"Twig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most feeble twig for support in extremity. I knew this man, though deprived of sight, to be bold, ingenious, and perfectly capable of acting as a guide. I believed I had won his goodwill, by having, in a frolic, assumed ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... winding steps of the Table. Reaching the flat top at last, it halted and the Doctor stepped out upon the flowery carpet. So still and perfect was the silence that even at that distance above I distinctly heard a twig snap ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... kitten, Fanny, dart like lightning from her hiding-place in the garden, where she had long lain in ambush, and fasten her sharp claws in the back of a poor little ground-bird, which had been hopping from twig to twig, chirping and twittering very cheerfully. The little bird fluttered, gasped, and uttered wailing cries, as it ineffectually labored to free itself from the power of its captor, until Emma and Anna, unable longer to witness its distress, sprang out the window, ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... search among the ruins was too hard to obtain, and the disheartened seer of visions departed, and returned no more. And so the hidden treasure to this day remains hidden; no prospector has yet lit on that rich "claim," no "dowser" has poised his magic hazel twig above its bed, nor has ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... mindedness is like the high bending of a string of an instrument, which easily breaks in two pieces. Sobriety walks with a low sail, and creeps through under the wind, but the high mind is like the cedar, that moves with the wind, and falls when the bowing twig stands still. Some will think the aspiring of the spirit a sign of a better spirit than the humble mind, and so look down upon others. But oh, if they walk safely, they will walk humbly ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... privileges by her love of system; for she knows that order was made for the family, and not the family for order. Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse or overlook. What the unwary disarrange she silently rectifies. Everybody in her sphere breathes easy, feels free; and the driest twig begins in her sunshine to put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her operations and movements that none sees that it is she who holds all things in harmony; only, alas, when she is gone, how many things suddenly appear disordered, inharmonious, neglected! All these threads ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a twig by some bird or small animal caused them to start, and listen for a moment with uplifted paddles. The canoe thus left to itself, unguided, drifted aside, and hung for an instant upon the upraised end of a sunken log. Rene reached his hand down into the water to push it clear of ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... the stoic and the spirit of the little child. But little Poosk was made of sterling stuff, and the two spirits had a hard battle in him for the mastery that wintry afternoon. His chase of the rabbit was brought to an abrupt conclusion by a twig which caught one of his snow-shoes, tripped him up, and sent him headlong into the snow. When snow averages four feet in depth it affords great scope for ineffectual floundering. The snow-shoes kept his feet near the surface, and the depth prevented his little ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... spoke I was startled by a sharp crackle followed by a stealthy rustle, as if some one had inadvertently stepped upon a dry twig and had then glided quickly away. I turned at once to the woods, and could almost have sworn I caught a fleeting glimpse of a copper-colored hand, and the flash of a rifle-barrel. But as I gazed longer I saw nothing but the dense foliage of the low scrub-oaks ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... makes a crackling sound, while the two women whisper together in the darkness, and the reeds of the dry thatch on the roof rustle (the wind is still drawing an occasional breath), and ever and anon a twig brushes against an outside wall. The scene is like a scene ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... yards. A twig snapped under his knee. The figure in silhouette whirled. Steve rose at the same instant, rifle raised to ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... like to part with. If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries—the ice storm. Every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white like the [v]Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the loose dirt and leaves of the old heap and found another hybrid chestnut scion that presented the allusive emblem of a canary bird. This one had a shoot of about half of one inch in length and it burst completely through the wax, to make a fine little twig. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... a Russian soldier was flogged at parade. I was not in time to witness the punishment, but it was explained to me by one of the midshipmen. The whole regiment was drawn up in two lines facing each other, each man having in his hand a small twig or stick. The offender, stripped of his jacket and shirt, was made to run the gauntlet through the ranks, every man giving him a sharp cut as he passed, while the officers and sergeants stood by to see that the blows ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... trivial occurrences? Not, Heaven knows, from the interest I can now attach to them; but because, like a drowning man who catches at a brittle twig, I seize every apology for delaying the subsequent and dreadful part of my narrative. But it must be communicated: I must have the sympathy of at least one friend under ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... would think of that springtime homemaking, and then this poor little widow would give a little bird gasp. That was all. One day she had searched hard for food for her young, for as they grew bigger they demanded more and were more arrogantly hungry. As she perched to rest a moment upon a twig, beneath which in the grass were a few late dandelions, she felt coming over her a weakness she could not resist. As a matter of fact, the bird mother had been overworked and so killed. Birds, overpressed, die as human beings do. So the mother bird, after a few moments, fell off the twig upon ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... ventured out again, trembling at every bush I passed, and thinking each twig that touched me a savage. The next day I concealed myself in the same manner, and at night travelled forward, keeping off the main road, used by the Indians, as much as possible, which made my journey far longer, and more painful than ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... he was watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse of him ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... a discouraged whisper, after a twig had burst under his foot with a report like the shot of a pistol. "You travel like ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... there, opposite! Look, something is moving!" I followed her eyes and saw a strand of loose moss quiver and heard a twig break in the quiet round us. We both watched the undergrowth across the open space intently. For a second nothing moved, then the boughs parted in front of us, and through the great lichen streamers and rugged bands of grey-green moss depending ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... together they sped away with the dogs through the sweet-smelling spruce woods where every branch carried a cloth of white, and the only sound heard was the swish of a blanket of snow as it fell to the ground from the wide webs of green, or a twig snapped under the load it bore. Peace brooded in the silent and comforting forest, and Jim and Arrowhead, the Indian ever ahead, swung along, mile after mile, on their snow-shoes, emerging at last upon the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... and no sound broke the stillness saving that of the water in the brook as it flowed down over a series of rocks. Then came the faint crack of a single dry twig over upon his left. He turned around and blazed away in ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... She'd twig at once. I've had several hints lately that she has her eye on somebody she wants me to marry. You must do it yourself—and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... possible. Now at day-break—"at the mouth of day," the story- teller says—the Giant's daughter said to her husband, "My father's breath is burning my back; put thy hand into the ear of the grey filly, and whatever thou findest, throw it behind thee." "There is a twig of sloe-tree," he said. "Throw it behind thee," said she; and he did so, and twenty miles of black-thorn wood grew out of it, so thick that a weasel could not get through. But the Giant cut through it with his big axe and his wood-knife, and went after them again. At ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... almond-trees Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three. And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease, Out of his philosophic eye cast all A mere flow'r'd twig of thought, whereat ... Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out And Venus falters lonely o'er ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... on the glen-side of the Brig indeed confirmed this notion almost as soon as we formed it, and we were annoyed that we had not observed it sooner. Three sprigs of gall, a leaf of ivy from the bridge arch where it grew in dark green sprays of glossy sheen, and a bare twig of oak standing up at a slant, were held down on the parapet by a peeled willow withy, one end of which pointed in ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... yet green, but the maples and sourwoods above it were coloured splendidly. Among their clamant red and yellow laurel and rhododendron showed glossy green, and added to the gay tapestry. The painted leaves let go their hold on twig or bough and dropped whispering into the water, like garlands flung to dress ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... into the woods while his mother was sleeping. And when he went he took great pains not to disturb her. He was careful not to step on a single twig. For young as he was, he knew that the sound of a breaking twig was enough to rouse his mother instantly out of the deepest sleep. And he made sure that he didn't set his little feet on any stones. For he knew that at the merest click of a ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... was read aloud and interpreted to those of foreign lands who were there. Then one of Sir Humphrey's followers brought him a twig of a hazel tree and a sod of earth, and put them into his hands, as a sign that he took possession of the land and all that was in it. Then proclamation was made that these lands belonged to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... tree. Afterward, when this had grown to be a very dear little room to me, I looked out cheerfully through its branches, warm with sunshine, and fragrant with bloom; but now it was bare and ghostly, and, as the wind blew, one forlorn twig trailed back and forth ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... beyond for more than a hundred feet, perpendicular as a wall. It was at the abrupt termination of this path that a Highlander once saw a beautiful child smiling and stretching out its little hand to him, as it hung half in air by a slender twig. But he well knew that it was no child, but an evil spirit, and that if he gave it the assistance which it seemed to crave, he would be pulled headlong into the chasm, and never heard of more. And the boulder still bears, it is said, on its side,—though ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village—a direction which they never accepted, for ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... was now held by Wolfert Webber, while the doctor produced the divining rod. It was a forked twig, one end of which was grasped firmly in each hand, while the centre, forming the stem, pointed perpendicularly upwards. The doctor moved this wand about, within a certain distance of the earth, from place to place, but for some time without any ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... two origins. The notion is persistent and incurable in the human heart, that whatever variation there may have been from the original type, education and training can reshape the likeness of Adam to the likeness of God. "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined," says the popular proverb. True; but though a crooked sapling may be developed into the upright oak, no bending or manipulation can ever so change the species of the tree as to enable men to gather grapes of ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... loose stones rendered slippery by the moss, and Lynde followed on in silence, hardly able to realize the success of the ruse which had come so near being a failure. His companion was equally preoccupied. Once she stopped for Lynde to detach her dress from a grasping twig, and once to pluck one of those pallid waxen flowers which sometimes dauntlessly find a footing even among the snowdrifts of the higher Alps. The air was full of the resinous breath of the pines, whose boughs, meeting and interlacing overhead, formed an arabesqued roof, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... all around them and very close. It gave the boys a feeling that keen black eyes were peering at them from every bit of cover, and that lithe forms were slinking noiselessly from tree to tree, never turning a stone or breaking a twig to disturb the silence of ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... started violently. Her ear had caught the snapping of a twig close at hand, beyond the concealing wall. At the next moment she saw a stealthy hand slip past the opening by which she had entered, and the top of a man's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the sidewalk stopped and looked in through the lighted window to see the cause of the disturbance. A flame sputtered as it burned perilously near a resinous twig. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... closed the door—in the instant when he lost sight of her—his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals revived. At the foot of the house-steps he stopped again; plucked a twig from a plant near him; broke it in his hand; and looked about him uneasily, on this side and on that. The path to the left led back to his father's cottage—the way of escape lay ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... make me angry with your meekness!" Here Mrs. Falchion caught a twig from a tree by her, snapped it in her fingers, and petulantly threw its pieces to the ground. "Suppose that the man had once loved you, and afterwards loved ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was himself now. Tearing a loose shred from his tattered trousers, he soaked it in a little puddle, then stuffed it in his mouth. He clasped his jack-knife in one fist and a twig in the other. He drew up his belt. He took that precious hat off and stuffed it in his pocket, campaign buttons and all. Ah, no, he did not throw it away. He ripped off another rag and tied it fast around his neck and ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... protege narrowly as they took their places against the forward rail of the ferry-deck, and the boat stood out into the crashing water traffic of North River. What Samson saw must be absolutely bewildering. Ears attuned to hear a breaking twig must ache to this hoarse shrieking of whistles. To the west, in the evening's fading color, the sky-line of lower Manhattan bit the sky with ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... jumped and was far ahead of the fox again. At last Viggo had him cornered, but just as he would have caught the goose, Peter stretched out his left leg and meant to trip Viggo, but his skate caught in a frozen twig and—thump! there lay Peter Lightfoot, the ice cracking all ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... traced pattern of a rabbit or weasel track, and a narrow human pathway that wound tortuously into the sepulchral depths, were the only signs of life in all the white stillness. Away down the dim, cathedral-like aisles, that fainted into softest grey in the distance, the crackling of an overburdened twig rang startlingly clear in the awesome hush. The tall firs and pines swept the white earth with their snow-laden branches, the drooping limbs looking like throngs of cowled heads, bent to worship in the sacred stillness of a vast temple. For the forest was, indeed, ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... the shadow of my verdure, firmly on my trunk depending, Grew the tender branch of cedar, never longing once to leave me; Faithfully through rain and tempest, modest at my side it rested, Bearing to my honor solely the first twig it might its own call; Fair the wreath thy flowers made me for my knotted trunk fast withering, And my soul with pride was swelling at the crown of thy young blossoms; Straight and strong and firmly rooted, tall and green thy head arises, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... world of the rose-garden. Here a golden beetle crept across the lawn; there the air seemed full of gayly colored butterflies. On the edge of the fountain sat a golden-green lizard in the sun. Over on the hedge a great variety of wonderful insects swarmed on every leaf and twig! What a harvest he could gather! He ran about in every direction; he was beside himself with delight; discovering every moment something new and unexpected. Nor was this in the garden only. Down by the river, under the old trees, in the thick hedges, in the damp earth by the water-side, ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... Heydinger's renewed advances with invariable kindness. Yet something of the old relations were presently restored. He would talk well to her for a time, and then snap like a dry twig. But the loaning of books was resumed, the subtle process of his aesthetic education that Miss Heydinger had devised. "Here is a book I promised you," she said one day, and he ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... 1376.), with three varieties of the elm, namely, the broad-leafed, lime-leafed, and twisted elm, in which latter the fibres of the wood are twisted. Even with the heterophyllous hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), which bears on each twig leaves of two shapes, "several plants raised from seed all retained "the same peculiarity." (10/155. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1841 page 687.) I will add only one other remarkable case of variation in foliage, namely, the occurrence of two sub- varieties of the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... Observation 23. A twig submerged in a ditch was scraped. Gemiasma verdans found abundantly with many other things, which if rehearsed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... out if he were fat enough to be killed. So he went to the sty, made a little hole in the wall, and told the boy to put his finger through it. The lad knew what he wanted; so instead of putting out his finger he poked out a little peeled alder twig. The giant cut the twig, and the red sap ran out. Then he thought the boy must be yet very lean since his flesh was so hard, so he caused a greater supply of milk and nuts to be given ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... my watch; it was six o'clock, and thus wanted two hours to daybreak. Hurriedly I left the inn and went out again. A rimy frost had come upon every twig and bush and tree, and in the light of the moon the ice crystals sparkled as though the spirits had scattered myriads of precious stones everywhere. But I thought not of this. I made my way toward the spot from which I thought I had heard the sound come, and then listened ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the woods hung with a riotous magnificence that is glorious in its recklessness. The waters of that silent river are so still, so glassy, that the banks of gold and flaming red are reflected in all their richest colour down into the very heart of the stream, and it is only when a fish jumps or a twig falls from the overhanging trees that the mirror is broken and the colours flash into ripples and shadows of white and grey. The utter silence of all this world makes the Cathedral town sleepy, sluggish, forgotten of all men. As the autumn comes it seems to drowse away into ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... friends to watch the trout should he escape me. I crossed the brook (my friends remaining on the opposite side), pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and tucked up my shirt ready for action. He was still lying very quietly, and as I knew I had no chance with him then, I touched him gently with a twig and he moved into his habitation. I then leaned over the bank, thrust in my arm, touched his back, I felt his size, and was all caution. So first I began to secure him by building a piece of wall before the bank to prevent his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... worked till blood started from my fingers, and with one eye over my shoulder for savages, I watched at the same time, and sent a bullet whistling whenever I saw a limb or a twig move; for I kept a gun always at hand, and an Indian appearing then within range would have been taken as a declaration of war. As it was, however, my own blood was all that was spilt—and from the trifling accident ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... seeing humming-birds when I was about your age, while walking in the garden. It was a bright September morning, and the rail-fences and every dry twig of the brushwood were filled with the webs of the field-spider. Some, like thick white muslin, lay upon the grass; while others were suspended from trees like forest lace-work, on the threads of which the dewdrops hung like strings of shining pearls; and hovering ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... purple and gold. Her luxuriant blond hair, the richissima capellatura bionda, was gathered in a net behind and, parted in the middle, fell to her shoulders in long curls on either side of her face; and on her forehead, just where the hair was parted, she wore a twig of laurel, cunningly wrought ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... disk is of a whitish green only; two ranked, obtusely pointed, Soft and flexable. this tree affords but little rosin. the Cone is remarkably Small, not larger than the end of a mans thumb Soft, flexable and of an oval form, produced at the end of a Small twig. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... it was, that Christmas morning! It seemed as though the earth, in its pure robe of snow, and the trees, in their sparkling armour of ice, every twig jewelled and gleaming in the sun, had clothed themselves in beauty, and with joyful thoughts were giving ...
— Nanny Merry - or, What Made the Difference • Anonymous
... Then we pricked up our ears and listened mighty interested I tell you. Looking 'round, we seen the men tied to the trees and the wood piled against 'em, and then we knowed what was up. We had to be mighty wary, for if we snapped a twig even, it was all day with us and the prisoners too; so we dragged ourselves back, and after getting out of sound of the Ingins, we just got up and lit out mighty lively for the place we'd left our ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... little flycatcher chose a small twig under one of the boughs of the apple tree, where it perched for hours, darting out when a fly or other insect buzzed by; but always returning to the little twig as if it were home. In the shade of the thick-leaved boughs, the friendly cows sought shelter, patiently chewing their cud, and switching ...
— The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale & The Golden Harvest • Jasmine Stone Van Dresser
... the underbrush and shouting lustily, the three stood motionless, guns ready: the suspense grew tense and the beaters grew silent as they hurried, unseen, from the line of fire. A moment of dead silence, then Lindsey heard to his right a dry twig snap and turning saw a big boar slip out from the brush and pause, its ugly tusks foam-flecked. His heavy gun crashed, the boar leaped convulsively across the clearing, falling at a second shot. As it dropped he whirled ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... sorrowful leave-takings of old friends, who felt as if they were losing the last link with their beloved minister in the departure of his family; the sad farewell looks at all the well-known home objects, the flower-beds, the gravel walks, the shrubs and trees, every twig of which had such a familiar look. Many a time it seemed as if it must be only a sad dream, that all these things were about to pass from her daily life into a vision of memory. Happily it was winter. Had it been ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... to exorcise this spirit of indifference that has settled down like a miasma upon clubdom we must find James's original germ of interest—the twig upon which our cluster of bees is ultimately to hang. Here we may introduce two axioms: Everyone is deeply interested in something; few are supremely interested in the same thing. I shall not attempt to prove these, and what I shall have to say will be addressed only to those ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... and Charlotte came to the turn of the valley where the path spanned a little pond by means of a rustic bridge, and led straight to the corporal's house. They could now see Yeri Foerster, his large felt hat decorated with a twig of heather, his calm eyes, his brown cheeks and grayish hair, seated on the stone bench near his doorway; two beautiful hunting dogs, with reddish-brown coats, lay at his feet, and the high vine arbor behind him rose to the peak ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... bent to hold a twig in the coals, that he might light a cigarette. "All right, I'm the guilty party. Let's have the consequences of my evil deed," he advised, settling back on his heels and lowering an eyelid at Manuel in behalf of this ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... lay in the great bed opposite the window. A thin little twig of a man, he was still animated, at times, by the power of a strenuous and dauntless spirit. His hair, brushed straight back from the overtopping forehead, had grown snowy white, and the eager, delicate face beneath ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... shape of a sword, he fixed it in, making the handle look smart with some coloured pieces of cotton and silk, which he sewed with packthread. Thus marched he out, swaggering down the streets, and swinging his twig of almond-tree in his hand. As he strutted along every one made way for him, imagining him to be one of those insolent retainers of office, who are supported by the great khans. Thus he continued a straight course, until he arrived at the market-place, where a multitude was assembled ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... going forth to Him, and the strength and power of God coming back from Him. You know His own simile, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." From the central Vine the life rises and flows to every farthest branch and twig and leaf, connecting them all in the one life. He the Sacred Vine is on earth with us and in Paradise with them. Some of the branches are in the shadow here, some of them are in the sunlight there, but we are all united through the Lord Himself. He is the Vine, ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... finished, feathers are stuck in the ground around it, and sacred meal is scattered on parts by some of the assisting singers. Others scatter the meal promiscuously; one of the maskers uses a spruce twig and medicine shell, applying meal to every figure and object in the painting. Then the medicine-men all gather up portions of the sacred meal, putting it in their medicine pouches. The patient soon enters and takes his seat in the centre of ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Chase was perfect in its artificiality. It sloped down towards Richmond Park in a series of stately terraces with box-hedge borders trimmed so evenly that not a twig or leaf offended against the canons of symmetry. They were groomed like a racehorse. Centred in a square of barbered lawn was a fountain where Neptune drove his chariot of sea-horses. The Apollo ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... emergency the male robin has been known to perch above the sitting female and shade her with his outstretched wings. But in this case there was no perch for the male bird, had he been disposed to make a sunshade of himself. I thought to lend a hand in this direction myself, and so stuck a leafy twig beside the nest. This was probably an unwise interference: it guided disaster to the spot; the nest was broken up, and the mother bird was probably caught, as ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the compass, and along these pads around the Stirling mob after mob of cattle came in in single file, treading carelessly, until each old bull leader, scenting the camp, gave its low, deep, drawn-out warning call that told of danger at hand. After that rang out, only an occasional snapping twig betrayed the presence of the cattle as they crept cautiously in for the drink that must be procured at all hazards. But after the drink the only point to be considered was safety, and in a crashing stampede they rushed out into the timber. Till long after ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the approach of something that it was beyond his power to prevent. Like an animal that knows death is near, he wandered restlessly hither and thither, to look for some quiet spot. The courtyard only irritated him, so he walked down to the river where yellow leaves were floating, and threw a dry twig into the stream. For a long time he watched the eddying circles on the water as the floating leaves danced. He turned back and went towards the house, stopping to look at the ruined flower-beds where the last red ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... left on the spot, as the load is too heavy for the horses. Thy courage has evaporated. Thou beginnest to run. The heaven is cloudless. Thou art thirsty; the enemy is behind thee; a trembling seizes thee; a twig of thorny acacia worries thee; thou thrustest it aside; the horse is scratched till at length ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... But after they had listened for a while they discovered that it wasn't so still as it had seemed. Every bird and insect, each leaf and blossom, was busy, preparing its dinner, or else just growing. A twig rustled as a little garter snake squirmed into the thicket. A little gray nuthatch looked for its lunch on a locust tree, crawling over the trunk head-downwards, while, on a branch overhead, a crested flycatcher perched watching, watching, then all-of-a-sudden swooped down and pounced ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... much of that insurance idee," the old man said. "I can't remember that it helped the revenue men sech a great deal. The only insurance I ever had was a quick ear, an' even now, I c'n hear a twig snap near a quarter of a mile away. An' that used to be good insurance in the ol' days when, if yo' weren't gunnin' for somebody, thar ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... passing of Mr. Croker, 'I have labored to make a covenant with myself that affection may not press upon judgment; for I suppose there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness but his affection stands to the continuance of a house so illustrious and would take hold on a twig or a twinethread to support it. And yet Time hath his revolutions; there must be a period and an end to all temporal things—finis rerum—an end of names and dignities and whatsoever is terrene; and why not of De Vere? For where is Bohun? where ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... out of his revery by the sharp bark of a squirrel that ran chattering and whisking its tail in great excitement from limb to limb in a clump of chestnuts near. The crackling of a twig betrayed to Gregory the cause of its alarm, for through an opening in the thicket he saw the lady who had started out for a walk with the children while he was leaning on the ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... earliest aconites, perked up their pretty heads in Mary's cottage garden, and throughout all nature there came that inexplicable, indefinite, soft pulsation of new life and new love which we call the spring. Tiny buds, rosy and shining with sap, began to gleam like rough jewels on every twig and tree—a colony of rooks which had abode in the elms surrounding Weircombe Church, started to make great ado about their housekeeping, and kept up as much jabber as though they were inaugurating an Irish night in ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... I became acquainted with a charming young lady, who proved to be a second-cousin of my father's. She belongs to the aristocratic branch of our family. Every family tree has an aristocratic branch, or bough, or little twig at least, I believe. She was a Todworth; and having always heard my other relations mention with immense pride and respect the Todworths,—as if it was one of the solid satisfactions of life to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... in that," commented Haigh, blinking at the shabby black steamer thoughtfully. "You'd better pop down below in case he has ventured his little self on deck, and should happen to twig you. But still it's best to be on the safe side." He chose a cigar, lighted it and puffed for a minute, and then took it out of his mouth and grinned at the glowing end. "Look here. The fellow doesn't ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Train, a melancholy Traitors, our doubts are Traps, Cupid kills with Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart Treasure is, your heart will be where your Tree, like a green bay —is known by his fruit Tree's inclined, as the twig is bent —of deepest root is found Trees, tongues in Tribe, the badge of our —, richer than all his Trick worth two of that Tricks, fantastic Tried, she is to blame who has been Trifles light as air Triton of the minnows Troop, farewell the plumed Trope, out ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... into a row," I said, "and they seem decent chaps. Let's hang the billy on a twig, and that old swagman that's coming along will think there's angels ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... precedents, with traditions such as other Professors enjoy, you could not furnish him. The Chair is a new one, or almost new, and for the present would seem to float in the void, like Mahomet's coffin. Wherefore, being one who (in my Lord Chief Justice Crewe's phrase) would 'take hold of a twig or twine-thread to uphold it'; being also prone (with Bacon) to believe that 'the counsels to which Time hath not been called, Time will not ratify'; I do assure you that, had any legacy of guidance been discovered among the papers left by my predecessor, it would have been eagerly welcomed and ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... cedar-tree outside, upon which his thoughtful eyes fell as he looked straight before him out of the library window, was all garlanded with the reasonings and questionings of this painful spring. To Frank's eyes, Gerald's attention was fixed upon the fluttering of a certain twig at the extremity of one of those broad solemn immovable branches. Gerald, however, saw not the twig, but one of his hardest difficulties which was twined and twined in the most inextricable way round ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... straight mark across near the north end of the stream, and showed the other streams which came into the Green river which I saw at once was exactly correct. Then he laid some small stones on each side of the cross mark, and making a small hoop of a willow twig, he rolled it in the mark he had made across the river, then flourished his stick as if he were driving oxen. Thus he represented the emigrant road. He traced the branches off to the north where the soldiers had gone, and the road to California, which the emigrants took, all of which we ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... considered her brother's cold and handsome young face. She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough, and peeling ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of his snoring, which kept them awake, Thor thrice dealt him fearful blows with his hammer. These strokes, instead of annihilating the monster, merely evoked sleepy comments to the effect that a leaf, a bit of bark, or a twig from a bird's nest overhead had fallen upon his face. Early on the morrow, Skrymir left Thor and his companions, pointing out the shortest road to Utgard-loki's castle, which was built of great ice blocks, with huge glittering icicles as pillars. The gods, slipping between the bars ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... to seedling plants. We have observed cases in only four genera, though we have vainly observed the cotyledons of many others. The genus cassia seems to be pre-eminent in this respect: thus, the cotyledons of C. tora, when extended horizontally, were both lightly tapped with a very thin twig for 3 m. and in the course of a few minutes they formed together an angle of 90o, so that each had risen 45o. A single cotyledon of another seedling was tapped in a like manner for 1 m., and it rose 27o in 9 m.; and after eight additional minutes it had risen 10o more; the ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... where the street divided a bush waved its bare twigs in the wind. The snow which had settled upon it early in the day had been blown away by the freshening wind, and just as Muller neared the bush he saw something white fluttering from one twig. It was a handkerchief, which had probably hung heavy and lifeless when he had passed that way before. Now when the wind held it out straight, he saw it at once. He loosened it carefully from the thorny twigs. A delicate and rather unusual perfume wafted ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... with heavenly learning, how much she learned herself! Love poured from her, through voice and lips and eyes, and in return she drank it in thirstily from the little creature who sat there at her knee, a twig growing just as her bending hand inclined it; all the buds of his nature opening out in the mother-sunshine that surrounded him. Eleven thirty came all too soon. Then before long the kettle would begin to sing, the potatoes to bubble ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... walk through the wood? that is a good joke. Why, it is like walking through a river, and the young wood slapping your eyes, for you can't see every twig by this light, and the leaves sponging your face and shoulders: and the briers would soon strip your gown into ribbons, and make your little ankles bleed. No, you are a lady; you stay where you are, and let us men work it. We shan't find him yet awhile. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... all the men followed. Not a leaf rustled beneath their tread. Not a twig broke as they crept up the side of the deep ravine and looked out at ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... who watched from the dock side were kind and said nothing. The old admirals who had come down to visit the ship were used to these things, or perhaps they did not twig it. After all, what did it matter, it was sailing day, we were all as proud as peacocks of our little ship, and from that day forward we pulled together and played the game, or ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... bears the title of "Odes and Miscellaneous Poems, by a Student of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh," Edinburgh, 1790, 4to. These lucubrations, which attracted no share of public attention, were followed by "The Guinea Note, a Poem, by Timothy Twig, Esquire," Edinburgh, 1797, 4to. His next work is entitled, "An Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland, with Illustrations by David Allan," Edinburgh, 1798, 4to. This work, though written in a rambling style, contains a small proportion ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... patch of fern, I saw what I had never dreamed of, what sent the blood from my heart in a cold shudder of fear: a girl, pale and dishevelled, was trying to part some vines. A twig crackled and she looked round, showing a face drawn with weariness and ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... the knoll, and drew rein exactly at the spot where she had given Oliver Leach his dismissal, and where she had first met John Walden. The wind rustled softly through the boughs, which bent and swayed before her, as though the grand old trees said: 'Thanks to you, we live!' Birds flew from twig to twig,—and the persistent murmur of many bees working amid the wild thyme which spread itself in perfumed purple patches among the moss and grass, sounded like the far-off ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... her party left the palace, and turned away from Nijio round to the highway of Toin, and passed by the mansion of Genji, who witnessed their passing, and sent the following to the lady-mother with a twig ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... race is an organic whole. The individual man is more intimately united to every other man, and to all past and coming generations, than the leaf which flutters on the twig of a great tree is connected with the tree itself, and with every other leaf that swells its foliage, or with the seed which was ages ago planted in the soil, and from which the noble plant has issued. That organic unity of the ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... what happened a long time after.—that this Jokul fell in with King Olaf's men in the island of Gotland, and the king ordered him to be taken out to be beheaded. A willow twig accordingly was plaited in with his hair, and a man held him fast by it. Jokul sat down upon a bank, and a man swung the axe to execute him; but Jokul hearing the sound, raised his head, and the blow struck him in the head, and made a dreadful ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... token of life. On high, bare, or snow-covered mountains the sense of oppression comes in great part from the absence of sound. But stand in spring under a broad, sapful Norway maple, leafless as yet, its every twig and spray clad in tender green flowerets, and listen to the musical murmur of bees above you, full of life and promise, a heavenly harmony from unseen choristers. Here is a symbol of the creative energy, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... and without talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. An hour, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... A small twig in the snow had scratched poor Tim rather violently on his small pug nose, but it was ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... learned to climb with ease The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees, And he was most commended and admired Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired; Each name was called as many various ways As pleased the reader's ear on different days, So that the weather, or the ferule's stings, Colds in the head, or fifty other things, Transformed the helpless ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... you would write more criticism, about Spenser &c. I think I could say something about him myself—but Lord bless me—these "merchants and their spicy drugs" which are so harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up my poor soul and body, till I shall forget I ever thought myself a bit of a genius! I can't even put a few thoughts on paper for a newspaper. I "engross," when I should pen a paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, all traffick, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... future. If these are not made a part of the forming life, things opposite will be received, and determine spiritual capabilities. Influx of life into the soul must be through prior things; as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined; as the child's memory and consciousness is stored, so will the man develop and progress. Take heart, then, doubting parent; if you have in all faithfulness, woven precious truths, and tender, pious, ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... quarter of an hour before the examining magistrate. And then, when you don't talk at all, you run no risk of talking too loud. That's no matter, as I can't see your face and as I don't know your name, you are wrong in supposing that I don't know who you are and what you want. I twig. You've broken up that gentleman a bit; now you want to tuck him away somewhere. The river, that great hider of folly, is what you want. I'll get you out of your scrape. Helping a good fellow in a pinch is what ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... avenue where the trees were golden. Here the soldier again broke off a twig, and again ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Payne of Pallenswick, Esq.," who placed a monument in Fulham Church to the memory of himself and his wife before his own death, and who left an island called Makenshawe "to the use of the poor of this parish on the Hammersmith side." This bequest is otherwise described as being part of an island or twig-ait called Mattingshawe, situated in the parish of Richmond in the county of Surrey. At the time the bequest was left the rent-charge on the island amounted to L3 yearly, which was to be distributed among twelve ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... stone-incrusted institutions of the mother-country. The reason may be (though I should prefer a more generous explanation) that he recognizes the tendency of these hardened forms to stiffen her joints and fetter her ankles, in the race and rivalry of improvement. I hated to see so much as a twig of ivy wrenched away from an old wall in England. Yet change is at work, even in such a village as Whitnash. At a subsequent visit, looking more critically at the irregular circle of dwellings that surround the yew-tree and confront ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dwelling! Your notion's lovely, winning, grand, The fiscal cat most bravely belling; Guileless NATHANIEL, too, affects World-hardened hearts—almost to weeping, Volunteer taxes who expects To draw from Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from his thirsty swig, The swindler from his schemings sorry: "Persuade" the Sweater to be just, The 'cute Monopolist to be kindly; Tempt hunger to resign his crust, The niggard churl to lavish blindly: Make—by soft words—the ruthless ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... after he was gone. She closed the door behind her, and stood still. Taking from her pocket the bulky envelope, she slipped it into the letter-box; then bending down, picked up a twig, and placed it in the slit, to prevent the lid falling with a rattle. Having done this, she swept her hands down her face and breast as though to brush something from her, and walked away. Beyond the outer gate she turned to the left, and took ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... who years before had learned to sleep among such sounds lay down and fell asleep grumbling. Young men and boys who had never heard such sounds turned sick with horror or wandered frightened through the dark, nervously ready to fire on any moving twig or scraping branch. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... "Just twig 'em, Jimmy!" shouted one who had tipped over half a dozen of his companions in his enthusiasm. "Their tails is ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... coals; and a Scotch collop is perhaps equal to a Turkish kebob. We wonder if in Australia the long-forgotten Scotch collop has been revived? It requires no cooking-vessels. It may be held to the fire on a twig, or laid on the coals and turned by a similar twig—bent into a collop-tongs—or even by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... called my attention to a fresh caribou track in the hard earth. It was scarcely distinguishable, and I had to look very closely to make it out. Then he showed me other signs that I could make nothing of at all—a freshly turned pebble or broken twig. These, he said, were fresh deer signs. A caribou had passed toward the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... laurel twig among your flowers, Baroness?" said he. "Excellent! for Fame herself is not a goddess more suited to distribute favours. Do I not in you Madame, see again Daphne, the friend of Apollo, who turned into that tree?" and, smiling atrociously over his classical sweet speech, he looked ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... suffer, as being deprived of the proper development of a tree, and as involving a blank space that wants occupation; but the portions left are not made discordant or disagreeable. They are absolutely and in themselves as valuable as they can be, every stem is a perfect stem, and every twig a graceful twig, or at least as perfect and as graceful as they were before the removal of the rest. But if we try the same experiment on the imaginative painter's work, and break off the merest stem or twig ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... other tribe, aghast, with sore dismay, Attend, and conn their tasks with mickle care: By turns, astonied, every twig survey, And, from their fellow's hateful wounds, beware; Knowing, I wist, how each the same may share; Till fear has taught them a performance meet, And to the well-known chest the dame repairs; Whence oft with sugared cates she doth 'em greet, And ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... doomed to wings. Did gems turn to flowers, flowers to feathers, in that long-past dynasty of the Humming-Birds? It is strange to come upon his tiny nest, in some gray and tangled swamp, with this brilliant atom perched disconsolately near it, upon some mossy twig; it is like visiting Cinderella among her ashes. And from Humming-Bird to Eagle, the daily existence of every bird is a remote and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... neighbours in the night Pull down an alehouse bush for spite; The laurel so, by poets worn, Is by the teeth of Envy torn; Envy, a canker-worm, which tears Those sacred leaves that lightning spares. And now, t'exemplify this moral: Tom having earn'd a twig of laurel, (Which, measured on his head, was found Not long enough to reach half round, But, like a girl's cockade, was tied, A trophy, on his temple-side,) Paddy repined to see him wear This badge of honour in his hair; And, thinking ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... much wandering, Gawain and his ladylove reached the top of a hill, whence they could look across a valley to a gigantic castle, perched on a rock, near which was a pine tree. Orgueilleuse now informed Gawain that the castle belonged to her mortal enemy, Gramoflaus. She bade him bring her a twig of the tree, and conquer the owner of the castle, who would challenge him as soon as he touched it, and promised that if he obeyed her exactly she would be his ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... and he went forward at a jog trot in the direction he had seen the figure disappear. He reached the pines and went softly. Every now and again he stopped, and once he could have sworn he heard the cracking of a twig ahead ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... was frontier bred, and although his progress was slower than the Texan's had been, he crept along as silently as one of the redskins themselves. Not a mesquite twig snapped under his body; not a pebble rattled. It seemed to take him hours to reach the hill which Kid Wolf had pointed out to him. As he did so, the moonlight again became so bright that it made the landscape nearly as white ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... Hazelton declared dolefully. "We drew lots on the other side. Greg drew the shortest twig, so he had to stay at the camp. I got the next shortest twig, so ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... up on a hill. It was dark, except for one dim light in an upper story. In the shadow of the hedge, Craig silently vaulted the low fence and slipped up the terraces, as noiselessly as an Indian, scarcely crackling a twig or rustling a dead leaf on the ground. He paused as he came to a wing on the right ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... is that green plant up there? It looks as if the oak tree were all dead except that one sprig of green. Strange that it should keep only one twig alive." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... lightly round and round. But it was strange—so strange as to cause the White Hawk to pause and gaze long and fixedly upon the ground—there was no path which led to this flowery circle. There was not even a crushed leaf nor a broken twig, nor the least trace of a footstep, approaching or retiring, to be found. He thought he would hide himself and lie in wait to discover, if he could, what this strange ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... of this bird to make a large circus, some ten or twelve feet in diameter, in the forest, which it clears of every leaf and twig and branch, till the ground is perfectly swept and garnished. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch or high arched rest, at a few feet elevation from the ground on which the female bird takes its place, while ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... There is such a freedom from responsibility and from worldly wisdom,—it is heavenly wisdom. There is no sentiment in children, because there is no ruin; nothing has gone to decay about them yet,—not a leaf or a twig. Until he is well into his teens, and sometimes later, a boy is like a bean-pod before the fruit has developed,—indefinite, succulent, rich in possibilities which are only vaguely outlined. He is a pericarp merely. How rudimental are ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... at evening came and laid Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs, And on my topmost branch the blackbird made A little nest of grasses for his spouse, And now and then a twittering wren would light On a thin twig which hardly bare the ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... came into my mind as unconsciously as you broke off that twig just now. If I do not get what I lack, nothing can be accomplished—there can be no explosion! I shall abandon the whole thing ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... world with fagots big That make a crackling racket, But I'm content with but a whispering twig To ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... asked to do too much, and when at last they staggered out of action, the men jumped and started at the rustle of a twig. It's a miserable thing when brave men are asked to do more than brave men ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... Crusoe is wont to stare in nursery picture-books. No; it was a print which was totally invisible to ordinary eyes, and revealed itself to these children of the woods in the form of a turned leaf and a cracked twig. Such as it was, it revealed a track which the three children followed up until they found Tom Brixton—or his body—lying on the ground near ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... been and must be gradual in order to be permanent. There has been no spasmodic growth in the oak of the forest. A few years ago it was only a tiny twig, but silently, imperceptibly, and daily, it has increased in strength and greatness, until now it stands forth the giant of the forest with its large and manifold parts extending far and wide, sheltering the cattle of the hills and the fowl of the air. We do not demand the commanding position which ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... A twig snapped behind me, and there was a rustle. I turned, and stood facing the dark trees. I could see nothing—or else I could see too much. Every dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar suggestion ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... and thought has more power than instinct—in short the whole romantic cycle of German and northern poetry, awoke little by little in my memory and laid claim upon my sympathy. It is a poetry of bracing quality, and acts upon one like a moral tonic. Strange charm of imagination! A twig of pine wood and a few spider-webs are enough to make countries, epochs, and nations ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... everything was covered in a gray coat of ice. A young maple grew directly under my window, and its poor head was bent over as though in sorrow at the treatment it had to endure, and its branches hung listlessly in their icy case, with a frozen raindrop at the end of each twig. The sidewalks were treacherous, and I found some amusement in watching the pedestrians as they warily proceeded along the slippery pavement, most of them treading as though walking on egg-shells. There went an old gentleman who must have had business down town, for I had seen ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... imitation of Tom Madison's "Old Dan Tucker." My success quite pleased me, and I became so absorbed that I quite lost account of the time and place. There was no one to hear me save a bluejay which for an hour or more kept me company. He sat on a twig just across the brook, cocking his head at me, and saucily wagging his tail. Occasionally he would dart off among the trees crying shrilly; but his curiosity would always get the better of him and back he would come again to ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... diminishes in value according as you slide it nearer or farther upon a horizontal arm. It is equivalent to so many ounces when it is close to the upright, and to so many pounds when it hangs from the farther end of the horizontal rod. Distance plays some such part with the twig or the bird in the upper corner of a Japanese composition. Its place is its significance and its value. Such an art of position implies a great art of intervals. The Japanese chooses a few things and leaves the space between them ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... cloak round her, went to the door and opened it. Every blade, every twig was still. The air was yet thick with moisture, though somewhat less dense than during the afternoon, and a steady smack of drops upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almost musical in its soothing regularity. It seemed better to be out of the house than ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... as the machine swung past white posts into a wooded drive, which curved and curved again, losing and finding glimpses of the sea. No buds were out, but each twig bulged with nobbins of new life; and the ground, brown still, had the swept and garnished look which the March winds leave behind for the tempting of Spring. Persephone had not risen, but the earth listened for her step, and the air held the high purified quality ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... work and talk, to peer into the gathering night and listen for the breaking of a twig. At length I took my rifle and fired at intervals half a dozen shots; but the reports echoed and died away without a reply. A damp north wind chilled the air, and ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... darted birds which in their full vigour and perfect plumage looked a hundred times more beautiful than the dried specimens to which he was accustomed in museums and private collections. Here from a dry twig darted a kingfisher of dazzling blue, not upon a fish, but upon a beetle, which it bore off in triumph. Away overhead, with a roar like a distant train, sped a couple of rhinoceros hornbills, to be succeeded by a flash of noisy, harsh-shrieking ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... on the backs of the striding beasts, and they were afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop; there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call, the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... long, pointing in the general direction of the twig on which they grow, frequently curved at the tip, whitish-yellow when young, and brown at maturity; scales when mature without prickles, thickened at the apex; outline very irregular but in general oblong-conical. The open cones, which are usually much distorted, with scales ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... some 10 feet on to the floor of the verandah. In this respect all birds behave alike. They never attempt to reclaim that which they have let fall. A bird will spend the greater part of half an hour in wrenching a twig from a tree: yet, if this is dropped while being carried to the nest, the bird seems to lose all further interest ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... window, and gave a gasp of delight as she saw the shimmering, rime-covered trees, with the sunshine striking full upon them and bringing out sparks of light from every branch and twig. Whatever sounds there were in the streets came to her softened and mellowed over the snow-laden ground, and as she listened she felt a great wave of inward happiness surge into her heart and make the possibilities of life seem very different to ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... tinge. It was very still, yet all alive with woodsy sounds. Now a belated cicada swung his rattle as if in a fright, next a bull-frog, with hoarse kerchug! took a header for his evening bath. Once, later on, when the shadows were falling, a sleepy thrush settled upon a twig near by, and sang his good-night in sweetest tones. About this time he heard a farm-boy calling anxiously through the neighboring wood for the lost Sukey of the herd, and at times a dusty rumble announced a wagon jolting homeward ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... breakfast was over Mark rushed out to join Cass Dale, who sitting crosslegged under an ilex-tree was peeling a pithy twig ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... leaves of trees. They walk among the thick underbrush, carrying their horns adroitly to prevent their catching in the branches, and they step so well, and aim so true, that you'll scarcely hear a twig fall ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... sunshine investing this gorgeous tapestry with all the glories of Iris; here, rising above his compeers, a stately lord of the grove, hoary with frost and years, whose outspreading boughs are burnished, as if every twig had been touched by the hand of an enchanter, whilst there, under his shade, bends a mountain ash, smeared with the crimsoned berries of the preceding summer, now ice-coated bon-bons eagerly plucked by troops of roseate grosbeaks ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... his garrulity. He is our attendant in all our pleasant winter-walks, in the orchard or the wood, in the garden or by the rustic wayside. We have seen him, on still winter-days, flitting from tree to tree, with the liveliest motions and in the most engaging attitudes, examining every twig and branch, and winding over and under and in and out among them, and, after a few lively notes, hopping to another tree to pass through the same manoeuvres. Even those who are confined to the house are not excluded from a sight of these birds; one cannot open a window, on a bright winter's morning, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... as I rode away. Perhaps no person ever departed from an inn with more eclat or better wishes; nobody looked at me askance, except two stage-coachmen who were loitering about, one of whom said to his companion, "I say, Jim! twig his portmanteau! a regular Newmarket turn-out, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... some long moments. Embers in the fire broke and fell; the horses cropped the grass; a nut or twig dropped somewhere among ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... plant shows its capacity to act as a whole at various places of its organism. Otherwise, no plant could be propagated by cuttings; in any little twig cut from a parent plant, all the manifold forces operative in the gathering, transmuting, forming of matter, that are necessary for the production of root, leaf, flower, fruit, etc., are potentially present, ready to leap into action provided we give it suitable ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse—or when she asks him to show it off we know not which—he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... preparations for immediate departure, the two young Englishmen, feeling strangely lonely, walked over to the spot where the funeral pyre had been built, and inspected what remained of it. They found that it had been completely consumed, to the very last twig; and upon searching among the white ashes they found a calcined skull and a few fragments of the larger bones. These they gathered carefully together and reverently buried; after which, having now done all that was possible to preserve the remains of their late friend from desecration, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Najd, when from Najd thou blow, * Thy breathings heap only new woe on woe! The turtle bespake me in bloom of morn * From the cassia-twig an the willow-bough She moaned with the moaning of love-sick youth * And exposed love-secret I ne'er would show: They say lover wearies of love when near * And is cured of love an afar he go: I tried either cure which ne'er cured my love; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... fire, and his great body quivered with excitement. His companions, too, were intensely stirred. The slashers were against King George, and that was all-sufficient. Like weird spectres they moved through the night. Not a word did they speak, and not a twig snapped as their moccasined feet pressed the ground. Never did a girl have a more determined and thoroughly-trained body of men speeding forth on her behalf than did Jean Sterling that night in the heart of ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... to disperse. Higher, higher rose the voices; fiercer, fiercer waxed the multitude; more and more frightful became the uproar. The long-pent-up excitement of the city and its hatred of Abolitionists had broken loose at last and the deluge had come. The mayor tossed upon the human inundation as a twig on a mountain stream, and with him for the nonce struggled helplessly the police ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... traps. Look at them," continued Captain Oughton, turning to a party of the troops ordered for a passage, who were standing on the gangway and booms; "every man Jack with his tin pot in his hand, and his greatcoat on. Twig the drum-boy, he has turned his coat—do you see?—with the lining outwards to keep it clean. By Jove, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Turnstile turnkruco. Turpentine terebinto. Turpitude hontindajxo. Turquoise turkiso. Turret tureto. Turtle-dove turto. Tusk dentego. Tutor guvernisto. Twain du. Tweezers prenileto. Twelve dekdu. Twig brancxeto. Twilight vespera krepusko. Twin dunaskito. Twine sxnureto. Twinkle brileti. Twist tordi. Twitter pepi. Two du. Tympanum oreltamburo. Type (model) modelo. Type tipo, preslitero. Typhoid (fever) tifa febro. Typhus tifo. Typical modela. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the metamorphosis continually plays. Everything on which his eye rests, obeys the impulses of moral nature. The figs become grapes whilst he eats them. When some of his angels affirmed a truth, the laurel twig which they held blossomed in their hands. The noise which at a distance appeared like gnashing and thumping, on coming nearer was found to be the voice of disputants. The men in one of his visions, seen in heavenly light, appeared like dragons, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson |
