"Ticking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it had been only a few short months that had passed since then? One's life is not measured by the ticking of a clock, but by emotion and feeling. She had crowded more emotion into these few short months than in all the rest of her dull, uneventful life ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... his ear: alas! it was ticking vigorously. He felt for the keyhole, and wound it up. After that we employed ourselves in repeating as many of the metrical psalms and paraphrases of Scripture as we could recollect, and this helped away a good part of ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... fluttered exile. At Manchester, even more than at Liverpool, we are imagined in the immense railroad station hotel, which is indeed perhaps superorganized and over-convenienced after an American ideal: one does not, for instance, desire a striking, or even a ticking, clock in the transom above one's bedroom door; but the like type of hotel is to be found at every great railroad centre or terminal in England, and it is never to be found quite bad, though of course it is sometimes better and sometimes worse. It is hard to know ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... her eyes remained fixed on Bianca, while her hand moved, mechanically ticking the paragraphs. That silent duel of eyes went on—the woman's fixed, cruel, smiling; the girl's uncertain, resentful. Neither of them heard a word that Mr. Stone was reading. They treated it as, from the beginning, Life ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was not time for her to take her medicine. She looked at the clock, to see if she could tell what o'clock it was. She could not, of course, for she had never learned to tell the time by the clock. Accordingly, after looking at the hands and figures a few minutes in silence, and listening to the ticking, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... steady ticking of the clock, and the lumpish snoring of a large dog stretched on a mat outside the dining-room door, disturbed the mysterious morning stillness of hall and staircase. Who were the sleepers hidden in the upper regions? Let the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... in the house; none but she had ever slept there since Willie's death. The farm-labourers had foddered the cattle and gone home hours before. There were crickets chirping all round the warm hearth-stones; there was the clock ticking with the peculiar beat Susan had known from her childhood, and which then and ever since she had oddly associated within the idea of a mother and child talking together, one loud tick, and quick—a ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shade! When they left Brandon it was as though they had never been; the echo of their voices died away into the ticking of the clock, the movement of ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... fell upon the men who were left in the room. The bandit, unconcerned, puffed his cigarette. Hardy and Pell felt like rats in a trap. Only Uncle Henry was passive. In the tense stillness, the clock could be heard ticking on and on. Pell was beginning to crack beneath the strain. Suddenly he began to pace the floor, his hands behind his back. No tiger in a cage was ever ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... held to the nostrils. No!—she would put it through the casement into the night-air, and it would float away and think of its days on the breast of an Imbergoose, and believe them back again. Oh, the difference between the great seas and winds, and the inside of that stuffy ticking! Poor little breast-feather of a foolish bird! Yes—now she could go to sleep! She knew it quite well—she had only to contrive a particular attitude.... There, that was right! Now she had only to put worrying thoughts out of her head and count ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking away in the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I think, the Colonel's Wife realized a little of the restless suspicions she had injected into old Laplace's mind, a little of poor Miss Haughtrey's misery, and some of the canker ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager, and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was next to his room,—and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he should ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... away peacefully. There was no sound in the Warren Lodge except the scratching of Lydia's pen, the ticking of her favorite skeleton clock, an occasional clatter of crockery from the kitchen, and the voices of the birds and maids without. The hour for lunch approached, and Lydia became a little restless. She interrupted her work to ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... reading the reports of recent fires. The place was very quiet—the sounds of the great city were hushed—the night was calm, and nothing was heard but the soft breathing of the sleepers and the ticking of the clock as I sat there waiting for a fire. I often looked at the telegraph needles and, (I am half ashamed to say it), longed for them to move and give us "a call." At last, when I had begun to despair, the sharp little ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... just the ticking of the Empire clock and the faint snapping of the fire. Edith felt as if some iron hand had gripped her throat. For a moment it was impossible for her to speak; then the words came quietly: "Eleanor, I'm ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... her ears. Away in London even now Capes was packing and preparing; Capes, the magic man whose touch turned one to trembling fire. What was he doing? What was he thinking? It was less than a day now, less than twenty hours. Seventeen hours, sixteen hours. She glanced at the soft-ticking clock with the exposed brass pendulum upon the white marble mantel, and made a rapid calculation. To be exact, it was just sixteen hours and twenty minutes. The slow stars circled on to the moment of their meeting. The softly glittering ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... accustomed during the four days we had been on board. Naturally, with such powerful engines as the Titanic carried, the vibration was very noticeable all the time, and the sudden stopping had something the same effect as the stopping of a loud-ticking grandfather's clock in ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... wanted a good sleep, after being lively all the night upon the waves, and the heat and the yellow light came in upon their eyes, and set the flies buzzing all about them. And even the women, who had slept out their time, and talked quietly, like the clock ticking, were vexed with the sun, which kept their kettles from good boiling, and wrote upon their faces the years of their life. But each made allowance for her neighbor's appearance, on the strength of the troubles she had been ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Presently from these more specious changes, his eye condescended to the many curious objects with which the floor was littered. Here were the locks of dismounted pistols; clocks and clockwork in every stage of demolition, some still busily ticking, some reduced to their dainty elements; a great company of carboys, jars and bottles; a carpenter's bench and ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... photographs of children, except one. That was Valentine's. The hearth, on which a fire flashed, was wide and had two mighty occupants, Rupert and Mab, the doctor's mastiffs, who took their evening ease, pillowing their huge heads upon each other's heaving bodies. The ticking clock on the mantelpiece was an imitation of the Devil Clock of Master Zacharius. There were no newspapers in the room. That fact alone made it original. A large cage of sleeping canaries was covered with a cloth. The room was long and rather narrow, the only door being at one end. On ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... part of your own body; then a crash of something that has fallen,—blown over, very likely——Pater noster, qui es in coelis! for you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed trembling so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... observation; a porter slept on a baggage truck under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table close to the silent instrument. She listened to the ticking of a clock in the ticket office, but could not see its face; wondered how late it was, and how long she had been absent. Feeling very lonely and restless she closed the door, and sat down in the deserted waiting-room, glad of the companionship of a tortoise-shell ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... good woman, unless there is money in this bed." Thrusting his bayonet through the ticking and ripping it for some distance, he took a malicious satisfaction in scattering its contents about ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... The silence was so complete that the ticking of a watch sounded like the beat of ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... man pointed to the laboratory door. I went and opened it and stood listening. In a corner by the window a clock-work recording barometer was ticking with a faint rhythm. ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... the carol of a bird, the rippling of a clear stream flowing swiftly through the valley, and at intervals the distinct notes of the little bells and cymbals upon the clocks which his Majesty brought with him. Even their ticking is often audible. At certain hours the ringing of the monastery bells blends solemnly and softly with the silence. The Hieronymites in the monastery are pious monks. His Majesty sometimes listens to their choir. Its music is very fine since Sir Wolf Hartschwert, whom you also know, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... death ensued, then everything was remembered and rendered significant. Was a dog heard to howl and moan during the night, with his head in the direction of the house where the patient lay; was there heard in the silent watches of the night in the room occupied by the sick person, a tick, ticking as of a watch about the bed or furniture, these were sure signs of approaching death, and adult patients hearing these omens, often made sure that their end was near. Many pious people also improved ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... Bunch, alone in her bed chamber, was seated in an arm-chair, close to a good fire. A thick carpet covered the floor; through the window-curtains could be seen the lawn of a large garden; the deep silence was only interrupted by the regular ticking of a clock, and the crackling of the wood. Her hands resting on the arms of the chair, she gave way to a feeling of happiness, such as she had never so completely enjoyed since she took up her residence at the hotel. For her, accustomed so long to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... him murmuring beside me, "Short—short, your life is short"; till the sound of it seemed to mingle with the measured ticking of a clock somewhere ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... Father," she began at once. There was disclosed an elderly, narrow-faced man seated at a large table and surrounded by manuscripts and books. The sunlight flowing through curtains of Turkey red fell sanguinely upon the bust of dead-eyed Pericles on the mantle. A little clock was ticking, hidden somewhere among the countless leaves of writing, the maps and broad heavy tomes that swarmed upon ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... was busy adjusting the apparatus, and paused only to remark that the boxes contained two sensitive selenium surfaces balanced against two carbon resistances. There was also in the box a clockwork mechanism which Craig wound up and set ticking ever so softly. Then he moved a rod that seemed to cover the slit, until the apparatus was adjusted to his satisfaction, a delicate operation, judging by the care he took. Several of these boxes were installed, and by that time it was ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... patting him on the back and begging him repeatedly to brace up and not behave like that, I did nothing. At last his sobs ceased and he was silent. I had risen from my chair and now I stood there with a hand on his shoulder; the ticking of the ancient eight-sided clock on the wall ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... frightened, and at last they roared with laughter, put out their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... ticking of the clock—! That vexed me so last night—! "For though Time keeps Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps, But only nods above the world to mock Its restless occupant, then rudely rock ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... successive days, shaking them up well and turning them over each day. They should be covered over with a thick cloth during the night; if exposed to the night air they will become damp and mildew. This way of washing the bed-ticking and feathers makes them very fresh and light, and is much easier than the old-fashioned way of emptying the beds and washing the feathers separately, while it answers quite as well. Care must be taken to dry the bed perfectly before ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... don't realize the interesting work they do in the making of history, as they go on ticking out moments which never before have been and never will be again! It would be such a reward for their patience; and I should like my watch to know how often I've thanked it lately for the splendid moments it ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the ticking of a watch, made by a small insect. It is considered a sign of death, and hence ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... the window, was singing again, as if nothing in the world had happened since I last heard him. The toll-house window was open; I ran up to it with delight and looked in. There was no one there, but the clock in the corner was ticking away, the writing-table stood by the window, and the long pipe in the corner as of old. I could not resist the temptation to climb through the window and seat myself at the writing-table before the big account-book. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the clocks' ticking was like the voice of many ripples washing the shore of the Infinite. A new life had begun for Trove, and they were cutting it into seconds. He looked up at them and rose quickly and stood a moment, his thumb on the door-latch. Outside ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... dawn, on dew-moist fields, where the harvest lay unfinished as the workers, hastening to the call of war, had left the work. Across Paris, which seemed as silent as the fields, to an hotel with empty rooms! Five hundred empty rooms, with a clock ticking busily in every room! War or no war, that old man who wound the clocks was making his rounds softly through the halls from door to door. He was a good soldier, who had heeded Joffre's request that everyone should go ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... stepped into the room, I heard the clock ticking and that caused me to look at it. It sits on the mantelpiece with some layers of paper under one corner where the mantel is warped. When the papers slip out or we move the clock a little as we're dusting, the ticking stops right away. Of course the clock's not a new one at all, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... her feet in the grass, the rustle of her skirts, became prominent sounds. She missed the company of her watch; she wound it up and got it to ticking; anything to ward off the solitude. The thought of camping out she did not like to entertain; but thoughts are unavoidable. Once she stood quite still to make a little trial of it, but her pause was not long; she soon got her ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... night: will it never end? Or will not life itself go out, and let the sufferer have rest? The slow and sleepless hours toil through the darkness; and there is a ticking of a clock in the hushed room; and this agony of pain still throbbing and throbbing in the breaking heart. And then, as the pale dawn shows gray in the windows, the anguish of despair follows him even into the wan realms of sleep, and there ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... wheeled up the machine and with deft fingers adjusted the fittings on one side. Quest himself connected it up on the other. The Professor sat there like a figure of stone. The silence in the room was so intense that the ticking of the small clock upon the mantelpiece was clearly audible. The silent battle of wills seemed like a live and visible struggle. The very atmosphere seemed charged with the thrill and wonder of it. Never before had Quest met with resistance so complete and immovable. For the first time the ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Mrs. Maldon unconsciously drawing the final breaths of life filled the whole house. Louis and Rachel glanced at each other, scared, shamed, even horrified, to discover that the vast pendulum of the universe was still solemnly ticking ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... whether she wished it or not, to the kitchen—that bright kitchen with its well-kept pots and pans, and its heavy delf-ware ranged on shelves, its great Dutch clock ticking loudly in the corner, and the clear fire burning merrily in the stove, which was flanked with blue and white tiles with ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... from his long clay pipe, and nothing broke the silence save the parrot (in a large gilded cage on a marble pedestal in the third window-niche), uttering from time to time a loud scream, or exclaiming in a sharp voice, "Good-morning!" The ticking of the bronze clock on the mantel-piece at the other end of the room could be distinctly heard. Suddenly the old gentleman struck the window-board so violently with his right hand that the panes rattled, the lady gave a start, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... large aquiline nose, and the blue, half-closed eyes and faintly smiling lips seemed to be gazing before them with a curious expression, All would be quiet in the room—not a sound being audible save his regular breathing and the ticking of the watch with the hunter painted on the dial. He would not see me, and I would stand at the door and think: "Poor, poor old man! There are many of us, and we can play together and be happy, but he sits there all alone, and has nobody to be fond of him. ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... was deserted when he entered it—only the blaze of the electric light, the golden flame of the log-fire in the great open fireplace, and the solemn ticking of the gold clock that had stood there, in the same place of honour, for the last hundred years. He passed over to the windows and flung them open; the hum of the town came, with the cold night air, into the room. The stars ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... was pinned to the wall above the table. This table, with its green oil-cloth top, and the lamp, about which winged insects beat noisily, and an earthen water-jar—from which the water dripped as regularly as the ticking of a clock—were the only articles of furniture in the office. On a shelf at one side of the door lay the men's machetes, a belt of cartridges, and a revolver ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... on and on, listening to the clock's muffled ticking. Not the ghost of a sound rose up from the great bed. Either she lay archly listening or slept a sleep serener than an infant's. And when, it seemed, we had been hours in hiding and were cramped, chilled, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the windows, ticking and crying in the rooms, was the same message; till, in a terror of the walls, she would flee into the wider prison of the woods, and oppressed by them in turn, would escape with a beating heart into the honest daylight of the high-road. So one flies from a haunted ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... leaned a little forward, and had pulled his hat a trifle over his eyes. There was a moment's lull in the storm, and it was so quiet that each could hear the ticking of Father ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... noticed every detail of his appearance. He was flushed, a purple, congested color, singularly unlike his usual indoor pallor; hurried pulses throbbed visibly, almost audibly, at his temples; one eyelid twitched rapidly and steadily, like a clock ticking. With a gesture as automatic as drawing breath, he jerked out his watch and looked at it, apparently to make sure of catching his trolley, although his valedictory was poured out with such a passionate ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... stooping low and getting everything over my own height against the stars. The door was not locked; but the darkness within was such that I could not see my own hand as it wound the windlass inch by inch. Between the slow ticking of the cogs I listened jealously for foreign sounds, and heard at length a gentle dripping across the breadth of the boathouse; that was the last of the "portcullis," as Raffles called it, rising out of the river; indeed, ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... furniture from the apartments of the opulent. After they had slept upon the beds in the bivouacs, as they could not carry them away, they ripped them open, consigned the feathers to the winds, and sold the bed-clothes and ticking for a mere trifle. Neither the ox, nor the calf but two days old; neither the ewe, nor the lamb scarcely able to walk; neither the brood-hen, nor the tender chicken, was spared. All were carried off indiscriminately; whatever had life was slaughtered; and the fields were ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... the motor, his heart thumping frantically. Standing as stiff and motionless as a statue against the damp brick wall, she heard the automobile leap away and go pounding down the street. Apparently she was alone on the platform; the ticking of telegraph instruments came to her anxious ears, however, and she knew there were living people inside the long, low building. The experience certainly was new to this tall, carefully nurtured girl. Never before had she been left alone at such an hour and place; it goes ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... the first visited. Here the eye travelled over numerous shelves laden with a profusion of self-recording instruments, electric batteries and switchboards, whilst the ear caught the ticking of many clocks, the gentle whir of a motor and occasionally the trembling note of an electric bell. But such sights and sounds conveyed only an impression of the delicate methodical means by which the daily and hourly variations ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... between the furniture, the light fell so badly and cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... other self, which men had thought of as far back as Socrates, kept guard. When he had slept an hour a tiny voice in his ear, no louder than the ticking of a watch, told him to awake, that danger was near. He obeyed the call, sleep was lifted from him and he opened his eyes. But with inherited caution he did not move. He still lay flat in his covert, trusting ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... upon the busily ticking little clock on the table. As she looked, her gaze became fixed and she sat up in ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... consumptive. He had been measured for a funeral sermon three times, he said, and had never used either of them. He knew a clergyman named Brayley who went up into that region with Bright's justly celebrated disease. He was so emaciated that he couldn't carry a watch. The ticking of the watch rattled his bones so that it made him nervous, and at night they had to pack him in cotton so that he wouldn't break a leg when he turned over. He got to sleeping out nights on a bed of balsam and spruce boughs ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... turned towards Mr. Tredgold. Her eyes were scornful and her lips slightly parted. Before these signs his courage flickered out and left him speechless. Even commonplace statements of fact were denied him. At last in sheer desperation he referred to the loudness of the clock's ticking. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... now, impenetrably dark, and the Northern Lights were flashing like aerial searchlights in the sky. The five of them were singularly quiet, deep in their own thoughts. Bill heard his watch ticking loudly in his pocket. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... idea how to make it go again, but mildly shake it in the hope that something will happen to set it going, we are merely fumbling. But if, on moving the clock gently so as to set the pendulum in motion, we hear it wobbling about irregularly, and at the same time observe that there is no ticking of any kind, we come to the conclusion that the pendulum has somehow or other escaped the little catch that connects it with the mechanism, we have been really thinking. From the fact that the pendulum wobbles irregularly, we infer that ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... together, they found the fresh air so invigorating, and themselves so much stronger, that they prolonged their walk half-way to Oxton. The pasture-meadows, rich and rank, were alive with flocks and herds; the blue sea lazily beat time, as, ticking out the seconds, it melodiously broke upon the sleeping shore; the darkly-flowing Mullet swept sounding to the sea between its tortuous banks; and upon that old high foot-path skirting the stream, now shady with hazels, and now flowery ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... she inquired, patting the bobbing, ticking jet on her gown, "where do you think that frightful, ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... was an old-fashioned watch belonging to mother. I used to listen to it ticking. And once, years after, I saw it. Father had given it to—a friend of his. So, you see, he must ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... concern of Pere Marquette. If a woman required flour for her baking let her do without; it would serve her right for having failed to remember the great day. . . . Then at high noon, not measured by any ticking clock in the Settlement, the matter being decided by Pere Marquette and the sun alone, the middle door was flung open. The old man, dressed in his best black suit, his newest skull cap set like a crown upon his head, stood at one side ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... exclaimed Edna, and they all raced down to the beach, where the accident had happened. The watch still lay, gleaming in the sunlight, where it had fallen, ticking as unconcernedly as if no adventure had befallen it. Fortunately, it had alighted on a particularly soft bit of ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... the means of providing supper. Not a footfall sounds in the street; only the wailing voice of the watchman calling the hour at a distance breaks the dead silence, amidst which the old man can hear the ticking of the gold repeater in his pocket, the tinkle of the ashes that stir in the old wide grate, where a fire has been lighted, and the gnawing of a mouse behind the wainscot. He sits with the silver goblet ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... easily recovered if dropped; but many bean-bag games are of great interest even to adult players and are suitable for almost any conditions,—playground, parlor, or gymnasium. Bean bags should be made of heavy, closely woven material, such as ticking, awning, duck, or denim, and should be from 6 to 12 inches square when finished. They are stitched around the outer edge (except for a small length through which the beans are inserted). The bag should then be turned and stitched a second time. Hand ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... the final ticking of inverted commas, and Charles Langholm inscribes the autograph for which he is importuned once in a blue moon, and which the printer will certainly not set up at the foot of the last page; but the thing is done, and the doer must ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... endeavour. I have some strength to fight the battle of life. I am aware, and can acknowledge, I have many comforts, many mercies. Still I can GET ON. But I do hope and pray, that never may you, or any one I love, be placed as I am. To sit in a lonely room—the clock ticking loud through a still house—and have open before the mind's eye the record of the last year, with its shocks, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pretty. Fancy trousers immediately became the rage among the villagers. One young man of dudish propensities came out with a pair that had been worked in rings of various colors down each leg, while his competitor introduced knee breeches made from fancy bed ticking, heavily frilled at the knees and fancily embroidered in bright colors. The village belles, not to be outdone by the young men, discarded the old bone fish-hooks they had been wearing for ear jewelry and adopted the more natty safety-pin, at the same time making for themselves pretty waist ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... bazaars and hotels. The windows were closed, and the air heavy, as in a room seldom used. The two seated themselves close together, on one of the ugly sofas facing a door through which the beckoning negress had gone out. There was no sound except the harsh ticking of a huge, bulbous clock, all gilding and flowers, which stood in a corner. Monny's and Brigit's eyes met, with ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... knowing fair, how eminent that bed, Where the chintz diamonds with the silken thread, Where rustling curtains call the curious eye, And boast the streaks and paintings of the sky! Of flocks they'd have your milky ticking full: And all this for the benefit of wool! "But where," say they, "shall we bestow these weavers, That spread our streets, and are such piteous cravers?" The silk-worms (brittle beings!) prone to fate, Demand their care, to make their webs complete: These may ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... they returned to the parlor, where the bright flame on the hearth was setting their shadows to dancing on the walls. The feet of Mary Shrimpton were keeping time to the ticking of ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... as though in a futile effort to send, then leaving it open, thus holding the instruments on the table "dead," began ticking his foot against the impromptu key ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... in the room, a stillness in which the quiet ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece became maddeningly obtrusive. For seconds that dragged out interminably neither of the two men stirred. It was as if they were mutely listening to that eternal ticking, as one listens to the tramp of a watchman in ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... comfortable chair in which he sat brought him that peculiar peace of home which is one of the greatest gifts travel can bestow. Even the ticking of the clock came to his senses gratefully. Home at last, after all the pain, the dreary nights and days of acute loneliness, and only ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... His gaze fastened upon a boule bric-a-brac stand, on which stood an Aretine vase two feet high, of peerless form and glaze. The ticking of the great Peter Hele clock drew his attention to a work of ebony and ivory as scarcely could be believed as coming ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... you company with its friendly nearness, its ticking and its ready answers to your questions regarding the time, a watch in the woods and fields has another use, for it can be used as a compass. It will show just where the south is, then by turning your back on the south you face ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... on the office bench, and while the wondering operator set the wires ticking, strove to get his breath, utterly spent in his mad race across the heather. And when it was got he set ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... fruit trees, blew in and out the long, thin curtains. Faster went the bow upon the fiddle, the room became more brilliant and more dreamy. The flowers in the old, old blue jars grew pinker, mistier, the lights had halos, the portraits smiled forthright; but from greater distances, the loud ticking of the clock without the door changed to a great rhythm, as though Time were using a violin string. The laughter swelled, waves of brightness went through the ancient room. They danced the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... with a row of diamonds, and two rubies flashed from the deep eye-sockets. On the forehead was engraved, Ruit Hora; and on the occiput Tibi, Hippolyta. It opened like a box, the hinging being almost imperceptible, and the ticking inside lent an indescribable air of life to the diminutive skull. This sepulchral jewel, the offering of some unknown artist to his mistress, had doubtless marked many an hour of rapture, and served as a warning symbol ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... talking, but how could she endure it alone? rising with the birds to an early breakfast, then an interminable day stretching before her, the long afternoon of silence broken only by the click of Aunt Patty's knitting-needles, the ticking of the old clock, and the hum of the bees; for these old people had lived too long in quiet on these silent hills to make much conversation. She could not see herself going through the same monotonous round as each long day dragged its slow length, while miles stretched between her ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... in asserting itself when the noise of the world is still; the fact that does not care about daylight only, but comes up in the dark; the fact that whispers low when I am in the crowd, but speaks loud in the darkest night, when the clock is ticking on the stairs, and conscience has stalked out and stood before me, asserting facts that I cannot contradict—there is no look that can speak that fact of facts, that thirst, that longing, that desolation, that desire, that hope, that activity, that possibility of ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... look at the things; we couldn't take any interest in anything but the clock. We sat staring at it in silence, listening to the ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped we nodded recognition—one minute fewer to cover in the race for life or for death. Finally Seppi drew ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... deriving comfort even from the sight of my blankets, and the sound of my watch ticking—things which seemed to link me to other people; but the screaming of the wood-hens frightened me, as also a chattering bird which I had never heard before, and which seemed to laugh at me; though I soon got used to it, and before long could ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... save the ticking of the watch by my bedside; silent as the stars which gleam down from the blue sky above the cross-crowned crag, which stands like some giant sentinel keeping watch over the village, at its foot. ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... crystal, not by a fixed stare, but with a steady, calm gaze, for ten minutes only, on the first occasion. In taking the time it is best to hang your watch at a distance, where, while the face is clearly visible, the ticking is rendered inaudible. When the time is up, carefully put the crystal away in its case, and keep it in a dark place, under lock and key, allowing no one but yourself to handle it. At the second sitting, which should ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... the skin-rug before the fire, now and again lifting his head to look at her. The Poms were in their baskets either side of the fireplace. It was very quiet. Not a sound disturbed the silence of the room beyond the ticking of the clock over the mantelpiece and the purring and murmuring of ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... skill and care of men rescue a drowned wretch from extinction, and warm the flickering spirit into steady flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... against those who with their heads continued to push him the way he did not wish to go, he retreated from the chapel. Nor while he was at Jerusalem did he feel sufficient interest in the matter again to enter it. He had done that deed, he had killed that lion, and, ticking it off from his list of celebrities as one celebrity disposed of, he thought but little more about it. Such, we believe, are the visits of most English Christians to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... home to die, bequeathing her baby to her mother, lest its bad father should claim it, the little story was very simply opened, and made effective by the real boiling of the kettle on the crane, the ticking of a tall clock, and the appearance of a pair of blue worsted shoes which waved fitfully in the air to the soft babble of a baby's voice. Those shapeless little shoes won the first applause; and Mr Laurie, forgetting elegance in ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... quarter—and a feeble motion of Euston stopped the hand of Edith as she swept it over the strings of her instrument. She arose and stood beside him; a breathless silence reigned throughout the apartment, only broken by the monotonous ticking of the watch, which struck upon the excited nerves of those around with a sound as distinct as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... the room, broken only by the crackling of the fir logs in the fire and by the ticking of the clock in its tall carved case in the corner. A full hour must elapse before the evening meal, and Greifenstein did not know what to do with his unwelcome guest. At last the latter took out ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... motion of her hand, and gazing the while in stony silence at Mrs. Barlow. This dramatic situation was calculated to have a certain effect upon the nerves, and in fact it was then that the profound silence of the room, accentuated by the ticking of the clock, used to seem fraught with the possibility of a ghost abroad with her visiting-list, who might presently be waiving such courtesies as even an unwilling hostess would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... and there was a silence of several moments, while the ticking of the clock was quite loud in ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... his pay, and walked up town. The moment he entered his room his predicament fell upon him again, and his spirits sunk. He sat on the edge of his bed, so quiet in his misery that he began to hear the ticking of the watch in his pocket; it associated itself in his mind with the sound and motion of railroad-cars. He felt himself traveling hundreds of miles away, listening all the while to a rhythmic sound, which said, "Many a mile, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... cheerfulness and home-comfort to their new dwelling-place. Adolphus whitewashed, according to promise; Pauline scrubbed, according to nature; they arranged and rearranged their little stock of furniture,—set the loud-ticking day-clock on the mantel-shelf, and displayed around it the china cups, the flower-vase, and the little picture of their native town which Adolphus cut from a sheet of letter-paper some old friend had sent him, and framed with more tender feeling than skill. They did their best, each one, and said ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... all the same," said Field, and he re-swung the chain, like a hammock, from the parted wings of his vest, and dropped the huskily ticking guardian of the minutes back to its ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... mammy and dad, and, most of all, for you, my darling, so that I have no peace at all. Without you here, what is Schoenhausen to me? The dreary bedroom, the empty cradles with the little beds in them, all the absolute silence, like an autumn fog, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock and the periodic falling of the chestnuts—it is as though you all were dead. I always imagine your next letter will bring bad news, and if I knew it was in Genthin by this time I would send Hildebrand there in the night. Berlin ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... believe that any one should have a lot of money, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while a charming young lady dines at her leisure." ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... somebody is coming "and you might as well look for 'em, 'cause that rooster done told you". When a person dies if there is a clock in the room it must be stopped the very minute of death or it will never be any more good—if left ticking it will be ruined. Every dark cloudy day brings death—"Somebody leaving this unfriendly world today". Then she is sure when she "feels sadness" and doesn't know why, it a sign somebody is dying "way off somewhere and we don't know it". Yes, she certainly believes in all the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... thirty-five feet away, another blue-gray tangle of barbed wire and a low ripple of the brownish earth. As I looked, one of the random silences of the front stole swiftly into the air. French trench and German trench were perfectly silent; you could have heard the ticking of a watch. ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... may have been on the street in deep thought or in an interesting conversation so that we were not giving any attention whatever to the way, and yet every step was taken correctly under the guidance of our eyes. We saw the street, although we were not conscious of seeing it. We do not hear a clock ticking in our room when we are working, and yet if the clock suddenly stops we notice it. This indicates that the ticking of the clock reached us somehow and had an effect on us in spite of our not being conscious of it. The scientists are still debating whether it is best to say that ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... know"—he began ticking off the points on his fingers—"if you really need the trialkyl aluminum, or the mercury-treated glass surface, or the heat, or the radiation, or any combination of them. You don't have any idea of the conditions that are necessary to produce ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... laid—in what narrow, dark dwellings—never more to reappear on earth.... I cannot help thinking of their last days, remembering their sufferings, and what they said and did, and how they looked in mortal affliction.... To sit in a lonely room, the clock ticking loud through a still house...." Charlotte could see ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... *six pairs of white gloves; two sets of white belts; *seven shirts and twelve collars; *six pairs winter socks; *six pairs summer socks; *four pairs summer drawers; *three pairs winter drawers; *six pocket-handkerchiefs; *six towels; *one clothes- bag, made of ticking; *one clothes-brush; *one hair-brush; *one tooth-brush; *one comb; one mattress; one pillow; *two pillow-cases; *two pairs sheets; one pair blankets; *one quilted bed-cover; one chair; one tumbler; ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... the Master of Stagholme laid him down to rest in the shadow of a big rock, strong in himself, strong in his faith. And as he slumbered, those who slumber not nor cease their toil by day or night sat with crooked backs over a little ticking, spitting, restless machine that spelt out his name across half the world. While the moon rose over the mountains, and looked placidly down upon this strange man lying there peacefully sleeping in a world of his own, two men who had never seen each other talked together with ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and plaited her hair in the two long ropes which made her nightly coiffure. She was thankful of the employment, thankful of an excuse to hide her face; she listened to the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece and asked herself what she should do next. The incredible had come to pass, and she, Bridgie, sister, guardian, married woman, mother of a family, was nervous in Pixie's presence! ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey |
