"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She admitted also a flutter of fear at thought of meeting Ben Fordyce alone, and this unformulated distrust of herself decided her at last to go on with Mart and to have him for shield and armor when ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... all but ripe—to the ordinary eye they are ripe, but the farmer is not quite satisfied—rise to the waist or higher, and tempt the hand to pluck them. Butterflies flutter over the surface, now descending to some flower hidden beneath, now resuming their joyous journey. There is a rich ripe feeling in the very atmosphere, the earth is yielding her wealth, and a delicate ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Prescott presented himself at the hotel that evening, and sent up his card to Mrs. Bentley and the girls. Greg was with his chum, of course, but Greg was not in a flutter. He was to escort Belle Meade—-an arrangement of chumship, for Belle wore the engagement ring of Dave Darrin, one of Greg's old ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... Evidently a crisis had occurred below. All the girls in their white dresses and pink or blue sashes, all the boys in their white collars of ceremony, were grouped about on the lawn, around the base of a big shade tree. Pink hair bows were a-flutter with excitement. The patent leather pumps of the boys trod upon the white slippers of the little girls in their efforts to see what ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... novel, handed me a letter. It was from father. "Have everything in readiness to start to-morrow morning," he wrote. "I shall expect you at the house at six-thirty to-morrow night without fail." This letter threw me into a flutter of excitement. I was accustomed to short-notice orders from father, orders that carried no explanations; but they had always been sent through the mails. A messenger meant great need of haste. I recognized him as father's office-boy. Was my father ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... of calming frayed nerves, somebody suggested that they should all adjourn for a flutter at lansquenet, then ousting ecarte. The proposal was accepted; and, the revellers having settled down, Saint-Agnan, having the best-lined ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Glory was feeling better because of the little draught of Sweet Face Tonic, and she was even humming a tune under her breath when she stepped down on to the platform. She stepped daintily along with her pretty head held up saucily and her skirts a-flutter. It wasn't so bad, after all, once off that horrid train—good riddance to it! Let it go fizzing and puffing away. ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Lottie, while Laura compared bracelets with Emma Houghton. "Oh, there, isn't he splendid? It's like the king coming down from his throne, when he speaks to you; it puts my heart in a flutter. How do you dare ask him to pass the butter? Now just tell me. Are you engaged to him? Tell me truly, only shake your head, yes or no. No? I don't believe a word you say. Mean to be? Then, I declare——Suppose now, only just suppose, suppose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... to me," he thought, "a matter for so much disturbance. If a man has made up his mind to kill himself, let him do it, in God's name, like a gentleman. This flutter and big talk is ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... away amid a flutter of handkerchiefs, but still Clover and Phil were not left to themselves; for Dr. Hope, who had a consultation in Denver, was to see them safely off in the night express, and Geoff had some real or invented business which made it necessary for him to ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... whirring comes The vivid humming-bird, Sipping, sipping all day long. At nightfall I hear the flutter of the Luna's wings, as She caresses the velvet cheek Of ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... turned as though all on one pivot as the spear sped through the air, expecting no doubt to see it recoil as others had done. But it took him full in the centre of his chest, and with a wild wave of arms and a flutter of purple raiment sent him backwards, and down, and over and over in a shapeless heap of limbs and flying raiment, while a low murmur of awed surprise rose from the spectators. They crowded round him in a dense ring, as An came flitting to ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... as the breeze through the cryptomerias, And pause like long flags flapping, And dart and flutter ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher
... had turned, her eyes met those of John Aldous. She was smiling. Her eyes were shining at him. Never had he seen her look at him in that way, he thought, and never had she seemed such a perfect vision of loveliness. She was dressed in a soft, clinging something with a flutter of white lace at her throat, and as she came down he saw that she had arranged her hair in a marvellous way. Soft little curls half hid themselves in the shimmer of rich coils she had wreathed upon her head, and adorable little ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... she has come to be married: "But there comes an urgent telegram. The bride and her mother are expected and information is given to the bridegroom's father. In all haste preparations are made to give her a grand and suitable reception. Oh, the flutter among the girls assembled in the house of the bridegroom from all quarters. Every one is dressed in her best and is trying to be the foremost in welcoming the new bride, the Goddess Lakshmi. The numerous maidservants of the house want to prostrate ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... result: Rosebery 248; Bannerman, 253; Crooks, 20. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh ballots show no change except that once in a while Rutland with three votes and Merioneth with four have amused themselves or caused a temporary flutter by swinging their votes from one side to the other or, perhaps, again casting them for Mr. Morley or Mr. Asquith. There is a deadlock. The Convention becomes impatient. The evening wears on and midnight arrives and still there is no change. Neither Lord Rosebery nor ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the lady had done with her hands. "She seems to have just flopped them about," he said, and he turned to Gilbert. "Look here, Gilbert," he said, "you try it. I'll clasp you in my arms as the hero clasped this female, and you'll let your hands flutter helplessly over my breast!" ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... whisk them back to Evans, Young, and Swift.[305] The embroider'd suit at least he deem'd his prey, That suit an unpaid tailor snatch'd away. No rag, no scrap, of all the beau, or wit, That once so flutter'd, and that once so ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... and thrilling in the presence of a medium—not a professional, but a young lady amateur. Here, of course, we greatly desire the evidence of Robert Chambers. Spirits came to Swedenborg with a wind, but it was only strong enough to flutter papers; 'the cause of which,' as he remarks with naivete, 'I do not yet understand'. If Swedenborg had gone into a Medicine Lodge, no doubt, in that 'close place,' the phenomena would have been very much more remarkable. In 1853 Pere Arnaud visited the Nasquapees, and describes a ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... a 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 some one ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... rising on the tossing walls, Within the foaming valleys swung, Soft shapes of sea-birds, dimly seen, Flutter and float and ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... has illumined the terribly dark portion of the horizon, and vanished. The entire landscape suddenly undergoes a change, and assumes a gloomy character. The ash woods quiver; the leaves take on a kind of dull whitish hue, and stand out against the purple background of cloud, and rustle and flutter; the crowns of the great birches begin to rock, and tufts of dry grass fly across the road. The water and white-breasted swallows circle about the britchka, and fly beneath the horses, as though with the intention of stopping us; daws ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... and fro at the end of some grass-blade or root. Anon they will leave their sunken habitations, and, crawling up the stems of plants, or to the surface, like gnats, as perfect insects henceforth, flutter over the surface of the water, or sacrifice their short lives in the flame of our candles at evening. Down yonder little glen the shrubs are drooping under their burden, and the red alder-berries contrast with the white ground. Here ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... 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 might ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... answered Everett, 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
... pair, had been standing with one hip lifted, like a tired cow; and you could only tell by the quick flutter of the haw across his eye, from time to time, that he was paying any attention to the argument. He thrust his jaw out sidewise, as his habit is when he pulls, and changed his leg. His voice was hard and heavy, and his ears were close to his big, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... elect him to membership. His first appearance at a meeting of the club gave rise to an unforeseen situation, for the order in which the members sat about the table had become fixed by traditions of precedence, and the attempt to place another chair caused a flutter of debate in politely subdued voices. Worthington was kept standing while this discussion was going on, and suddenly astounded the company by gravely seating ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... home, my heart, and rest; The bird is safest in its nest; O'er all that flutter their wings and fly A hawk is hovering in the sky; To stay at home ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... with her garlands of leaves; The swallows were building beneath the farm-eaves, Wrens, linnets, and sparrows, on every hedge-side, Were bringing their families out with great pride; While far above all, on the tallest tree-top, With a flutter and clamor that never did stop, The haughty old Rooks held their heads up so high, And dreamed not ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... birds are several, aside from their excessive suspicion of every human being. In the first place, observations must be made before ten o'clock, for at that hour every day a lively breeze, which often amounts to a gale, springs up, and sets the cottonwood and aspen leaves in a flutter that hides the movements of any bird. Then, all through the most interesting month of June the cottonwood-trees are shedding their cotton, and to a person on the watch for slight stirrings among the leaves the falling cotton ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... savor to the undertaking, for it was clear that her husband was an ideal architect for the purpose, and she would be doing a true service to Mr. Parsons in convincing him that this was so. Altogether her soul was in an agreeable flutter, notwithstanding that her neighbor Flossy had recently received invitations to two or three large balls, and been referred to in the society columns of the newspapers as the fascinating and clever wife of ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... work for the peons, they raced, exultant with life. Slim young Spaniards they were, clothed picturesquely in velvet and braid and gay sashes; with cumbersome, hairy chaparejos, high-crowned sombreros and big-roweled, silver spurs to mark their calling; caballeros to flutter the heart of a languorous-eyed senorita, and to tingle the pulse of the man who could command and see them ride ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... for the visitors to depart, for other women, scenting the presence of money, were now coming forward with outstretched hands, or despatching tearful children in their stead. The whole wretched, abandoned district was in a flutter, a distressful wail ascended from those lifeless streets with high resounding names. But what was to be done? One could not give to all. So the only course lay in flight—amidst deep sadness as one realised how powerless was charity ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 'Tis true, the danger was now over; but the kind Bodagh, thankful in his heart to the Almighty for the escape of his daughter, would not let them go without first partaking of his hospitality. His wife, too, for the same reason, was in a flutter of delight; and as her heart was as Irish as her husband's, and consequently as hospitable, so did she stir about, and work, and order right and left until abundant refreshments were smoking on the table. Nor was the gentle and melancholy Una herself, now that the snake was at all events scotched, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... till I reached the compound behind the house. Here I stood, deep in the shadow of the wall. The steps were now over my head again. I glanced up cautiously, and above me, on the roof, three yards to the right, I saw the flutter ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... to the window, and, throwing it open, looked out into the darkness. The fierce wind coming in made the curtains flutter, and ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... to lie here safe and warm, but there doesn't seem to be much breath to rock me," said Do, who lay nearest the little bosom that very slowly rose and fell with the feeble flutter of the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... a youngster of the sort you like to see about you; of the sort you like to imagine yourself to have been; of the sort whose appearance claims the fellowship of these illusions you had thought gone out, extinct, cold, and which, as if rekindled at the approach of another flame, give a flutter deep, deep down somewhere, give a flutter of light . . . of heat! . . . Yes; I had a glimpse of him then . . . and it was not the last of that kind. . . . "You don't know what it is for a fellow ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... when the poor, like the birds, were starved out, and are occasionally compelled to commit depredations for food. A stranger entered the hall. We heard the tramp of his boots, and could distinguish clearly that there was but one person. There was a flutter for a moment below, and then the stranger, following the landlord, ascended the stairs. The door opened, and a man, warmly muffled up, entered the room. We both rose. He looked at us for a moment—spoke to me by my name—but I recognized ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Institute to place itself in this position? He admitted that the members of the committee were men of character. But human nature was very complex. Even Professors might be misled by the desire for notoriety. Like moths, we all love best to flutter in the light. Heavy-game shots liked to be in a position to cap the tales of their rivals, and journalists were not averse from sensational coups, even when imagination had to aid fact in the process. Each member of the committee had his own motive for making the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... opportunity came on the 22nd of September. The court was in a flutter over the visit of a Russian prince for whose reception great preparations had been made. In the general excitement Schiller counted upon getting away unobserved. So he bade a tearful farewell to his mother and sisters, who knew of the secret that ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... his club with a strangled cry, and went down on his hands and knees. No reassuring flutter met the hand which he thrust inside the trampled bosom. That heart seemed stilled. He gathered the limp form in his arms like a child's and turned a dreadful face upon the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... was that the Big Boss for the first time took note of the fact I was alive. He said good evening and thought he'd look in my ice chest. My heart did flutter, but I knew I was safe. I had scrubbed and polished that ice chest till it creaked and groaned the Saturday night before. The brass parts were blinding. But there was too much food in it for that hour of the night. He called Schmitz—Schmitz was abject reverence and acquiescence. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... wrote:—'Dr. Warburton's chief assailants are the authors of The Canons of Criticism, and of The Revisal of Shakespeare's Text.... The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter and returns for more; the other bites like a viper.... When I think on one with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that "girls with spits, and boys with stones, should slay him in puny battle;" when the other ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the soft light shining through the doorway, looking out at him. He waved his hand. He saw her hand flutter and then ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... 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 ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... among those few went Etheldreda and Alswythe and Thora, tending them and comforting them, where we had sent them—to the highest point of the hilltop, inside the upper rampart; and I could see the flutter of their dresses now and then from where I watched beside Odda on the lower works. I had spoken to neither since we ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... been raised to mine as I spoke. There came now a flutter of the eyelids, a curious smile about the lips. Then her head drooped again and was laid against my breast; a sigh escaped her, and she began to ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... her. "You go right along up to bed—I'm going to sit down here and have my smoke," he said. He spoke as easily and naturally as if they had been an old couple, long used to each other's ways, and her contracted heart gave a flutter of relief. She followed him to the lift, and he put her in and enjoined the buttoned and braided boy to ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... English, French, or German visitors are rarely if ever seen, therefore the advent of the Princess, news of whose arrival had spread from mouth to mouth but an hour ago, caused a perceptible flutter among the lounging ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... instance, we have company,—a friend from afar (perhaps wealthy), or a minister, or some other man of note. What do we do? Sit down and receive our visitor with all good will and the freedom of a home? No; we (the lady of the house) flutter about to clear up things, apologizing about this, that, and the other condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the visitor in the parlor, set about marshaling the elements of a grand dinner or supper, such as no person but a gourmand wants to sit down to, when at home and comfortable; and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Folsom strode up and put his firm hand on the old man's chest. "Brace up and tell what you know about this. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do it. No, you can't hide behind Mother Pawket." Folsom's grave glance reduced Mrs. Pawket to a helpless flutter. "She's probably put you up to it; she's a designing woman." Folsom went eagerly over to the dark-eyed Italian lady. "Jessica dearest, look at all this. Golden oak. Store furniture, by Jove! Mr. Pawket's gift ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... perhaps the only real enemy he has to fear. How his heart and his flimsy paper must flutter in the unruly gusts of a March wind! We only imagine him pasting up a "Sale of Horses," in a retired nook, and seeing his bill ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... other simple folk who are not aware that they enjoy, from balconies once doubtless patrician, a view the knowing ones of the earth come thousands of miles to envy them. The effect is enhanced by the tattered clothes hung to dry in the windows, by the sun-faded rags that flutter from the polished balustrades— these are ivory-smooth with time; and the whole scene profits by the general law that renders decadence and ruin in Venice more brilliant than any prosperity. Decay ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... man's love, and was so great that it could never be appeased unless he called on her to put forth all her qualities and her power, to repay his exacting affection by a faithfulness tried to the very utmost limit of endurance. Every flutter of the sails flew down from aloft along the taut leeches, to enter his heart in a sense of acute delight; and the gentle murmur of water alongside, which, continuous and soft, showed that in all her windings his incomparable craft had never, even for an instant, ceased to carry her ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... not upon Barbara, but upon three or four other young women—a thing he had never done before. He thought in this way to make his call upon Barbara, when it should come, an inconspicuous event. To his surprise, his entrance thus into society created something of a flutter among the women-folk, especially the married women who had marriageable daughters, or who were matchmakingly interested in other young ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. An ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... rot, Harry," said Ranald, and sat down again to his desk. Harry went out in a state of dazed astonishment. Alone Ranald sat in his office writing steadily except that now and then he paused to let a smile flutter across his stern, set face, as a gleam of sunshine over a rugged rock on a cloudy day. He was listening to his heart, whose every beat kept singing the refrain, "I love her, I love her; she ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... time you get so nothing knocks the breath out of you. I'm just coming to looking round here without feeling all of a flutter. The place did used to turn me endwise at first, it was so white and awesome. I actually hated to set foot within its walls. Seems 's if my fingers was always all thumbs every time I come inside the room. Still, I had to come in though; there were things I had to do here. So I schooled myself to ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... slackens sail. Just such an air was careering seawards when Mr. Pilkington was about to perform the difficult feat of folding his paper backwards. It smote one side of the broadsheet and tore it from his grasp, making it flutter like a sail escaped from the lanyard. The breeze dropped; it hovered; it waited like the wanton that it was; and when Mr. Pilkington's free hand made a clutch at the flying columns, it seized that moment to lift his hat from his head and dash it to the ground. Then ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... their cooks and butchers and silversmiths. Waving arms and the flutter of robes emphasized the discussions going on on every side. Here a rumour-monger was telling his tale to a gaping cluster of pallid faces; there a plebeian pot-house orator was arraigning the upper classes to a circle of lowering brows ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... fires already, as effectually as if it had been an overturned broth-pot. That I never took off my clothes that night I need not say, though of what was happening in the glen I could only guess. A flutter against my window now and again, when the rain had abated, told me of another bird that had flown there to die; and with Waster Lunny, I kept up communication by waving a light, to which he replied in a similar manner. Before morning, however, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... music fell; there 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
... our time delight; some—the stouthearted ones—departed talking loudly and with cigar in mouth; others, however, daunted in spite of themselves, lowered their voices as people instinctively do in church. And the Bedouin guides, who a moment ago seemed to flutter about the giant monument like so many black moths—they too have gone, made restless by the cold air, which erstwhile they had not known. The show for to-night is ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... instincts, our temperament. We are freed by energy and the critical spirit—that is to say, by detachment of soul, by self-government. So that we are enslaved, but susceptible of freedom; we are bound, but capable of shaking off our bonds. The soul is caged, but it has power to flutter within its cage. ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... D.—Pigeons like to eat bird seed, broken corn, or any kind of grain, and enjoy that kind of food much better than bread-crumbs. They need fresh water to drink, and will bathe now and then, like a canary, if they have a bath dish large enough to flutter in. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... meantime Dr. Masham, really agitated, roused his brother magistrate, and communicated to his worship the important discovery. The Squire fell into a solemn flutter. 'We must be regular, brother Masham; we must proceed by rule; we are a bench in ourselves. Would that my clerk were here! We must send for Signsealer forthwith. I will not decide without the statutes. The ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... if love has wings, is it not to flutter about with? The wit, argument, and manner, all together, silenced me. She, after I left France, married a very worthy man, has had a large family, and has been, and is, a most excellent wife and mother. But that which does sometimes well in France, does not ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... prayer: no boast Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth; Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost, A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth; And dusk spreads darkness ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... to leave us, dear little bird?" said she, softly. "Why dost thou wish to be gone, dear comforter of our sadness? Sing gayly to-day; father is well again, and life is once more a pleasure. What is it makes thee flutter about so wildly and pant in thy cage? Ah! is it not hard, dear little one, to be captive when we know there are joy and freedom in the open air?—when we are born in the fields and woods?—when we know that there alone are independence ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... Secundra uttered a small cry of satisfaction: and, leaning swiftly forth, I thought I could myself perceive a change upon that icy countenance of the unburied. The next moment I beheld his eyelids flutter; the next they rose entirely, and the week-old corpse looked me for a moment in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chambre conspire to dress dinner and him so punctually together that the one may not be ready before the other. As peacocks and ostriches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet cannot fly, so all his bravery is to flutter only. The beggars call him "my lord," and he takes them at their words and pays them for it. If you praise him, he is so true and faithful to the mode that he never fails to make you a present of himself, and will ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... disguised as hours—for God can compel us to rehearse eternity. He must have felt it coming, for his eyes have forsaken all else, and are fixed upon the cottage door. Yes, it moved, it surely moved; and the strong man's eyes are numb. They rally and renew the vigil. Yes, it moves, wider still—and the flutter of a dress is seen. His heart leaps wildly, and his eyes fly at the face that follows. It is too far to see ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the loquacious throng Flutter and twitter, prodigal of time, And little masters make a toy of song Till grave men weary of the sound ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... Calmady waited without, resting his aching arms, gazing down the wide, dusty street, his senses lulled by the flutter of the sycamore leaves overhead. The said street offered but small matter of interest. For Farley Row is one of those dead-alive little towns on the borders of the forest land, across which progress, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... greatly?" King asked him, with only vague interest on his face and a prayer inside him that his heart might flutter less violently against his ribs. His voice was as non-committal as ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... hysterics. And the next moment he was in the glass lantern, and the latticed panes gave way like tissue paper as he broke through into the open air, causing the pigeons on the roof to whirr up in a flutter of alarm. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... even mean; that together we were able to make up an estate of between three and four thousand pounds a year, which was in itself equal to some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet the name of princess, and the flutter of it—in a word, the pride—weighed them down; and all these arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of my merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him a final answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened in my affairs which had caused ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... music she sings at every turn. One indecent (there is no other word for it) chromatic oriental phrase is so strange that none of us can ever recall it or forget it! And the frantically nervous Luisita Puchol, whose eyelids spring open like the cover of a Jack-in-the-box, and whose hands flutter like saucy butterflies, sings suggestive popular ditties just a shade better than any one ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... of timber From distant flats and fells, The pealing of the anvils As clear as little bells, The rattle of the cradle, The clack of windlass-boles, The flutter of the crimson flags Above ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... western breeze A row of golden tulips is nodding. They flutter their golden wings In a sudden ecstasy and say: Something comes to us from beyond, Out of the sky, beyond the hill ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... flutter of tender breasts half veiled when Venus and her wayward archer are abroad, and listen as fair ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... above he heard the swishing flutter of other wings; he felt himself lifted from the floor; he was being floated out above the luminous pit by the ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... portico near the river, called the Quay Walk, being an exchange of the merchants, etc.,' renamed when it was rebuilt in Queen Anne's reign. From the bridge westward the scene has an air of peaceful contentedness. Sea-gulls flutter among the sand-banks, from which 'the sea retires itself' at low-tide, leaving only a small, shining stream, which seems 'to creep between shelves and sands.' Beyond are green marshes, and gentle rounded hills behind them lead on one from another. The country is much the same all ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... said he. "Don't mind, but don't forget. Good men come and go; it's good deeds that live. Now, we're by no means first at this spot, and it's of no vast consequence now. We'll even let our little flag flutter here alone, till the snows come, and the slides give it ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... is about to depart, they flutter around him, speaking pleasant words, as if they expected to get something in return—those billetitas. For all, he takes departure, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... to hand they wave, and so, With dip and bend and swing, Through "tag" and "hide" and "touch and go" They flutter, frolicking. ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... effaces itself. Any one who has the nerve to look it between the eyes may uncover its pretense. For by this token may be known the real Crotalids from the mock: a small but distinct pit between eye and nostril. Lacking this mark, no ventral crawler in the land of the free need cause a flutter in the most timid breast, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... One can fancy the flutter of pride in Dorothy's heart at the reading of such honors to her lover, and she settled down to await the turn of events with a lighter heart, while Hancock and Adams, with the other delegates, went ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the barn he found everybody all a-flutter. No one paid any attention to Turkey Proudfoot, though he spread his tail and strutted up to his neighbors ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... none can utter? Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown? Still on the spire the pigeons flutter; Still by the gateway flits the gown; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... crouched over their rifle waiting to kill, when the owl had gone far from the slaughter and even not the fitful flutter of a bat sped through the dark pall. Only man: savage, primitive man, glared at where each remained hidden. The blood lust to kill, always to kill. Animal ferocity and ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... written; and than 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
... Slav. olovo with any certainty to a root such as mal, to be soft, let us take another word, such as feather. Here, again, we find that Mr. Wedgwood connects it with such words as Bav. fledern, Du. vlederen, to flap, flutter, the loss of the l being explained by such words as to splutter and to sputter. We have first to note the disregard of historical facts, for feather is O.H.G. fedara, Sk. pat-tra, Gr. pteron for peteron, all derived from a root pat, to fly, from which ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... as our last bell was ringing she moved off down the bay. Then we backed slowly out in the same fashion, and, although we had not the advantage of seeing ourselves, we saw a great sight on the wharf, which was covered with people, ringing with cheers, and white with the flutter of handkerchiefs. ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... that is commonly received among the older people. The boy disparages the minister, quizzes the deacon, thinks the school-master an ass, and doesn't believe in the Bible, and seems to be rather pleased than otherwise with the shock and flutter that all these announcements create among peaceably disposed grown people. No respectable hen that ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them than was poor Mrs. Pennel ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sumpter-mules along, And ambling palfrey, when at need Him listed ease his battle-steed. The last and trustiest of the four, On high his forky pennon bore; 110 Like swallow's tail, in shape and hue, Flutter'd the streamer glossy blue, Where, blazon'd sable, as before, The towering falcon seem'd to soar. Last, twenty yeomen, two and two, 115 In hosen black, and jerkins blue, With falcons broider'd on each breast, Attended on their lord's behest. Each, chosen for an archer good, ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... surroundings? Well, it was not the work itself, it was simply the effects of that gross labor. On the American continent, at least, a man did not lose caste by following any honest occupation,—only he could not work with the workers and flutter with the butterflies. MacRae, walking down the street, communing with himself, knew that he must pay a penalty for working with his hands. If he were a drone in uniform—necessarily a drone since the end of war—he could dance and play, flirt with pretty girls, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... LIFE" represents the lover as inhabiting the same house with his unseen love; and pursuing her in it ceaselessly from room to room, always catching the flutter of her retreating presence, always sure that the next moment he ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... There was a flutter of feminine garments in the doorway of the room. Some one looked in and withdrew. Sir Shawn, coming down the stairs, did not notice the small figure by the fire in the hall, fast fading to ashes, the centre of a circle of adoring dogs, ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... cannonade of Fort Sumter's hundred and forty guns echoing over the sea, and saw the Stars and Bars flutter above the walls of the old fort. He saw Generals Bee and Johnson come back from Manassas, folded in the battle flag for which they had given their lives, to lie in state in the City Hall at the marble feet ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... arm away from her father's grasp, and stood up, with a convulsive flutter of her white plumage like a bird. She flung back her curls and disclosed her beautiful pale face, all strained to terrified resolve, and her dilated blue eyes "I will not!" she cried out, addressing her father alone, ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... procession started down the long village street towards the cemetery. The priest intoned the first words of the Service for the Dead, walking at the head of the procession with his black biretta on his head; he had thrown a thick fur cloak over his surplice; the wind made the ends of his stole flutter; the words of the Latin hymn fell from his lips at intervals, dully, as though they had been frozen; he looked bored and impatient, and let his eyes wander into the distance. The wind tugged at the black banner, and the pictures of heaven and hell on it wobbled and fluttered to and ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... was released from the homely comfort of a prairie town. She was in the world of lonely things—the flutter of twilight linnets, the aching call of gulls along a shore to which the netted foam crept out of darkness, the island of Aengus and the elder gods and the eternal glories that never were, tall kings and women girdled with crusted gold, the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... difference came upon the room the moment he disappeared. Somehow it had been out of harmony. His voice, his look, his heavy person, even his whiskers had been out of character. Now the air seemed to flutter after the closing of the door like water into which something offensive has sunk, and when the ripples of movement were over the large handsome room had toned down into perfect accord with its remaining inhabitants. Mrs. Copperhead's eyes were rather red—not with ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Oh, I wouldn't presume to say anything about the murder. I'm not the man to stir up any such subject as that. It's about the money—or some money—more money than usually falls into my till. It—it was rather queer, sirs, and I have felt the flutter of it all day. Shall I tell you about it? It happened last night, late last night, sirs, so late that I was in bed with my wife, and had been snoring, she ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... walking, we were obliged to stop every minute to recover our breath. Lucien followed us so eagerly that I was obliged to check him several times. He was surprised at not seeing any living creature, not even those beautiful golden flies which, in Mexico, flutter round every bush. But the north wind was blowing, and the sun was hidden behind the clouds, so that both the insects and birds kept in the deepest recesses of their hiding-places. As we advanced, our road became much steeper, and we were obliged to cling to the shrubs for support. L'Encuerado, ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... past the end table unseen on their way out into the big atrium with its many columns—the hall in which players go out to cool themselves, or collect their determination for a final flutter—Mademoiselle had just won the maximum upon the number four, as well as the column, and the croupier was in the act of pushing towards her a big pile of counters each representing ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... else he could say!" and the innocence of her inquiring face proved his evil imagining a perjury. He caught his breath in a flutter of sheer heart's-ease. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... perhaps, said I to myself, I shall answer, fully, the question that has long wrought within my soul, What is art? and what can it do? Here, perhaps, these yearnings for the ideal will meet their satisfaction. The ascent to the picture gallery tends to produce a flutter of excitement and expectation. Magnificent staircases, dim perspectives of frescoes and carvings, the glorious hall of Apollo, rooms with mosaic pavements, antique vases, countless spoils of art, dazzle the eye of the neophyte, and prepare the mind for some grand enchantment. Then ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and tube-roses in her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown; violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago she had communed at ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... where morn Sleeps in a shadowy close, Shut with a gate of horn, 'Round which the dreams she knows Flutter with rose ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... circumstance which did not escape the notice of the group, and confirmed all their suspicions, Mr. Avenel, with a serious, thoughtful air, and a slow step, approached the group. Nor did the great Roman general more nervously "flutter the dove-cotes in Corioli," than did the advance of the supposed X. Y. agitate the bosoms of Lord Spendquick and his sympathizing friends. Pocket-book in hand, and apparently feeling for something formidable within its mystic recesses, step by step came Dick Avenel towards the fireplace. The ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the little volume and the passing of the flutter of interest and excitement it had aroused, the Andover life subsided into the channel through which, save for one or two breaks, it was destined to run for many years. Until 1653, nothing of note had taken place, but this year brought two ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... of a half-spread pinion betray them. And then when the twilight, the blessed one of the twin twilights, one in course towards day, one in course towards night, has deepened and has died, they can dare to be themselves, to spread their short wings, and to flutter on their vagrant and monotonous courses. It is a great though secret army—the army of the bats. It scours through cities. No weather will keep it quite restful in camp. No darkness will blind it into immobility. The mainspring of sin beats in it as drums beat ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... beautiful scene which greeted Rob as he stepped out and followed Shaddy down to the fire. The clearing was one mass of glorious colour, the sky gorgeous with the sunrise tints, and the river flushed with orange, blue and gold. Birds sang, piped, and shrieked loudly, butterflies were beginning to flutter about, and a loud chattering from the nearest tree roused Rob to the fact that the puma had been following him, for it suddenly made three or four leaps in the direction of the sounds, and then crouched down to gaze at a party of monkeys, which ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... under the crepe-myrtle bush through the hot, droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers flutter down into the dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his warm blankets among all these sleepers, the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush untrammelled through some new keen air. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Gostrey he should like to stay on for, the hugely-distributed Paris of summer, alternately dazzling and dusky, with a weight lifted for him off its columns and cornices and with shade and air in the flutter of awnings as wide as avenues. It was present to him without attenuation that, reaching out, the day after making the remark, for some proof of his freedom, he had gone that very afternoon to see Madame de Vionnet. He had gone again the next day but one, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... happens,' I said within myself; and truly I kept this resolution so well, and was so fully occupied in steadying my nerves and stifling the rebellious flutter of my heart, that when I was admitted into the hall and ushered into the presence of Mrs. Bloomfield, I almost forgot to answer her polite salutation; and it afterwards struck me, that the little I did say was spoken in the tone ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... desk that he bought second hand over in town. He stays to dine with us two or three nights a week, but he has grown flexible, and our meals are very merry ones. Laugh softly to yourself, Experience Book, and flutter your leaves just a bit as I write, that of their own volition, Miss Lavinia and Martin have drifted from whist to piquet, as by natural transition, and Evan is free for garden saunterings ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Wilbur and Alex were talking over their call, Charlotte came in in a flutter of gayety, her ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... maybe. "Hurrah!" you say, wasting never a spark of energy on lamenting the delay; this is a natural process and takes time, and once more you make up your mind. Presently you will think of it oftener and oftener, daily perhaps; the idea of control will flutter nearer and nearer to the moment of expression, but always too soon—when you are not about to say anything, or too ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... alongside, and a deserted office building. I 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 of ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... cool in time for Christmas. There is a midwinter lull in the movement of troops. In the evening we went to the grand bazaar in the St. Louis Hotel, got up to clothe the soldiers. This bazaar has furnished the gayest, most fashionable war-work yet, and has kept social circles in a flutter of pleasant, heroic excitement all through December. Everything beautiful or rare garnered in the homes of the rich was given for exhibition, and in some cases for raffle and sale. There were many fine paintings, statues, bronzes, engravings, gems, laces—in fact, heirlooms ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... satisfactory. I forget whether 'slowness of the pulse' is mentioned in it as a symptom of the poetical aestus. I am afraid, if it be a symptom, I dare not take my place even in the 'forlorn hope of poets' in this age so forlorn as to its poetry; for my pulse is in a continual flutter and my feet not half cold enough for a pedestal—so I must make my honours over to poor papa straightway. He has been shivering and shuddering through the cold weather; and partaking our influenza in the warmer. I am very sorry that you should have been a sufferer too. It seems to have been ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... 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 that ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... recently I have been dreaming very rarely, and when I do dream the experiences are not at all vivid. I use the term "nightmare" in a somewhat popular sense to mean a painful or frightful dream accompanied by physical disturbances, such as heart flutter and disturbances of breathing, and followed on awakening by a certain amount of the painful emotion which was a part of the dream. Accepting this definition, the experience which I have to relate was a typical nightmare. A few words of explanation are necessary to give the proper setting for the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... replied Cosmo, "a little hope was beginning to flutter, that, perhaps I was called from somewhere in the unseen—like Samuel, you know; but I was too glad to see you to be much disappointed. I do sometimes wonder though, that, if there is such a world beyond as we sometime talk about, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... embankment just above it. The house had a veranda of extraordinary width all around it and a great many doors and windows standing open to the veranda. These various apertures had, in common, such an accessible, hospitable air, such a breezy flutter within of light curtains, such expansive thresholds and reassuring interiors, that our friends hardly knew which was the regular entrance, and, after hesitating a moment, presented themselves at ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... he was back in the igloo with a can of condensed cream, a pan, and the alcohol lamp. His fingers trembled so that he had difficulty in lighting the wick, and as he cut open the can with his knife he saw the child's eyes flutter wide for an instant and ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... and shades from the shaking flames struck in a butterfly flutter on the underparts of the mantelshelf, and upon the reader's cheek as he sat. Presently, and all at once, a much greater intentness pervaded his face: he turned back again, and read anew the subject that had arrested his eyes. He was a man whose countenance varied with his ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... felt something clutching at her heart. Nothing could be more impressive than this scene—this silent but earnest appeal to the Most High by the man whom she suspected of murder—of crimes even more terrible. She could see his eyes, pleading and sincere, turned upward; could see his gray hair flutter in the breeze; could see his lips move, though they uttered no sound. And after he had poured out his heart to his Maker he extended his arms upon the slab, rested his head upon them ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... lay long awake, side by side, that night; the daughter in all the flutter of nerves induced by offended yet flattered feeling—hating the compliment, yet feeling that it was a compliment to the features that she was beginning to value. She was substantially a good, well-principled ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... half his parishioners, and 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 ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... and varying fortunes had taken him to Urbino, where the son Torquato grew up, surrounded by all the evidences of refinement and culture. He had been favored by nature with a tall and commanding figure, and his good looks had already caused more than one gentle heart to flutter, when, at the age of twenty-one, with his father's consent and approval, he entered the service of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este, and became at once a conspicuous figure in court circles. Almost instantly the youth, filled as he was with most romantic ideas and readily susceptible to the power ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... in truth the first in grace; as it also is at this day: Who do so flutter it out as our ruffling formal worshippers? Alas! the good, the sincere and humble, they seem to be least and last; but the conclusion of the tragedy will make manifest that the first is last, and the last first; for the many are but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... waiting aboard the Dewey. While it was generally known that the German high seas fleet was bottled up in the Kiel Canal, there was always a chance of running into a stray raider. But very shortly the oncoming vessel broke out a flutter of flags, indicating that she was a French cruiser, and exchanged salutations with the commander ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Scotland when Mac and I and the wife began first really to dream aloud aboot my gae'in to London. Oh, aye, I'd been on tours that had crossed the border; I'd been to Sunderland, and Newcastle on Tyne, but everywhere I'd been there was plenty Soots folk, and they knew the Scots talk and were used to the flutter o' ma kilts. Not that they were no sae in England, further south, too—'deed, and the trouble was they were used too well to Scotch ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder |
