"Twitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sufferer (violently striving in her fit) snatched at, took hold, and tore off a corner of that sheet. Her father, being by her, endeavored to lay hold upon it with her, that she might retain what she had gotten; but, at the passing-away of the spectre, he had such a violent twitch of his hand as if it would have been torn off: immediately thereupon appeared in the sufferer's hand the corner of a sheet,—a real cloth, visible to the spectators, which (as it is said) remains still to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... and told me, that he would send such a one after me, that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself. This made me cry, "O wretched man!" (Rom. 7:24). So I went on my way ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... glanced at Paige, the state's attorney. The young man's face wore an odd expression. Their eyes met, and Sampson's mouth began to twitch. Albion Small, who was "consid'able of a joker," suddenly choked. Farnsworth, having revealed to him in a flash the significance of the harmonica "with harp attachment," ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... smiled again to hide a twitch of regret. "Why, I'm afraid it hardly produces a living wage; and I've got to think of that." He coloured suddenly, as if suspecting that Miss Hicks might consider the avowal an opening for he hardly knew what ponderous offer of aid. The Hicks munificence was too uncalculating not to be ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... of Kinlay's attitude towards me, and wondering if I should ever be able to hold my own against him in our outdoor intercourse as easily as I certainly could hold it in our class at school. But soon I was interrupted by feeling another twitch at my line. I hauled in another sillock; and having now completed my two dozen fish, I gathered them and my lines together, thrust my fishhooks into my trousers' pocket, and went off to school, only staying a few minutes on the way ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... breath. There was a murmur of interest and curiosity among the crowd. Bobby felt his legs twitch nervously, but his power ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... noticeable at once. Slowly the warm blood flowed back into the dusky cheeks, the limbs began to twitch, the breathing grew audible, and the wounded man began to show ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Ladysmock: the cardamine pratensis. Pink: the chaffinch. Pooty: the girdled snail shell. Ramping: coarse and large. Rawky: misty, foggy. Rig: the ridge of a roof. Sueing: a murmuring, melancholy sound. Swaly: wasteful. Sweltered: over-heated by the sun. Twitchy: made of twitch ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... ward off or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plowmen, the servant-girls, and even every passing vagabond were every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with his arms always held out to guard against people coming too close ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... wouldn't like to say, unless you remove the bonnet." She gave a convulsive twitch to the strings, and pulled them into a hard knot. "Can't you brush it off?" ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... This little land is no more than a lair That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly, And no man will refuse the rapture of killing When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous. So long as anyone perceives he knows A bare place for a weapon on my son His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in. Indeed he shall lose nothing but his life Because a woman is made so evil fair, Wasteful and white and proud in harmful acts. I lose two sons when Gunnar's eyes are still, For then will Kolskegg never more turn home.... ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Again that fierce twitch of the features went over the other's face; and he stared straight at her with narrowed eyes. Then a change again came over him; and he laughed, like barking, yet ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... out with my skin," said Derry. "They rooked me right and left. There isn't a finer set of sharpers outside of Mexico City—and the whole gang ready to eat you up alive if you show by the twitch of an eyelash that you are 'on' to them. There's one pirate there—Capperne—who's worse than all the rest. Nothing can beat him. You know he's sharping you all the time, but he's so slick you can never catch him out. And it ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... of white, and he thought it was Whitetail the Marsh Hawk, in spite of the fact that it didn't fly like him. Peter didn't stop to think of that. It was enough for him that a member of the Hawk family was headed that way, and he didn't care a twitch of his funny little tail which member it was. He felt that the stomach of one was quite as undesirable a place for Peter Rabbit as the stomach of another, and he had no intention of filling any if he could ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... without great labor." While he was running on at this rate, lo! Fuscus Aristius comes up, a dear friend of mine, and one who knows the fellow well. We make a stop. "Whence come you? whither are you going?" he asks and answers. I began to twitch him [by the elbow], and to take hold of his arms [that were affectedly] passive, nodding and distorting my eyes, that he might rescue me. Cruelly arch he laughs, and pretends not to take the hint: anger galled my liver. "Certainly," [said I, "Fuscus,] you said that you wanted to communicate ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... He reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was drawn to him and held ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... with a twitch of the shoulders. "That's the worst of these professors," said he; "they never will use their heads. They see the pegs, and they mean to hit 'em; but that's all they do see and mean, and they think we're the same. No wonder we licked them ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... or two Jakoff was silent. Then his fingers began to twitch with extraordinary rapidity, and, changing the expression of deferential vacancy with which he had listened to his orders for one of shrewd intelligence, he turned ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... therefore where the body and the mind are in disorder, to what use serve these external conveniences: considering that the least prick with a pin, or the least passion of the soul, is sufficient to deprive one of the pleasure of being sole monarch of the world. At the first twitch of the gout it signifies much to be ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of words!" cried she. "See, Dietrich, the pains begin anew, and his features twitch convulsively. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... have been shaken up a heap in the game," hinted Anstey. "Prescott isn't the sort of chap to tell us every time he feels a trifle dizzy or experiences a nervous twitch. He may have felt badly, may have gone out on the platform for a whiff of fresh air, and then may have felt so much worse ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... boys went out to ride once more. Bucephalus justified Gilbert's prediction, and behaved as well as could be expected. Once he made a start, but a sudden twitch of the reins recalled to his mind the defeat of the day before, and he quickly ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... not a remarkably humorous person, but on this occasion the corners of her mouth were distinctly observed to twitch. She mastered the weakness instantly, however, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... up, and promptly checked the operations of the angry skipper. I checked them rather suddenly. Mr. Waterford was at the stern of the boat; and as he raised his oar to give it another push, I gathered up all my strength, and made a desperate twitch ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... eyes, his smooth face, his athletic figure, his somewhat dandified dress were all in favour of the young man. The double line across his brow, the enigmas about his lips, the imperturbable gravity of his features bespoke the elder. Handsome he was not—he was hardly good-looking, and the nervous twitch of his eyebrow as it came down over his single eye-glass constantly disfigured him. What was his temper, his character, his soul, you might sit for a month before him and never discover. But from his deep massive chest, his long arms, his lithe step, and ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... horror, I saw that the strap had been nearly cut through in five places. If it had not been of double leather with an inner lining of flexible wire, any one of those cuts would have cut the thong clean in two. Then a brisk twitch would have left the satchel at the cutter's mercy. It gave me a lively sense of the craft of our enemies, to see those cuts in the leather. I had felt nothing. I had suspected nothing. Only once, for that instant on the wharf, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... conflicting doors, he had to steer sharply to the right to avoid the kitchen. Next, he sheered to the left, to escape the foot of the bed; but this sheer, if too generous, brought him against the corner of the table. With a sudden twitch and lurch, he terminated the sheer and bore off to the right along a sort of canal, one bank of which was the bed, the other the table. When the one chair in the room was at its usual place before the table, the canal was unnavigable. When the chair was not in use, it reposed on top of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... of it made Sanderson's lips twitch queerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over her breast. Dale's voice carried clearly ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... hot fight," said the man, with a curious twitch of his lips, "a good bit ruther. Et do come aisier that way; but there, we ca'ant allays ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... so much as a twitch in a single nerve of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his hands and drained it into his throat. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... girls won't get over this very soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping down the steps, felt a violent twitch backward, and, to save herself from a fall, sat down on the lower step with most ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to the sea again—something like pinning and unpinning linen on a wash-line. It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the long, sagging line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when they heard, "And naow to thee, O Capting," booming out of the fog, the crew of the We're Here took heart. The dory swirled alongside well loaded, Tom Platt yelling for Manuel to ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... that feather that made Tommy's nose twitch and wrinkle and tremble. Tommy sniffed and sniffed at the bit of down, for he liked the smell of it. It made him feel very hungry. And at last he felt so hungry that he decided he would go home ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she, "your regard for this interesting exile is very praiseworthy. But beware of——." She hesitated; a remorseful twitch in her own breast stayed the warning that was rising to her tongue; and blushing at a motive she could not at the instant assign to friendship, selfishness, or to any interest she would not avow to herself, she touched the cheek of Euphemia ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... and indelicacy of her nephew's remark caused a sudden twitch to the High Church embroidery in Lady Mary's hand; but she went on a moment later ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... said the experienced Mullins, 'or his pulse wouldn't act. 'Tisn't a fit or he'd snort and twitch. It can't be sunstroke, this term, and he hasn't been over-training for anything.' He opened Winton's collar, packed a cushion under his head, threw a rug over him and sat down to listen to the regular breathing. Before long Stalky arrived, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... me.—Part with thee! No, not till death shall set my spirit free; For know, should plenty crown my life's decline, A most important duty may be thine: Then, guard me from Temptation's base control, From apathy and littleness of soul The sight of thy old frame, so rough, so rode, Shall twitch the sleeve of nodding Gratitude; Shall teach me but to venerate the more Honest Oak Tables and their guests—the poor: Teach me unjust distinctions to deride, And falsehoods gender'd in the brain of Pride; Shall give to Fancy still the ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... into the matter, and consider what the value of the thing promised may be. If it be trifling, I shall give it, not because you are worthy of it, but because I promised it, and I shall not give it as a present, but merely in order to make good my words and give myself a twitch of the ear. I will punish my own rashness in promising by the loss of what I gave. "See how grieved you are; mind you take more care what you say in future." As the saying is, I will take tongue money from you. If the matter be ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... she looked at him she would sometimes put her hand hastily to her side with a short twitch of her fine lips and a knitting of her black, straight eyebrows like a flicker of angry pain or an angry thought ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... story of Roseta's infancy and girlhood—a frowning antipathy toward people generally; a menacing submissiveness to her mother's whippings; hatred for Tonet who had never paid the slightest attention to her; a smile at times for the Rector, who, on his brief visits home, would playfully twitch one of her yellow curls; and scorn for the ragamuffins of the beach whom she refused to play with and held off with the haughty reserve of ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and there we sat till morning, before a blazing fire, warming up one and another, as he brought them in. I sat down on a cricket, and took two or three in my lap at once, and hugged them up to my bosom. When they began to twitch, and we found they must die, we put them on the great hearth rug, and took more. Sometimes they'd just lie down and go to sleep, and when we had time to look at them, they'd be stiff and cold; and then again they would cry out like ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... had been established and acted upon. But I was too stupid then to admire anything. All my anxiety was that this should be cleared up. I was ass enough to wonder exceedingly at Mr. Powell failing to notice the misapprehension. I saw a slight twitch come and go on his face; but instead of setting right that mistake the Shipping Master swung round on his stool and addressed me as 'Charles.' He did. And I detected him taking a hasty squint at my certificate ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... to bring 'em; And that base apostate Vesey With Bishop's scraps grown fat and greasy, While Wynne sleeps the whole debate, They submissive round him wait; (Yet would gladly see the hunks, In his grave, and search his trunks,) See, they gently twitch his coat, Just to yawn and give his vote, Always firm in his vocation, For the court against the nation. Those are Allens Jack and Bob,[18] First in every wicked job, Son and brother to a queer Brain-sick brute, they call a peer. We must give them better ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... time being, however, all went well. In his role of lecturer he offended no one, and Phyllis and her father behaved admirably. They received the strangest theories without a twitch of ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... A very gentle motion on his part sufficed to bring Meekeye's toes and the fire into contact. She drew back with a sudden start, but was too much of an Indian to scream. Tony was enough of one to remain motionless and abstracted like a brown statue. The slightest possible twitch at one corner of Petawanaquat's mouth showed that he had observed the movement, but his brow did ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... yet, and never meant to do so. While she was speaking, Florimonde's voice faltered, and the sentence was finished under the breath. Her voice had given out. At the moment the muscles round that handsome mouth of hers began to twitch ridiculously: she yawned and threw up her arms, as a baby stretches itself, and stiffened in that position, with her teeth set and her eyes rolled out of sight, and lay there like a corpse. Florimonde had given out. As I sprang to investigate this surprising condition of things, there came a sudden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... directly upon Jonas's thumb. As might have been supposed, teeth which were sharp and powerful enough to go through a walnut shell, would not he likely to be stopped by a leathern glove; and Jonas, startled by the sudden cut, gave a twitch with his hand, and, at the same instant, let go of the squirrel. Bunny grasped the edge of the howl with his paws, and leaped out, bringing the bowl itself at the same instant over upon him, spattering him all over from head to tail with the ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... the several; let's have one," said the Major, with the facial muscles making his moustache twitch sharply. ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... fantastic behavior, Harley struggled wearily to his feet. He had been a dead man as surely as though shot with a ray-gun. One twitch of those terrible rock pincers would have broken him in two pieces. It had seemed as though that deadly twitch were surely forthcoming. And then the thing had released him—and had lain down to go to sleep! ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have a school-house, ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... cold," he laughed as the water stung the broken skin and made her twitch involuntarily, "but bathing will do it good. I just know it feels better ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... past him, with the military quintet five hundred yards in the rear, he gave Brigham's blind bridle a twitch, and in a few jumps the trained hunter was at the side of the rear buffalo; Lucretia Borgia spoke, and the buffalo fell dead. Without even a bridle signal, Brigham was promptly at the side of the next buffalo, not ten feet away, and this, too, fell at the first shot. The maneuver ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... out the cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon he supposed it was now dreaming of paradise—listen!—and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... up.' So he did, an' Bill took the bag out to the cart. 'Now for the next,' says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner. When George had weighed out the eleven, I says to Philp, 'Well, now, I hope you're satisfied this time?' says I. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... hosts break off the debate in a towering rage; refuse coffee, and declare that the caravan of "Effendn" (the Viceroy) shall not be loaded. Mohammed's feet twitch more violently as the camels ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... up on his feet there was such a twitch across his face that I said to him, "Now just you sit down. If you go ashore to drive off those hogs you'll jump about so that you'll bring on such a ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... foller'd one like me aw cant tell; If tha'rt seekin better luck,—its a sell, As tha'll find; Nay, tha needn't twitch thi tail aght o' seet, Aw'll nooan hurt thi, tho' aw own tha'rt a freet. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... unwittingly exposed? The "pig-gee" (as some term the lorum) is used with almost surgical delicacy of touch to hook away two or three of the leaves. Then it is placed parallel to whatever increased length has thus been made visible, and with a decisive twitch the eel is torn from its retreat ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Hilda took him, and when Jason looked upon boys of his own age chipping, hewing, planing lumber, and making furniture, so busy that they scarcely gave him a glance, St, Hilda saw his eyes light and his fingers twitch. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... more deeply within itself; it curls up and dreams. On calm summer mornings you hear no sound except the chirping and twittering of the sleeping birds. The birds are great dreamers—like dogs; like dogs they will twitch and stir in their sleep, as if they were running and flying and playing and chasing each other. Just stalk a bird's nest of which you know at half past two in the morning, some time during the month of July; and before you see them, you will hear them. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... perhaps both—-our valiant magistrate was either out of the way or had a visit from the gout—a complaint which he was very fond of parading, because it is one of aristocratic pretensions, but one, of which, we are honestly bound to say, he had never experienced a single twitch. ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... became very busy with her breakfast. The cat beside her chair purred loudly and rose at intervals on its hind legs to twitch her dress; and Ruhannah occasionally bestowed alms ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... was on the trail. "Je crois que ca mord," remarked my uncle. We allowed our artist guide to pass on, when, as I expected, I felt a twitch at my outer garment. I turned, and the witch eyes, distended with awe and amazement, were glaring into mine, while she said, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... this Marton could scarcely control the skin of his head, so often did he have to twitch his eyebrows in order to express the above opinion, which he held about his ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... property; and about the same time men who had come from Utah to New York direct, published over their own signatures a declaration that all was peaceful in and about the settlements of Utah. The public eye began to twitch, and soon to open wide; the conviction was growing that someone had blundered. But to retract would be a plain confession of error; blunders ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... helplessly, the jib flapping. With our eyes on the approaching vessel we remained motionless in the stern, our hands clasped. The flush had faded from out her cheeks, yet once she turned toward me and smiled. Forward not so much as the twitch of a muscle revealed any other presence in the boat, the only visible thing a jumble of ropes and canvas, apparently dragged hastily from the water by inexperienced hands. The waves tossed us about so that any seaman would ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... to me," answered Allerdyke, with a twitch of his determined jaw. "It 'ud be a clever newspaper chap that would get aught out of me. I've other fish to fry than to talk to these gentry. And what good will all this newspaper ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... his pranks, and made Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong, Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes. Even in sleep his little limbs, I think, Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Maeon! And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams Of darkly-moving chaos and slow shapes Of things that creep encumbered with huge burdens Gloom and infest her through these dragging hours, Haunting the wavering soul, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... by himself from his sensations, and by his medical attendants from observation, that the letter R, if pronounced full and strong, and recurring once or more in the same word, produced a small spasm, or twitch in his hand and fingers. At the end of three years he recovered both his health and senses, and with the necessity soon lost the power, which he ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... of frenzy now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of agony—that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the invoking of a supernal power—the thought of which very power, once loosed, chilled ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... green peas, fresh sardines, and mackerel, their sides shining like silver, line the curb in front of the small shops. Diminutive donkeys, harnessed to picturesque two-wheeled carts piled high with vegetables, twitch their long ears and doze in the shady corners of the street. The gutters, flushed with clear water, flash in the sunlight. Baskets full of red roses and white carnations, at a few sous the armful, brighten the cool shade of the alleys leading to courtyards of wild ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... upon the shirt-bosom gayly showing between the lapels of his dark-blue silk house-coat. He slowly closed his mouth, moving his teeth back into place with his tongue—a gesture that made her face twitch with rage and disgust. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... author, with a certain vinegary twitch, 'that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced authoritarian. I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The day of these ideas is, believe me, past, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is what brings the delicious quizzical twitch to the mouth of a good raconteur who begins an anecdote the hearers know will be side-splitting. It is what makes grandmother sigh gently and look far over your heads, when her soft voice commences the story ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... I didn't write. What a fool I have been altogether!' He gave a twitch, as of one in pain. 'I won't dance again when this one is over. The fact is I have travelled a long way to-day, and it seems to have knocked me ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... nervous twitch.] Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. [Vehemently, but not loudly.] No—I may just as well make a clean breast of it at once! For it must all come out in ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... off. The danger he had been keeping account with was over; Manasseh had returned with the two grooms, and they—perfectly trained servants on the English model—took their posts without exhibiting surprise by so much as a twitch of the face. George in particular was a tight fellow with his fists, as the crowd, should it offer annoyance, would assuredly learn. The Collector took the volume which Manasseh brought him, and opened it, but did not begin to read. "You ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... spite, and some others of the ill-tempers, gain control of the nerves and muscles of the human countenance, they pull and twitch and knot and tie these nerves and muscles, until it is almost impossible to recognize ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... here of considerable length, during which the captain observed that Martha's nostrils began to twitch nervously. Jane, observing the fact, became similarly affected. To the captain's practised eye these symptoms were as good as a barometer. He knew that the storm was coming, and took in all sail at once (mentally) to ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... itself new taboos, new rituals. Yet there is the phenomenon of its tolerance toward the idol breakers. From the lowest depths of the crater of Riabba in which he sits enthroned the monarch of the Laongos condemns to death with a twitch of his brows all who seek to question the sanctity of the taboos. But this other occupant of the crater of Riabba-our Republic-raises gentle eyes to the idol wreckers, to the taboo destroyers. An occasional, "tut tut" escapes ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... cruelty and indifference! You, with your nose of coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and your blue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to death two helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have not discovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal since you disdain to dine from my best china, ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... tired feet look'd cold and thin, Her lips were twitch'd, and wretched tears, Some, as she lay, roll'd past her ears, Some fell from off her ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... at each stab, he comes through the most trying part of the ordeal with flying colours. A motion of the lips, however, or a mutter—these are altogether fatal. Not even a toe must move in mute agony; nor may even a muscle of the eyelid give an uneasy and involuntary twitch. If the candidate fails in a minor degree, he is promptly put back, to come up again for the next examination; but in the event of his being unable to stand the torture, he is contemptuously told to go and herd with the women—than which there ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... combined in a single instance. An inexperienced violin soloist, such as a student playing at a conservatory recital, often exemplifies this. Nervousness and awkwardness cause him to tremble; the scratchy sound of his tones makes him twitch and start; meanwhile, the close attention paid to his fingering and bowing stiffens his ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... attack of meekness to precede a sudden attack of fever, that I really think it would be wiser to send for the doctor in time." "Don't concern yourself," replied he. "If that be all, I can soon prove that my pulse is in good order." So saying, he gave Mary's work-basket a sudden twitch, which sent her spools of cotton, winders, thimble, and emery-bag flying in every direction; when, of course, with the malice peculiar to things of such small natures, they carefully hid themselves in the darkest ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... obliged to reply, she hung back a little to catch my words. At such times she would also turn her pretty head partially round so as to see me: then her glances, beginning at my face, would wander down to my legs, and her lips would twitch and curl a little, seeming to express disgust and amusement at the same time. I was beginning to hate my legs, or rather my trousers, for I considered that under them I had as good a pair of calves as any man in ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... married after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent effect. We also had an address from Prince Rivers,[70] a black coachman from Beaufort, who has been ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... and half cat, crawled across a roof, spread leathery wings, and flapped to the ground. The sour pungent reek of incense from the open street-shrine made my nostrils twitch, and a hulked form inside, not human, cast me a surly ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Swain to th'Okes and rills, While the still morn went out with Sandals gray, He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, 190 And now was dropt into the Western bay; At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: To morrow to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... enable him to win so easy a victory, that it was some months before he had again occasion to use his fists in earnest. This time it was in the streets. He was returning home with his cousins, when a pert young clerk thought it a good joke to twitch off his cap and throw it into a shop, and was astounded when, before the cap had reached the floor, he himself ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... my darling, devouring her, revelling in her, when suddenly I saw her hand twitch within her step-father's arm. It was an answering start to one on his part. The cigarette was snatched from his lips. There was a commotion forward, and a cry came ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... are not welcome—a library indeed, and I look forward with great pleasure to many hours' communion with you on lonely seas—a lover might as well sigh for more than his affianced as I for any but you. A twitch of conscience here. You ploughman bard, who are so much to me, are you then forgotten? No, no, Robin, no need of taking you in my trunk; I have you in my heart, from "A man's a man for a that" ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... there's no sense in chasin' gold underground. Says he likes to see his prospects growin' up under his own eyes an' gazin' on his own land. I'm the adventurous one of the Bailey fam'ly, though you mightn't guess it to look at me," she said with a twitch of her lips. "Me an' young Ed here. He takes after me. Got the gamblin' germ in our systems. Want to git somethin' fo' nothin'," she went on with grim humor. "I reckon Ed's right but, land-sake, doin' the same ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Lucien saluted his father with a kiss, waved his hand gracefully to Hugot, and followed. Francois remained a moment behind the rest—rode up to Hugot—caught hold of his great moustache, gave it a twitch that caused the ex-chasseur to grin again; and then, with a loud yell of laughter, wheeled his pony, and galloped ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... is the skiff, in which you came off, still alongside, and your own two stout fellows will soon twitch you to yon point. A propos of those two men, are they ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... moving the anode and the cathode slowly. I had often seen the experiments on the nerves of a frog that had been freshly killed, how the electric current will make the muscles twitch, as discovered long ago by Galvani. But I was not prepared to see it on a human being. Torreon muttered something ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... wildest moment Fionn was thoughtful, and now, although running hard, he was thoughtful. There was no movement of his beloved hounds that he did not know; not a twitch or fling of the head, not a cock of the ears or tail that was not significant to him. But on this chase whatever signs the dogs gave were not ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... his fork half-way between his plate and his mouth, in order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the hall, the twitch of an inserted latchkey came to his ears. Then pressure was put upon the front door. This, however, remained fast shut. The key was withdrawn violently, reinserted, and wrenched. The pressure upon the door being maintained, the lock was jammed. Whosoever was there ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... is instinct. They lay between two beds; the lower one hard and made of straw, the upper soft and filled with feathers light as down. Gerard pulled at it, but the experienced drunkard held it fast mechanically. Gerard tried to twitch it away by surprise, but instinct was too many for him. On this he got out of bed, and kneeling down on his bedfellow's unguarded side, easily whipped the prize away and rolled with it under the bed, and there lay on one edge of it, and curled the rest round his shoulders. Before he slept he often ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... greater finesse in the rendering of that small range of sensations to which both give themselves up frankly. Take Polin, who is supposed to express vulgarities with unusual success. Those automatic gestures, flapping and flopping; that dribbling voice, without intonation; that flabby droop and twitch of the face; all that soapy rubbing-in of the expressive parts of the song: I could see no skill in it all, of a sort worth having. The women here sing mainly with their shoulders, for which they seem to have been chosen, and which are undoubtedly ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... Both men had grown thin, with pouches under their eyes. Jake's right eye had begun to twitch uncontrollably whenever anyone came within three yards of him. "We can't go on like this, you know. The people are ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... rather thick, his skin was brown and ruddy. He had splendid eyes, large, black, piercing, and well-opened; his expression was dignified and gracious when he liked, but often wild and stern, and his eyes, and indeed his whole face, were distorted by an occasional twitch that was very unpleasant. It lasted only a moment, and gave him a wandering and terrible look, when he was himself again. His air expressed intellect, thoughtfulness, and greatness, and had a certain grace about it. He wore a ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... wanness when he heard the ugly word "Murder," and each passing moment served only to increase his agitation. Steingall, to all intents and purposes paying less heed to the man than to any other person present, had not missed one labored breath, one twitch of an eyelid, one nervous gesture. His phenomenal instinct in the detection of crime had fastened unerringly on a singular coincidence. Curtis had hazarded a guess that the real malefactors were Hungarians, and here was a Hungarian Count denouncing Curtis. Certainly ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... relieved; for the mind is like the body, and mental, as well as physical suffering, must have vent. A twinge of a tooth brings forth a groan; a twitch of the heart-strings produces poetry in me: have only to hope the poetry may not have the effect of the ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... heard the voice of the visiting rabbi who read the lesson for the day, and her mother was obliged to twitch her vigorously when, during the prayers, the congregation rose to their feet and turned ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... head coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup. Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These, according to the Japanese code of etiquette, are all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... the birthday hollow. They were quite aware that by-and-by there would perhaps be repentance, but who could think of repentance now, with the feast—and such a feast!—on the board, and Fiddler Joe making such exquisite, mad, intoxicating music (it caused your feet to twitch so that they could scarcely keep still), and that floor as smooth as glass, and the summer moon entering through a chink in the big tent, and the gayly dressed people, and all the merry voices? Oh, it was ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... be a letter carrier, to help give out the letters?" he said at last, in the midst of the noise. "Couldn't he, Ben?" and he ran to twitch that ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque. His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... and Wesson's. Sigaev picked up a pistol of that pattern, gazed blankly at it, and sank into brooding. His imagination pictured how he would blow out their brains, how blood would flow in streams over the rug and the parquet, how the traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . . But that was not enough for his indignant soul. The picture of blood, wailing, and horror did not satisfy him. He must ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... starlight when they reentered the Garden. Sara, with her friends standing a little apart to enjoy the fun, slipped unseen quite close to the prose-bush, where the Snimmy lay with his long debilitating nose on his paws, looking up at the stars. Sara waited until the nose began to quiver and twitch; and then she suddenly emptied her whole handkerchief full of ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Boston grumble with the ordinary ejaculations of discontent indulged in by the inhabitants of other portions of the world remote from the Hub of the Universe. A Boston grumble consists of an upward movement of the eyebrow, a slight twitch of the mustache and a murmur cross-bred from "Deuce take it!" and "Scoundrelly!") "Young man," he said, "my father said that such a hazardous venture as copper should return at least thirty per cent. to be safe, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson |
