"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Amid a flutter of flags and the cheers of onlookers, the 'ocean policeman,' H.M.S. Speedy, first took to the water on May 18th, 1893. Its birthplace was the banks of the Thames at Chiswick, but hardly had it settled itself on the smooth surface ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... but from the practical point of view it presents grave difficulties. Nothing is so pitifully ineffective as a flag in a dead calm, drooping nervelessly against the mast; and though, no doubt, by an ingenious arrangement of electric fans, it might be possible to make this flag flutter in the breeze, the very fact of its doing so would tend to set the audience wondering by what mechanism the effect was produced, instead of attending to the soul-struggles of Rita and Allmers. It would be absurd to blame Ibsen for overriding theatrical prudence ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... fell; there came a long slow-growing silence; and then, with a flutter, she was beside him again, laughing in his ears and crying with ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... get into a low-lying two-seater built on racing lines, heard a laugh flutter into the air, watched the tail light sweep round the drive and become smaller and smaller along ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... reverent listener, and gave herself up, half against her will and conscience, to the guidance of a man whom she knew to be her inferior in morals and in orthodoxy. She had worshipped intellect, and now it had become her tyrant; and she was ready to give up every belief which she once had prized, to flutter like a moth ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... in the bottom drawer, as women always do; and, as women always do, had laid them so that all the lace and embroidery and pink ribbons possible showed in a flutter when the drawer was opened. Jenny took the things out, one at a time, unfolded, discussed, compared, with all the tireless zeal of a robin with a straw in its mouth or of a tree, blossoming. "Smell of ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... my father, or walking with her; and then, after some further words of monition, she left me to my solitary hour's watch, and I could see her taking her way down the drive, and turning off through the wood, until the last flutter of her blue ribbons was lost in the distance. Then I bethought me of seeing how much longer I had to spend in my own room, and, looking at the clock-tower over the stables, found it was scarcely more than three o'clock. I could ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... public isn't biting freely. Nowadays I read that bit they put in the financial reports about "The market opened quietly" with a sympathetic eye, for, by Jove, it certainly opened quietly for us! You'd hardly believe how difficult it was to interest the public and make them take a flutter on the old boy. By the end of the week the only name we had on our list was a delicatessen-store keeper down in Bicky's part of the town, and as he wanted us to take it out in sliced ham instead of cash that didn't help much. There was a gleam of light when the brother of Bicky's pawnbroker ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... turned away, and, bending nearer, Christie saw how deathly pale it looked in the shadow of the darkened room. She listened at her lips; only a faint flutter of breath parted them; she lifted up the averted head, and on the white throat saw a little wound, from which the blood still flowed. Then, like a flash of light, the meaning of the sudden change which came over her grew clear,—her brave efforts to make the last day happy, ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... agreeable flutter I left my room and, descending the stairs, passed the Count's door very much at my leisure. There was just a chance that the beautiful songstress might emerge. I dropped my stick on the lobby, near their door, and you may be sure it ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... morality and importance, as the Mayor asked him how he did and expressed his gratification at seeing the honored name of Pickles—a power in the commercial world—enrolled among the friends of reform. The appearance of General Divvy put the Mayor in quite a flutter, and when the General told him that he positively must consent to run again, and that he was the only hope of the Reformers, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... never heard of Peter since then. I believe he is dead myself; and it sometimes fidgets me that we have never put on mourning for him. And then again, when I sit by myself, and all the house is still, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound always goes past—and Peter ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the blind man quite melted Lucille; never had she been so strongly affected. She felt a strange flutter at the heart, a secret and earnest sympathy, that attracted her at once towards him. She wished that Heaven had suffered her to ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... policy and events of my consulship, do I now make this request to you with such earnestness and in so many words? The reason is to be found in that burning desire, of which I spoke at the beginning of my letter, for something prompt: because I am in a flutter of impatience, both that men should learn what I am from your book, while I am still alive, and that I may myself in my lifetime have the full enjoyment of my little bit of glory. What you intend doing on this subject I should like you ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... in front of me, to see at all was no easy matter. But this I saw clearly. The Captain stood in the corner, his blade raised to strike. BLUENOSE never stirred, but his breath came and went, and his eyelids blinked strangely, like the flutter of a sere leaf against the wall. There came a roar of voices, and, in the tumult, the Captain's sword flashed quickly, and fell. Then, with a broken cry like a sheep's bleat, the great seamed face fell separate from the body, and a fountain of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... sound grew nearer and he looked up and saw over the turf wall of the garth the flutter of white raiment; ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... he was old enough or young enough for anything, being just thirty; and his sister Judith, who was some years his senior, sat behind his tea-urn on most occasions and made it possible for the young things of society to flutter in as freely as they willed. The young things came to little in themselves, but some of them had vainglorious mothers and ambitious, pomp-loving fathers, and who could tell in what richly promising crevice their ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... knew how you hurt me when you talk like that. You've flown into my heart like a little blue bird into a cage, and there you'll beat and flutter, but you can't get out. Some day ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... fair-weather, skin-deep, April-shower friends,—the friends who will drop off, if let alone,—who must be kept awake to be kept at all,—who will talk and laugh with you as long as it suits your respective humors and you are prosperous and happy,—the blessed butterfly-race, who flutter about your June mornings, and when the clouds lower, and the drops patter, and the rains descend, and the winds blow, will spread their gay wings and float gracefully away to sunny, southern lands, where the skies are yet blue and the breezes violet-scented. They ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... out of the shanty and looked at the wind and water, his pulses all a-flutter between the strong brandy and the wonderful gold in his pocket; and as he watched the veering of the pine-boughs to see which way they moved, their moaning seemed to be the voice of his widowed mother by her kitchen fire that day, saying, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... he mean by walking, at that hour, alone, by the river's brink? Puddock, with a sinking and flutter at his heart, unperceived, followed him down stairs, and was beside him ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... fitness to become a master over sheep. Here were two fair samples of men out of the world's assorted stock—himself and Reid. One of them, deliberate, calm, assured of his way, but with little in his hand; the other a grig that could reel and spin in the night-lights, and flutter to a merry tune. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... liar; if thou art the shadow of Nam-Bok, then thou speakest of shadows, concerning which it is not good that living men have knowledge. This great village thou hast spoken of we deem the village of shadows. Therein flutter the souls of the dead; for the dead be many and the living few. The dead do not come back. Never have the dead come back—save thou with thy wonder-tales. It is not meet that the dead come back, and should we permit it, great ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... say. "There, I thought o' the doctor, how he'd laugh, the last time I was in to see her; her baby was sick, and she sent up to know if I'd lend her a variety of herbs, and I didn't know but she might p'isen it, so I stepped down with something myself. She begun to flutter about like she always does, and I picked my way acrost the kitchen to the cradle. 'There,' says she, 'I have been laying out all this week to go up to the Corners and git me two new chairs.' 'I should think you had plenty of chairs now,' said I, and she looked at me sort of surprised, and says ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 'But just one flutter before we're done. Stiffen your lip and stand, my son; We'll take this bloomin' circus on: Ball-cartridge load! Now, steady!' With a curse and a prayer the two faced round, Dogged and grim they stood their ground, And their breech-blocks snapped with a crisp clean sound ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... piles of foolscap, and cudgeled their brains to supply facts to fill the sheets of blank paper; there was the reading out of results, with congratulations to those who had succeeded, and glum looks from Miss Rodgers to those who had failed; then followed the bringing down of boxes, the joyful flutter of packing, the last breakfast, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... good to her, wus you? You who knew her man wus livin'! You, as mebbe has ha'f a dozen wives livin'. You wus good to her! Wal, you're goin' to pay now. Savee? You're goin' to pay fer your flutter wi' chips, chips ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... hour later Seth was leading his horse from the barn ready saddled for the journey. As he moved out he saw Rosebud coming toward him from the house. He waited, and she came up in something of a flutter of confusion. She had an unusual color, and her eyes were sparkling. Seth noted these things while he appeared to be arranging the contents ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... over night brought no terror for King Cotton no longer reigns supreme. The king is dead but the people rejoice as the scepter falls from his nerveless hand and a new monarch ascends the throne. Millions of royal banners flutter in the breeze glistening green with promise for the future and hope is high, and the hearts of the people light as they gather to pay homage to the new monarch, Her Imperial Majesty the Paper ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to see ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... of entreaty sent a queer flutter to the very depths of her calm soul. But the flutter failed to reach or to titillate the steady eyes. Nor did it creep into the level and self-possessed voice, as Dorcas ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... with that sagacious look, Which said, as plain as language to the ear, "If anything is wanting, I am here!" Yes, everything is wanting, gallant bird! The master seized thee without further word, Like thine own lure, he whirled thee round; ah me! The pomp and flutter of brave falconry, The bells, the jesses, the bright scarlet hood, The flight and the pursuit o'er field and wood, All these forevermore are ended now; No longer victor, but ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... almost remorse troubled him during the nights when he could not sleep. At such times his heart would throb, positively flutter, he had to sit up in bed—he could not bear to lie down—and fight for breath. Then he stared into the dark, his eyes distended with terror. Oh, what a horrible condition that was. In the morning when the attack ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... between the eyes may uncover its pretense. For by this token may be known the real Crotalids from the mock: a small but distinct pit between eye and nostril. Lacking this mark, no ventral crawler in the land of the free need cause a flutter in the most timid ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... you can walk to the door with me," said the girl hesitatingly, but with a certain pleased flutter. "Still I never heard anything extra good about Wall Street brokers, or sports who go to prize fights, either. Ain't you got any ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away: "Spanish ships of war at sea! ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... of them wear garments brilliant with various colours, so completely enveloping the body that even though they leave the bosoms and sides of their robes open so as to flutter in the wind, still from their shoes to their head no part of their person is exposed. After conquering Croesus and subduing Lydia, they learnt also to wear golden armlets and necklaces, and jewels, especially pearls, of which they had ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... tempted by the tranquil beauty around us, and during that walk I had been strangely, wonderfully happy. Many times, as we walked silently side by side, a strong, an almost irresistible impulse seemed to force me to utter those three passionate words that have caused a flutter in the heart-beat of so many thousands since the world began; and as many times the reverence I felt for her, and the diffidence arising from it, held me back, and the words remained unspoken. Yet this contest of feeling had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Naepor, "have watched him catch a butterfly and, holding it uncrushed, walk into a wood, and have seen a woodthrush flutter down to him, take the butterfly from his fingers, speed away with it to feed its young and presently return to his empty hand, as if expecting another insect, perch on his hand, peck at it and remain some time; and there is no song-bird more fearful of mankind, more ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... when these important affairs are satisfactorily done with their wings wither away, and thenceforth they have to content themselves with running about on the earth. Now isn't this a remarkable parallel to one stage of human life? Do not men and women also soar and flutter—at a certain time? And don't their wings manifestly drop off as soon as the end of that skyward movement has been achieved? If the gods had made me poetical, I would sonnetise on this idea. Do you know any poet with a fondness for the ant-philosophy? ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... her position and duties. Besides, the countess seldom addressed a "hireling," except to utter a command or a rebuke. Maurice was greatly relieved when he perceived his grandmother's perfect indifference to the individual whom he had selected. Mrs. Lawkins had been thrown "into a flutter" by Madeleine's cautions and the prospect of being obliged to parry a series of cross-questions; but the reception she received quickly restored her equanimity. Count Tristan was sitting near his mother; the worthy house-keeper made her obeisance to both in silence, then turned to ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Jasmin. Gas flared in two concentric circles of flame around the hall and around the central bandstand. There was no ventilation. The bal sweltered in perspiration. Hollow-voiced abjects hawked penny paper fans between the dances, and the whole room was a-flutter. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... a flutter of the eyelids told that she was coming out from the effects of the anaesthetic ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... the farthest door and in the midst of the dense mob of men hurried down the quay. The side of the steamer was crowded with craft, so we passed beneath the stern to embark on the far side, to find that the Turkish lady and her escort had passed beneath the bows for a similar purpose. We caused a flutter, the beauty was hastily lifted on board like a bale of goods, and we caught a glimpse of magnificent pink brocaded trousers and jewelled shoes beneath her red orange covering. Two women—one a Christian—followed, and when she was seated, bent over her as a sort of screen to hide even her clothes ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... wind, setting all the budded beech boughs swinging Above the wood anemones that flutter, flushed and white, When far across the wide salt waves your quick way you were winging, Oh! tell me, tell me, did you pass my sweetheart's ship ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... house after the minister sat down was broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls, it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of mourners, but the ransomed sons and daughters of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... simple act of renouncement. The quiet years had kept undiminished the inordinate capacity for enjoyment, the exaggerated appreciation of trivial favours, which had filled Mrs. Pendleton's life with a flutter of thankfulness; and while Virginia smoothed the piece of black brocade on her knee, she might have been the re-arisen pensive spirit of her mother. Of the two, perhaps because she had ceased to wish for anything for herself, she was happier ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... blood once set flowing will flow on to death, and even the tiniest wound is hard to stanch. Was the lovely creature gone? In her wrists could discern no pulse. He folded back the bed-clothes, and laid his ear to her heart. His whole soul listened. Yes; there was certainly the faintest flutter. He watched a moment: yes; he could see just the faintest ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... sitting in perfect silence for a long while; no noise but the click of Barbara's knitting-pins, the low flutter of the fire-flame, and the sort of suppressed choked inward bark, with which Vick attacks a phantom tomcat in ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Independent manifesto—not only that by A. S. or Adam Steuart (ante, p. 25), but various others. When it became known, however, that Mr. Edwards also was preparing an Answer, it was expected to beat them all. There was a flutter of anticipation of it among the Presbyterians; but it was rather slow in coming. "There is a piece of 26 sheets, of Mr. Edwards, against the Apologetick Narration, near printed, which will paint that faction [the Independents] in clearer colours than yet they have appeared," writes Baillie, June ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the flutter and emotion which this promise of pleasure, for such I conceived it, stirred up in me, I preserved so much of the woman, as to feign just reluctance enough to make some merit, of sacrificing it to the influence of my patroness, whom I likewise, still in character, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... meddlers and the treaty officials for crazy fools. When the flag was at last in place, Fetuao and he drew away to get a better view of it from the beach. Standing there, in silence they watched the vivid colors flaunt and flutter against the wooded hills behind, while Jack, with a seaman's instinctive reverence for the flag, bared his head, and Fetuao ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... a spray of ivy, far above my head, swaying and waving about in the wind; and a little bird, darting here and there with a brisk flutter of its tiny wings, and a chirping note of satisfaction; and the cloud drifting in soft, small cloudlets across the sky. These things I saw, not as if they were real, but rather as if they were memories of things that had passed before my eyes many ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... again, in the light of the fire. I will shoot, come what will of it;" and before the Knight could interfere, he had discharged his piece in the direction of the object. The dark woods echoed to the report, and some birds disturbed from their perches began to flutter blindly round, but no other sounds were heard, and presently silence, as profound as before, brooded over ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... her sit down and knelt before her without ceasing to kiss her lids. Suddenly he started. He had felt her long lashes tremble on his lips like the flutter of an airy wing. Time was, when Elena had laughingly given him that caress twenty times in succession. Maria had learned it from him, and at that caress he had often managed to conjure up the image of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... supplemented by the best dancing-masters that money could bring to Storm. Perhaps the prettiest memory the rough old hall held was that of two tiny girls hopping about together, yellow heads bobbing, short skirts a-flutter, their ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... interest, either with Boulogne or with Arras. But as the French head of the great historic ferry between England and the Continent, and as the seat of sundry thriving factories, it is both a busy and prosperous town. I found its streets swarming with people and its houses a flutter of flags and banners, when I came to it on June 3, 1889, to see the 'inauguration,' by President Carnot, of the works on which the French Government has been spending millions of francs during the past decade, with an eye to deepening and enlarging ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... and startled them from their repast. Once more they rose upon the wing, clamouring loudly, but when the harmless bough had drifted by, settled themselves down upon the water as before. This occurred so frequently, that at last they scarcely troubled themselves to flutter out of the way, even when about to be touched by ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... (brandish) svingi. Flow flui. Flow (of blood) sangversxo. Flow away deflui. Flower flori. Flower-bed florbedo. Flower-garden florejo. Fluctuate sxanceligxi. Flue kamentubo. Fluent elokventa, fluanta. Fluid fluajxo. Fluid flua. Flute fluto. Flutter flugeti, flirti. Flux alfluo. Fly flugi. Fly musxo. Fly away forflugi. Foal cxevalido—ino. Foam sxauxmi. Foam sxauxmo—ajxo. Foam (sea) marsxauxmo. Focus fokuso. Fodder furagxo. Foetid malbonodora. Foe kontrauxulo, malamiko. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... you late were loosed from out the Tower, Where, like a butterfly in a chrysalis, You spent your life; that broken, out you flutter Thro' the new world, go zigzag, now would settle Upon this flower, now that; but all things here At court are known; you have solicited ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... then one darts its long bayonet-like beak into the water, invariably drawing it out with a fish between the mandibles; this, after a short convulsive struggle, and a flutter or two of its tail fins, disappearing down ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... which takes possession of the heart on the eve of a long journey, the mysterious and indescribable vertigo which has in it something of the terrors of exile and the hopes of pilgrimage. Are there not in the human mind wings that flutter and sonorous chords that vibrate? How shall I describe it? Is there not a world of meaning in the simple words: "All is ready, we are about ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... John Barton. He would have been ashamed to own the flutter of spirits his appointment gave him. There was the childish delight of seeing London—that went a little way, and but a little way. There was the vain idea of speaking out his notions before so many grand folk—that went a little further; and last, there ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... we say then, but that earth threatened often Shall live on for ever that such things may be, That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften, And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea, That earth's garden may bloom round ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... beginning to bestir himself in the rural Cantonments eastward, is but a Royalist traitor; that Chateau-Vieux and Patriotism are sold to Austria, of which latter M. de Malseigne is probably some agent. Mestre-de-Camp and Roi flutter still more questionably: Chateau-Vieux, far from marching, 'waves red flags out of two carriages,' in a passionate manner, along the streets; and next morning answers its Officers: "Pay us, then; and we will march with ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... I had noted the irregular beat of her heart—a throb, a long pause, a flutter, a short pause, a throb. And I could remember that more than once the sound had been followed by the shadowy appearance, in the door of my mind, of one of those black thoughts which try to tempt hope but only make it hide ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... brewer's relict at Southampton, with a couple of thousand pounds to her fortune: for honest Tom's heart was under such excellent control, that Venus herself without a portion would never have caused it to flutter. So he rode away on his heavy-paced gelding to pursue his jog-trot loves, leaving Esmond to the society of his dear mistress and her daughter, and with his young lord for a companion, who was charmed, not only to see an old friend, but to have the tutor and his ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... away from his friend, from the low fort and the weather-beaten stockade, and resolutely denied himself the pain of looking back to catch the last flutter of the Union Jack as the long rise of land dipped toward the south. How often had he strained his eyes to see that symbol of his country as he returned from the various forays and hunting trips! But duty called! This was the only thought that he dared allow himself—and his ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... transmitted through the air, we hear a dull vibration, a continual murmur, a hum of insects, filling, if we may use the expression, all the lower strata of the air. Nothing is better fitted to make man feel the extent and power of organic life. Myriads of insects creep upon the soil, and flutter round the plants parched by the heat of the sun. A confused noise issues from every bush, from the decayed trunks of trees, from the clefts of the rocks, and from the ground undermined by lizards, millepedes, and cecilias. These are so many ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the stony stairs with a great clatter of board and flutter of skirts, winding up at the bottom ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... for the sleepless nights, the flutter your heart gets into at the least start, and this is why that cheek of yours is pale yellow instead of rosy red. No more coffee for you, my dear, and by and by you'll see that I am right. Any new milk ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... light, and finally by Christmas they are all ready to gather. There they stand, swaying to and fro, and dancing lightly on their slender feet which are connected with the ground, each by a tiny green stem; their dresses of pink, or blue, or white—for their dresses grow with them—flutter in the air. Just about the prettiest sight in the world, is the bed of wax dolls in the garden of the ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... dusky swallow flieth toward her northern home, The songsters build and flutter beneath the leafy dome; The morn is warm and cloudy, the sky bedimmed with rains, My heart awakes from slumber to ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... skin-tights, actresses in very low dresses, round legs, fat shoulders, all nearly within reach of one's hands, without daring or being able, to touch it, and one scarcely tastes some inferior dish, once or twice. And one leaves it, one's heart still all in a flutter, and one's mind still exhilarated by a sort of longing for kisses which ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... air—such a burst! A little tone in his voice, but not pain; excess of joy, Sir, from too great sensation. The air-bath was so sudden, you know. Think of all his beautiful machinery starting off at once in full motion; all his thousand outside feelers answering to the touch of the cool air; the flutter and crash at the ear; and that curious contrivance the eye, looking out wonderingly and bewildered upon the great world, so glorious and dazzling to his unworn perceptions; his net-work of nerves, his wheels and pulleys, his air-pumps and valves, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... inconsequential-looking little river. Its contents seemed a trifle too liquid for mud and a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank was a small village populated by short people and long dogs. Out in midstream, making poor headway against the semi-gelid current, was a little flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing violently and kicking up a lather of lacy spray with its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind you of a very warm small lady fanning herself with a very large gauze fan, and only ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... glared from Bower's eyes that might well have daunted Stampa. For an instant he glanced toward Spencer, whose clear cut profile was silhouetted against a background of white-blue ice now gleaming in a constant flutter of lightning. Stampa was not yet aware of the true cause of Bower's frenzy. He thought that terror was spurring him to self defense. An insane impulse to kill, to fight with the nails and teeth, almost mastered him; but ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... pollen; a part of it fulfils its destination and creates new life, a part sinks to the ground and dies. What is a handful of pollen more or less in the inexhaustible store-house of nature! The fertilised blossom casts off its delicate petals which flutter to the ground and wither; they decay in the rain and are ground to dust, to rise again through the sap and re-appear as blossoms, and this time, perhaps, to become fruit. But now the struggle begins: those which a kind fate ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... prone, Resumed his book, and bade them walk alone. "Do, my kind Edward—I must take mine ease - Name the dear girl the planets and the trees: Tell her what warblers pour their evening song, What insects flutter, as you walk along; Teach her to fix the roving thoughts, to bind The wandering sense, and methodize the mind." This was obey'd; and oft when this was done, They calmly gazed on the declining sun; In silence saw the glowing landscape fade, Or, sitting, sang beneath the arbour's shade: ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... only that of a brief instant. With the next I was upon my knees, lifting the fallen head, and seeking eagerly to discern some lingering evidence of life in the inert, body. There was none, not so much as the faint flutter of a pulse, or suggestion of a heart throb. The man was already dead before he fell, dead before he struck the overturned table. Nothing any human effort might do would help him now. My eyes lifting from the white, ghastly face encountered those of McAfee, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... and pried into the secrets of the little wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—I cannot tell you how, but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in every bird-call and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed things across the open. Every white alder-bush in the spring raised you up anew before me to madden me with vain longing, and every red sumach in the fall. When I have sat here alone every book I have opened has had in it a meaning of ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... they had left were read with greater eagerness than ever. When the weather was "too lovely to stay in the house," Shakspeare or Massillon or Sully or the "Curiosities of Literature" or "Corinne" or Milner's Church History, for Fleda's reading was as miscellaneous as ever, was enjoyed under the flutter of leaves and along with the rippling of the mountain spring; whilst King curled himself up on the skirt of his mistress's gown and slept for company; hardly more thoughtless and fearless of harm than his two companions. Now and then Fleda opened her eyes to see that her uncle ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... flirtations. I began to be a governess when I was just a kid, and a governess doesn't get many chances to be skittish. So now when it came, it hit me hard. That's when a woman finds herself—when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the tree like a ripe plum. I didn't care if Roger Mifflin and I were as odd a couple as old Dr. Johnson and his wife, I only knew one thing: that when I saw that little red devil again I was going to be all his—if he'd have me. That's ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... of Mr Lupus, though delicately put, and in a nervous flutter, ought by rights to have hit the mayor and Mr Garraway hard; the pair of them being trustees of the charity under which the Free Grammar School was administered. But in those days few public men gave a thought to education, and Mr Lupus ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... he felt the close, warm pressure of her fingers. Never before had he so poignantly realized that innate splendor of femininity that was uniquely hers, a quality more potent than any mere beauty. Her look met his straight and frankly, but he heard the breath flutter at her lips, and he thought to read in her eyes a question, a hunger, and a delight. His voice was under ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... his return now with a 'foreign air' and a bow that almost took the breath of some of the younger recipients. He was, too, in his way, the handsomest man in the room; and the smiling, open frankness of his look, the ready cordiality of his manner, were found very winning. He caused plenty of flutter. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... the green water. I will show you the place," continued the Moon, "the largest square in it, and you will fancy yourself transported into the city of a fairy tale. The grass grows rank among the broad flagstones, and in the morning twilight thousands of tame pigeons flutter around the solitary lofty tower. On three sides you find yourself surrounded by cloistered walks. In these the silent Turk sits smoking his long pipe, the handsome Greek leans against the pillar and gazes at the upraised trophies and lofty masts, memorials of power that is ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... girl. I thought that if all the hills about there were pure chink, and all belonged to me, I would give them if I could just talk to her as I wanted to. But I was afraid to begin; for when I would think of saying anything to her, my heart would begin to flutter like a duck in a puddle. And if I tried to outdo it and speak, it would get right smack up in my throat, and choke me like a cold potato. It bore on my mind in this way, till at last I concluded I must die if I didn't broach the subject. So I determined ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... powder, perhaps the yellow glove, or the oblique flutter of the eyelids—told him that he was making what he would have called "a blooming error," unless he wished for company, which had not been in his thoughts. But her sob ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... bloom a Myrtle, from whose od'rous boughs My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows. When Twilight stole across the fading vale, To fan my Love I'd be the Evening Gale; Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest, 65 And flutter my faint pinions on her breast! On Seraph wing I'd float a Dream by night, To soothe my Love with shadows of delight:— Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies, And gaze upon her with a thousand ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a chance that they might escape when the pirates made their landing on the coast to refresh themselves and refit the ship. The mate on watch greeted them good-humoredly enough and bade them enter the cabin where the captain awaited them. Jack was all a-flutter again but he managed to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Dick, the sharp boy who had been the general pet and plaything in early years, much as his own "Tilly Ann" was now; the dashing soldier, whose occasional visits to his native place in all the glories of uniform had caused on each occasion a flutter of excitement which had endured long after his own departure; the hero of romance, whose sudden appearance with a beautiful bride, wedded secretly somewhere up the country, had made more than one pretty maid's heart grow sore within her, and caused many wiseacres to shake their heads; the ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... passed through yours, you venture to take the little gloved hand, you say good night at absurd length in the shadow of the door. It is innocent and very interesting, love trying his wings in a first little flutter. He will keep his sustained flight later on, the better for the practice. There was never any question of engagements between us, nor any suggestion of harm. She knew that I was a poor devil with neither means nor ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... was a little flutter, a rustling of silken robes, more kissing and hand-shaking, and "good bye, loves," and the little ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... back, that set the branches tossing and swept the dead leaves racing about her ankles. And at the same instant from just above her head there beat upon the air a violent, joyous tattoo—a sound that was neither of the sea nor of the woods, a creaking, swiftly repeated sound, like the flutter of caged wings. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... though the flame-drifts wave and flutter; Silence! though the crowd their curses mutter; Silence! through this fiery purgatory God is leading up a soul ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... tall, straight trees. A bronze rod was suspended between them, and upon the rod, on rings, hung a dark red silk curtain. The light breeze caused the thin draperies to flutter. The quiet, blue-eyed Grisha drew the curtain aside. The red folds came together with a sharp rustle and with a sudden flare as of a flame. The opening revealed a wooded vista, all permeated with a strangely bright light, like a vision of a transfigured ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... a serious manner, there were few of us whose hearts did not flutter responsively to this surmise, for the danger became every minute more imminent, and we knew what a terrific surf there must be then running on the shingle beach. But we now rapidly approached the shore; we were near ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... say that they enjoy themselves, for they are of a melancholy temperament; but what enjoyment they are capable of, they derive from crowding together in the pawnbroker's side-entry. Here, they are always to be found in a feeble flutter, as if they were newly come down in the world, and were afraid of being identified. I know a low fellow, originally of a good family from Dorking, who takes his whole establishment of wives, in single file, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... minutes too early," sighed Betty, when Helen had finally departed in a flutter of haste. "And see this room! But I oughtn't to complain," she added, beginning to clear up the dresser. "I'm always leaving it like this myself; but someway I ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... screams, and laughs. All down the dark, cavernous streets, in the great piazza, at the sindaco's, at college, at club, public offices, and hotels, at the grand old palaces, untouched since the middle ages—the glory of the city—at every house, great and small—flutter gaudy draperies; crimson, amber, violet, and gold, according to purse and condition, either of richest brocade, or of Eastern stuffs wrought in gold and needle-work, or—the family carpet or bed-furniture hung out ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... seemed distressed, and turned over the leaves in such a flutter that she could not find anything, and she rose, in spite of all entreaties, leaving the place to her sister, who was, she said, "so much better a musician and not so foolishly nervous." Lady Castlefort said her "voice always went away when ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... put in the Doctor. "I think my look-out worse than yours. Sold my practice seven years ago to flutter on the Stock Exchange. Lost my money in seven minutes, and have never had a patient since. I went to West Slocum (my old home) the other day, and found the place occupied by three Doctors, and the local Undertaker told me there was not room enough for one! Talk about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various
... of these small birds that did not appear to know that Martin loved them; for no sooner would he present himself at the stream than forth they would flutter in a great state of mind. One, the prettiest, was a tiny, green-backed little creature, with a crimson crest and a velvet-black band across a bright yellow breast: this one had a soft, low, complaining voice, clear as a silver bell. The second was ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... exile on the loneliest road. He waits to befriend the defeated, the poor folk with aching consciences and broken wills. He loves to go to souls that have lost their power of flight, like birds with broken wings, which can only flutter in the unclean ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... sea that is almost indescribable. The water no longer runs in waves of regular onward motion, but leaps up in pyramids and peaks. The wind swirls and strikes until wherever there is a chance for vibration or flutter, even in tightly furled sails, the fabric soon gives way. I once saw a brig go drifting past us in a West Indies cyclone with everything furled and closely lashed with sea gaskets. We were in company nearly at the ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... meaning and power, which made them, though the same words he had looked on from childhood, other and greater and deeper words. He then left the ordinary commentators, and men who write about meanings and flutter around the circumference and corners; he was bent on the centre, on touching with his own fingers, on seeing with his own eyes, the pearl of great price. Then it was that he began to dig into the depths, into the primary and auriferous rock of Scripture, and take nothing ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... must start," her mother cried in a flutter. "He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming so late. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... ingenuity by those who could understand their patois, which he frankly owned was unintelligible to himself. Their liveliness and animal exuberance are as strong a contrast to the immoveable form into which they are swathed when infants, as the flutter of a butterfly is to its torpidity as a chrysalis; indeed a fanciful person might be apt to suppose, that on emerging from their bandages, they indemnify themselves for the previous constraint by a life of perpetual ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... the case was called, and the greatest of excitement prevailed from one end of the city to the other, for there were few men as popular there as Hubert Varrick. The spacious room was crowded to overflowing. There was a great flutter of excitement when the handsome prisoner was led into the court-room. Those who had known him from childhood were touched with the deepest pity for him. They ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... below, and far away, came also the volume of a noble English shout, as the flag began to flutter in the quickening breeze, and the sea arose and danced with sunshine. No one, who had got all his blood left in him, could think of anything ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... am ashamed to own that I was in a perfect flutter of delight at what he had said about my having more sense than most girls. Meeting poor mother on the stairs while in this exalted state of mind, I gave her a very short answer to a kind question, and made her unhappy, as ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... there is one wherein a monastery is destroyed by the agency of the Devil, while a friar is left dead below the stones and beams. No less notable is the terror of another monk, whose draperies, as he flies, cling round his nude form and flutter with most beautiful grace; whereby Paolo awakened the minds of the craftsmen so greatly, that they have ever afterwards followed that method. Very beautiful, also, is the figure of S. Benedict, the while that with dignity ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... that the Advertiser aroused interest enough to cause any one to assemble round the Office. Ezra's heart gave a quick flutter at the sight, and he gathered himself together like a runner who sees his goal in view. Throwing away his cigar, he hurried on ad ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... subject,—why, look there for something! just as, when going through deep meadow-grass, a bird flies ostentatiously up before you, you may know her nest is not there, but far off, under distant tufts of fern and buttercup, through which she has crept with a silent flutter in her spotted breast, to act her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... prince; and also for various excellent young men who were nothing and had nothing—neither name nor fortune; but Bettina had granted them a waltz, and, believing themselves irresistible, they hoped that they had caused a flutter ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... These lights had hoods over them, hard and white. Dizzy often wondered why the white hoods were not as soft as the oak-buds, notwithstanding the fact that his mother as often explained both to him and his little Sister Flutter that electric ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... her with his eyes. Beauty there was, grace there was, strength, and enough of the rest to drive better men than George Skinner to beat their heads on piano-tops—but for the new-found life of him Conroy could not feel one flutter of instinct or emotion that turned to herward. He put up his feet and fell asleep, dreaming of a joyous, normal world recovered—with interest on arrears. There were many things in it, but no one face of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... a sudden flutter. "I don't see why them cranberries don't come! I told Orville to hurry 'em up. I'd best make the floatin' island while ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... Dispersed, and leave a track oblique behind. Now on firm land they range, then in the flood They plunge tumultuous; or through reedy pools Rustling they work their way; no holt escapes Their curious search. With quick sensation now The fuming vapour stings; flutter their hearts, And joy redoubled bursts from every mouth In louder symphonies. Yon hollow trunk, That with its hoary head incurv'd salutes The passing wave, must be the tyrant's fort And dread abode. How these impatient ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... the wall there was one of Katharine Gaylord, taken in the days when Everett had known her, and when the flash of her eye or the flutter of her skirt was enough to set his boyish heart in a tumult. Even now, he stood before the portrait with a certain degree of embarrassment. It was the face of a woman already old in her first youth, thoroughly sophisticated and a trifle hard, and it told ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather |
