"Gesture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hasten to ratify the queen's wishes," replied Robert, handing her the parchment with an imperious gesture: "you need only speak to the Count ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... said Carroll, indicating the stoop with a gesture, "and I will see if I can find ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was the most courageous act of old Jolyon's life; but no muscle of his face moved, no nervous gesture betrayed him. He kept his deep-set eyes steadily ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ejaculated the father, at length, lifting his hands above his head and then bringing them down with a gesture ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... stood before him, stroking his grayish beard with an automatic gesture and smiling in a friendly manner. He also was stocky, strongly-knit, and broad shouldered, and in his blue eyes, flashing jovially from beneath heavy eyebrows and a square forehead, there also gleamed determination and an unbending will. His straight nose, full lips, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... to ashes"— Hollow the clay on the coffin-lid dashes; Kneeling and motionless, wildly they pray, But they pray in their souls, for no gesture have they; Stern and standing—oh! look on them now. Like trees to one tempest the multitude bow; Like the swell of the ocean ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... understood so well how much grace and dignity action adds to the best oration that he thought it a small matter to premeditate and compose, though with the utmost care, if the pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not attended to. Upon this he built himself a subterraneous study which remained to our times. Thither he repaired every day to form his action and exercise his voice; and he would often stay there for two or three months together, shaving ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... consequently had poured out every drop of milk, in filling the last bowl. Of course, there could not possibly be any left. However, in order to let him know precisely how the case was, she lifted the pitcher, and made a gesture as if pouring milk into Quicksilver's bowl, but without the remotest idea that any milk would stream forth. What was her surprise, therefore, when such an abundant cascade fell bubbling into the bowl, that it was immediately filled to the brim, and overflowed upon the table! The two snakes that ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... stopped her. Judging from the glimpses I had as the party spoke together and leaned to look, it was quite a sensation. But apparently by common consent they left whatever move was to be made to the bride; and to my surprise this move was most unconventional. She got up with an abrupt gesture and started over to our table—alone. This, for a girl of her sort, was going some. I glanced doubtfully at ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... officers, neither by word nor gesture, made the slightest acknowledgment of this ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... cries. Looking back for a moment as we ran, I saw him pointing, and at the same time there was a movement of one of the other lattices, and I caught a glimpse of a white face and two hands thrust out with a despairing gesture, and knew that Marian was aware of our enterprise and that we had failed. Then the clamour on all sides grew louder, and men bearing lanterns and armed with swords and matchlocks burst out from the trees around the pavilion, and ran hither and thither, ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... asked Carre what she could send him that he would like, with a gesture that seemed to offer the kingdoms of the earth and ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... gesture with those who knew him, a touching of his left hand against his throat where ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... doorway, smiling suavely and wiping one hand upon the other in a gesture of solicitous meekness, emerged the tall and commanding figure of the Mongolian—or was he a Tibetan? He was attired now in the finest, the shiniest of Canton silks. His satin pants, of a gorgeous white, a courting ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... They seemed eager to push on, but the character of the road prevented our moving out of a foot's pace. On and on we went, till we saw a group of large trees ahead. Hoolan pointed to them with a significant gesture. His followers, with loud shouts, hurried us forward. I now observed that two of them had coils of rope under their arms. They were of no great strength, but sufficient to bear the weight of an ordinary man. We quickly reached the trees, when the outlaws ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... himself into another face upon his preferment, for his own was not bred to it. One whom fortune hath shot up to some office or authority, and he shoots up his neck to his fortune, and will not bate you an inch of either. His very countenance and gesture bespeak how much he is, and if you understand him not, he tells you, and concludes every period with his place, which you must and shall know. He is one that looks on all men as if he were angry, but especially on those of his acquaintance, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... hatches with the mariners, espied a pound or two of candles hanging on the mast, and being loath to stand there idle alone, she fell to and eat them up every one, supposing herself to have been at a jolly banquet, and shewing very pleasant gesture when her husband came up again ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... dignity, "at first I did not want to carry your baggage. I did not want to walk on this land." And with a sweeping gesture he indicated the Pennington