"Gesticulate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... written books or found a place in national dictionaries of biography. None but an Irishman could have coined that supreme expression of contempt: "I wouldn't be seen dead with him at a pig-fair," or rebuked a young barrister because he did not "squandher his carcass" (i.e., gesticulate) enough. But we cannot trace the paternity of these sayings any more than we can that of the lightning retort of the man to whom one of the "quality" had given a glass of whisky. "That's made another man of you, Patsy," remarked the donor. "'Deed an' it has, sor," Patsy flashed back, "an' that other ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... told that they would serve me as guides if I felt at all doubtful of the trail, and in one or two instances they proved to be of decided help. They could gesticulate, if they could not speak English, and when I tried them with the one word Placide they would nod and point out which of the many side canyons I was to follow. But they always looked up as they did so, up, up, till I took to looking up, too, and when, after ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... at ninety?" or they laughed, and Carlino exclaimed: "What are you laughing at? Hush!" or stopped to gaze at an ancient church, its gables, and pinnacles looming weird in the moonlight, the cemetery nestling close by; Carlino, again interrupting, would beg them to talk, converse, gesticulate. "Don't stare into space," said he. A mutiny broke out in the vanguard, Noemi being the more petulant. She turned on the Dyver, and stamping her foot, protested that she would go home if this most tiresome novelist in a muffler did not cease ordering ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... see the Hindoo law-student looking contemptuously at African ditto. Hindoo a shrewd fellow. Talks English perfectly. Rather given to gesticulate. Waves his arms, and incidentally knocks over a bottle of the claret—at twelve shillings a dozen—which the Inn kindly supplies to wash down the mutton and baked potatoes at our two-shilling meal. Hindoo laughs. Tells me, confidentially, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... interrupted his companion. "If you hadn't—" He tried to gesticulate, but one hand held to the keel of the boat, and the other was supporting the form of the oarsman. The latter had fought a battle with his immense rubber boots ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... and dawned upon me the moment I saw how matters stood. During the dispute between the helmsman and the deputation, the former had renounced his wheel to gesticulate, and I, thinking no harm, had amused myself, during a rather tedious debate, by revolving the thing this way and that, and had unconsciously put the ship about. By a coincidence not unusual in low latitudes, the wind had effected a corresponding transposition at the same time, and was ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... to stand far off for a time, to shout and gesticulate joyously. One man even delivered himself of a long story. The camel-corps did not fire. They were only too glad of a little breathing-space, until some sort of square could be formed. The men on the sand-bank ran to their side; and the whale-boats, as they toiled up within shouting distance, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... bark appeared at the last bend of the celestial Nile, the cynocephali, who guarded the entrance into night, began to dance and gesticulate upon the banks as they intoned their accustomed hymn. The gods of Abydos mingled their shouts of joy with the chant of the sacred baboons, the bark lingered for a moment upon the frontiers of day, and initiated souls seized the occasion to secure their recognition ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... poetry by heart, there is no power on earth to prevent her from making her de'but, somewhere, as Juliet—if she be so inclined; and such is usually her inclination. That her voice is untrained, that she cannot scan blank-verse, that she cannot gesticulate with grace and propriety, nor move with propriety and grace across the stage, matters not a little bit—to our young lady. 'Feeling,' she will say, 'is everything'; and, of course, she, at the age of eighteen, has more feeling than Juliet, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... again, for the world, and as to giving chase in boots (highlows) four sizes too big, and without strings, that would have been as absurd as to employ a donkey to catch a horse. Mahomet could do nothing but rush frantically to the very edge of the cliff, and scream and gesticulate to a crowd of Arab women who had passed the day beneath the shady trees by the Faky's grave, watching our passage of the Atbara. Beating his own head and tearing his hair were always the safety valves of Mahomet's rage, but as hair is not of that mushroom growth that reappears ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... have things done in my own way. I tell you, therefore, plainly: do your utmost to obey my commands; for if you stick to your own fancies, you will run your head against a wall." While he was uttering these words, his lords in waiting hung upon the King's lips, seeing him shake his head, frown, and gesticulate, now with one hand and now with the other. The whole company of attendants, therefore, quaked with fear for me; but I stood firm, and let no breath ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... well!" said Marat. "I hold my people by a thread, and make them gesticulate and spring up and down, like the concealed man in ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... penetration to discover these inner wants, and the skill to adapt the circumstances and her own purposes to these, she will find it easy to secure and hold the child's attention. Without this penetration and skill, all else is unavailing. She may sing and cajole herself into hoarseness, she may smile and gesticulate herself into a mild sort of tarantism, or freeze herself at one end of the table into a statue of Suppressed Reproach,—if the instruction or dictation has no natural connection with the purposes of the children, these will remain uninterested ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... agreeable," she said aside, to me and Mrs Darcy. "He. is a young man of parts, and his travels have made him very conversible. Our servants find his Indian attendant, Tippoo, an endless source of surprise. He cannot speak a word of English, and to see him roll his black eyes and gesticulate causes laughter which penetrates even to our end ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Esther All, the gossip, and was now so strangely agitated that I stopped in sheer amazement. That the child should be abject and agonized before the grim, cynical tattler of Whisper Cove! That she should gesticulate in a way so passionate! That she should fling her arms wide, that she should cover her face with her hands, that she should in some grievous disturbance beat upon her heart! I could not make it out. 'Twas a queer way, thinks I, to express the rapture of her fortune; and no suspicion ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... some make it more intelligible—I was giving his sensibility a serviceable jog. Everyone, I know, must see with his own eyes and feel through his own nerves; none can lend another eyes or emotions: nevertheless, one can point and gesticulate and in so doing excite. If I have done that I am content. Twenty years hence, it is to be presumed, those who now read my writings will be saying of them what I was saying of M. Mauclair's. The prospect does not distress me. I am not author enough to be pained by ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... they were brother and sister. There was the same tall commanding figure, of course on a larger scale, the same noble cast of feature and the same dignified mien. But in the man, more than in the woman, there was an air of gentle modesty which contrasted well with his powerful frame. He did not gesticulate much in speaking, and, judging from the brevity of his speech, he had not much to say, but what he said was listened to with profound respect ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... like an Asiatic despot, stretched on a bed of rose-leaves; [51] or Vatinius, darting forward to speak, his eyes starting from his head, his neck swollen, and his muscles rigid; [52] or the Gaulish and Greek witnesses, of whom the former swagger erect across the forum, [53] the latter chatter and gesticulate without ever looking up; [54] we see in each case the master's powerful hand. Other descriptions are longer and more ambitious; the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators after detection; [55] the character of Catiline; [56] the debauchery of Antony in Varro's ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... up her head from "Fasquelle," "and—oh, dear me!" and flinging down the pile of books in her lap on a chair, she rushed across the room and flew up to the cage and began to wildly gesticulate and explain and shower down on him every endearing ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... the British Isles. There were no torpedo-boats about at the moment, so I ran out on the surface and fired a shot across her bows. She seemed inclined to go on so I put a second one just above her water-line on her port bow. She stopped then and a very angry man began to gesticulate from the bridge. I ran the ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... or two something very like a panic took possession of all hands, and everybody began to shout and gesticulate to the utmost of his ability without reference to the efforts of the rest. At length, however, Woodford and I managed between us to secure silence; upon which we directed that, whilst as many as could do so should ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... passed along, too, he distributed copies of the pamphlets which he was prosecuted for writing. The Star Chamber, hearing that he was haranguing the mob, ordered him to be gagged. This did not subdue him. He began to stamp with his foot and gesticulate; thus continuing to express his indomitable spirit of hostility to the tyranny which he opposed. This single case would be of no great consequence alone, but it was not alone. The attempt to put Lilburne down was a symbol of ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... while she talks. This rustic beauty, in her cotton bodice, her blue print skirt and her wooden shoes, no longer shouts. She expresses herself better and does not gesticulate so violently. She is quieter in her movements and her shyness is not unattractive. Rays of light filter through the branches and cast shifting patches of light on her face and figure. I always love to observe the details of her ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... advanced to the very heart of the group. It was quite evident that his opening sentences were listened to impassively. Then, all at once, the natives began to gesticulate furiously and to shake their heads. Whereupon Britt pounded the palm of his left hand with an emphatic right fist, occasionally pointing over his shoulder with a stubborn thumb. At last, the argument ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... boys continued to gesticulate, the men began to grasp the fact that they had been in the water, and what they were, for one of them began pointing along the stream and waving his hand, as ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... I took them in right enough! (To SELWYN, who continues to gesticulate.) What's the matter, sir? Is it ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... out of his whiskers. He could not speak from terror, which the boat-boys soon saw, for none are quicker than negroes to detect signs of fear in those whom they are accustomed to consider superior to themselves. Familiar with the surf, and full of mischievous fun, they began to shout and gesticulate with the settled purpose of making matters appear worse than they were, and of enjoying the white man's discomfiture,—all but the patrao, who was an old hand, and on whom depended the safety of us all. He kept a steady lookout seaward, and stood upright and firm, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... at Sally's side, removing an elbow from her ribs in order the better to gesticulate. Sally, though no French scholar, gathered that he was startled and gratified. The entire crowd seemed to be startled and gratified. There is undoubtedly a certain altruism in the make-up of the spectators at a Continental roulette-table. They seem to derive a spiritual ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... twice as many panels as Luca. Martyrs, apostles and confessors are talking on the San Lorenzo doors. Thus St. Stephen shows the stone of his martyrdom to St. Laurence. Elsewhere St. Peter's movement suggests that he is upbraiding his fellow, for the argument excites these saints. They gesticulate freely; martyrs seem to fence with their palm-leaves. One will turn away abruptly, another will pay sudden attention to his book, while his companion continues to talk. One man slaps his book to clinch ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... English-speaking people. One reason for this habit of gesture is that her hands have been so long her instruments of communication that they have taken to themselves the quick shiftings of the eye, and express some of the things that we say in a glance. All deaf people naturally gesticulate. Indeed, at one time it was believed that the best way for them to communicate was through systematized gestures, the sign language invented by the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... are allowed to speak freely, provided always they do not gesticulate too violently. But we may be sure no word is ever lost in a State watched by priests. The Government keeps an accurate list of those who wish it ill. It revenges itself when it can, but it never runs after vengeance. It watches its occasion; it can afford ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... to the lower end of a very large reach of water, and on the opposite side were numbers of native wurleys. I crossed at a neck of sand, and at a little distance again came on the track of a camel going up the creek; at the same time I found a native, who began to gesticulate in a very excited manner, and to point down the creek, bawling out, "Gow, gow!" as loud as he could. When I went towards him he ran away, and finding it impossible to get him to come to me, I turned back to follow a camel track, and to look after my ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... trailed past him, talking fluently, but unable to gesticulate in the drag of the current. Then the surfacers rolled up, two on each side of the Statue. With one accord the spectators looked elsewhere, but there was no need. Keefe turned on full power, and the thing simply melted ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the doorsill to gesticulate while he argued those points and others which Johnny thought of later. It was a beautiful flying machine. By every object impressive enough to make oath upon, Tomaso's brother swore that it was as he said. Look! Not one peso would he accept until Johnny had seen. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... door at daybreak when something fell from the neighbouring plane-tree uttering shrill squeaks. I ran to see what it was. I found a green grasshopper eviscerating a struggling Cigale. In vain did the latter squeak and gesticulate; the other never loosed its hold, but plunged its head into the entrails of the victim and ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... came round the corner of the house, and seeing us, and what my men were doing, began to gesticulate violently, but without sound. The grooms saw him too, and stood; and he ran up to my stirrup, his face ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... were matters of offence to Harlow. He could not give credit for ability to a man who was so calm and elegant and placid amidst all the entrancements of his profession. He thought a great painter should gesticulate more, should sacrifice the gentlemanly to the eccentric as he did, should be feverish and frothy and unconventional and absurd as he was. And then he possessed a quick mimetic talent. He had soon acquired great part of Lawrence's manner. People are always prone to think themselves equal to ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... half-way down, he caught sight of the two men coming in his direction rapidly; and as soon as they caught sight of him, they began to gesticulate, beckoning, waving their caps, and generally indicating that he was ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... trenches. Vincent, who was sitting at a table, happened to look up, and was astonished at seeing the sergeant first put his finger on his lips, then take off his cap, put one hand on his heart, and gesticulate with ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... in advance, began to cry out, to gesticulate, and, taking each other by the hand, formed an immense circle around the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... meanest employe seems to think himself invested with certain occult powers. His civility savours of government patronage; and his frown is inquisitorial. To his fellows, his address is abrupt and diplomatic. He seems to speak in cipher, and to gesticulate by some rule of freemasonry. But to the uninitiated he is explanatory to a scruple, as though mischief might ensue from his being misapprehended. He makes sure of your understanding by an emphasis, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... dancer is impossible, as the skill and grace of the dance consists essentially in postures and gestures, and each individual has his own variations and combination. In fact no two men dance alike, though the women are much alike in their style of dancing, due to the fact that they bend the body and gesticulate comparatively little and that they display less force and exertion. Suffice it to say that the dancer moves his feet in perfect time to the rhythm of the drum and gong, at the same time keeping the arms, hands, fingers, head, and shoulders ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of actions, on which alone in the eyes of supreme wisdom the worth of the person and even that of the world depends, would cease to exist. As long as the nature of man remains what it is, his conduct would thus be changed into mere mechanism, in which, as in a puppet-show, everything would gesticulate well, but there would be no life in the figures. Now, when it is quite otherwise with us, when with all the effort of our reason we have only a very obscure and doubtful view into the future, when the Governor of the world allows us only to conjecture his existence ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... a certain amount of fluctuation—and she danced divinely, which gift must not be counted as a parlour-trick; she was slow in her movements and quiet in her manner until she talked of horses or anybody she loved; then her great eyes would flash and her laugh ring out, also she would gesticulate as her mother had been wont to do, until the climate, maybe, of a northern country had served to repress the spontaneity ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... shoulders, and eyebrows all seemed to gesticulate at once as madame la concierge made answer. "But he has been gone from here two—no, three months. Perhaps ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... our oars, presently, from out of the bushes, rush a herd of savages with spears and clubs, which they flourish furiously, making signs to us to be gone. We pull on, however, and find an opening in the reef, through which we get close to the beach. The natives shout and gesticulate more vehemently than ever. They declare (so Taro interprets) that we come for no good purpose, and that they want no strangers. Phineas hopes that they may possess pearls with which to trade, so we row in, he ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... I, 'I always did admire telegraphy; but astronomy was what I had took up just then.' That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate with his hands. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... preachers at Rome, and those that he heard he did not like. They were very lively in the delivery of their sermons, they would run to and fro in their pulpit, bend far over toward the audience, utter violent cries, change their voice suddenly, and gesticulate ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... companion further to one side. They talk and gesticulate together, while now and then a big red rough hand is thrust out savagely toward ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... shoulders and made play with his clawlike hands, as if he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him, still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched him pick himself ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... men to restrain the more impetuous were of little avail. When at the sittings a delegate arose to speak on some question, he was often violently pulled to his seat and then surrounded by a mob of his colleagues, who would throw off their coats and gesticulate wildly, as though ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the republic. Suddenly on the bulletin-boards in New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco, Podunk, Liverpool, appear the mysterious "three-eighths," electrifying the watchers of these boards, who begin to jabber and gesticulate and "transact business." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that is just because you like me. I don't feel at all noble; but don't let's talk about that. Tell me if this is the proper way to move my hands when I am talking; the Italians gesticulate all the time they are talking, it appears. I don't know how they do it, for I have never been in Italy,' said Vava, talking rapidly, to prevent Doreen making ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... and gesticulating even when they are not interrogated. Nervous diseases manifest themselves in facial contortions or slight spasmodic contractions. In melancholia and all forms of depression, the patient does not gesticulate but remains immovable like a statue with his eyes cast down. Degenerates manifest a fairly varied series of involuntary motions,—twitchings of the muscles, as in chorea, tonic and clonic convulsions and tremors. In senility, chorea, and ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... pockets also he scattered pamphlets, said to be seditious, because they attacked the hierarchy. The star chamber, which was sitting at that very time, ordered him immediately to be gagged. He ceased not, however, though both gagged and pilloried, to stamp with his foot and gesticulate, in order to show the people that, if he had it in his power, he would still harangue them. This behavior gave fresh provocation to the star chamber; and they condemned him to be imprisoned in a dungeon, and to be loaded with irons.[*] It was found difficult to break the spirits ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Wood and two Western Railway ones are trying to get into trouble by crossing. What a row! how the ruffians whip, and stamp, and storm, and all but pick each other's horses' teeth with their poles, how the cads gesticulate, and the passengers imprecate! now the bonnets are out of the windows, and the row increases. Six coachmen cutting and storming, six cads sawing the air, sixteen ladies in flowers screaming, six-and-twenty ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... understand the relation existing between gesture and music, and the absolute ignorance regarding plastic expression which characterizes the lyric actors of our day is a real profanation of scenic musical art. Not only are singers allowed to walk and gesticulate on the stage without paying any attention to the time, but also no shade of expression, dynamic or motor, of the orchestra—crescendo, decrescendo, accelerando, rallentando—finds in their gestures adequate realization. By this I mean the kind of wholly ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... Square demonstrations of our later days. Even in the House of Commons, and afterwards in what might be regarded as the deadening atmosphere of the House of Lords, Brougham was accustomed to shout and storm and gesticulate, to shake his fist and stamp, after a fashion which was startling even in those days, and of which now we have no living illustration. Brougham was at this time almost at the very zenith of his popularity among the reformers all over the country, {105} and more especially ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to wave farewells to their friends on the wharf were some who recognised Colonel Demarion, and drew the captain's attention toward him; and as he continued vehemently to gesticulate, that officer, from his post of observation, demanded the nature of the business which should require the ship's detention. Already the steamer was clear of the wharf. In another minute she might be beyond reach of the voice; therefore, failing by gestures and entreaties to convince ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... wonder," he asks, "that every semi-delirious sectary, who pours forth his animated nonsense with the genuine look and voice of passion, should gesticulate away the congregation of the most profound and learned divine of the Established Church, and in two Sundays preach him bare to the very sexton? Why are we natural everywhere but in the pulpit? No man expresses warm ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... the Art—or I may almost call it instinct—of Sight Recognition is developed by the habitual practice of it and by the avoidance of the custom of "Feeling". Just as, with you, the deaf and dumb, if once allowed to gesticulate and to use the hand-alphabet, will never acquire the more difficult but far more valuable art of lipspeech and lip-reading, so it is with us as regards "Seeing" and "Feeling". None who in early life resort to "Feeling" will ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... that he doesn't know very well how to gesticulate," observed Capitan Basilio. "But there's time yet! He hasn't studied Cicero and he's still ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... tables fraternised together, common misfortune brought about a kind of pleasure party. Strangers ended by sympathising; friends kept up conversations, although they were seated three rows distant from one another, and were obliged to turn their heads and gesticulate over their neighbours' shoulders. The women particularly became animated, at first rather anxious as to the crush, and then ungloving their hands, catching up their skirts, and laughing at the first thimbleful ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... now to escape from the guards, run to her sister—even to pantomime her love, gesticulate it with funny little motions and confidential fingers on lips—forgetting that the other cannot see! And then her wild, excited cry rings ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... it is the fearlessness and exuberance and savagery with which they pound out their rhythms. Something long buried in us seems to arise at the vibration of these fierce, bold, clattering, almost convulsive strokes, to seek to gesticulate and dance and leap. And Berlioz possessed this elemental feeling for rhythm. Schumann was convinced on hearing the "Symphonie Fantastique" that in Berlioz music was returning to its beginnings, to the state where rhythm was unconstrained and ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... intensity of the spectators had burst. They had begun to click their teeth, to mutter hoarsely, then to shout, to gesticulate, to shake their fists in each other's face, to push and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... stepped into the hut. Seated in chairs around the bare little room were several men, squatter friends of the neighborhood. Near the stove stood Ma Brewer, white-faced and anxious. As soon as she recognized the girl, she began to weep and gesticulate hysterically. Tess went to her and ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... discussion. Among them he recognized the tall form of Mr. Jack Walthall and the somewhat ponderous presence of Major Jimmy Bass. Little Compton watched the group because he had nothing better to do. He saw Major Jimmy Bass bring the end of his cane down upon the ground with a tremendous thump, and gesticulate like a man laboring under strong excitement; but this was nothing out of the ordinary, for Major Jimmy had been known to get excited over the most trivial discussion; on one occasion, indeed, he had even mounted ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... country, and rides bareback and goes fishing and swimming in any stream or pool, and ranges the woods and cannot be restrained; but also she will indulge in the wildest pranks, the most unthinkable freaks, play rough practical jokes on anybody and everybody, laugh out loud, shout and yell, gesticulate and contort herself into undignified postures and act generally in an uproarious and uncurbed fashion. She keeps up that sort of thing even in town, and is boisterous and unexpected beyond anything I ever heard of in any young girl She is most docile in all really important things, but in respect ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... of improvisation—or rather, I should say, than in the hundred attitudes which she assumed at such a time. Perpetually moving, she was yet constantly graceful, and while she twisted her body and turned her head, with charming hands that never ceased to gesticulate, and little, conscious, brilliant eyes that looked everywhere at once—eyes that seemed to chatter even faster than her lips—she made you forget the nonsense she poured forth, or think of it only as a part of her personal picturesqueness. The thing was a regular performance; the practice ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... mechanically return to the hall; it is immediately closed, and they are once more in confinement. To assist them in their deliberations a crowd of the well-disposed entered pell-mell along with them. To watch them and hurry on the matter, the sans-culottes, with fixed bayonets, gesticulate and threaten them from the galleries. Outside and inside, necessity, with its iron hand, has seized them and holds them fast. There is a dead silence. Couthon, a paralytic, tries to stand up; his friends carry him in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... de vie; and Tresco, who was bustling importantly about his patient, administrated the restorative dexterously to the unconscious digger, and then awaited results. He stood, with one hand on the man's forehead and the other he held free to gesticulate with, in emphasis ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... washerwoman and a German anarchist. If any of his guests had seen him then they would have said: "How distinctly American!" and—Wilton did not care for that tone. He had schooled himself to an English walk, and, so long as he did not raise it, an English voice. He did not gesticulate with his hands; he sat down on most of his enthusiasms, but he could not rid himself of The Shibboleth. He would ask for the Worcestershire sauce: even Howard, his immaculate butler, could not ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... dis!" The Dago paused to answer in the act of helping himself. "Ah, mooch, mooch better, yais. I tell you." He began to gesticulate as he talked, trying to make these callous, careless men see with him the images that his ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... his seat, and, placing his back to the fireplace, took up an imposing position, one hand buried in his waistcoat, and the other ready to gesticulate as ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... antecedents, in whom it occasionally happened that sexual excitement, instead of culminating in the normal orgasm, attained its climax in a fit of uncontrollable muscular excitement. He would then sing, dance, gesticulate, roughly treat his partner, break the objects around him, and finally sink down exhausted and stupefied. (Fere, L'Instinct Sexuel, Chapter X.) In such a case a diffused and general detumescence has taken the place of the normal detumescence which has its ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... speaking. If you make this act a wearisome one on the part of the patient you are doing him harm. So also if by continuing to stand you make him continuously raise his eyes to see you. Be as motionless as possible, and never gesticulate ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... the will and the design of the architects, who merely stand by and gesticulate, the opposite margins approach, or the apex curls towards the base, or towards one of the sides to form a miniature funnel. When the extremities are so close that the intervening space may be spanned, threads of white gossamer are laced across, and the slack being taken up by degrees, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... are evident in nasal expression and muffled words, spoken through half-closed teeth. We were not meant to speak in that unbeautiful manner, nor were we meant to gesticulate wildly as some of our drawing-room orators persist in doing-to the amusement of everyone else concerned. When you enter the world of good society, drop all your colloquial phrases and ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... out that day as with whips, another hopeless attempt to return to the work had agonised him, and existence seemed an intolerable pain. As he entered the deeper gloom, where the fog hung heavily, he began, half consciously, to gesticulate; he felt convulsed with torment and shame, and it was a sorry relief to clench his nails into his palm and strike the air as he stumbled heavily along, bruising his feet against the frozen ruts and ridges. His impotence was hideous, he said to himself, and he cursed himself and his ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... "juste prix," which is just what it will fetch per ell; specimens of it in button-holes being as frequent as poppies amidst the corn. Pretending to hide themselves from remark, which they intend but to provoke, here public characters do private theatricals a little a l'ecart. Actors gesticulate as they rehearse their ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... will be more pronounced still, if we find on the stage not merely two characters, as in the example from Pascal, but several, nay, as great a number as possible, the image of one another, who come and go, dance and gesticulate together, simultaneously striking the same attitudes and tossing their arms about in the same manner. This time, we distinctly think of marionettes. Invisible threads seem to us to be joining arms to arms, legs to legs, each ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... "I am very glad to tell you, that while you gesticulate, you wring your hands and roll your eyes like a man possessed by a devil who will not leave him; and I have always observed, that the devil most obstinate to be expelled is a secret. I knew you were a Corsican. I knew you were gloomy, and always brooding over some old history of the vendetta; ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... worse. It is impossible to give a hint of the language they used, especially the elder of the three whose hollow face was blackened by time and exposure. The two golden-brown girls were so heavily intoxicated they could but stagger to and fro and mouth and gesticulate, and one held a quart from which, as she moved, ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... him he spoke too low and they could not hear him, so he disappeared; then half a dozen got up and were so impatient that they began speaking altogether before they reached the Tribune. In vain did the President ring his bell, and stand up and gesticulate. Silence, however, was at length obtained, and he addressed them, but with little better success than the rest. One man then stept forward and did obtain a hearing, for he had good lungs and a fair ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... enthusiastic as his Anglo-Saxon standard would permit. He could not gesticulate, but he laughed in the nervous crackling way which ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their thoughts upon the proper way to gesticulate in curves impress nobody. If poor grammar were a sin against decency, or an attempt to poison the minds of the people, it might be wise enough to hire men to protect the well of English from defilement. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... the greater number of the people are temporary residents and mostly are natives of Kampo,{205a} they are more dirty than the Booteas, and seem to have an especial predilection for begging. When wishing to be very gracious they bow and gesticulate awkwardly, shewing their tongue at the same time. Their principal dress is coarse woollen clothes, and in lieu of turbans they wear caps or hats. Their beasts of burden are principally asses, which are perhaps, from bad treatment, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... arrived in Paris, dear Lady Elgin had another 'stroke,' and was all but gone. She rallied, however, with her wonderful vitality, and we left her sitting in her garden, fixed to the chair, of course, and not able to speak a word, nor even to gesticulate distinctly, but with the eloquent soul full and radiant, alive to both worlds. Robert and I sate there, talking politics and on other subjects, and there she sate and let no word drop unanswered by her bright eyes and smile. It was a beautiful sight. Robert fed her ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... She, now, received the semi-conscious burden of Dan Barry, and Buck Daniels stepped forward, close to the smoke. He began to shout directions which the two watchers behind the hill could not hear, though they saw his long arms point and gesticulate and they could see his speaking lips. But wild confusion was on the crowd of cowpunchers. They ran here and there. One or two brought buckets of water and tossed the contents uselessly into the ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... was thrown back and he spoke in a quick, passionate tone. He was answered in a soothing voice, then took up the word himself, and getting well started, went on faster and faster, gradually straightening himself, and beginning to gesticulate with his hands. Once he raised the right hand and spoke low and impressively, while both he and the interpreter bowed their heads. With every sentence the latter's manner became more interested, and his short interrogations more eager. At last, as the narrative flowed on, he did not ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... backward and made to terminate in rings, through which the fingers of the hand are put, while the figure is supported on the left by means of another iron wire. In this manner they may be made to advance or recede and to gesticulate, without the spectators observing the mechanism by which they are moved; and as the shadow of these figures is not observed on the paintings till they are opposite those parts which are not strongly shaded, ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... Mongol" (i.e., one with a queue, not a lama) pushed his way among the priests and began to harangue them violently. In a few moments he boldly grasped me by the arm. Fearing that trouble might arise, I smiled and said, in Chinese, that we were going away. The Mongol began to gesticulate wildly and attempted to pull me with him farther into the crowd of lamas, who also were becoming excited. I was being separated from Yvette, and realizing that it would be dangerous to get far away from her, I suddenly wrenched my arm free and threw the Mongol to the ground; ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... struck, and once the exact capital of life which seems to have been imparted to them ages ago is exhausted. With no apparent cause, we see death busy among them. "Suddenly the wasps begin to fall as though struck by lightning; for a few moments the abdomen quivers and the legs gesticulate, then finally remain inert, like a clockwork machine whose spring has run down to the last coil." (9/10.) This law is general; "the insect is born orphaned both of mother and father, excepting the social insect, and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... by this time, and Rochas continued to gesticulate and brandish his long arms in the obscurity. His historical studies had been confined to a stray volume of Napoleonic memoirs that had found its way to his knapsack from a peddler's wagon. His excitement refused to be pacified and all his book-learning burst from ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... we will notice every little thing and thus take warning." She paused a moment; then, "Did you hear me say thus?" she inquired. When I nodded, she gazed at me sadly. "People who belong to the highest class never gesticulate; they use spoken language exclusively. Furthermore, as to the thus. I wondered if an up-springing sense of courtesy persuaded you to refrain from hooting at such elegant verbiage. That would be a sign of benefit already derived from the ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... argued until he had snugly ensconced himself in a spacious armchair, had risen to his feet. I know not what nervous excitement, quite foreign to his temperament, had taken possession of him. He did not gesticulate as yet, but this could not be far off. As for the counsellor, he rubbed his legs, and breathed with slow and long gasps. His look became animated little by little, and he had "decided" to support at all hazards, if need be, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... stormy scene between Zara and Don Pedro. He wishes her to go into a convent, but she won't hear of it, and after a touching appeal, is about to faint when Roderigo dashes in and demands her hand. Don Pedro refuses, because he is not rich. They shout and gesticulate tremendously but cannot agree, and Rodrigo is about to bear away the exhausted Zara, when the timid servant enters with a letter and a bag from Hagar, who has mysteriously disappeared. The latter informs the party ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... woman's face flushed with pleasure, and she began making a weird noise for joy. Having seized the gingerbread she began to gesticulate still more rapidly, frequently pointing in one direction and passing her thick finger over her eyebrows and her face. Lukashka understood her and kept nodding, while he smiled slightly. She was telling him to give the girls dainties, and that the girls liked him, and that one girl, ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... tangible reason for all this I would not hesitate to name it, but I am not in the secret, and I have no right to guess. There are some sort of strings somewhere, and somebody pulls them. So much is evident on the face of things. Who work the contemptible fantoccini who gesticulate to the Ephesian hubbub of 'greatness' I neither know nor care, but it is simply out of credence that their motions ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... provoked him. They took a flat in the house my father owns in the Strada Chiatamone. After a time they got behind with the rent. He let them stay on for six months without paying, and then he turned them out. What should he do?" Doro began to gesticulate. He held his right hand up on a level with his face, with the fingers all drawn together and pressed against the thumb, and moved it violently backwards and forwards, bringing it close to the bridge of his nose, then ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... a group of labouring, half-submerged trees remained ahead of us, drawing very slowly nearer. I steered a course to avoid them. They seemed to gesticulate a frantic despair against the black steam clouds behind. Once a great branch detached itself and tore shuddering by me. We did, on the whole, make headway. The last I saw of Vreugde bij Vrede before the night swallowed it, was almost dead astern ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... distrust a balance because you bought it? Come and see." Lagune was now very excited and inclined to gesticulate and raise his voice. He invited the whole class incontinently to a series of special seances. "Not all at once—the spirits—new influences." But in sections. "I warn you we may get nothing. But the chances are ... ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... arcades echo afar with the triumphal marches of military bands; the sellers of sherbet and water-melons sing out their deafening flourish from throats of copper. People form into groups; they meet, question, gesticulate; there are gleaming looks, eloquent gestures, picturesque attitudes; there is a general animation, an unknown charm, an indefinable intoxication. Earth is very near to heaven, and it is easy to understand that, if God were to banish death from this delightful ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Tai-y then had their drink. But about this time old goody Liu caught the strains of music, and, being already under the influence of liquor, her spirits became more and more exuberant, and she began to gesticulate and skip about. Her pranks amused Pao-y to such a degree that leaving the table, he crossed over to where Tai-y was seated and observed laughingly: "Just you look at the way old goody Liu is ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... who had recovered something of his fury, damped to a certain extent by French's calm and cheerful demeanour, began to gesticulate with his stake. French turned his back upon him and proceeded to ascertain the extent of the wreck, and to advise a plan for its repair. As he stooped to examine the wagon for breakages, the wrathful Galician suddenly ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... of any consequence who entered was named by Massot to his companions. Mege, on being stopped by another member of the little Socialist group, began to fume and gesticulate. Then Vignon, detaching himself from a group of friends and putting on an air of smiling composure, descended the steps towards his seat. The occupants of the galleries, however, gave most attention to the accused members, those whose names ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... began to gesticulate furiously and utter a raging torrent of words. And he declaimed the argument of a play, in imitation of Seneca the Tragedian: and this drama was filled full of crimes committed by the holy man Giovanni. And the Accuser represented in succession all the characters ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... gave courage to our foes and Stacy Shunk advanced. His coming was a sign that reason was to be used before force, and with his first step he began to gesticulate and to protest his friendly purpose. But he could not argue with any acumen while his bare feet were traversing a carpet of briers, and a silence followed, broken by exclamations as he came on slowly but ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... as though afraid to enter; until, should any one happen to pass in or out of the door— whether Sasha or myself or one of the servants (to the latter he always resorted the most readily, as being the most nearly akin to his own class)—he would begin to gesticulate and to beckon to that person, and to make various signs. Then, should the person in question nod to him, or call him by name (the recognised token that no other visitor was present, and that he might enter freely), he would open the door gently, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Galaxy, galleon, garrulity, gesticulate, gormand, granivorous, grandiloquent, gravamen, gratuitous, gregarious, habitue, hallucination, harbinger, hardihood, heckle, hectic, hedonist, hegemony, heinous, herbivorous, heretic, hermaphrodite, heterodox, heterogeneous, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... descry small groups of his class, all similarly costumed in calzoneros, striped blankets, and glaze hats; all, like him, wearing uneasy looks. They gesticulate little, contrary to their usual habit, and converse only in whispers or low ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... those gentle sextons, have here succeeded miraculously in their work of preservation. They might have been carved yesterday, these innumerable people, who, everywhere—on the walls, on this forest of columns—gesticulate and, with their arms and long hands, continue with animation their eternal mute conversation. The whole temple, with the openings which give it light, is more beautiful perhaps than in the time of ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... stopped their sport, then mounted Sancho with no little kindness on his ass and bade him godspeed on his journey. The one-eyed Asturian compassionately offered the poor fellow some water to drink; but seeing this, Don Quixote commenced to gesticulate wildly, waving a tin flask in the air, and crying: "Sancho, my son, drink not water, for it will kill thee! See, here I have the blessed balsam: two drops ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and water. We know what the honest fellow means well enough. He is saying to himself, "God bless my girls and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in a more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, who are chirping over a bottle ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is one whose whole thought is to string words according to a set formula. The substance itself that he wishes to convey is of secondary importance. Orators who keep their thoughts upon the proper way to gesticulate in curves, impress nobody. ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard |
