"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... delicious breakfast of tender chickens, light biscuit, excellent bread, fresh eggs, and that rarest of comforts at a hotel, delicious coffee, with a brimming pitcher of cream. We wondered at all these domestic comforts, for we have not heard the flutter of a petticoat in the house till we saw our respectable landlady in spectacles gliding out of the room. We learned from her that she was the only womankind on the 'diggings.' Every thing is neatly done, so we bless our October star for exempting us from the tardy and careless service of chambermaids. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sense, I feel that in my bones. Then there's another thing. Scott never knew the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and, besides, his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I think I'll have a flutter. Buridan's Ass! Whether to go, what to attack. Must go to other letters; shall add to this, if ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... frankly of the earth earthly, and I needed to approach my quarry with no tributes pilfered from the armory of heaven. I could praise her beauty with the tongue of men, and leave the tongue of angels out of the question; and if my muse were pleased here and there to take a wanton flutter, I knew I could give decorum the go-by with a ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... way down, too? A little flutter. . . It seems to me you haven't been seen in your usual Paris haunts of late. Where have ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... Fernando—Majesty?" Yet a third time she repeated it, as by rote; and, very slowly, understanding grew into the words, and with understanding, terror. The dark innocent eyes went appealingly from one to the other, and the lids began to flutter wildly in a kind of spasm. "Majesty? Majesty?" Then, suddenly, she flung both hands to her face, and a piteous shivering ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... repeated after him. "That is scarcely our affair, is it? Promoters should not bother themselves with long views, Alan. These may be left to the investing public, the speculative parson and the maiden lady who likes a flutter—those props of modern enterprise. But what do you mean? You originated this idea and always said that the profits ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... had evidently been in quest. This she unfolded and waved vigorously with both hands. Until we had passed quite from sight she stood there signalling her farewell. Long after we were beyond distinguishing her figure we could catch the flutter of white. Thus that ship's company, embarking each on his Great Adventure, far from home and friends, received their farewell, a very genuine farewell, from one poor old woman. B. ventured the opinion that it was the best thing we had ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... with them to principles, but we shall find them unable to get established in those along with us. Or if we may get so established along with them, we shall find them unable to weigh occurring events along with us.' CHAP. XXX. 1. How the flowers of the aspen-plum flutter and turn! Do I not think of you? But your house is distant. 2. The Master said, 'It is the want of thought about it. How ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... had put society in a flutter; for Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a favorite with the public not only for her graces of person and personality, her charming acting, singing and dancing, but she had that incalculable advantage for an actress—an appealing ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... whose human figures had no lack of weight upon the comfortable ground, yet kept a sense of buoyancy for this hovering childhood, and kept the angels and the loves aloft, as though they shook a tree to make a flock of birds flutter up. ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... than a girl's coming out in the fashionable world? Which, in other words, is to bring to market a marriageable miss, whose person is taken from one public place to another, richly caparisoned. Yet, mixing in the giddy circle under restraint, these butterflies long to flutter at large, for the first affection of their souls is their own persons, to which their attention has been called with the most sedulous care, whilst they were preparing for the period that decides their fate for life. Instead of pursuing this idle routine, sighing for tasteless show, and heartless ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... down, And while thy struggling pulses flutter, Bid the grey monk his soul mass mutter, And the deep bell its death tone utter— Thy life ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the wing of the stray spirit of youth. He felt it in fact, he had it beside him; the old arcade indeed, as his inner sense listened, gave out the faint sound, as from far off, of the wild waving of wings. They were folded now over the breasts of buried generations; but a flutter or two lived again in the turned page of shock-headed slouch-hatted loiterers whose young intensity of type, in the direction of pale acuteness, deepened his vision, and even his appreciation, of racial differences, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Goldsmith, says Boswell, was silent during the narrative, because (so his kind friend supposed) he was jealous of the honour paid to the dictator. But his natural simplicity prevailed. He ran to Johnson, and exclaimed in 'a kind of flutter,' "Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... said one boy, whom the child, even in his flutter and misery, recognised as the boy who had accosted them at the door of Westover's that morning, "can't you answer without blubbering like that? Nobody's going ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he immediately partook of his mother's anxiety and fell into a great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... what he had intended to do from the very first, but now his plan had apparently fructified, he felt a vague horror at the result of his handiwork. He opened Cumshaw's shirt and put his hand over the man's heart. He could not detect even the faintest flutter. ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... a rip of torn cloth, a flutter in the air—the flutter as of a bird on the wing—an upturned point was caught in a tangle of white linen, and through the tangle Blaise rammed his sword-blade almost to the hilt ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... lifeless in the final scene, she played "at him." He repaid this tribute by distorting his face in agony when Camille was light-hearted, and by breaking into noiseless merriment as her woes were causing handkerchiefs to flutter throughout the audience. When we went to visit her next day, as we often did, she scarcely ever failed to reproach him in some such fashion as: "Ah, Meester Fielt, why will you seet in the box and talk with your overcoat on the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... ladies, the Augers," and, in addition, Pere Roque, and, sitting opposite to Madame Moreau at a card-table, Mademoiselle Louise. She was now a woman. She sprang to her feet with a cry of delight. They were all in a flutter of excitement. She remained standing motionless, and the paleness of her face was intensified by the light ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... time I observed the noise and flutter of wings to increase very fast, and my box was tossed up and down like a sign in a windy day. I heard several bangs or buffets, as I thought, given to the eagle (for such I am certain it must have been, that held the ring of my box in his beak), and then all on a sudden felt myself falling ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... Amid a flutter of flags and the cheers of onlookers, the 'ocean policeman,' H.M.S. Speedy, first took to the water on May 18th, 1893. Its birthplace was the banks of the Thames at Chiswick, but hardly had it settled itself on the smooth surface of the river when orders ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... if it must be said, Parnassian butterfly, and like the bees Wherein old Plato found our similes. Light rover I, forever on the wing, Flutter from flower to flower, from thing to thing, With much of pleasure ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... part, I call a greater triumph than if he were performing the heroics we are more accustomed to. He has steady eyes, can gaze at the right level into the eyes of others, and commands a tongue which is neither struck dumb nor set in a flutter by any startling question. The best instances to be given that he does not lack merit are that the Jocelyns, whom he has offended by his birth, cannot change their treatment of him, and that the hostile women, whatever they may say, do not think Rose utterly insane. At any ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... looked upon it sinking, rising through the sea of smoke, Lo! it shook, and bending downwards, as a tree beneath a stroke, Hung one moment o'er the river, then precipitously fell Like proud Lucifer descending from high heaven into hell. As we saw it flutter downwards, till it reached the eager wave, Not Cape Diamond's loudest echo could have matched the cheer we gave; Yet the English, still undaunted, sent an answering echo back: Though their flag had fallen conquered, ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... remarkable. The elegant interesting figure of the woman, the fop with his hat in the air, the bully with the big sword, the man with the blunderbuss, and the bewildered rustic, to say nothing of the muffled figures on the coach, make up a perfect play. There seems a flutter over all; it is like, as it was intended to be, a scene in ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... so unusual for one of this sober household to go out to a party, that a flutter arose, when Mrs Rookwood had departed, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... had seemed so odd to her the night before, was already gathered round the table, still under the influence of sleep, and therefore uncommunicative, but her entrance sent a little flutter like a breath of ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... was no ways hurt—but that, I know, can't be—and, indeed, they are thinking so much about the carriage, that they can't give one any rational account of any thing; and, as for myself, I'm sure I'm in such a flutter. Lord knows, I advised my lady not to go with the young horses, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... gross adjectives, from the "beastly" and the "filthy" which modern manners too often condone, and still more from the abomination of swearing. So Mr Sharnall's obloquy wounded him to the quick. He went to bed in a flutter of agitation, and lay awake half the night mourning over a friendship so irreparably broken, bitter with the resentment of an unjustified attack, yet reproaching himself lest through his unwittingness he might have brought it all ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... safe and warm, but there doesn't seem to be much breath to rock me," said Do, who lay nearest the little bosom that very slowly rose and fell with the feeble flutter ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the market, Brigaut, lying in wait, was able to get near her. Though he saw her tremble and turn pale, like an autumn leaf about to flutter down, he did not lose his head, but quietly bought fruit of the market-woman with whom Sylvie was bargaining. He found his chance of slipping a note to Pierrette, all the while joking the woman with the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... for things with wings. When boy I sought for forest fowl, And caged them in rude rushes' mesh, And fed them with my breakfast roll; So that, though fragile were the door, They rarely fled, and even then Would flutter ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... flutter of excitement there was after the envoy had gone! Gladys and Sahwah were overwhelmed with questions about the boys and conjectures as to how many and which ones were coming. Tents were cleaned and put in such order as they had never known before; the shack was decorated with grasses and wild flowers; ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... with the preacher's drowsy tones, and sometimes the congregation is startled from repose by the shrill squeal of some unlucky brute, complaining of the torture inflicted by the sharp teeth of its ill-natured mate or vicious neighbor; or, perhaps, the flutter of fans is suspended at the obstreperous neigh by which some anxious dam recalls the silly foal that has strayed from her side; or the dissonant creaking of a cramped wheel makes doleful interludes between the verses of the hymn. Here naughty boys, escaped from the confinement of the sanctuary, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... larklets in flannel before the fire when their proper parents would not attend to their infantile needs—mother tenderly feeding them with the point of a camel's-hair brush dipped in egg paste and weak wine and water before they were old enough even to 'peep' or flutter their nascent ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... interview was a little era in Mary's young life. Walter had fixed his eyes on her with delight, had held her hand some seconds, and admired her to her face. She began to wonder a little, and flutter a little, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... should be too tired to mount to his dressing- room; but he obeyed, not ungratefully, and his chair was ready, his plate heaped with partridge and his tumbler filled with ale almost before his eyes had recovered the glare of light. The eagerness and flutter of Rosamond's manner began to make him anxious, and he began for the third time the inquiries she had always cut ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nickel-plated, with cast chasings. Was burning for an opening in the diplomatic go-betweening line; wanted to dabble in War Correspondence, and so on. But Van Busch gathered that the biggest egg in the little lady's nest of ambitions was the desire to do a flutter ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... grow," remarked Sister Reparata. Another of Dionea's amusements is playing with pigeons. The number of pigeons she collects about her is quite amazing; you would never have thought that San Massimo or the neighboring hills contained as many. They flutter down like snowflakes, and strut and swell themselves out, and furl and unfurl their tails, and peck with little sharp movements of their silly, sensual heads and a little throb and gurgle in their throats, while Dionea lies stretched out full length in the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... for tastes. Sidney Kirkwood, spending his Sunday evening in a garden away there in the chaw-bacon regions of Essex, where it was so deadly quiet that you could hear the flutter of a bird's wing or the rustle of a leaf, not once only congratulated himself on his good fortune; yet at that hour he might have stood, as so often, listening to the eloquence, the wit, the wisdom, that give proud distinction ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... roomy harbour of Hong Kong, well sheltered on all sides from wind and waves. A flotilla of steam launches comes out to meet us as we glide slowly among innumerable vessels to our anchorage and buoys. Here flutter in the wind the flags of all commercial nations; the English, Chinese, Japanese, American, and German colours fly side by side. The water in the harbour basin is so shallow that the turn of the propeller stirs up the greyish-brown ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... invitation to lunch or dinner or both. New books made their appearance from below, newspapers and magazines; and if ever the day came when Imogen felt hopelessly faint-hearted, lonely, and over-worked, she was sure to see the flutter of skirts, and her pretty, cordial neighbors would come riding up the trail to cheer her, and to propose something pleasant or helpful. Sometimes Elsie would have her baby on her knee, trusting to "Summer Savory's" sure-footed steadiness; sometimes little Geoff would be riding beside ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... the eyes of the animal again, in the light of the fire. I will shoot, come what will of it;" and before the Knight could interfere, he had discharged his piece in the direction of the object. The dark woods echoed to the report, and some birds disturbed from their perches began to flutter blindly round, but no other sounds were heard, and presently silence, as profound as before, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... string confines me near the ground. I'd brave the eagle's towering wing, Might I but fly without a string." It tugg'd and pull'd, while thus it spoke, To break the string—at last it broke! Deprived at once of all its stay, In vain it tried to soar away: Unable its own weight to bear, It flutter'd downward through the air; Unable its own course to guide, The winds soon plunged it in the tide. Oh! foolish kite, thou hadst no wing, How could'st thou fly without a string? My heart replied, "Oh, Lord, I see How much the kite resembles me! Forgetful ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... answer. She let her steadfast look suffice; and Mrs. Marven went on in a rising flutter: "Why, you can't have my rooms! I don't understand you. I've taken my rooms for the whole of August, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Stale, (a living Fowle of the same kind you would take) and cross pricking your Rods, one into, and another against the Wind sloping, a foot distant one from the other, pin down your Stale, some distance from them, tying some small string to him, to pull and make him flutter to allure the Fowle down. If any be caught, do not run presently upon them, their fluttering will encrease your Game. A well taught Spaniel is not amiss to retake those that are entangled, and yet flutter away. Thus likewise for the Water, consult the Rivers depth, and let your Rods ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... plodded toward the Club, "we should have disguised Mile End in bunting and blue fire. But perhaps it's a compliment. He knows his London, and it's no use trying to hide the facts from him. They must have queer notions of cities, those monarchs. They must fancy everybody lives in a flutter of flags and walks about under triumphal arches, like as if I were to stitch shoes in my Sunday clothes." By a defiance of chronology Crowl had them on to-day, and they seemed ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... waters of the torrent." O yes, all too soon it will be the "last call" in dead earnest—the last call for the joy of life and the glory of the world. The grass is already withering, the flower already fading; and that bird of time, with so short a way to flutter, is relentlessly ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... Since in the flutter of her spirit caused by the words of Mrs. Hughs, Cecilia felt she must do something, she decided to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Revels is nowhere visible. The crowds press from point to point, peering into the depths of the woods and watching stealthily where the torrent breaks from its dungeon in the hills, and leaps, mad with joy, in the new-found liberty of light and motion; but not a flutter of her garment betrays to the keenest eye the Presence which is the soul of ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... their immense delight in bursting the old Bethune bomb as shrapnel over the German trenches. It was only when the last bomb was thrown that Sergt. G. F. Foster, the stoutest Bomber that ever lived and fell, ended a demonstration which can hardly have caused a flutter in the dove-cotes ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... him to Long Oliver, who leant against the staircase wall with his arms crossed and a veiled amusement in his face. With a slightly heightened colour, but no flutter of the voice, she repeated her blasphemy; and then, pulling a shilling from her worn purse, tendered it to Geake. This, of course, meant "Mind your own business"; but he ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I will take it. But look! There burns the candle. I keep about me a moth for the express purpose of extinguishing candles. I will let him enter the flame. This is his place and hour. May this moth which I here release, depart to flutter above the flame in varying circles. The breeze from the insect's wings has translated the flame into accursed darkness. Or shall I not rather curse the darkness brought by me upon my Brahmanic family? For my father was a man who knew the four Vedas, who would ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... old man. Take heed lest his beams fall on you, For the rays he darts around him Are the power of his enchantment, Are the arrows that he uses.' "Many years, in peace and quiet, On the peaceful Star of Evening Dwelt Osseo with his father; Many years, in song and flutter, At the doorway of the wigwam, Hung the cage with rods of silver, And fair Oweenee, the faithful, Bore a son unto Osseo, With the beauty of his mother, With the courage of his father. "And the boy grew ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... missionaries for meddlers and the treaty officials for crazy fools. When the flag was at last in place, Fetuao and he drew away to get a better view of it from the beach. Standing there, in silence they watched the vivid colors flaunt and flutter against the wooded hills behind, while Jack, with a seaman's instinctive reverence for the flag, bared his head, and Fetuao clapped ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... aside, he allowed the moths to flutter more closely round the candle, and the brilliant throng of the JEUNESSE DOREE, eagerly attentive to Lady Blakeney's every movement, hid the keen, fox-like ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... is a short flutter of joys and pains, a bright glimmer of smiles and tears, and we are gone. But whence did we come? And whither do we go? Can human thought divine ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... he said, earnestly, "my heart sings as it has never sung since its earliest love-flutter. I feel like a stainless god in a sacred garden, listening for the first time to the dear madness of the nightingale. No subtle Neapolitan ever stirred me as this wood-nymph does with her flaming hair and her frank eyes. No wonder the ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... foot of the mountains, than to the Alpine heights where he had generally found a more robust amusement. And wherever he went he bent his attention on the fairer portion of the creation, the girls who fill all the hotels with the flutter of their fresh toilettes and the babble of their pleasant voices. It was very mean and poor of him, seeing he was a mountaineer himself—but still it must be recorded that the only young ladies he systematically neglected were those in very short petticoats, with very sunburnt ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... never a spark of energy on lamenting the delay; this is a natural process and takes time, and once more you make up your mind. Presently you will think of it oftener and oftener, daily perhaps; the idea of control will flutter nearer and nearer to the moment of expression, but always too soon—when you are not about to say anything, or too late—after you ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... fenced. Laura sighed. But she looked at the stout red-faced woman with a peculiar flutter of pleasure. The air of the wild upland—all the primitive, homely facts of the farm, seemed to come about her again. She had left Bannisdale, choked with feeling, tired with thought. Polly's broad speech and bouncing ways were welcome as a ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... (She sits gingerly in the hammock, and then, with a sudden flutter of white, does what BETTY suggests.) Yes. (Regretfully.) I'm afraid that was rather wasted on you, Betty. We must have some ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... the tension of her mind yielded to a flutter of hope as she saw the water no longer gained ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... tinkling, and the copper snakes began to move around each of them in undulating motion. Then the Malay advanced a pace, and elevating his eyebrows very high and opening his eyes until they were of huge size, he nodded his head at Muzio ... and the eyelids of the corpse began to flutter, parted unevenly, and from beneath them the pupils, dull as lead, revealed themselves. With proud triumph and joy—a joy that was almost malicious—beamed the face of the Malay; he opened his lips widely, and from the very depths of his throat ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... never before—asking awkward, burning questions, which put its seniors in a flutter. The seniors, under question, discover that they have no body of doctrine, and have never till now dreamt of the need of any. If they are wise, they will put away the taboo on politics and sit down with their juniors to hammer these things out, ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... you may be sure, ready dressed; and a very sweet, old-world picture she makes, standing beneath the great overhanging gables of the wooden chalet. She, too, favours the national green; but, as relief, there is no lack of bonny red ribbons, to flutter in the wind, and, underneath the ornamented skirt, peeps out a bright-hued petticoat. Around her ample breast she wears a dark tight-fitting bodice, laced down the front. (I think this garment is called a stomacher, ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... the steps of the temple; spring toilettes already glitter in the sun; trains sweep the dust with their long flowing folds; feathers and ribbons flutter; the bell chimes solemnly, while carriages keep arriving at a trot, depositing upon the pavement all that is most pious and most noble in the Faubourg, then draw up in line at the farther end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... own name being called, I felt a flutter about the heart which I did not feel in action, or in the hurricane, or when, in a case more desperate than either, I jumped overboard at Spithead, to swim to my dear Eugenia. "Powers of Impudence, as well as Algebra," said I, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in the corner by that pillar, where she seems buried in the gloom, in spite of the candles blazing above her head? Between her and us there is such a sparkle of diamonds and glances, so many floating plumes, such a flutter of lace, of flowers and curls, that it would be a real miracle if any dancer could detect her among those stars. Why, Martial, how is it that you have not understood her to be the wife of some sous-prefet from Lippe or Dyle, who has come to try ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... the place was very pleasing. The cook's assistants were few, some of the regulars were absent, Andy guessed from what he heard the cook say. The latter was rushed to death, and jumping from stove to stove and utensil to utensil in a great flutter of excitement and haste for he was behind in ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... first a firebrand flings; It strikes the sides, takes hold, and clings; The freshening breezes spread the blaze, And soon on plank and beam it preys. The inmates flutter in dismay And vainly wish to fly; There as they huddle and retire Back to the part which 'scapes the fire, Sudden the o'erweighted mass gives way, And falling, shakes the sky. CONINGTON, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... rapidly. Again I waved my handkerchief, and held it between my two hands, so that it might flutter in the breeze. The stranger approached. She was a fine large square topsail schooner, with a black hull and taunt raking masts. She rounded to close to us, so that she could drop down to ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... time they cease dancing they haunt the holes in the paper through which the newly born moths emerge. When a female appears a male instantly rushes towards her, or rather the two creatures rush towards one another, and they are at once locked in a fast embrace. Immediately their wings cease to flutter, the only commotion on the newspaper being made by the unmated males. In a hatching-room these males on the stacks of trays are so numerous that the place is filled with the sound of the whirring of their wings. The down flies from their wings to such an extent that one continually sneezes. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... of the new day—I was up and climbed the whale for the lantern. In its place I left attached to the upright oar a shirt to flutter in the wind for a signal. I hoped that any vessel passing near enough to see my signal would stop for me. But of one thing I was sure: If it chanced that a whaling ship came within sight of the dead leviathan my peril would soon be over. This huge beast had not been long dead and ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... ordinarily handsome face wore an expression that was by no means pleasing. You grinned at the individual just as you did at me when you went up to the cei—, pardon me, as I THOUGHT you did, when I fell down in a fit in your chambers"; and I qualified my words in a great flutter and tremble; I did not care to offend the man—I did not DARE to offend the man. I thought once or twice of jumping into a cab, and flying; of taking refuge in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse; of speaking to a policeman, but not one would come. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... a boy, and I own I am glad you were not—a man wants a daughter—I should have been quite willing to allow you your flutter on Wall Street, or your try at anything you felt you would like to handle. It would have interested me to look on and see what you were made of, what you wanted, and how you set about trying to get it. It's a new kind of deal ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, ill-dressed, demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. He seemed in a deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from him with a swish and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the recumbent figure; a prairie hen rustled by with a shrill cluck, but he seemed oblivious to all. If asleep, he was evidently dreaming, for now and then he started, or his body twitched, and a muttering came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... plainly visible from the passage. It is almost noon. Dim light, reflected from the snow outside, comes in through the middle window of the back wall, a view of which is afforded through the opening in the centre. The snowflakes flutter down drearily as on the previous day. The fire now and then casts a red light upon the oleanders, which separate the space surrounding the fireplace from the background. AUNT CLARA, in mourning as before, and LENE, also dressed in black, are busy at the table, which has been set. They move ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... great flutter of excitement over the Queen's Fancy Dress Ball, which took place in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace on 12th May. Its leading feature was the assembling and meeting of the two Courts of Anne of Bretagne (the Duchess of Cambridge) and Edward III. and Queen ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... moment of but one thing—the woman who had compromised her name to help me to attain freedom. I would have died a thousand deaths if it might only be with my hands at his throat, her story unknown. Yet even as I braced my body for the leap, gazing straight into that deadly barrel, there came a quick flutter of drapery at my side, and she, pressing me firmly backward, faced ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the drawing-room; and FREDA stands restlessly tapping her foot against the bottom stair. With a flutter of skirts CHRISTINE KEITH comes rapidly down. She is a nice-looking, fresh-coloured young woman in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... That sacred Peace may in assurance rayne, And tymely Sleep, when it is tyme to sleepe, May poure his limbs forth on your pleasant playne; The whiles an hundred little winged loves, Like divers-fethered doves, Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, And in the secret darke, that none reproves, Their prety stealthes shal worke, and snares shal spread To filch away sweet snatches of delight, Conceald through covert night. Ye sonnes of Venus, play your sports at will! For greedy pleasure, carelesse of your toyes, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... at the round table, when sport and other topics of our limited world are discussed, and when one generally manages to give or to receive an invitation to pot-luck, with a rubber or a gentle poker flutter to follow. ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... a quiet read At Booty Shelley's poetry; [12] I thinks that Swinburne at a screed Is really almost too-too fly; At Signor Vagna's harmony [13] I likes a merry little flutter; I've had at Pater many a shy; In fact, my form's the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... certain December, and through the village there was a pleasant little flutter of Christmas preparations. Captain Eli had been up to the store, and he had stayed there a good while, warming himself by the stove, and watching the women coming in to buy things for Christmas. It was strange how many things they bought for presents or ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... open the box the rustles will escape, whether you are wearing a silk dress or not," said the man, seriously. Then he picked up another box. "In this," he continued, "are many assorted flutters. They are invaluable to make flags flutter on a still day, when there is no wind. You, sir," turning to the Wizard, "ought to have this assortment. Once you have tried my goods I am sure you will ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... in a vast garden with trees, flowers, statues, and fountains. About this garden of Armida, thus radiant upon the waves, were a multitude of boats, under sail or propelled by oars, moving about, and their lights resembled the swarms of fireflies that in summer flutter above the fields of Lombardy. The mild temperature favored this joyous festival. The whole city, all the buildings, every vessel, were ablaze with a thousand lights, and the glassy sea reflected numberless flames. The darkness of night gave the signal for ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... Quintard has to say about that," interrupted the woman as that lady entered in a flutter of emotion springing from more than ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... Low," say one and all; and straightway all was flutter and commotion, as in a duck pond when a hawk pitches and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... flutter of the leaves of many note-books follows that awful announcement. Voices rise loud in united utterance of surprise or indignation. The doors swing to and fro, as hurrying members dash in and out to scan the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... himself up in an attitude of bold assurance. Wherever a group of scarlet cloaks made a bright patch upon the human arras, there was a flutter of approval. Even the braver of the English nobles, who for race-pride alone might have supported Sebert in a valid claim, saw nothing to do now but to draw away, with a silent interchange of shrugs and headshakes, and leave him to ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... hull. By observing this precaution we at length succeeded in shooting away his fore-topmast, and thus rendering him helpless to continue his flight. Whereupon, like a sensible fellow, he ran the Spanish flag up to his gaff, allowed it to flutter there for a moment, and then hauled it down again ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... shoulder waits thy husband, On thy right side, Ilmarinen, Constant friend and life-protector, He will guard thee from all evil; Husband ready, steed in waiting, Gold-and-silver-mounted harness, Hazel-birds that sing and flutter On the courser's yoke and cross-bar; Thrushes also sing and twitter Merrily on hame and collar, Seven bluebirds, seven cuckoos, Sing thy wedding-march in concord. "Be no longer full of sorrow, Dry thy tears, thou bride of beauty, Thou hast found a noble husband, Better wilt ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... his blue coat tightly and trudged up to where the committee was busy with the sheets of brown paper, weighting them with stones so that the July breeze could not flutter them away. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... said in a serious manner, there were few of us whose hearts did not flutter responsively to this surmise, for the danger became every minute more imminent, and we knew what a terrific surf there must be then running on the shingle beach. But we now rapidly approached the shore; we were near to the floating light, and in the roadstead not ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... found out the loss of the paper?" he thought. "He must have discovered it, and that's why he is in such a flutter. If it's spoilt his chances, so much the better. I owe him a grudge, and, if I've put a spoke in his wheel, I ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... back again, ma'am, I'm sure," the man said. "There's lots of boys and young men who stay around the monument, hoping for a chance to earn a stray dime or so by showing visitors around or carrying something. One of them probably saw the hat flutter out of the window, and somebody will ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... there the sides were glowing with patches of the deep golden, yellow globe-flower; a little farther on, there was a deeper spot with a patch of the great glistening leaves of the water-lily, not yet in bloom; and as he stepped down into the water, there was a flutter from a bird seated on a dead twig, and a flash of azure light gleamed over the river, as the disturbed kingfisher darted upstream, to be watched till ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... bade him leave her, herself buttoning about him the soldier coat which her own hands had cleaned and mended and made respectable. She was glad afterward that she had done so; glad, too, that she had kissed him and waited by the tree, where, looking backward, he could see the flutter of her white dress until a turn in the forest path hid her from ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... which was a ford, and crossed the stream, stopping to let the horses drink. The water was only a foot deep. As we came up on the higher ground beyond the river we met the south wind squarely, and it came in at the front of the cover with a rush. We heard a sharp flutter behind, and then the wagon gave a shiver and a lurch, and the horses stopped; then there was another shock and lurch, and it rolled ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... eye Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... I should call for objections, I saw Mrs. Chapman take up her Bible in a flutter and nervously turn over its leaves. When I sat down all eyes were turned on her, and there was a death-like stillness in the house. Then she rose up, and in a moment was out of the house. She left the town the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... opportunity to renew the conversation. I have seen this fancy gradually coming on, and, fool that I was, was afraid to speak for fear of making things worse. I thought it might be only a passing whim, like those which flutter twenty times through girls' silly heads before they are married, and was unwilling to treat it as of any consequence. But does Anne mean to deceive me? It is not at all like her. She never did so before. No, she has courage enough for anything, and is incapable of deception. But these foolish feelings ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... to find myself in my own chamber in the tower of the palace. I was so weak that I scarce could lift my hand, and life seemed but to flutter in my breast as flutters a dying dove. I could not turn my head; I could not stir; yet in my heart there was a sense of rest and of dark trouble done. The light from the lamp hurt my eyes: I shut them, and, as I shut them, heard the sweep of a woman's robes ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... flowers became aware of a stranger having come among them, and a flutter (as much as such well-bred creatures deigned to evince) ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... reported in The World. This puffing and Oscar's own uncommon power as a talker; but chiefly perhaps a whispered reputation for strange sins, had thus early begun to form a sort of myth around him. He was already on the way to becoming a personage; there was a certain curiosity about him, a flutter of interest in whatever he did. He had published poems in the Trinity College magazine, Kottabos, and elsewhere. People were beginning to take him at his own valuation as a poet and a wit; and the ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... come at a certain early spring date before the leaves are fully expanded, and flutter upward, while they take something from beneath the budding leaf or twig. It is a peculiar motion, which with their restless ways, olive-green color, and small size, readily distinguishes them. It is rare that one is still. "But the ruby-crowned sometimes favors me with a song, and as it is ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... no words would be quite so cheerful and stimulating to hear as those matter-of-fact words of Sue's. She soon reached the attic. She opened the door softly, and yet with a flutter at ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... King's right, and he passed along the platform of the throne with an easy, unhesitating step, and an almost boyish smile of pleasure at the sounds he heard, and at the flutter of excitement that was in the air, rather to be felt than otherwise perceived. Coming up the steps of the throne, he bent one knee before his brother, who held out his ungloved hand for him to kiss—and when that was done, he knelt again before the Queen, who did ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... and ran to put flags on its gateposts and porch pillars and loop bunting around its windows. And when the morning broke like a great pink rose and shed its rosy light over the dimpling hills and lacy, misty woodlands the old town was a-flutter with banners, everybody was about through with breakfast and certain childless and highly efficient ladies were already taking their front and side hair ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds |
