"Flapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight packed up in bundles, than when it lies flapping and ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... done all the work and the dinner was on the table she suddenly heard something flapping and whirling in the air, and she slipped behind the door. Then all the twelve ducks came sweeping in; but as soon as ever they crossed the ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... tiller towards him. At this the boat came up to the wind, and resumed her former course. But this was the very course on which he did not wish to go; so he pushed the tiller from him. Upon this the boat fell away; and the flapping, jerking, whipping, and snapping, which had so alarmed him before, recommenced, and alarmed him more than ever. For some time he continued this, until at length, as he brought the boat up to the wind once more, there came a fresher puff than any which had thus far blown, and the boat ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... in the air and along the steel, and met and mixed with the hard, light beating of hoofs. The sounds approached together like a sort of charge, and I stepped between the freight-cars, where I heard Lin ordering the girl inside to lie down flat, and could see the agent running about in the dust, flapping his arms to signal with as much coherence as a chicken with its head off. I had very short space for wonder or alarm. The edge of one of my freight-cars glowed suddenly with the imminent headlight, and galloping ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... Stevens's, however, was necessarily swept out of sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a state bordering on panic,—all but Mr. Lemuel Shackford. In his flapping linen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr. Shackford was seen darting excitedly from street to street and hovering about the feverish crowds, like the stormy petrel wheeling on the edges of a gale. Usually as chary of his sympathies as of his gold, he astonished every one by ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... step, and then all of a sudden a great gust came tearing along the gorge. I saw Ayesha lean herself against it, but the strong draught got under her dark cloak, and tore it from her, and away it went down the wind flapping like a wounded bird. It was dreadful to see it go, till it was lost in the blackness. I clung to the saddle of rock, and looked round, while, like a living thing, the great spur vibrated with a humming sound ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... facts, imparted to and discussed with Mr Rossiter, made the progress of the entente cordiale rapid. It was on the eighth day that Mr Rossiter consented to lunch with the Old Etonian. On the tenth he played the host. By the end of the fortnight the flapping of the white wings of Peace over the Postage Department was setting up a positive draught. Mike, who had been introduced by Psmith as a distant relative of Moger, the goalkeeper, was included ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... of yarn stockings for his feet, raised the window, and crept out on the snowy roof. There was a crust of ice on the snow, but Jim jabbed his heels through it and stood up in the moonlight, his legs bare, his single garment flapping gently in the light winter breeze. Then he started slowly toward the cats, sinking his heels in the snow each time for a footing, a piece of lath in his hand. The cats were on the corner of the roof above the arbor, and Jim ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Leonora are too good for me, and I pity you from my soul for being shut up in that old castle. I suppose it is like an old castle in Dauphiny, where I once spent a week, and where I was nearly frightened to death by the flapping of the old tapestry behind my bed, and by the bats which flew in through the broken windows. They say, however, that our chateaux and yours are something different. Of this I have ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... with a strange, solemn salute in front of Ciccio and Alvina. Then he turned on his heel and marched rapidly out of the station, his soiled soldier's overcoat flapping in the wind at the door. Ciccio watched him go. Then he turned and looked with haunted eyes into the eyes of Alvina. And then they hurried down the desolate platform in the darkness. Many people, Italians, largely, were camped ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... them and a drying-ground for their mothers' washing. In hot weather it was pleasant enough to play hide-and-seek or follow-my-leader up and down the long alleys of cool white linen, and if a sudden gust of wind or some unexpected turn of the game set the wet sheets flapping in the children's faces, their senses ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... condor had in his claws, dangling in the air, and apparently lifeless— it was Robert Grant. The bird had seized him by his clothes, and had him hanging already at least one hundred and fifty feet in the air. He had caught sight of the travelers, and was flapping his wings violently, endeavoring to escape ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... asking it and you I hope not at all. Let it go the way of all questions, I beg of you, for I am very little inclined to seek and hunt through all the heap that I have been tearing through this last hour with Pegasus curvetting and prancing and flapping his wings to the danger of my seat and of the ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... fair, and both wore them flapping at their backs, the only difference being that Laura, who was now twelve years old, had for the past year been allowed to bind hers together with a ribbon, while Pin's bobbed as they chose. Every morning ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... it is an interesting sight to see the old birds training their young ones to fly, by getting up above them and flapping their wings a few times until all the young ones imitate them. Then they hop from one twig to another, still flapping their wings, and the young ones follow suit and begin to find that their wings help them to balance; and finally they jump ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... comply or no, blowing out the candle she is guarding so tenderly with her little hand; other people at the windows, fishing for candles with lines and hooks, or letting down long willow-wands with handkerchiefs at the end, and flapping them out, dexterously, when the bearer is at the height of his triumph, others, biding their time in corners, with immense extinguishers like halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious torches; others, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... and began to squall. And to Tommy's alarm, all the rest of the hens heard her and began to cackle loudly. The noise was deafening. And Tommy made a dash for the little door, with old Mrs. White Hen in his mouth. She was flapping her wings and kicking as hard as she could. And Tommy was dismayed to find that he could not get her through the narrow door. Every time he tried to push through, one of Mrs. White Hen's legs, or a wing, or her head, struck against the edge of ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... linen, as she used to do in the fields of Saint-Romans, when she gave herself the treat of a grand washing-day, with twenty washerwomen, the clothes-baskets flowing over with floating whiteness, and the sheets flapping in the morning wind on the clothes-lines. She was in the midst of this occupation, forgetting her journey, forgetting Paris, even the place where she was, when a stout, thick-set, bearded man, with varnished boots and a velvet jacket, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Which of them said that and the other words murmured round it? But about midnight there sometimes rises, like a veiled figure suddenly woken, a heavy wind; and this now flapping through Trinity lifted unseen leaves and blurred everything. "Julian the Apostate"—and then the wind. Up go the elm branches, out blow the sails, the old schooners rear and plunge, the grey waves in the hot Indian Ocean tumble sultrily, and then ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... shores, here verdant and smiling with fertile meadows, and there wooded and shaded by pleasant groves or orchards. Ships lay around upon the face of the water, from whose masts floated the flag of many a nation, some slowly borne on by the tide, with the wide spread sails flapping idly against the mast, others swinging slowly, from their fast anchors. And queen of all this peaceful scene-appeared the metropolis of Australia, with its white houses, lofty spires, and thronged wharves-thus she appeared-sitting in the prime of youth, laying aside her maidenhood ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... melting into a cloud of tawny dust, the surge of ponies with their riders bending low above them; fronting them, our little group of cavalrymen formed into a hollow square, on foot, about our mounts; the Indians riding, in a wide circle around us, with blankets flapping, and streamer-decked lances waving high. And as I see, I hear again that wild, unearthly shriek and taunting yell and fiendish laughter. From every point the riflle-balls poured in upon us, while out ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... to marvel at the miracle, but proceeded to fulfil his task, and uproot the tree. He clasped it round the trunk, and made vigorous efforts to tear it up by the roots. At each effort fell a shower of leaves, that were instantly changed into birds of prey, which attacked the knight, flapping their wings in his face, with horrid screeching. But undismayed by this new annoyance, he continued to tug at the trunk till it yielded to his efforts. A burst of wind and thunder followed, and the hawks ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... heard many rustling sounds, but for some time could see nothing. Olaf, who was watching, suddenly laid down his pole, and seizing an oar gave the water two or three sharp slaps. Instantly half a dozen strange-looking birds started out, flapping and sprawling, with their legs dangling, one or two seeming to slide across the water, till they all disappeared ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... first saw nothing to cause the commotion, which was now heightened by the screams and flapping of all the birds. Then my eye fell upon the flat rock beside the stream from which the girl had risen. A grey serpent was moving slowly across the surface of the boulder, and the eyes in its flat triangular ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... a tame goose cannot fly very far, but many of them can fly a short distance, and fly fairly high too. The gray goose was terribly frightened, and instantly began flapping her great wings. She flew just high enough in the air so that Brushtail missed him when he sprang. If the Murmuring Brook had not been near, that gray goose would surely have been caught, because, as I have said, she cannot fly very far; but as it was she managed to fly ...
— Doctor Rabbit and Brushtail the Fox • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... Delaying and straying and playing and spraying. Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing, Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping, And curling and whirling and purling and twirling, And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing; And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... sufficiency of life and colour—parrokeets flashing from tree to tree, like emeralds made visible and vocable; village women swathed in red and yellow veils; prancing Rajput cavaliers, straight from the Middle Ages; ox-carts and camels—unlimited camels, with flapping lip and scornful eye; a sluggish stream of life, rising out of the landscape and flowing, from dawn to dusk, through the seven Gates of Jaipur. And there, on the low spurs, beyond the walls, he sighted the famous Tiger Fort, and the marble tomb of Jai Sing—he that built the rose-red City; challenging ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... come. The sleet and the East wind continued. And at the end of four hours another came. The driver was urging it on as fast as he could, as though he were making the most of the daylight, his cabby's cape was flapping wildly about him; inside the cab a man in evening dress was being jolted up and down by the unevenness of ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... come! they come!" quickly followed by bang, bang, bang along the glade; and here indeed they are, at first by twos and threes, and then a compact flight, whirling along with appealing cries of love, fluttering, and flapping their wings, and pursuing one another from bush to bush. They show now neither fear nor circumspection, and crazy, blind, and deaf, scarcely seem to notice the noise, the flashes, or the cries of the sportsmen. At length all is in complete ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... him wandering all over the place. He has no sooner stated his subject than he begins to talk about something else; it reminds him (like Lincoln) of a story which has nothing to do with it; and that story reminds him of another, and so on, till the original thesis is left flapping in the breeze somewhere at the vanishing-point in the tortuous perspective and vainly signalling the essayist back. It was the same, or nearly the same, with the English essayists quite down to the beginning of the last century, when they began to cease being. The writers ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... followed Mr Wentworth—a broad, shabby, indistinct figure, who stood with his back to the others, looking vaguely out of the window into the darkness. Over these two the night air blew with no small force between the open windows, making the candles on the centre table flare wildly, and flapping the white tablecloth. An occasional puff from the cigar floated now and then across the room. It was a pause before ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... minute Mercer was by my side, the fish was drawn in close up amongst the sedge growing on the bank. My companion went down flat, reached a hand into the water, and scooped out my capture, which lay now flapping feebly in all the glory of its golden scale armour, ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... let me do the interpreting. Father Noble is going to take me under his big, flapping capes and speak a ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... the object he carried. It was a bird, apparently a pigeon of some sort. It seemed to have been stunned, but as Arthur held it out it stirred, then struggled, and in a moment was flapping wildly in ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... came up out of the south, and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset and fell. I remember that—though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know—flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple—a black thing ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... His tall, lean figure, stooping at the shoulders, his big, smooth-shaven face, mildly abstracted behind his glasses, but retaining always something of a keen and formidable character, his soft hat and great flapping ulster, made up a noticeable personality anywhere. He seemed alone to crowd the little platform; the small man who accompanied him was lost ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... liquid fire between my lips. My saviours, who were Dutchmen, had lifted me from the spar, and were plying me with spirits as I lay more dead than alive in the stern-sheets. I looked up. The sails of the brig, flapping against the wind, towered above me, and her dark hull as she swung over us hid the sun. The boat pulled round her stern to reach the lee-ladder. As we passed I glanced up, and my eyes fell on two words, ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... going to be a good day. I ran down the hotel corridor to look at the flags flying over the legation quarter, the flags of most of the nations of the world. The sight was reassuring. No wind at all, apparently; they were all idly flapping from their poles, whereas yesterday they had been frantically tearing at them, whipped out stiff by a piercing, cold north wind. So we took rickshaws and were soon running along toward the Hankow station, where we found a large crowd of foreigners ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... immiscibility; incoherence; looseness &c. adj.; laxity; relaxation; loosening &c. v.; freedom; disjunction &c. 44; rope of sand. V. make loose &c. adj.; loosen, slacken, relax; unglue &c. 46; detach &c. (disjoin) 44. Adj. nonadhesive, immiscible; incoherent, detached, loose, baggy, slack, lax, relaxed, flapping, streaming; disheveled; segregated, like grains of sand unconsolidated &c. 231, uncombined ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... away and formed the almost secure nesting-places of hundreds upon hundreds of birds, whose necks stood up like so many pegs against the sky, giving the rocks a peculiar bristling appearance. But the sense of security for the young birds was upset by the long flapping wings of a couple of great black-backed gulls which kept on sailing round and round, waiting till the opportunity came to make a hawk-like swoop and carry off some well-fatted, half-feathered young auk. One met its fate, in ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... hair gone grey, Fallen eyebrows, eyes gone blind and red, Their laughs and looks all fled away, Yea, all that smote men's hearts are fled; The bowed nose, fallen from goodlihead; Foul flapping ears like water-flags; Peaked chin, and cheeks all waste and dead, And lips that are ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... walk with him, or run with him, or swim with him? Who on all the country side, save only Boy Jim, would have swung himself over Wolstonbury Cliff, and clambered down a hundred feet with the mother hawk flapping at his ears in the vain struggle to hold him from her nest? He was but sixteen, with his gristle not yet all set into bone, when he fought and beat Gipsy Lee, of Burgess Hill, who called himself the "Cock of the South Downs." It was after this ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... herbage in all directions wherever a field-mouse had made her way to her nest or an active mole had done what he could to diversify the unbroken plain. Wherever the ground sank, stagnant water lodged, and there hollow willow-trees stretched their crippled arms in the air, their boughs flapping in the wind, and their faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... branches; they seem to come from the swamp life underneath the branches, at the roots of trees. There's a ceaseless stir as of a myriad of reptiles creeping in the slime. Listen long enough and you will fancy that you hear the whirr and rush of innumerable crabs, the flapping of innumerable fish. Now and again a more distinctive sound emerges from the rest—the croaking of a bull-frog, the whining cough of a crocodile. At such sounds Hatteras would start up in his chair and cock his head like a dog in a room that ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... storm was at hand. A great shadowy cloud, advancing with inconceivable rapidity, already filled half the sky, and as the boy gazed into this cloud, he saw to his astonishment that it was not a cloud at all, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands of great gray birds, flapping their long wings. The shadow of the birds fell over the platform on which the cruel Malefico sat waiting for the King and the bird-boy to be brought forth, and then ceased moving even as a ship ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... in time to see only the tail end (some two hours) of the food presentation. In Mataafa's house three chairs were set for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house without the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green in front was surrounded with sheds, some of flapping canvas, some of green palm boughs, where (in three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by villages in a fine glow of many-hued array. There were folks in tapa, and folks in patchwork; there was every colour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hordes! two-legged snakes! Well indeed I understand That those flapping pantaloons Must ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... with some wood, consisting of an old venerable plantation of mountain pine, that hung on the convex sweep of a large knoll away to my right,—with a broad sheet of lake that curled to the fresh arrowy breeze of morning, on which a variety of water-fowl were flapping their wings or skimming along, leaving a troubled track on the peaceful waters behind them; there were also deep intersections of precipitous or sloping glens, graced with hazel, holly, and every description of copse-wood. On other ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... the easiest thing of all," replied the young aviator; "you've watched a wild duck get up many a time, haven't you, Mr. Quackenboss; well, we do just the same, only instead of flapping our wings, we start the engine, and skim along the surface for a little distance, then elevate the planes, and immediately begin to soar upward. And it does the stunt as gracefully as anything you ever saw. Some time I hope to give you a chance to see how it works. When we ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... play may strike the fickle public, and on the whole the doubt and fear overbalance the certainty and pride, for there is more of the pale grey than of the orange, and the whole thought-form vibrates like a flag flapping in a gale of wind. It will be noted that while the outline of the orange is exceedingly clear and definite, that of the grey ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... upon the wasp, and avenged she was. Almost springing into the air, she made a grand stroke at him, as he receded from her, hit him, and dashed him against the wall. He fell to the floor, momentarily disabled, but flapping and buzzing. Then down she stooped, and with three great whacks with her bonnet she finished the battle. The ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... fury and defiance, and tearing open his vest he drew forth with one hand a dagger and with the other a large hussar pistol. The broken-winged young eagle had turned upon its pursuers, hacking at them with its wounded beak and flapping its still ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... The faithful, full of wonder, kneel or stand about the 'santi luoghi,' marvelling at the relics, and repeating to one another the miracles of the saint. The same bustle pervades the Church of San Domenico. Masses are being said at one or other chapel all the morning, while women in their flapping Tuscan hats crowd round the silver image of S. Catherine, and say their prayers with a continual undercurrent of responses to the nasal voice of priest or choir. Others gain entrance to the chapel of the saint, and kneel before her altar. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... gold, and Baby ferns, tucked Within sheltering gnarled roots! And mossy mounds, starred With Trillium and Crane's bill; And patches of lavender sunlight, (No, it's wild Phlox, In the flickering light)— And fire-flies and flapping owls, At twilight, and furry rabbits, Bobbing ahead up ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... a sharp, musical rattle rang out as it ran below, for the hollow hull flung back the metallic clinking like a sounding-board. When the cable was short-up, they grasped the halyards and the big gaff-mainsail rose flapping up the mast. They set it and turned to the head-sails, for though, strictly speaking, a sloop carries only one, the term is loosely applied in places, and as Vane had changed her rig, there were two of ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... the moonlight, with his neck stretched out in front of him and his four ungainly legs in the air all together, it is three more camels doing the same thing. They looked like a giant's washing blown off the line flapping before a high wind, and made hardly more noise. The whack-whack-whack of sticks on the beasts' rumps was as distinct as pistol-shots, but you hardly heard ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... heard them at night working away so hard and flapping and spattering with their tails, that I could imagine there were fifty men at work instead of a hundred of these small animals, but they work by day and by night, and never seem tired, till the dam is sound and their work ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... was going on briskly, so that they had no time left to chatter, and they only thought of their lines. Every moment big heavy fish were drawn in on deck, and slapped down with a smack like a whip-crack; there they wriggled about angrily, flapping their tails on the deck, scattering plenty of sea-water about, and silvery scales too, in the course of their death-struggle. The sailor who split them open with his long knife, sometimes cut his own fingers, in his haste, so that his warm blood ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... small bay. It was a wonderful summer afternoon; white clouds were rioting everywhere in the clear, blue sky; the water was astir with white-masted boats, dipping their sails toward the waves like the flapping ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... excitement of the catch. The young men left their flirtations for the boat's side, where they could get a better view. A great deal of chaff went on between Captain Davis and the captain of the menhaden steamer. Tom Joy amused himself by bargaining for blue-fish, and actually bought three big flapping specimens for a dollar and a quarter. They were deposited on the bottom of the "Cornelia," where they leaped painfully up and down, while the girls retreated for refuge to the upper deck, till Captain Davis at last caught the fish and stowed ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... This scene is repeated again and again, until perhaps several pairs of banderillas are depending from the shoulders of the maddened animal. The capeadores have not been idle, and the bull, repeatedly charging them and meeting only the empty flapping of the capas—the scarlet cloaks which the bull-fighters charged with this office wield—works himself into a paroxysm of rage, which must be seen to be understood. Oftentimes the capeadores are severely injured; sometimes ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... that same reckless rider on his black mule, assisted by a horde of shouting Mexicans. But at the touch of the cold water, two days from the snow beds of the White Mountains, even the hardy bucks stepped back and shook their heads defiantly. In vain with showers of rocks and flapping tarpaulins the herders stormed the rear of the press—every foot was set against them and the sheep only rushed about along the edge of the herd or crowded in close-wedged masses against the bluff. At last a line of men leaped into the enclosure, holding up a long canvas wagon-cover and, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... a great flapping of wings and Ducky Waddles came wabbling after them. "Why don't you wait for a fellow," he panted. "I'm all out of breath trying to catch up to you. I ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... man, to see some friend. But of all the young professional men he had met in Chicago, there was not one he could think of approaching. On his way to his rooms he passed the Lake Front Park, where some companies of troops were encamped. Tents were flapping in the breeze, a Gatling gun had been placed, and sentries mounted. The bronzed young soldiers brought in from the plains were lounging about, watching the boulevard, and peering up at the massive walls of the Auditorium. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail, Death! was the helmsman's hail, Death without quarter! Mid-ships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hulk did ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... fell calm, and she lay laving her sides in the smooth water, as the swell, which is seldom wanting there, passed under her keel. For many hours she did not move her position; the big mizzen, which had been flapping with reports like thunder, was furled; the other sails were brailed up. Roger, who was always of a social disposition, took the opportunity of having a talk with some of the crew. Among them was a black, who, although still very young, being ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... have seen the carbines, for he raised himself a trifle, and Payne saw his face under the flapping hat. It was drawn and gray, but there was no sign of yielding or consternation in the half-closed eyes. Then he lurched in his saddle as from exhaustion or weariness, and straightened himself again with both ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... spectacle. All was stillness, where so lately had arisen the shout of the impetuous, but intrepid whites, and the whoop and yell of the savages, as they closed in deadly conflict; not a sound was to be heard but the hoarse cry of the vulture, flapping her wings and mounting into the air, alarmed at the intrusion of man. Those countenances, which had so lately beamed with daring and defiance, were unmeaning and inexpressive; and what with the effect produced on the dead bodies, by the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... cavern'd Dirce flows Do white-arm'd maidens chaunt my lay, Flapping the while with laurel-rose The honey-gathering tribes away; And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues Lisp your Corinna's early songs; To her with feet more graceful come The verses that have dwelt ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... people—men, women, and children—there came scarcely a sound, save raucous whispers, a moan or a sigh quickly suppressed. A grim silence reigned in this thickly-peopled camp; only the crackling of the torches broke that silence now and then, or the flapping of canvas in the wintry gale. They worked on sullen, desperate, and starving, with no hope of payment save the miserable rations wrung from poor tradespeople or miserable farmers, as wretched, as oppressed as themselves; no hope ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... he set about replenishing the fire, and presently his companion reappeared. The large, flapping hat sat oddly upon her small head with its tightly drawn-back hair, but the straight lines of the all-enveloping pink gown brought out the slender curves of her childish figure, and she didn't ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... sunshine, white butterflies alighted on the newly-opened yellow flowers, and beside one of the numerous ditches intersecting the wide plain stood a stork, snapping at a fine frog; the poor fellow soon writhed in its enemy's red beak. One gulp—the merry jumper vanished, and its murderer, flapping its wings, soared high into the air. On flew the bird over gardens filled with blossoming fruit-trees, trimly laid-out flower-beds, and gaily-painted arbors, across the frowning circlet of walls and towers that girdled the city, over narrow houses with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... shot, if I fired, they all flew up, but one, which, though it seemed to be trying hard enough, could not raise its body out of the water. As my canoe drifted in nearer, I once or twice raised my rifle to fire at it; but it acted so strangely, flapping the water with its wings, and tugging away at swimming, without appearing to gain scarce a single foot, that I soon laid down my piece and concluded I would try to take it alive, supposing it must have got fast tangled with ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... shaken up together were we several times that night, that it's a wonder to me, considering the hurry, that we sorted ourselves out correctly with our own particular legs and arms. And although we in the middle of the canoe did some very spirited flapping, our whirlpool-breaking was no more successful than M'bo and Pierre's fending off, and many a wild waltz we danced that night with the waters of ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... was tied to the shore but had drifted several feet from the bank. They had rushed away so quickly that all of their firearms were in or near the tent, which was but partly raised, one end flapping idly in the faint breeze that was blowing. The campfire had been started with a few dry twigs and cedar boughs and cast only a faint gleam around ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... backward and forward with distraction in their looks, halloaing to one another, and undetermined what they should attend to first. Some clung to the yards, endeavouring to unbend the sails that were split into a thousand pieces flapping in the wind; others tried to furl those which were yet whole, while the masts, at every pitch, bent and quivered like twigs, as if they would have shivered into innumerable splinters! While I considered this scene with equal terror ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... jolting, And tottering and staggering, And lumbering and slithering, And hurrying and scurrying, And worrying and flurrying, And rushing and leaping and crushing and creeping; Feathers a-flying all—bonnets untying all— Petticoats rapping and flapping and slapping all, Crinolines flowing and blowing and showing all Balmorals, dancing and glancing, entrancing all; Feats of activity— Nymphs on declivity— Mothers in extacies— Fathers in vextacies— Lady-loves whisking ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... pavement outside the Art and Book Company depot was a newsboy at the trot, yelling something as he came, with a poster flapping from one arm and a bundle of papers under the other. The priest could not catch what he said, but he saw the young man suddenly stop and then turn off sharply towards the boy, and he saw him, after fumbling in his pocket, produce a halfpenny and a ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... but poor Will in his fright tumbled down, and lay screaming. Ned and Polly had reached the wall, and, looking back, saw that their shadows had not followed. Ned's stood before Will, brandishing his pole; and Polly's was flapping a shadowy sun-bonnet with all its might. As soon as they saw that, back they went,—Ned to threaten till he broke his pole, and Polly to flap till the strings came off. As if anxious to do its part, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and tough, similar to India-rubber. The flexible kind forms exclusively on one side of the basin and spreads over it like an immense, sombre blanket; and, as it floats down in slow procession to the central abyss, occasionally rises and falls with a flapping motion, by force of the generated gases underneath, like a sheet shaken ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... a phantom-like ship came into view. About the great, green eye there bobbed small yellow dots. The wanderers could hear a far-away creaking of unseen tackle and flapping of shadowy sails. There came the melody of the waters as the ship's prow thrust ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... South, who, with a lacrosse stick over his shoulder and an attire consisting wholly of a pair of flapping white trunks, a faded green shirt, and a pair of canvas shoes, had come out to join the ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... field. As soon as his tail was cool he flew to the town-hall and rang the bell. The citizens knew that they were expected to come there, and although they were afraid to go, they were still more afraid to stay away; and they crowded into the hall. The Griffin was on the platform at one end, flapping his wings and walking up and down, and the end of his tail was still so warm that it slightly scorched the boards as he ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... in earnest, and if I offered to let the boldest listen, by holding out my watch to him, he would draw back alarmed, although smiling, while the band would break into an outburst of joy; the ducklings flapping their wings, the white geese cackling, and the chickens going chk, ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... language, and watched the new performance with silent ecstacy. He had never heard or seen anything like it in the whole course of his life. Philip used to drive Maggie away, take up poor Pup and stroke him, while Maggie, the villain, hopped around, flapping her wings and giving ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... much or little. It might mean a temporary breakdown from overfatigue or a sickening for deadly illness. She looked at a group of cropping sheep in a field and at a flock of rooks which had just alighted near it with cawing and flapping of wings. She kept her eyes on them merely to steady herself. The thoughts she had brought out with her had grown heavier and were horribly difficult to control. One must not allow one's self to believe the worst will come—one must not ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... secular cypresses like straws. In the colorless sky the sun seemed weary of the violence of the wind, which for six days had been sweeping over its face. And like the wind-blown trees Pascal stood firm, his garments flapping like banners, his beard and hair blown about and lashed by the storm. His breath caught by the wind, his hands pressed upon his heart to quiet its throbbing, he saw the train flying in the distance across the bare plain, a little ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... sleep; and when the fifteenth came, every one, at the fifth watch, beginning from dowager lady Chia and those who enjoyed any official status, appeared in full gala dress, according to their respective ranks. In the garden, the curtains were, by this time, flapping like dragons, the portieres flying about like phoenixes with variegated plumage. Gold and silver glistened with splendour. Pearls and precious gems shed out their brilliant lustre. The tripod censers burnt the Pai-ho incense. In the vases were placed evergreens. Silence and stillness ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... entreaty would be vain, and time is already flapping his wings, loaded with inevitable ruin, over yon devoted city and its inhabitants. Thy father shall be safe—trust that to me; and trust me, too, that what I promise I can perform. But thou, my loved one, thou must not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... to look out but somehow the stories get in through the window. For instance, I would not be so rude as to stare at the family washing which once a week is hung on the flat top of a neighbor's garage, but those clothes up there have a way of flapping in the wind so conspicuously that I cannot help see. There is the man of the house and his, shall I say garments, kick themselves about like some staid old deacon having his fling. Then there is the middle-sized ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... the lady herself hesitated as she stepped from the tonneau. There was no answer. Holding the flapping ends of her veil away from her face, she turned and looked fairly at the driver ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... replenish'd Plenty's horn, And Ceres laugh'd amid her seas of corn.— Bird, beast, and reptile, spring from sudden birth, Raise their new forms, half-animal, half-earth; 410 The roaring lion shakes his tawny mane, His struggling limbs still rooted in the plain; With flapping wings assurgent eagles toil To rend their talons from the adhesive soil; The impatient serpent lifts his crested head, And drags his train unfinish'd from the bed.— As Warmth and Moisture blend their magic spells, And brood with mingling wings the slimy dells; Contractile earths in sentient ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... rain-coats flapping out from under dripping umbrellas started briskly off to join the longer procession that was converging from every direction toward College Hall. Roberta and Nan were ahead under one umbrella, chatting ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... revolting in the tones of his mirth, that Anthony quickened his pace to avoid its painful repetition. A few minutes more brought him in sight of the miser's cottage. No light gleamed from the broken casement, and both the door and the window of the hovel were wide open, and flapping in the night wind. Surprised at a circumstance so unusual, Anthony hastily entered the house. The first object that met his sight ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... my arm around my wife, and my hand before her eyes; and while I looked only at her, in that storm of terrible cries, of flapping canvas, rushing water, and crashing timbers, the Spaniard clambered like a catamount upon the poop, that was now high above the broken forepart of the ship, and fired his pistol at ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the Gorgons broad awake than they hurtled upward into the air, brandishing their brass talons, gnashing their horrible tusks and flapping their huge wings so wildly that some of the golden feathers were shaken out and floated down upon the shore. And there, perhaps, those very feathers lie scattered till this day. Up rose the Gorgons, as I tell you, staring horribly about, in hopes of turning somebody to ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... be in such a moment as the noontide of yesterday—when the dead calm overtook us, half way between Lerici and Sestri, and I sat in the stern of our felucca, looking with a sort of despairing languor over the smooth purple sea, which scarcely heaved round us, while the flapping sails drooped useless round the masts, and the rowers indolently leaning on their oars, sung in a low and plaintive chorus. I sat hour after hour, still and silent, sickening in the sunshine, dazzled by its reflection on the water, and overcome with deadly nausea: I believe ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... busy looking after Charlie, flapping the towel and working on him with the oxygen, that, if you'll believe me, it wasn't for quite a time that I thought of glancing around to see how the thing had ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... stopped, and the men had taken their chutes and thrown them into the wagons, and they had climbed up into their seats, and they had rattled off, in a procession, but they had left the cellar windows flapping. ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... sound and shock; 'T is of the wave, and not the rock; 'T is but the flapping of the sail, And not a rent made by the gale. In spite of rock and tempest roar, In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea. Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee: Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a chariot drawn by twelve skeleton horses. With the sceptre in his hand, he strikes the bony backs of his steeds. He stands erect, his shroud flapping behind him in billowy folds. He turns, as if upon a racecourse; his eyes are flaming and ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... stretched wide expanses of heather and gorse, broken up by great masses of rock: from a rise in the road he looked about him and saw no sign of a human habitation and heard nothing but the rush of the wind across the moors and the plaintive cry of the sea-birds flapping their way to the cultivated land beyond the barrier of hills. And from that point he saw no sign of any fall or depression in the landscape to suggest the place which he sought. But at the next turn he found ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... glimpses he had had in the streets, as he drove from the volor station outside the People's Gate, of the old peasant dresses, the blue and red-fringed wine carts, the cabbage-strewn gutters, the wet clothes flapping on strings, the mules and horses—strange though these were, he had found them a refreshment. It had seemed to remind him that man was human, and not divine as the rest of the world proclaimed—human, and therefore careless and individualistic; ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... had interrupted the speech of the little town's Mayor. A born horsewoman, she had watched with breathless admiration the onrush of the loose-rein riders—the graceful swaying of their bodies, and the flapping of soft hat brims, as their horses approached with a thunder of pounding hoofs. Her eyes had sparkled at the reckless swerving of the horses when it seemed that the next moment the back-surging crowd would be trampled into the ground. She had wondered at the precision with which the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... called softly to the little black dog, that came eagerly, wagging his burr-matted tail. She laid her hand on its head when the dog jumped up to greet her. She smiled faintly while she fondled its silky, flapping ears. ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... his quick ways, his shortness, his bushy little grey whiskers and his pepper and salt suit with its flapping pockets, Mr. Simcox was very like one of those funny little jack-in-the-boxes they used to sell. He said to her, regarding her with very apparent pleasure and esteem, "Well, that's very nice of you. ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... foretop-man, on the lee yardarm, with the earring in hand, was struck by the wild, flapping sail, and overboard he fell. Murray, who had now come on deck, saw the accident, and the instant the ship could be brought to the wind, ordering a boat to be lowered, he cried out for volunteers to man her. Adair sprang into her, and Snatchblock took the bow oar. Other hands followed. The man's ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... pension check was all gone. Oswiak's was jumping. The Grandsons of the Pioneers were on the juke singing the Man from Mars Yodel and old Paddy Shea was jigging in the middle of the floor. He had a full seidel of beer in his right hand and his empty left sleeve was flapping. ...
— The Altar at Midnight • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... along the shore and against the sides of the boat in the lagoon. The ghostly outline of her white sails was just visible through the trees, idly rocking to and fro in her calm anchorage, her sheets flapping gently against the mast. Beyond lay the dim blue shapes of other islands floating in the night, and from all the great spaces about us came the murmur of the sea and the soft breathing of great woods. The odours of the wilderness—smells of wind and earth, of trees and water, clean, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... was not abundant, the garrison had spared these sacred geese. They were now to be amply repaid, for the geese alone heard the noise of the ascending Gauls, and in alarm began a loud screaming and flapping of wings. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... ten or a dozen wives at a time. As regards the females, they are much more solicitous for the welfare of their progeny in a wild state than a tame. Should a tame duck's duckling get into mortal trouble, its mother will just signify her sorrow by an extra "quack," or so, and a flapping of her wings; but touch a wild duck's little one if you dare! she will buffet you with her broad wings, and dash boldly at your face with her stout beak. If you search for her nest amongst the long grass, she will try no end of manoeuvres to lure you from it, her favourite ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... 6. - It is a magnificent glimmering moonlight night, with a wild, great west wind abroad, flapping above one like an immense banner, and every now and again swooping furiously against my windows. The wind is too strong perhaps, and the trees are certainly too leafless for much of that wide rustle that we both remember; there is only a sharp, angry, sibilant ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... jumped up with nightmare, where was the jubilant crow of the cock? For the cock, being almost as invincible as they were, never could deny himself the glory of a crow when the bullet came into his neighborhood. He replied to every volley with an elevated comb, and a flapping of his wings, and a clarion peal, which rang along the foreshore ere the musket roar died out. But before the girl had time to ponder what it was, or wherefore, round the corner ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... compliments to Miss Pynsent. But he saw that there was no help for it. Sir John would be offended if he did not go, and really he had no engagement. And he rather wondered how Miss Pynsent would look in Court attire. She had worn a plain cotton and a flapping straw hat ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Dakotas believe that thunder is produced by the flapping of the wings of an immense bird which they call Waknyan—the Thunder-bird. Near the source of the Minnesota River is a place called "Thunder-Tracks" where the foot-prints of a "Thunder-bird" are seen on the rocks twenty-five ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... heart. This is not necessary in ordinary class work, as the aim there is to teach as many good songs as possible, in order to form a standard of real musical literature. But at the set performance nothing is more delightful than to see children rise, and, without any flapping of pages, or uncomfortable attitudes for seeing the words in a book, sing straight from their hearts. However simple the music or the words, the effect will be well worth ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... not handsome like the Turks and Circassians. They are short and thick; their faces are broad and bony, their eyes very small, and only half open; their noses flat, their lips thick, their chins pointed, their ears large and flapping, and their skin ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... of the one remaining lighted candle, the flapping, swaying shape and its hideous moaning whistle became invested with fresh dread, augmented as it was by that volume of ear-piercing echoing sound. Suddenly the last candle winked out, leaving the dismayed avengers in Stygian darkness. Their sharp cries and frightened exclamations ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... up once more dead in the wind's eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and down, north, south, east, and west, the Hispaniola sailed by swoops and dashes, and at each repetition ended as she had begun, with idly-flapping canvas. It became plain to me that nobody was steering. And, if so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk, or had deserted her, I thought, and perhaps if I could get on board, I might return ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... salty breeze was blowing across the sloop and the Atlantic rollers were becoming longer. The "Sue" was beginning to roll heavily, rising and falling to the accompaniment of creaking boom, rattling mast rings and flapping jibs. Keeping on one's feet was becoming more and more difficult with the passing ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... that they were of the middle class; their demeanour, that they were father and daughter. The girl moved with a light forward flowing of her whole body that seemed the pledge of grace in every limb: of her face Odo had but a bright glimpse in the eclipse of her flapping hat-brim. She stood under his tree unheeded; but as they rose abreast of him the girl paused and dropped her ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... know? It's a angel crying, or pointing up, or flapping his wings. They have them over graves; and I'll give you the biggest one I can find when you die. But I'm not in a very great ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... either a signal to prepare for instant death to some of those who were within, or for the gloomy purpose of admitting new victims." When we entered the chapel, my surprise and abhorrence were equally excited. The windows were beaten through, the hangings were flapping in the wind, the altar was shattered in pieces and prostrate, the pavement was every where torn up, and the caves of the dead were still yawning upon us. From their solemn and hallowed depths, the mouldering relics of the departed had been raised, by torch light, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... tension of the sapling. The bark-flap is drawn quickly up against the mouth-piece with a slap that forces sufficient air into the gun to eject the arrow. All this takes place in a fraction of a second; a slight flapping sound is heard and the arrow lodges in the skin of the unfortunate caboclo. He can never walk more than twenty yards, for the poison rapidly paralyses his limbs. Death follows in less than ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... to that dimly apprehended figure outside a circle of the light like his own circle of light—which was the father of Heinrich, which was great Germany, Germany which lived before and which will yet outlive the flapping of the eagles.... ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... manner as to be insulting, until I exhibited the sealed despatch, and demanded to be escorted at once to Sir William Howe. This brought results, and I entered the city under escort of a dozen horsemen, their green coats faced with dingy white, cocked hats flapping as they rode. ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... seemed a part of the wedding procession, and the squirrels on the fence rails, and the robins, wrens, and wood-thrushes in the trees chirped and twittered: "John Stanhope is in love! John Stanhope is in love!" And the mocking crow, lazily flapping his wings at a safe distance, croaked enviously: "Ha, ha! old Stanhope is in love. Ha, ha!" Yet the whole conspiracy of animated nature could not make old Stanhope in his present exaltation regretful of his age or ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... hollow. When they reappeared it was on the road by which they had come. And the girl knew the pursuit in that direction—the right direction—was over. Trembling and with a fluttering in her breast like the flapping of a bird's wings, she sank to the ground. Presently she burst into a passion of tears. Without knowing why, she tore off the wedding ring which until then she had forgotten, and flung it out among the treetops. A few minutes, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... surprised to encounter strange monsters, and to be enveloped in dense mists, through which they hear the flapping of bat-like wings and catch glimpses of harpy-like creatures. Knowing monsters and mists are mere delusions, Sir Guyon pays little heed to them, and the palmer soon disperses them by a touch from ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... coverts, amidst the sheltering fernbrake. The rooks "obstreperous of wing, in crowds combined," cawed in a way that, as plainly as words could have done, bespoke their apprehension; and were seen, some hovering and beating the air with flapping pinion, others shooting upwards in mid space, as if to reconnoitre the weather; while others, again, were croaking to their mates, in loud discordant tone, from the highest branches of the lime-trees; all, seemingly, as anxious and as busy as mariners before a gale ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... terrible encounter. Instead of flying away the bird deliberately met the cat and stabbed at him valiantly with his long, heavy beak. They fell over on the floor together, and as they struggled, amid much noise of growling and chattering and flapping of wings, I flung my cap at them, trying to effect a separation. Alas! before I could help the dominie's pet, the cat had the uppermost of him, and ran off into the schoolmaster's private room with the jackdaw held ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... of things and things and things. In turn, this pulley set in toll still another bell, two flights up in Abrahm Kantor's tenement, which overlooked the front of whizzing rails and a rear wilderness of gibbet-looking clothes-lines, dangling perpetual specters of flapping union suits in ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... had clothed it always with the mystery of her school-days, thinking of it as a weeping, fog-bound stretch of gray waters. Instead, she saw a flat, sunlit main, with occasional sea-parrots flapping their fat bodies out of the ship's course. A glistening head popped up from the waters abreast, and she ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... An empty sleeve was flapping in the rain, and Fenneben did not notice then that the man kept that side of himself all the time in the shadows. Fenneben had only one thought as he hurried away in the darkness, to save the woman and child. His companion ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Capt. MacVeagh won the first race. Clad in a flapping toga, a ribbon round his forehead, the hero of the British army went Berserker on the home stretch and, lashing his four ponies into a panic, came gloriously down the last lap, two lengths ahead and twenty-five marvelous coins of the realm ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Martin; "I have heard them at night working away so hard, and flapping and spattering with their tails, that I could imagine there were fifty men at work instead of a hundred of those small animals, but they work by day and by night, and never seem tired, till the dam is sound and ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... compartment, Night, in the form of a woman, is sitting musing, or slumbering, over a book. She has much of the character of a Sibyl. Her dark cave is broken open, and the blue sky and the coming light break beautifully in upon her and her companions, the sullen owl and flapping bat, which shrink from its unwelcome ray. The Hours are represented under the figure of children, fluttering about before the goddess, and extinguishing the stars of night—a beautiful idea; but one, ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... stillness of nature would be broken by the mournful cry of a curlew, disturbed by the splash of the oars, while sometimes a heavy flapping of wings was heard amid the mangroves, and out would start suddenly three or four white ibises with black necks, giving utterance to a peculiar cry, which faintly resembles that of the male guinea fowl. All ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... serviceable eye. Her face was not exceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile; a good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable by being constantly there. A great white cap, with a quantity of opaque frilling that was always flapping about, apologised for Maggy's baldness, and made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to retain its place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a gipsy's baby. A commission of haberdashers ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... individual shots, good or bad luck, distracting influences were all discussed with the greatest interest. Grandpa Orde, happening home early one day, watched the performance with great enjoyment, his hands behind him underneath the flapping linen duster, his eyes twinkling, his jaws working slowly. At the time he made no comments; but next shoot day he was punctually on hand, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... disjointed commonplaces, blind denials, and balloon-like conclusions, in that mighty sort of language which would have made a new Koran for a knot of followers. I mean no disrespect to the ancient Koran, but one would not desire the roc to lay more eggs and give us a whole wing-flapping brood ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... a splendid vessel of a hundred and fifty tons; and as she sailed past the Nore like a floating queen flapping her white wings in the breeze, she reminded the beholders that England still ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the level of the ground, and there on the gravel before him lay a white heap. Phillotson seized it in his arms, and bringing Sue into the hall seated her on a chair, where he gazed at her by the flapping light of the candle which he had set down in the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... he muttered, his mind's eye still seeing Cook's vulgar, flapping apron strings; "I ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... result may be imagined. Even the helmsman deserted his post at last to join in the general clamour; a circumstance of which Courtenay took immediate advantage by springing to the tiller and ramming it hard down. The lively little craft at once shot into the wind with her canvas loudly flapping; and this stilled ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood |
