his father's cousin; only, he observed, "He is an old man," with a gesture that implied wilfulness. He would have us believe that this terrible enemy who has been pursuing us—at least in our imagination—is nothing but a testy old gentleman, who says these sort of things in a fanciful way ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... chance with him as regards speed, he discharged his second rifle. The shot did not take effect, but the report brought the savage to his knees. The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude of supplication. Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket. The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman on ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... in the morning, inasmuch as I found a seat for my friend and myself in an omnibus. And even my ride in the close omnibus was not without interest. For I had scarcely taken my seat, when my friend, who was seated opposite me, with looks and gesture informed me that we were in the presence of some distinguished person. I eyed the countenances of the different persons, but in vain, to see if I could find any one who by his appearance showed signs of superiority over his fellow-passengers. I had given up the hope ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... at Harry and ordered more drinks. The pale Feodor Wilkins drank with the same precipitate gesture, as if eager with thirst. He spoke in a refined manner, and was ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... for a moment. He was lying with Milton and Lanier in another chamber whose force beat upon them. He saw a yellow-lit room instead of the great cone—saw the tense, anxious face of Nelson at the switch beside them. He strove to move, made to Nelson a gesture with his arm that seemed to drain all strength and life from him; and then, as in answer to it Nelson drove up the switch and turned off the force of the matter-receiver in which they lay, the black curtain descended on ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... of the footsteps again came near, I scarcely noticed it. I had reason to do so a moment later. Instead of going straight on, as before, the gentleman stopped an instant,—then, with a strong gesture of excitement, stepped quite near to me, and saying hurriedly, as one does in sudden emergencies, "I beg your pardon, Madam," he bent to look at the railing of the guard, just beside me. It so happened that a boat-light illumined a little space just there, and that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... on her pillow. Her hair fell away from her forehead and revealed the jagged, ugly scar. Mrs. Curtis saw it. For the first time she gave an involuntary shudder of emotion. Mollie put up her hand to her head with the old, familiar gesture of pain. ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... by the highest effort of the picturesque in words, of which words are capable, higher perhaps than was ever realized by any other poet, even Dante not excepted; to provide a substitute for that visual language, that constant intervention and running comment by tone, look, and gesture, which, in his dramatic works, he was entitled to expect from the players. His Venus and Adonis seem at once the characters themselves, and the whole representation of those characters by the most consummate actors. You seem to be told nothing, but ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the way in which the poet's work impresses the world. When Wordsworth says "poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge," he is, exactly, in one intuitive word, telling us how poetry comes into being, directing us with an inspired gesture to its source, and not strictly telling us what it is; and so Shelley tells us in his fiery eloquence of the divine functions of poetry. But poetry is, in its naked being and apart from its cause and effect, ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... other houses in London, where she brought a breath of the wild; not because she dressed in Indian costume, but because its atmosphere was round her. The feeling of the wild looked out of her eyes, stirred in her gesture, moved in her footstep. I am glad to have known this rare creature who had the courage to be glad of her origin, without defiance, but with an unchanging, if unspoken, insistence. Her native land and the Empire should be glad of her for what she was and for what she stood; her ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... quietly as might be under the circumstances (namely, a passage through dead leaves, brittle twigs, unexpected hollows, etc.), I crept to her side, planted my camp-stool near hers, and sat down, in obedience to her imperious gesture. ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... thing," he cried, with sudden indescribable tenderness, "to lose his mother so early!" And Mr. Jaf-frey's head sunk upon his breast, and his shoulders slanted forward, as if he were actually bending over the cradle of the child. The whole gesture and attitude was so natural that it startled me. The pipe slipped from my fingers and fell ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... walked slowly away from the fire, very naturally, with a gesture, just touching her soft cheek and fluttering her fingers toward the glow, as if she were too hot. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... looking at the man, sorely distressed at his inability to please Sister Hyacinthe by reviving him. And as he made a gesture expressive of his powerlessness she again raised her voice entreatingly: "Stay with me, Monsieur Ferrand, pray stay," she said. "Wait till Father Massias comes—I shall be a little more at ease ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... nor gesture did she manifest the least consciousness of, or concern for, the inanimate form visible in the adjoining room. With sudden directness, and ignoring the implied threat in her last words, Mr. ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... With a commanding gesture Miss Browne signaled the rest to approach. Mr. Tubbs bounced up with alacrity. Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert obeyed less promptly, but they obeyed. Meanwhile Violet waited, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... women bathe, and, in concealment, to take advantage of their unguarded exposure. Then he rushed amongst them, took possession of their clothes, and gave a loose to the indecencies of language and of gesture. He maintained sixteen wives, who had the title of queens, and sixteen thousand concubines.... In obscenity there is nothing that can be compared with the Bhagavata. It is, nevertheless, the delight of the Hindu, and the first book they ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... done," Paul remarked, presently, when Jud replied with a gesture that implied his understanding the message; "and now to move down-hill again. We're taking some big chances in what we're expecting to do, fellows, and I only hope it won't prove ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... an hour after sunrise the next morning when Tsoay, Nolan, and Deklay padded into camp. The war chief made a slight gesture ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... 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 ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... and awed at the exhibition of so much calmness, address and strength, were hushed into profound silence. The next moment, the Bey arose, and, with a gesture of his hand, asked ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... 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 to our eyes, almost ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... look after you and Uncle Teddy. We've wanted you for the dances. We've had the lancers twice, and three round dances; and I danced the second lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games—to amuse the children, you know," he added loftily, with the adult gesture of pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. "Lottie's going to play, too; so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim—let me introduce him ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, he acknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod, not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was a diffident compromise between or struggle with all three. The eyes in the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips modestly said: "Good-day ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... chile! co'ect, Toutou!" cried Bonaventure, running and patting the little hero on the back and head by turns. "Sir, let us"—He stopped short. The eyes of the house were on Chat-oue. He had risen to his feet and made a gesture for the visitor's attention. As the stranger looked at ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... threatening her; but, as she attempted to address her, the mule, on which she rode, was suddenly seized, and led forcibly through the throng by one of her conductors, while she saw another addressing menacing words to the ballad-singer. The latter raised her hand with a warning gesture, as Inez lost sight ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... small speaker waved her slender hand with a gesture that seemed to take in half the horizon. The old Moorish garden, overrun with the brilliant blossoms that drink their hues from the sea, overlooked the harbor. Across the huddled many-colored houses the ten-year-old ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... war. His bearing was gentlemanly, and there was an air of conciliation about it which bespoke the thoroughbred gentleman. His voice was low, and his manner in speaking ungainly; an awkward and finicking gesture with the right hand below the table, to which he advanced when speaking, gave an idea of pettiness of thought, which his manner in other respects aided. The Earls of Winchelsea and Fitzwilliam seemed very desirous to have something to say; no one seemed willing to listen, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a moment, broken by light footsteps on the stair and a knock. "My good friends," cried Mademoiselle Palicsky from the doorway, "have you been quarrelling?" She made a little dramatic gesture to match her words, which brought out every line of a black velvet and white corduroy dress, which would have been a horror upon an Englishwoman. Upon Mademoiselle Palicsky it was simply an admiration-point of the kind never seen out of Paris, and its effect was instantaneous. Kendal acknowledged ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... David, with a dramatic gesture; "but since we're all of a trade, perhaps our friend will show he doesn't mind my nonsense by ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... mother again, stopping in the door, and holding up a warning finger to Aunt Clara. That gesture spurred my curiosity to the utmost point. As to my beloved parent's running in and out, that I should not have heeded. She is like Martha, careful of many things. She is unlike Martha, for she wants no assistance; but when the rest of us are disposed to be quiet, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... burning, it's burning! Father, what's the matter with you? You'll be burned up! [Durand lifts his head, takes the water glass up and puts it down with a meaningful gesture.] ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... not meet mine, they remained fixed on the desk before him; but his head shook, and his lips muttered, "No." I pleaded for a moment in beseeching tones which might have softened a heart of stone, but Bassanio's appeal to Shylock was not more futile than mine to him. The words and gesture with which my suppliant attitude was spurned, roused all the manhood in me, and for an instant I felt as if I were a free man and addressing my equal, and in language at once dignified and firm, I requested a sheet of paper that I might appeal to the Board of Directors. ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... farrago, but his voice was inaudible in the shuffling tramp of so many feet. He seemed to understand that the young man had failed to catch his meaning, for he gesticulated like a semaphore; there was one gesture in particular that he repeated several times, extending his arm with a sweeping motion toward the south, apparently intending to convey the idea of some point in the remote distance: Off there, away off there. Already the head of the column was wheeling into the Rue du Minil, the facade ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... motionless as stone, his dark face immutable and impassive. Then he stretched wide his right arm in the direction of No Name Mountains, now losing their last faint traces of the afterglow, and he shook his head. He made the same impressive gesture toward the Sonoyta Oasis ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... and more, but there was no appearance of age in eye, complexion, form or gesture—only the whitened hair! He greeted me as if we had always known each other, and Ellis and piles of Chaucer proof led straight to old Professor Child of Harvard, whose work Ellis criticized and Morris upheld. They fell ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... or anything but an angular skeleton. His hands, half concealed by sleeves of silk, white and crimson striped, were clasped upon his knees. When he spoke, sometimes the first finger of the right hand extended tremulously; he seemed incapable of other gesture. But his head was a splendid dome. A few hairs, whiter than fine-drawn silver, fringed the base; over a broad, full-sphered skull the skin was drawn close, and shone in the light with positive brilliance; the temples ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... gesture to his guest, then, although the meal was but half over, he paid the bill. He had closed his campaign. Right then and there he landed the great ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... just beyond the entrance, he stopped to speak to a lawyer from a neighbouring county. Then, as a clump of men scattered at his approach, he waved them together with a bland, benedictory gesture which descended alike upon the high and the low, upon the rector of the old church up the street, in his rusty black, and upon the red-haired, raw-boned farmer ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the nurse's chart. For a moment, he studied it in silence. He gave it back with a gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered, "she should be in her grave by now! It's a miracle! But she has always been like that—" he continued, half to himself, looking with troubled admiration toward the bed at the other end of ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the contrary, you decline to give this promise, my instructions are that your feet as well as your hands are to be tied, and that you are to be gagged and placed in the bottom of the carriage. You are also to answer for your daughter and her maid; that they, too, neither by word nor gesture, shall attempt to attract the attention of anyone in the villages that we ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... appeared to the orator quite a different passage. He now understood so well how much grace and dignity action adds to the best oration that he thought it a small matter to premeditate and compose, though with the utmost care, if the pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not attended to. Upon this he built himself a subterraneous study which remained to our times. Thither he repaired every day to form his action and exercise his voice; and he would often stay there for two or three months together, shaving one ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... awareness of himself. He was, indeed, aware of himself whenever, during his contemplation of that landscape, the thought arose, "well, I must be going away, and perhaps I shan't see this place again"—or some infinitely abbreviated form, perhaps a mere sketched out gesture of turning away, accompanied by a slight feeling of clinging, he couldn't for the life of him say in what part of his body. He was at that moment acutely aware that he did not want to do something ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... which the meridian splendour has now softened into the more tolerable radiance of declining day. The light is nearly alike, but the heat is considerably less. We still, perhaps, see in the Fogie the same imposing features of the face, the same dignity of gesture and attitude, and even a larger disc of body than before. The very voice often is much what it was, and the manner is almost unchanged. But when we carefully attend to the matter of what is said, we begin to perceive a difference. A certain pleasing irrelevancy, an interesting tendency ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... divine the chief with joyful mind Obey'd; and rested, on his lance reclined While like Deiphobus the martial dame (Her face, her gesture, and her arms the same), In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side Approach'd, and greets him thus ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... into the gloomiest silence. We were too irritable to bear the sound of each other's voices; and it did not require a word — a mere look or gesture was enough — to provoke us to anger that was little short of madness. How it was that we did not all become raving ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... gauze,—"ballerinas," in her vocabulary,—and monkeys with tin hats, cunningly made to look like German soldiers. For these she taught him to supply the decorations. It was his department, she reasoned; the ballerinas were of her country and hers. Parbleu! must one not work? What then? Starve? Before her look and gesture the cripple quailed, and twisted and rolled and pasted all day long, to his country's shame, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... the doctor. "I would myself earnestly advise you to try the effect of placing him at some other—" The doctor stopped. The lady's face had lit up with a wonderful smile, and she had raised her hand with a bewitching gesture of protest. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... figure loomed up in the bow of the lifeboat. He was waving a life-belt frantically with an appealing gesture for aid. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... a gesture of helplessness. In that inky night, who could say where lifeboats No. 2 ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... been heard by a friend who was a distinguished actor, and was able to tell Demosthenes what he lacked. "You must study the art of graceful gesture and clear and distinct utterance," he said. In illustration, he asked the would-be orator to speak some passages from the poets Sophocles and Euripides, and then recited them himself, to show how they should be spoken. He succeeded in this way in ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... remarkable for his easy and good natured temper, he showed in this extremity a sense of his dignity and noble blood, well becoming the high race from which he was descended. His look was composed and undismayed, his gesture, when the rude hands which dragged him forward were unloosed, was noble, and at the same time resigned, somewhat between the bearing of a feudal noble and of a Christian martyr and so much was even De la Marck himself staggered ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... this child whom but a year before he had left almost a baby. She was a woman now, with a woman's voice and a woman's love. The fisherman passed his hand over his face with a forlorn gesture. Had he found his darling again ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... it was of a necessity to us to have the clothes, and of course we had to travel in the first class. Do not have distress. If we need more money in America I will obtain it." I made that answer with a gesture of soothing upon her old shoulders which I could never remember as not bent in an attitude of hovering over Pierre ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... clears the ground for God very ably, and then makes a well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help nor strength in his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the "Service of Man" is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the undisciplined prison of ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... 'property'—accrue—demise! Lawyer Standish is nothing to him. He couldn't speak finer if he wanted to borrow. Well," Mr. Featherstone here looked over his spectacles at Fred, while he handed back the letter to him with a contemptuous gesture, "you don't suppose I believe a thing because Bulstrode writes it ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... uttering a brief cry, dropped to his knees and remained mute, his arms extended toward the sea in a gesture ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... gesture of repulsion, her head drooped, a flush swept up to her brow, and tears rushed ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... gesture of dismissal, and turned from the lad to the rare view which greeted him through the open window. The dusty road below was beginning to manifest the city's awakening. Barefooted, brown-skinned women, scantily clad in cheap calico gowns, were swinging along with shallow ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... ready, but a flight of steep steps, essential to the action, is placed far back in a position to left of the stage. As "Becket" has never been played before, there are no traditions whatever to guide actors or scenic artists, and each movement, phrase, gesture, and intonation, must be "created." Mr. Irving picks up a huge battle-axe and hatchet, and carefully plans the details of his own murder. Having decided how to die, he thoughtfully surveys the steps up which the frightened monks are supposed to rush. "They ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... say so? That young witch has simply made you think that to slip out on a dark night, get caught for a poacher, and then refuse to give any explanation, is the action of a pattern girl. Poor deluded old man!" And Mr. Forester shook his head and spread out his hands with a gesture of despair. "I tell you, these girls will make a fellow believe that the blackest of black is in reality the whitest of white, if only he will look at it in the right ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Madame, it completes my victory," replied the Frenchman with a graceful gesture. "Voyez, M'sieu'," he added, turning to me, "you 'ave just said zat your friend is laid up, when the unfortunate truth is zat he is laid down, and because of zat you will encircle, surround, make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... the Gipsies and natives of Hindustan resemble each other in complexion and shape is undeniable. And what is asserted of the young Gipsy girls rambling about with their fathers, who are musicians, dancing with lascivious and indecent gesture to divert any person who is willing to give them a small gratuity for so acting, is likewise perfectly Indian." Sonneratt confirms this in the account he gives of the dancing girls of Surat. Fortune-telling is practised all over the East, but the peculiar kind professed by the Gipsies, viz., ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... head to Boris, and Boris turned his head to Jorian. They both made a little impatient gesture, which ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... look after ladies' kerchiefs, and hunt up lost babies, does he?' he began, in a fume. 'It's not meself that'll do it; d'ye hear, Masters? I'll go like the biggest gentleman of all, or like the sleuth I am, but no child-rescuing and kid-copping for me! Let his honour give us,' with a theatrical gesture, 'a foeman ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... honorable! Go in!" His voice was stern, the gesture with which he enforced it peremptory, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... ended by sinking upon his knees amongst the heath, and raising his hands with a piteous gesture, while his imploring looks were quite sufficient to move the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... another from the table and with a slight gesture as if in salutation, he said in words which my comrade understood, though he swears it was a language unknown ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... this Gospel the words of our Saviour Christ, that he commanded the children to be brought unto him; how he blamed those that would have kept them from him; how he exhorteth all men to follow their innocency. Ye perceive how by his outward gesture and deed he declared his good will toward them; for he embraced them in his arms, he laid his hands upon them, and blessed them. Doubt ye not therefore, but earnestly believe, that he will likewise favourably ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... Richard and Ellen came in she turned an impassive face towards them, and asked indifferently, "Have you had a nice walk?" and fell to polishing her nails with the palm of her hand with that trivial, fribbling gesture that was somehow more desperate than any other being's outflung arms. She was all that Ellen had remembered, and more. And she had infected the destiny of this house with her strangeness even to such small matters as the peace of the midday meal. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West |
