"Birdlike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... face was a trifle pale now. Her birdlike eyes darted from one to another of the trio, quickly taking in the situation. Too concerned to make any apology for her unannounced entrance, she teetered hastily ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Miss Bell to read to them the verses she was writing. She excused herself from reciting her uncertain cadence to the French poet, whom she liked best after Francois Villon. Then she recited in her pretty, hissing, birdlike voice. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... the palm-leaf fan. She eyed her husband with an almost hardened glance, then ran a professional eye over the lines of Winona. Her head moved with quick little birdlike turnings. Her dark hair was less orderly than Winona's, and—from her kitchen work—two spots of colour burned ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Blacktail, bounding, bounding at that famous beautiful, birdlike, soaring pace, mother and young tapping the ground and sailing to land, and tap and sail again. And away went the greyhounds, low coursing, outstretched, bounding like bolts from a crossbow, curving but little and dropping only to be shot again. They were straining hard; ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lizard, its shape resembling a bird, as did tiny rudimentary wings and a long beak, while the scaly covering and the fact that it had four legs instead of two bore out the idea that it might be a lizard. Its huge birdlike beak was armed with three rows of long sharp teeth with which it was tearing at our captor. The purple amoeba was holding its assailant with a dozen of its thrown out feelers which were wrapped about the body ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... given two or three of her birdlike glances at heavy grey clouds that came floating over the mouth of the harbour. A ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Pershore, Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Evesham, Broadway, Badsey, Wallingford, and a great many villages in the Evesham district. At Moreton she sang for the local Choral Society, taking the soprano solos in the first part of Haydn's Spring, and the local paper reported that her "birdlike voice added much to the beauty of the cantata." In the second part of the concert she gave The Bird that came in Spring, by Sterndale Bennett. I was always a little nervous during this song in anticipation of the upper C towards the finale, but it never failed to come true and brilliant. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... of this splendid mansion!" Mary Rose told her joyously, although there was a trace of awe in her birdlike voice. The mansion seemed so very, very large to her. "Is janitor the same as owner, Mrs. Black? It's—it's——" she drew a deep breath as if she found it difficult to say what it was. "It's wonderful! There isn't one house in all Mifflin so big and grand, is there? It looks ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... gave his birdlike call, and eluding the hands raised to catch them the pigeons swooped down to him. Ranulph began to dance, playing his lute at the same time, and the boy followed, with the doves flying above him just out of ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... immeasurably higher, more complex, and more beautiful forms. Among the mammalians the instinct appears almost universal; but their displays are, as a rule, less admirable than those seen in birds. There are some kinds, it is true, like the squirrels and monkeys, of arboreal habits, almost birdlike in their restless energy, and in the swiftness and certitude of their motions, in which the slightest impulse can be instantly expressed in graceful or fantastic action; others, like the Chinchillidae family, have greatly developed vocal ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... desolate and strange in the soft, misty, silvery grey of the moonlight, through which the long-legged animals stalked, casting weird shadows upon the soft, sandy road, and save for one thing the passing of the little train would have been in an oppressive silence, for the spongy feet of the birdlike animals rose and fell ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Her motions when she was on her feet were birdlike, yet there was the same unsteadiness in her walk as in Cap'n Ira's. Only, at the moment, he did not see it, for his eye was ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... more or less birdlike in speech and movements; but the Douglas is preeminently so, possessing, as he does, every attribute peculiarly squirrelish enthusiastically concentrated. He is the squirrel of squirrels, flashing from branch to branch of his favorite evergreens ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... energy, and went up to where his sword stood waiting for him on the hill. MacIan was already standing heavily by his with bent head and eyes reading the ground. He had not even troubled to throw a glance round the island or the horizon. But Turnbull being of a more active and birdlike type of mind did throw a glance round the scene. The consequence of which was that he nearly ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... him here, dear. Poor, poor Carrick," and she threatened to sob. Carter slipped his arm about her comfortingly. As though returning, birdlike, to its nest, her head cradled itself against his shoulder, her arm timidly sought his neck and for one brief ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... Christmas dinner-party was a brilliant success, and after it Vera sat on the art nouveau music-stool and twittered songs, and what with her being so attractive and birdlike, and what with the Christmas feeling in the air... well, Stephen ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... me, Angelot," said Monsieur Joseph. "Excuse us for a few minutes, my dear niece,"—he bowed to Helene. "Affairs of state"—he smiled, dancing on tiptoe with his most birdlike air. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... child she must have weaned me late, for I have vague memories of her soft white breasts filled with milk. I slept in a little wickerwork cot placed near her bed, so that she could reach me if I uncovered myself in the night. She used to say I was like a bird, having something birdlike in my small dark head and the way I held it up. Certainly I remember myself as a swift little thing, always darting to and fro on tiptoe, and chirping about our ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... clear, birdlike call again, and in a moment the mother came running, stood beside the boy, and followed his eye to the robin on the poplar tree. "A brave little bird," she said. "That is the way to meet the day, with a brave heart and a bright song. Goodbye, boy." She kissed him as she spoke, giving ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... down the trail he had broken, with a pack on his back, the man heard her birdlike carol in the clear frosty air. He emptied his chest in a deep shout, and she was instantly at the window, waving him a ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... show that these tracks recall other animals besides Birds, with which they have been universally associated. And seeing, as we do, that so many of the early types prophesy future forms, it seems not improbable that they may have belonged to animals which combined with reptilian characters some birdlike features, and also some features of the earliest and lowest group of Mammalia, the Marsupials. To sum up my opinion respecting these footmarks, I believe that they were made by animals of a prophetic type, belonging to the class of Reptiles, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... can resist Guy Remington," he thought. "I'm glad there's a Lucy Atherstone over the sea." And with a smile of encouragement for Maddy, who was pale with nervous timidity, he listened while her sweet, birdlike voice trembled for a moment with fear; and then, gaining from its own sound, filled the room with melody, and made those who had wandered off to other parts of the building hasten back ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... with terra firma once more under foot, he quickly regained his composure. Strutting about with great show and braggadocio, he strove to impress his followers with the mere nothingness of so trivial a feat as flying birdlike thousands of yards above the jungle, though it was long until he had thoroughly convinced himself by the force of autosuggestion that he had enjoyed every instant of the flight and was already far advanced in the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... large and round but not the less birdlike voices, they began to weave a strange dance about him, moving their wings in time with their legs. But the dance seemed somehow to be troubled and broken, and to return upon itself in an eddy, in place ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... in wide circles, crossing unconcernedly Lone's footprints while he trotted back and forth. He hesitated once on the trail of the horse he had followed, stopped and looked at Swan inquiringly, and whined. Swan whistled the dog to him with a peculiar, birdlike ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... she lifted her voice in imitation of the call, the Colonel thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least as SHE gave it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had doubts as to the melodiousness of HIS utterance. He ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... hot globe flamed, lighting into still more dazzling cleanliness a broad flight of marble steps which led by a half turn to unknown regions above. Young people were crowding into the elevator, girls in dainty costumes predominating. They seemed wondrously flowerlike and birdlike to the plainsman, and brought back his school days at the seminary, and the time when he was at ease with young people like this. He had gone far from them now—their happy faces made ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Giv'n o'er to subtile dreams of what shall be On this our planet. I foresee a day When men shall skim the earth i' certain chairs Not drawn by horses but sped on by oil Or other matter, and shall thread the sky Birdlike. ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... beside her, and then quickly back to the young fellow. She seemed to be comparing the two attentions, of age and of youth. Perhaps she found something horrible in the process for she suddenly lost her expression of sparkling and birdlike sarcasm, and bending her arm, as if overcome with lassitude, she let her fan drop on her knees, and stared ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... sat and listened with respectful intelligence to the birdlike chatter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. (What a pretty woman! The ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... birdlike lightness and swiftness which were part of his manner, the Sicilian skipper bent forward and laid a brown ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... little flirtations with prominent men and the ambitious tyros who had been drawn to her salon had given rise to much gossip. Not by any means a beauty, her pretty face and tiptilted nose, her perennial cheerfulness, birdlike vivacity and gift of repartee had made her the center of attraction ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Brindley summoned her pupils and her musical friends. Mildred resumed the lessons with Jennings. There was no doubt about it, she had astonishingly improved during the summer. There had come—or, rather, had come back—into her voice the birdlike quality, free, joyous, spontaneous, that had not been there since her father's death and the family's downfall. She was glad that her arrangement with Donald Keith was of such a nature that she was really not bound to go on with it—if he should ever come back and remind her of what she ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... last, in the midst of a silver shining atmosphere, he felt as if something burst within his brain,—as if a strong chain were broken; and at that moment a sense of heavenly liberty, of unutterable delight, of freedom from the body, of birdlike lightness, seemed to float him into the space itself. "Whom, now upon earth, dost thou wish to see?" whispered the voice of Mejnour. "Viola and Zanoni!" answered Glyndon, in his heart; but he felt that ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Edmund Curll the bookseller—the impersonator's very stature, each time Fagin opened his lips, seemed to be changed instantaneously. Whenever he spoke, there started before us—high-shouldered, with contracted chest, with birdlike claws, eagerly anticipating hy their every movement the passionate words fiercely struggling for utterance at his lips—that most villainous old tutor of young thieves, receiver of stolen goods, and very devil incarnate: his features ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... rubbing his birdlike hands with pleasure, "the relief it is to be able to talk to some one who can understand! Of course what you say is the utter truth. And you are right that no mere chance led me to my present condition, but, on the other hand, prolonged and deliberate study. Yet chance ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... decencies of life. But Henry James has in his later books taken a new departure; he is infinitely subtle and extraordinarily delicate; but he is obscure where he used to be lucid, and his characters now talk in so allusive and birdlike a way, hop so briskly from twig to twig, that one cannot keep the connection in one's mind. He seems to be so afraid of anything that is obvious or plain-spoken, that his art conceals not art but nature. I declare that in his conversations I ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... soporific malady and was accustomed to open a case and then let it take care of itself while he slumbered audibly beneath the dais; even Ephraim Tutt, the gaunt, benignly whimsical-looking attorney, in his rusty-black frock coat and loose-hanging tie; his rotund partner, whose birdlike briskness and fat paunch inevitably brought to mind a distended robin in specs; and the degage Bonnie Doon in his cut-in-at-the-waist checked suit—he knew them all ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... with busts of celebrated Bavarians, most of whose names they read for the first time, and they finished by going from booth to booth, admiring the costumes of the Tyrolese, their gymnastic dances, their birdlike ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... most sanguine hopes, and her brilliant style, then an innovation in English singing, bewildered the pit and delighted the musical connoisseurs. The leader of the orchestra was so much absorbed in one of her beautiful cadenzas that he forgot to give the chord at its close. So much science, taste, birdlike sweetness, and brilliancy had never before been united in an English singer. So Mrs. Billington assumed undisputed sovereignty in the realm of song, for one night made her famous. The managers, who had haggled over the terms of thirteen pounds a week for her ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... we took photographs ad lib and McCutcheon had a trip with Ingold, a great aviator, in a biplane, which the Germans call a double- decker, as distinguished from the Taube or monoplane, with its birdlike wings and curved tail rudder-piece. Just as they came down, after a circular spin over the lines, a strange machine, presumably hostile, appeared far up and far away, but circled off to the south out of target reach before the balloon gunman could get the range of ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... you?" responded the old woman in the same language. "Good! I am prepared for that. Wait but a moment, caro mio, until I can heat the broth, and your hunger shall soon be satisfied." And with the birdlike briskness which characterised all her actions she moved away into the shadows, presently returning with three iron rods in her hand, which she dexterously arranged in the form of a tripod over the fire, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... past if the succession of life on the globe has been an unbroken lineal succession. Here are reptiles with bat-like wings, and others with bird-like pelves and legs adapted for bipedal locomotion. Here are birds with teeth, and other reptilian characters. In short, what with reptilian birds and birdlike reptiles, the gap between modern reptiles and birds is quite bridged over. In a similar way, various diverse mammalian forms, as the tapir, the rhinoceros, and the horse, are linked together by fossil progenitors. And, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... students," Mrs. Parr put in, "whether we wish to be or not." She spoke with such feeling that the others were moved to laughter. For some time she had been looking from Leigh to Felicity with that birdlike movement of the head, until she had made a woman's great discovery, that her friend was not indifferent to his admiration. Without going so far as to wish Felicity to marry him, she was deeply pleased that he seemed ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... She had the look of a respectable working woman, and her black-gloved hands were folded over a neat paper package. Her curious glance turned toward the lady beside her, and seemed to find satisfaction in the elegance that even the darkness could not quite conceal. She moved nearer, and with a birdlike twist of the head, leaned forward and frankly gazed in her companion's face. The other did not ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... appeared in the doorway. Her dress was torn and dishevelled, a strand of her smooth hair had fallen across her forehead, an angry red mark showed on one cheek. But she was in high spirits. Her customary quiet poise had given place to a vibrant, birdlike, vital, quivering eagerness. To the two in the centre of the room, still clasped in each other's arms, came the same thought: that never, in spite of her ruffled plumes, in spite of the cheek already beginning to swell, had this extraordinary ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... birdlike eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance of mingled cunning and humor. It might have ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... they are! How wise and humbly happy!—Ramuntcho quitted him with some haste, with a heart more bruised for having spoken to him, but wishing very sincerely that he should be happy in his improvident, birdlike, ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... of the time she was busy helping Ivan Fitzgerald dissect specimens. They had four or five species of what might loosely be called birds, and something that could easily be classed as a reptile, and a carnivorous mammal the size of a cat with birdlike claws, and a herbivore almost identical with the piglike thing in the big Darfhulva mural, and another like a gazelle with a single horn in the middle of ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... evening meal was cleared away, he took down the guitar, and sung several ballads, the old "General" accompanying him with his rich deep bass, and Alice with her clear birdlike alto; and the sweet melody of the trio's voices called forth round after round of rapturous applause from the road-agents camped upon the slope, and from the Utes who were lounging here and there among the flower-beds of the valley. But of ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, was disgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visible annoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other end of the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir ——." "Yes, Master." "Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke was ever ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Fantaisie, I am sorry to say, is beginning to be tarnished like the A-flat Ballade, by impious hands. It is not for weaklings; nor are the other Fantaisies. Why not let us hear the Bolero and Tarantella, not Chopin at his happiest, withal Chopin. Emil Sauer made a success of other brilliant birdlike music before an America public. As for the Ballades, I can no longer endure any but Op. 38 and Op. 52. Rosenthal played the beautiful D-flat Study in Les Trois nouvelles Etudes with signal ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... resembled the California species, however, in that same strange, hunted look which always struck me. To see these flying-fish this way was provocative of thought. They had been pursued by some hungry devil of a fish, and with a birdlike swiftness with which nature had marvelously endowed them they had escaped the enemy. Here I had at once the wonder and beauty and terror of the sea. These fish were not leaping with joy. I have not often seen ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... time, my dear," responded the old lady. "In the mean time, rely upon my protection." With this she stood up birdlike, and pecked affectionately at Ruth's rosy cheek. The girl was well-nigh crying, but restrained herself, and answered Rachel's "God bless ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... wrinkles lapsed into gentler lines, for some one had the audacity to touch mademoiselle's hand with a birdlike tap ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... but unhappy woman who slept near her, and, rising, walked on to Lilly's tomb. Ten years had rolled their waves over her since that little form was placed here. She looked down at the simple epitaph: "He taketh his young lambs home." The cherub face seemed to beam upon her once more, and the sweet, birdlike tones of her childish voice still lingered in the secret cells of memory. She extended her arms, as if to clasp the form borne up by the angels, and ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... gentlemen, quite unofficially," says Mr. A., its head, a tall, melancholy-looking man, with a deep, bell-like voice. Mr. B., the second member of the mission, is in direct contrast, a birdlike little man, who twitters about the room, ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... greatly touched at his kindness in coming. He looked considerably older than his age; his hair had grown thin and grey about his temples, and the sharp birdlike outline of his face and features seemed blurred and indeterminate. His creed too, and his whole manner of looking at things of faith, seemed to have undergone a similar process. The ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... of a bird; and in speech and manner Miss Amelia Pollard was the most birdlike of any human being I ever have seen. She hopped from the step to the walk, turned to us, her head on one side, playfulness in the air around her, and shook ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... then I swung into a bold trilling, more suited to my adventurous spirit, throwing back my head, extending my lips heavenward, addressing my melody to the sky. Pausing, exhausted, I expected to hear from behind me some expression of astonishment and pleasure at my birdlike song. Instead there was only a ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... gazing reflectively into the sunset, a strange, plaintive, birdlike note pierced the still evening air. His head lifted quickly, yet he did not look in the direction of the sound, which came from the woods behind the house. He did not stir, and his eyes half-closed, as though he hesitated what to do. The call was not that of a bird familiar to the Western world. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with more clouds than tempests are, When thou didst yield thy innocent breath In birdlike heavings unto death, Night came, and Nature had not thee; I said, 'We are mates in misery.' The morrow dawned with needless glow; Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow; Each tramper started; but the feet Of the most beautiful and sweet Of human ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... bluish-gray light poured but through which nothing could be clearly seen from where he stood. The Operator sat on a high, one-legged stool. His head was drawn into his shoulders, which were crumpled things of birdlike bones. His head was bald on top but the fringe was long and wild. He had big simian ears set at right angles to his head and the light shone through them, not pink but yellowish. There was an aureole of fine hairs about them which gave them the appearance of angel's wings. With enlarged hands ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... cheerily and tunelessly, glancing now and again with a keen, birdlike intelligence towards the motionless figure twenty yards away that sat with bent head broiling in the sun. His task seemed a hopeless one, but he tackled it as if he enjoyed it. His brown hands worked ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... so brown! For household toil hath worn away its rosy-tinted snow; But I fold it, wife, the nearer, And I feel, my love, 'tis dearer Than all dear things of earth, As I watch the pensive gloaming, And my wild thoughts cease from roaming, And birdlike furl their pinions close beside our peaceful hearth; Then rest your little hand in mine, while twilight shimmers down, That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny brown— The hand that holds an honest heart, and ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... bent forward to kiss her guest on both cheeks. Her lips were soft and cool as flower petals, though the day was hot, and the scent of lilies swept over Sanda in a fragrant wave. As she kissed the stranger, Ourieda made little birdlike sucking sounds, in the fashion of Arab women when they would show honour to a favoured friend. First she kissed Sanda's right cheek, the right side of the body being nobler because the White Angel walks ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Jane thinks, though it's a bit too quiet for her taste, it'll do her a fair old treat when she trims it up with a bit more colour and one or two 'imitation ostridge' tips.... I'd give another hundred francs for the Maison Cluny modiste to hear." Again the birdlike laugh rang out. "Now you know everything there is in the letter, girls, except the bit of poetry at the end, which only my most intimate friends may be permitted to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... at their head, And his love the legions know: For he gives them rest where the twigs are red At the hedges cool in a row: And afoot are they soon to a birdlike tune On the ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... with gentleness, and then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, he drew her to him until she rested against his shoulder. And she remained there, trembling, in suspense, glancing at him quickly, in birdlike, pleading glances, as though praying him to be kind. He took no notice after that, so the act seemed less like a caress than a matter of course. He began to talk, half-humorously, and little by little, as ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the dark pure twilight, where the stream Flows glimmering, streaked by many a birdlike bark That skims the gloom whence towers and bridges gleam Out ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... submarines, Around the world and back again. But every marvel only means Some greater triumph of the brain. For while the thund'ring hammers ring; And super-dreadnoughts swarm the sea; There flits above, a birdlike thing, That claims an aerial sovereignty! A thing of canvas, stick and wheel "The two-man fighting aeroplane." It screams above those hulks of steel: "Oh! human ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... to the dark place. Teaching a public school for eight years had developed a substratum of granite determination in her character. She would never quit. She was still to the outer eye the slight, brown Winona of twenty—perky, birdlike, with the quick trimness of a winging swallow, a little sharper featured perhaps, but superior in acuteness of desire and persistence, and with some furtive, irresponsible girlishness lurking timorously back ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Mrs. Cadge's shrewd, birdlike eyes were half closed in mental computation; ten dollars for the wall and one dollar discount on the grocery bill, that would ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... the hands of a governess, Mlle. Moreau, from Paris, and after his death she had passed into the charge of Marfa Timofeevna. The reader is acquainted with Marfa Timofeevna; but Mlle. Moreau was a tiny, wrinkled creature, with birdlike ways and a tiny, birdlike mind. In her youth she had led a very dissipated life, and in her riper years she had but two passions left—for dainties and for cards. When she was gorged, was not playing cards, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... my hearth where he was I listen For the shade of the sound of a word, Athirst for the birdlike eyes to glisten, For the tongue ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... clematis, conferring upon the garden hemmed in by the roaring traffic the air of a princess's bower, beautiful as any flower sung by poet—thus Ravenel saw her for the first time. She lingered for a while, and then disappeared within, leaving a few notes of a birdlike ripple of song to reach his entranced ears through the rattle of cabs and the snarling ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... her head with a saucy, birdlike motion, and showed him the full gleaming line of her teeth. He took a large mouthful of ice-water to wash down the red of confusion that suddenly swam high in his face, tingeing even ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... the house. But its booming reached my ears from away upon a remote spur of the hills. I became aware of a growing uneasiness in the company of my chance host, who sat by the oddly littered table, watching me with those birdlike eyes. ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... nodded, birdlike. "He's home now. I think he's sleeping. He usually doesn't wake ...
— Hex • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... the evening, and the most important class of big, exquisitely lovely ones only at night. This explains why so many people never have seen them, and it is a great pity, for the nocturnal, non-feeding moths are birdlike in size, flower-like in rare and complicated colouring, ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... work in a better fashion. With his eyes fixed on her continually, he praised, in a monotonous fashion, her birdlike profile, her dull fair hair, and her hands, which were unusually short. The plain-looking young girl was delighted at this ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... the village he picked up a friend and put her in the carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us. Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... had felt rather than seen the figure which had slowly wedged through the crowd at one side and now stood beside him. He knew that it was Olga Tcherny, but he had not dared to look at her, though he was quite sure that her head was perched on one side in the birdlike pose she found effective, and that her eyes, mocking and mischievous, were searching him intently. But he went on extravagantly, searching his wits ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... notified his intention of qualifying forthwith for his next step towards the ministry. In the choir, his voice rang out with an almost birdlike rapture that ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... babble of faces he heard his name called. A rouged young flapper, high heeled, short skirted and a jaunty green hat. One of the impudent little swaggering boulevard promenaders who talk like simpletons and dance like Salomes, who laugh like parrots and ogle like Pierettes. The birdlike strut of her silkened legs, the brazen lure of her stenciled child face, the lithe grimace of her adolescent body under the stiff coloring of her clothes were a part of the blur in ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... on the grounds there issued strange birdlike air-craft of different designs—in fact only a few of the machines were practicable at all. The others were destined for the scrap-heap. Their owners, however, all fairly beamed with pride, as their various masterpieces were ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... true of his models it is no less true of his methods. Though simplicity and spontaneity are among the most obvious of the qualities of his work, it is not to be supposed that such effects were obtained by a birdlike improvisation. "All my poetry," he said, "is the effect of easy composition but laborious correction," and the careful critic will perceive ample evidence in support of the statement. We shall see in the next chapter with what pains ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Standish had made in selecting him, when compared with the intoxicating thrill she could easily have aroused by choosing one of the young engineers as a companion in her evening adventure. He chuckled. And Mary Standish, hearing the smothered note of amusement, gave to her head that swift little birdlike tilt which he had observed once before, in the presence of Captain Rifle. But she said nothing. As if challenged, she calmly took ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... o'clock when the ringing of the door bell told me that the Lesters had come. Dicky welcomed them and introduced me to them. Mrs. Lester was a pretty creature, birdlike, in her small daintiness, and a certain chirpy brightness. I judged that her mentality equalled the calibre of a sparrow, but I admitted also that the fact did not detract from her attractiveness. She was the sort of woman to be ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... mystery. After this camp had been located and more gasoline taken aboard the boys were to head their craft toward the Tunit Chas mountains. What would follow they could not foresee. With good luck they might be able to hover birdlike over the peaks, canyons and plateaus for five days. With bad luck they might have to come down sooner or fall. Then, if the Cibola failed them, they would have to find their way to the treasure temple and the ruined palace ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... to do were synonymous with Mrs. Corfield: her motto was velle est agere; and a resolve once taken was like iron at white heat, struck into the shape of deed on the instant. Darting up from her chair, birdlike and angular, she put away her work. "Order the trap," she said briskly, "and come with me. We will go at once, before that poor creature has had time to do anything, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... character of the animal and vegetable kingdoms was higher than during the previous age. Reptiles, many and various, gigantic in size, curious in form, some of them recalling the structure of fishes, others anticipating birdlike features, gave a new character to the animal world, while in the vegetable world the reign of the aquatic Cryptogams was over, and terrestrial Cryptogams, and, later, Gymnosperms and Monocotyledonous trees, clothed the earth with foliage. Such was the character of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... girl with eyes of heavenly blue, Sings through the old place, ignorant of all; Her angel face, her cheerful, birdlike call Thrilling the heart to ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... advancement or pleasure, he was entirely mistaken, for not only were we anything but friendly to Ilinka, but it was seldom that we noticed him at all except to laugh at him. He was a boy of thirteen, tall and thin, with a pale, birdlike face, and a quiet, good-tempered expression. Though poorly dressed, he always had his head so thickly pomaded that we used to declare that on warm days it melted and ran down his neck. When I think of him now, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... rolled out toward the bar-room, to discuss with his cronies who we might be. From the window we perceived the birdlike George fly and alight near the specified wood, which he proceeded to bechowder. He brought in the result of his handiwork, as smiling as a basket of chips. Neat-handed Phillis at the door received the chowder, and by its aid excited a sound and a smell, both prophetic of supper. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... voice in imitation of the call the Colonel thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least as she gave it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had doubts as to the melodiousness of his utterance. He gravely made her ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... curate casually, the second time more sharply, the third time with scrutiny. He knew how to make a crescendo. The curate noticed it, as of course the professor intended. He did not know who Stepton was, but he began to wonder about this birdlike, sharp-looking man, who evidently took an interest in him. And presently his wonder changed into suspicion. This again ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... occurred, both in performances and even in the actual ability to rise from the ground, were due to defects in design or merely faults in the primitive engines available. The Antoinette aroused admiration chiefly through its graceful, birdlike lines, which have probably never been equalled; but its chief interest for our present purpose lies in the novel method of wing-staying which was employed. Contemporary monoplanes practically all had their wings stayed by wires to a post in the centre above the fuselage, and, usually, to the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... and Rose. Rodney was getting stout now, he was full of platitudes, heavy and a little tiresome. Rose was still birdlike, still sure that what she had and did and said and desired were the sum of earthly good. A smile twitched Martie's sober mouth as she ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... first time her eyes left the sky, and as she looked down, the consciousness of her situation entered into her strained bright eyes. Her composure was lost in a birdlike, palpitating movement ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... was brought in. He saw her clearly for the first time. A thin, wizened little face, framed in curly red hair, with bright, birdlike eyes. Her thin, flat child's figure was outlined in a tight, black satin dress, with a red collar and sash. Her quick glance darted to him, and she smiled. The policeman made his charge. The judge glanced ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... visitors. One bright day a Boche aeroplane made a reconnaissance of our lines. It was a beautiful thing, white and birdlike. But as its occupants were probably taking photographs of our most secret fastnesses, artistic appreciation was dimmed by righteous wrath—wrath which turned to profound gratification when a philistine ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... John Vansittart Smith could hardly claim for him that he was a handsome man. His high-beaked nose and prominent chin had something of the same acute and incisive character which distinguished his intellect. He held his head in a birdlike fashion, and birdlike, too, was the pecking motion with which, in conversation, he threw out his objections and retorts. As he stood, with the high collar of his greatcoat raised to his ears, he might have seen from the reflection ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... birdlike freedom of my existence had the effect of exciting me more and more. I was often frightened at the excessive outbursts of exaltation to which I was prone—no matter whom I was with—and which led me to indulge in the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Jowett was frequently at Torquay, having a sister who lived there, and he was specially asked to luncheon at Chelston Cross to inspect me and see how I should pass muster as one of his own disciples. His blinking eyes, the fresh pink of his cheeks, his snow-white hair, and the birdlike treble of his voice, have been often enough described, and I will only say of them here that, when he took me for a walk in the garden, I subconsciously felt them—I cannot tell why—to be formidable. He inquired as to my tastes and interests with a species of curt ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... there is a want of character; perhaps, indeed, I wrong the real nature of these two lovers by not painting more impressively their stronger individualities. But in dwelling so much on their bright and birdlike existence, I am influenced almost insensibly by the forethought of the changes that await them, and for which they were so ill prepared. It was this very softness and gaiety of life that contrasted most strongly ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... were kept at bay for fifteen minutes by its long beak which is a really formidable weapon. As food the cranes were perfectly delicious when stuffed with chestnut dressing and roasted. Each one provided two meals for three of us with enough left over for hash and our appetites were by no means birdlike. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... out his one hand, he inclosed her two clasped ones within it, as the little voice ran over an utterly unintelligible form of childishly clipped Latin, sounding, however, sweet and birdlike from the very liberties the little memory had taken in twisting its mellifluous words into a rhythm of her own. And there was catchword enough for Richard to recognize and follow it, with ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... near sixteen years of age, in poor but clean garments, and holding a mandoline in her hand with which she was playing an accompaniment to the words she was singing. The manager stood listening to it attentively, and as the rich, clear tones of the girl dwelt on the lower notes, or rose with a birdlike gush to the higher ones, he could scarce restrain some display of his delight. Such, however, it was not his policy to exhibit, and when at the close of the song, she timidly approached him, and, lifting her mandoline and large, sad eyes at the same ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... pilot, our argonaut seeks no improvement upon his aerial raft. Like the bow and arrow, it long ago reached perfection, and, though he may cherish some choice and secret recipe for varnish or be the inventor of an improved valve, he generally builds with a birdlike reliance on instinct and tradition. Gas-bag, netting, concentrating-ring, basket, valve, anchor, drag-rope and exploding cord,—what has the century of ballooning added to its essentials? how can coming centuries ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... one of those subtly concave faces not without a fascination of their own, with an egg-like curve of prominent delicately-square chin. Her mouth, too large, opened very beautifully when she laughed over square thickly-white teeth. Her eyes were small and of no particular colour, though bright with a birdlike shining between the thick short lashes of a neutral brown. She had a something boyish in poise and action that really made her charm, but that also set her hopelessly out of her time. It was impossible to imagine Hilaria happy in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... where a beautiful brook rushed and foamed. Here at last Jean tasted water that rivaled his Oregon springs. "Ah," he cried, "that sure is good!" Dark and shaded and ferny and mossy was this streamway; and everywhere were tracks of game, from the giant spread of a grizzly bear to the tiny, birdlike imprints of a squirrel. Jean heard familiar sounds of deer crackling the dead twigs; and the chatter of squirrels was incessant. This fragrant, cool retreat under the Rim brought back to him the dim recesses of Oregon forests. After all, Jean felt ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... white helmet such as women wear, white suede shoes, white silk stockings, and a lot of lacy, garden-party things that showed frills when she flew, birdlike, onto the cushioned saddle. "That's the way to do it!" I heard her cry, exultantly—and what happened next I can't say, for the white camel knocked me over as it bounded up, jerking its nose rope from the ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the old man answered. His head leaned forward with a birdlike intentness; he listened with one hand held out as if to still any sound in the room. They heard footsteps from the floor above, a laugh and voices. 'Now Margot talks to ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... his two mules, strong, patient animals, and then he whistled on his own account the gayest and most extraordinary variation that Will had ever heard, a medley of airs, clear, pure and birdlike, that would have made the feet of any young man dance to the music. It expressed cheerfulness, hope and the sheer joy ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... kissings and handshakings. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mason were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. They, it seemed, had been married in the early winter, just as Knight and Annesley had been. And to add to the strangeness of the coincidence, which drew birdlike exclamations from Jean Waldo, George and Kitty were starting for Kansas City that afternoon. They were going by the same train in which the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... at the transplastic desk, an upset little man with permanent worry wrinkles stamped in his forehead. The little man shoved the papers on the desk around angrily, occasionally making crabbed little notes on the margins. He flashed a birdlike glance ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... eyes. He could not go on eating. Fedosya Semyonovna, who had not after twenty-five years grown used to her husband's difficult character, shrank into herself and muttered something in self-defence. An expression of amazement and dull terror came into her wasted and birdlike face, which at all times looked dull and scared. The little boys and the elder daughter Varvara, a girl in her teens, with a pale ugly face, laid down their spoons and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a beautiful morning and life sang in the blood of Ramona. It seemed to her companion that the warm sun caressed the little curls at her temples as she moved down the street light as a deer. Little jets of laughter bubbled from her round, birdlike throat. In her freshly starched white dress, with its broad waistband of red and purple ribbon, the girl was sweet and lovely and full ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... "Nothing." With a birdlike movement, again Colibri drew back her little oval-shaped head with its pretty parting and the short growth of tiny curls on the nape of her neck where her plaits began, and again curled herself up into a ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... loved wave—my mortal speech put by For birdlike song—I track'd with constant feet, Still asking mercy with a stranger cry; But ne'er in tones so tender, nor so sweet, Knew I my amorous sorrow to repeat, As might her hard and cruel bosom melt: Judge, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... thought it was a boy, for it wore a pair of blue denim overalls and a wide-brimmed straw hat, from beneath which the birdlike notes were still emitted, but as the figure paused at the sight of him, the song suddenly ceased—he saw a tumbled mass of tawny hair and a pair of startled blue eyes ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... observation invariably outside of the subject of discussion. Embarrassed and worried, he would cast us an imploring glance, and strive to resume the interrupted conversation. Then at last, wearied out by her familiar and constant contradiction, by the silliness of her birdlike brain, inflated and empty as any cracknel, he held his tongue, and silently resigned himself to let her go on to the bitter end. But this determined silence exasperated Madame, seemed to her more ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... on his obsequiousness towards women. Valentine, mollified by the compliment, soon recovered her birdlike gayety, and such free and easy conversation ensued between the trio that Mathieu felt both stupefied and embarrassed. In fact, he would have gone off at once had it not been for his desire to obtain from his landlord a promise to repair ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... Gretchen over her new snow-dance. The days passed on, and the morning before Christmas Eve came. Gretchen having tidied up the little room—for Granny had taught her to be a careful little housewife—was off to the forest, singing a birdlike song, almost as happy and free as the birds themselves. She was very busy that day, preparing a surprise for Granny. First, however, she gathered the most beautiful of the fir branches within her reach ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... her greetings to all of you. Oh, signori and signorine, what an exquisite town this Venice is! Imagine a town consisting of houses and churches such as you have never seen; an intoxicating architecture, everything as graceful and light as the birdlike gondola. Such houses and churches can only be built by people possessed of immense artistic and musical taste and endowed with a lion-like temperament. Now imagine in the streets and alleys, instead of pavement, water; imagine that there ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... touch and unerring precision, for impetuosity of style, combined with dreamy delicacy, he has few rivals. The evenness and brilliancy of his trill are unequalled, the mechanical process required to produce it being lost to sight in the wonderful birdlike nature of the effect. In the playing of classical music, Mr. Gottschalk has to contend against his own individuality. This individuality, naturally intense and of a kind calculated to meet with public favor, has been cultivated and indulged in to such an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... original Arabic, the expression is "birdlike (or hieroglyphic) characters writ with ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... forgone! I see across the Alpine ridge How the last feast-day of Saint John Shot rockets from Carraia bridge. The luminous city, tall with fire, Trod deep down in that river of ours, While many a boat with lamp and choir Skimmed birdlike over glittering towers. I will ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... was greatly excited, and kept running backwards and forwards in the house, so that Vassily Ivanovitch compared her to a 'hen partridge'; the short tail of her abbreviated jacket did, in fact, give her something of a birdlike appearance. He himself merely growled and gnawed the amber mouthpiece of his pipe, or, clutching his neck with his fingers, turned his head round, as though he were trying whether it were properly screwed on, then all at once ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Prince danced with her," laughed Sophia. Her good spirits were rising, in spite of herself, under the influence of the liveliness with which Miss Bennett's mind had darted, birdlike, into its own element. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall |
