"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is 't that pits my puir heart in a flutter? And what gars the tears come sae fast to my e'e? If I wasna ettled to be ony better, Then what gars me wish ony better to be? I 'm just like a lammie that loses its mither; Nae mither or friend the puir lammie can see; I fear I hae tint my puir heart a' the gither, Nae wonder the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... subway, that warm typhoon whipping light summer dresses in a multitudinous flutter. All down the bright crowded aisle of patient humanity I could ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Let it brim with dew; Try if you can cry, We will do so, too. When you're summoned, start Like a frightened roe; Flutter, little heart, Colour, come and go! Modesty at marriage tide Well becomes ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... and then pick out my body and devour it: for the sagacity and smell of this bird enable him to discover his quarry at a great distance, though better concealed than I could be within a two-inch board. In a little time I observed the noise and flutter of wings to increase very fast, and my box was tossed up and down, like a sign on a windy day. I heard several bangs or buffets, as I thought, given to the eagle (for such I am certain it must have been that held the cord of my box in his beak), and then, all on a sudden, felt myself falling ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... has to have a monster in his body that must be fed," he remarked. "Otherwise one could storm the heavens and steal the songs of the angels. But this was not to be. You have first to flutter your wings until they are wounded and break your chains, and by that time such ethereal power as you may have had ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the whispers that the soft winds utter Speak earthly things— There mingleth there, sometimes, a gentle flutter Of angels' wings. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Welsh, and then added, with a flutter of caution, "I haven't made up my mind yet. There are ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... in a great flutter, Morgiana put on her bonnet and gloves, and went towards the door. "It's a fine morning," said Mr. Walker, looking out: "a walk will do you good; and—Morgiana—didn't you say you had a couple of guineas in ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 affected him, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... brows dark. Rarely in her lifetime had Irene seen her father wrathful—save for his outbursts against the evils of the world and the time. To her he had never spoken an angry word. The lowering of his features in this moment caused her a painful flutter at the heart; she became mute, and for a minute or two ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... back again, ma'am, I'm sure," the man said. "There's lots of boys and young men who stay around the monument, hoping for a chance to earn a stray dime or so by showing visitors around or carrying something. One of them probably saw the hat flutter out of the window, and ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... the northern portico with him to hold the candle by which Mr. Lincoln was to read his speech. Little Tad was with his father, as usual, and when the President had finished reading a page of his manuscript he let it flutter down, like a leaf, or a big white butterfly, for Tad to catch. When the pages came too slowly the boy pulled his father's coat-tail, piping up in a ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... far beyond me I respect The virtue, equal to the stiffest crux, Which thus forbids your costume to deflect Into the primrose path of straw and ducks; I praise that fine regard for red-hot tape Which calmly and without an eyelid's flutter Suffers the maddening noon to melt your nape As it ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... I'd go to, after I'd got my title, and was rigged out in Tight-fit's tip-top, should be—our cursed shop! to buy a dozen or two pair of white kid. Ah, ha! What a flutter there would be among the poor pale devils as were standing, just as ever, behind the counters, at Tag-rag and Co.'s when my carriage drew up, and I stepped, a tip-top swell, into the shop. Tag-rag would come and attend to me himself! No, he ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... willow-tree That wavers on a garden-wall In summertime may never fall In attitude as gracefully As my fair bride that is to be;— Nor ever Autumn's leaves of brown As lightly flutter to the lawn As fall her fairy-feet upon The path of love she loiters down.— O'er drops of dew she walks, and yet Not one may stain her sandal wet— Aye, she might dance upon the way Nor crush a single drop to spray, So airy-like she seems to me,— My bride, my bride ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... excuse for it among troops that are well fed, regularly paid in good money and provided with comfortable clothing, blankets and shoes in the cold winter; but troops whose rations are few and scanty, who flutter with rags and wear ventillating shoes which suck in the cold air, who sleep at night under a blanket which keeps the saddle from a sore-backed horse in the day time, who are paid (if paid at all) with waste paper, who have become hardened to the licentious ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... snowy fields of cotton melted 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
... Vincent, "and we must keep clear of it. I am writing opposite Lady Hamilton, therefore you will not be surprised at the glorious jumble of this letter. Were your Lordship in my place, I much doubt if you could write so well; our hearts and our hands must be all in a flutter." Matters progressed; within ten days the veteran seaman learned, among other concerns of more or less official importance, that "Lady Hamilton is an Angel. She has honoured me by being my ambassadress to the queen: therefore she has my implicit confidence ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... at him for a moment in silence, and he saw the terrified flutter of her breast; then she said, "No one can stop me for long. And besides, what ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... every different from the other, yet each and every skilfully hidden from an enemy's observation. We stood beside trenches of every shape and kind while he pointed out their good and bad points; he brought us to a place where dummy figures had been set up, their rags a-flutter, forlorn objects ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... its nether wings being folded over its back, too much absorbed to have been startled by my first approach. Occasionally, without any cause which I could detect from my present position—certainly in no way connected with my presence—a small swarm of the butterflies would rise in a flutter above the bush, as though actuated by a common whim—a brief winged tangle in which a beautiful sprite of velvety black hovering in a globular halo, shot through with two white semicircular arcs, was ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... took place at Port Royal in October, 1707, just two months after young St. Castin had greatly distinguished himself in the heroic and successful defense of Port Royal against an expedition from New England.[14] The event no doubt caused a flutter of excitement in the then limited society of Port Royal. The officiating priest was Father Antoine Gaulin, of the Seminary of Quebec, at which institution the young baron had finished his studies only three years before. Among the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... deciding that he would never marry; reached it not suddenly or dramatically, but with such sober advisedness as is urged on those about to take the opposite step. What he most wanted, now that the first flutter of being was over, was to learn and to do—to know what the great people had thought, think about their thinking, and then launch his own boat: write some good verse if possible; if not, then critical prose. A dramatic poem lay among the stuff at his elbow; but ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... rippling daisies. Sweet and clear her voice calls father and brother, And one whose name her shy lips will not utter. But a chorus of leaves and grasses speaks her heart And tells his name: the birches flutter by the wall; The wild cherry-tree shakes its plumy head And whispers his name; the maple Opens its rosy lips and murmurs his name; The marsh-marigold sends the rumor Down the winding stream, and the blue flag Spread the gossip to the lilies in the lake: All Nature's eyes ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... of other people in the wood besides herself. She saw no one, but she heard breaking twigs, the stir of leaves, the flutter of a partridge which told of human presence. The underbrush was considerable, darkness was coming on, and she had a sense of being surrounded. It agitated her, but she pulled herself together, stood still and admonished herself. She called herself a fool; she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... felt in our new way. For we've got our new way of feeling things. Rosamund tells us she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them set by a young Athenian who's over here studying English. He catches the butterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn't jab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there's Cynthia! I hope she heard ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... my grandfather and grandmother, they mount to the two pair of stairs, and then, unless dispatched to the mansion-house in the country, or crowded into the housekeeper's room, they perish among the lumber of garrets, or flutter into rags before a broker's shop at the Seven Dials."—Lives of the Painters, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... appearance of a senator as great as Sumner had not been an event to flutter the heart, though the honor was unquestioned; but never in his life had the young man felt a keener interest than in the visit of his new uncle. He came at last, a splendid figure, too ample in outline and too rich in color ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... ceased, and he heard a flutter near by, when looking that way he caught a glimpse of a little figure passing into the rear of the cabin; as the door was open he could see what appeared to be a girl of some six or seven, slight of figure, and with the golden hair and the ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... doubt it is, but what am I to do? I am no less discontented. Is it not even more to my interest than to the reader's for something to happen? Here have I been tramping along since breakfast-time, and now it is late in the afternoon, but never a feather of her dove's wings, never a flutter of her angel's robes have I seen. It is disheartening, for one naturally expects to find anything we seek a few minutes after starting out to seek it, and I confess that I expected to find my golden mistress within a very few hours of leaving home. However, had that been the case, there would have ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... 'Margaret Home' was published, and one day arrived a parcel containing the six copies to which an author is traditionally entitled. Reardon was not so old in authorship that he could open the packet without a slight flutter of his pulse. The book was tastefully got up; Amy exclaimed with pleasure as she caught sight ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... of the board, is plainly visible from the passage. It is almost noon. Dim light, reflected from the snow outside, comes in through the middle window of the back wall, a view of which is afforded through the opening in the centre. The snowflakes flutter down drearily as on the previous day. The fire now and then casts a red light upon the oleanders, which separate the space surrounding the fireplace from the background. AUNT CLARA, in mourning as before, and LENE, also dressed in black, are busy at the table, which has been ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... off, and the two sat watching the flutter of her white dress among the flower-beds. She piled her little apron as full as possible, and came back panting and delighted. Beulah looked down at the beautiful beaming face, and, twining one of the silky curls over her ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... this one magical and unique word. Shakespeare gives us the word, Balzac, sometimes, after pages of vain striving, gives us the word, Tourgueneff gives it with miraculous certainty; but Henry James, no; a hundred times he flutters about it; his whole book is one long flutter near to the one magical and unique word, but the word is not spoken; and for want of the word his characters are never resolved out of the haze of nebulae. You are on a bowing acquaintance with them; they pass you in the street, they stop and speak to you, you know how they ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... John ran up to Town in March; I saw him, on the morrow or next day after, in his own room at Knightsbridge: he had caught fresh cold overnight, the servant having left his window up, but I was charged to say nothing of it, not to flutter the already troubled house: he was going home again that very day, and nothing ill would come of it. We understood the family at Falmouth, his Wife being now near her confinement again, could at any rate comport with no long absence. He was cheerful, even rudely merry; himself ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... anonymous author is 'struck with the total inadequacy of Dr. Hibbert's theory.' Among his stories he quotes Wraxall's 'Memoirs.' In 1783, Wraxall dined at Pitt Place, and visited 'the bedroom where the casement window at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the DOVE appeared to flutter* was pointed out to me.' Now the Pitt Place document puts the vision 'in Hill Street, Berkeley Square.' So does Lord Westcote. Even a bird cannot be in two places at once, and the 'Pitt Place Anonymous' does seem to know what he is talking about. Of course Lord Lyttelton ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... gun it was—an' sends him a long far'well. He sends back a yell—de o-f-f-ullest yell I eber heerd in all my bo'n days; offul enough ter come frum a grave-yard. Out comes spirtin' de blood, a-flyin' frum de rollin' body like water frum a flutter-mill. Down to de foot uf de hill a-whirlin' he goes, tel ober de bank uf de riber he pitches. An' dat's de las' I sees uf big Injun. [Audience: "I yi!" ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... soul that is left in this worn body do I accept the pledge, bairns," echoed Lord Crawford; "and as old as I am, I trust I may see it flutter yet. Hark ye, my mates," (for wine had made him something communicative), "ye are all true servants to the French crown, and wherefore should ye not know there is an envoy come from Duke Charles of Burgundy, with a message ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... about half the distance he sank down on his hands and knees and began to crawl, a laborious and sometimes painful operation, burdened as he was with his rifle, and unused to such methods of locomotion. Presently he noticed a flutter among the antelope, a raising of timid heads, an alarmed looking in his direction. But Dick was prepared. He lay flat upon his face, and dug the point of the long hunting knife that he carried into the ground, while the wind blew out ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... by the sea. The waves were snarling together like wolves amid the honeycomb rocks and from where the blue plane sprang level to the horizon, came a strong cold breeze, the kind of a breeze which moves an exulting man or a parson to take off his hat and let his locks flutter and ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Gondremark. "Permit me, madam." And he rose and proceeded to flutter about the room, counterfeiting Otto both in voice and gesture not unhappily. "What is there to-day, Herr von Gondremark? Ah, Herr Cancellarius, a new wig! You cannot deceive me; I know every wig in Gruenewald; I have the sovereign's eye. What are these papers ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anxious and immoderate affection subjected her, when early one morning the appearance of a traveller on the lonely mountain-road, revived hopes which had begun to sink into listless despair. There was no sign of Saxon subjugation about the stranger. At a distance she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed in the bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun over his shoulder, the claymore was swinging ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... thought, and dropped it on the head of the man with whom his father was engaged. Down went the Kachin, stunned and helpless. But at that very instant a wild scream went up from the two struggling figures close at hand. Jack turned his head to see the last flutter of their garments. The rotten foothold had given way beneath them, and, held fast in each other's clutch, they had fallen headlong into the deeps below. Jack and his father were about to leap forward to see the last of their faithful guide, when a musket cracked ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... a lot of excitement at Briarwood Hall. Inasmuch as it affected Ruth, the whole school was in a flutter about it. ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... disappointment? What would become of him, if this fresh soul should stoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops out of the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires in the shadowy waters that hold her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... surpass their powers of comprehension. In any case it would be a mere allegorical investiture of truth, a parable, or a myth that would be of any good to them. There must be, as Kant has said, a public standard of right and virtue, nay, this must at all times flutter high. It is all the same in the end what kind of heraldic figures are represented on it, if they only indicate what is meant. Such an allegorical truth is at all times and everywhere, for mankind at large, a beneficial substitute for an eternally ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... in the morning," cooed the Dove, and with a gentle flutter they disappeared through the window. Indistinctly Marjorie heard the Ark cast away from the windowsill. And the voice of Capt. Noah ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... stages of the {287} process of reduction, such birds might be expected to resemble in the state of their organs of flight our domesticated ducks. This is the case with the water-hen (Gallinula nesiotis) of Tristan d'Acunha, which "can flutter a little, but obviously uses its legs, and not its wings, as a mode of escape." Now Mr. Sclater[454] finds in this bird that the wings, sternum, and coracoids, are all reduced in length, and the crest of the sternum in depth, in comparison with the same ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... thought they had now talked enough about fairies, and it struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. 'I can't think where she has gone to,' he said, rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's heart went flutter with a sudden thrill. ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... of it plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he immediately fell into a great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was no chance of his success; but to his surprise at last he found himself formally hired at an annual income of Six Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... But, with a flutter of her skirts, she had vanished from the room, smiling and self-reliant and very, very smug. To her belief, she had borne down the ignorant oppression of the unbeliever; she had given testimony to her indomitable confidence ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... in, there was a great flutter among the ladies, and some of them even had the bad taste to produce opera-glasses. Brian noticed this, and he flushed up to the roots of his fair hair, for he felt his degradation acutely. He was an intensely proud man, and to ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... of caitiffs on skeleton chargers, masquerading in every degree of shabbiness and rags, down to nakedness and a sword. The cavalcade passes through the city. The inhabitants pour out of every door and bend to the ground. Red cloths and white veils flutter at the casements overhead. You would hardly think that the spectacle was one daily enjoyed by the city. There is all the hurrying and eagerness of novelty and curiosity. Here and there a little shy crowd of women gather ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... patches were alive with huge superbly-coloured butterflies, birds of gaudy plumage, and other winged creatures, whose forms were as novel as the combinations of colours which marked their bodies. They were the scene of a perpetual whirl and flutter of wings, and before they betrayed themselves to the sight their locality could be detected by the sense of hearing from the never-ceasing hum and chirp of the insects and the calls of the birds which frequented them. They were the scenes of an eager, busy, active life; whilst ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... not the hand, but the wrist where the marks of his fingers still remained faintly. He squared himself, and gazed long and steadfastly into her eyes. In that moment he seemed to her positively handsome; and there was a flutter in her heart that she was unable to define. On his part he realized the sooner he was gone the better; there was a limit to his self-control.... He gained the street somehow. There he stopped and turned. Did the curtain ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... change owners subject to the payment of 'fines' and to the feudal consent of a 'court' presided over by the agent of a lord of the manor. Most of the dwellings were owned by their occupiers, who, each an absolute monarch of the soil, niggled in his sooty garden of an evening amid the flutter of drying shirts and towels. Freehold Villas symbolized the final triumph of Victorian economics, the apotheosis of the prudent and industrious artisan. It corresponded with a Building Society Secretary's dream of paradise. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... but both now fled different ways: and, as a woman in a little house that gets a painful livelihood by spinning, if chance her geese be scattered o'er the common, she courses round the plain from side to side, compelling here and there the stragglers to the flock; they cackle loud, and flutter o'er the champaign; so Boyle pursued, so fled this pair of friends: finding at length their flight was vain, they bravely joined, and drew themselves in phalanx. First Bentley threw a spear with all his force, hoping to pierce the ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... how you can compare those times you speak of with the present. I am sure Doctor Schoolman frequently tells us what remarkable advance we have made over those times in every way. I hope you do not wish to go backward!" and Mrs. Gray felt a little flutter of triumph at her own unusual skill in argument. Nobody responded at once and she ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... dress was blood-soaked, and there was blood on the sacks and on the stony floor. It oozed from her side, and her hand was cold as the rocks, and there was no flutter at her wrist. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... they entered the district where the colored folks had their homes, their coming created quite a flutter. To have a fine big car fetching a trio of colored children home was an event ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... the 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 the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... embroideries and, thus, encountered a brand-new love. Then Aunt Isabel was the kind of woman who keeps big bowls of fresh flowers sitting around in all the rooms, even if there's no party—a delightful habit. Missy was going to adore watching Aunt Isabel's pretty, restless hands flutter about as, each morning, she arranged the fresh flowers in ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... must—" I felt a touch on my cheek, lighter than the caress of a butterfly's wing, softer than the tip of a baby's finger, sweeter than the perfume of jessamine at night. For a moment the Queen continued to flutter close about me, radiant and shining. I shut my dazzled eyes for an instant. When I opened them ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... in bunting and blue fire. But perhaps it's a compliment. He knows his London, and it's no use trying to hide the facts from him. They must have queer notions of cities, those monarchs. They must fancy everybody lives in a flutter of flags and walks about under triumphal arches, like as if I were to stitch shoes in my Sunday clothes." By a defiance of chronology Crowl had them on to-day, and they seemed to accentuate ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... a state of repentance and flutter that he could not let me take a decent farewell. The sound of the others' horses had long died away down the hill when he began to tell me what he ought to ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... excitement prevented much notice of his, for Rose was in a flutter of hope and fear, sympathy and delight, about Phebe and her success. The house was crowded; the audience sufficiently mixed to make the general opinion impartial; and the stage full of little orphans with shining faces, a most effective ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... "I, the silken hawk, came not to flutter your nest of doves, senor. I came but for a little hour to meet a man who—Ah, he is coming now. Sheriff Paul, I have ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... flutter and fly, Bear him my heart of gold, Bid him be brave little carrier dove! Bid him be brave and bold! Tell him that I at my spinning wheel, Will sing while it turns and hums, And think all day of his love so leal, Until with the flute he comes. Now fly, flutter ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... glory to God and peace with men radiating like sunlight from all his spirit and all his life. A young female, chafed and fretting under the enforced dulness of a sober home, has received and accepted an invitation which promises to set her free from restraint for a time, and permit her to flutter at will in the midst of a fashionable throng. At the threshold of the prepared festivities a message meets her,—a message charged with a mighty sorrow, which drives the crowd of joyful anticipations forth from her heart, as a swollen stream bears down the dry leaves ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... it all means," she said, shaking her head and speaking with a pleased flutter. "She was here this afternoon, and I should have said she had come to see how bad she could make us feel. I declare I never felt so put down ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Mr. Chippy's cries continued. There was really no reason for his alarm. For his wife was away from home, with all their children. But Mr. Chippy kept flying back and forth in a great flutter. He too called to young Master Robin that he'd better ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Europe, and the method of training is interesting. From the nest upwards the bird was taught that the only possible place to obtain food was from between a pair of antlers. At first fed sitting between them, as she learnt to flutter she was encouraged to bridge a short gap to her dinner. Then, as she grew stronger, she flew short distances to get her food as before. The next step was the use of a stuffed deer on wheels, which, when the hawk was loosed, was ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... cloud above, then the specks grow larger and larger, and finally the birds seem to drop from the sky upon some tall tree that they completely cover — a veritable cloudburst of birds. Without pausing to rest after the long journey, down they flutter into the weedy pastures with much cheerful twittering, to feed upon whatever seeds may be protruding through the snow. Every action of a flock seems to be concerted, as if some rigid disciplinarian ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... about the play; chance has given you this opportunity—the result is beyond question! Yet I confess that I have a presentiment. If the manuscript of 'The Heart of the People' were in my hands at this moment, I think that I would tear it into little pieces, and watch them flutter down on to the ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... meantime Dr. Masham, really agitated, roused his brother magistrate, and communicated to his worship the important discovery. The Squire fell into a solemn flutter. 'We must be regular, brother Masham; we must proceed by rule; we are a bench in ourselves. Would that my clerk were here! We must send for Signsealer forthwith. I will not decide without the statutes. The law must be consulted, and it must be obeyed. The fellow hath not brought ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... before entering Graham Jannan's house, saturated with the pastoral tranquillity, listening to the flutter of wings under the eaves. Then he went in. They had finished supper, but were lingering at the table, with the candles guttering in an air from the open door. His greeting was simple and glad, and without restraint. Susan wore a dress like a white vapour, sprigged with pale buds, her throat ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... events, fashions, city gossip, the Quebec Gazette,—one would look in vain, in the barren columns of that journal, for any intelligence of an incident, in 1782, which, from the celebrity in after-life of the chief actor, and the local repute of the reigning belle of the day, must have caused a flutter among the F. F. Q. of the period. We mean the tender attachment of Horatio (Lord) Nelson, commanding H. M. frigate Albemarle, 28 guns then in port,—his romantic admiration for Miss Mary Simpson, the youthful and ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... in white on the gray decks. The screen showed a race of boats which melted without warning to a mass of white uniforms packed about the raised square of a roped-in Platform below guns and a turret clouded with men. Two tanned giants in wrestling tights scrambled under the ropes. There was a flutter of caps. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... with a strangled cry, and went down on his hands and knees. No reassuring flutter met the hand which he thrust inside the trampled bosom. That heart seemed stilled. He gathered the limp form in his arms like a child's and turned a dreadful face upon the beaten fragments of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... down Greek Street, till he came to a place called Bayle's Court. He passed under the archway, and found himself in a curious cul-de-sac, that was apparently occupied by a French Laundry, as a perfect network of clothes-lines was stretched across from house to house, and there was a flutter of white linen in the morning air. He walked right to the end, and knocked at a little green house. After some delay, during which every window in the court became a blurred mass of peering faces, the door was opened by a rather rough-looking foreigner, who asked him in very bad English what ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... to rehearse eternity. He must have felt it coming, for his eyes have forsaken all else, and are fixed upon the cottage door. Yes, it moved, it surely moved; and the strong man's eyes are numb. They rally and renew the vigil. Yes, it moves, wider still—and the flutter of a dress is seen. His heart leaps wildly, and his eyes fly at the face that follows. It is too far to see clearly—but he ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... flutter, Mollie opened her door and entered. But on the threshold she paused, with a shrill cry of wonder, terror, and doubt; for the padded walls and floor, the blind windows, the lighted lamp, the bed, the furniture, were all ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... arguments. The house was theirs till Christmas; between this and then he would think about it. He could very well afford to keep the house on till next Midsummer, and then they might see what had best be done. There was plenty of money, and Priscilla need not put herself into a flutter. In answer to that word flutter, Priscilla wrote ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... he comes, loading his gun; Look out for the partridges—hush! there is one! Poor victim! a bang, and a flutter—'tis o'er,— And those fair dappled wings shall expand nevermore; It was shot for our invalid sister at home, Yet we sigh as beneath the ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... 