"Twitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... engaged in "being thankful over a drumstick," but as Cherry ceased speaking, she lifted her round eyes from her plate, and stopped chewing long enough to say, "I am thankful my nose doesn't twitch all the time like my rabbit's, that my ears don't grow out of the top of my head, and that I don't have to hop with both feet wherever ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... 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 ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Nebula opened and a huge hose came slowly down. Odin watched it on the screen. It seemed to have been pleated and shoved together like an accordion. Now it opened out in little jerking movements, extending itself about two feet at each writhing twitch. As it grew longer it expanded and was nearly three feet across when it reached the top of the first car. A round door opened. Unseen hands reached the end of the big hose ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... listening, felt his face twitch; then he blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I—I'll take him to—the person he lives with. It isn't suitable ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... 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 and conversation ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... stronger twitch than ever before; even while his ear, less delicate than hers, could distinguish no peculiar sound. About two minutes after Mr. Wilkins entered the room. He came up to Mr. Corbet with a warm welcome: some of it real, some of it assumed. He talked volubly to him, taking little or no notice ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the day coach to go to the dining car. She threw back her head and sucked her lungs full of the pure, rain-chilled air. She was accustomed to being out in storms, she liked them. One second she paused to watch the gale sweeping the fields, the next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw up her hands and clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step railing and leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against the corner of the car, hold there an instant with the pressure of the wind, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... green-faced, retching. The sickening odors of vomit and diarrhea hung heavily on the air. Douglas coughed and held a square of cloth to his face, and even Kennon, strong-stomached as he was, could feel his viscera twitch in sympathy ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... 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 ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... be restrained in the standing position, and in the average instance, a twitch and hood are all the restraining ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... A twitch from the rope at the same moment recalled our hero to his right mind; and the remembrance of the poor wretch who had just suffered the bastinado, and also of Peter the Great's oft-repeated reference to "whacking," had the effect of crushing the spirit of rebellion ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... Trumpets screech Deep into your heart. And all the nights are burning. You freeze in tents. You're hot. You're hungry. You drown. Explode. Bleed to death. Fields rattle noisily. Church towers fall. Flames in the distance. Winds twitch. Large cities crash. On the horizon cannons thunder. Around the hill tops a white vapor rises, And grenades burst ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... while Mr Wentworth followed her into the chancel with a meekness quite unusual to that young priest. Nettie noted both circumstances with a little surprise; but, not connecting them in the most distant degree with herself, turned round with a little twitch of Freddy's arm to go away, and in doing so almost walked into the arms of her older and more faithful friend. Miss Wodehouse kissed her quite suddenly, touching with her soft old cheek that rounder, fairer, youthful face, which turned, half wondering, half ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... drifted about fast enough for trollin', and feelin' a little drowsy, I tied the end of the line to the cleets across the knees of the boat, and lay down in the bottom with my hand out over the side holdin' the line. I hadn't laid there long, when I felt a twitch as if something mighty big was medlin' with the other end of the string. I started up and undertook to pull in, but you might as well undertake to drag an elephant with a thread. I couldn't move him a hair. Pretty soon the boat began to move up the lake in a way I didn't at all like. ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... driver of the stage, not liking the slow pace in which old Battle was proceeding to make room for him, laid his whip briskly over his haunches, quickening his movements, but driving the major into a furious passion. The sudden twitch landed us both upon the sandy road, under the pile of sheepskins we had used for a seat. In this dilemma the major called loudly for assistance, swearing that if the stage driver would but stop he would give him battle to his satisfaction. This only served to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the front seat beside Hank, gave his shoulders an impatient twitch. "Fifty thousand dollars," he ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... their opinion of the merit of this collection. Gilpin classes these "Innocent Impostors" among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excellences the artists whom he copied; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, declares that they could never have deceived an experienced judge, and reprobates such kinds of ingenuity, played off at the cost of the venerable ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... ears when they shoe them. Now, against all these barbarous and inhuman practices, I here, in the name of humanity, enter my protest. The animal becomes almost worthless by the injuries caused by such practices. There are extreme cases in which the twitch may be resorted to, but it should in all cases be applied to the nose, and only then when all milder ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like furrow, and with a twitch of ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... were only waiting for him to rush at them and strike them. Although they kept right on singing and praying, they were ready to cut and run the instant he made a move. Presently a pair of them noticed that Felt's face was beginning to twitch. 'Now he'll go for us,' they thought, getting up to flee. But the old man blinked his one good eye, and a tear rolled down his cheek. 'Hallelujah!' the youngsters shouted, and now, as I've already told you, it's all ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... case, that the long way round was the short way home. But he was in for it, and plugged ahead, longing for the cool of evening. About noon he found the first water-hole and, what was more, found water in it. It was ugly, hot stuff, but his horse trotted to it with ears pricked forward and nostrils a-twitch and drank long and thirstily. Thereafter, though they came to other spots where there should be water, they found none until after sunset. Howard drew off the saddle, gave his horse a handful of barley and staked it out close to the spring. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... ignorances, presiding over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc or fishes' spawn or frogs' spawn, have visited upon us their wan solemnities. We've been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies, which twitch and totter with pseudo-life derived ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... various social distempers out of one. The blue devils take flight at once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them. Emerson intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two gardens; but I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and twitch grass without in some way getting rid of many weeds and fungus, unwholesome growths that a petty, in-doors life was for ever fostering in my ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... day and tell the hostler when the vehicle would be wanted. Not a sign of impatience escaped him until the time drew near for the departure of the early coach. Then the captain's curly lips began to twitch with anxiety, and the captain's restless fingers beat the devil's ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... what impulse it was that made me twitch Strachan's gown at this moment. It was not altogether a suspicion, but rather a presentiment of coming danger. Strachan took the hint and changed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... chairs, and, on going up to it, found Glumdalkin, with her eyes closed, her head very erect, her tail curled very tight round her toes, and her whole person apparently immovable, except, now and then, an angry twitch at the end of ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... a telescope three feet long. What to do she did not know: there was but one window in the room, and no recess into which her portly beauty could retreat. Once more she tried the curtain, giving it a forcible twitch, and this time it came down—but the whole fixture came with it, and, after striking her on the head, slid out of the window into the street, much to the amusement of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... this to Baird, and had seen the muscles of his face twitch and his eyes suddenly fill with tears. He had left his seat and crossed the room to conceal his emotion, and Latimer had known that he did not ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... care little for that. It is for my dinner alone that I care. Since you have eaten it you shall certainly die," and he began to scratch fiercely at the mouth of the hole. The Rat trembled more than ever. But suddenly he had an idea which made his whiskers twitch. ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... coyuntura f. joint. crneo m. skull. crear create. crecer grow, rage, increase. creer believe, think. crescendo Ital. crescendo. crespn m. crape. criatura f. creature, being, man. crimen m. crime. crispante adj. shivery. crisparse twitch. cristal m. crystal, glass. cristalino, -a crystalline, transparent, bright. Cristo pr. n. m. Christ, image of Christ. crudeza f. severity, cruelty. crudo, -a raw. cruel adj. cruel, intolerable. crujido m. crackling. crujir clash, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... his sister the marquise—a stout lady in ruby velvet and amethysts, who invariably caused Maggie Delafield's mouth to twitch whenever she opened her own during the evening—received the guests in the drawing-room. They were standing on the white fur hearth-rug side by side, when the doors were dramatically thrown open, and the servant rolled the names unctuously over ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... ended in a savage snarl as the great beast lurched forward on to his head, and with a single convulsive extension of his body lay quiet and still. At the same instant the thud of another bullet was heard, and the lioness was seen to twitch her head slightly, but without making any further movement. As for the troop of gazelle, no sooner was the lion down than, throwing up their heads with one accord, they wheeled sharply round to the left and dashed off across ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... old man paused abruptly and Alice was surprised, in a dull and tired way, when she saw that his lips had begun to twitch and his eyelids to blink; but he recovered himself almost at once, and continued: "I want him to remember, 'Forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those that transgress against us'; and if he and I been transgressing against each other, why, tell him I think ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plough-men, 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 ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... distances from each other, which was called knucks. You could play for keeps in all these games; and in knucks, if you won, you had a shot or shots at the knuckles of the fellow who lost, and who was obliged to hold them down for you to shoot at. Fellows who were mean would twitch their knuckles away when they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took their punishment with the savage pluck of so many little Sioux. As the game began in the raw cold of the earliest spring, every boy had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... me come along smartly with his brother's knife in my hand—I wasn't thinking how it looked from his side of the fence, you know—and jiminy, it nearly killed him! He stared like a crazed bullock and began to sweat and twitch all over, something amazing. I was so surprised, that I stopped to look at him. The drops were pouring over his eyebrows, down his beard, off his nose—and he gurgled. Then it struck me that he couldn't see what was in my mind. By favour or by right he didn't like to die when ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... silent bystanders gazed at one another. The alferez made a sign that they should take the body down, and then moved away thoughtfully. Dona Consolation applied the lighted end of her cigar to the bare legs, but the flesh did not twitch and the fire ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... gone to the window and now stood there, looking out. The eyebrow which was affected a little by emotion or excitement gave a slight twitch occasionally and her lips were pressed close together. She saw the little flag on the roof over the privet hedge hanging quiet on the still air, and it added to her sense of being conquered by those forces which had been ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his leave ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... looked it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-daler note you were supposed ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... when most recent. As he approached I saw he was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy and ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of business to ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... were still upon 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
... my belongings once more—half a penknife, a bunch of keys, but not a farthing. Suddenly I dive into my pocket and take the papers out again. It was a mechanical movement, an unconscious nervous twitch. I selected a white unwritten page, and—God knows where I got the notion from—but I made a cornet, closed it carefully, so that it looked as if it were filled with something, and threw it far out on to the pavement. The breeze blew it onward a little, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... tightly, and I thought that I discerned something like a slight twitch about the corners of his grim mouth, as if some sudden and painful thought had shot across his mind; but in a moment he was calm, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... 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 individual's sleeve. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... the blessed and unalterable conviction that I have done right. Even the conveniences have ceased to appeal to me; they have not even, like the old Adam in the Pilgrim's Progress, pinched hold of me and given me a deadly twitch. Though the picturesque mind of one who, like myself, is very sensitive to "the attributes of awe and majesty," takes a certain peevish pleasure in continuing to depict my unworthy self clothed upon with majesty, and shaking all Olympus with ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was, he kept a steady hand on the helm, and strained his eyes into the mist ahead, never abating for a moment either his vigilance or his courage. But every now and then I could see his eyes turn for a moment to Charlie, and his face twitch as they did so, with a look of pain which I was at no loss ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of Marnark's neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time, he released Marnark's thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... race—he must travel long and fast. The sick man saw the preparations, and cried weakly, the tears freezing on his cheeks, and still he lingered, lingered maddeningly, till at last, when Captain had lost count of the days, he passed without a twitch and, before the body had cooled, the northward bluffs hid the plodding, snow-shoed figure hurrying ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... not ever to be used, they lie beneath us, in their coffins, these white, straight bodies, like swords untried that rust in the scabbard. Meanwhile, on every side is apparent the not yet out-wasted instrument, and one is naturally inquisitive,—so that one's fingers and one's nostrils twitch at times, even in the hour when one is most miserable, very much as yours ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... furiously, and when Ah Sing showed up with a bottle of alcohol, he said nothing but rubbed Mart's face and neck with the fiery liquid. Presently he was rewarded by a twitch of Mart's eyelids, a little more color came into the faded cheeks, and then the gray eyes opened and ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another,—he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on,—and I let him have it! and then there was one of those fatting ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... help watching Lady Maude as he said this, and was rejoiced to see a sudden twitch of her lower lip as if ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... 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 ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... left foot—"that is what you call powers of observation—noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; they ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... who had moved to the window, and who had been watching Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-glass with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had taken their seats. Waggles, the scrap of a Skye terrier, who was never three feet from Billy's heels, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... money to take her mother to the doctor. Lite rode close to the camera and looked straight at her, and Jean bit her lips sharply as tears stung her lashes for some inexplicable reason. Dear old Lite! Every line in his face she knew, every varying, vagrant expression, every little twitch of his lips and eyelids that meant so much to those who knew him well enough to read his face. Jean's eyes softened, cleared, and while she looked, her lips parted a little, and she did not know ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... 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
... 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
... that Reed's ego is his own property, not ours, we could have settled this point about his future, months on months ago. Beyond a certain limit, though, there is no way for us to tell how far he responds to our experimental treatment. If his muscles do twitch, well and good. If they almost twitch and don't, no mortal mind outside of his can reckon how wide the falling short has been. You can talk about pure, abstract, impersonal science, till the moon turns to an Edam cheese. You can no more grasp the initial fact of what that science ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... did hang in all that part of the Gorge, by reason of the Slug; and signs of disgust, as you shall think; and the great and mildewed body of the thing yet to settle and twitch, as I did look, as it did come properly unto death in all that mighty bulk. And everywhere, the skin of the Beast did be set into great wrinklings, and horrid blotchings to be upon the improper whiteness thereof; and truly I did be in haste that I turn the Maid away from that thing, and that ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... so nearly paralleled that crucial moment in his own life, under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office. Unseen by the rapt pair, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... of her head merely, this time, but of her whole self—the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... She has no sagacity to give me or lend me, but that soft, nimble foot of hers, and that touch as of cotton wherever she goes, are worthy of emulation. I think I can feel her good-will through the floor, and I hope she can mine. When I have a happy thought I imagine her ears twitch, especially when I think of the sweet apple I will place by her doorway at night. I wonder if that fox chanced to catch a glimpse of her the other night when he stealthily leaped over the fence near by and ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... in the black frock-coat and hat was standing quite grave and dignified on the lawn, save for his slight twitch of one limb, and he did not seem by any means unworthy of the part which the other ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... prepar'd, And stoutly stood upon his guard: He put by SIDROPHELLO'S thrust, And in right manfully he rusht; l060 The weapon from his gripe he wrung, And laid him on the earth along. WHACHUM his sea-coal prong threw by, And basely turn'd his back to fly But HUDIBRAS gave him a twitch 1065 As quick as light'ning in the breech, Just in the place where honour's lodg'd, As wise philosophers have judg'd; Because a kick in that place more Hurts honour than deep wounds ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Two or three sharp flashes followed the first. In the glare of them her eyes searched along the river-bank, if haply help might be near; but all the anglers had departed. Rosewarne's face stared up at her, blue as a dead man's in the dazzling light. At first it seemed to twitch with each opening of the heavens; but this must have been a trick of eyesight, for his head lay quiet against her arm as she raised him a little, shielding him against the torrential rain which now hissed down, in ten seconds drenching ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you may have curried a horse, or stood by during the process, and watched him shrug and twitch with pleasure as the little iron teeth scratched his skin, and have seen his coat grow glossy and satiny as the brush was applied as soon as ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 57, December 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... used to grow on bushes that had no thorns. But the Squirrels and Mice used to climb after them, the cattle used to knock them off with their horns, the Possum would twitch them off with his long tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break them down. So the Brierbrush armed itself with spikes to protect its roses and declared eternal war on all creatures that climbed trees, or had horns, or hoofs, or long tails. This left the ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... of words!" cried she. "See, Dietrich, the pains begin anew, and his features twitch convulsively. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... giving a final pull and twitch to the dress of her brother, and taking him by the hand tenderly. "Now, come ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they fished, of politics, religion, philosophy, human nature, the useful arts, abolition, and most other subjects that would be likely to interest a couple of Americans who had nothing to do but to twitch, from time to time, at two lines dangling in the water. Although few people possess less of the art of conversation than our own countrymen, no other nation takes as wide a range in its discussions. He is but a very ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables deg. ... but I know deg.62 Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... me in one iron fist, and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified by the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlor door, cried out the words he had ordered in ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said her guardian, gently, laying his hand on hers. 'I am not hurt. I understand, as I ought, having seen you twitch yourself out of leading-strings ever since you were old enough to go. It is rather hard upon you. But how came it to your knowledge, Hazel?' And Mr. Falkirk ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... presumed to challenge Monsignore to a debate, and the offer was accepted. While the two stood together in Cristoforo's wagon, and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against his rival's leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily means, and by virtue ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... simply could not abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him. Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master's attention with a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and to visit him with unmerciful punishment. "Ah, my fine fellow," he would say, "I'LL cure you of your impudence ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... twitch again and his finger nails scratched on the bedclothes. If only he had something, some weapon, an axe, a broad, keen, glittering axe! He would show them! He was strong, incredibly strong! Five men could not ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... with the hook, but it was too short. Just as I thought I should succeed, the face gave a convulsive twitch, as if in a parting outburst of hate and wrath, and the body sank out of sight. We waited for a few minutes, but there was no further sign. The other tug that had hovered near us turned about and made for the Oakland shore. I signed to the captain to ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... was no use trying to hide now. Perhaps some faint hope took possession of them that they might be unnoticed if they did not move; just as the still hunter, stalking a feeding deer, will watch its short tail, and whenever he sees it twitch he stands perfectly motionless; for he knows that the animal is about to raise his head, and that he will probably be taken for a stump if he does not ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... pluck them out with bent pieces of hard wood, formed into a kind of nippers, whilst those who have communication with Europeans, procure from them wire, which they twist into a screw or worm; applying this to the part, they press the rings together, and with a sudden twitch, draw out all the hairs that are inclosed in them."—Carver's Travels, p. 224, 225. The remark made by Mr Marsden, who also quotes Carver, is worth attending to, that the visor or mask of Montezuma's armour, preserved at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... twitch at these words and the picture they evoked, and then, numbed as it were, I stood listening, slightly buoyed up by the feeling that Mercer would speak directly and ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... for a situation when his temples were throbbing, harking back, with time's reversal of conditions, to a situation after the duel in the arroyo was over and he had used the right word when her temples were throbbing and her hands splashed. If retribution were her object, she had repaid in nerve-twitch of torture for nerve-twitch of torture. The picture that had been alive and out of its frame was back on cold canvas. Even the girl he had known across the barrier, even the girl in armor, seemed more kindly. But ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... that's what troubles me so." Here the good Mrs. Crull began to twitch about the mouth. But she did not cry. She had too much of the masculine element for that. Her whole life was a struggle between the weakness of her feminine body and the strong self-control of her ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... difficulty of casting a long line with a steep bank behind him. Once already the old gentleman had hanked on the bank a little lower down, but so slightly that a twitch brought the flies away. Now, however, the hank was too complicated to give way to a twitch, for the glengarry held hard on to the heather. In desperate haste, Junkie, bending low, tried to extract the hook. It need scarcely be said that a hook refuses to be ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... splinter of glass!" And the Master shook off the blood with a twitch of his head. "That was a neat bull's-eye you made on him, Captain. It saves you from punishment for forgetting you were under arrest; for climbing the ladder and coming above-decks. Yes—I've got to rescind my order. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Was it in him or in her? That cursed Tartar, Mehmet Ali, with his silly offer of twenty gold pieces! He, he had done it. Marcu looked again at his daughter. Her eyelids trembled nervously and there was a little repressed twitch about her mouth. She returned his glance at first, but lowered her eyes under her father's steady gaze. "Already a shameless creature," thought the old gipsy. But he could not bear to think that way about his little daughter, about his Fanutza. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he noticed on my face a twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, (zygomaticus major,) and which I could not hold back from making a little movement on ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... studied the picture carefully. He had a keen eye for faces, but when it came to pretty faces his memory was a veritable lion. He had talked a few moments with this very girl, and she had smiled at him. The memory made Robert Macklin's lips twitch just a trifle, and ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... to converse with the spirits the ballyan places an offering before her and begins to chant and wail. A distant stare comes into her eyes, her body begins to twitch convulsively until she is shivering and trembling as if seized with the ague. In this condition she receives the messages of the spirits and under their direction ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... upon this," said Dyke, as he lay upon his side watching his brother's figure grow slowly more distant, for he was walking beside his horse, which hung its head, and kept giving its tail an uneasy twitch. "Not very cheerful to wait here hours upon hours; and how does he know that I've got any matches? Fortunately ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... hands stretched out in a constrained position, every muscle tense, his breast heaving and voice trembling from the effort, and the natural result is that before he is done praying his fingers begin to twitch involuntarily and thus cause the beads to move. As before stated, their motion is irregular; but the peculiar delicacy of touch acquired by long practice probably imparts more directness to their movements than would at ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... a right angle. Thus we had to stand till the command was given for the third pace, when we had to unbend the right leg and bring it forward. On that day we were kept at the first pace unusually long. My muscles began to twitch, and I felt as if needles were pricking me from under the skin. Suddenly I felt as if I had lost my footing, and was suspended in the air. Then I fell. This was my first mishap on that day. The sergeant made believe that he did not notice it, ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... or a guilty twitch of an eyelid he handed her the book, and we both stood watching while the fat, heavily ringed and rosily manicured fingers turned ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... experiments it was noticed that any stimulus might cause (1) a twitch in the limb stimulated, or (2) a twitch followed by a jump, or (3) a sudden jump previous to which no twitch could be detected. And it soon appeared that these types of reaction, as it seems proper ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... less consummate general might have tried to do so, and ruined all. She stood silent and submissive, noting the quick play of thought which peeped from his eyes and lip. There was a sparkle in the one and a twitch of amusement in the other, as he at ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... am! I would never have believed it;—just tie this string for me, child, my hands twitch so strangely,—they say the British are just down in the lane here, with ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... of it made Sanderson's lips twitch queerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over her breast. Dale's voice ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... succeeded in driving a little eel into a corner and in throwing it ashore; and there they were, dancing about like mad creatures, unable to hold it, more than half afraid to touch it, but always contriving to twitch the wretched wriggling thing further from the water. One brave little maid managed for a moment to catch it in her pinafore but dropped it instantly, as all the boys screamed: "Put it down! he'll bite 'ee." And so they went on babbling their loudest, when the ragged ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... afford it," said a man with a thin, care-taking visage, and a nervous, anxious twitch of the hand, as if it were his constant effort to hold on to something—"he can afford it, for he makes money hand over hand. It is not every body can afford ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... pulling out a sovereign, and with a twitch of the thumb, he sent it high in the air. "Heads, you win. Tails, I win." Then catching it as it fell: "By Jove, you have it. Present my compliments to Mistress Jean," he cried, with a grandiloquent bow, "and tell her how near she came to being Mrs. ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... felt her noble white arm twitch convulsively, and her fingers pinch the cloth of his ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... involuntary muscular contraction just described may be 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
... beautiful young mother and chose to keep the matter a secret. I have long been known as a peculiar person given to arranging my affairs according to my own liking. The Head of the House of Coombe"—with an ironic twitch of the mouth—"will have the law on his side and will not be asked for explanations. A romantic story will add to public interest in him. If your child is a daughter she will be protected. She will not be lonely, she will have friends. She will have all the chances of happiness a girl naturally ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... whelpless eye, Silent; but when she saw me lying stark, Dishelmed and mute, and motionlessly pale, Cold even to her, she sighed; and when she saw The haggard father's face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shuddered, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: 'He saved my life: my brother slew him for it.' No more: at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting and ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... on the train, very good indeed. I can't deny that he flushed a little when I told him frankly what I wanted of him. At first I thought that he was going to be angry. Then I saw the corners of his mustache twitch. Then our sense of humor got the better of us, and then I laughed, and then he laughed, and I felt that the crisis was passed. I explained to him while we were in the Pullman car, as well as I could without being overheard by a fat lady with three chins, and a girl ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... play some games," he said; and I grasped directly what it meant, for the big fellow went quietly up behind the little Chinaman, and with a clever twitch unfastened the pin, or whatever it was which held up the coil, and the long tail untwisted and rolled down on the deck amidst a roar of laughter—one which increased as the Chinaman turned to see who had played the trick, but only to find the man standing near with his back toward him, apparently ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... seances attended by Goosie and Mrs Antrobus, even stranger things had happened, for the Princess's hands, as they held a little preliminary conversation, began to tremble and twitch even more strongly than Colonel Boucher's, and Mrs Quantock hastily supplied her with a pencil and a quantity of sheets of foolscap paper, for this trembling and twitching implied that Reschia, an ancient Egyptian priestess, was longing to use the Princess's hand for automatic writing. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... himself for a supreme effort, and turning his wrist from a simulated thrust in the first position, he doubled, and stretching out, lunged vigorously in quarte. As he lengthened his arm in the stroke there came a sudden twitch at his wrist; the weapon was twisted from his grasp, and he stood disarmed ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... "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 with her ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... know what was said when between lovers it is only the loose change of conversation that gets into words? The important matters cannot wait so slow a messenger; while the tongue is being charged with them, a look, a twitch of the mouth, a movement of a finger, transmits the story, and the words arrive, like Bluecher, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... word, is meant the repetition of certain forms of language in obedience to blind habit and without reference to their propriety in the particular case. Johnson's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical spasmodic action. The most obvious peculiarity is the tendency which he noticed himself, to "use too big words and too many of them." He had to explain to Miss ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... 