"Twitter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vines twining all about; through the openings in the foliage shone the blue of sky and red of cliff. Patches of blossoming Bowers were here and there lit to brilliance by golden shafts of sunlight. The twitter of birds and hum of bees were almost drowned in the soft roar ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... arrangement kept her in a continual whirlwind of anxiety, she never hinted at the subject to Anty. As she said to herself, "a Kelly wouldn't demane herself to ask a brass penny from a Lynch." She didn't even speak to her daughters about it, though the continual twitter she was in made them aware that there was some unusual burthen on ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... on such a day are the reveries that come and go over the heart, under the shade of a noble oak that lifts its crowned head to the clouds, while birds twitter love-songs among its branches, and lovers lie dreaming on the green ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... tell us we never got enough money for our work," argued Sarah. "And if anything comes of it and Nicholas and me earn five bob more a week between us, it means marriage. So I'm in a twitter." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... The twitter, sometimes, of a wayward bird That checks the song abruptly at the sound, And mildly, chiding echoes that have stirred, Sink into ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... entire I had ever felt. And he loosened my hands, and drew me to him and kissed me, saying "My love!" And as I felt—yes, actually felt—the pressure of his lips upon mine, and felt the spring shining upon me, and heard the very echo of the twitter of the birds, saw the light fall upon the water, and smelled the scent of the acacias, and saw the ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the arrival at last came, and Clara certainly was in a twitter, although she had steadfastly resolved that she would be in no twitter at all. She had told her aunt by letter of the proposed visit, and Mrs Winterfield had expressed her approbation, saying that she hoped it would lead to good results. Of what good results could her aunt ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... swallow, neighbor swallow, Starting on your autumn flight, Pause a moment at my window, Twitter softly your good-night; For the summer days are over, All your duties are well done, And the happy homes you builded Have ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter! In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter! Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall 140 ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... a twitter; in a fright. Twittering is also the note of some small birds, such as ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... and Pasquale Arispe with me, I struck off on our course in the gathering twilight. The first twitter of a bird in the morning brought me to my feet; I roused the others, and we saddled and were riding with the first sign of dawn in the east. Taking the outside circle myself, I gave every bunch of cattle met on my course a good start for the centre of the round-up. ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... woodpeckers which make the Park their home. Both nest in hollows bored out by their strong beaks, but although full of splinters and sawdust, such a habitation is far superior to the sooty chimneys in which the young chimney swifts break from their snow-white eggs and twitter for food. How impatiently they must look up at the blue sky, and one would think that they must long for the time when they can spread their sickle-shaped wings and dash about from dawn to dark! Is it not wonderful that one of them should live to grow up when we think of ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... song of a nest, For it is not long:— You shall never light, in a summer quest The bushes among— Shall never light on a prouder sitter, A fairer nestful, nor ever know A softer sound than their tender twitter That wind-like did ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... hundreds of years. The ancients were not wanting in ingenuity and we have pictures of many funny-looking pipes which were intended to imitate the growling of a bear (this stop was sometimes labeled Vox Humana!), the crowing of a cock, the call of the cuckoo, the song of the nightingale, and the twitter of the canary, the ends of these pipes being bent over and inserted in water, just as the player blows into a glass of water through a quill in a toy symphony. Then there was the Hummel, a device which caused two ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... the warriors ceased their shuffling dance, were arrested with the spears in their hands in as many poses. Bakahenzie's scream was stoppered as if by a hand upon his mouth. In the silence their heavy breathing rivalled the twitter and hum of the forest. Birnier sketched furiously, glaring portentously from the group to the paper. Bakahenzie took a step forward, a nervous step, and yelled, "Kill!" but his voice released those of the warriors. In one loud shout ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... Chillington Wood by the time she reached Three- Walks-End—the converging point of radiating trackways, now floored with a carpet of matted grass, which had never known other scythes than the teeth of rabbits and hares. The twitter overhead had ceased, except from a few braver and larger birds, including the cuckoo, who did not fear night at this pleasant time of year. Nobody seemed to be on the spot when she first drew near, but no sooner ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... embrace of the golden sunset, were emblems of the winter's gloom replaced by that spring-tide brightness which aroused new hopes and a revived interest in the souls of men. The crocus of the glen, the anemone of the prairie, the cress of the sheltered waters, the hum of the first insect, the twitter from the mossy nest, the murmur of forest streams, were all so many types ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... The while they cool themselves, they freshness give, And moisture, that the bowery green may live: So keeping up an interchange of favours, Like good men in the truth of their behaviours Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings, Pausing upon their yellow flutterings. Were I in such a place, I sure should pray That nought less sweet, might call my ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... the village-clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning-breeze Blowing over the meadows brown, And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the blackbirds of letters—the harmless, kind singing creatures who line the hedge-sides and chirp and twitter as nature bade them (they can no more help singing, these poets, than a flower can help smelling sweet), have been treated much too ruthlessly by the watch-boys of the press, who have a love for flinging stones at the little innocents, and pretend that it is their duty, and that every wren ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... peacefully in Sister Lizzie's bed, and looked so pretty in her sleep that Abby came three times to wake her, and three times went away again, unable to spoil so perfect a picture. At last, however, the dark eyes opened of their own accord, and Marie began to chirp and twitter, like a bird at daybreak in its nest; only instead of daybreak, it was eight o'clock in the morning, a most shocking hour for anybody to be getting up. But Abby had been in the habit of spoiling her sister, who had a theory that she was never able ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... optimism. We had been shown the lizard-brooch, a dazzling thing of gold and precious stones, which Micklebrown had picked up last Bank Holiday on the cliff at Cocklesea and presented to his fiancee, Miss Twitter, after inquiry at the police-station had failed to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... speak, the falcon who called him in the morning, the turtle-doves whose pairing he blessed, and all the feathered flock whom Benozzo represents him preaching to in the lovely fresco at Montefalco—if, as I say, there is throughout his life and thoughts a sort of perpetual whir and twitter of birds, it is, one feels sure, because the creatures of the air, free to come and go, to sit on beautiful trees, to drink of clear streams, to play in the sunshine and storm, able above all to be like himself, poets singing ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... out of the room with a little hysterical twitter like a scared bird, and the two men were left alone. Silence came over them again. Both men looked moodily at nothing. Finally ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... earl nor Lady Julia having said anything on the subject. "Of course we are going," said Mrs Eames, "and it was so very kind. But I've never been out to such a house for so many years, John, and I do feel in such a twitter. I dined there once, soon after we were married; but I never ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... went on along the side of the common toward the dense furze clump, Green hectoring, throwing stones at everything he saw, from the donkeys and geese to the yellow-hammers which flitted along the hedge, stopping now and then to twitter out their quaint little song about "a little bit o' bread and no cheese," and looking as much like canaries as they could as they perched ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... asked Polly, who was in such a twitter looking at everything that she didn't know ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... building where he had slept; but they did not put him into the aircar with the revolving arm again. Instead, four new ones came into his room after he had eaten the strange red and orange fruits that were all of the bug diet he could stomach, and began to twitter very seriously at him, while pointing to various objects, parts of their bodies, the walls around ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... Said Twitter, you talk very large, And do not seem to know Our little wings have not yet power Beyond these trees ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... purple-tinted sheaves standing with their heads together. The Titan-strewn rocks felt it likewise with all their heather and broom. There was no husbandman in the plain, no song of the solitary goat-girl, no creak of the plough, no twitter even of a bird. It was not yet the hour when Virgil says every field is silent, but the repose ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the burly little man, with a look of mingled surprise and pity, "my name is not Thompson. It is Twitter— Samuel Twitter, of Twitter, Slime and—, but," he added, checking himself, under a sudden and rare impulse of prudence, "why do you ask ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... the sun rose and the birds began to twitter and sing, the girl rose and looked in her mirror. There she saw the bright, happy face that she remembered ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... reached her ears, save the sharp twitter of a sparrow now and then, the patter of Reno's feet on the ice, and the rattle of the loaded rifle against the buttons of her sweater-coat. The forest that surrounded the pond seemed uninhabited. The axes of the woodsmen did not echo here, and the boys ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... growl sounded like a hideous laugh. The little gray robin twittered loudly in warning. But the poor tired little fellow heard neither the white bear's growl nor the gray robin's twitter. ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... your best, vor fear the groun' In colours gay mid sheaeme your gown: An' goo an' rig wi' me a mile Or two up over geaete an' stile, Drough zunny parrocks that do leaed, Wi' crooked hedges, to the meaed, Where elems high, in steaetely ranks, Do rise vrom yollow cowslip-banks, An' birds do twitter vrom the spray O' bushes deck'd wi' snow-white may; An' gil'cups, wi' the deaeisy bed, Be ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... resembles the mocking-bird. Indeed, a policeman whom I found staring at one would have it that he was a mocking-bird. "Don't you see he is? And he's been singing, too." I had nothing to say against the singing, since the shrike will often twitter by the half hour in the very coldest weather. But further discussion concerning the bird's identity was soon rendered needless; for, while we were talking, along came a sparrow, and dropped carelessly into a hawthorn bush, right under the shrike's ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... nothing ghostly in the shrill chatter as incessant as the twitter of the agitated birds, who found their night snatched from them and hardly knew whether to scold or join ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... study, while cricket occupies the afternoon, till music and sunset fill the grassy stretches above Iffley, and the college eights flash past among cheering and splashing? Then there is supper in the cool halls, darkling, and half-lit up; and after supper talk, till the birds twitter in the elms, and the roofs and the chapel spire look unfamiliar in the blue of dawn. How long the days were then! almost like the days of childhood; how distinct is the impression all experience used to make! In later seasons ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... and that he had somehow allowed himself to become unnaturally affected and strung up. He could believe this in the air and in the dawn. For he escaped out of prison as he walked, and heard the dirty sparrows begin to twitter as they sank to the brown puddles in the roadway, or soared to the soot that clung round ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... all in a twitter, 'you're never going to leave all that money here, and you away, and the child and me all alone. Can't you—can't you leave one of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... leaves Gold stars push; A mist of green Veils the bush. Here a twitter, There a croak! They are coming— The spring-folk! Heart, be not dumb; Let the live ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... rises like a morn When waves at sunrise glitter, Or as in June the golden corn While birds above it twitter. ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... birds had begun to bestir themselves but not to sing. Now and again a solitary wing feathered the chill air; but for the most part the birds huddled closer in the swinging nests, or under the bracken, or in the tufty grass. Here a faint twitter was heard and ceased. A little farther a drowsy voice called "cheep-cheep" and turned again to the warmth of its wing. The very grasshoppers were silent. The creatures who range in the night time had returned to their cells and ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... about it, that enlists our sympathies from the start. The young farmer's mind is on his work. We suspect he has capacities outside of his cornfield and yuca patch, but to this point in the record before us he gives no clue. He is a farmer, and nothing else. The bright-winged birds flit and gleam and twitter in the evergreen woods about him, but his hand is on the plough and his ear drinks in only the music of his panting team. From his window, looking eastward, he sees the advance beams of the sun flung across the savanna: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... midnight, for the waning sickle of the moon was slipping from its dark cover in the east and hanging like a jewel of gold just above the black crown of the pines. Breaths from the heights sifted down through the vast woods, carrying sometimes the dreary twitter of a bird disturbed, or the mellow call of insects singing to each other of the summer night. All sounds of the wilderness were as echoes of rest ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... sweetest, his very best, and as the song was borne along on the bright morning air, and then died away, he became aware of a tender little note, a faint twitter which came from a branch immediately beneath him. He looked down, and, lo and behold, there, half concealed by spreading boughs, was a bird like himself, another Blackbird! This stranger Blackbird ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... cheerfully and kindly toward the whole human race. As he walked down into the city to transact some business he had there with his lawyer, he went out of his way to speak to little children. He gave all his acquaintances a heartier "Good-morning" than usual. He even whistled at passing dogs. The twitter of the sparrows in the trees, their fierce contentions on the grass, amused him. He leaned over the railing of the fountain in the square with the idlers, and took a deep interest in the turtles, who were baking their frescoed backs in the warm sun, as they floated about ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... replying. His days were full of this perpetual intercourse. So it happened that to get out alone into the absolute stillness, broken only by the rustle of the leaves, the sound of the wind as it brought them down, the twitter of the birds, the tinkle of the little stream, was a new delight to Geoff, unlike anything that had gone before. And to see miles and miles before him, to see all round, roads stretching into the unknown, houses and churches and woods, all nameless and new; was he riding out to seek his fortune, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... more Mandy Ann was utterly absorbed in her enchanting task. So quiet she was over it that every now and then a yellow-bird or a fly-catcher would alight upon the edge of the bateau to bounce away again with a startled and indignant twitter. The woodchuck, having eaten his carrot, curled up in the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... many, many times from the shallow drinking-place by the brook to his half-built nest. Sometimes the pair of them cling to the mortar they have fixed under the eave, and twitter to each other about the progress of the work. They dive downwards with such velocity when they quit hold that it seems as if they must strike the ground, but they shoot up again, over the wall and the lime trees. A thrush has been to ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... forest. There was something about the well-sweep, the orchard, the gardens, that spoke of neglect and desolation, and Peggy felt a chill go through her as she noted no stir of life about the place. From the open doors of the barn came no movement of restless horse, or low of cattle. Not a twitter nor cheep from the hen-house broke the quiet that brooded over everything. Though it was still early twilight the wooden shutters were tightly closed, and had it not been for the light which streamed through their crescentic openings the house would have been deemed deserted. The ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... delicious as the choicest prawns. The water that glided past the bank was like crystal; the evening sun lit up the scene with orange and gold; and as the two boys lolled restfully upon the bank listening to the murmur of the running water, the twitter of birds, and the distant lowing of some ox, they thoroughly appreciated everything, even the rest after their tiring night's work and ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... appointed, at the old lady's sanctum, and seating herself upon an old chair, beheld with astonishment quite as much as she bargained for. 'I felt myself,' said poor Martha, 'on entering the room, all of a twitter. The old woman was seated in her chair of state, and, reaching down from the mantel-piece a pack of cards, began, after muttering a few words in a language I could not understand, to lay them very ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... stones before you, crying, "wet-feet, wet-feet!" and bowing and teetering in the friendliest manner, as if to show you the way to the best pools. In the thick branches of the hemlocks that stretch across the stream, the tiny warblers, dressed in a hundred colours, chirp and twitter confidingly above your head; and the Maryland yellow-throat, flitting through the bushes like a little gleam of sunlight, calls "witchery, witchery, witchery!" That plaintive, forsaken, persistent note, never ceasing, even in the noonday ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... irregular street every house is three to four hundred years old. The projecting upper stories are supported on great timber balks, often with the ends grotesquely carved. Under the projecting eaves the swallows build, and twitter about the diamond-paned windows which reflect so richly the sunset light. In the steep roofs there are dormer-windows, and the old tiles have mellowed to a deep rose-red, stained yellow with lichen, and sink into irregular planes and angles of beautiful, varied colour. There are ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... of heaven; The rivulets ripple with the merry tone Of wanton waters, and the breezes given To fan the budding hills are all thine own. Returning songsters from the tropic zone Their vernal love-songs in the tree tops sing, And talk and twitter in a tongue unknown Of joys that journey on thy golden wing, And God who sends thee forth to wake ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... long of hesitation. Light as a lightweight acrobat Ahmet Ali had rolled aside, put palm to ground, sprung to his feet. His face was bloody, his right knee shook. With the back of his hand he wiped the blood from his eyes. There was a twitter from the Syrians. The wrestler lumbered forward again.... A little quake of fear came into Campbell's being. There was an impersonal doggedness about the wrestler from Aleppo's eyes, a sense of inevitability.... Shane's ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... mass, save on Sunday to set an example. There were no shops open, not a sound about. I went out upon the ramparts to the Mont St. Lambert, where the band plays on Sundays. In all the trees there was not so much as the twitter of a bird. I could hear the river flowing swiftly below the wall, but I could not see it, except as something dark, a ravine of gloom below, and beyond the walls I did not venture to look. Why should I look? There was nothing, nothing, as I knew. But fancy ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... what is this I hear of your fine charities, master Israel?" said Ben Aboo. "Ah, do not look surprised. There are little birds enough to twitter of such follies. So you are throwing away silver like bones to the dogs! Pity you've got too much of it, Israel ben Oliel; pity you've got too much ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... daughter; it's only a bit of boy life and impulse working in them, after all; their natural way of cooling the 'sweating of the corn.'" Then we drove away through the lanes draped with birch tassels and willow wands, while bloodroot and marshmarigold kept pace in the runnels, and I heard the twitter of the first ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... story happened long before, when they weren't robin red-breasts but only robins. It is a merry, tender sort of story. They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their children. If you prefer to hear it first-hand, creep out to the nearest holly-bush on almost any Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all pale and shadowy. If the robins have chosen your holly-bush as their rendezvous and you ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... sat alone, gazing idly at the summer sky, hearing the twitter of a bird, the hum of insects, whilst the scents of flower and leaf lulled them to a restful intimacy. Without a word of ceremony, Will used the matches that were brought him, and puffed a cloud into the warm air. They were talking of the beauties ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... gilded, On whose convenient coignes and curves The pert brown sparrows late have builded. They flit, and flirt, and prune their wings, Not awed at all by golden glitter, And make among the silent strings Their satisfied ephemeral twitter. ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... audible, and ceased. As we gave ear to the silence, we became aware that a cool stir in the darkness was growing into a breeze. After a time, the thin crowing of game-cocks in distant villages, the first twitter of birds among the highest branches, told us that night had turned to morning. A soft patter of bare feet came along the deck, a shadow stood above us, and the low voice of ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... muzzle, another with his impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are well whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these gods do when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... faith—how did it all agree with his principles? How did it agree with what he had said at Markelov's? He thrust the copybook into the table drawer and went back to bed. But he did not fall asleep until dawn, when the larks had already begun to twitter and the sky was ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... wheat-sacks and water-mill. And then I get it down.... Yes, I get it down and show it to her"—this slowly and reminiscently. "And then, my lady, I look round, and there's the poor old soul, all of a twitter!" This was accelerated, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... man climb out with camera already screwed, to the tripod. He saw the bandits throw away their cigarettes and follow the camera man, and then he hurried back and took up his station beside the stacks of gold, and waited in a twitter of excitement for this unhoped-for encore of last Wednesday's glorious performance. Through the window he watched the camera being set up, and he watched also, from under his eyeshade, the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... twitter," says I; for it made me grouchy to think I'd let a bonehead like him get ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... us barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their abuse. For my part, I hope that in this war we have merited the title of barbarians. Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them cease to talk of the cathedral of Rheims and of all the churches and all the castles in France which have shared its fate. These things do not interest us. Our troops must ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... food. Its harsh cry resembles the grunt of the hog, and forms a striking contrast to its beautiful plumage. Numberless fly-catchers and shrikes (Muscicapidae and Laniadae) hover on tree and bush, watching for the passing insects, which they snatch up with extraordinary dexterity. Finches twitter on the summits of the loftiest trees beyond the reach of the hunter's shot: they are distinguished, like the Ampelidae, who, however, live amongst the lower bushes, by the lively and almost dazzling colors of their feathers. In modest plumage of cinnamon-brown, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... riot during the day, has blown itself out by evening, and the birds have gone to sleep with heads tucked under their wings, or settled with soft breasts over nestlings that twitter soft "good nights" to mother love. The dark shadows of evening steal the daylight, and canon and ravine lose their rugged outlines, blending into soft, shadowy browns and purples. The moon peeps over the hilltop, the stars come out one by one, the day is swallowed up in night, and ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... saw the poet bearing the rose away, yet how could the fluttering little creature hope to prevail against the cruel invader? What could he do but twitter in anguish? So there are tragedies and heartaches in lives that are ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... attention. As I approached it flew on a little in front. I followed it. On seeing this, it went on and on in a wavy course, a few yards before me, alighting every now and then on a bush, and looking back to see if I was still following, all the time keeping up an incessant twitter. Though I had no idea at the time of its object, I continued following it. At length I saw a short distance ahead the huge trunk of a fallen tree. The bird appeared still more excited; and when I happened to turn ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... much heaving and grunting, because our hands were tied together, we contrived to struggle to our feet. The Selenites made way for our elephantine heavings, and seemed to twitter more volubly. As soon as we were on our feet the thick-set Selenite came and patted each of our faces with his tentacles, and walked towards the open doorway. That also was plain enough, and we followed him. We ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... pages of French history who had walked along that road centuries before, filled with the anxieties and problems of their own age. Now and then, some bird of the night would break the silence with its cry or twitter, and still I plodded on. At last, long after midnight, I reached the outskirts of Bruay, and entering the High Street, made my way to my billet, where Alberta was waiting to ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... came upon a little grassy spot quite clear of trees, and covered with the tenderest verdure, through which a narrow rill stole silently; and as I set my first foot on it, up jumped, with his beautiful variegated back all reddened by the sunbeams, a fine and full-fed woodcock, with the peculiar twitter which he utters when surprised. He had not gone ten yards, however, before my gun was at my shoulder and the trigger drawn; before I heard the crack I saw him cringe; and, as the white smoke drifted off to ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... above a whisper for fear of arousing something or somebody out of sleep, or of breaking the wonderful spell of the place. Pausing under those trees, and feasting one's eyes upon the lovely, rural scene, not a sound reaches the ear except the twitter of the birds, and perhaps the faint jingle of a cow-bell. Mrs. Pitt gave a start at the sound of John's voice, when ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... a few lines in the press of business to tell you I am well, but very lonely, with a view out over the green, in this dull, rainy weather, while the bumble-bees hum and the sparrows twitter. Grand audience tomorrow. It's vexatious that I have to buy linen, towels, table-cloths, and sheets. * * * Farewell. Hearty love, and write! Your ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... varying buds of wildest birth, Dotting the green slope gaily. On the thorn, Which arms the hedgerow, the young birds invite With merry minstrelsy, shrilly and maz'd With winding cadences: now quick, now sunk In the low twitter'd song. The evening sky Reddens the distant main; catching the sail, Which slowly lessens, and with crimson hue Varying the sea-green wave; while the young moon, Scarce visible amid the warmer tints Of western splendours, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... he is a pleasant guest, for he plays the flute with little sentiment but great perfection, and endears himself by his simplicity. To me, especially; I am so weary of finding people approach me with precaution, pick their words, flatter, and twitter; but the muttons of the good God are not at all afraid of the lion. They take him as he comes, and he does not bite—at least not hard. This makes us a party of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, at table; deftly waited on by Mary Carter, a very ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confusion of noise. Clocks began to strike, doors began to slam, dogs began to bark, cocks began to crow and hens to cluck; a breeze sprang up outside and set the branches of the trees swaying and creaking; the doves began to coo upon the roofs, the swallows to twitter under the eaves, flies came out and buzzed about the window, mice squeaked in the wainscot and ran scampering along the rafters. The fountain in the garden leapt up sixty feet into the air, and the goldfish swam among the water-lily leaves; ants left their nests and foraged about the paths, the ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... beneath my thatch, Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... smiling heavens Shall fall the gentle rain, The earth shall feel her presence And welcome her with grain; The birds shall come and twitter, And build amid the boughs, So Winter, merry Winter, While yet ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... don't look it. This is a funny world, isn't it? You can't always tell by a person's looks who he may be related to. Now that I've found out that Sooty isn't related to you and is related to Hummer, I'll never dare guess again about anybody's relatives. I always supposed Twitter the Martin to be a relative of yours, but now that I've learned that Sooty isn't, I suspect that ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... and a burst of song from a thousand joyous throats. Mockingbirds and linnets thrilled the glad air with warblings; gold finches, thrushes and bobolinks trilled their happiest tunes; and the oriole sang a lullaby to her hanging cradle that rocked in the wind. I heard the twitter of skimming swallows and the scattered covey's piping call; I heard the robin's gay whistle, the croaking of crows, the scolding of blue-jays, and the melancholy cooing of a dove. The swaying tree-tops seemed vocal with bird-song while he played, and the labyrinths of leafy shade echoed ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... The only sound now came from a robin, hunting about the turf and now and then breaking out into an impatient twitter. ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was intensely still. Not even the twitter of a snow-bird marred its silence. For a long time Wabi sat as immovable as the log upon which he had seated himself, resting and listening. Such a day as this held a peculiar and unusual fascination for him. It was as if the whole world was shut out, and that even the wild things of the forest ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... marriageable age, and more rustic and seafaring elders long past it, all in the Sunday best which they had worn to the graduation exercises at the High School, where we took them mostly up. The womenkind were in a nervous twitter of talk and laughter, and the men tolerantly gay beyond their wont, "passing the time of day" with one another, and helping the more tumultuous sex to get settled in the overcrowded open car. They courteously made room for one another, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... warm air, clear moist sky, the surprise of the shimmer of pale green, of the yellowing blossom on tree tops, the first flicker of faint shadow where all has been uniform, colourless, shadeless; the replacing of the long silence by the endless twitter and trill of birds, endless in its way as is the sea, twitter and trill on every side, depths and depths of it, of every degree of distance and faintness, a sea of bird song; and along with this the sense of infinite renovation to all the earth and to man's own ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... frog began to stir. He stretched his legs, and went down to the ditch to take his morning bath. The birds began to twitter in the wood, and the bellow of the stag echoed amongst the trees. It was on the point of dawn, and here came the Sun ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... and the birds began to twitter; day was breaking. The girl was worn out and panting, and when the sun rose in the purple sky, she stopped, for her swollen feet refused to go any further; but she saw a pond in the distance, a large pond whose stagnant water looked like blood under the reflection of this new day, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... faint, stifling scent of burning brush, indicating that land is being cleared by the forehanded, thrifty farmer for early planting. Often at such times, before a shower, may be distinctly heard the faintest twitter and "peep, peep" of young sparrows, the harsh "caw, caw" of the crow, and the song of the bobolink, poised on the swaying branch of a tall tree, the happiest bird of Spring; the dozy, drowsy hum of bees; the answering call of lusty ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... to meet her, as he knew she would soon return, bearing with her the blue flowers he loved, and then, when she saw him coming towards her,—free, yes, free!—would not all past sorrow be forgotten in the ever-present joy? So, with a twitter of gratitude to the girl who had opened his prison door, he fluttered his wings, just to try their strength, poised a while in the air, then away he flew with unerring instinct towards his dear home ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... play, And all the morning long they race Like madcaps round about the place. The robins on the fences sing A gayer song of welcoming, And seems as though they had a share In all the fun they're having there. The wrens and sparrows twitter, too, A louder and a noisier crew, As though it pleased them all to see The youngsters ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... Mr. Cowan put forth some questions about her qualifications, and at each answer, his colleagues were given to understand by a faint twitter of his eyes that Miss ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... study. Diana was there alone sitting by one of the open windows, busy with some work; not so busy but that she smelt the roses, and felt the glory of light and colour that was outside, and heard the hum of bees and the twitter of birds and the soft indistinguishable chirrup of insects, which filled the air. Diana sewed on, till another slight sound mingled with those—the tread of a foot on the gravel walk down below; then she lifted her head suddenly, and with that her hands and her work fell into her lap. It was long ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... below, Tattered by thronging mad torrents descending; Beneath them the naked rocks downward are bending, Still deeper, the wild shrubs and sparse herbage grow; But yonder the forests stand verdant in flora And birds are a'twitter in choiring chorus. ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... her to-day. She stepped rapidly through the expanse of it that girdled the forest, and hurried on through the firs to the cottage. The whole wood was alive with hum and cry. Wherever a group of other trees rose amid the firs, the loud chirp of the chaffinch was heard, or the eager twitter of some little newly-wedded birds, disputing about the position of their nest. The beetle in his black cuirass droned around the buds of the chestnut; at times a wild bee, newly wakened from its winter sleep, came humming by; even brown butterflies fluttered over the bushes, and, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... most uncommon skull. It chanced, then, on a winter's day, But warm, and bright, and calm as May, The birds, conceiving a design To forestall sweet St. Valentine, In many an orchard, copse, and grove, Assembled on affairs of love, And, with much twitter and much chatter, Began to agitate the matter. At length a bullfinch, who could boast More years and wisdom than the most, Entreated, opening wide his beak, A moment's liberty to speak; And, silence publicly enjoin'd, Deliver'd briefly ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... forming it for nobler uses, and in opening the way for poetry which should be Italian in sentiment as well as in words. At the north of Italy the influence of the trouveres was felt in like manner. Everywhere the desire for expression was manifest. The spring had come, the young birds had begun to twitter, but no full song was yet heard. Love was the main theme of the poets, but it had few accents of sincerity; the common ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to write about my house. It is a Japanese idyll; there is nothing within or without which does not please the eye, and, after the din of yadoyas, its silence, musical with the dash of waters and the twitter of birds, is truly refreshing. It is a simple but irregular two-storied pavilion, standing on a stone- faced terrace approached by a flight of stone steps. The garden is well laid out, and, as peonies, irises, and azaleas are now in blossom, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... young one sprang at their side, and followed them as far as the boundary of the country. There the first green sprouted forth, and there they took leave of the two Reindeer and the Lapland woman. "Farewell!" said all. And the first little birds began to twitter, the forest was decked with green buds, and out of it, on a beautiful horse (which Gerda knew, for it was the same that had drawn her golden coach) a young girl came riding, with a shining red cap on her head and a pair of pistols in the holsters. This was the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Fancy's two-winged doorway slow doth close. The birds begin to twitter and to sing. All nature waketh and on pointed toes Young truant Morpheus stealeth gently in. Oh, happiness of reinstalled repose, And balsam for thy cold and sweated skin! 'Twas worse than all the nightmares, blessed wight; This vigil with these ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici |