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 ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... of the mountains, than to the Alpine heights where he had generally found a more robust amusement. And wherever he went he bent his attention on the fairer portion of the creation, the girls who fill all the hotels with the flutter of their fresh toilettes and the babble of their pleasant voices. It was very mean and poor of him, seeing he was a mountaineer himself—but still it must be recorded that the only young ladies he systematically neglected were those in very ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... was no more desirous to stay than to go—the orchestra, consisting of a piano and several violins, began a peculiar refrain. There was a flutter of curiosity throughout the room, and cries of "Hush! hush! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... her in life's practical affairs can appreciate her self-poise in danger. Peril was to her a sedative; it calmed and girded her, bringing out every resource, and making self-command absolute. She knew nothing of that flutter which confuses. Great danger instantly brought thought and feeling to a focus, and held them there. Several perilous emergencies in her life are vividly recalled—such as being overturned while in a carriage with a child in her arms, the horse meanwhile floundering ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... afterwards Paragot wrote to Blanquette to join him in Paris, and when the flutter of her wet handkerchief from the railway carriage window became no longer visible, then indeed I felt myself to be a stranger in a ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... conspiracy and sedition. The ill-suppressed murmurs of discontent, which may be compared to the ominous growls of a volcano, grow in loudness and intensity, till at last, with a rush and a wild shriek, there follows an explosion. The thoughts flutter hither and thither, in anxious, helpless agitation. Then martial sounds are heard—a secret gathering of a few, which soon grows in number and in boldness. Now they draw nearer; you distinguish the clatter of spurs and weapons, the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... rounded head, thickly set with hairy calices, looks as if it might be placed in a glass cup and make an excellent penwiper. If the cultivated human eye (and stomach) revolt at magenta, it is ever a favorite shade with butterflies. They flutter in ecstasy over the gay flowers; indeed, they are the principal visitors and benefactors, for the erect corollas, exposed organs, and level-topped heads are ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... glass o' port," he said roguishly, "and shuvversh accord'n'ly," he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right hand; "one of thoshe aw—odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty well done all I can man-n'ge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;" and with some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches, the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... your satisfied, contented heart, than thus have urged you to form a wish to my destruction. Alas! alas! my power and my happiness fade from me, and are as if they had never been. My wand must now go to you, who can make no use of it, and I must flutter about forlornly and alone in the cold world, with no more ability to do good, and waste away my time—a ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... 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 tremor of ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... seem to me," he thought, "a matter of so much disturbance. If a man has made up his mind to kill himself, let him do it, in God's name, like a gentleman. This flutter and big talk ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... When you open the box the rustles will escape, whether you are wearing a silk dress or not," said the man, seriously. Then he picked up another box. "In this," he continued, "are many assorted flutters. They are invaluable to make flags flutter on a still day, when there is no wind. You, sir," turning to the Wizard, "ought to have this assortment. Once you have tried my goods I am sure you ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... Marya Dmitrievna, and Gedeonovksy, who by this time had come in from the garden, and he was himself laughing aloud at the story he was telling. At the name of Lavretsky, Marya Dmitrievna was all in a flutter. She turned pale and went ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... darling, I see I wronged you. Your poor white face reproaches me for my injustice, and I feel that success has not spoiled you; that you are still my little Edna—my sweet child—my daughter. Be quiet now, and listen to me, and try to keep that flutter out of your lips. Mr. Hammond is no worse than he has been for many months, but he is very feeble, and can not live much longer. You know very well that he loves you tenderly, and he says he can not die in peace without seeing you once more. Every day, when I go over ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of the girls' bedroom Kitty Maitland peered through her spectacles at the flutter of Maud's dress behind the bushes in the garden, and knitted her brows, in her anxiety to account for the presence of a dark stain around the waist! Presently the bushes parted company for a few yards, and the stain was discovered to be neither more nor less than a coat ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... bloody Low," say one and all; and straightway all was flutter and commotion, as in a duck pond when a hawk pitches and strikes in ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... rest, ineffaceable, to be carried to his grave—the day he came back and heard that Juana was dead. He had left them at a place in Inyo, a scattering of houses on the edge of the desert. Pancha saw him coming, and her figure, racing to meet him in a blown flutter of cotton skirt, was as plain before his eyes as if she were running toward him now along the shining water path. She was twelve, brown as a nut, and scarecrow-thin, with a tangle of black hair, and narrow, dark eyes. He could recall the feel of her little hard ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... and listened to the faint flutter of Lucy's movement, and the joyous note in her voice as she welcomed her lover. With a sigh, he then turned to a table piled with papers and slates and apparently gave himself up to ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... himself in the centre of the theatre, is his excellency the president. No Spanish entertainment is complete without its president. The curtain may not rise till his excellency has taken his seat; the actors may not respond to a call or an encore if the president is not agreeable, and does not flutter the big play-bill before him, in token of his acquiescence. The box to the right is the lawful property of the censor, who, like most Spanish authorities in Cuba, rarely pays for his pleasure. He is extremely ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... searching about one of them came upon a tattered scrap of newspaper. Its burnt edges and its general singed condition proved that it had been used for wadding. The force of the discharge had blown it out, almost intact, to flutter ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... mind on the scenes before you, when the eye shall not wander to, nor the heart flutter at the surrounding objects of the spectacle, you will return ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... the breeze amongst the leaves, or the flutter of a bird's wing as it flew from branch to branch, broke the silence. ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... Street, although it may be broadly stated that, as a general thing, the music of all museums, menageries, and circuses becomes greatly demoralized,—possibly through associations with the beasts. So soft and courteous is this atmosphere that I have detected the flutter of one or two light dresses on the adjacent balconies and piazzas, and the front parlor windows of a certain aristocratic mansion in the vicinity, which have always maintained a studious reserve ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... saying, "Dear Flutter, do not fear me. I will gladly ease your pain, if you will let me; I am your friend, and long to show you how I grieve for all the wrong I did you, when you were so kind to me. Forgive, and let me ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... four figures called off the play that Gridley was to make, or to pretend to make. But that nine, capping all at the end, caused a swift flutter in Gridley hearts. For that nine, at the end of the signal, called for a ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... leave of her; took leave of Brandes with the faintest flutter of one eyelid, as though he understood Brandes' game. Which he did not; ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... delicious breakfast of tender chickens, light biscuit, excellent bread, fresh eggs, and that rarest of comforts at a hotel, delicious coffee, with a brimming pitcher of cream. We wondered at all these domestic comforts, for we have not heard the flutter of a petticoat in the house till we saw our respectable landlady in spectacles gliding out of the room. We learned from her that she was the only womankind on the 'diggings.' Every thing is neatly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in one hand and swung her whip with the other. "I think not," she cried, and disappeared with a flutter of skirts and a scurry ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... family, the first act they do is to cut off a thousand out of sixteen hundred a month from his allowance. They state (though there was a great number of dependants to maintain) that six hundred would be enough to maintain him. There appears in the account of these proceedings to be such a flutter about the care of the Rajah, and the management of his household: in short, that there never was such a tender guardianship as, always with the knowledge of Mr. Hastings, is exercised over this poor Rajah, who had just given (if he did give) 40,000l. for his own ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... brown; he marked the wind rise, and die away, and come again, banging the doors of the empty rooms, and setting timbers all strangely to creaking as under sudden trampling feet; then lift into the air with a rustling sound like the stir of garments and the flutter of wings, calling out weirdly in the great ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... outcasts, and He offers His friendship to the 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 road. He went ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... See the mass of gay colors—red, gold, blue, yellow, with glitter of steel and flutter of flags, a black veil of smoke sweeping over. Wave, mothers and daughters, wives, sisters, sweethearts—wave, wave; ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... gentlemen and chevaliers of honor were already deserting him. As soon as the result of the enterprise against Antwerp citadel was known, and the storm was gathering most darkly over the royal cause, Aerschot and Havre were first to spread their wings and flutter away in search of a more congenial atmosphere. In September, the Duke was again as he had always professed himself to be, with some important interval of exception—"the affectionate brother and cordial friend ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... there came a long slow-growing silence; and then, with a flutter, she was beside him again, laughing in his ears ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... can fancy her flutter! For my part, if there be one character in the world more odious than another, I think it is a fussy woman. Lady ——, with Lord Cadurcis dining with her, and the new beauty for a niece, must have been in a ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... delightfully odd confusion only, as you look down one of them, through an interminable flutter of flags and swaying of dark blue drapery, all made beautiful and mysterious with Japanese or Chinese lettering. For there are no immediately discernible laws of construction or decoration: each building seems to have a fantastic prettiness of its ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... to Corinth from Cenchreas' shore; And rested at the foot of those wild hills, The rugged founts of the Peraean rills, And of that other ridge whose barren back Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack, South-westward to Cleone. There she stood About a young bird's flutter from a wood, 180 Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread, By a clear pool, wherein she passioned To see herself escap'd from so sore ills, While her robes flaunted ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... see the joyous close of the flower adventure. He felt behind him a flutter as of the lightest wind and saw a white butterfly flitting about in the dimness between the thick trunks. He flew hither and thither in an uneasy quest, as if uncertain of the way. Nor was he alone; butterfly after ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... stop short—that head full of so many astounding things! He saw, traveling swiftly up and down the keys, rising above them to an extravagant height and pouncing down upon them again, those predatory hands that had pounced on the spoils of Susa! They began, in a moment, to flutter lightly over the upper end of the keyboard. It was extraordinary what a ripple poured as if out of those hands. Magin himself bent over to listen to the ripple, partly showing his face as he turned his ear to the keys. He showed, too, in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was a little era in Mary's young life. Walter had fixed his eyes on her with delight, had held her hand some seconds, and admired her to her face. She began to wonder a little, and flutter a little, and to ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... pretty well. I am not strong. Since I returned home, a little thing seems to flutter me, as your entrance has done now. Lionel had just told me you would call upon me, he thought. I was so glad to hear it! Somehow I had feared ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... my dinner, and I at once noted that she was in a flutter of unusual excitement. Her mother had undoubtedly prepared her for the arrival of the expected guest, and made known also his relations to one of whom she had been somewhat jealous, and it would seem that the simple-hearted girl could ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... joker in a London street. The respectability that still clung to him made him the more ludicrous. His clothes were the ruined cast-offs of a middle-class tradesman, and over them he wore his old masters gown. It did not flutter out behind now, but lay dank and heavy along his sides like the wings of a ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... virtue and so hinder its usefulness. "Fabius and Regulus would have accepted such marks of esteem, without feeling in them any hurt to their disinterestedness and frugality."[9] Perhaps there is a flutter of self-consciousness that is not far removed from this affectation, in the pains which Rousseau takes to tell us that after dining at the castle, he used to return home gleefully to sup with a mason who was his neighbour and his friend.[10] On the whole, however, and so far as we know, Rousseau ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... instantly assumed the air with which a well-bred woman prepares to condole with a person of her acquaintance upon a bereavement. All these little details I perceived in a moment, and also the shrug of M. Termonde's shoulders, the quick flutter of his eyelids, the rapidly-dismissed expression of disagreeable surprise which my sudden appearance called forth. But what then? Was it not the same with myself? I could have sworn that at the same moment he experienced sensations exactly similar to those which were catching me at the ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... though the elder lady preferred the aid of the concierge. For the moment Gaeta had forgotten the claims of her companions, and remembered only mine. It is a butterfly way of hers to forget easily, and flutter with delight in a new corner of the garden, just because ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... its tranquil spring, Through the dark heaps of thick surrounding error, Is not the lot of kings. Give me the man, So rarely found, of pure and open heart, Of judgment clear, and eye unprejudiced, To aid me in the search. I cast the lots. And may I find that man, among the thousands Who flutter in the sunshine ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... forward to this second meeting with Miss Darrow with an eagerness which made every hour seem interminably long, and he was in such a flutter of expectancy that I ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... The boys were too much afraid of the Hare to do more than flutter and squawk a little, and as the Gentleman Goose did not seem inclined to make an attack single-handed, the Hare, with the children behind him, got to the door in safety. Peter, however, had to be dragged ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... jumped up in a flutter. He didn't take any notice of her excitement. 'I heard that you were living here,' he said, 'and knowing what sort of an old place it is, I've come to see if I can be of any use to you.' Here he looked about at the cracks in the walls and the holes in the roof. 'And you'll ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... she felt oddly shy. She looked down at the pavement, then, with a flutter of the eyelids, ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... ripest flower—the petals were soon to loosen and flutter to the ground, but nobody thought so—they never do. Everywhere the Roman legions were victorious, and commerce sailed the seas in prosperous ships. Power manifests itself in conspicuous waste, and the habit grows until conspicuous waste imagines itself power. Conditions in Rome had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... them gaily coloured—which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from her work, cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in scattered pictures. An etching of a child playing with a Blenheim spaniel happened to flutter ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... tone of the doctor's voice, and the genuine shouts of satisfaction from the people, put the poor little queen in such a flutter that nearly all her courage forsook her, and she could scarcely reply. Nevertheless, she had a mind of ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... see the smoke and hear the sounds of battle through the clear, still, autumn air. But as his signalers could get no answer from the fort he began to fear that Allatoona was already lost, when the signal officer's quick eye caught the faintest flutter at one of the fort windows. Presently the letters, C—R—S—E—H—E—R, were made out; which meant that General John M. Corse, one of the best volunteers produced by the war, was holding out. He had hurried over from Rome, ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood |
