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More "Twitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did not move a limb, shut an eye or twitch a muscle during the entire hour he sat in the Senate chamber. Nor did he betray the faintest evidence of self-consciousness or emotion, and as I thought of the dingy office over the livery stable but three years before he struck ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... and bridled, so as to appear perfectly well-bred in my presence. The act of smiling caused the tuft of hair on her jaw to twitch horribly. A cold shiver ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... shaken up a heap in the game," hinted Anstey. "Prescott isn't the sort of chap to tell us every time he feels a trifle dizzy or experiences a nervous twitch. He may have felt badly, may have gone out on the platform for a whiff of fresh air, and then may have felt so ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... sharper relief her withered head, shaking with the unconscious and frightful convulsions of death. She breathed heavily and slowly and gasped with effort, catching the air with her pale lips. At moments her face would writhe and her mouth twitch with a dreadful spasm of pain and she would raise her hands as though she wanted to tear apart her throat to get more air. Her white and fever-coated tongue slipped spasmodically from her mouth and so tense did her body become in the struggle with death that the ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... type of mind which is constitutionally sensitive to the infinite significance of minimal things. Of such, very typical in our day are Freud and the Freudians grouped around him. There is nothing so small that for Freud it is not packed with endless meaning. Every slightest twitch of the muscles, every fleeting fancy of the brain, is unconsciously designed to reveal the deepest impulse of the soul. Every detail of the wildest dream of the night is merely a hieroglyph which may be interpreted. ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... was the lad at work under her window again, but as he had his wig on he was just as ugly as before. Then the Princess said to her maid, "Go down there where the gardener's lad is working and creep up behind him and twitch his ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... meaning was plain. The Kid suddenly jerked open the drawer before him, but Glenister clenched his right hand and leaned forward. The miner could have killed him with a blow, for the gambler was seated and at his mercy. The Kid checked himself, while his face began to twitch as though the nerves underlying it had broken bondage and were dancing in a wild, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... stood still. There was no use trying to hide now. Perhaps some faint hope took possession of them that they might be unnoticed if they did not move; just as the still hunter, stalking a feeding deer, will watch its short tail, and whenever he sees it twitch he stands perfectly motionless; for he knows that the animal is about to raise his head, and that he will probably be taken for a stump if he does not ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... ordeal with flying colours. A motion of the lips, however, or a mutter—these are altogether fatal. Not even a toe must move in mute agony; nor may even a muscle of the eyelid give an uneasy and involuntary twitch. If the candidate fails in a minor degree, he is promptly put back, to come up again for the next examination; but in the event of his being unable to stand the torture, he is contemptuously told to go and herd with the women—than which there ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... limbs begin to ache, every nerve in her body begins to twitch, and she realizes that her tired nature has endured all it can. She must stay here, ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... powerless. The children were only waiting for him to rush at them and strike them. Although they kept right on singing and praying, they were ready to cut and run the instant he made a move. Presently a pair of them noticed that Felt's face was beginning to twitch. 'Now he'll go for us,' they thought, getting up to flee. But the old man blinked his one good eye, and a tear rolled down his cheek. 'Hallelujah!' the youngsters shouted, and now, as I've already told you, it's all up with Felt. Now ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the spring sunlight creep over the whitewashed wall opposite, and every slow black fly that crawled across the patch of warmth might have been crawling over his raw nerves. He almost expected the surface of the wall to contract like a skin and twitch them off, as he felt his own skin ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... off the debate in a towering rage; refuse coffee, and declare that the caravan of "Effendn" (the Viceroy) shall not be loaded. Mohammed's feet twitch more violently as the camels are made ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... direction and left an untidy smudge of paste on Westbury's nice, clean strip. I reflected that this would probably dry out—if not, I would hang a picture over it. Then I gave the strip I was hanging a little twitch, being a trifle annoyed, perhaps, by this time, and was pained to see that an irregular patch of it remained on the wall, while the rest of it fell sloppily into my hands. It appeared that wall-paper became tender with damp paste on it ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Barbara was literally incapable of making one. The steam of excitement was on, nearly to its highest pitch. Her throat was working, the muscles of her mouth began to twitch, and a convulsive sob, or what sounded like it, broke from her. Mr. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... know it's cold," he laughed as the water stung the broken skin and made her twitch involuntarily, "but bathing will do it good. I just know it feels ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... gangsters lamped the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... may be done in January to make ready for the busy spring, and every moment usefully employed will relieve the pressure later on. Survey the stock of pea-sticks, haul out all the rubbish from the yard, and make a 'smother' of waste prunings and heaps of twitch and other stuff for which there is no decided use. If properly done, the result will be a black ash of the most fertilising nature, such as a mere fire will not produce. Should the soil be frost-bound wheel out manure and lay it in heaps ready to be spread ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent effect. We also had an address from Prince Rivers,[70] ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... ears, in truth, and strong ears, Full ears, I trow, and fair ears, Round ears also and rare ears. So here's an ear that all eyes here Shall see no beauty in, 'tis clear. For these o' thine be such ears, Large, loose, and over-much ears, Ears that do make fingers itch, Ears to twist and ears to twitch. ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... Trim,' whispered the old lady. The whisper had a sprightly yet mysterious tone in it; the withered fingers were put out as if to twitch the passing skirt as the ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... an impatient twitch of her dress from under Abbie's rocker, "I don't see the use ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff. The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap to his lips. If so, it ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Thomas would have done: only there was a dare-devil in his eye—I should say a dare-Becket. He thought less of two kings than of one Roger the king of the occasion. Foliot is the holier man, perhaps the better. Once or twice there ran a twitch across his face as who should say what's to follow? but Salisbury was a calf cowed by Mother Church, and every now and then glancing about him like a thief at night when he hears a door open in the ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Still without looking at him, she tied her shoelaces with an impatient twitch that came near breaking them, and walked haughtily to where Concho stood dutifully waiting. With an impulsive movement, she threw her arms around his neck, and hid her hot face ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... the wood is removed from the bud, leaving nothing but the bare bark. Unquestionably the surest way for a young budder is to remove the wood, cutting a pretty deep bud, and then in making the cross cut let it be only as deep as the bark, and by giving it a twitch the bud will readily leave the wood. I will say, however, that most nurserymen insist on budding with the wood, which it is claimed is the surest and best way to bud. We have tried both ways for years, and have been able to discover no difference, excepting ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... men had grown thin, with pouches under their eyes. Jake's right eye had begun to twitch uncontrollably whenever anyone came within three yards of him. "We can't go on like this, you know. The people ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... salute, Should those who love them try to con thy lore. The country, city seek, grand thrones to boot, With gentle courtesy humbly bow before. Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave Seek thy acquaintance, hail their first advance: From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save, May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. Some surly Cato, Senator austere, Haply may wish to peep into thy book: Seem very nothing—tremble and revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... spell-bound—he did not even run away. With a cool twinkle of that hateful eye, and one twitch of the ragged ear, he just overbalanced the silver sugar-pot and dropped to the ground, the basin and sugar falling on the top of him with a crash which made me start against my will. I think that start just baulked the lightning flash of ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... time of lightning and at other times when no lightning was visible. During these investigations he observed that when the legs of the frog were suspended from an iron railing by a hook through the spinal cord, and when this hook was of some other metal than iron, the muscles would twitch whenever the feet touched the iron railing. He tried out a number of pairs of metals, and found that when the nerve was touched by one metal and the muscle or another point on the nerve was touched by another metal and the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... a genius not to be ill to ride with the curb. And, save perhaps in "Literature and Science" (which was not at first written for an American audience at all), the pressure of the curb—I had almost said of the twitch—is too often evident, or at least suggested. This especially applies to the first, the longest, the most ambitious, and, as its author would say, most "nobly serious" of the three. There are quite admirable things in "Numbers"; and ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... with fine dramatic instinct, to watch the effect of this broadside. A faint nervous twitch of the chin and the eyelids—then absolute immobility. The Potato Baron had assumed the "poker face" of all Orientals—wherefore Bill Conway knew the man was on his guard and would admit nothing. So he decided not to make any effort to elicit ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... sat waiting for him, and softly growling a response to his war-cries. This defiance of the admitted lords of the range was not altogether without its ground of alarm for Warrigal; its utter recklessness made the skin over her shoulders twitch, but it was something to have a mate who could dare so much, even in ignorance. Long after Finn had closed his eyes in sleep, Warrigal lay watching him, with a queer light of pride and admiring devotion in her ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... his men, and any one else he could persuade to listen, with its song. His practical teaching was sound, very sound; his verbal lashings were wonderful, unique. He'd talk and talk, and one's joy was to watch his audience. A sudden twitch, a snap of the jaw, and a bovine face would light up with unholy joy. The squad drawn up ready for practice, with the straw-filled sacks in front of them, would mutter ominously, and teeth would show in a snarl. Absurd, you say; not a bit; just a magnetic personality, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... in his belt for an obol, when he was rudely distracted by a twitch upon his chiton. Turning, he was little pleased to come face to face with no less a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... or heightening any of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of business to the safe, unexploding beach. Sometimes they part from their chaperones ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... has no sagacity to give me or lend me, but that soft, nimble foot of hers, and that touch as of cotton wherever she goes, are worthy of emulation. I think I can feel her good-will through the floor, and I hope she can mine. When I have a happy thought I imagine her ears twitch, especially when I think of the sweet apple I will place by her doorway at night. I wonder if that fox chanced to catch a glimpse of her the other night when he stealthily leaped over the fence near by ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... that I was young; You, at whose step the laziest slaves awake, And both the bailiff and the butler quake; The barber's suds now blacken with my beard, And my rough kisses make the maids afeared; But with reproach your awful eyebrows twitch, And for the cane, I see, your fingers itch. If something daintily attired I go, Straight you exclaim: "Your father did not so." And fuming, count the bottles on the board As though my cellar were your private hoard. Enough, at last: I have done all I can, And your own mistress ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... twinkle in Mr. Barrymore's eyes and a twitch of his lips, as he bent down over the machinery without answering a word, and I couldn't resist the temptation of letting him see that I was in his secret. There couldn't be any harm ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the kind offices of those about him. They had taken him there at Kate's command, and she had worn herself to a shadow with anguish, love and penitence. She watched him by day and by night—in her restless dreams; her whole existence was in the tossing victim of her folly. Every twitch of that pain-stricken body seemed to show her that he was shrinking from her in hatred. Her pretty face was white and drawn, the blue eyes dark and pitiful, the merry ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Keith's hand twitch and tighten. Otherwise there was no answer. After a moment she went ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... clasped behind his back, began to twitch and finally settled into a hard grip. His shoulders heaved and when he spoke there was a queer note ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... agoin' to git it," said Old Man Curry. "I aim to live so's to miss it." He lapsed into silence, and the straw began to twitch to the slow grinding motion of his lower jaw. A very stupid man might have seen at a glance that Curry did not wish to be disturbed, but for some reason or other Pitkin felt the need ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... surprised at the noiseless way in which Dutch laborers do their work. Even around the warehouses and docks there was no bustle, no shouting from one to another. A certain twitch of the pipe, or turn of the head, or, at most, a raising of the hand, seemed to be all the signal necessary. Entire loads of cheeses or herrings are pitched from cart or canalboat into the warehouses without a word; but the passerby must take his chance of being ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... glanced at Paige, the state's attorney. The young man's face wore an odd expression. Their eyes met, and Sampson's mouth began to twitch. Albion Small, who was "consid'able of a joker," suddenly choked. Farnsworth, having revealed to him in a flash the significance of the harmonica "with harp attachment," ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... As might have been supposed, teeth which were sharp and powerful enough to go through a walnut shell, would not he likely to be stopped by a leathern glove; and Jonas, startled by the sudden cut, gave a twitch with his hand, and, at the same instant, let go of the squirrel. Bunny grasped the edge of the howl with his paws, and leaped out, bringing the bowl itself at the same instant over upon him, spattering him all over from head to tail with the ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... old grammar," suggested one, trying to twitch away his book; and another pulled the chair ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... Tennessee steer that the quartermaster manages to lay hands on somehow. But it's awful poor beef, lean, slimy, skinny and stringy. The boys say that one can throw a piece up against a tree, and it will just stick there and quiver and twitch for all the world like one of those blue-bellied lizards at home will do when you knock him off a fence rail ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... influence soak into him. Thus being quiet, he may, he will, find rising in his heart the consciousness of the love of God. You will not, if you give only broken momentary sidelong glances; you will not, if you do not lie still. If you hold up a cup in a shaking hand beneath a fountain, and often twitch it aside, you will get little water in it; and unless we 'wait on the Lord,' we shall not 'renew our strength.' You can build a dam as they do in Holland that will keep out, not only the waters of a river, but the waters of an ocean, and not a drop will come through the dike. Brethren, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... and then another creak, and another. I saw Jim's face as if it had been carved out of ivory, with his parted lips and his staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the stair opening. He still held the light, but his fingers twitched, and with every twitch the shadows sprang from the walls to the ceiling. As to myself, my knees gave way under me, and I found myself on the floor crouching down behind Jim, with a scream frozen in my throat. And still the step came ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... however, died on his lips, and he moved slowly along, stopping now and then to observe the busy and to him novel scene, till he reached a comparatively quiet turning, which was dimly lighted by only one lamp. Here he felt a slight twitch at the bag which contained his little all. Like lightning he turned and seized by the wrist a man who had already opened the bag and laid hold of some of its contents. Grasping the poor wretch by the neck with his other hand he held him in a ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... drew his brows together with an attempt at pious frowning and indignation; but there was a cold, sneering smile now turned upon him, and it changed the frown to anxiety, and made his lips twitch, and the food he had eaten grow ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stronger twitch than ever before; even while his ear, less delicate than hers, could distinguish no peculiar sound. About two minutes after Mr. Wilkins entered the room. He came up to Mr. Corbet with a warm welcome: some of it real, some of it assumed. He talked volubly to him, taking little or no notice of ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... not showing by so much as the twitch of an eyelid that he has heard the SUPERINTENDENT'S angry words, calls over the heads of those around him to a pretty servant girl, who has brought in the coffee and is standing open-mouthed with astonishment at the unexpected sight.] Hillo, Emmy, do you belong to this company now? The sooner ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Twitch of the dead man's feet if he remembers A bunch of grapes and a ripped-open gown.— And the live man's eyes are night after embers, Two black spots on a white-faced down . ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... reverence, and extends The little engine on his fingers' ends: This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair; And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear; Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought The close recesses of the virgin's thought; 140 As on the nosegay in her breast reclined, He watch'd the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... his reins a twitch, the horses wake up, and the gun-carriage begins to move slowly along the lane of mourners. As the dead private passes on his way the walls of the lane melt, and his comrades fall into their usual ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... His blanket and rifle lay at one side, out of the way, but where they could be reached at a single leap, if necessary. The end of the lasso was still fastened to the rock, but the savage held it loosely, so that the slightest twitch upon it would become known to ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... remarkably quick and cat-like. Donovan sprang forward; but Kit caught his arm, and dealt him a blow with his fist that sent him reeling to the ground. Don seized him by the collar of his bear-skin smock, and, with a twitch and a kick, sent him spinning into the ring. Several of the remaining men had run to their tents, and now re-appeared with harpoons in their hands. Kit took his musket, and, walking up to one of them, struck the dart out of his hand ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... is to be; Duke de Bourbon, one day Conde too, and famous among Dotards) to wait upon the Dauphin. With another few, it is a resolution taken; jacta est alea. Old Richelieu,—when Beaumont, driven by public opinion, is at last for entering the sick-room,—will twitch him by the rochet, into a recess; and there, with his old dissipated mastiff-face, and the oiliest vehemence, be seen pleading (and even, as we judge by Beaumont's change of colour, prevailing) 'that the King be not killed ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... like me,—any hovel is good enough for me; but for her! Do you know that I conceived that hope, that the hope helped to lead me back here when, months ago, I was at Humberston, intent upon rescuing Sophy; and saw—though," observed Waife, with a sly twitch of the muscles round his mouth, "I had no right at that precise moment to be seeing anything—Lady Montfort's humane fear for a blind old impostor, who was trying to save his dog—a black dog, sir, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at him steadily as I spoke, trying to see whether he manifested any uneasiness or emotion. But he baffled me. I thought I saw his lips twitch, and his eyes contract, but I might easily have been mistaken. If he were a guilty man, then he was the greatest actor, and had the most supreme command over himself, of any one ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... have many a pang, many a twitch, as I may call it!—Why is your brother so tender-hearted, so modest, so faultless!—Why did he not insult me with his pity? Why does he on every occasion shew a tenderness for me, that is more affecting than pity? And why does ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... seat opposite Marius, with a resentful glance at her father and a wrathful twitch of the hated robe. It was of faintest amethyst, with tunic embroidered in gold, fastened by many jewels. She looked like a fair young princess, a very angry young princess; and Marius, from where he reclined at ease on the opposite side of the table, looked across at her ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... of the Judge, the Doctor's full lips had begun to twitch in a smile, and his eyes to twinkle. Then he ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... moment he did not answer. She knew that he was measuring her with those shrewd eyes of his, looking for a false sign, just the twitch of a muscle to tell him that she was playing a part. And ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like furrow, and with a twitch of ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another,—he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on,—and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... With a twitch—not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole self—the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... plane he thrust his left hand into his blouse pocket. He always carried it there, as if it were literally sewn in place. In moments of emotion the scarred nerves would twitch as the telltale of his sensitiveness; and this was something he would conceal from others no matter how conscious he was of it himself. He found the Galland veranda deserted. In response to his ring a maid came to the open door. Her face was sad, with ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... half-way between his plate and his mouth, in order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... agreed to let her loose upon the shrew-mouse, and in spite of the anger of certain envious mice, she was triumphantly marched around the cellar, where, seeing her walk mincingly, mechanically move her tail, shake her cunning little head, twitch her diaphanous ears, and lick with her little red tongue the hairs just sprouting on her cheeks, the old rats fell in love with her and wagged their wrinkled, white-whiskered jaws with delight at the sight of her, as did formerly the old men of Troy, admiring the lovely Helen, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... sober wench to look after the children's linen, and do other occasional work: Enquire of Mr. Twitch, broom-maker, in Kent-street. ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... Roach, well as common. Yit a twitch here and a twinge there tells us we're moving along to'rds eternity. It's age that's a-feeling of us, Brother Roach; and when we're ripe ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... went out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr. Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke. The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angry twitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen the master do a thing ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... feet look'd cold and thin, Her lips were twitch'd, and wretched tears, Some, as she lay, roll'd past her ears, Some fell ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... the masterly inactivity touch!" said he, with a twitch of his humorous lips. "But not exactly an edifying show for our men. Wonder what my old Dad would think of it all? You bet there'll be a holy rumpus in ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... twist when shun prick string track whist trash brick smack crash whim chest crust stump stock which script scrub splash scrap whisk spend shred struck block ship cramp grunt scamp frank chill smash print shrink throb chat twitch stack thump pluck sprang spring drink thrush shrub sham switch check stretch brush chess snatch ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment—and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... once more—half a penknife, a bunch of keys, but not a farthing. Suddenly I dive into my pocket and take the papers out again. It was a mechanical movement, an unconscious nervous twitch. I selected a white unwritten page, and—God knows where I got the notion from—but I made a cornet, closed it carefully, so that it looked as if it were filled with something, and threw it far out on to the pavement. The breeze blew it ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... a sudden twitch to a delicate ruffle, which she had begun to arrange upon the corsage of a dress, to show Mona how she wanted it, she made a great rugged tear in the filmy fabric, thus completely ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... induced to take an earlier start home and rise to the responsibility of stopping on her way to contend with the butcher. She had however to retire without Sidney, who clung to his recovered prey, so that the rest of the episode was seasoned, to Baron's sense, by the importunate twitch of the child's little, plump, cool hand. The friends wandered together with a conjugal air and Sidney not between them, hanging wistfully, first, over the lengthened picture of the Calais boat, till they could look after it, as it moved rumbling away, ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... fastenings of his helmet, which alone remains in Menelaus' hands. Then she spirits Paris back to the Trojan palace, where she leaves him resting on a couch, and hurries off, in the guise of an old crone, to twitch Helen's veil, whispering that Paris awaits her at home. Recognizing the goddess in spite of her disguise, Helen reproaches her, declaring she has no desire ever to see Paris again, but Venus, awing Helen into submission, leads her back to the palace. There Paris, after artfully ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... sack it up.' So he did, an' Bill took the bag out to the cart. 'Now for the next,' says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner. When George had weighed out the eleven, I says to Philp, 'Well, now, I hope you're satisfied this time?' says I. He turns about, sees that ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... young, the elder looking on with hard faces and dry eyes, the youngest with wide and startled looks, and parted lips, and quick-drawn breath that sobs and is caught at sight of each deadly stab and gash of broadsword and trident, and hands that twitch and clutch each other as a man's foot slips in a pool of blood, and the heavy harness clashes in the red, wet sand. Then grey-haired senators; then curled and perfumed knights of Rome; and then the people, countless, vast, frenzied, blood-thirsty, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... as a handsome girl will look, in spite of a line of care upon her her head and a twitch of anxiety upon the corners of her lips, was distributing coffee, and alternating the task by cutting bread-and-butter—thin-thick for her brother Hendon, who was reading a sporting paper, and thin-thin for Dr Chartley, who was gazing in an abstracted manner ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... and try to forgive him. Good-by both. I have served my term, and at last am released from the bigger jail." A little shudder, a twitch, and he was dead. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... in driving a little eel into a corner and in throwing it ashore; and there they were, dancing about like mad creatures, unable to hold it, more than half afraid to touch it, but always contriving to twitch the wretched wriggling thing further from the water. One brave little maid managed for a moment to catch it in her pinafore but dropped it instantly, as all the boys screamed: "Put it down! he'll bite 'ee." And so they went on babbling ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... The pupils of the eye dilated and closed to pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a fakir by the Taksali Gate who had just this gift and made money by it, especially when cursing silly women. Kim stared with interest. His disreputable friend could further twitch his ears, almost like a goat, and Kim was disappointed that this new ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... had led him away from the older sister. This seemed improbable; for the charms of the poor little bride were not to be compared with those of her maturer sister. Yet, as we all know, there are other attractions than those offered by beauty. I have since heard it broadly stated that the peculiar twitch of the lip observable in all the Moores had proved an irresistible charm in the unfortunate Veronica, making her a radiant image when she laughed. This was by no means a rare occurrence, so they said, before the fancy took her ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... quoth Giles, "'tis an irreverent knave, that maketh the monk in me arise, my very toes do twitch for to kick his lewd and sacrilegious carcase—and, lord, he would kick ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... it was noticed that any stimulus might cause (1) a twitch in the limb stimulated, or (2) a twitch followed by a jump, or (3) a sudden jump previous to which no twitch could be detected. And it soon appeared that these types of reaction, as it seems proper to call them, would have to be considered in any determination ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... beneath? 55 The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pan and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Savior at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp 65 ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... by-and-by there would perhaps be repentance, but who could think of repentance now, with the feast—and such a feast!—on the board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad, intoxicating music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they could scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass, and the summer moon entering through a chink in the big tent, and the gayly dressed people, and all the merry voices? Oh, it ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... distinguish'd than all, He so gayly goes off with the belle of the ball." "Is it true," asked a lady aggressively fat, Who, fierce as a female Leviathan, sat By another that look'd like a needle, all steel And tenuity—"Luvois will marry Lucile?" The needle seem'd jerk'd by a virulent twitch, As though it were bent upon driving a stitch Through somebody's character. "Madam," replied, Interposing, a young man who sat by their side, And was languidly fanning his face with his hat, "I am ready to bet my new Tilbury that, If Luvois has proposed, the ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... ever been able to offer any theories of moral heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense; that is that one could calculate on them beforehand. There are six cases, say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character as his grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, there are no cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... onto what seemed a death struggle between one of the giant soldiers and an inoffensive-looking worker. The drab, comparatively feeble body of the worker was wriggling right in the center of the great claws which, with a twitch, could have sliced it in two endwise. Yet the jaws did not twitch; and in a few moments the worker drew ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... A caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque. His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the waves beat over ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... companion. I seek none else; there is no want when you are near, no mood when you are not welcome—a library indeed, and I look forward with great pleasure to many hours' communion with you on lonely seas—a lover might as well sigh for more than his affianced as I for any but you. A twitch of conscience here. You ploughman bard, who are so much to me, are you then forgotten? No, no, Robin, no need of taking you in my trunk; I have you in my heart, from "A man's a man for a that" to ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... know little about women. The lady of the house does not like her, and I believe it is mutual on either side.... But which of them is in the right is difficult to say. I think that the mistress is probably in the wrong... because she is so awfully polite to her; the other's brows twitch nervously when she is speaking to her patroness. She is a most highly-strong individual, like myself, and is just as easily upset as I am, although perhaps not in the ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... with apple cheeks under a slatted sun-bonnet, and more apples in her lunch bag, had come in a vision of old orchard and sun-bathed river, to put her warm little hand in her brother's again, and lead him home. And before the clock struck again, Robert Toland, with not even a twitch of his kind old face, went smiling away from earth in a dream of childhood, and Richie, with a finger on the silent pulse, and Jim, with a hand on the silent heart, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine, Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Bingham,[17] For he never fails to bring 'em; And that base apostate Vesey With Bishop's scraps grown fat and greasy, While Wynne sleeps the whole debate, They submissive round him wait; (Yet would gladly see the hunks, In his grave, and search his trunks,) See, they gently twitch his coat, Just to yawn and give his vote, Always firm in his vocation, For the court against the nation. Those are Allens Jack and Bob,[18] First in every wicked job, Son and brother to a queer Brain-sick brute, they call a peer. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... have curried a horse, or stood by during the process, and watched him shrug and twitch with pleasure as the little iron teeth scratched his skin, and have seen his coat grow glossy and satiny as the brush was applied as soon as the currying ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 57, December 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... came at first. That crouching body beneath was motionless now; even the tail had ceased to twitch and hung limply behind, dripping over the edge of the narrow wall into the unfathomable pit of the garden; and as the watcher stared, he felt himself some communication of the horror so apparent in the other's attitude. Along ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... that would live on the dry land, the primitive kangaroo could think of nothing better to do with his tail than to make a stool of it. It was a simple thought, but a happy one. Sitting up like a gentleman, he has his hands free to scratch his ribs or twitch his moustache. And when he goes he needs not to put them to the ground, for his great tail so nearly equals the weight of his body that one pair of legs keeps the balance even. And so the kangaroo, almost ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... heads of three Indians. Their profiles stood out clearly against the white background; their shoulders seemed to dissolve into the fog. They passed slowly on up the stream, looking straight ahead, without a twitch of the eyelids, like a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... self-ordained According to the naive and liberal creed Of our great-hearted young Compassionates, Forgetting the Prime Mover of the gear, As puppet-watchers him who pulls the strings.— You'll mark the twitchings of this Bonaparte As he with other figures foots his reel, Until he twitch him into his lonely grave: Also regard the frail ones that his flings Have made gyrate like animalcula In tepid pools.—Hence to the precinct, then, And count as framework to the stagery Yon architraves of sunbeam-smitten cloud.— So may ye judge ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... his sister the marquise—a stout lady in ruby velvet and amethysts, who invariably caused Maggie Delafield's mouth to twitch whenever she opened her own during the evening—received the guests in the drawing-room. They were standing on the white fur hearth-rug side by side, when the doors were dramatically thrown open, and the servant rolled the names unctuously ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... so nearly simultaneously, that they might have well been mistaken for one. The escape of Ned was a narrow one. He felt one of the bullets pierce his clothing, and a sting in the hand told him that he had been slightly wounded. At the same moment he felt a peculiar twitch or quiver of the steed, which indicated that he also had been hit. It was like the jar of the smoothly-moving machinery when some slight obstruction gets into the works. Still there was no abatement of the tremendous speed of the magnificent little animal, and Ned concluded that the hurt was not ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... dining car. She threw back her head and sucked her lungs full of the pure, rain-chilled air. She was accustomed to being out in storms, she liked them. One second she paused to watch the gale sweeping the fields, the next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw up her hands and clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step railing and leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against the corner of the car, hold there an instant with the pressure of the wind, then slide down, draw under, and drop ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... gazer's flesh to creep, and conjures through the brain every wild legend whispered of the "vasty deep," fascinating the eyes, and holding them with spell-like power, until—until what?—why, until a sharp twitch on the lip from the fire of the close-burned cigar we recommended awakens you to a due sense of such a ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... whither her thoughts were wandering. The twitch of Davidson's face proved that, though he spoke of scientific things, his mind was busy in the same direction. Suddenly, while the doctor was giving some experience of practice on the Flanders front, rather prosily, he sprang to his ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... keenest when most recent. As he approached I saw he was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... did hang in all that part of the Gorge, by reason of the Slug; and signs of disgust, as you shall think; and the great and mildewed body of the thing yet to settle and twitch, as I did look, as it did come properly unto death in all that mighty bulk. And everywhere, the skin of the Beast did be set into great wrinklings, and horrid blotchings to be upon the improper ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... he had found his brother in fate. Music became his brother in torture. On seeing his friend lacerated and devastated, he saw twitch from the eye of Gorgo herself the profoundest of wisdom. But he did not ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... would your fresh tear fall, Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile, As they told you of gold both robe and pall, How she prayed them leave it alone awhile, So it never was touched ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... on the station platform was Kennicott, faithfully waving his hand, his face so full of uncomprehending loneliness that he could not smile but only twitch up his lips. She waved to him as long as she could, and when he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule and run back to him. She thought of a hundred tendernesses ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... nervous twitch.] Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. [Vehemently, but not loudly.] No—I may just as well make a clean breast of it at once! For it must all come out in ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... upon the hearth. It was the fragments of the toy stiletto, broken by an uncontrollable twitch of the small fingers that ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... admire Hall's self-possession and coolness. Desperate as our case was, he kept a steady hand on the helm, and strained his eyes into the mist ahead, never abating for a moment either his vigilance or his courage. But every now and then I could see his eyes turn for a moment to Charlie, and his face twitch as they did so, with a look of pain which I was at no ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... is playing it now, if he only knew it. Much of our time in life we go about blindfolded, stumbling over mistakes, trying to catch things that we miss, while people stand round the ring and titter, and break out with half-suppressed laughter, and push us ahead, and twitch the corner of our eye-bandage. After a while we vehemently clutch something with both hands, and announce to the world our capture; the blindfold is taken from our eyes, and, amid the shouts of the surrounding spectators, we find we have, after all, caught the wrong thing. What is ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... "He meant to; an' ef he hadn't—s'pose we want the Back Pasture turned into a biffin'-ground on our only day er rest? 'S'pose we want our men walkin' round with bits er lead pipe an' a twitch, an' their hands full o' stones to throw at us, same's if we wuz hogs er hooky keows? More'n that, leavin' out Tedda here—an' I guess it's more her maouth than her manners stands in her light—there ain't a horse on this farm that ain't a woman's horse, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... like this, that calls and speaks Till sots and lovers from one string Dangle and dance in the same ring. Tom, of your piping I've heard said And seen—that you can rouse the dead, Dead-drunken men awash who lie In stinking gutters hear your cry, I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh, Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then You set them dancing, these dead men. They stamp and prance with sobbing breath, Victims of wine or love or death, In ragged time they jump, they shake Their heads, sweating to overtake The ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... fears, And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears; Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire, When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar, Villon, our sad ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of the stage, not liking the slow pace in which old Battle was proceeding to make room for him, laid his whip briskly over his haunches, quickening his movements, but driving the major into a furious passion. The sudden twitch landed us both upon the sandy road, under the pile of sheepskins we had used for a seat. In this dilemma the major called loudly for assistance, swearing that if the stage driver would but stop he would give him battle ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the old lady says to herself. "I am so anxious to hear the good tidings Sister Slocum's letter conveys." She wipes and wipes her venerable spectacles, adjusts them piquantly over her small, wicked eyes, gives her elaborate cap-border a twitch forward, frets her finger nervously over the letter, and gets herself into a general state of confritteration. "There!" she says, entirely forgetting her Milton, which has fallen on the floor, to the great ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... of the piece. First, a rope was seen to flap on the floor, to tighten with a twitch as Emil's voice was heard to say, "Heave, ahoy!" and Silas's gruff one to reply, "Stiddy, now, stiddy!" A shout of laughter followed, for four large gray rats appeared, rather shaky as to their legs, and queer as to their tails, but quite fine about the head, where black beads ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... impeded, and the members of Parliament have been "effreietz," frightened, by these long knives. Then, descending to lesser things, the proclamation goes on to forbid the street-boys of London to play at hide-and-seek in the palace, or to perform tricks on the passers-by, such as "to twitch off their hoods" for instance, which the proclamation in parliamentary style terms improper games, "jues nient covenables." But as private liberty should be respected as much as possible, this prohibition is meant only for ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... very glad," began the big man again, who hadn't even heard Mr. King's tirade, "for now—" and he gave his black beard a final twitch, and his eyes suddenly lightened with a smile that ran all over his face, "I can speak to you of dis ting dat is ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... and she knows the supreme moment has come. Her sinews tighten like bowstrings, and she darts on with the lightning speed of despair. The grim pursuers near her; she almost feels the breath of the foremost. Twitch!—and with a quick convulsive effort she sheers aside, and her enemy sprawls on. But the second dog is ready to meet her, and she must swirl round again. The two serpentine savages gather themselves together and launch out in wild efforts to reach her; they are upon her—she must dart round again, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... improve upon her advantage. A less consummate general might have tried to do so, and ruined all. She stood silent and submissive, noting the quick play of thought which peeped from his eyes and lip. There was a sparkle in the one and a twitch of amusement in the other, as he at last ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... or two Jakoff was silent. Then his fingers began to twitch with extraordinary rapidity, and, changing the expression of deferential vacancy with which he had listened to his orders for one of shrewd intelligence, he turned his tablets ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... of astonishment, envy, and vague hope that something of the sort might happen to him. He used to follow Masha with admiring eyes, and to ask me what I had for dinner nowadays, and his ugly, emaciated face used to wear a sweet, sad expression, and he used to twitch his fingers as though he could feel ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... then, from a Zincala— Unmake yourself from being child of mine! Take holy water, cross your dark skin white; Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks; Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch your robe: Unmake yourself—doff all the eagle plumes And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips Upon a Spaniard's thumb, at will of his That you should prattle ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... tied it will become uneasy, paw, point its nose to the flank, twitch the tail, lie down and get up frequently. If the animal is loose it will walk around, paw, kick at its belly with the hind feet, make attempts to lie down, roll on its back and remain in that position for a while. The pulse increases ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... greaved and sometimes gauntleted as if in haste for his job, always muttering to himself; and when he passed us with just a side-glance from his red eyes, we observed that his pale face did not cease to twitch nor his lips to work. We felt something like awe for the courage of Archie Passmore, who followed twenty paces behind with his tools and a bundle of spars or straw-rope, or perhaps at the end of a ladder which the two carried between them. Archie (aged sixteen) used ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... line of his body. Then Oliver remembers that he saw a slim Chinese girl in loose blue silks go off the floor ten minutes or so ago with a tall musketeer. He goes over and touches Ted on a particolored arm—the latter is dressed as a red and gilt harlequin—and feels the muscles he touches twitch under his hand. ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Hilda took him, and when Jason looked upon boys of his own age chipping, hewing, planing lumber, and making furniture, so busy that they scarcely gave him a glance, St, Hilda saw his eyes light and his fingers twitch. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... The man's face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a scream and threw himself ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... like me aw cant tell; If tha'rt seekin better luck,—its a sell, As tha'll find; Nay, tha needn't twitch thi tail aght o' seet, Aw'll nooan hurt thi, tho' aw own tha'rt a freet. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... men make many laws; yet under thy regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse, turn the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, and never cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see us safe landed at the grave. We can do nothing (but be poisoned) with impunity. What is worst of all, we must marry certain relatives and connexions, be they distorted, blear-eyed, toothless, carbuncled, with hair (if any) eclipsing the reddest torch of Hymen, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... usual, my dear," said mother, with an odd little twitch of the lip, as though something pleased her. But here Dot, who never could keep a secret for five minutes, burst ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with a mistrustful, but attentive, eye. "If, as I imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in his palpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did duty there for a smile, looked very like the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 'n' it's comf'ble, too; ain't too tight ner nothin'," giving her shoulders a little twitch, and ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... and I saw his underlip twitch. Nayland Smith, taking two long strides, stood immediately in front of him, glaring ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... began to twitch violently and his under lip quivered faster, and he whimpered with anger, and cried with a shrill voice, in Yannish, to the captain of his torturers that there was a spirit in the room. I feared not, for living men cannot lay hands on a spirit, but ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... peered intently into Dunk's distorted countenance until every man there, struck by his manner, was watching him curiously. Then he sat back in the saddle, straightened his legs in the stirrups and laughed. And like his smile when he would have it so, or the little twitch of shoulders by which he could so incense a man, that laugh brought a deeper flush to Dunk's face, reddened though it was by Big ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... vein, but when the door-bell rang, they all three heard it with a start. Mrs. Emery said, very carelessly, "There he is, dear. Run along and remember me to him." But she pulled Lydia down to her, straightened a bow on her waist with a twitch, loosened a lock of the girl's shining dark hair, and kissed her with a ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... from each other, which was called knucks. You could play for keeps in all these games; and in knucks, if you won, you had a shot or shots at the knuckles of the fellow who lost, and who was obliged to hold them down for you to shoot at. Fellows who were mean would twitch their knuckles away when they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took their punishment with the savage pluck of so many little Sioux. As the game began in the raw cold of the earliest spring, every boy had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin worn off the knuckle of ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... a faint twinkle in Mr. Barrymore's eyes and a twitch of his lips, as he bent down over the machinery without answering a word, and I couldn't resist the temptation of letting him see that I was in his secret. There couldn't be any harm ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... would say, "with a barefooted colt, an' a gabbin', chuckle-headed blacksmith nails shoes on its feet, an' the flat-nose jumps on an' away he goes, hipety click, an' the colt interferes, an' the flat-nose begins a kickin' an' a cursin', an' then—" Here the hunchback's fingers began to twitch. "Somebody ought to come along an' grab the fool by the scruff of his neck an' kick him till he couldn't set in a saddle, an' then go back an' boot the sole-leather off ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... took a seat and the pen, looked a while helplessly at the paper, then at Huish. The swing had gone the other way; there was a blur upon his eyes. 'It's a dreadful business,' he said, with a strong twitch of his shoulders. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... standing half within the shadow of the big tree. He crept silently a few steps nearer and paused, whirling the loop around his head. The hair rope spread into a circle, hissed and flickered for a moment in the air, then dropped straight over the victim. It was a good throw. Alec gave a twitch—not too hard—to the lariat, and the thing was done. Blue Bonnet clapped her hands and started forward with Alec to see which one of the girls he had caught. Both suddenly stopped in dismay. There was a struggle, a shrill scream, and ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... that had passed between himself and the master's mate, taking care to give Jane a due place in his history. Nelson began to twitch the stump of his arm, and by the time the story was told Clinch's promotion was settled. An order was sent forthwith to the secretary, to make out the orders, and Cuffe carried them back with him to the Proserpine that night, when he returned to his ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... property; and about the same time men who had come from Utah to New York direct, published over their own signatures a declaration that all was peaceful in and about the settlements of Utah. The public eye began to twitch, and soon to open wide; the conviction was growing that someone had blundered. But to retract would be a plain confession of error; ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... in the standing position, and in the average instance, a twitch and hood are all the restraining ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... fiercely, and as if he were terribly offended; for Morgan's Welsh blood had a way of bubbling up and frothing over like mead; but directly after there was a bit of a twitch at one corner of his mouth, then a few wrinkles started out at each side of his face about the eyes, and began to spread all over till he was showing ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... emperors, but in practice he had tripped over an ugly outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girl hated him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain he loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that a twitch of his finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long the Queen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring this about. Yes, he could get the girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes, and ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... it had been one of the others who had asked her to dance! It was inconceivable that she should have seen him; and yet a peculiar knowledge had enveloped her, as though she had seen obliquely through her down-dropped eyelids; and then it was well known women could see round corners! And that twitch of the arm! He did not know what to think. "Well, it's all one to me," he thought, "for I'm not going to be ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... I would never have believed it;—just tie this string for me, child, my hands twitch so strangely,—they say the British are just down in the lane here, with five ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... literally incapable of making one. The steam of excitement was on, nearly to its highest pitch. Her throat was working, the muscles of her mouth began to twitch, and a convulsive sob, or what sounded like it, broke from her. Mr. Carlyle turned his ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... opposite Marius, with a resentful glance at her father and a wrathful twitch of the hated robe. It was of faintest amethyst, with tunic embroidered in gold, fastened by many jewels. She looked like a fair young princess, a very angry young princess; and Marius, from where he reclined at ease on the opposite side of the table, looked across at her with ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the spirits the ballyan places an offering before her and begins to chant and wail. A distant stare comes into her eyes, her body begins to twitch convulsively until she is shivering and trembling as if seized with the ague. In this condition she receives the messages of the spirits and under their direction conducts ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... poor boy had held on with his wonted vivacity, but he stopped suddenly. The corners of his mouth began to twitch, and, laying his head on his mother's ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... florid face had paled to a dusky wanness when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served only to increase his agitation. Steingall, to all intents and purposes paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous gesture. His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence. Curtis had hazarded a guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a Hungarian Count denouncing ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... from his patient suddenly aroused the doctor. Her face was beginning to twitch spasmodically with pain. In an instant Janet was at her side, hypodermic needle in hand, and the opiate was ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... were wandering. The twitch of Davidson's face proved that, though he spoke of scientific things, his mind was busy in the same direction. Suddenly, while the doctor was giving some experience of practice on the Flanders front, rather prosily, he sprang to ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... him, cuffed him incessantly, laughing at his futile efforts to ward off or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plough-men, the servant girls and even every passing vagabond were every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with his arms always held out to guard against people ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... had all Exeter present at the exhibition. However, before night, I was convinced of my friend Mr. Y——'s superior prudence: the whole thing, as the carpenter said, went off pretty well; but several disasters happened which I had not foreseen. There was one stiff old fellow, whose arms, twitch them which way I would, I could never get to bend: and an obstinate old woman, who would never do any thing else but curtsy, when I wanted her to kneel down and to do her work. My children sorted their heaps of rubbish and ore very dexterously; excepting one unlucky little chap, who, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... us laughing at his pranks, and made Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong, Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes. Even in sleep his little limbs, I think, Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Maeon! And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams Of darkly-moving chaos and slow shapes Of things that creep encumbered with huge burdens Gloom and infest her through these dragging hours, Haunting ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... for the movement was remarkably quick and cat-like. Donovan sprang forward; but Kit caught his arm, and dealt him a blow with his fist that sent him reeling to the ground. Don seized him by the collar of his bear-skin smock, and, with a twitch and a kick, sent him spinning into the ring. Several of the remaining men had run to their tents, and now re-appeared with harpoons in their hands. Kit took his musket, and, walking up to one of them, struck the dart out of his hand with a tweak ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... see what I can do with him. If I fail, recollect that he is not proverbial for pliability. Look here—are you nervous? Your fingers twitch, and so do your eyelids, occasionally, and your pulse ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Some twitch in the moon's face (observe), Wet blink of her eyelid, tear dropt about dewfall, Cheek flushed or obscured—does it make the sky swerve? Fetch the test, work the question to rags, bring to proof all— Find what souls want ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... engine on his fingers' ends: This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair; And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear; Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought The close recesses of the virgin's thought; 140 As on the nosegay in her breast reclined, He watch'd the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... attractive—keen as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the lower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though, as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at their corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting suit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It showed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... doctoring or heightening any of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of business to the safe, unexploding ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... then, seeming to accept my words in simple faith. There was evidently in his own mind some cause for the acceptance deeper than my own knowledge. His eyes flashed, and there was an unconscious movement of the mouth—it could hardly be called a twitch—which betokened satisfaction. He was following out some train of reasoning in his own mind. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... still morn went out with Sandals gray, He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the Western bay; At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: To morrow to fresh Woods, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... king is mad. Perhaps. Who knows? They say one king is doddering and grey. They say one king is slack and sick of mind, A puppet for hid strings that twitch ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... together with a slight twitch of her nose). If you stay with us, Eugene, I think I will hand ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply could not abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him. Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master's attention with a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and to visit him with unmerciful punishment. "Ah, my fine fellow," he would say, "I'LL cure ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... health," said the Major, filling a cup to the brim, to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, "and victory over all our enemies, and particularly over Argyle! I hope to twitch another handful from his board myself—I have had one ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... year or two after the house was built Mrs. Polk had given magnificent entertainments, scattering her husband's dollars in a manner that made his thin nostrils twitch, and without the formality of his consent. Magdalena paused at a bend of the stair and tried to conjure up a brilliant throng in the dark hall below, the great doors of the parlours rolled back, the rooms flooded with the soft light of many candles; ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... twitch. Evidently he was getting rather homesick. Rob noticed his face, and went on: "Of course we will get out of here before long, someway," he said. "Meanwhile, we will have to make the best living here we can. If we ever get this man to a white settlement, where we can find out ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... the same tactics as before. How many times it repeated this, I shall never know. No words have ever been formed that can adequately express the feeling that took possession of me. I seemed powerless to move a muscle or twitch an eye-lid. The suspense was terrible, expecting each time that the slimy body descended the viper would thrust his poisonous lance into my leg and all would be over. The horror of it all cannot be imagined, and to this day, when I recall the incident, it sends a shiver through my entire ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... look'd cold and thin, Her lips were twitch'd, and wretched tears, Some, as she lay, roll'd past her ears, Some fell from ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... condition appeared to be the general object as far as any purpose was manifested. The crowd seemed to regard poor, demented Hannah as inspired, for a space was kept clear before her. When she began to sway in her weird fashion, and her face to twitch, she was the priestess and the oracle. The hymn she began was taken up first by two self-appointed ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... my agitation was scarcely less, as fumbling for some seconds in my portmanteau, I drew forth the long destined packet. As I placed it in his hands, he grew deadly pale, and a slight spasmodic twitch in his upper lip bespoke some unnatural struggle. He broke the seal suddenly, and as he did so, the morocco case of a miniature fell upon the ground; his eyes ran rapidly across the letter; the livid ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... may have been shaken up a heap in the game," hinted Anstey. "Prescott isn't the sort of chap to tell us every time he feels a trifle dizzy or experiences a nervous twitch. He may have felt badly, may have gone out on the platform for a whiff of fresh air, and then may have felt so ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... at the mimic monkey in the glass; While both are one: and henceforth be it known, Fools of both sides shall stand for fools alone. "But who art thou?" methinks Florello cries; "Of all thy species art thou only wise?" Since smallest things can give our sins a twitch, As crossing straws retard a passing witch, Florello, thou my monitor shalt be; I'll conjure thus some profit out of thee. O thou myself! abroad our counsels roam, And, like ill husbands, take no care at home: Thou too art wounded with the common ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... between his plate and his mouth, in order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long sip ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... a tiger work and twitch when the beast makes ready for its spring, a movement agitated the mob, and a low growling murmur came from the mass of men. Texas spoke sharply. "Ready, you fellows in there! If they start let them ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... when most recent. As he approached I saw he was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy and went ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... and the King still frowned. Then, gradually, the corners of his mouth began to twitch, his nose came down (as mine does when I laugh), his eyes twinkled, and, behold! he burst into the merriest fit of irrepressible laughter, which rang through the woods and proclaimed him a ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... which should smooth their path through the years ahead has not come to take its place. It is in this middle period that longings for the delights of his care-free youth begin to come back to a man; if he ever had the wandering foot, it begins again to twitch for the road; of else his fancy is captured by some other girl not tied down at home by children. It is at this time, too, that endless discords and misunderstandings arise—that the last bit of ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... instruments, an exact interpretation of the author's purpose. In no degree could they have succeeded more admirably than on this occasion. Never was an entire audience so completely carried beyond the borders of reality than now. From the first until the last note not a twitch of a muscle could be seen in all that mass of humanity, which now resembled a great concourse of motionless statues. The musicians themselves, with their minds and souls bent upon giving the fullest expression to their grand work, were the only evidence that any life at all remained in the ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... pulling out a sovereign, and with a twitch of the thumb, he sent it high in the air. "Heads, you win. Tails, I win." Then catching it as it fell: "By Jove, you have it. Present my compliments to Mistress Jean," he cried, with a grandiloquent bow, "and tell her how near she came to being Mrs. ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... He saw Caesar Maruffi turn full to the room behind him and search for his own face. When their eyes met, a light of devilish amusement lit the Sicilian's visage; his lips parted and his white teeth gleamed, but it was no smile, rather the nervous, rippling twitch that bares a wolf's fangs. His color had come flooding back, too; victory suffused him with a ruddy, purple congestion, almost apoplectic. Then heads came between them; friends of the prisoners crowded forward with noisy congratulations and outstretched ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... The creature fell over, lay still a moment, then ran in quick awkward fashion toward its hole. Click, click, click, went the mechanism. Puffs of dust leaped from the earth close about the fleeing squirrel, showing the closeness of the misses. Dick fired as rapidly as he could twitch his forefinger on the trigger, so that it was as if he played a stream of lead ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... opinion of the merit of this collection. Gilpin classes these "Innocent Impostors" among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excellences the artists whom he copied; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, declares that they could never have deceived an experienced judge, and reprobates such kinds of ingenuity, played off at the cost of the venerable ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a twitch of the shoulders. "That's the worst of these professors," said he; "they never will use their heads. They see the pegs, and they mean to hit 'em; but that's all they do see and mean, and they think we're the same. No wonder we licked ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... him, but Glenister clenched his right hand and leaned forward. The miner could have killed him with a blow, for the gambler was seated and at his mercy. The Kid checked himself, while his face began to twitch as though the nerves underlying it had broken bondage and were dancing ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... been married under the compulsion of her father, Caesar, the avaricious hypocrite. He told himself it would be easy to kindle a new fire on the warm hearth. As she laughed and he looked into her beautiful eyes and caught the nervous twitch of her mouth, he felt something of the old thrill, the old passion, the old unconditioned love of her who loved him in spite of all, and merely because she must. But no! Had he spent six months abroad for nothing? He would be strong; he would be loyal. If need be ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... hang in all that part of the Gorge, by reason of the Slug; and signs of disgust, as you shall think; and the great and mildewed body of the thing yet to settle and twitch, as I did look, as it did come properly unto death in all that mighty bulk. And everywhere, the skin of the Beast did be set into great wrinklings, and horrid blotchings to be upon the improper whiteness thereof; and truly I did be in haste that I turn the Maid ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... common, Brother Roach, well as common. Yit a twitch here and a twinge there tells us we're moving along to'rds eternity. It's age that's a-feeling of us, Brother Roach; and when we're ripe ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... and the die was cast. Macfarlane could not suppress a nervous twitch, the infinitesimal mark of an immense relief, as he felt the key between his fingers. He opened the cupboard, brought out pen and ink and a paper-book that stood in one compartment, and separated from the funds in a drawer a sum ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crneo m. skull. crear create. crecer grow, rage, increase. creer believe, think. crescendo Ital. crescendo. crespn m. crape. criatura f. creature, being, man. crimen m. crime. crispante adj. shivery. crisparse twitch. cristal m. crystal, glass. cristalino, -a crystalline, transparent, bright. Cristo pr. n. m. Christ, image of Christ. crudeza f. severity, cruelty. crudo, -a raw. cruel adj. cruel, intolerable. crujido m. crackling. crujir clash, click, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... fire, fetched water and put them on to boil. But he was tired as well as hungry, and while his dinner was cooking, he thought he might as well take a nap. So he lay down in the warm sand near by, first telling his Face to be on the watch and to twitch if any one came, so as ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... head and moved away, murmuring a hasty reply to Owen's farewell remark of 'Good-day,' and with a kind of nervous twitch lifting her hand and smoothing her hair, which was of a ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... use trying to hide now. Perhaps some faint hope took possession of them that they might be unnoticed if they did not move; just as the still hunter, stalking a feeding deer, will watch its short tail, and whenever he sees it twitch he stands perfectly motionless; for he knows that the animal is about to raise his head, and that he will probably be taken for a stump if he does not ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... turned and entered the den, where Warrigal sat waiting for him, and softly growling a response to his war-cries. This defiance of the admitted lords of the range was not altogether without its ground of alarm for Warrigal; its utter recklessness made the skin over her shoulders twitch, but it was something to have a mate who could dare so much, even in ignorance. Long after Finn had closed his eyes in sleep, Warrigal lay watching him, with a queer light of pride and admiring devotion ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Too much of bony wrist and hand was in evidence, too little of grace and curve. But, though he stood rigidly at attention, with all semblance of respect and subordination, the gleam in his deep-set eyes, the twitch of the long fingers, told of keen and pent-up feeling, and he looked the senior soldier squarely in the face. A sergeant, standing by the adjutant's desk, tiptoed out into the clerk's room and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... of the steadfast seriousness with which, in spite of the greatest inclination to burst out laughing, I listened to this strange proposal. The five-pound note fluttered a little between his finger and thumb, and for one moment I had a diabolical temptation to twitch it from him and throw it into the fire. This prompting of Satan, however, I womanfully resisted, and merely civilly declined the gratuity; and the gentleman left me with profuse acknowledgments of the service I had rendered them ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... me on the train, very good indeed. I can't deny that he flushed a little when I told him frankly what I wanted of him. At first I thought that he was going to be angry. Then I saw the corners of his mustache twitch. Then our sense of humor got the better of us, and then I laughed, and then he laughed, and I felt that the crisis was passed. I explained to him while we were in the Pullman car, as well as I could without being overheard by a fat lady with three ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... lightly and smile. Millar, watching her closely, saw her lips twitch, and it was with difficulty that she ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... "Good sport, gentlemen?" The big things answered by bowing and waving their flippers like the Frog Footman. When they began feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into two pieces that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with a whole bushel of seaweed between the splits. They tucked the stuff into their ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... table, elegantly dressed, laden with jewels, whose laughter was incessant and speeches pointless—her companion found her interesting enough, but Douglas was conscious of nothing save her restless desire to please, her little bursts of frivolous mirth and an ugly twitch of her lips which every now and then revolted him. It was a chance, perhaps, or a mood, which made him look out upon a scene, ordinary enough and inoffensive, through dun-coloured spectacles. He paid his bill and ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... the way into the house, conducted the Bunner sisters the way to her bedroom. Here they were invited to spread out on a mountainous white featherbed the cashmere mantles under which the solemnity of the occasion had compelled them to swelter, and when they had given their black silks the necessary twitch of readjustment, and Evelina had fluffed out her hair before a looking-glass framed in pink-shell work, their hostess led them to a stuffy parlour smelling of gingerbread. After another ceremonial pause, ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... SIDROPHELLO'S thrust, And in right manfully he rusht; l060 The weapon from his gripe he wrung, And laid him on the earth along. WHACHUM his sea-coal prong threw by, And basely turn'd his back to fly But HUDIBRAS gave him a twitch 1065 As quick as light'ning in the breech, Just in the place where honour's lodg'd, As wise philosophers have judg'd; Because a kick in that place more Hurts honour than deep wounds ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... or a guilty twitch of an eyelid he handed her the book, and we both stood watching while the fat, heavily ringed and rosily manicured fingers turned over ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... again, it would be a good thing for somebody if somebody had his twitch of jealousy. Wives may be too meek. Cases and cases my poor Alfred read to me, where an ill-behaving man was brought to his senses by a clever little shuffle of the cards, and by the most innocent of wives. A kind of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... we were amazingly simple. But we did know a lot that is not known to-day. We could twitch our ears, prick them up and flatten them down at will. And we could scratch between our shoulders with ease. We could throw stones with our feet. I have done it many a time. And for that matter, I could keep my knees straight, bend forward from the hips, and ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... was only one construction to be placed upon the situation. The Court had gone against me. My thoughts throughout that day were most unenviable. I fretted and fumed, wondering when it would all be over. My nerves started to twitch and jump, and within a short while I could not keep a limb still. The fearful suspense was certainly driving ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... watching, with the sense of touch also on the alert. His blanket and rifle lay at one side, out of the way, but where they could be reached at a single leap, if necessary. The end of the lasso was still fastened to the rock, but the savage held it loosely, so that the slightest twitch upon it would become known to him ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... come along smartly with his brother's knife in my hand—I wasn't thinking how it looked from his side of the fence, you know—and jiminy, it nearly killed him! He stared like a crazed bullock and began to sweat and twitch all over, something amazing. I was so surprised, that I stopped to look at him. The drops were pouring over his eyebrows, down his beard, off his nose—and he gurgled. Then it struck me that he couldn't see what ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... afield seeing other and ever new packages bulk mysteriously into the growing light; bundles quickening before their eyes with every delight to be imagined of a Saint with epicurean tastes and prodigal habits—bundles that looked as if a mere twitch at the cord would ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... section, with his back to the engine and facing Judge Sawyer. Mrs. Terry did not (at the moment) accompany him. A few minutes later she walked rapidly down the passage, and as she passed Judge Sawyer, seized hold of his hair at the back of his head, gave it a spiteful twitch and passed quickly on, before he could fully realize what had occurred. After passing she turned a vicious glance upon him, which was continued for some time after taking her seat by the side of her husband. A passenger heard Mrs. Terry say to her husband: ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... offensive; for by "mannerism," as I understand the word, is meant the repetition of certain forms of language in obedience to blind habit and without reference to their propriety in the particular case. Johnson's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical spasmodic action. The most obvious peculiarity is the tendency which he noticed himself, to "use too big words and too many of them." He had to explain to Miss Reynolds that the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... to give her biggest marbles to a great lubberly boy, because he would thrash her if she didn't. I guess she never had a "hockey stick" play round her ankles in recess, because she got above a fellow in the class. I guess she never had him twitch off her best cap, and toss it in a mud-puddle. I guess she never had to give her humming-top to quiet the baby, and had the paint all sucked off. I guess she never saved up all her coppers a whole winter to buy ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... there is nothing that happened in those ill-starred years that I cannot recreate in that chamber of the brain which is set apart for grief or for despair; every strained note of your voice, every twitch and gesture of your nervous hands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase comes back to me: I remember the street or river down which we passed: the wall or woodland that surrounded us; at what figure on the dial stood the hands of the clock; which ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... said this Marton could scarcely control the skin of his head, so often did he have to twitch his eyebrows in order to express the above opinion, which he held about his ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... doorway of the sitting-room, where he could look out upon the smooth waters of the pond darkening under the shade of the poplars and the bluff behind, when Evadna came out of her room. He glanced across at her, saw her hesitate, as if she were meditating a retreat, and gave his shoulders a twitch of tolerant amusement that she should be afraid of him. Then he stared out over the pond again. Evadna walked ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... seemed to come from her heart, and I saw the old man's face quiver and twitch; but he did not ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... electricity, both at the time of lightning and at other times when no lightning was visible. During these investigations he observed that when the legs of the frog were suspended from an iron railing by a hook through the spinal cord, and when this hook was of some other metal than iron, the muscles would twitch whenever the feet touched the iron railing. He tried out a number of pairs of metals, and found that when the nerve was touched by one metal and the muscle or another point on the nerve was touched by another metal and the two metals were then brought ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... him give a twitch to his holster and slightly loosen the Colt's. But I was unburthened by guilt in past events, and I conceived no reason for fearing the future—other than that now I was likely to lose her. Heaven pity her! Probably she would have to go, even if she managed later to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... our time resting, and sleeping. In addition to unbroken rest at night it is well for the prospective mother quietly to withdraw from the family circle, when the first signs of fatigue begin to appear, and indulge in a little rest, before she gets into a state of nervousness—where nerves twitch and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... new taboos, new rituals. Yet there is the phenomenon of its tolerance toward the idol breakers. From the lowest depths of the crater of Riabba in which he sits enthroned the monarch of the Laongos condemns to death with a twitch of his brows all who seek to question the sanctity of the taboos. But this other occupant of the crater of Riabba-our Republic-raises gentle eyes to the idol wreckers, to the taboo destroyers. An occasional, "tut tut" escapes ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... me, holding me in one iron fist, and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified by the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlor door, cried out the words he had ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... won't get over this very soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping down the steps, felt a violent twitch backward, and, to save herself from a fall, sat down on the lower step ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... she lit the lamps, thankful that her back was turned to me. When I am nervous or excited there is a muscle in my face that starts to twitch, and this pulls up one corner of my mouth and gives the appearance of an idiotic grin. So far I had managed to ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... were still upon my darling, devouring her, revelling in her, when suddenly I saw her hand twitch within her step-father's arm. It was an answering start to one on his part. The cigarette was snatched from his lips. There was a commotion forward, and a cry came aft, from mouth ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... in glimmering rows... (No sign of the abject life— Not even a blasphemy...) But the spindle legs keep time To a limping rhythm, And the shadows twitch upon the snow Convulsively— As though death ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... and shall also be an M. P. From that day you may send your letters as freely as ever; and pray do not be sparing of them. Do you read any novels at Liverpool? I should fear that the good Quakers would twitch them out of your hands, and appoint their portion in the fire. Yet probably you have some safe place, some box, some drawer with a key, wherein a marble-covered book may lie for Nancy's Sunday reading. And, if you do not read novels, what do you read? How does ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... dressing for the dance. Also he had purchased, in Mr. Pennyway's shop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise for Ruby when the happy day came for installing her. Finding he had still twenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief, and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing this chair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings. Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this delicious picture ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all went well. In his role of lecturer he offended no one, and Phyllis and her father behaved admirably. They received his strangest theories without a twitch of the mouth. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... got it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another, he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... days people were not so punctilious in certain directions as they now are. My lady put off her French hood and travelling cloak in the lobby of the east wing, gave her piled-up hair a twitch this way and that, unfastened her fan from her waist, and sailed in to supper, her maid carrying her gloves and scent-bottle behind her. The tutor, who wore no gloves, was a little longer. But having washed his hands at a pump in the scullery, and dried them on a roller-towel—with ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... very large and pale, and it was looking upwards: it seemed very angry, I thought, but maybe it was angry from pain; and sometimes one side of it used to twitch and tremble for a minute, and then to grow quite still again; and all the time he was speaking to me, he never looked at me once, but always kept his face and eyes turned upwards; but his voice was very soft, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Vestals, old and young, the elder looking on with hard faces and dry eyes, the youngest with wide and startled looks, and parted lips, and quick-drawn breath that sobs and is caught at sight of each deadly stab and gash of broadsword and trident, and hands that twitch and clutch each other as a man's foot slips in a pool of blood, and the heavy harness clashes in the red, wet sand. Then grey-haired senators; then curled and perfumed knights of Rome; and then the people, countless, vast, frenzied, blood-thirsty, stretching ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... gentleman, who had forgotten his hat, and was clad in a holland smock, sandals, and no stockings, leaned over luxuriously, with his elbows on the low wall and his bare legs thrust out. He was very still, even trying not to twitch when William licked his bare legs, as he did at intervals just to show he was ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... the barn. It was locked. Alexis soon remedied this, however. One quick twitch of his wrist and the lock came off. Hal went in, and started back with a cry ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... inform them that the writ has arrived, they rejoin, that perhaps after all there may not be a contest. If you call a third time, half dead with fatigue, to give them friendly notice that both you and your rival have pledged yourselves to go to the poll, they twitch their trousers, rub their hands, and ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... said, giving a final pull and twitch to the dress of her brother, and taking him by the hand tenderly. "Now, come ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... grasped the reins, and fixed her feet in the stirrup-irons in an instant. The colt was looked upon as a champion bucker, and he deserved the honour, for rising into the air with all four feet off the ground, he gave a twitch that must have dislodged most riders, but Hil and the horse were one. After bucking and pigging all he knew, without succeeding in upsetting his rider, the wary animal tried a new dodge. He reared suddenly and fell back, trying to crush his rider, but Hil was on the alert, for few knew ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... out with my skin," said Derry. "They rooked me right and left. There isn't a finer set of sharpers outside of Mexico City—and the whole gang ready to eat you up alive if you show by the twitch of an eyelash that you are 'on' to them. There's one pirate there—Capperne—who's worse than all the rest. Nothing can beat him. You know he's sharping you all the time, but he's so slick you can never catch him out. And it wouldn't be ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Then he felt himself a person of consequence, and on smooth, black ice, with a bold heart and a quick elbow, he smoked along over the levels as fast as a pack in full cry. He would go ten miles to the seal-holes, and when he was on the hunting-grounds he would twitch a trace loose from the pitu, and free the big black leader, who was the cleverest dog in the team. As soon as the dog had scented a breathing-hole, Kotuko would reverse the sleigh, driving a couple of sawed-off antlers, that stuck ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... the great beast lurched forward on to his head, and with a single convulsive extension of his body lay quiet and still. At the same instant the thud of another bullet was heard, and the lioness was seen to twitch her head slightly, but without making any further movement. As for the troop of gazelle, no sooner was the lion down than, throwing up their heads with one accord, they wheeled sharply round to the left and dashed off across the little plain, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... ever he had seen. There were dishes upon dishes of tasty sweetmeats, huge platters of luscious fruits, many bottles of wine, and covered bowls from which arose the most appetizing aroma. Abi Fressah's mouth began to twitch and his eyes glowed. He moved forward ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... Little Girl parried the question. "Why in blazes—should I want to sit in your lap?" she quizzed harshly. Every accent of her voice, every remotest intonation, was like the Senior Surgeon's at his worst. The suddenly forked eyebrow, the snarling twitch of the upper lip, turned the whole delicate little face into a grotesque but desperately unconscious caricature of the ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... tea-table, and he stood at a little distance, watching her pull off her gloves with a queer comic twitch of his elastic mouth. "Well, I guess it's only when you want to be," he said, grasping a lyre-backed chair by its gilt cords, and sitting down astride of it, his light grey trousers stretching too tightly over ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... head reclining on his shoulder, He deals and hears mysterious chat, While every ignorant beholder Asks of his neighbour, who is that? With this he put up to my lord, The courtiers kept their distance due, He twitch'd his sleeve, and stole a word; Then to a corner both withdrew. Imagine now my lord and Bush Whispering in junto most profound, Like good King Phys and good King Ush,[3] While all the rest stood gaping round. At length a spark, not too well bred, Of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole he had ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... room glowed with the burning: and next the smoke rose and made his head swim and his eyes darken, and the sound of Kalamake muttering ran in his ears. And suddenly, to the mat on which they were standing came a snatch or twitch, that seemed to be more swift than lightning. In the same wink the room was gone and the house, the breath all beaten from Keola's body. Volumes of light rolled upon his eyes and head, and he found himself transported to a beach of the sea, under a strong sun, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it went biasing off in the other direction and left an untidy smudge of paste on Westbury's nice, clean strip. I reflected that this would probably dry out—if not, I would hang a picture over it. Then I gave the strip I was hanging a little twitch, being a trifle annoyed, perhaps, by this time, and was pained to see that an irregular patch of it remained on the wall, while the rest of it fell sloppily into my hands. It appeared that wall-paper became tender with damp paste on it and should not be jerked about in that nervous ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Karl's lips began to twitch with a humorous smile; presently he too began to laugh, and seemed not to know how ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... called Samuel, is sitting in his doorway watching the show, when the suffering Christ begs permission to rest a moment on his threshold. He says churlishly, Anda!—"Begone!" "I will go, but thou shalt go forever until I come." The Jew's feet begin to twitch convulsively, as if pulled from under him. He struggles for a moment, and at last is carried off by his legs, which are moved like those of the walking dolls with the Greek names. This odd tradition, so utterly in contradiction with the picture the Scriptures ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... A painful twitch came over his ecstatic face, and he shivered as if he had dropped from the stars. He gulped down his beer, and once on the pavement outside, after pressing his companion's hand in silence, he walked ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... skunks. Through it when his protectors were away he could escape the rush of pursuing coyotes, or sally forth with equal ferocity when sheep dogs were about. He peered out of his porthole for a moment, warily, then his stump tail began to twitch, he worked his hind claws into the wood, and leapt. A yelp of terror from the ramada heralded his success and Creede ran ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... curves, are so noble, but, oh! unbendingly cold; thy bosom's white chastity is feelingless as the snowy ice. Chaste, beautiful, and proud, thou floatest through ether over the frozen sea, thy glittering garment, woven of aurora beams, covering the vault of heaven. But sometimes I divine a twitch of pain on thy lips, and endless sadness dreams in thy ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... grown thin, with pouches under their eyes. Jake's right eye had begun to twitch uncontrollably whenever anyone came within three yards of him. "We can't go on like this, you know. ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... with a slight hesitation, "But I think I know the trouble," he said. "And perhaps some other time—when you do feel like talking—" He stopped, for on her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of amusement. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... the other. "We shall see. Who wins boasts. I'm not so mad, anyhow, as the marchesa, who shuts up her palace on the festival, and offends St. Nicodemus and all the saints and martyrs," and Carlotta's eyes flash, and her white eyebrows twitch. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... hoofs, what horse an' what rider. They passed close—so close I could have reached out an' touched 'em with my quirt. Then I saw what made my heart jump an' my eyes fair pop out of my head. The Red King flashed by—no saddle, no bridle, not even an' Injun twitch, mane an' tail flarin' out in the wind of his own goin', an' the white foam flyin' in chunks from his open mouth; an' on his back sat Tex, empty handed an' slick heeled. I thought I caught a glimpse of the twisty smile on his face, as he swayed on the back of the devil-horse—that, ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... squire, setting the child down. He had been holding him in his arms the last few minutes; but now he wanted all his eyes to look into Mr. Gibson's face. 'I say,' said he, catching hold of Mr. Gibson's arm, 'what's the matter, man? Don't twitch up your face ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... from the plane he thrust his left hand into his blouse pocket. He always carried it there, as if it were literally sewn in place. In moments of emotion the scarred nerves would twitch as the telltale of his sensitiveness; and this was something he would conceal from others no matter how conscious he was of it himself. He found the Galland veranda deserted. In response to his ring a maid came to the open door. Her face was sad, with a beauty that had ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Dyke Darrel began to dilate. His usually immobile features began to twitch, and a deadly pallor ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... circular lawn stood two figures. One of them was a small, sharp-looking man with black whiskers and a very polished hat (I presume Dr Colman), who was talking very quietly and clearly, yet with a nervous twitch, as it were, in his face. The other was our old friend, listening with his old forbearing expression and owlish eyes, the strong sunlight gleaming on his glasses as the lamplight had gleamed the night before, when the boisterous ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... on her way to contend with the butcher. She had however to retire without Sidney, who clung to his recovered prey, so that the rest of the episode was seasoned, to Baron's sense, by the importunate twitch of the child's little, plump, cool hand. The friends wandered together with a conjugal air and Sidney not between them, hanging wistfully, first, over the lengthened picture of the Calais boat, till they could ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... frenzy now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of agony—that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the invoking of a supernal power—the thought of which very power, once loosed, chilled ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... and possibly the steady, piercing gaze, brought a twitch to the father's lips. Surely his child had spoken the truth. He himself had almost forgotten he had a girl; that she was the only living creature who had a call upon the slender thread of his life. Had he lived differently, ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... Adam Loudon, a wealthy retired grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and very ironical; he fed me well, lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the time, cent per cent, in secret entertainment which caused his spectacles to glitter and his mouth to twitch. The ground of this ill-suppressed mirth (as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an American. "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to infinity, "and I suppose now in your country, things will be so and so." And the whole group ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... time Vincent had been silent,—he who never took a back seat for anybody! What had he been doing all this time, sitting there and staring at them with those awfully brilliant eyes of his? Very likely he had seen the silly weak tears so near the surface, had caught the sentimental twitch of the mouth. Yes, quite certainly, for, now he was showing his tact by changing the subject, changing it with a vengeance. "Mrs. Crittenden," he was saying, "my curiosity has been touched by that very fine photograph over ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... going to tell you? No, indeed; they can do it fast enough for themselves. Persons who take too much wine are their most constant companions; they pounce upon them and twitch and tease and torment them until the poor wine-bibber trembles from head to foot. They won't let him sleep or eat or think, and fairly drive him crazy. Oh, imps are really to be dreaded! But I must now begin ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... mild snow he could see her face shining out darkly, and his bare, eager fingers moved toward her arm, and except when the spasmodic twitch locked his features, his face, too, was thrust forward, keen and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... and met Francis' fixed gaze. He started a little, and made an odd grimace, intended to conceal a nervous twitch of the muscles of ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... grooms and strappers inflict on the animals in their charge. When we find a horse which is difficult to bridle, owing to the objection he has to allowing his muzzle or ears to be approached by the hand of man, we may be almost certain that this vice has been caused by the application of a twitch, either on his upper lip, or on one of his ears, a method of restraint which should never be employed. By laying down the law on this point of horse control, I in no way pose as an authority, but rely on what my husband, who is a veterinary surgeon, thinks on this matter. He tells ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... arm twitch as they issued from their gates; and, looking up to see why, she saw that his face was twitching too. She did not know how near her mother was, nor that her father and John had their ears on the stretch for a hail from the voice they dreaded above all others in the world. But nothing was seen ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... felt her noble white arm twitch convulsively, and her fingers pinch the cloth of his sleeve ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... ghastly pallor of the woman's face, the maze of wrinkles and the twinkling brightness of her shifting eyes, as she stood staring about her unconcernedly. Her glance happened upon Brencherly. Her lips began to twitch and her hands to make signals, as if anxious to attract his ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... rode close to the camera and looked straight at her, and Jean bit her lips sharply as tears stung her lashes for some inexplicable reason. Dear old Lite! Every line in his face she knew, every varying, vagrant expression, every little twitch of his lips and eyelids that meant so much to those who knew him well enough to read his face. Jean's eyes softened, cleared, and while she looked, her lips parted a little, and she did not ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... care had made Mr. Winston look old before his time. He was only 54, yet his hair and beard were completely grey. He had a kind quiet face and blue eyes, he had a rather wide mouth with a nervous twitch at each corner. He fully returned his daughter's love and considering he had taught her entirely himself she was comparatively ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... tired soldiers like a death. They succumb to it. They are difficult to rouse. They are oblivious, and want nothing else. They are able to sleep anywhere and in any position, but even in sleep they twitch and shudder, and their sides heave like ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... sudden twitch to a delicate ruffle, which she had begun to arrange upon the corsage of a dress, to show Mona how she wanted it, she made a great rugged tear in the filmy fabric, thus completely ruining ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... by their coat of smooth oily dirt. Never cleaner, never dirtier, always the same useful, glove-like covering. Did he go to bed with them so? How jolly! we thought. His face, too, was of extraordinary interest. It was so thin that the sharp bones could be seen beneath the dusky skin, and he would twitch his nostrils at the breeze that came in his open window, for all the world like an eager brown hare. His hair curled so tightly over his head that one knew he could never pull a comb through it, and we were sure he was ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... our time in life we go about blindfolded, stumbling over mistakes, trying to catch things that we miss, while people stand round the ring and titter, and break out with half-suppressed laughter, and push us ahead, and twitch the corner of our eye-bandage. After a while we vehemently clutch something with both hands, and announce to the world our capture; the blindfold is taken from our eyes, and, amid the shouts of the surrounding spectators, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... proclaiming its rights to possession, flapped its way to the earth and lighted right in Piang's noose. The hablar-bird fluttered and chattered as it settled to the task of filling its craw with the good food. Cautiously Piang watched his chance and, with a deft twitch of the rope, secured the noose around the bird's foot. Such screaming and flapping! "Now you be good bird, and I no hurt you," Piang admonished. Catching hold of the creature behind the head, Piang held it firmly and quickly plucked three large feathers from ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... face had a strong twitch of anger. The next moment he had turned to the Colonel. "You must not blame yourself," says he, "for this effect on Mrs. Durie. It is only natural; we were all brought up ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her cries, the maid came running to her assistance. "Let me look," said she; and with that she gave the princess's eyelid a twitch, and out came a camel, which the maid put in her pocket—' ('Ah!' grunted the farmer)—'and then she just twisted up the corner of her headcloth and fished a hundred more of them out of the princess's eye, and popped them all into ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... with a pucker between the eyebrows and a humorous twitch in the corners of his mouth. So when two pedestrians, strangers, meet and politely attempt to draw aside but with misdirected chasses that leave them still confronting one another, they disengage at length and go their ways between ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lashes, brilliant and profound. He reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was drawn to him and ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... answered for a moment. Then the officer with the humorous twinkle about the eyes and the twitch at the lip corners, bent forward, placed his elbows on his knees, his fingers tip to tip, gazed dreamily at the floor, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... and sins and fears, And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears; Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire, When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar, Villon, our sad bad glad mad ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sufferer (violently striving in her fit) snatched at, took hold, and tore off a corner of that sheet. Her father, being by her, endeavored to lay hold upon it with her, that she might retain what she had gotten; but, at the passing-away of the spectre, he had such a violent twitch of his hand as if it would have been torn off: immediately thereupon appeared in the sufferer's hand the corner of a sheet,—a real cloth, visible to the spectators, which (as it is said) remains still to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... and told me, that he would send such a one after me, that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself. This made me cry, "O wretched man!" (Rom. 7:24). So I went on my way ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... smiled again to hide a twitch of regret. "Why, I'm afraid it hardly produces a living wage; and I've got to think of that." He coloured suddenly, as if suspecting that Miss Hicks might consider the avowal an opening for he hardly knew what ponderous offer of aid. The Hicks munificence was too uncalculating not to be ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... of Kinlay's attitude towards me, and wondering if I should ever be able to hold my own against him in our outdoor intercourse as easily as I certainly could hold it in our class at school. But soon I was interrupted by feeling another twitch at my line. I hauled in another sillock; and having now completed my two dozen fish, I gathered them and my lines together, thrust my fishhooks into my trousers' pocket, and went off to school, only staying a few minutes on the way ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... breath. There was a murmur of interest and curiosity among the crowd. Bobby felt his legs twitch nervously, but his power ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... noticeable at once. Slowly the warm blood flowed back into the dusky cheeks, the limbs began to twitch, the breathing grew audible, and the wounded man began to show ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Ladysmock: the cardamine pratensis. Pink: the chaffinch. Pooty: the girdled snail shell. Ramping: coarse and large. Rawky: misty, foggy. Rig: the ridge of a roof. Sueing: a murmuring, melancholy sound. Swaly: wasteful. Sweltered: over-heated by the sun. Twitchy: made of twitch ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... ward off or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plowmen, the servant-girls, and even every passing vagabond were every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with his arms always held out to guard against people coming too close ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... wouldn't like to say, unless you remove the bonnet." She gave a convulsive twitch to the strings, and pulled them into a hard knot. "Can't you brush it off?" ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... This little land is no more than a lair That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly, And no man will refuse the rapture of killing When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous. So long as anyone perceives he knows A bare place for a weapon on my son His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in. Indeed he shall lose nothing but his life Because a woman is made so evil fair, Wasteful and white and proud in harmful acts. I lose two sons when Gunnar's eyes are still, For then will Kolskegg never more turn home.... ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Again that fierce twitch of the features went over the other's face; and he stared straight at her with narrowed eyes. Then a change again came over him; and he laughed, like barking, yet ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... of white, and he thought it was Whitetail the Marsh Hawk, in spite of the fact that it didn't fly like him. Peter didn't stop to think of that. It was enough for him that a member of the Hawk family was headed that way, and he didn't care a twitch of his funny little tail which member it was. He felt that the stomach of one was quite as undesirable a place for Peter Rabbit as the stomach of another, and he had no intention of filling any if he could ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... without great labor." While he was running on at this rate, lo! Fuscus Aristius comes up, a dear friend of mine, and one who knows the fellow well. We make a stop. "Whence come you? whither are you going?" he asks and answers. I began to twitch him [by the elbow], and to take hold of his arms [that were affectedly] passive, nodding and distorting my eyes, that he might rescue me. Cruelly arch he laughs, and pretends not to take the hint: anger galled my liver. "Certainly," [said I, "Fuscus,] you said that you wanted to communicate ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... He reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was drawn to him and held ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... with a twitch of the shoulders. "That's the worst of these professors," said he; "they never will use their heads. They see the pegs, and they mean to hit 'em; but that's all they do see and mean, and they think we're the same. No wonder we licked them ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... therefore where the body and the mind are in disorder, to what use serve these external conveniences: considering that the least prick with a pin, or the least passion of the soul, is sufficient to deprive one of the pleasure of being sole monarch of the world. At the first twitch of the gout it signifies much to be ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of words!" cried she. "See, Dietrich, the pains begin anew, and his features twitch convulsively. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... have been shaken up a heap in the game," hinted Anstey. "Prescott isn't the sort of chap to tell us every time he feels a trifle dizzy or experiences a nervous twitch. He may have felt badly, may have gone out on the platform for a whiff of fresh air, and then may have felt so much worse ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... boys went out to ride once more. Bucephalus justified Gilbert's prediction, and behaved as well as could be expected. Once he made a start, but a sudden twitch of the reins recalled to his mind the defeat of the day before, and he quickly ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... not a remarkably humorous person, but on this occasion the corners of her mouth were distinctly observed to twitch. She mastered the weakness instantly, however, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... up, and promptly checked the operations of the angry skipper. I checked them rather suddenly. Mr. Waterford was at the stern of the boat; and as he raised his oar to give it another push, I gathered up all my strength, and made a desperate twitch ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... eyes, his smooth face, his athletic figure, his somewhat dandified dress were all in favour of the young man. The double line across his brow, the enigmas about his lips, the imperturbable gravity of his features bespoke the elder. Handsome he was not—he was hardly good-looking, and the nervous twitch of his eyebrow as it came down over his single eye-glass constantly disfigured him. What was his temper, his character, his soul, you might sit for a month before him and never discover. But from his deep massive chest, his long arms, his lithe step, and ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... horror, I saw that the strap had been nearly cut through in five places. If it had not been of double leather with an inner lining of flexible wire, any one of those cuts would have cut the thong clean in two. Then a brisk twitch would have left the satchel at the cutter's mercy. It gave me a lively sense of the craft of our enemies, to see those cuts in the leather. I had felt nothing. I had suspected nothing. Only once, for that instant on the wharf, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... conflicting doors, he had to steer sharply to the right to avoid the kitchen. Next, he sheered to the left, to escape the foot of the bed; but this sheer, if too generous, brought him against the corner of the table. With a sudden twitch and lurch, he terminated the sheer and bore off to the right along a sort of canal, one bank of which was the bed, the other the table. When the one chair in the room was at its usual place before the table, the canal was unnavigable. When the chair was not in use, it reposed on top of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... of it made Sanderson's lips twitch queerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over her breast. Dale's voice carried clearly ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... hot fight," said the man, with a curious twitch of his lips, "a good bit ruther. Et do come aisier that way; but there, we ca'ant allays ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... so much as a twitch in a single nerve of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his hands and drained it into his throat. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... girls won't get over this very soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping down the steps, felt a violent twitch backward, and, to save herself from a fall, sat down on the lower step with most ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to the sea again—something like pinning and unpinning linen on a wash-line. It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the long, sagging line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when they heard, "And naow to thee, O Capting," booming out of the fog, the crew of the We're Here took heart. The dory swirled alongside well loaded, Tom Platt yelling for Manuel to ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... that feather that made Tommy's nose twitch and wrinkle and tremble. Tommy sniffed and sniffed at the bit of down, for he liked the smell of it. It made him feel very hungry. And at last he felt so hungry that he decided he would go home ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she, "your regard for this interesting exile is very praiseworthy. But beware of——." She hesitated; a remorseful twitch in her own breast stayed the warning that was rising to her tongue; and blushing at a motive she could not at the instant assign to friendship, selfishness, or to any interest she would not avow to herself, she touched the cheek of Euphemia ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... and indelicacy of her nephew's remark caused a sudden twitch to the High Church embroidery in Lady Mary's hand; but she went on a moment later ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... said the experienced Mullins, 'or his pulse wouldn't act. 'Tisn't a fit or he'd snort and twitch. It can't be sunstroke, this term, and he hasn't been over-training for anything.' He opened Winton's collar, packed a cushion under his head, threw a rug over him and sat down to listen to the regular breathing. Before long Stalky arrived, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... me.—Part with thee! No, not till death shall set my spirit free; For know, should plenty crown my life's decline, A most important duty may be thine: Then, guard me from Temptation's base control, From apathy and littleness of soul The sight of thy old frame, so rough, so rode, Shall twitch the sleeve of nodding Gratitude; Shall teach me but to venerate the more Honest Oak Tables and their guests—the poor: Teach me unjust distinctions to deride, And falsehoods gender'd in the brain of Pride; Shall give to Fancy still the ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... into the matter, and consider what the value of the thing promised may be. If it be trifling, I shall give it, not because you are worthy of it, but because I promised it, and I shall not give it as a present, but merely in order to make good my words and give myself a twitch of the ear. I will punish my own rashness in promising by the loss of what I gave. "See how grieved you are; mind you take more care what you say in future." As the saying is, I will take tongue money from you. If the matter be ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... she looked at him she would sometimes put her hand hastily to her side with a short twitch of her fine lips and a knitting of her black, straight eyebrows like a flicker of angry pain or an angry thought ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... story of Roseta's infancy and girlhood—a frowning antipathy toward people generally; a menacing submissiveness to her mother's whippings; hatred for Tonet who had never paid the slightest attention to her; a smile at times for the Rector, who, on his brief visits home, would playfully twitch one of her yellow curls; and scorn for the ragamuffins of the beach whom she refused to play with and held off with the haughty reserve of ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and there we sat till morning, before a blazing fire, warming up one and another, as he brought them in. I sat down on a cricket, and took two or three in my lap at once, and hugged them up to my bosom. When they began to twitch, and we found they must die, we put them on the great hearth rug, and took more. Sometimes they'd just lie down and go to sleep, and when we had time to look at them, they'd be stiff and cold; and then again they would cry out like ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... had been established and acted upon. But I was too stupid then to admire anything. All my anxiety was that this should be cleared up. I was ass enough to wonder exceedingly at Mr. Powell failing to notice the misapprehension. I saw a slight twitch come and go on his face; but instead of setting right that mistake the Shipping Master swung round on his stool and addressed me as 'Charles.' He did. And I detected him taking a hasty squint at my certificate ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... to bring 'em; And that base apostate Vesey With Bishop's scraps grown fat and greasy, While Wynne sleeps the whole debate, They submissive round him wait; (Yet would gladly see the hunks, In his grave, and search his trunks,) See, they gently twitch his coat, Just to yawn and give his vote, Always firm in his vocation, For the court against the nation. Those are Allens Jack and Bob,[18] First in every wicked job, Son and brother to a queer Brain-sick brute, they call a peer. We must give them better ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... time being, however, all went well. In his role of lecturer he offended no one, and Phyllis and her father behaved admirably. They received the strangest theories without a twitch of ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... A very gentle motion on his part sufficed to bring Meekeye's toes and the fire into contact. She drew back with a sudden start, but was too much of an Indian to scream. Tony was enough of one to remain motionless and abstracted like a brown statue. The slightest possible twitch at one corner of Petawanaquat's mouth showed that he had observed the movement, but his brow did ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... yet, and never meant to do so. While she was speaking, Florimonde's voice faltered, and the sentence was finished under the breath. Her voice had given out. At the moment the muscles round that handsome mouth of hers began to twitch ridiculously: she yawned and threw up her arms, as a baby stretches itself, and stiffened in that position, with her teeth set and her eyes rolled out of sight, and lay there like a corpse. Florimonde had given out. As I sprang to investigate this surprising condition of things, there came a sudden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... directly upon Jonas's thumb. As might have been supposed, teeth which were sharp and powerful enough to go through a walnut shell, would not he likely to be stopped by a leathern glove; and Jonas, startled by the sudden cut, gave a twitch with his hand, and, at the same instant, let go of the squirrel. Bunny grasped the edge of the howl with his paws, and leaped out, bringing the bowl itself at the same instant over upon him, spattering him all over from head to tail with the ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... the several; let's have one," said the Major, with the facial muscles making his moustache twitch sharply. ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... fantastic behavior, Harley struggled wearily to his feet. He had been a dead man as surely as though shot with a ray-gun. One twitch of those terrible rock pincers would have broken him in two pieces. It had seemed as though that deadly twitch were surely forthcoming. And then the thing had released him—and had lain down to go to sleep! ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have a school-house, ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... cold," he laughed as the water stung the broken skin and made her twitch involuntarily, "but bathing will do it good. I just know it feels better ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... past him, with the military quintet five hundred yards in the rear, he gave Brigham's blind bridle a twitch, and in a few jumps the trained hunter was at the side of the rear buffalo; Lucretia Borgia spoke, and the buffalo fell dead. Without even a bridle signal, Brigham was promptly at the side of the next buffalo, not ten feet away, and this, too, fell at the first shot. The maneuver ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... out the cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon he supposed it was now dreaming of paradise—listen!—and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... up.' So he did, an' Bill took the bag out to the cart. 'Now for the next,' says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner. When George had weighed out the eleven, I says to Philp, 'Well, now, I hope you're satisfied this time?' says I. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... hosts break off the debate in a towering rage; refuse coffee, and declare that the caravan of "Effendn" (the Viceroy) shall not be loaded. Mohammed's feet twitch more violently as the camels ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... up on his feet there was such a twitch across his face that I said to him, "Now just you sit down. If you go ashore to drive off those hogs you'll jump about so that you'll bring on such a ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... foller'd one like me aw cant tell; If tha'rt seekin better luck,—its a sell, As tha'll find; Nay, tha needn't twitch thi tail aght o' seet, Aw'll nooan hurt thi, tho' aw own tha'rt a freet. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... unwittingly exposed? The "pig-gee" (as some term the lorum) is used with almost surgical delicacy of touch to hook away two or three of the leaves. Then it is placed parallel to whatever increased length has thus been made visible, and with a decisive twitch the eel is torn from its retreat ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... more deeply within itself; it curls up and dreams. On calm summer mornings you hear no sound except the chirping and twittering of the sleeping birds. The birds are great dreamers—like dogs; like dogs they will twitch and stir in their sleep, as if they were running and flying and playing and chasing each other. Just stalk a bird's nest of which you know at half past two in the morning, some time during the month of July; and before you see them, you will hear them. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... perhaps both—-our valiant magistrate was either out of the way or had a visit from the gout—a complaint which he was very fond of parading, because it is one of aristocratic pretensions, but one, of which, we are honestly bound to say, he had never experienced a single twitch. ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... became very busy with her breakfast. The cat beside her chair purred loudly and rose at intervals on its hind legs to twitch her dress; and Ruhannah occasionally bestowed alms ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... was on the trail. "Je crois que ca mord," remarked my uncle. We allowed our artist guide to pass on, when, as I expected, I felt a twitch at my outer garment. I turned, and the witch eyes, distended with awe and amazement, were glaring into mine, while she said, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... this Marton could scarcely control the skin of his head, so often did he have to twitch his eyebrows in order to express the above opinion, which he held about his ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... helplessly, the jib flapping. With our eyes on the approaching vessel we remained motionless in the stern, our hands clasped. The flush had faded from out her cheeks, yet once she turned toward me and smiled. Forward not so much as the twitch of a muscle revealed any other presence in the boat, the only visible thing a jumble of ropes and canvas, apparently dragged hastily from the water by inexperienced hands. The waves tossed us about so that any seaman would ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... to me," answered Allerdyke, with a twitch of his determined jaw. "It 'ud be a clever newspaper chap that would get aught out of me. I've other fish to fry than to talk to these gentry. And what good will all this newspaper ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... his pranks, and made Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong, Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes. Even in sleep his little limbs, I think, Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Maeon! And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams Of darkly-moving chaos and slow shapes Of things that creep encumbered with huge burdens Gloom and infest her through these dragging hours, Haunting the wavering soul, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... by himself from his sensations, and by his medical attendants from observation, that the letter R, if pronounced full and strong, and recurring once or more in the same word, produced a small spasm, or twitch in his hand and fingers. At the end of three years he recovered both his health and senses, and with the necessity soon lost the power, which he ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... of frenzy now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of agony—that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the invoking of a supernal power—the thought of which very power, once loosed, chilled ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... green peas, fresh sardines, and mackerel, their sides shining like silver, line the curb in front of the small shops. Diminutive donkeys, harnessed to picturesque two-wheeled carts piled high with vegetables, twitch their long ears and doze in the shady corners of the street. The gutters, flushed with clear water, flash in the sunlight. Baskets full of red roses and white carnations, at a few sous the armful, brighten the cool shade of the alleys leading to courtyards of wild ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... upon the shirt-bosom gayly showing between the lapels of his dark-blue silk house-coat. He slowly closed his mouth, moving his teeth back into place with his tongue—a gesture that made her face twitch with rage and disgust. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... author, with a certain vinegary twitch, 'that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced authoritarian. I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The day of these ideas is, believe me, past, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is what brings the delicious quizzical twitch to the mouth of a good raconteur who begins an anecdote the hearers know will be side-splitting. It is what makes grandmother sigh gently and look far over your heads, when her soft voice commences the story ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... I didn't write. What a fool I have been altogether!' He gave a twitch, as of one in pain. 'I won't dance again when this one is over. The fact is I have travelled a long way to-day, and it seems to have knocked me ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... off. The danger he had been keeping account with was over; Manasseh had returned with the two grooms, and they—perfectly trained servants on the English model—took their posts without exhibiting surprise by so much as a twitch of the face. George in particular was a tight fellow with his fists, as the crowd, should it offer annoyance, would assuredly learn. The Collector took the volume which Manasseh brought him, and opened it, but did not begin to read. "You ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... spite, and some others of the ill-tempers, gain control of the nerves and muscles of the human countenance, they pull and twitch and knot and tie these nerves and muscles, until it is almost impossible to recognize ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... here of considerable length, during which the captain observed that Martha's nostrils began to twitch nervously. Jane, observing the fact, became similarly affected. To the captain's practised eye these symptoms were as good as a barometer. He knew that the storm was coming, and took in all sail at once (mentally) to ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... itself new taboos, new rituals. Yet there is the phenomenon of its tolerance toward the idol breakers. From the lowest depths of the crater of Riabba in which he sits enthroned the monarch of the Laongos condemns to death with a twitch of his brows all who seek to question the sanctity of the taboos. But this other occupant of the crater of Riabba-our Republic-raises gentle eyes to the idol wreckers, to the taboo destroyers. An occasional, "tut tut" escapes ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... cruelty and indifference! You, with your nose of coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and your blue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to death two helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have not discovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal since you disdain to dine from my best china, ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... tired feet look'd cold and thin, Her lips were twitch'd, and wretched tears, Some, as she lay, roll'd past her ears, Some fell from off her ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... at each stab, he comes through the most trying part of the ordeal with flying colours. A motion of the lips, however, or a mutter—these are altogether fatal. Not even a toe must move in mute agony; nor may even a muscle of the eyelid give an uneasy and involuntary twitch. If the candidate fails in a minor degree, he is promptly put back, to come up again for the next examination; but in the event of his being unable to stand the torture, he is contemptuously told to go and herd with the women—than which there ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... combined in a single instance. An inexperienced violin soloist, such as a student playing at a conservatory recital, often exemplifies this. Nervousness and awkwardness cause him to tremble; the scratchy sound of his tones makes him twitch and start; meanwhile, the close attention paid to his fingering and bowing stiffens his ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... attack of meekness to precede a sudden attack of fever, that I really think it would be wiser to send for the doctor in time." "Don't concern yourself," replied he. "If that be all, I can soon prove that my pulse is in good order." So saying, he gave Mary's work-basket a sudden twitch, which sent her spools of cotton, winders, thimble, and emery-bag flying in every direction; when, of course, with the malice peculiar to things of such small natures, they carefully hid themselves in the darkest ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... obliged to reply, she hung back a little to catch my words. At such times she would also turn her pretty head partially round so as to see me: then her glances, beginning at my face, would wander down to my legs, and her lips would twitch and curl a little, seeming to express disgust and amusement at the same time. I was beginning to hate my legs, or rather my trousers, for I considered that under them I had as good a pair of calves as any man in ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... married after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent effect. We also had an address from Prince Rivers,[70] a black coachman from Beaufort, who has been ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... and half cat, crawled across a roof, spread leathery wings, and flapped to the ground. The sour pungent reek of incense from the open street-shrine made my nostrils twitch, and a hulked form inside, not human, cast me a surly ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Swain to th'Okes and rills, While the still morn went out with Sandals gray, He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, 190 And now was dropt into the Western bay; At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: To morrow to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... enable him to win so easy a victory, that it was some months before he had again occasion to use his fists in earnest. This time it was in the streets. He was returning home with his cousins, when a pert young clerk thought it a good joke to twitch off his cap and throw it into a shop, and was astounded when, before the cap had reached the floor, he himself ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... my darling, devouring her, revelling in her, when suddenly I saw her hand twitch within her step-father's arm. It was an answering start to one on his part. The cigarette was snatched from his lips. There was a commotion forward, and a cry came ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... are not welcome—a library indeed, and I look forward with great pleasure to many hours' communion with you on lonely seas—a lover might as well sigh for more than his affianced as I for any but you. A twitch of conscience here. You ploughman bard, who are so much to me, are you then forgotten? No, no, Robin, no need of taking you in my trunk; I have you in my heart, from "A man's a man for a that" ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... there's no sense in chasin' gold underground. Says he likes to see his prospects growin' up under his own eyes an' gazin' on his own land. I'm the adventurous one of the Bailey fam'ly, though you mightn't guess it to look at me," she said with a twitch of her lips. "Me an' young Ed here. He takes after me. Got the gamblin' germ in our systems. Want to git somethin' fo' nothin'," she went on with grim humor. "I reckon Ed's right but, land-sake, doin' the same ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Lucien saluted his father with a kiss, waved his hand gracefully to Hugot, and followed. Francois remained a moment behind the rest—rode up to Hugot—caught hold of his great moustache, gave it a twitch that caused the ex-chasseur to grin again; and then, with a loud yell of laughter, wheeled his pony, and galloped ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... is the skiff, in which you came off, still alongside, and your own two stout fellows will soon twitch you to yon point. A propos of those two men, are they ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... moving the anode and the cathode slowly. I had often seen the experiments on the nerves of a frog that had been freshly killed, how the electric current will make the muscles twitch, as discovered long ago by Galvani. But I was not prepared to see it on a human being. Torreon muttered something ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... wildest moment Fionn was thoughtful, and now, although running hard, he was thoughtful. There was no movement of his beloved hounds that he did not know; not a twitch or fling of the head, not a cock of the ears or tail that was not significant to him. But on this chase whatever signs the dogs gave were not ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... his fork half-way between his plate and his mouth, in order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the hall, the twitch of an inserted latchkey came to his ears. Then pressure was put upon the front door. This, however, remained fast shut. The key was withdrawn violently, reinserted, and wrenched. The pressure upon the door being maintained, the lock was jammed. Whosoever was there ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... is instinct. They lay between two beds; the lower one hard and made of straw, the upper soft and filled with feathers light as down. Gerard pulled at it, but the experienced drunkard held it fast mechanically. Gerard tried to twitch it away by surprise, but instinct was too many for him. On this he got out of bed, and kneeling down on his bedfellow's unguarded side, easily whipped the prize away and rolled with it under the bed, and there lay on one edge of it, and curled the rest round his shoulders. Before he slept he often ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... greater finesse in the rendering of that small range of sensations to which both give themselves up frankly. Take Polin, who is supposed to express vulgarities with unusual success. Those automatic gestures, flapping and flopping; that dribbling voice, without intonation; that flabby droop and twitch of the face; all that soapy rubbing-in of the expressive parts of the song: I could see no skill in it all, of a sort worth having. The women here sing mainly with their shoulders, for which they seem to have been chosen, and which are undoubtedly ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... Both men had grown thin, with pouches under their eyes. Jake's right eye had begun to twitch uncontrollably whenever anyone came within three yards of him. "We can't go on like this, you know. The people are ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... rather thick, his skin was brown and ruddy. He had splendid eyes, large, black, piercing, and well-opened; his expression was dignified and gracious when he liked, but often wild and stern, and his eyes, and indeed his whole face, were distorted by an occasional twitch that was very unpleasant. It lasted only a moment, and gave him a wandering and terrible look, when he was himself again. His air expressed intellect, thoughtfulness, and greatness, and had a certain grace about it. He wore a ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... wanness when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served only to increase his agitation. Steingall, to all intents and purposes paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous gesture. His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence. Curtis had hazarded a guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a Hungarian Count denouncing Curtis. Certainly ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... relieved; for the mind is like the body, and mental, as well as physical suffering, must have vent. A twinge of a tooth brings forth a groan; a twitch of the heart-strings produces poetry in me: have only to hope the poetry may not have the effect of the ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... heard the voice of the visiting rabbi who read the lesson for the day, and her mother was obliged to twitch her vigorously when, during the prayers, the congregation rose to their feet and turned ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... head coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup. Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These, according to the Japanese code of etiquette, are all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... the birthday hollow. They were quite aware that by-and-by there would perhaps be repentance, but who could think of repentance now, with the feast—and such a feast!—on the board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad, intoxicating music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they could scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass, and the summer moon entering through a chink in the big tent, and the gayly dressed people, and all the merry voices? Oh, it was ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... be a letter carrier, to help give out the letters?" he said at last, in the midst of the noise. "Couldn't he, Ben?" and he ran to twitch that ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque. His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... and Wesson's. Sigaev picked up a pistol of that pattern, gazed blankly at it, and sank into brooding. His imagination pictured how he would blow out their brains, how blood would flow in streams over the rug and the parquet, how the traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . . But that was not enough for his indignant soul. The picture of blood, wailing, and horror did not satisfy him. He must ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... starlight when they reentered the Garden. Sara, with her friends standing a little apart to enjoy the fun, slipped unseen quite close to the prose-bush, where the Snimmy lay with his long debilitating nose on his paws, looking up at the stars. Sara waited until the nose began to quiver and twitch; and then she suddenly emptied her whole handkerchief full of ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Boston grumble with the ordinary ejaculations of discontent indulged in by the inhabitants of other portions of the world remote from the Hub of the Universe. A Boston grumble consists of an upward movement of the eyebrow, a slight twitch of the mustache and a murmur cross-bred from "Deuce take it!" and "Scoundrelly!") "Young man," he said, "my father said that such a hazardous venture as copper should return at least thirty per cent. to be safe, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... engaged in "being thankful over a drumstick," but as Cherry ceased speaking, she lifted her round eyes from her plate, and stopped chewing long enough to say, "I am thankful my nose doesn't twitch all the time like my rabbit's, that my ears don't grow out of the top of my head, and that I don't have to hop with both feet wherever ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... some others of the ill-tempers, gain control of the nerves and muscles of the human countenance, they pull and twitch and knot and tie these nerves and muscles, until it is almost ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Nebula opened and a huge hose came slowly down. Odin watched it on the screen. It seemed to have been pleated and shoved together like an accordion. Now it opened out in little jerking movements, extending itself about two feet at each writhing twitch. As it grew longer it expanded and was nearly three feet across when it reached the top of the first car. A round door opened. Unseen hands reached the end of the big hose ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... listening, felt his face twitch; then he blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I—I'll take him to—the person he lives with. It isn't suitable ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... with her breakfast. The cat beside her chair purred loudly and rose at intervals on its hind legs to twitch her dress; and Ruhannah occasionally bestowed alms and conversation ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the day coach to go to the dining car. She threw back her head and sucked her lungs full of the pure, rain-chilled air. She was accustomed to being out in storms, she liked them. One second she paused to watch the gale sweeping the fields, the next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw up her hands and clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step railing and leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against the corner of the car, hold there an instant with the pressure of the wind, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... green-faced, retching. The sickening odors of vomit and diarrhea hung heavily on the air. Douglas coughed and held a square of cloth to his face, and even Kennon, strong-stomached as he was, could feel his viscera twitch in sympathy ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... be restrained in the standing position, and in the average instance, a twitch and hood are all the restraining ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... A twitch from the rope at the same moment recalled our hero to his right mind; and the remembrance of the poor wretch who had just suffered the bastinado, and also of Peter the Great's oft-repeated reference to "whacking," had the effect of crushing the spirit of rebellion ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... Trumpets screech Deep into your heart. And all the nights are burning. You freeze in tents. You're hot. You're hungry. You drown. Explode. Bleed to death. Fields rattle noisily. Church towers fall. Flames in the distance. Winds twitch. Large cities crash. On the horizon cannons thunder. Around the hill tops a white vapor rises, And grenades burst ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... while Mr Wentworth followed her into the chancel with a meekness quite unusual to that young priest. Nettie noted both circumstances with a little surprise; but, not connecting them in the most distant degree with herself, turned round with a little twitch of Freddy's arm to go away, and in doing so almost walked into the arms of her older and more faithful friend. Miss Wodehouse kissed her quite suddenly, touching with her soft old cheek that rounder, fairer, youthful face, which turned, half wondering, half ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... drifted about fast enough for trollin', and feelin' a little drowsy, I tied the end of the line to the cleets across the knees of the boat, and lay down in the bottom with my hand out over the side holdin' the line. I hadn't laid there long, when I felt a twitch as if something mighty big was medlin' with the other end of the string. I started up and undertook to pull in, but you might as well undertake to drag an elephant with a thread. I couldn't move him a hair. Pretty soon the boat began to move up the lake in a way I didn't at all like. ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... driver of the stage, not liking the slow pace in which old Battle was proceeding to make room for him, laid his whip briskly over his haunches, quickening his movements, but driving the major into a furious passion. The sudden twitch landed us both upon the sandy road, under the pile of sheepskins we had used for a seat. In this dilemma the major called loudly for assistance, swearing that if the stage driver would but stop he would give him battle to his satisfaction. This only served to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the front seat beside Hank, gave his shoulders an impatient twitch. "Fifty thousand dollars," he ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... their opinion of the merit of this collection. Gilpin classes these "Innocent Impostors" among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excellences the artists whom he copied; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, declares that they could never have deceived an experienced judge, and reprobates such kinds of ingenuity, played off at the cost of the venerable ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... ears when they shoe them. Now, against all these barbarous and inhuman practices, I here, in the name of humanity, enter my protest. The animal becomes almost worthless by the injuries caused by such practices. There are extreme cases in which the twitch may be resorted to, but it should in all cases be applied to the nose, and only then when all milder ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like furrow, and with a twitch of ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... were only waiting for him to rush at them and strike them. Although they kept right on singing and praying, they were ready to cut and run the instant he made a move. Presently a pair of them noticed that Felt's face was beginning to twitch. 'Now he'll go for us,' they thought, getting up to flee. But the old man blinked his one good eye, and a tear rolled down his cheek. 'Hallelujah!' the youngsters shouted, and now, as I've already told you, it's all ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... case, that the long way round was the short way home. But he was in for it, and plugged ahead, longing for the cool of evening. About noon he found the first water-hole and, what was more, found water in it. It was ugly, hot stuff, but his horse trotted to it with ears pricked forward and nostrils a-twitch and drank long and thirstily. Thereafter, though they came to other spots where there should be water, they found none until after sunset. Howard drew off the saddle, gave his horse a handful of barley and staked it out close to the spring. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... ignorances, presiding over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc or fishes' spawn or frogs' spawn, have visited upon us their wan solemnities. We've been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies, which twitch and totter with pseudo-life derived ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... various social distempers out of one. The blue devils take flight at once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them. Emerson intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two gardens; but I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and twitch grass without in some way getting rid of many weeds and fungus, unwholesome growths that a petty, in-doors life was for ever fostering in my ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... day and tell the hostler when the vehicle would be wanted. Not a sign of impatience escaped him until the time drew near for the departure of the early coach. Then the captain's curly lips began to twitch with anxiety, and the captain's restless fingers beat the devil's ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... what impulse it was that made me twitch Strachan's gown at this moment. It was not altogether a suspicion, but rather a presentiment of coming danger. Strachan took the hint and changed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... chairs, and, on going up to it, found Glumdalkin, with her eyes closed, her head very erect, her tail curled very tight round her toes, and her whole person apparently immovable, except, now and then, an angry twitch at the end of ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... a telescope three feet long. What to do she did not know: there was but one window in the room, and no recess into which her portly beauty could retreat. Once more she tried the curtain, giving it a forcible twitch, and this time it came down—but the whole fixture came with it, and, after striking her on the head, slid out of the window into the street, much to the amusement of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... this to Baird, and had seen the muscles of his face twitch and his eyes suddenly fill with tears. He had left his seat and crossed the room to conceal his emotion, and Latimer had known that he did not ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... care little for that. It is for my dinner alone that I care. Since you have eaten it you shall certainly die," and he began to scratch fiercely at the mouth of the hole. The Rat trembled more than ever. But suddenly he had an idea which made his whiskers twitch. ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... coyuntura f. joint. crneo m. skull. crear create. crecer grow, rage, increase. creer believe, think. crescendo Ital. crescendo. crespn m. crape. criatura f. creature, being, man. crimen m. crime. crispante adj. shivery. crisparse twitch. cristal m. crystal, glass. cristalino, -a crystalline, transparent, bright. Cristo pr. n. m. Christ, image of Christ. crudeza f. severity, cruelty. crudo, -a raw. cruel adj. cruel, intolerable. crujido m. crackling. crujir clash, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... ended in a savage snarl as the great beast lurched forward on to his head, and with a single convulsive extension of his body lay quiet and still. At the same instant the thud of another bullet was heard, and the lioness was seen to twitch her head slightly, but without making any further movement. As for the troop of gazelle, no sooner was the lion down than, throwing up their heads with one accord, they wheeled sharply round to the left and dashed off across ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... old man paused abruptly and Alice was surprised, in a dull and tired way, when she saw that his lips had begun to twitch and his eyelids to blink; but he recovered himself almost at once, and continued: "I want him to remember, 'Forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those that transgress against us'; and if he and I been transgressing against each other, why, tell him I think ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plough-men, the servant girls and even every passing vagabond were every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with his arms always held out to guard against people coming ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... distances from each other, which was called knucks. You could play for keeps in all these games; and in knucks, if you won, you had a shot or shots at the knuckles of the fellow who lost, and who was obliged to hold them down for you to shoot at. Fellows who were mean would twitch their knuckles away when they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took their punishment with the savage pluck of so many little Sioux. As the game began in the raw cold of the earliest spring, every boy had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... me come along smartly with his brother's knife in my hand—I wasn't thinking how it looked from his side of the fence, you know—and jiminy, it nearly killed him! He stared like a crazed bullock and began to sweat and twitch all over, something amazing. I was so surprised, that I stopped to look at him. The drops were pouring over his eyebrows, down his beard, off his nose—and he gurgled. Then it struck me that he couldn't see what was in my mind. By favour or by right he didn't like to die when ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... silent bystanders gazed at one another. The alferez made a sign that they should take the body down, and then moved away thoughtfully. Dona Consolation applied the lighted end of her cigar to the bare legs, but the flesh did not twitch and the fire ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... gone to the window and now stood there, looking out. The eyebrow which was affected a little by emotion or excitement gave a slight twitch occasionally and her lips were pressed close together. She saw the little flag on the roof over the privet hedge hanging quiet on the still air, and it added to her sense of being conquered by those forces which had been ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his leave ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... looked it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-daler note you were supposed ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of business to ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... my belongings once more—half a penknife, a bunch of keys, but not a farthing. Suddenly I dive into my pocket and take the papers out again. It was a mechanical movement, an unconscious nervous twitch. I selected a white unwritten page, and—God knows where I got the notion from—but I made a cornet, closed it carefully, so that it looked as if it were filled with something, and threw it far out on to the pavement. The breeze blew it onward a little, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... tightly, and I thought that I discerned something like a slight twitch about the corners of his grim mouth, as if some sudden and painful thought had shot across his mind; but in a moment he was calm, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... letter carrier, to help give out the letters?" he said at last, in the midst of the noise. "Couldn't he, Ben?" and he ran to twitch that individual's sleeve. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... the blessed and unalterable conviction that I have done right. Even the conveniences have ceased to appeal to me; they have not even, like the old Adam in the Pilgrim's Progress, pinched hold of me and given me a deadly twitch. Though the picturesque mind of one who, like myself, is very sensitive to "the attributes of awe and majesty," takes a certain peevish pleasure in continuing to depict my unworthy self clothed upon with majesty, and shaking all Olympus with ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was, he kept a steady hand on the helm, and strained his eyes into the mist ahead, never abating for a moment either his vigilance or his courage. But every now and then I could see his eyes turn for a moment to Charlie, and his face twitch as they did so, with a look of pain which I was at no loss ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of Marnark's neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time, he released Marnark's thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... race—he must travel long and fast. The sick man saw the preparations, and cried weakly, the tears freezing on his cheeks, and still he lingered, lingered maddeningly, till at last, when Captain had lost count of the days, he passed without a twitch and, before the body had cooled, the northward bluffs hid the plodding, snow-shoed figure hurrying ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... not ever to be used, they lie beneath us, in their coffins, these white, straight bodies, like swords untried that rust in the scabbard. Meanwhile, on every side is apparent the not yet out-wasted instrument, and one is naturally inquisitive,—so that one's fingers and one's nostrils twitch at times, even in the hour when one is most miserable, very much as yours ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... furiously, and when Ah Sing showed up with a bottle of alcohol, he said nothing but rubbed Mart's face and neck with the fiery liquid. Presently he was rewarded by a twitch of Mart's eyelids, a little more color came into the faded cheeks, and then the gray eyes opened and ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another,—he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on,—and I let him have it! and then there was one of those fatting ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... help watching Lady Maude as he said this, and was rejoiced to see a sudden twitch of her lower lip as if ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... left foot—"that is what you call powers of observation—noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; they ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... who had moved to the window, and who had been watching Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-glass with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had taken their seats. Waggles, the scrap of a Skye terrier, who was never three feet from Billy's heels, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... money to take her mother to the doctor. Lite rode close to the camera and looked straight at her, and Jean bit her lips sharply as tears stung her lashes for some inexplicable reason. Dear old Lite! Every line in his face she knew, every varying, vagrant expression, every little twitch of his lips and eyelids that meant so much to those who knew him well enough to read his face. Jean's eyes softened, cleared, and while she looked, her lips parted a little, and she did not know ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... moment Fionn was thoughtful, and now, although running hard, he was thoughtful. There was no movement of his beloved hounds that he did not know; not a twitch or fling of the head, not a cock of the ears or tail that was not significant to him. But on this chase whatever signs the dogs gave were not ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... that Reed's ego is his own property, not ours, we could have settled this point about his future, months on months ago. Beyond a certain limit, though, there is no way for us to tell how far he responds to our experimental treatment. If his muscles do twitch, well and good. If they almost twitch and don't, no mortal mind outside of his can reckon how wide the falling short has been. You can talk about pure, abstract, impersonal science, till the moon turns to an Edam cheese. You can no more grasp the initial fact of what that science ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... so nearly paralleled that crucial moment in his own life, under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office. Unseen by the rapt pair, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... of her head merely, this time, but of her whole self—the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... She has no sagacity to give me or lend me, but that soft, nimble foot of hers, and that touch as of cotton wherever she goes, are worthy of emulation. I think I can feel her good-will through the floor, and I hope she can mine. When I have a happy thought I imagine her ears twitch, especially when I think of the sweet apple I will place by her doorway at night. I wonder if that fox chanced to catch a glimpse of her the other night when he stealthily leaped over the fence near by and ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... in the black frock-coat and hat was standing quite grave and dignified on the lawn, save for his slight twitch of one limb, and he did not seem by any means unworthy of the part which the other ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... prepar'd, And stoutly stood upon his guard: He put by SIDROPHELLO'S thrust, And in right manfully he rusht; l060 The weapon from his gripe he wrung, And laid him on the earth along. WHACHUM his sea-coal prong threw by, And basely turn'd his back to fly But HUDIBRAS gave him a twitch 1065 As quick as light'ning in the breech, Just in the place where honour's lodg'd, As wise philosophers have judg'd; Because a kick in that place more Hurts honour than deep wounds ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Two or three sharp flashes followed the first. In the glare of them her eyes searched along the river-bank, if haply help might be near; but all the anglers had departed. Rosewarne's face stared up at her, blue as a dead man's in the dazzling light. At first it seemed to twitch with each opening of the heavens; but this must have been a trick of eyesight, for his head lay quiet against her arm as she raised him a little, shielding him against the torrential rain which now hissed down, in ten seconds drenching ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you may have curried a horse, or stood by during the process, and watched him shrug and twitch with pleasure as the little iron teeth scratched his skin, and have seen his coat grow glossy and satiny as the brush was applied as soon as ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 57, December 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... used to grow on bushes that had no thorns. But the Squirrels and Mice used to climb after them, the cattle used to knock them off with their horns, the Possum would twitch them off with his long tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break them down. So the Brierbrush armed itself with spikes to protect its roses and declared eternal war on all creatures that climbed trees, or had horns, or hoofs, or long tails. This left the ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... giving a final pull and twitch to the dress of her brother, and taking him by the hand tenderly. "Now, come ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they fished, of politics, religion, philosophy, human nature, the useful arts, abolition, and most other subjects that would be likely to interest a couple of Americans who had nothing to do but to twitch, from time to time, at two lines dangling in the water. Although few people possess less of the art of conversation than our own countrymen, no other nation takes as wide a range in its discussions. He is but a very ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables deg. ... but I know deg.62 Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... me in one iron fist, and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified by the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlor door, cried out the words he had ordered in ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said her guardian, gently, laying his hand on hers. 'I am not hurt. I understand, as I ought, having seen you twitch yourself out of leading-strings ever since you were old enough to go. It is rather hard upon you. But how came it to your knowledge, Hazel?' And Mr. Falkirk ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... presumed to challenge Monsignore to a debate, and the offer was accepted. While the two stood together in Cristoforo's wagon, and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against his rival's leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily means, and by virtue ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... simply could not abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him. Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master's attention with a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and to visit him with unmerciful punishment. "Ah, my fine fellow," he would say, "I'LL cure you of your impudence ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... with the hook, but it was too short. Just as I thought I should succeed, the face gave a convulsive twitch, as if in a parting outburst of hate and wrath, and the body sank out of sight. We waited for a few minutes, but there was no further sign. The other tug that had hovered near us turned about and made for the Oakland shore. I signed to the captain to ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... was no use trying to hide now. Perhaps some faint hope took possession of them that they might be unnoticed if they did not move; just as the still hunter, stalking a feeding deer, will watch its short tail, and whenever he sees it twitch he stands perfectly motionless; for he knows that the animal is about to raise his head, and that he will probably be taken for a stump if he does not ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... pluck them out with bent pieces of hard wood, formed into a kind of nippers, whilst those who have communication with Europeans, procure from them wire, which they twist into a screw or worm; applying this to the part, they press the rings together, and with a sudden twitch, draw out all the hairs that are inclosed in them."—Carver's Travels, p. 224, 225. The remark made by Mr Marsden, who also quotes Carver, is worth attending to, that the visor or mask of Montezuma's armour, preserved at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... for a situation when his temples were throbbing, harking back, with time's reversal of conditions, to a situation after the duel in the arroyo was over and he had used the right word when her temples were throbbing and her hands splashed. If retribution were her object, she had repaid in nerve-twitch of torture for nerve-twitch of torture. The picture that had been alive and out of its frame was back on cold canvas. Even the girl he had known across the barrier, even the girl in armor, seemed more kindly. But ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... that's what troubles me so." Here the good Mrs. Crull began to twitch about the mouth. But she did not cry. She had too much of the masculine element for that. Her whole life was a struggle between the weakness of her feminine body and the strong self-control of her ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... difficulty of casting a long line with a steep bank behind him. Once already the old gentleman had hanked on the bank a little lower down, but so slightly that a twitch brought the flies away. Now, however, the hank was too complicated to give way to a twitch, for the glengarry held hard on to the heather. In desperate haste, Junkie, bending low, tried to extract the hook. It need scarcely be said that a hook refuses to be ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... splinter of glass!" And the Master shook off the blood with a twitch of his head. "That was a neat bull's-eye you made on him, Captain. It saves you from punishment for forgetting you were under arrest; for climbing the ladder and coming above-decks. Yes—I've got to rescind my order. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Was it in him or in her? That cursed Tartar, Mehmet Ali, with his silly offer of twenty gold pieces! He, he had done it. Marcu looked again at his daughter. Her eyelids trembled nervously and there was a little repressed twitch about her mouth. She returned his glance at first, but lowered her eyes under her father's steady gaze. "Already a shameless creature," thought the old gipsy. But he could not bear to think that way about his little daughter, about his Fanutza. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he noticed on my face a twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, (zygomaticus major,) and which I could not hold back from making a little movement on ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... studied the picture carefully. He had a keen eye for faces, but when it came to pretty faces his memory was a veritable lion. He had talked a few moments with this very girl, and she had smiled at him. The memory made Robert Macklin's lips twitch just a trifle, and ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... to converse with the spirits the ballyan places an offering before her and begins to chant and wail. A distant stare comes into her eyes, her body begins to twitch convulsively until she is shivering and trembling as if seized with the ague. In this condition she receives the messages of the spirits and under their direction ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... upon this," said Dyke, as he lay upon his side watching his brother's figure grow slowly more distant, for he was walking beside his horse, which hung its head, and kept giving its tail an uneasy twitch. "Not very cheerful to wait here hours upon hours; and how does he know that I've got any matches? Fortunately ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... hands stretched out in a constrained position, every muscle tense, his breast heaving and voice trembling from the effort, and the natural result is that before he is done praying his fingers begin to twitch involuntarily and thus cause the beads to move. As before stated, their motion is irregular; but the peculiar delicacy of touch acquired by long practice probably imparts more directness to their movements than would at ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... a right angle. Thus we had to stand till the command was given for the third pace, when we had to unbend the right leg and bring it forward. On that day we were kept at the first pace unusually long. My muscles began to twitch, and I felt as if needles were pricking me from under the skin. Suddenly I felt as if I had lost my footing, and was suspended in the air. Then I fell. This was my first mishap on that day. The sergeant made believe that he did not notice it, ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... experiments it was noticed that any stimulus might cause (1) a twitch in the limb stimulated, or (2) a twitch followed by a jump, or (3) a sudden jump previous to which no twitch could be detected. And it soon appeared that these types of reaction, as it seems proper ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... less consummate general might have tried to do so, and ruined all. She stood silent and submissive, noting the quick play of thought which peeped from his eyes and lip. There was a sparkle in the one and a twitch of amusement in the other, as he at ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... am! I would never have believed it;—just tie this string for me, child, my hands twitch so strangely,—they say the British are just down in the lane here, with ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... succeeded in driving a little eel into a corner and in throwing it ashore; and there they were, dancing about like mad creatures, unable to hold it, more than half afraid to touch it, but always contriving to twitch the wretched wriggling thing further from the water. One brave little maid managed for a moment to catch it in her pinafore but dropped it instantly, as all the boys screamed: "Put it down! he'll bite 'ee." And so they went on babbling their loudest, when the ragged ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... afford it," said a man with a thin, care-taking visage, and a nervous, anxious twitch of the hand, as if it were his constant effort to hold on to something—"he can afford it, for he makes money hand over hand. It is not every body can afford ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... involuntary muscular contraction just described may be combined in a single instance. An inexperienced violin soloist, such as a student playing at a conservatory recital, often exemplifies this. Nervousness and awkwardness cause him to tremble; the scratchy sound of his tones makes him twitch and start; meanwhile, the close attention paid to his fingering and bowing stiffens his ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... beautiful young mother and chose to keep the matter a secret. I have long been known as a peculiar person given to arranging my affairs according to my own liking. The Head of the House of Coombe"—with an ironic twitch of the mouth—"will have the law on his side and will not be asked for explanations. A romantic story will add to public interest in him. If your child is a daughter she will be protected. She will not be lonely, she will have friends. She will have all the chances of happiness a girl naturally ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... whelpless eye, Silent; but when she saw me lying stark, Dishelmed and mute, and motionlessly pale, Cold even to her, she sighed; and when she saw The haggard father's face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shuddered, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: 'He saved my life: my brother slew him for it.' No more: at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting and ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... on the train, very good indeed. I can't deny that he flushed a little when I told him frankly what I wanted of him. At first I thought that he was going to be angry. Then I saw the corners of his mustache twitch. Then our sense of humor got the better of us, and then I laughed, and then he laughed, and I felt that the crisis was passed. I explained to him while we were in the Pullman car, as well as I could without being overheard by a fat lady with three chins, and a girl ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... play some games," he said; and I grasped directly what it meant, for the big fellow went quietly up behind the little Chinaman, and with a clever twitch unfastened the pin, or whatever it was which held up the coil, and the long tail untwisted and rolled down on the deck amidst a roar of laughter—one which increased as the Chinaman turned to see who had played the trick, but only to find the man standing near with his back toward him, apparently ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... seances attended by Goosie and Mrs Antrobus, even stranger things had happened, for the Princess's hands, as they held a little preliminary conversation, began to tremble and twitch even more strongly than Colonel Boucher's, and Mrs Quantock hastily supplied her with a pencil and a quantity of sheets of foolscap paper, for this trembling and twitching implied that Reschia, an ancient Egyptian priestess, was longing to use the Princess's hand for automatic writing. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... himself for a supreme effort, and turning his wrist from a simulated thrust in the first position, he doubled, and stretching out, lunged vigorously in quarte. As he lengthened his arm in the stroke there came a sudden twitch at his wrist; the weapon was twisted from his grasp, and he stood disarmed ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... "your regard for this interesting exile is very praiseworthy. But beware of——." She hesitated; a remorseful twitch in her own breast stayed the warning that was rising to her tongue; and blushing at a motive she could not at the instant assign to friendship, selfishness, or to any interest she would not avow to herself, she touched the cheek of Euphemia with her ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... know what was said when between lovers it is only the loose change of conversation that gets into words? The important matters cannot wait so slow a messenger; while the tongue is being charged with them, a look, a twitch of the mouth, a movement of a finger, transmits the story, and the words arrive, like Bluecher, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... word, is meant the repetition of certain forms of language in obedience to blind habit and without reference to their propriety in the particular case. Johnson's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical spasmodic action. The most obvious peculiarity is the tendency which he noticed himself, to "use too big words and too many of them." He had to explain to Miss ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... road as he came along, striding swiftly for his age (the drink never affected his legs), ready greaved and sometimes gauntleted as if in haste for his job, always muttering to himself; and when he passed us with just a side-glance from his red eyes, we observed that his pale face did not cease to twitch nor his lips to work. We felt something like awe for the courage of Archie Passmore, who followed twenty paces behind with his tools and a bundle of spars or straw-rope, or perhaps at the end of a ladder which the two carried between ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... another creak, and another. I saw Jim's face as if it had been carved out of ivory, with his parted lips and his staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the stair opening. He still held the light, but his fingers twitched, and with every twitch the shadows sprang from the walls to the ceiling. As to myself, my knees gave way under me, and I found myself on the floor crouching down behind Jim, with a scream frozen in my throat. And still the step came slowly from stair ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... withdraws more deeply within itself; it curls up and dreams. On calm summer mornings you hear no sound except the chirping and twittering of the sleeping birds. The birds are great dreamers—like dogs; like dogs they will twitch and stir in their sleep, as if they were running and flying and playing and chasing each other. Just stalk a bird's nest of which you know at half past two in the morning, some time during the month of July; and before you see them, you will hear them. If there are ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... sudden little twitch, which showed that, badly frightened as she was, a hint of the humour of the situation had ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Fairfield (the reader has long since divined the name) changed instantly, and betrayed a nervous twitch of all the muscles, which gave her a family ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... out, I knew by the sound of the hoofs, what horse an' what rider. They passed close—so close I could have reached out an' touched 'em with my quirt. Then I saw what made my heart jump an' my eyes fair pop out of my head. The Red King flashed by—no saddle, no bridle, not even an' Injun twitch, mane an' tail flarin' out in the wind of his own goin', an' the white foam flyin' in chunks from his open mouth; an' on his back sat Tex, empty handed an' slick heeled. I thought I caught a glimpse of the twisty smile on his face, as he swayed on the back ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... exhibition. However, before night, I was convinced of my friend Mr. Y——'s superior prudence: the whole thing, as the carpenter said, went off pretty well; but several disasters happened which I had not foreseen. There was one stiff old fellow, whose arms, twitch them which way I would, I could never get to bend: and an obstinate old woman, who would never do any thing else but curtsy, when I wanted her to kneel down and to do her work. My children sorted their heaps of rubbish and ore very dexterously; excepting one unlucky little chap, who, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon he supposed it was ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... and the Husseinyeh ran aground. In attempting to carry her off and to check the further progress of the rebels the Ismailia was badly hit, and the incident was one of those only too frequent at all stages of the siege, when Gordon wrote: "Every time I hear the gun fire I have a twitch of the heart of gnawing anxiety for my penny steamers." At the very moment that these fights were in progress he wrote, 10th November: "To-day is the day I expected we should have had some one of the Expedition here;" and he also recorded that we "have enough biscuit for a month or so"—meaning ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at them—I did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch this pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the restraining clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not by what was visible—rather by the terrors which gather in the soul at the summons ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... do as you have done and say what you have said, unless it was so clear that he couldn't help but know," he replied. He turned to the neighbors. "I'm afraid," he said, "I have in part spoiled your pleasure, and," he added, with a twitch of the muscles of his face, "made a fool of myself, besides. Come, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... her side, closing upon the folds of her skirt. She caught her lip between her teeth with a petulant twitch. Then she came forward and laid a small brown bit ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the door. "I—really, I never—investigated the matter at all." She gave a twitch of shoulders and met his eyes steadily. "The inner satisfaction of having climbed the hill, I suppose," she said, in the tone of one who has at last reached firm ground. "Will you have more tea, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... I left Grand Ditch Camp and started down to Chambers Lake. I had not gone far when drops of rain began to fall from time to time, and shortly after this my muscles began to twitch occasionally under electrical ticklings. At times slight muscular rigidity was noticeable. Just before two o'clock the clouds began to burst through between the trees. I was at an altitude of about eleven thousand ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... of the snaky dogs follows. Puss flicks her ears—she hears a thud, thud, wallop, wallop; and she knows the supreme moment has come. Her sinews tighten like bowstrings, and she darts on with the lightning speed of despair. The grim pursuers near her; she almost feels the breath of the foremost. Twitch!—and with a quick convulsive effort she sheers aside, and her enemy sprawls on. But the second dog is ready to meet her, and she must swirl round again. The two serpentine savages gather themselves together ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... to carry out some temporary government commissions, and was in attendance on the Governor-General Zonnenberg, to whom he happened to be distantly related. Panshin's father, a retired cavalry officer and a notorious gambler, was a man with insinuating eyes, a battered countenance, and a nervous twitch about the mouth. He spent his whole life hanging about the aristocratic world; frequented the English clubs of both capitals, and had the reputation of a smart, not very trustworthy, but jolly good-natured ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... suggested one, trying to twitch away his book; and another pulled the chair out from ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... joys of the birthday hollow. They were quite aware that by-and-by there would perhaps be repentance, but who could think of repentance now, with the feast—and such a feast!—on the board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad, intoxicating music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they could scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass, and the summer moon entering through a chink in the big tent, and the gayly dressed people, and all the merry voices? Oh, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... tchik,") a long snicker from Jimmie, whose nose cannot be kept quite in control. It is becoming too much for poor Betsy Dan, whose lips begin to twitch. ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... She is not like me,—any hovel is good enough for me; but for her! Do you know that I conceived that hope, that the hope helped to lead me back here when, months ago, I was at Humberston, intent upon rescuing Sophy; and saw—though," observed Waife, with a sly twitch of the muscles round his mouth, "I had no right at that precise moment to be seeing anything—Lady Montfort's humane fear for a blind old impostor, who was trying to save his dog—a black dog, sir, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... helmets, gentlemen, make yourselves at home." It was a partial admission that he was the man they wanted, but not certain enough for a decision. He saw the shoulder-twitch that meant that the second one's hidden hand jerked in a moment of uncertainty, and he thought he saw something glitter under the first one's arm—the old trick of shooting from under ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque. His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the waves beat over ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... violent twitch at the end of the rod, the reel spun round with a sharp whirr-r, and every nerve in Mr Sudberry's system received an electric shock as he bent forward, straddled his legs, and made a desperate effort to fling the trout ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... upon her age and size, which made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, my sister picked it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, taking it from her, merely said, "Ah! I thought you'd do it." Adelaide said she felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her hand, throw it on the ground again, and say, "Did you? then now ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... to the burial of the hinder part of the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them to discover what is happening overhead. The second ligature is perceived, is severed in turn, and henceforth the work ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... move about in the dry open wood, keeping always near the trees, and truffle after truffle is turned up from the reddish light soil mixed with fragments of calcareous rock. The forgotten training soon comes back to our invaluable auxiliary; a mere twitch of the ear is a sufficient hint for her to retire at the right moment, and wait for the corn that is in variably given in exchange for the cryptogam. Indeed, before we leave the ground, the animal has got so well into work that when she finds a truffle she does not attempt to seize it, but ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... fellow; his trousers hang over the edge of his chair apparently empty of legs, and his shirt and open waistcoat (he never wears a coat) are pressed flat against the high back of the chair, apparently empty of trunk. His body and his features are for ever on the jerk. His shoulders twitch. He is for ever laughing and gurgling. He is for ever struggling to say something important, ending in a great spluttering stammer and a ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Arms, he walked straight into the yard, where the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, hanging on to a twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant he would have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose, and scouring the streets of Duff Harbour. When she heard Malcolm's voice and the sound of his running feet, she stopped as ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... young author, with a certain vinegary twitch, 'that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced authoritarian. I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The day of these ideas is, believe me, past, or ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... past, Mr. Jennings had contracted an ugly knack of carrying his erect head in the comfortless position of peeping over his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr. Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke. The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angry twitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen the master do ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
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