grounds. "Then you cry a little because my boss is feeling bad about his old man. So I like you better. The old man—well, he has been like father to me and my mother—and we are Indians. My brothers, too—they ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... great sweeping gesture with his hand and all the soldiers saw the country round about set with rich yurtas and pastures covered with great herds of horses and cattle. On the plains appeared numerous horsemen on richly saddled steeds. The women were gowned in the finest of silk with massive silver rings in ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... his daughter, with a flush, "Oliver is as keen as mustard." The Dean made a little gesture of submission. She continued. "He doesn't like the beastliness out there for its own sake, any more than Marmaduke will. But he simply loves his job. He has improved tremendously. Once he thought he was the only man in the country who had seen Life stark naked, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... made a contemptuous gesture toward the canvas with his outstretched brush. "A mere daub," said he. "One step higher than painting a barn or a board ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... voice divine the chief with joyful mind Obey'd; and rested, on his lance reclined While like Deiphobus the martial dame (Her face, her gesture, and her arms the same), In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side Approach'd, and greets him thus with ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... have happened to her? He looked in vain for whatever was pursuing her, and saw that she was not being followed, but was swinging her arm above her head with a triumphant gesture. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... whether earthly or heavenly. There is not one of the circumstances of this capture of streams—the company, the water-rate, and the rest—that is not a sign of the ill-luck of modern devices in regard to style. For style implies a candour and simplicity of means, an action, a gesture, as it were, in the doing of small things; it is the ignorance of secret ways; whereas the finish of modern life and its neatness seem to be secured by a system of little shufflings ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... some fashion of his own, to combine, in a single movement, a snatch at the money with a gesture of polite deprecation. They parted with mutual salutations, two gentlemen who had carried an honorable transaction to a worthy close. A white- aproned waiter smiled upon them tolerantly and held open the door that Rufin might enter ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... lines, too, on her face which only show in hours of physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, for I consider it well for women to have some one to counsel them frankly in such matters, when she interrupted me with a gesture ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... is! But tell me,—I don't quite catch your meaning in the second act. Is this it?' and starting to her feet, she became in a moment another being. With a gesture, a look, an intonation, she was the woman of the play,—a woman taken by an instinct, long submerged, but which has floated to the surface, and is beginning to command her actions. In another moment she had slipped back ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... was streaming behind her. Her face seemed like a piece of delicate oval statuary, her steady eyes seemed fixed upon some point where the clouds and sea meet. She took no heed of, she did not even see, my gesture of farewell. I left her there inscrutable, a child with the face of a Sphinx. She had set me a riddle ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... forgiveness. I merely desire to say that I am guilty; to say that I am here to give myself into your hands. Do with me as you think best. If you prefer immediate action, I shall go with you without resistance. If you wish to let the law take its course, then"—here he made a slight gesture toward Jim Nichols, who stood beside him—"then I shall give myself into the hands of the sheriff. I await ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... to behead Yuan Shih-kai, but that his faltering hand described circle after circle in the air until his followers understood the meaning. In the vernacular the name of the great viceroy and the word for circle have the same sound; the gesture signified that the dying monarch's last wish was revenge on the man who had ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the act of brushing out the cloud of her dark hair, and with a strong young gesture ran the thread through the needle, knotting its end with a quirk of thumb ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... I want you to go. I tell you again that Fred would not believe that I was untrue to him. He believes in me utterly." She drew herself up with an imperious gesture and added: "I am ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... mane of his horse. Suddenly he made a gesture. This gesture consigned to the four winds his diplomatic career. "I accept," he said. "You will find me at the Continental. I confess that I have no love for this woman. She has robbed ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... winged arrow. Forward it leaped toward the target, and all eyes followed its flight. A loud uproar broke forth when it alighted, just without the center and grazing the shaft sent by Rob. The stranger made a gesture of surprise when his own eyes announced the result to him, but saw his error. He had not allowed for the fickle gust of wind which seized the arrow and carried it to one side. But for all that he was the first to ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... to Pelton." Cardon made a stabbing gesture with the stiletto, which he still held. "Maybe you don't really know how hot this thing's gotten. What we had to cut out ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... much for Captain Truck to seem calm when he was in a towering passion, and the outbreak at the close of this speech was accompanied by a gesture with a hand which was open, it is true, but from which none of the arts of his more polite days could erase the knobs and hue that had been acquired in ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and with a wild look and strange gesture, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now, Harry! O, ill done, Dick! O, well done, Harry! Harry has gained the day!" His fellow-labourers in the field did not know what to make of this rhapsody; but the next ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... take effect, but the report brought the savage to his knees. The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude of supplication. Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket. The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... indignant the gesture afresh the firmness contemptuous he struck him a violent blow with his fist I tried to keep my composure we'll ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... and with suppressed fury blazing in their eyes and revealing itself in their every gesture, swarmed aft and stood in reckless expectation of some further outrage. Nor ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... streamed down with tremendous force upon them; there was no shelter; and though all were wounded and parched with thirst, the Saracens of whom they besought water, pointing to their mouths and making signs of their extreme thirst, laughed in their faces, and signified by a gesture that it was scarcely worth the trouble to drink when they were likely so soon to be ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... bilateral relations; each nation has accused the other of harboring militants and arms smuggling; in an attempt to improve relations afer unilaterally imposing a visa requirement on Algerians in the early 1990s, Morocco lifted the requirement in mid-2004 - a gesture not reciprocated by Algeria; Algeria remains concerned about armed bandits operating throughout the Sahel who sometimes destabilize southern Algerian towns; dormant disputes include Libyan claims of about 32,000 sq km still reflected on its maps of southeastern Algeria and the FLN's assertions ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Whether it is danced occasionally nowadays I do not know. It is said to be very difficult to learn. Six dancers are required for the proper performance of it; and they must move in particular figures,—obeying traditional rules for ever step, pose, or gesture,—and circling about each other very slowly to the sound of hand-drums and great drums, small flutes and great flutes, and pandean pipes of a form unknown to ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... man loved his horse and took good care of him? Who is the man standing beside the horse? How would you describe his garments? What has he in his right hand? What is its use, and what does it signify? What does the gesture with his left hand indicate? What do you think of the building on the right? Is it new or old? What seems to be growing on the walls? What does this mean? What seems to be growing up between the stones of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... he said, "You had best know who I am." He leaned back and hooked his thumbs under his armpits in a prideful gesture. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... a fearful height, cast herself into the Nive: no one dared to follow down the ravine; and they saw her swimming for her life, battling with the roaring torrent; she reached the opposite shore, turned with an exulting gesture, although her basket of contraband goods was lost in the stream, and, darting off amongst the valleys, was lost to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... children of men. It was a deep, true thought which the old painters had, when they drew John as likest to his Lord. Love makes us like. We learn that even in our earthly relationships, where habitual familiarity with parents and dear ones stamps some tone of voice or look, or little peculiarity of gesture, on a whole house. And when the infinite reverence and aspiration which the Christian soul cherishes to its Lord are superadded, the transforming power of loving contemplation of Him becomes mighty beyond all analogies in human friendship, though one in principle with these. What ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... starting away from him with a gesture of horror, and marble could not have been whiter, nor a statue more frozen than she for a moment ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... at the sound of a strange step. But hoo's come at last,—and hoo's welcome, as long as hoo'll keep from preaching on what hoo knows nought about.' Bessy had been watching Margaret's face; she half sate up to speak now, laying her hand on Margaret's arm with a gesture of entreaty. 'Don't be vexed wi' him—there's many a one thinks like him; many and many a one here. If yo' could hear them speak, yo'd not be shocked at him; he's a rare good man, is father—but oh!' ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... voices: questions to Arthur, references to the letter, and explanations. Mr. Channing, amidst his deep thankfulness, gathered Arthur to him with a fond gesture. "My boy, there has been continual conflict waging in my heart," he said; "appearances versus my better judgment. But for your own doubtful manner, I should have spurned the thought that you were guilty. Why did you not ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... keeping exact time, every movement graceful and light as that of a happy elf. Hoops, wreathed with roses and covered with silver paper, were raised across her path. She bounded through them easily, smiling as she sprang. The white horse seemed to love her, and to obey her every gesture; and Mignon evidently loved the horse, for more than once in the pauses Alice saw her pat and caress the pretty creature. At length the final bound was taken, the last rose-wreathed hoop was carried away, Mignon ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... shoulders, his feet, his quietly dangling hand, and it seemed to him as if every joint of every finger of this hand was of these teachings, spoke of, breathed of, exhaled the fragrant of, glistened of truth. This man, this Buddha was truthful down to the gesture of his last finger. This man was holy. Never before, Siddhartha had venerated a person so much, never before he had loved a person as much ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... glorious pompe, then thine owne action. Expect no satisfaction for the same, Poets can render no reward but Fame. Yet this Ile prophesie, when thou shall come Into the confines of Elysium Amidst the Quire of Muses, and the lists Of famous Actors, and quicke Dramatists, So much admir'd for gesture, and for wit, That there on Seats of living Marble sit, The blessed Consort of that numerous Traine, Shall rise with an applause to [and, E and F] entertaine Thy happy welcome, causing thee sit downe, ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... almost as silent as the others, and he seldom addressed himself to her, only inquiring once after her grandmamma's health, and once calling Sophy out of the way when she was standing between the fire and—He finished with the gesture of command, whether he said 'Your mamma,' none ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... special, but you are just frittering away the days that might be filled with such noble work, and you have nothing to show for them but—smoke!" She swept her hand through the filmy cloud which Louis just then blew into the air, with a gesture of disdain. "Now you will think I am preaching, but indeed, indeed I am not, only, it hurts ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... stage parts off by heart, with their cues and "business," entrances and exits; and worked fully as hard as his pupil, reading over every sentence twenty times until Nick had the accent perfectly. He would have him stamp, too, and turn about, and gesture in accordance with the speech, until the boy's arms ached, going with him through the motions one by one, over and over again, unsatisfied, but patient to the last, until Nick wondered. "Nick, my lad," he would often say, with a tired but determined ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... audibly, as he waved his hand in a farewell gesture. "I hate to leave you when it comes to the pinch, but if I live I'll make my way somewhere's else. There's other places beside these mountains where a boy can get on, ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... the book up hurriedly and angrily. A moment after she had made up her mind what to do, and with the slightest gesture in the world, motioned Frank proudly and coldly to follow her back into the window. Had she been a country girl, she would have avoided the ugly matter; but she was a woman of the world enough to see that she must, for her own sake and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... the first red of the afterglow was spreading. She did not hear Menard; and he paused, a few yards away, to look at the clear whiteness of her skin and the full curve of her throat. Her figure and air, her habits of gesture and step, and carriage of the head, were those of the free-hearted maid of the seignory. They told of an outdoor life, of a good horse, and a light canoe, and the inbred love of trees and sky and running water. Here was none of the stiffness, the more than ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... transparent earnestness. Soon, as he lost thought of himself in his subject, his voice and manner changed; deeper notes, of which friends record the beauty, rang out, the sad eyes kindled, and the tall, gaunt figure, with the strange gesture of the long, uplifted arms, acquired even a certain majesty. Hearers recalled afterwards with evident sincerity the deep and instantaneous impression of some appeal to simple conscience, as when, "reaching his hands towards ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... reprobated their manner of marching, and once rode up to Captain Fournois, pushed him forwards with the point of a small cane, calling out, "Sacre Dieu! Advance; you walk like a turkey." In the first moment of indignation, the captain, striking at the cane with his sword, made a push, or a gesture, as if threatening the person of Bonaparte, who called out to his ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... probably the same as that with which a Christian priest averts demonic influences from the heads of his congregation in the act of blessing them. The many hands of Zeus Sabazios turned up in ancient excavations observe a similar gesture. All over the earth we meet with such periodically recurrent ceremonies of expelling demons and ghosts, who usually are given a meal before being hunted back into their graves. But an account of such ceremonies belongs rather to demonology than to the history of the worship ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... flung up her hands with a gesture of wild despair, and turned her face to the wall, speechless. The man, who was by trade a trieur or chief chiffonnier, seeing Plon's head appear, turned round and addressed ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... impressed on his mind; and half his labor is spared to the minister of God, when bringing such a man back to a life of virtue. There is scarcely any need of asking an Irishman, "Do you believe?" For, every word that passes his lips, every look and gesture, every expression of feeling, is in fact an act of faith. How easy after this ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... pockets and drew out one of those large iron compasses such as carpenters use, and opened it with a rapid movement. He then seized it in the centre and was thus armed with a sort of double-pointed stiletto, which he brandished with a threatening gesture. ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... quick rebuke Addressed to her companion, who would fain Have stayed her counterfeit departure; these Are signs not unpropitious to my suit. So eagerly the lover feeds his hopes, Claiming each trivial gesture for his own. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... old crone had behaved like one who sympathised fully with his trouble, and felt all that he felt, and like a mirror reflected every movement and gesture which the pain wrung from him. "Tonino," she now began in a tearful voice, "my dear Tonino, do you mean to tell me that you let your courage sink because the remembrance of some glorious moment in your life has perished out of your mind? You foolish child! You foolish ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... when the passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail. His hands now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone, he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the ground, and continued ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... was abrupt, and I could not avoid it. "You have your answer," I replied, with a gesture at the room, and taking out my cigar-case ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... it all, Monsieur," replied M. M. ——, with a deprecatory gesture; "you have reason, and I am desolated that it is the impossible that you ask of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... another and were distressingly affected; The Polka had never witnessed a more painful episode. Throwing a coin at the Minstrel, Sonora stopped him with an impatient gesture; the latter nodded understandingly at the same time that Nick, apparently indifferent to Larkin's collapse, began to dance a jig behind the bar. A look of scowling reproach instantly appeared on Sonora's face. It was uncalled-for since, far from being heartless and indifferent ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... her immensely, and away the two go in quest of material for the nest, the male acting as guard and flying above and in advance of the female. She brings all the material and does all the work of building, he looking on and encouraging her with gesture and song. He acts also as inspector of her work, but I fear is a very partial one. She enters the nest with her bit of dry grass or straw, and, having adjusted it to her notion, withdraws and waits near by while he goes in and looks it over. On coming ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Unfortunately, as he advanced, his anger increased at every step; and instead of the proper and lofty speech he had prepared as a prelude to his challenge, he found nothing at the tip of his tongue but a gross personality, which he accompanied with a furious gesture. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Aurelia. "Not Mr. Arden, for he would be in black," and at Harriet's disgusted gesture, "I beg your pardon, but I did not know you had a new he. Oh! surely you are not ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I could assume, determined not to vary my conduct, no matter which of the brothers it should turn out to be. But, to my great surprise, the gentleman before me gave me no opportunity to test my resolution. No sooner did he perceive me than he made a hurried gesture that I did not at that moment understand; and, just lifting his hat in courteous farewell, vanished from my sight in the thick bushes which at that place encumbered ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... zone had no terrors for Perry. With one hand thrust between the first and second buttons of his coat, and the other raised in that gesture with which the orator stills the sea of discontent, he stepped forward, and turning slowly about, brought his eyes to bear on the contumacious Bolum. He indicated the target. Every optic gun in the room was levelled at it. The upraised hand, the potent silence, the solemn ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... course, both Dactyl (name of a metrical foot) and finger. Strepsiades presents his middle finger with the other fingers and thumb bent under in an indecent gesture meant to suggest the penis and testicles. It was for this reason that the Romans called this ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... in a sort of stupor, shook his head several times, then passed his hand across his eyes in a gesture of despair. ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... and rantipole gentility. She was soliciting subscriptions for her poems; and assailed Goldsmith for his patronage; the great Goldsmith—her countryman, and of course her friend. She overpowered him with eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some of her own, with vehemence of tone and gesture, appealing continually to the great Goldsmith to know how he ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... often called upon to bind up dreadful wounds that would have made many women faint. From her earliest youth she had always been the kind of person to whom every one instinctively turns in an emergency. When Mr. Stevenson was ill she understood what he wanted by the merest gesture, and was always calm, reassuring, and self-reliant, never breaking down until after the crisis was past. She was a most delightful nurse otherwise, too, for when her children were sick in bed she entertained ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... arms, opened her hands, and made one wide, sweeping, inclusive gesture, and turned and ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... said, mockery in her eyes now. "I wonder why you dislike him so. He is so very harmless, really. My dear," she turned to the girl with a gesture of helplessness. "I am afraid that even in this affair Mr. Glover is seeing my ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... as the artful devices of the sex and expected nothing more from them. It both surprised and grieved Rose, for it did not sound like the Charlie she had left two years ago. But she only said, with a reproachful look and a proud little gesture of head and hand, as if she put the subject aside since it was not treated with respect: "I am sorry you have so low an opinion of women. There was a time when ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... opening, that everything was to be reformed, and that the Emperor, in accordance with a secret clause of the Treaty with the Allies, was about to grant a Constitution! Ivan Ivan'itch listened for a little in silence, and then, with a gesture of impatience, interrupted the speaker: "Polno duratchitsya! enough of fun and tomfoolery. Vassili Petrovitch, tell me ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and it is many years since I have seen such perfect dancing, as far as finish and accuracy of art and fulness of animal power and fire are concerned. Nothing could be better done, in its own evil way, the object of the dance throughout being to express, in every gesture, the wildest fury of insolence and vicious passions possible to human creatures. So that you see, though, for the present, we find ourselves utterly incapable of a rapture of gladness or thanksgiving, the dance which is presented ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... came out of one of the wooded knobs and galloped down the ridge road toward Canaan. She could see him plainly, his breadth of shoulders, his high-headedness, his good horsemanship. She got up quickly, swaying toward the window, her hands over her heart, with the strange little pushing gesture, as though she must push her heart down. The horseman went on ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... usual, but in Roman dress. Cleopatra seems to me, for all her Oriental dress, and although she wears a black wig, to be meant for Medea da Carpi; she is kneeling, baring her breast for the victor to strike, but in reality to captivate him, and he turns away with an awkward gesture of loathing. None of these portraits seem very good, save the miniature, but that is an exquisite work, and with it, and the suggestions of the bust, it is easy to reconstruct the beauty of this terrible being. The type is that most admired by the late Renaissance, and, in some ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the Rose and the seats of the saints, and then addressed a prayer to the Virgin, asking that Dante be permitted to look upon the Almighty Father. As he prayed, Beatrice and all the blessed ones clasped their hands to her who likes so well prayers of divine fervor. At a gesture from Bernard, the poet looked upward. Then what a radiant vision met his eyes! Three circles he saw of threefold color and one dimension. As he looked, one seemed to take our image, and again was ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... All at once, however, a smile spread itself over his face, and he gave his long hair another shake. Next he reached across the table, laid down his ticket, looked at each of the professors in turn and then at myself, and finally, wheeling round on his heels, made a gesture with his hand and returned to the desks. The professors stared blankly ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the door—evidently with no other object than to make a noise ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... hardly admits of a description in words. The warriors engage in a mimic combat, once more they charge, retreat, conquer, and are defeated, all in turns. In front of them, exciting them to new exertions, with word and gesture, undulate in a graceful dance of their own the "intombis," the young beauties of the tribe, with green branches in their hands, and all their store of savage finery glittering on their shapely limbs. Some of these ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... really was, the son of the Southern junk-dealer coming to the surface in that crisis, which moved him to the depths of his being, he threw back the bedclothes with a brutal, contemptuous gesture, tossing the innumerable gewgaws they held to the floor, and forcing the half-naked Levantine to jump to her feet with a promptitude most remarkable in that bulky personage. She roared under the outrage, gathered the folds of her tunic about her misshapen ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... his death, as the sword is, that pierces through a man's heart. Intemperance was the cause of his crime. He, the one I loved better than my own self, infinitely better, was made a murderer by it. I have lost him," says she, a throwin' out her arms with a wild gesture that skairt me. "I have ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... gave a half-contemptuous gesture. "Scold? I wouldn't care about that. He said he'd give me the horse-whip when I got ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... from my loop-holes I could tell that Aurelia was going over all this scene in her mind. While her eyes were fixed upon the stage, she recalled every word and gesture of Gerald's. Yet, his reproaches, his just complaints, hardly weighed upon her now. She was looking on the vacant seat beside her, and wondering when Frank would ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of the mind. It cannot be seen at a glance, understood in a moment, adopted by a gesture. It is a deep and profound philosophy of life. It proposes a transvaluation of values. It insists that the spiritual life is the only true life. It sets the invisible above the visible, and the eternal ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... breath, like a sigh that was too weary for sound, and her plump, placid left hand clutched her panting breast, while her right arm dropped again. All the passion of tragedy seemed to shriek in her hopeless gesture, and her silence was a ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... "PERHAPS" meant "CERTAINLY," but as he thought he could make more out of a tenant like the prince, he felt justified in speaking vaguely about the present inhabitant's intentions. "This is quite a coincidence," thought he, and when the subject of price was mentioned, he made a gesture with his hand, as if to waive away a question ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... tense with emotion as he answered: "I wish I were, but I can't—I must not!" Then, with the gesture of a brother, he bent and kissed her and turned away, blind to everything else but his pain, and, so stumbling and shaken, vanished from ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... into a laugh, at which she turned red as a rose, and with a sudden gesture, which shot a pain to the old man's heart, for it was that of her mother once ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... so much frantic violence of manner and gesture, that the sexton entertained some little apprehension that his intellects were unsettled by the shock of the intelligence. It was, therefore, in what he intended for a soothing tone that he attempted to solicit ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... threads of memory glimmered in his mind the small tallow rush-light which lit the dungeon flickered and went out. The chapel clock struck six. The King made a gesture which meant that the time of music was over, and Eustace went back to the canteen, where the men of the guard were playing at dice by the light of smoky rush-lights. The King lay down on his wooden pallet, whose linen was delicate and ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... in the form of caricature, it is hardly traceable in the English work of the present day; but the minds of our workmen are full of it, if we would only allow them to give it shape. They express it daily in gesture and gibe, but are not allowed to do so where it would be useful. In like manner, though the Byzantine influence repressed it in the early Venetian architecture, it was always present in the Venetian mind, and showed itself ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... he had not looked up to see the gesture. "Ye haven't got any call to-night to be offended with me, for I'm worth no more, unless the Lord see fit to lift me up agen, than the paper our bank-notes is written on; and I have just got one more thing to say, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... for slippin' off, and showin' a clane pair of heels; but the other sames to be a wicked sort. He swipes his fist jist so," making a furious gesture as he spoke, "and will be hanged if he goes till he taches thim silly ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... that audience cheered frantically, Peter with a gesture of despair threw down his dagger and once more appealed to their Majesties. The king rose and held up his hand, at the same time motioning to Morella's squires to take him from the woman, which, seeing their cognizance, Betty allowed them ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... her hands. "Such discrimination have I not seen," she exclaimed, "no, not in Israel! What else did he say?" she demanded, with a dramatic gesture. ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... need it!" Peter pleaded, carrying her a smoking cup. She protested again with a gesture, looked wearily into his eyes, and drank the soup docilely, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... multitudinous errands and jobs of printer's boy before he attained to the dignity of setting up type. 'So you're the devil,' said a judge to him on one occasion when the boy was called on as a witness. 'Yes, sir, in the office, but not in the Court House,' he at once answered, with a look and gesture that threw the name back on his lordship, to the great amusement of ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... she gasped. "Good Heavens! Was she mad? Did she attack you?" She gathered up her child with an instinctive, fierce gesture of protection. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... surroundings with lively interest shining in his gray eyes, one of which peered through a monocle encircled by a thin rim of tortoise shell. He watched the fussy customs officials, who, by some strange mischance, overlooked his belongings. Finally he made an impatient gesture. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... cloudy," he said, with a gesture implying disturbance of the brain. "Perhaps he should be bled, or ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... and urging the artillery forward with voice and gesture, Jackson passed through the ranks of his eager infantry; and then Rodes's division, rushing down the wooded slopes, burst from the covert, and, driving their flying foes before them, advanced against the trenches on the opposite ridge. Here and there the rush ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... for my dear father," she responded, putting her hand into his, with the very same loving, confiding gesture she had been wont to ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... said Biddy's mother, 'and true of other things as well as play.' Then she turned to Mrs. Fairchild: 'Have you been able to——' she was beginning, but with a little gesture of apology Mrs. Fairchild glanced at ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth |
