"Twitching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Magus, indicating the salon, every bristle of his white beard twitching as he spoke. "But the riches are here! And what riches! Kings have nothing ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... at full length on the turf behind the Lodge, literally biting the earth in spasms of joy. Stalky kicked him upright. There was nothing of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray muscle twitching ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... question unanswered; but I ordered him off again, and, to enforce my command, called a dog that did not exist. My ruse, however, did not succeed. The Yankee still continued his examination, while I followed closely on his heels, now and then twitching the long skirts of his surtout to enforce my mandate for ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... people, and some will always be slave-drivers; they will bow to you, and then take it out on the others. Harkaman's nose was twitching as though he had a bit of rotten fish ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... his mask and turned a corpse-like visage on the younger man. Every feature of his face had altered: his good looks were gone, the youth in his eyes had disappeared, only a little evil lustre played over them; and out of the drawn pallor Duane saw an old man peering, an old man's lips twitching back from uneven ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Gaston's face might puzzle a keen reader of character as to whether it were native, or the result of years of well-fought battles. Once the will was off guard, a certain softness of the eyes, and a twitching of the mouth muscles came into play; but the will was rarely off guard during ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... it, Kid, quit it! Here I've just wrote down three rings, and she's only got one, an' that a cheap fake. Shut up, Kid, you'll make me drop blots next! Cut it out, it ain't as if she was your sister—" Hereupon Spike started and lifted a twitching face. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... paused in the midst of a wild whirl and listened, her eyes dilating, her nostrils twitching. She waited for another burst that would make ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... anxiously. Then he swung round and glanced back. "Gad, I think we're wrong." He started back frantically. "No, that's right. I 'member that cafe." We swung round again. Arrived once more at the corner, again he hesitated, twitching his lips nervously and sobbing for want of breath. "These blasted streets," he jerked out. "I tried to memorise 'em, but—— There they are, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the middle of one of the figures and of an attitude, unable to utter a word. The Chevalier de Lorraine, leaning his back against the doorway, smiled like a man in the very height of the frankest admiration. The pallor of the prince, and the convulsive twitching of his hands and limbs, were the first symptoms that struck those present. A dead silence succeeded the merry music of the dance. The Chevalier de Lorraine took advantage of this interval to salute Madame and ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and fell as if he were suffering some great emotion, and he stared at Rich wildly, his hand twitching and his lip quivering as he waited for her next speech, which seemed to crush him, as she asked in a clear ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... Chalmers for Christianity—but not Christianity of one side. "Pray for those who despitefully use you," say the Corn Law Apostles to the famishing; and then, cocking their eye at one another, and twitching their tongues in their mouths ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... "Mrs. Thomas, a friend of mine, a very efficient, clear-brained person, whom, by-the-way, we had asked to come in order to fully preserve the proprieties, suddenly felt a twitching in her left hand, which was touching mine. This convulsive movement spread to her shoulder, until her whole arm began to thresh about like a flail in a most alarming way. The action became so violent at last that she called upon ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless and unhappy, staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a sudden exclamation from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he emerged with a second ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said. It was very hard to speak. The twitching of her mouth would hardly let her form a word. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... opened, Bartley pushed Flavia about the sunny pavements in a baby carriage, while Marcia paced alongside, looking in under the calash top from time to time, arranging the bright afghan, and twitching the little one's lace hood into place. They never noticed that other perambulators were pushed by Irish nurse-girls or French bonnes; they had paid somewhat more than they ought for theirs, and they were proud of it merely as ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... comfort him, so 'twould end the same way. ... It breaks my heart when the girls refuse the nice man in books, and I always long to be able to run after him when he leaves the room—ashy pale, with a nerve twitching beside his eye—and ask him will I do instead! If I feel like that to another girl's lover, what will I do to ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... down upon that mass of calm implacable faces, so unmistakably German; not brilliant nor beautiful, but persistent as death, and stamped with the watermark of kultur; stared for a long moment, his gray face twitching, the familiar gray blaze in his eyes. But he turned without a word or even a disdainful gesture and reentered the palace, the ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... know—yet." His fingers were twitching aimlessly. "I want to think.... You, of all men, you!" He turned, his eyes ablaze, his voice thick. "Yes, go to-morrow, damn you! and as for your warning, do as you please, get between us if you can." He laughed raspingly. "I'll delay—dangle, ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... little table upon which the tray rested, and endeavored to eat. His usual appetite had departed with his identity; Mr. Lucas was a poor, twitching being of raw nerves and internal qualms. He emptied the coffee-pot, however, and smoked a cigarette which he found ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... their feet twitching with the pain of blisters, Ned and Alan toiled slowly through the last of the pines and out into the rocky higher slopes of the range. It was like climbing an upright wall, Alan said, but the pain of going on was less than the despair of giving up. A little after six o'clock ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... his drollery of style, Bewildered with that sorrowful serenity of smile— The eye's elusive twinkle, and the twitching of the lid, Like he didn't go to say it and was sorry that he did. O Artemus of Michigan! so worthy of the name, Our manager indorses it, and Bill Nye does the same— You tickled our affection in so many tender spots That even Recollection laughs At ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... to meet the old man, who extended hands to envelop him, not trusting to his eyes. An old, rosy-cheeked woman in a sunbonnet came up behind the old man, shrieked out "Master David!" and only waited with twitching fingers for her own onslaught till the father had first embraced his prodigal son. This was done at least three times, accompanied with tears, blessings, prayers, the uplifting of poor filmy eyes to a cloudless Heaven—"Diolch i Dduw!"—ejaculations as to the wonder of it—"Rhyfeddol ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... not," said Miss Fortune, who was energetically twitching off Ellen's shoes and stockings with her forefinger and thumb. "I suppose not! you were staring up at the moon or ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... She sat silent, with twitching lips, excited, yet passionately scornful and antagonistic. Thoughts of her home, of that Puritan piety amid which she had been brought up, flashed thick and fast through her mind. Suddenly she covered her face ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the knight was certainly not thinking of her one bit. He was sitting staring fixedly at one corner of the apartment, with his lips working in the oddest fashion; twitching this way and that, and parting and showing his teeth, while he was clawing with his hands the chair on which ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... McNab, twitching violently a stray lock of her flaming hair and tucking it beneath her cap, "I dinna ken how you could tak' upon yourself to send such a ward as that, when Mr. Brown is just on the creesis of his fever and not one of ye ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... beside her. We were both silent. For a long while she kept twisting a twig in her hand; she bent her head, and uttered: 'Andrei Nikolaevitch....' I noticed at once, by the twitching of her lips, that she was getting ready to cry, and began consoling her, assuring her hotly of Andrei's devotion.... She heard me, nodded her head mournfully, articulated some indistinct words, and then was silent ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the executioner the prisoner had trembled; he rose, like an automaton, with dilated eyes and twitching face. He understood what the chaplain said and took ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... Writhing and twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered them, and the ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... their safety. When he ran up and down in his desperation, his skirts and theirs all fluttered together. Stephens, the lawyer, kept close to Sadie Adams, muttering mechanically, "Don't be alarmed, Miss Sadie; don't be at all alarmed!" though his own limbs were twitching with agitation. Monsieur Fardet stamped about with a guttural rolling of r's, glancing angrily at his companions as if they had in some way betrayed him; while the fat clergyman stood with his umbrella ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did not even seem to hear. He played with lowered eyes and twitching mouth, and his hands shook perceptibly. The gambler's ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the watcher, was a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. But, spite his half-century of life, he was still the best and the most daring man of a company who had ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... cloudless night, and although the moon was not yet half-full, and already past her meridian, she filled the clear air with gentle light. Not a word broke our silence. Alan walked hurriedly, looking straight before him, his head upright, his lips twitching nervously, while every now and then a half-uttered moan escaped unconsciously from between them. At last I could bear it no longer, and burst forth with the first remark which occurred to me. We were passing a big, black, queer-shaped stone standing in rather a lonely uncultivated spot at one ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the edge of the chalk cliff for some time, shifting his vast weight from foot to foot, and swaying his head to and fro, with his mouth open, his ears erect and twitching, and the nostrils of his big, black muzzle sniffing. He was very curious, was the cave bear, more curious than any of the bears that live now, and the flickering fire and the incomprehensible movements of the man, let alone the intrusion into his indisputable ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... laconically, but a strangely genial, half comical little smile was twitching at the corners of her ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... with her arms thrown round Baron's neck, whispering sweet nothings into his twitching ear. If he did not understand the substance of her remarks, he realized the force of her affection, and kept rubbing his nose against her shoulder in a sort of caress, very gently catching her jersey with his lips and ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... arm-chair had been drawn to the window to catch the wintry sun, and pathos unspeakable lay in the contrasts of the picture—the eternal youth in the cold, dancing beams—the waste, the frailty of human things in the inert figure, the dim eyes, the folded, twitching hands. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the convulsive twitching of her features plainly indicated her grief at this mournful parting with the playmate of her youth—with her affianced husband. Yet the large dark eyes were undimmed: and her tone calm, as though the "King of Terrors" were not there in ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... it, resignation ensued, and the poor beast lay partly over on its side between the barrels, and made no further effort beyond seeking for a restful position in which to lay its heavy head. This was fully stretched out in the sand, where the last thing Ned seemed to see was the twitching of the poor brute's long ears to rid itself of the flies which attacked it as if under the idea that they ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... a slow solemn ceremonial cakewalk, Dancing and prancing to the sombre tom-tom Thumped by a crookbacked grizzled negro squatting. And as he watched ... within the steamy twilight Of swampy forest in rank greenness rotting, That sombre tom-tom at his heartstrings strumming Set all his sinews twitching, and a singing Of cold fire through his blood—and he was dancing Among his fellows in the dank green twilight With naked, oiled, bronze-gleaming bodies swinging In a rapt holy everlasting cakewalk For evermore ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Vee's mouth corners twitching and she takes her turn. "You live around here, I suppose, William?" ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... all the stubborn pride had gone out of her face. Her great eyes were misty with tears, her mouth was twitching with emotion. She threw her arms around ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... people. Bars threw open doors and fresh air met stale air. Men with fat faces, thin faces, white faces, red faces, twitching with the anticipation of holiday freedom, gulped jiggers of raw whiskey ...
— Celebrity • James McKimmey
... thought that they were leaving a straight trail behind them. More than once Rowdy was urged by his aching arm to drop the lead-rope and leave Chub to shift by himself, but habit was strong and his heart was soft. Then he felt an odd twitching at the lead-rope, as if Chub were minded to rebel against their leadership. Rowdy yanked him into remembrance of his duty, and wondered. Bill Brown's question came insistently to mind; he ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... to sell the ship. Couldn't think of it. Worry him to death. It would be like the end of the world coming. And certainly not for a business of that kind! . . . Do you think it would be a swindle? asks Cloete, twitching his mouth. . . George owns up: No-would be no better than a squeamish ass if he thought that, after all ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... himself with nervousness. If a firm, steady, yet gentle grasp is on the lines, the creature obeys in spite of himself. This same principle applies to children. If you cannot control yourself the children know it, and you may as well give up all idea of curbing them. The nervous twitching at the bit and the attempt to govern them by reason of your superior age or knowledge aggravates the evil. It is a mistake to forget that children are human beings, with sensitive feelings like our own, only not as ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... The twitching lips were controlled with what appeared to be an almost superhuman effort, but the words ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... was calm—all except his gloved hands. A man's hands will, nine times out of ten, betray him in spite of himself. Burke's fingers were twitching, and ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... forehead, good eyebrows, a rather short nose, but not too short, and large at the end, rather thick lips, complexion reddish brown, good black eyes, large, bright, piercing, and well open; his look majestic and gracious when he liked, but when otherwise, severe and stern, with a twitching of the face, not often occurring, but which appeared to contort his eyes and all his physiognomy, and was frightful to see; it lasted a moment, gave him a wild and terrible air, and passed away. All his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... pulled, as he spoke, in a very friendly way, seeing his eyes twinkling and his lips twitching, coloured, but said that she should like to be at the feast. It was true, but apart from the truth, she would not ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... pillars of a huge four-post bed, he would not have understood its meaning. He would never have divined that the dull gleam shining between her half-closed eyelids was simple hatred of himself, that the restless, twitching lips were whispering curses upon his head, that the half-stunned brain was struggling back to circulation and thought for the sole purpose of ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and was leading them across country which humans could not have negotiated without the guidance she offered. Advancing cautiously always, she stopped for long seconds at a time to reconnoitre, shifting her huge ears about and changing their shape, twitching her nostrils, and glancing hither and thither with bright little eyes. Sometimes they passed immense spike-tipped flowers ten feet in diameter, with fleshy yellow leaves which gave out a nauseating ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... beshadowed by the uxorious lover, should now return and shine. He summoned his valet, repaired the disorder of his appearance with elaborate care; and then, curled and scented and adorned, Prince Charming in every line, but with a twitching nostril, he set forth unattended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... She was not in the least like what my half-conscious glance at the female in black had taken her to be. She was quite young, remarkably good looking. Even at the first instant I was struck by her eyes and the mass of bronze hair and the twitching of a childish mouth. But she had an untidy, touzled, raffish appearance, due to I knew not what investiture of disrepute. Her hands—for she ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... kitchen, Frederick was standing on the hearth; he was bending forward and warming his hands over the coal fire. The light played on his features and gave him an unpleasant look of leanness and nervous twitching. Margaret stopped at the door; the child seemed to her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... pausing now and then to munch a sandwich or swallow a draught of wine with an unruffled air characteristic of him. When the road-mender mentioned that four bandidos had been captured in the morning by the civil guard, on the road along which we had passed, his expression did not change by the twitching of a muscle. Indeed, he looked equal to disposing of half a dozen brigands without the aid of a single ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of June, prior to the festival of St. John, patients felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were unable to overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about in an unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly in different parts, and eagerly expected the eve of St. John's day, in the confident hope that by dancing at the altars of this saint, or of St. Vitus (for in the Breisgau aid was equally sought from both), they would be freed from all their sufferings. This ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... speech, had given place to an expression of mingled surprise and anger as I continued; which again in its turn had yielded to a grin of intense amusement, growing every moment broader and broader, accompanied by a spasmodic twitching of his whole person; and, as I mentioned his master's purloining my trousers, he suddenly sprang up from the floor nearly a yard high, and commenced an extempore pas seul of a Jim Crow character, which he continued with unabated vigour during several minutes. This "Mazurka d'ecstase," or ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, (While the twitching body mocked the sun) Lifted to Heaven her broken heart And ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean's expression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to say so. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stiffen the rugged and wrinkled fingers that had at first trembled in drawing a pair of shears from a ragged pocket, appeared to satisfy Paul's curiosity for the present. But after a few moments' silent snipping, during which he could detect in the mirror some traces of agitation still twitching the negro's face, he said ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... that back!" she almost shrieked under her breath. She started to her feet, trembling in every limb, her face twitching painfully. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... cases in which there is a playing upon sound, as where Demipho remarks that if he had such a good-looking girl as Pasicompsa for a servant, all the people would be "staring, gazing, nodding, winking, hissing, twitching, crying, annoying, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... reached him, and Bruce Gordon spun around, the knife twitching into his hand. It was a thin kid of perhaps eighteen behind him, carrying a torch that was filtered to bare visibility. It swung up, and he saw a pock-marked face that was twisted in a smile meant ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... her cheeks, and he saw from the twitching of her face that she was fast losing control of her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... pupils; gritting of the teeth; protrusion of the tongue; desire to vomit; nausea, retching and vomiting; collapse of the abdominal walls; scanty urine, which is sometimes milky; costiveness; trembling of the limbs; occasional twitching of the limbs on one side of the body, and apparent paralysis of those of the other side; painful turning inwards of the big toes, extorting cries from the patient; accelerated pulse, which soon becomes slower, irregular, intermittent and rather hard; these symptoms inform ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... nothing out of him except that it was "All right—all right," with his head twitching over his shoulder almost as if he had touch of the dance. He began to come round a little. He wasn't the kind of man you'd press for explanations, and presently we set out again. He walked with me as far as my lodgings, refused to come in, but for all that lingered at the gate as if loath to leave. ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... of having strokes, is he?" asked Diana, the dimpled corners of her mouth twitching. To Diana, Charlotta the Fourth was, if not exactly a thing of beauty, certainly a ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... took it without the twitching of a muscle in the brown face. He knew there was no use of an appeal for mercy and he ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... maintained unwonted stillness and save for a restless twitching of his fingers on the wheel of the car did not move. If, thought Steve miserably, he could summon the nerve to look up, he would know in a second from his father's face whether he was annoyed or angry. At last the situation ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... hiding behind some tall rushes, and his sharp little eyes were looking all about him, and his nose was twitching as he sniffed the air. He wished he might find a frog. But not one frog appeared. Fatty began to think that some other coon must have visited the creek just before him and caught them all. And then he forgot ...
— Sleepy-Time Tales: The Tale of Fatty Coon • Arthur Scott Bailey
... incensed her so vehemently that she was unable to continue and stood with her hand outstretched and her chin twitching with nervous tremors. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... ceased, but the twitching limbs told that they might return any moment, and the physician ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Perris to his side. Then he lifted the hanging body—how light a weight it was!—and placed it in a chair, where it doubled over, limp as a loosely stuffed scarecrow. Hervey tossed more wood on the fire and when he turned again, Perris was showing the first signs of returning consciousness, a twitching of his fingers. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... blessed thing it was that that sentence does not mean at Chautauqua what it does in Buffalo, or Albany, or a few other places, else Dr. Cuyler might have slipped from them before the necessary articles were all in array. It involved simply the twitching off of a white apron, the settling of a pretty sun hat—for the sun actually shone!—and the seizure of a waterproof, needed, if she found a seat, to protect her from the damp boards—needed in any case, because in five minutes it might rain—and ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... with wet slime, and seemed quite lifeless; but he carried them and laid them on two nests of red ants. Then he sat down at some little distance and watched them. The ants quickly covered the bodies, cleaned them rapidly of the wet slime, and soon Byamee noticed the muscles of the girls twitching. "Ah," he said, "there is life, they feel the ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... copiously too," Bud murmured, with the corners of his mouth twitching. "Well, I guess we might as well tie up the livestock. I'm going to give 'em all a feed of rolled oats, Cash. We can get along without, and they've got to have something to put a little heart in 'em. There's a moon to-night—how about starting along about midnight? That would put ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... conflict with his. A less discreet beast than Crusoe would long ere this have sampled the captain's calves, for the sailor missed no sly chance to exasperate the animal. But the wise dog contented himself with such manifestations as a lifted lip and twitching ears, for he had his own code of behavior, and was not to be goaded ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... curious glance at me. Something halted me—an expression I had never yet seen there in her face, twitching at her lips—hovering on them now—parting them in a smile so sweet and winning that, silenced by the gracious transformation, unexpected, I caught my ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... at the courtier's white, twitching face, the unfortunate young man went down on all fours to do his bidding. After all—poor fellow!—he was hardly intelligent ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... rot," he shouted. "I bet you have had something more than coffee, you—" he glared at his wife, his limbs trembling and twitching as the nervous irritation gained on him. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the old man's eyes—saw the trembling and twitching of the outstretched hands, and feared what might be the result of trouble and enforced sobriety. He pulled a large flask from his ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... into his eyes. He saw the twitching of her throat, the quiver of her lips. In another moment she would have fallen if he had not put a supporting arm ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... urged Bertie, twitching the reins. But, then, looking at the patient oxen, he said,—"Will you please tell me why you don't have a cart instead ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as Buck. The hairy man could spring up into the trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... foolishness, when he come down the road toward us so dignified and sollum and slow I ketched myself fur a minute feeling like we really had been elected to something and was going to take office soon. And Sam, as the bishop come closeter and closeter, got to jerking and twitching with the excitement that he had been keeping in—and yet all the time Sam knowed it was dope and works and not faith that ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... the General, twitching his moustache violently, "there it is again. You appear perfectly courteous—but that remark is cool contempt. I want you to understand," his tones louder, and gesticulations violent, "that you must ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... for our strong, impulsive, loving son whom we had loaned to Uncle Sam this irritable, restless, nervous man with defective hearing from shells exploding all about him, and limbs aching and twitching from strain and exposure, and with that inevitable companion of all returned oversea boys, the ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... had sought. He pressed the contact, and bursts of intolerable flame swept the entire passage clear of life. Weakly he struggled to go out into the aisle, but his muscles refused to do the bidding of his will and he lay there, twitching feebly. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... resting-place for heads in need of comfort. Those plump, firm arms were meant to enfold the weak and distressed. Those capable hands should have smoothed troubled heads and patted plump cheeks, instead of wasting their gifts in folding piles of petticoats and deftly twitching a plait or a tuck into place. She was playing Rosalind in buskins when she should have been cast ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... first shot, and received the second kneeling. Then he toppled backward, and lay in a twitching heap against the drawers below the bunk, groaning and coughing. Gregory, with averted face, gave him another shot behind the ear, and another through the mouth, and then went out, sick and faint, shutting the stateroom door behind him. He sat for a long time beside the table, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... something horrible, unclean, intangible. I turned round instantaneously, feeling that the Albertus Magnus was at his hellish game again. With sudden horror I saw where the chuckle had come from. The statue had changed from the bronze-green to a fleshy-green. It was alive, and the great muscles were twitching and quivering. To my unutterable horror, I perceived it was not Albertus Magnus.... It was Ombos! His breath came in horrid little flutters, with seconds between each one, as if he had just come to life and ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... man with hollow eyes and nervously-twitching fingers found himself pushed before the desk. He seemed at first embarrassed and half dazed. Brooks waited without any sign of impatience. When at last he spoke, it was without the slightest trace of ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... chemist introduced into the cage. For a moment there was no perceptible change in the animal's actions. Then it stopped eating, sniffed at the strange odor, and commenced to twitch violently. This twitching continued for several minutes, when the creature started to revolve in circles, like a Japanese dancing-mouse. Finally it became subject to spasms, and, although the professor withdrew the ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... dreadful it is to be the only child of two intellectual people who expect one to be a credit," she excused her lack of appetite, nervously twitching the gilt cord about the package. "And to be stupid and a disappointment! Yes, as long as I can remember, I have been a disappointment. If only there had been another to divide all those expectations. If only ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... theirs in those days: the aristocrats or the people. Your father was of the Gironde. He fell. I was of the mountain. Most of my comrades fell. It was all the fortune of war. We must forget all this and learn to know each other better, you and I.' He held out a red, twitching hand as he spoke. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... room at ten o'clock the next morning to find Billy radiantly presiding over a loaded breakfast tray, and the invalid, pale and pasty, and with no particular interest in food evinced by the twitching muscles of his face, nevertheless neatly brushed and shaved, propped up in pillows, and making a visible effort to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... no show of recognition, and the only motion observable was a twitching jerk of the left arm, and a slightly swaying motion of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... every venture made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his bold hand into the plexus of the money-market he was delightedly aware of how he shook the pillars of existence, turned out men, as at a battle-cry, to labour in far countries, and set the gold twitching ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... things just as hard to understand, only you take them for granted. Being alive, for instance. Look at Mollie fidgeting about, and Long John chewing and twitching, and the trees waving their branches, and you shaking your head as if it were a dinner-bell, which is about what it is—it's all life. Just as hard to understand as Relativity, and a jolly sight harder if you ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... tears drying on her cheeks, leaning forward to watch the twitching, purpled face ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... in fact, the almost perfect little mare who first gave warning of the approach to the sportsmen, by starting violently all over at the sound of a shot, fired about half a mile away. Jenny steadied her, pulled her up, and watched between the cocked and twitching ears. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... took the first prize. Most remarkable. There was a hint there of a definite rule! He was afraid of missing some recondite principle in the overwhelming wealth of his material. What could it be? and for half an hour he would remain dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching a muscle. At his back the whole berth would be thick with a heavy body of smoke, as if a bomb had burst in ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... made an exclamation that almost sounded like an oath, and made a step forward; but a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder. "Be patient!" whispered Ellis Raymond, though his own mouth was twitching considerably. "We are the anvil now; wait till our ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... one of these Christian inquirers erect before his class of students: knife in hand, he is demonstrating to them from the live animal, so fixed and screwed and wired that he cannot find for his agony even the poor relief of a yelp, how this or that writhing nerve or twitching muscle operates in the business of a life which his demonstration has turned from the gift of love into a poisoned curse; picture to yourself such a one so busied, suddenly raising his eyes and seeing the eyes that see him! the eyes of Him who, when He hung ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... worked in. The painting of Master Betty was amusing at first, but it seemed, in the end, to be but a prolonged and tedious business to the not artistic looker-on. He must divert himself somehow. Certainly Northcote's appearance was comical. Suddenly the painter felt a twitching at his collar. He turned, frowned angrily, but said nothing. The prince persevered. Presently he touched lightly ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... flat eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were necessary to control some nervous twitching. The cheek is broad, and its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume under a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were contracted with quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... they passed out of the room, Ramo locking the door, listening sharply, with his ears twitching, as he caught a faint creaking noise made by a lock in the lower part of ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... obedient! I had the honour of meeting you at Killpatricks-town," said Mrs. Petito, backing to the door, and twitching her shawl. She stumbled, nearly fell down, over the large dog—caught by the door, and recovered herself—Hannibal rose and shook his ears. "Poor fellow! you are of my acquaintance, too." She would have stroked his head; but Hannibal walked off ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... the boys, the scientists, Steve, and Kelly were seated at a table in the destroyer escort's tiny wardroom, noses twitching over the savory steaks that were being served. The boys ate like starved men, talking a steady stream ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... was silent for a few moments, standing with his eyes closely shut, and giving three or four long sniffs, twitching his face so comically, that ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... interference, I do not know. Certainly there was noise enough, but then that half-hour always was noisy. The superintendent of that time had, when walking, a trick of grasping the lapel of his coat with his right hand, and twitching it when preoccupied. The following day, as he surveyed conditions, it seemed as if the lapel might come away; but he made us no speech, nor, as far as I know, was any notice taken of the affair. No real damage had been done, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... to his aid. As I leaped I felt the closing edge of the moon door graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man who had grappled with him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily to his feet, I heard shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as though some giant's ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... intervals the hunter caught glimpses of its roan side, but could not see its head or the outline of its body. At seventy-five yards, fearful that his game might take fright and bolt, he turned his horse sideways, and slipped down to aim his rifle across the saddle. It was his first deer. He waited, twitching and ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the Squire bade him. Dylks hobbled slowly forward, and painfully mounted the log steps to the porch, where Braile surveyed him in detail, frowning and twitching his long feathery eyebrows. ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... and sat twitching on his luxurious settee. We all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new development which the mysterious business had taken. Holmes was the first to ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that followed the figure on the chair straightened itself with a jerk, and gibbered at him, twitching spasmodically. The woman ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... whispered the attendant, glancing at the corporal, who lay with his eyes half-closed and his ears twitching. "He's pretty cunning. Had a crack or two with a rifle-stock, I think, but only just so much as would make another man savage. You'll see; he'll be sent back into the ranks in a couple ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... Savignon. He took up a brand and peered about in the darkness. The body was still twitching, but the head was a mangled mass. There were no others in sight, but they heard their ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... her easy-chair, pale but coquettish. Frederick set her down as a woman of unusual southern beauty—straight nose, quivering nostrils, heavy, nobly arched eyebrows, black as her hair and the shadowy down over her fine, expressive, twitching lips. Her gestures had the weary grace of a Spaniard. She was laughing, and her long, slim form stretched on the chair shook. Her admirer, with a comic expression of seriousness, was again building a little pile of matches. In her weak condition she was unable to resist the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... power in the right leg, and then in the left, until they both became completely paralyzed, so that she could not even move her toes, and lay on her back with her legs slightly drawn up, the muscles being much wasted. Towards the end of 1877, after some pain in the back of her neck and twitching of the muscles, she began to lose power in her left arm and in her neck, so that she lay absolutely immobile in bed, the only part of her body she was able to move at all being her right arm. Up to this time the pelvic abscess had continued to discharge ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... the table with its profusion of silver and cut glass, its affectation of candle-light when the world without was a blaze of sunshine. She looked at Uncle Ranny, with his nervous, twitching lips and restless, dissatisfied eyes; at Aunt Flo, delicate, affected, futile; at Harold Phipps, easy, polished, serene. What possible chance would there be of rousing people like that to sympathy for poor, visionary Papa Claude? For three days the dread of having to fulfil her promise ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... and one day Madame Tyrannis herself began to call, but fitfully. Sometimes she stayed about the nest one minute, sometimes five minutes, but was restless; picking at the walls, twitching the leaves that hung too near, rearranging the lining, trying it this way and that, as if to see how it fitted her figure, and how she should like it when she was settled. First she tried sitting with face looking toward the bay; then she jerked herself around, without rising, and looked ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... I have of Father was of one spring day when he was chasing and stoning the cat, our pet cat, who had caught a bluebird. I remember the fierce look in the cat's eyes, and her nose flattened over the back of blue, her nervously twitching tail, and the speed and strength with which Father pursued her, and the language he used, language that impressed me, at least, if not the cat, and which discredited the cat and her ancestry as well. As I remember it we rescued the bluebird, ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... trying to sing, or something," said Barrett, bending over to listen. The Teller swung his arm heavily over the side of the cot, the fingers never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay leaned down and gently moved the cloths so that the white, scarred lips were free. They moved steadily; they seemed to be framing the semblance of an old ballad that Meredith knew; the whisper grew more distinct, and it became a rich but broken voice, and they heard it singing, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... scaly animals" said a little slimy Whiting. "They put on different scales two or three times a day, and they emit sounds which they call speaking. We don't put on scales, and we make ourselves understood in an easier way, simply by twitching the corners of our mouths and staring with our eyes. We have a great many ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest |
