"Twig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a girl named Toody. She was not very big, as you can believe when I tell you that all the shrubs in the garden were taller than she, and all the flowers nodded over her head. In this same house lived Toody's cousins, Kitty, and Crocus, and Twig, and Tiny—only Tiny was a little dog, not a little boy. And here, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... pathway, Flecked with leafy light and shadow. And his heart within him fluttered, Trembled like the leaves above him, Like the birch-leaf palpitated, As the deer came down the pathway. Then, upon one knee uprising, Hiawatha aimed an arrow; Scarce a twig moved with his motion, Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled, But the wary roebuck started, Stamped with all his hoofs together, Listened with one foot uplifted, Leaped as if to meet the arrow; Ah! the singing, fatal arrow, Like a wasp it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of your second-rate, ultra dandies. Twig his vasty whiskers, will you! Takes his fellow hours to curl 'em. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... over the road; the horses dug their hoofs firmly into the frozen ruts. Suddenly a burst of sunlight enveloped the land, and the land responded with an instant, intolerable brilliancy, a blinding sheet of white radiance. Every limb, every individual twig and blade of grass, was covered with a sparkling, transparent mail; every mound of brown earth scintillated in a crisp surface of ice like chocolate confections glazed in clear sugar. The clouds dissolved; the trees, encased in crystal ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the sky at night, wandering past the moon all flecked with pale gold?—that is Teresa. She is, small and slight as a child; she has rippling curls, and soft praying eyes, and tiny, weak, white hands, not strong enough to snap a twig in two. Yet she can do anything with Carmelo—she is the one soft ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... their accounts as to the position in which they had found the body. It was seated nearly upright, the back supported by a mass of matted brush, and one hand still grasping a broken twig of the alders. It was most probably owing to the former circumstance that the body had escaped the rapacity of the carrion birds, which had been seen hovering above the thicket, and the latter proved that ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... several hundred feet in diameter, and full a hundred and thirty feet high. It had no appearance of a tree, for neither trunk nor branches were visible. It seemed a mountain of whitish-green scales, fringed with long silvery moss, that hung like innumerable beards from every bough and twig. Nothing could better convey the idea of immense and incalculable age than the hoary beard and venerable appearance of this monarch of the woods. Spanish moss of a silvery grey covered the whole mass of wood and foliage, from the topmost bough down to the very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... been an ice storm the night before, following on a day of snowfall, and the mountain world stood dazzling in its whiteness with every twig and branch glaced and resplendent under ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... or the wood, in the garden or by the rustic wayside. We have seen him, on still winter-days, flitting from tree to tree, with the liveliest motions and in the most engaging attitudes, examining every twig and branch, and winding over and under and in and out among them, and, after a few lively notes, hopping to another tree to pass through the same manoeuvres. Even those who are confined to the house are not excluded from a sight of these birds; one cannot open a window, on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Richard Hedges from Chicago—stepped out, and they both stepped in front of the minister, who was from Jacksonville, wearin' a black robe with white sash around his neck; and the orchestra stopped playin'. But just then we heard a twig or somethin' snap and we looked around quick and there was Doc Lyon who read the Bible all the time and acted queer. My pa thought he was crazy. And he began to say: "She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians, her neighbors, which were clothed ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... from a chicken), and thrown on to a pile of hot wood-ashes with no further preparation, and are greedily devoured red and bloody, and but barely warm. A lizard or iguana calls for a further exercise of culinary knowledge. First, a crooked twig is forced down the throat and the inside pulled out, which dainty is thrown to any dog or child that happens to be near; the reptile is then placed on hot coals until distended to the utmost limit that the skin ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... A twig snapped behind me, and there was a rustle. I turned, and stood facing the dark trees. I could see nothing—or else I could see too much. Every dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar suggestion of alert watchfulness. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... sharp frost overnight. Every branch and twig, every blade of grass, every crinkle in the road was edged with a white fur of rime. It crackled under his feet. He drank down the cold, clean air like water. His whole body felt cold and clean. He was aware of its strength ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... the use!" Val kicked at a long twig. A warm wind brought in its hold the heavy scent of flowering bushes and trees. His shirt clung to his shoulders damply. It was hot even in the shade of the oaks. Rupert had gone to town to see LeFleur and hear the worst, so that Pirate's Haven, save for themselves ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... they made believe the doctor had arrived in his automobile, and he left some medicine for Rose's sick doll, which the trained nurse, who was Margy's doll, had to give with a spoon. The spoon was just a little willow twig, of course. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope
... the hardy heart went on the battle-way; 750 Priest was he of Marruvian folk; about his helm was bent The happy olive, leaf and twig: him King Archippus sent: Wont was he with his hand and voice the bitter viper-kind And water-worms of evil breath in bonds of sleep to bind; And he would soothe the wrath of them, and dull their bite by craft, Yet nothing might he heal ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... the air seemed full of gayly colored butterflies. On the edge of the fountain sat a golden-green lizard in the sun. Over on the hedge a great variety of wonderful insects swarmed on every leaf and twig! What a harvest he could gather! He ran about in every direction; he was beside himself with delight; discovering every moment something new and unexpected. Nor was this in the garden only. Down by the river, under the old trees, in the thick hedges, in the damp earth by the water-side, between ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... at my watch; it was six o'clock, and thus wanted two hours to daybreak. Hurriedly I left the inn and went out again. A rimy frost had come upon every twig and bush and tree, and in the light of the moon the ice crystals sparkled as though the spirits had scattered myriads of precious stones everywhere. But I thought not of this. I made my way toward the spot from which I thought I had heard the sound come, and then ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... his soul was enriched with spiritual knowledge, he saw the whole world forming one vast symmetrical expression of God's power and love. Life became a divine gift for every moment and sensation of which, were it even the sight of a single leaf hanging on the twig of a tree, his soul should praise and thank the Giver. The world for all its solid substance and complexity no longer existed for his soul save as a theorem of divine power and love and universality. So entire and unquestionable ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... statesman, and constitutes his political skill; or all that which precedes with a theologian, and constitutes his erudition; in like manner all that which proceeds from infancy, and constitutes a man; also what proceeds in order from a seed and a twig, and makes a tree, and afterwards what proceeds from a blossom, and makes its fruit; in like manner all that which precedes and proceeds with a bridegroom and bride, and constitutes their marriage: this is the meaning of influx. That all ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm tree Was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... couldn't even find a broken twig in any of the little clumps of outgrowing trees. There wasn't a sign of the sand having been disturbed anywhere down the face of the cliff, and I shouldn't think a human being had been on that beach during our lifetimes. I have had my ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are apt to prostrate the saplings growing around them. Jackson was a very tall oak, and I a very humble sapling. When the great trunk fell, the mere twig disappeared. I had served with Jackson from the beginning of the war; that king of battle dead at Chancellorsville, I had found myself without a commander, and without a home. I was not only called upon in that May of 1863, to ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... twig! Came on in the same train. Both planned it together. You cut across the border, and are made one. Why, it's ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... thunderer, With all his might, slew The dwellers in Alfheim With that little willow-twig, And no shield Was able to resist The ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... near the dawn of day. Her husband, much annoyed by this practice, roughly asked what was the object which so constantly allured her from her bed, and was told that it was the sweet voice of the Nightingale. Having heard this he set all his servants to work, spread on every twig of his hazels and chesnut trees a quantity of bird-lime, and set throughout the orchard so many traps and springs, that the nightingale was shortly caught. Immediately running to his wife, and twisting the bird's neck, he tossed it into her bosom so hastily that she was sprinkled ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the gnarly branches perch the Harpies, whose uncouth lamentations echo through the air, and who greedily devour every leaf that sprouts. Appalled by the sighs and wailings around him, Dante questions Virgil, who directs him to break off a twig. No sooner has he done so than he sees blood trickle from the break and hears a voice reproach him for his cruelty. Thus Dante learns that the inmate of this tree was once private secretary to Frederick II, and that, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Madame de Stael, who, at toilet in the hands of her maid, twirled a green twig in her fingers while she talked. Suddenly Madame Recamier entered, clothed in white. She sits down on a blue-silk sofa. Madame de Stael, standing, continues her eloquent conversation. I scarcely reply, my eyes riveted on Madame Recamier. I had never seen any one equal to her, and was more than ever ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the mouth foamed, and the tongue hung out, while it still moved on as if drawn by an unseen cord. I followed, going very close to it, but it took no notice of me. Sometimes it dug its claws into the ground or seized a twig or stalk with its teeth, and it would then remain resting for a few moments till the twig gave away, when it would roll over many times on the ground, loudly yelping, but still dragged onwards. Presently I saw in the direction ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... the river, studded with brass nails, was securely bolted, but not a cannon {158} had been loaded. The bushrangers then cast aside all clothing that would hamper, and, pistol in hand, advanced silent and stealthy as wild-cats. Not a twig crunched beneath the moccasin tread. The water lay like glass, and the fort slept silent as death. Hastily each raider had knelt for the blessing of the priest. Pistols had been recharged. Iberville bade his wild Indians not to forget that ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... taken the place of the buckskin in the West,—a riding habit, with stout little shoes and leather puttees; her hair was drawn tight upon her head and encased in the shielding confines of a cap, worn low over her forehead, the visor pulled aside by a jutting twig and now slanting out at a rakish angle; her arms full of something pink and soft and pretty. Barry wondered what it could be,—then brightened with ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the stars don't move?" he asked himself, gazing at the bright planet which had shifted its position up to the topmost twig of the birch-tree. "But looking at the movements of the stars, I can't picture to myself the rotation of the earth, and I'm right in ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and she began to feel strange pangs. She drew her cloak more closely round her, and saw that the stars already stood in the sky. But still Joseph came not. And from the hill the singer: "And from the root of Jesse a twig shall spring." And a second voice: "And all nations shall rise up and sing her praises." So did the shepherds sing the songs of their ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... Hazel felt her pulses quickening. There was more in this than mere banter; it was too connected and full of purpose for insanity. What was it? what dread was softly creeping towards her; and she could hear only a breaking twig or a rushing leaf? She must be ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... briefly; but the fire-warden cut in ahead, cantering forward up the trail, nonchalantly breaking off a twig of aromatic black birch, as she rode, to ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... widower must pay Rs. 10, or double the usual price, for a second wife, owing to the risk of her death being caused by the machinations of the first wife's spirit. When a corpse has been buried or burnt the mourners each take a twig of mango and beat about in the grass to start a grasshopper. Having captured one they wrap it in a piece of new cloth, and coming home place it beside the family god. This they call bringing back the life of the soul, and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... scowled at his rival. A fierce rage and jealousy took possession of him. He would kill this bird or die in the fight. The other cock robin was as eager for the fray as he was; so these two little birds were soon fighting savagely for the lady of their choice. She watched the duel from a twig close by. She had made up her mind to marry the winner, and it did not seem to matter much which that was. Both were handsome; and the victor would prove himself the stronger. The birds were very equally ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... the green twilight of the woods a gentle wind was blowing, laden with the scent of earth and hidden flowers. Dewdrops twinkled in the grass and hung glistening from every leaf and twig, and beyond all was the sheen of ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... it, or peeled in prime twig—Stripped to the skin in good order. The expressions are well known, and frequently in use, among the sporting characters and lovers ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... on the harp; she plays on the piano. Did you twig her hair?" Maurice whispered back; ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... unsoundness in social justice which makes distinctions so marked and iniquitous between Vice and Crime—viz., between the corrupting habits and the violent act—which scarce touches the former with the lightest twig in the fasces—which lifts against the latter the edge of the Lictor's axe. Let a child steal an apple in sport, let a starveling steal a roll in despair, and Law conducts them to the Prison, for evil commune to mellow them for ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The rose in the east deepened; a wisp of cloud turned gold; dim distant mountains showed dark against the red; and low down in a notch a rim of fire appeared. Over the soft ridges and valleys crept a wondrous transfiguration. It was as if every blade of grass, every leaf of sage, every twig of cedar, the flowers, the trees, the rocks came to life at sight of the sun. The red disk rose, and a golden fire burned over the glowing face of ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... that paw in the dirt," he said, and ran to his pack. He fished out the first-aid kit and got some absorbent cotton and a disinfectant. He wrapped a tiny bit of cotton around the end of a twig, wet it with water from the canteen and swabbed out the little wound. Then he soaked another bit of cotton with the disinfectant and ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... does not produce the series of movements all by itself, but, as was explained in speaking of tendencies in general, cooeperates with sensory stimuli in producing them. Clearly enough, the nest-building bird, {111} picking up a twig, is reacting to that twig. He does not peck at random, as if driven by a mere blind impulsion to peck. He reacts to twigs, to the crotch in the tree, to the half-built nest. Only, he would not react to these ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... I found them still slumbering, so I again lay down to think over our situation. Just at that moment I was attracted by the sight of a very small parrot, which Jack afterwards told me was called a paroquet. It was seated on a twig that overhung Peterkin's head, and I was speedily lost in admiration of its bright green plumage, which was mingled with other gay colours. While I looked I observed that the bird turned its head slowly from side to side and looked downwards, first with the one eye and then with the other. On glancing ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... land-surveyor planted there for one of his points of sight. John was reminded of it years after when he sat under the shade of the decrepit lime-tree in Freiburg and was told that it was originally a twig which the breathless and bloody messenger carried in his hand when he dropped exhausted in the square with the word "Victory!" on his lips, announcing thus the result of the glorious battle of Morat, where the Swiss ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... lovely it was! Poppy, child as she was, gasped at the sight before her. Road and river, houses and moor, lay bathed in the clear glow of the beautiful pure morning sunshine. Every leaf and twig sparkled with dew; even the little window-panes in the cottages glittered and looked beautiful. On the moor opposite great cloud-like masses of mist rolled away quickly before the advancing sun, leaving the old brown ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Thornton Chase was perfect in its artificiality. It sloped down towards Richmond Park in a series of stately terraces with box-hedge borders trimmed so evenly that not a twig or leaf offended against the canons of symmetry. They were groomed like a racehorse. Centred in a square of barbered lawn was a fountain where Neptune drove his chariot of sea-horses. The Apollo Belvedere, the Capitoline Venus, Minerva, and Flora had their ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... mother-country. The reason may be (though I should prefer a more generous explanation) that he recognizes the tendency of these hardened forms to stiffen her joints and fetter her ankles, in the race and rivalry of improvement. I hated to see so much as a twig of ivy wrenched away from an old wall in England. Yet change is at work, even in such a village as Whitnash. At a subsequent visit, looking more critically at the irregular circle of dwellings that surround the yew-tree and confront the church, I perceived that some ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thoughtful eyes fell as he looked straight before him out of the library window, was all garlanded with the reasonings and questionings of this painful spring. To Frank's eyes, Gerald's attention was fixed upon the fluttering of a certain twig at the extremity of one of those broad solemn immovable branches. Gerald, however, saw not the twig, but one of his hardest difficulties which was twined and twined in the most inextricable way round that little sombre cluster of spikes; ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... memories. In that warm still hour, when she was filling the Peter-bird's mind and soul with heavenly learning, how much she learned herself! Love poured from her, through voice and lips and eyes, and in return she drank it in thirstily from the little creature who sat there at her knee, a twig growing just as her bending hand inclined it; all the buds of his nature opening out in the mother-sunshine that surrounded him. Eleven thirty came all too soon. Then before long the kettle would begin to sing, the potatoes to bubble in the saucepan, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... many children who have the same habit of questions and sharp retorts. One of my pets, after plying her mother with about forty questions, wound up with, "Mother, how does the devil's darning needle sleep? Does he lie down on a twig or hang, or how?" "I don't know, dear." "Why, mother, it is surprising when you have lived so many years, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... foot, was taken into the woods in a wheel chair yesterday afternoon and left by himself under a great pine tree at least a hundred feet high. In the topmost branches of this tree a mother robin became tangled up in a string which was caught in a twig, and she hung there by one foot, unable to free herself, fluttering herself to death. At this time two girls came through the path in the woods, took in the situation, and quick as thought one of them climbed the tree, swung ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... was kneeling beside a tiny fire, toasting bread on the end of a beech twig. He held the twig in one hand and an open book in the other. He looked up without changing his position when the tramp came charging down ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... loses courage, well and good, I shall live alone and faithful." The thought came from the very depths of the woman, for her it was the too slender willow twig caught in vain by a swimmer swept out ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... pause. The King had inadvertently cracked a twig on one of the pine-boughs he was holding back in an endeavour to see the speakers. But he now boldly pushed on, beckoning De Launay to follow close, and in another minute had emerged on a small sandy plateau, which led, by means of an ascending ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... instructed me just how to approach the swarm and cover them with a new hive; but I had never contemplated the possibility of the swarm being, like Haman's gallows, forty cubits high. I looked despairingly upon the smooth-bark tree, which rose, like a column, full twenty feet, without branch or twig. "What is to be done?" said I, appealing to two or three neighbors. At last, at the recommendation of one of them, a ladder was raised against the tree, and, equipped with a shirt outside of my clothes, a green veil over my head, and ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... slowly ascending the winding steps of the Table. Reaching the flat top at last, it halted and the Doctor stepped out upon the flowery carpet. So still and perfect was the silence that even at that distance above I distinctly heard a twig ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... that he will have mercy, and not sacrifice. And again, that it is not, nor shall be, in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that sheweth mercy. What hope, help, stay, or relief then is there left for the merit-monger? What twig, or straw, or twined thread is left to be a stay for his soul? This besom will sweep away his cobweb: The house that this spider doth so lean upon, will now be overturned, and he in it to hell fire; for nothing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not see this one bit of mortality about him! No, my little immortal does not touch the earth; he hangs suspended by that long bill, which just tethers him to its flowers. Now and then he will let down the little black tendrils of legs and feet on some bare twig, and there be rests and preens those already smooth plumules with the long slender bodkin you lent him. Now, just now, he darts into my room, coquets with my basket of flowers, "a kiss, a touch, and then away." I heard the whirr of those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... beneath, and once more he shuddered violently. But the world was full of beauty that morning. The sun was a vast sheet of gold, giving a luminous tint to the snow, and two clusters of trees, covered to the last bough and twig with snow, were a delicate tracery of white, shot at times by the sun with a pale yellow glow like that of a rose. On the horizon a faint misty smoke, the color of silver, was rising, and he knew that it came from the cooking fires ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... these trivial occurrences?"—not, Heaven knows, from the interest I can now attach to them—but because, like a drowning man who catches at a brittle twig, I seize every apology for delaying the subsequent and dreadful part of my narrative. But, it must be communicated—I must have the sympathy of at least one ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... said in a discouraged whisper, after a twig had burst under his foot with a report like the shot of a pistol. "You travel ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... Cromwell's death brings Restoration 1660-1685 And Charles Two lands 'mid acclamation. After his leaps from twig to twig He now has 'Otium cum Dig.' In merry Charles the Second's age Woman first acted on the stage; The King encouraged much this vogue He was a pleasure seeking rogue. 'He never said a foolish thing, Nor did ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... see if it concealed an enemy, we made but slow progress. Yet trusting more to the dog than to ourselves, we at length came in sight of the scene of our former exploits. All was quiet and still in the vicinity. Not a twig moved, unless displaced by a gaudy-colored parrot, too lazy, under the withering influence of the heat, to ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... by a flurry is sudden and complete, or nearly so. In my nocturnal hunts for young Glow-worms, measuring about 5 millimetres long,[3] I can plainly see the glimmer on the blades of grass; but, should the least false step disturb a neighbouring twig, the light goes out at once and the coveted insect becomes invisible. Upon the full-grown females, lit up with their nuptial scarves, even a violent start has but a slight effect and ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... from him. This was a faith which must fail that it might grow. Imperfection must fail that strength may come in its place. It is well for the weak that their faith should fail them, for it may at the moment be resting its wings upon the twig of some brittle fancy, instead of on a branch of ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... Ever-Green myself as is your own dear Emerald Land, And that is why the Green Isle's case I've learned to understand. 'Tis the most disthressful country, yours, that ever yet was seen; But I'll right ye. Twig my glasses, dear! I'm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... comparisons were hard put to it to describe just what it was the hue of his face did remind them of, until one day a man brought in from the woods the abandoned nest of a brood of black hornets, still clinging to the pendent twig from which the insect artificers had swung it. Darkies used to collect these nests in the fall of the year when the vicious swarms had deserted them. Their shredded parchments made ideal wadding for muzzle-loading scatter-guns, and sufferers ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... woods. He had found something quite to his liking and was much absorbed, when suddenly a fresh puff of wind blew the strong body scent of a man full into his nostrils. He looked this way and that but could see no man. Then a twig snapped in the cover near at hand, and a squirrel hunter stepped into view, not fifty feet away. The hunter was probably much more astonished than was Black Bruin. The great shaggy brute was so close to him that he looked like ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... to feathers, in that long-past dynasty of the Humming-Birds? It is strange to come upon his tiny nest, in some gray and tangled swamp, with this brilliant atom perched disconsolately near it, upon some mossy twig; it is like visiting Cinderella among her ashes. And from Humming-Bird to Eagle, the daily existence of every bird is a remote and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... waked the next morning by the cheerful and persistent song of a robin, which had perched on a twig just outside her window. She had gone to bed in a discouraged frame of mind, and dreamed that her two cousins had turned into lionesses, and were fighting together over her prostrate body; but with the morning light everything ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... loin cloth, but without shirt, leggings or moccasins, he set out, bow and quiver at his side. He said that clothing made too much noise in the brush, and naturally one is more cautious in his movements when reminded by his sensitive hide that he is touching a sharp twig. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... of one ready to flee, terrified but uncertain. As the noises within died down she relapsed from her tense pose and showed her face to Vaucher in the light of the lamp. It was Madame Bertin. She did not see him where he waited, and all of a sudden her self-possession snapped like a twig you break in your fingers. She was weeping, leaning against the wall, weeping desolately, in an abandonment of humiliation and impotence. But Vaucher was not moved when he told me ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the size of the dried leaves should be noted. The smallest leaves are those which have grown nearest the tip of the twig and hence are the youngest. These make the choicest tea. The older and larger leaves make tea of less fine flavor. "Flowery Pekoe" and "Orange Pekoe" are choice India teas. These brands consist of the ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... together they sped away with the dogs through the sweet-smelling spruce woods where every branch carried a cloth of white, and the only sound heard was the swish of a blanket of snow as it fell to the ground from the wide webs of green, or a twig snapped under the load it bore. Peace brooded in the silent and comforting forest, and Jim and Arrowhead, the Indian ever ahead, swung along, mile after mile, on their snow-shoes, emerging at last ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... usually snatched it away. The telephone thus became a part of the telegraph, which is a part of the post office, which is a part of the government. It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction—a mere twig of bureaucracy. Under such conditions the telephone could not prosper. The wonder is that ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... next day, nor the day after, but he never saw Phemy again. It was a week before he showed himself, and then he was not a beautiful sight. He attributed the one visible wale on his cheek and temple to a blow from a twig as he ran in the dusk through the shrubbery after a strange dog. Even at the castle they did not know exactly when he left it. His luggage ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... materially assisted in its own preservation by being active chiefly at night. In the daytime it keeps comparatively quiet. Thus seated upon a twig, especially if hidden among the leaves, it is almost unnoticeable. At night, however, it moves about more freely, seeking its food and eventually its mate. At such times it becomes distinctly more conspicuous because its wings are steadily fluttering. The hind wings are filmy and ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... the blessed effects it should produce on individuals, families, and nations. It closes with a view of the second coming of Jesus to conquer the last of his enemies, and take possession of the earth as his inheritance. I can only lop off a twig or two from this blessed tree of life, in the hope that the fragrance of the leaves may allure you to take up the Bible, and eat abundantly of its life-giving promises. As I have in the previous chapters abundantly proved the veracity of the New Testament history, I shall now with all ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... he finished speaking when Wetzel intentionally snapped a twig. There was a crash and commotion in the thicket; branches moved and small saplings waved; then out into the open glade bounded a large buck with a whistle of alarm. Throwing his rifle to a level, Joe was trying to cover the bounding deer, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Old Goodie She trots betimes Over the meadows To Farmer Grimes. And never was queen With jewelry rich As those same hedges From twig to ditch; Like Dutchmen's coffers, Fruit, thorn, and flower - They shone like William And Mary's bower. And be sure Old Goodie Went back to Weep, So tired with her basket ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... the pussywillow for her flower, and this makes a delightful springlike motif for decoration. For the breakfast have round tables or one long table with twig baskets of pussywillows tied with bows of soft grasses, raffia dyed a silvery grey. The table is set with the old-fashioned willow pattern china, quaint Sheffield silver and is unmarked by any of the small dishes of sweets that fill breakfast ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... wroth and, seizing his hammer, would have slain the giantess had not the other Asas held him back, bidding him not forget the last duty to the dead god. So Thor hallowed the pyre with a touch of his sacred hammer and kindled it with a thorn twig, which ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... went to break a laurel-twig and pluck a blooming wall-flower. Albano sank away into musing: the autumnal wind of the past swept over the stubble. On this holy eminence he saw the constellations, Rome's green hills, the glimmering city, the Pyramid of Cestius; but all ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... forms in different languages. The following are taken from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. "French, bachelier; Spanish, bachiller, a bachelor of arts and a babbler; Portuguese, bacharel, id., and bacello, a shoot or twig of the vine; Italian, baccelliere, a bachelor of arts; bacchio, a staff; bachetta, a rod; Latin, bacillus, a stick, that is, a shoot; French, bachelette, a damsel, or young woman; Scotch, baich, a child; Welsh, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... a common practice to send for so-called "water finders," who being usually shrewd observers would locate by the aid of a hazel twig the exact spot where water could be found. In searching for water one sometimes runs across these men even to-day. The superstitious faith in the power of the forked twig or branch from the hazelnut bush to indicate by its twisting or turning ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... 204; small part; morsel, particle &c (smallness) 32; installment, dividend; share &c (allotment) 786. debris, odds and ends, oddments, detritus; excerpta^; member, limb, lobe, lobule, arm, wing, scion, branch, bough, joint, link, offshoot, ramification, twig, bush, spray, sprig; runner; leaf, leaflet; stump; component part &c 56; sarmentum^. compartment; department &c (class) 75; county &c (region) 181. V. part, divide, break &c (disjoin) 44; partition &c (apportion) 786. Adj. fractional, fragmentary; sectional, aliquot; divided &c v.; in compartments, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... northern: yet here they are now, pretty plentiful, though elementary, so that modifications whose end I cannot see are certainly proceeding in everything, some of the cypresses which I met that day being immense beyond anything I ever heard of: and the thought, I remember, was in my head, that if a twig or leaf should change into a bird, or a fish with wings, and fly before my eyes, what then should I do? and I would eye a branch suspiciously anon. After a long time I penetrated into a very sombre grove. The day outside the wood was brilliant and hot, and ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... ways, too, the plant shows its capacity to act as a whole at various places of its organism. Otherwise, no plant could be propagated by cuttings; in any little twig cut from a parent plant, all the manifold forces operative in the gathering, transmuting, forming of matter, that are necessary for the production of root, leaf, flower, fruit, etc., are potentially present, ready to leap into action provided we give ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... it is said the grand-duke is unable to exercise his soldiers at target-shooting without obtaining permission to place the target in some neighboring state—I found the garden-walks and public roads so fearfully clean, every leaf and twig being swept up daily, and preserved to manure the duchy, that during a pedestrian tour of three days I was absolutely ashamed to spit any where. There was no possible chance of doing it without expunging a soldier or a policeman, or disfiguring the entire province. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... bend a twig young enough, the tree will grow that way." She laughed softly and he gave ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... intention of his adversary and the state of his moral. His power of drawing inferences, often from seemingly unimportant trifles, was akin to that of the hunter of his native backwoods, to whom the rustle of a twig, the note of a bird, a track upon the sand, speak more clearly than written characters. His estimate of the demoralisation of the Federal army after Bull Run, and of the ease with which Washington might have been ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... caught in the chain gear, and when the first attempt at drawing water was made, the little offering of a contrite heart was jerked up, bent, its strong ribs jammed into the well side, and entangled with a twig root. It is needless to say that no sleight-of-hand performer, however expert, unless aided by the powers of darkness, could have accomplished this feat; but a luckless child in the pursuit of virtue had done it with ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... twig of the nest is laid," remarked Marufa, indolently eyeing the tusk, "it is difficult to entice ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... them, and carried them to sunny places; but at last she grew very impatient, and one morning, when she was all alone in the garden, very much provoked that they had not made their appearance, took a twig and explored; and the first poke brought to light the little seeds, as shiny and brown as when they left the apple. It was a great disappointment, and Polly caught them up, and threw them as far away as she could, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... training; it declares that this early training is the duty of mothers; and yet it does not take the next step, and say, Therefore mothers should be qualified for their duty, and have every facility for performing it satisfactorily. It asserts with great solemnity, "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," then gives all its twigs into the hands of mothers, saying, "Here, bend these: it makes a terrible difference how they are bent, but then it is not important that you have given any attention to the process." Or, to vary the statement, the community virtually addresses ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... to show off his magnificence to his spouse—or when she asks him to show it off, we know not which—he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and generally displaying ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... then this poor little widow would give a little bird gasp. That was all. One day she had searched hard for food for her young, for as they grew bigger they demanded more and were more arrogantly hungry. As she perched to rest a moment upon a twig, beneath which in the grass were a few late dandelions, she felt coming over her a weakness she could not resist. As a matter of fact, the bird mother had been overworked and so killed. Birds, overpressed, die ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Major Ching, the Chinese Giant; General Thumb, the Dwarf; Princess Zozo, the Serpent Charmer; Maggie, the Circassian Girl; and the rest of the side-show employees enter the tent. Then he removed his Number Eight mustache and put it in his pocket, and balanced his mirror against a twig. Mr. Gubb was ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... figure of Sanchez pacing the sands, his lips muttering curses. I dared not move, scarcely indeed to breathe, so closely did he skirt my covert. To venture forth would mean certain discovery; nor could I hope to steal away through the bushes, where any twig might snap beneath my foot. What could I do? How could I bring warning to those sleeping victims? This heartless discussion of robbery and murder left me cold with horror, yet helpless to lift a hand. I had no thought of myself, of my ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... following. Neither exchanged a word as they walked on, carefully and quietly, through the gloomy mystery of the silent bush. The howl of a dingo in the distance, the wail of a curlew, or the hum of a mosquito, were the only sounds beyond the occasional crackle of a twig trodden under foot, or the swish of a bent shrub swinging back ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... symbol of divine grace, of the silently formed moisture which, coming from no apparent source, freshens by night the wilted plants, and hangs in myriad drops, that twinkle into green and gold as the early sunshine strikes them, on the humblest twig. That grace is plainly not a natural product nor to be accounted for by environment. The dew of the Spirit, which God and God only, can give, can freshen our worn and drooping souls, can give joy in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the lonely isle of St. Helena without cutting a twig from the willow that drooped over the grave of Napoleon, prior to the removal of the body by the government of Louis Philippe. Many of them have since been planted in different parts of Europe, and have grown into trees as large as their parent. Relic-hunters, who are unable to procure a twig ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... sniff a thousand woodsy odors. Spears of sunlight made bright blobs on the brown grass; and every littlest bush and shrub wore a shimmering halo, as you see the blessed ones backgrounded in old pictures. There was a bird twittering somewhere; occasionally a twig snapped with a quick, secret sharpness; and once a thin brown rabbit took to his heels, right ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... had ceased; across Fifth Avenue the Park resembled the mica-incrusted view on an expensive Christmas card. Every limb, branch, and twig was outlined in clinging snow; crystals of it glittered under the morning sun; brilliantly dressed children, with sleds, romped and played over the dazzling expanse. Overhead the characteristic deep blue arch of a New York sky spread untroubled by a cloud. Her family—that is, ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... be conservative rather than pernicious. Few wild animals depend for their subsistence on vegetable products obtainable only by the destruction of the plant, and they seem to confine their consumption almost exclusively to the annual harvest of leaf or twig, or at least of parts of the vegetable easily reproduced. If there are exceptions to this rule, they are in cases where the numbers of the animal are so proportioned to the abundance of the vegetable that there is no danger of the extermination of the plant ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... with what can be handled and scrutinized at leisure by the child, pulled apart, and even wasted. This can be done with the objects discussed in this book; they are under the feet of childhood—grass, feathers, a fallen leaf, a budding twig, or twisted shell; these things cannot be far out of the way, even within the stony ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... grin frog grip slat trot trill stiff slop spot blot prig sled still sniff drip slap slab scan scud twit step spin brag span crab stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop snuff skin skip scab snob skull snip bled stun twin dress grab drill skiff from swell drug twig grim snap scum bran stub snag stem plum sped spill prop slam drum gruff snug tress snub smell spell ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... being deprived of the proper development of a tree, and as involving a blank space that wants occupation; but the portions left are not made discordant or disagreeable. They are absolutely and in themselves as valuable as they can be, every stem is a perfect stem, and every twig a graceful twig, or at least as perfect and as graceful as they were before the removal of the rest. But if we try the same experiment on the imaginative painter's work, and break off the merest stem or twig of it, it all goes to pieces like a Prince Rupert's drop. There is not so ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse of him as ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... gloomy stone house, as ugly as eyes ever looked upon. Up stepped the servant's comrade and knocked upon the door—rap! tap! tap! By-and-by it was opened a crack, and there stood an ugly old woman, blear-eyed and crooked and gnarled as a winter twig. But the heart within her was good for all that. "Alas, poor folk!" she cried, "why do you come here? This is a den where lives a band of wicked thieves. Every day they go out to rob and murder poor travellers like yourselves. By-and-by they will come back, and when they find you here ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... still, yet all alive with woodsy sounds. Now a belated cicada swung his rattle as if in a fright, next a bull-frog, with hoarse kerchug! took a header for his evening bath. Once, later on, when the shadows were falling, a sleepy thrush settled upon a twig near by, and sang his good-night in sweetest tones. About this time he heard a farm-boy calling anxiously through the neighboring wood for the lost Sukey of the herd, and at times a dusty rumble announced a wagon jolting homeward over the unseen road away to his right. Dan's sense ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... let go, the tree flew up in the air, and the Tailor was taken with it. He came down on the other side, however, unhurt, and the Giant said, "What does that mean? Are you not strong enough to hold that twig?" "My strength did not fail me," said the Tailor; "do you imagine that that was a hard task for one who has slain seven at one blow? I sprang over the tree simply because the hunters were shooting down here in the ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... and the children still played in their camp. One day, while all were gone on a play-search for food, Joseph was left on guard in a hollow tree with merely a peep-hole through which to watch. He heard the cracking of a twig; to his surprise, something moved cautiously through the bushes. It was a real Indian boy. He crept to the wigwam door, peeped in, and then thrust in his arm. Joseph could not tell whether it was to take ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... he'd known how the information had been obtained—if he'd known it had been guessed at by a discharged spaceport employee, and a paranoid personality, and a man who used a hazel twig or something similar—if he'd known that, he'd never have dreamed of accepting it. He'd ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... birds are taught some of the lessons that are needful for their own safety! One day I heard a young redstart chirping for his dinner. I quietly thrust my head into the thicket, and soon espied the birdkin perched on a twig only about a rod away. He either did not see me, or else decided that I was not a bugaboo. A few minutes later the mother darted into the enclosure and fed her baby. She was too much absorbed in her duties to notice me until the repast was over; ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... their tails pointing toward him and their heads turned sideways over one shoulder; but soon presenting their breasts seeing he did not hunt. The solitary caw of one of them—that thin, indifferent comment of their sentinel, perched on the silver-gray twig of a sycamore. In another field the startled flutter of field larks from pale-yellow bushes of ground-apple. Some boys out rabbit-hunting in the holidays, with red cheeks and gay woollen comforters around their hot necks and jeans jackets full of Spanish ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... ought to punish Madame de Montespan, and, instead of censuring her, he wishes to make her a duchess! . . . Let him make her a princess, even a highness, if he likes; he has all the power in his hands. I am only a twig; he is ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... seeking to find a trail that would lead them down to the river. If only they could cross the river, they were sure of safety. But wherever there was a possible way of reaching the river, there was a German sentry. Once Willis kneeled on a dry twig which snapped. In a trice a German sentinel flashed a bright pocket searchlight—but ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... than you ever did afore in your life," said Ross, "an' bend low an' follow me. But don't you let a single twig nor nothin' snap as ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... A twig snapped in the adjacent grove. She sprang up. "Hush, Graydon," she whispered; "not yet. Please trust me. Oh, what am I thinking of to be out so late!—but could not resist. Come;" and she ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... to the flooded gutters. Here were rivers, lakes, and oceans for navigation; easy pilotage, for the steersman had but to wade beside his craft and guide it with a twig. Jane's timely boat was one of the ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... through life. Hence we begin to inculcate moral truths at an early age. Ideas of truthfulness and honesty, for instance, are graven so deeply on the young mind that they can never afterwards be erased. "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," said our forefathers, and it is true. "First impressions are the most lasting," is another true adage. This being so, we should see to it that the first impression the child ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... well the particular nest she was seeking, made one bound for her with her rake, and with such a scream as certainly to scare little Black-and-white out of at least one of the nine lives to which she is supposed to be entitled. But pussy was too swift and swiftly scrambled to the very topmost twig that would hold her weight, while Tattine danced about in helpless rage on the grass beneath the tree. "Tattine is having a fit," thought little Black-and-white, scared half to death and quite ready to have a little fit of ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... closed—the sun is set: Well they have done their office, those bright hours, The latest of whose train goes softly out In the red West. The green blade of the ground Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun; Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil, From bursting cells, and in their graves await Their resurrection. Insects ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... I goe, With this burthen full of woe, Through still silence of the night, Guided by the Gloe-worms light, Hither am I come at last, Many a Thicket have I past Not a twig that durst deny me, Not a bush that durst descry me, To the little Bird that sleeps On the tender spray: nor creeps That hardy worm with pointed tail, But if I be under sail, Flying faster than the wind, Leaving all the clouds behind, But doth hide her tender ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a runaway waterfall leaping over boulders, like the topmost bamboo twig rustling in ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... so fast at the bare idea that she could scarcely run. She stumbled, too, over a piece of twig which lay across her path, and falling somewhat heavily scraped her forehead. She had no time to think of the pain then. Rising as quickly as possible, she passed along the familiar road. How weary it was! How tedious! Would it ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... hill of fortune with an acquired gravitation, strove to catch at every twig, in order to stop or retard his descent. He now regretted the opportunities he had neglected, of marrying one of several women of moderate fortune, who had made advances to him in the zenith of his reputation; and endeavoured, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... skipping back and forth between a rough tea-table set near the fire and an open cupboard-door in the wall. She was carrying dishes to the table, and now and then stopping to stir something good-smelling which hung over the fire in a pewter pot, with a strong bent twig for ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot |