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 ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... road as he came along, striding swiftly for his age (the drink never affected his legs), ready greaved and sometimes gauntleted as if in haste for his job, always muttering to himself; and when he passed us with just a side-glance from his red eyes, we observed that his pale face did not cease to twitch nor his lips to work. We felt something like awe for the courage of Archie Passmore, who followed twenty paces behind with his tools and a bundle of spars or straw-rope, or perhaps at the end of a ladder which the two carried between ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur 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
... another creak, and another. I saw Jim's face as if it had been carved out of ivory, with his parted lips and his staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the stair opening. He still held the light, but his fingers twitched, and with every twitch the shadows sprang from the walls to the ceiling. As to myself, my knees gave way under me, and I found myself on the floor crouching down behind Jim, with a scream frozen in my throat. And still the step came slowly from stair ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... withdraws 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. If there are ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... sudden little twitch, which showed that, badly frightened as she was, a hint of the humour of the situation had ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Fairfield (the reader has long since divined the name) changed instantly, and betrayed a nervous twitch of all the muscles, which gave her a family ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... sober wench to look after the children's linen, and do other occasional work: Enquire of Mr. Twitch, broom-maker, in Kent-street. ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... very glad," began the big man again, who hadn't even heard Mr. King's tirade, "for now—" and he gave his black beard a final twitch, and his eyes suddenly lightened with a smile that ran all over his face, "I can speak to you of dis ting dat is in ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... out, I knew by the sound of the hoofs, what horse an' what rider. They passed close—so close I could have reached out an' touched 'em with my quirt. Then I saw what made my heart jump an' my eyes fair pop out of my head. The Red King flashed by—no saddle, no bridle, not even an' Injun twitch, mane an' tail flarin' out in the wind of his own goin', an' the white foam flyin' in chunks from his open mouth; an' on his back sat Tex, empty handed an' slick heeled. I thought I caught a glimpse of the twisty smile on his face, as he swayed on the back ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... exhibition. However, before night, I was convinced of my friend Mr. Y——'s superior prudence: the whole thing, as the carpenter said, went off pretty well; but several disasters happened which I had not foreseen. There was one stiff old fellow, whose arms, twitch them which way I would, I could never get to bend: and an obstinate old woman, who would never do any thing else but curtsy, when I wanted her to kneel down and to do her work. My children sorted their heaps of rubbish and ore very dexterously; excepting one unlucky little chap, who, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... and the Husseinyeh ran aground. In attempting to carry her off and to check the further progress of the rebels the Ismailia was badly hit, and the incident was one of those only too frequent at all stages of the siege, when Gordon wrote: "Every time I hear the gun fire I have a twitch of the heart of gnawing anxiety for my penny steamers." At the very moment that these fights were in progress he wrote, 10th November: "To-day is the day I expected we should have had some one of the Expedition here;" and he also recorded that we "have enough biscuit for a month or so"—meaning ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at them—I did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch this pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the restraining clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not by what was visible—rather by the terrors which gather in the soul at the summons ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... do as you have done and say what you have said, unless it was so clear that he couldn't help but know," he replied. He turned to the neighbors. "I'm afraid," he said, "I have in part spoiled your pleasure, and," he added, with a twitch of the muscles of his face, "made a fool of myself, besides. Come, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... twitch and one of the pieces disappeared. For an instant the boys saw a long black body, the wet skin glistening in the rays of the ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... her side, closing upon the folds of her skirt. She caught her lip between her teeth with a petulant twitch. Then she came forward and laid a small brown bit ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... a twitch to his holster and slightly loosen the Colt's. But I was unburthened by guilt in past events, and I conceived no reason for fearing the future—other than that now I was likely to lose her. Heaven pity her! Probably she would have to go, even if ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the door. "I—really, I never—investigated the matter at all." She gave a twitch of shoulders and met his eyes steadily. "The inner satisfaction of having climbed the hill, I suppose," she said, in the tone of one who has at last reached firm ground. "Will you have more tea, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... I left Grand Ditch Camp and started down to Chambers Lake. I had not gone far when drops of rain began to fall from time to time, and shortly after this my muscles began to twitch occasionally under electrical ticklings. At times slight muscular rigidity was noticeable. Just before two o'clock the clouds began to burst through between the trees. I was at an altitude of about eleven thousand ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... of the snaky dogs follows. Puss flicks her ears—she hears a thud, thud, wallop, wallop; and she knows the supreme moment has come. Her sinews tighten like bowstrings, and she darts on with the lightning speed of despair. The grim pursuers near her; she almost feels the breath of the foremost. Twitch!—and with a quick convulsive effort she sheers aside, and her enemy sprawls on. But the second dog is ready to meet her, and she must swirl round again. The two serpentine savages gather themselves together ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... to carry out some temporary government commissions, and was in attendance on the Governor-General Zonnenberg, to whom he happened to be distantly related. Panshin's father, a retired cavalry officer and a notorious gambler, was a man with insinuating eyes, a battered countenance, and a nervous twitch about the mouth. He spent his whole life hanging about the aristocratic world; frequented the English clubs of both capitals, and had the reputation of a smart, not very trustworthy, but jolly good-natured ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... suggested one, trying to twitch away his book; and another pulled the chair out from ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... joys of 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, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... tchik,") a long snicker from Jimmie, whose nose cannot be kept quite in control. It is becoming too much for poor Betsy Dan, whose lips begin to twitch. ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... She is not like me,—any hovel is good enough for me; but for her! Do you know that I conceived that hope, that the hope helped to lead me back here when, months ago, I was at Humberston, intent upon rescuing Sophy; and saw—though," observed Waife, with a sly twitch of the muscles round his mouth, "I had no right at that precise moment to be seeing anything—Lady Montfort's humane fear for a blind old impostor, who was trying to save his dog—a black dog, sir, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... helmets, gentlemen, make yourselves at home." It was a partial admission that he was the man they wanted, but not certain enough for a decision. He saw the shoulder-twitch that meant that the second one's hidden hand jerked in a moment of uncertainty, and he thought he saw something glitter under the first one's arm—the old trick of shooting from under ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... 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 waves beat over ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... violent twitch at the end of the rod, the reel spun round with a sharp whirr-r, and every nerve in Mr Sudberry's system received an electric shock as he bent forward, straddled his legs, and made a desperate effort to fling the trout ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... upon her age and size, which made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, my sister picked it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, taking it from her, merely said, "Ah! I thought you'd do it." Adelaide said she felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her hand, throw it on the ground again, and say, "Did you? then now ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... to the burial of the hinder part of the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them to discover what is happening overhead. The second ligature is perceived, is severed in turn, and henceforth the work ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... move about in the dry open wood, keeping always near the trees, and truffle after truffle is turned up from the reddish light soil mixed with fragments of calcareous rock. The forgotten training soon comes back to our invaluable auxiliary; a mere twitch of the ear is a sufficient hint for her to retire at the right moment, and wait for the corn that is in variably given in exchange for the cryptogam. Indeed, before we leave the ground, the animal has got so well into work that when she finds a truffle she does not attempt to seize it, but ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... 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 Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... fellow; his trousers hang over the edge of his chair apparently empty of legs, and his shirt and open waistcoat (he never wears a coat) are pressed flat against the high back of the chair, apparently empty of trunk. His body and his features are for ever on the jerk. His shoulders twitch. He is for ever laughing and gurgling. He is for ever struggling to say something important, ending in a great spluttering stammer and a ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Arms, he walked straight into the yard, where the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, hanging on to a twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant he would have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose, and scouring the streets of Duff Harbour. When she heard Malcolm's voice and the sound of his running feet, she stopped as ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... young 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, or ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... past, Mr. Jennings had contracted an ugly knack of carrying his erect head in the comfortless position of peeping over his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... out she noted another queer-like circumstance. Mr. Rattar had stretched out his hand towards the toast rack while he spoke. The toast stuck between the bars, and she caught a glimpse of an angry twitch that upset the rack with a clatter. Never before had she seen the master do ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... engine on his fingers' ends: This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair; And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear; Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought The close recesses of the virgin's thought; 140 As on the nosegay in her breast reclined, He watch'd the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al |
