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Stir   Listen
verb
Stir  v. t.  (past & past part. stirred; pres. part. stirring)  
1.
To change the place of in any manner; to move. "My foot I had never yet in five days been able to stir."
2.
To disturb the relative position of the particles of, as of a liquid, by passing something through it; to agitate; as, to stir a pudding with a spoon. "My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred."
3.
To bring into debate; to agitate; to moot. "Stir not questions of jurisdiction."
4.
To incite to action; to arouse; to instigate; to prompt; to excite. "To stir men to devotion." "An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife." "And for her sake some mutiny will stir." Note: In all senses except the first, stir is often followed by up with an intensive effect; as, to stir up fire; to stir up sedition.
Synonyms: To move; incite; awaken; rouse; animate; stimulate; excite; provoke.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stir" Quotes from Famous Books



... contend unhurt? Our success in arms will be more prosperous if hunger joins battle first. Let hunger captain us, and so let us take the first chance of conflict. Let it decide the day in our stead, and let our camp remain free from the stir of war; if hunger retreat beaten, we must break off idleness. He who is fresh easily overpowers him who is shaken with languor. The hand that is flaccid and withered will come fainter to the battle. He whom any hardship has first wearied, will ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... streets at night became the scene of riotous exploits of this kind, and our watch, being old and feeble men, were quite unable to cope with the rioters, so that decent folk began to be afraid to stir abroad after dark. Though they disguised themselves for these forays, it was shrewdly suspected who they were; but they escaped actual detection, and indeed, they were held in such terror by the townsfolk that no one durst move against them openly, for fear ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... name "Kid Wolf," a stir was felt in the crowded saloon. It was a name many of them had heard before, and most of the loungers began to look upon the stranger with more respect. Others frowned darkly. Blacksnake was one of them. Plainly, what he ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... said Tony, striking a match to light his pipe. "I could find my way with my eyes shut. And it would not do fur me to go. I'll make too much noise comin' back. There's no knowin' how soon the turkeys will begin to stir about." ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton

... Piccola! Sad were they When dawned the morning of Christmas-day; Their little darling no joy might stir, St Nicholas nothing ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... people walking about. Above the rail of the gallery could be seen the hats and heads of more people. People were entering all the time and leaving all the time. Scores of waitresses, in pale green and white, moved to and fro like an alien and mercenary population. The heat, the stir, the hum, and the clatter were terrific. And from on high descended thin, strident music in ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... them lay a panorama which might well stir the blood, the finest looking soldiers in the world ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... many hearts she won! The reigning belle, she could not stir, But, like the planets round the sun, Her suitors followed—all but one— One all the ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... "excitability." All exciting powers were supposed to be stimulating, the apparent debilitating effects of some being due to a deficiency in the amount of stimulus. Thus "the whole phenomena of life, health, as well as disease, were supposed to consist of stimulus and nothing else." This theory created a great stir in the medical world, and partisans and opponents sprang up everywhere. In Italy it was enthusiastically supported; in England it was strongly opposed; while in Scotland riots took place between the opposing factions. Just why this system should have created any stir, either ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... visible than the whole man. I turned white and cold, felt an awful dread; I was too much afraid to go near enough to shut the door when he had vanished. I was so shaken and confused, and half paralysed, I felt I could not even cry out; it was as if something had a grip on my spirit, I feared to stir, and sat up all night, fearing to take my eyes off the door, not daring to go and shut it. Later on I got an umbrella and walked tremblingly, and pushed the door close without fastening it. I feared to touch it ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... where the eager hunter flies; By his side alone rides Fridthjof, silent, grave, with downcast eyes. Darkest thoughts, and full of anguish, stir within his sorrowing breast, And wherever he may wander, ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... great presence of mind, untied the dangling robe and dropped it over the parapet. One of the arena attendants carried it to Brinnaria and she put it on. But she would not stir and stood straddling the fallen lad until one of the Emperor's aides came out of one of the low doors in the arena-wall, crossed to her and assured her that the defeated retiarius would be spared and cared for. Then she suffered herself to be led back to her seat, by way of the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... o'clock many of the Ladies' maids are awake in the Palace, the Chicory in my botanical garden, and some tradesmen. At eight o'clock all the colleges awake and the little mouse-ear. At nine o'clock, the female nobility already begin to stir; the marigold, and even many young ladies, who have come from the country on a visit, begin to look out of their windows. Between ten and eleven o'clock the Court Ladies and the whole staff of Lords of ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... same ground; and then up the hill to Vinny Ridge and the Heronry, where Captain Winstanley cracked his whip to scare the herons, and had the satisfaction of scaring his own and the other two horses, while the herons laughed him to scorn from their cradles in the tree-tops, and would not stir a feather for his gratification. Then by a long plantation to a wild stretch of common, where Vixen told her companions that they were safe for a good while, and set them an example by starting Arion across the short smooth turf at a hand-gallop. They pulled up just in time to escape a ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... the night of the christening, and everyone was dancing or laughing and as happy as could be. Suddenly the old fairy stepped out from a shadow, as she had done years before, and looking at the beautiful girl said, "Sleep." Immediately not one sound or stir was ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... perhaps go to church on Sunday, and, no doubt, thank God that they are not as other people. It is very good to fine a poor devil of a Chinaman because he lives in an overcrowded tenement; but what a stir there would be if some enterprising San Francisco journal should give a description of these holes, and the different uses they are put to, and add the names and residences of ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, 385 With a short uneasy motion— Backwards and forwards half her length With ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... measureless into the far blackness of the Everlasting Night; and I made no salutation; for I had so resolved, as you will know; moreover, I desired not to call forth any unneedful disturbance of the aether of the world, which indeed must be, did I make to stir ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... leave their beds; you can do naught, and will see but little in the dark. To-morrow morning, wife, I will leave you free to go among the soldiers and give them encouragement as may be needed, but for to-night, I pray you stir not out. I will send Henry from time to time to let you know ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... Christian resting, full of years, full of memories, full of hopes, to whom the stir of the present is nothing, who has come so near the place where the river falls into the great sea that the sounds on the banks are unheard. It is calm above the cataract, and though there be a shock when the stream ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the officer. "Nobody there. If there had been we should have heard the groan of a wounded man or seen the wheat stir as the Germans hugged closer to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... which they proposed making the ascent, was nearly ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. He knew that the atmosphere in such a situation would be extremely rarefied, and that a balloon, which might easily ascend many thousand feet into the air starting from the level of the sea, would not stir from the ground if carried to the top of a mountain ten thousand feet high. This was the circumstance which preyed upon the spirit of the young philosopher, and hindered him from entertaining any very sanguine hopes of success in the experiment ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... the way, I know how to stir him up," said Tolly, coming forward with a pail of water and sending the contents violently into his friend's face—thus drenching him from ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... The greatest stir was made upon the discovery of secret documents left behind by the British military at the hurried ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... he looked off over the arid plains. "It's a long story—that. I told it to him once to try to stir his heart toward me, but it was of no use, and I'll not tell it now—but this. I'd never looked on my boy since I held him in my arms—a heartbroken man—until he came to me there—that is, if he were he. But if Harry King is my son, then he is ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... even to the point of submitting her daughter to a series of absolutely convincing tests. He made mention also of his book, which was nearly ready for the press, and which he hoped would create a great stir among scientists. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... head in a square of cloth and continued her search. After a time, she found another, and when she went down the hill there were three heads in the blood-soaked square of cloth. She hid them in the willows, and went into the house to stir the contents of the tin cup. She noted with evident satisfaction that it had thickened somewhat. Little Coyote's woman had told her it would do so. She found a bottle which had contained lemon extract, and this she rinsed. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... recipe for bread. Here is one: For a small baking of bread take one medium-sized potato, boil it, and mash it fine; add a heaping table-spoonful of flour, and pour over it a tea-cupful of boiling water; let it stand until it is lukewarm, then stir in two table-spoonfuls of yeast—my mamma uses home-made—and set it in a warm place (not too warm) to rise. When it comes up light, add a cup of lukewarm water, a tea-spoonful of salt, and flour enough to make a batter. Let this rise, and ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... its colouring, and relieved by but four allowable academy properties, a palm-tree, a camel, a sphinx, and a pyramid. For foreground, throw in a sheikh in appropriate drapery; for background, a sky-line and a bleaching skeleton; stir and mix, and your picture is finished. Most practical deserts one comes across in travelling, however, are a great deal less simple and theatrical than that; rock preponderates over sand in their composition, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... Lerat became at once very grave; it was she who had conducted all the negotiations and who had settled how everything should pass between the two families. She put her cap and shawl on again and went upstairs very stiffly in her skirts, looking very stately. Down below the laundress continued to stir her vermicelli soup without saying a word. The guests suddenly became serious and ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... after we had fired, to load our guns again, and finding they did not stir from the place we fired among them again; we killed about nine of them at the second fire; but as they did not stand so thick as before, all our men did not fire, seven of us being ordered to reserve our charge, and to advance as soon as the other had fired, while the rest loaded again; of which ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... came back the answer in the old man's cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... could not hold. It flagged and sank, echoing down into the caves. He sat still and felt the old taskmaster stir. But this time he found strength to resist. There resulted, not the divine novelty and largeness of that one moment, but a kind of dim and bare desert waste of wide extent. And as it ate up all width, so it seemed timeless. Across this, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... piece, or two or three white artichokes. Strain the soup, taste it, and add more salt or more milk as you think necessary. Return to the pan. Take the yolk of an egg and just before taking the soup from the fire, stir it quickly in. This soup must never boil. It should be made out of the very white fish, excluding ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various

... English monarchy. I denied the charge. He enforced it with oaths, and I spurned his allegations. The prince, who believed him, furiously gave me the lie, and commanded me as a traitor to leave his presence. I refused to stir an inch till I made the base heart of Le de Spencer retract his falsehood. The coward took courage on his master's support, and drawing his sword upon me, in language that would blister my tongue to repeat, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... but began to despond and dwindle, and I with them; for there was scarcely any demand for Orange tunes. Then Dan O'Connell arose with his emancipation and repale cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there were Papist processions and mobs, which made me afraid to stir out, lest knowing me for an Orange fiddler, they should break my head, as the boys broke my leg at Donnybrook fair. At length some of the repalers and emancipators knowing that I was a first-rate hand at fiddling came to me and tould me, that if I would give over playing ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... stir of Lafayette Street alarmed her because it was so foreign. The upper part of the town had been empty and eerie. This quarter was eerie, alien, and occupied. It was difficult for her to tell what so ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... characteristics of advocates, conservative and radical, is their conscienceless treatment of facts. Rarely do they allow full value to that which qualifies or contradicts their theories. The ardent and single-minded reformer is not infrequently the worst sinner in this respect. To stir indignation against conditions, he paints them without a background and ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... put everyone in vast good humour. You might wonder that his sweetly idyllic picture did not stir bitterness by contrast; it were to credit the English workman with too much imagination. Resonance of applause rewarded the sparkling rhetorician. A few of the audience availed themselves of the noise to withdraw, for the clock showed that it was close ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... nusance was thereby removed, I thought the resentments of the holy ones would have proceeded no further; I am sure the cause of virtue and sound religion I was thought to offend, required no more; nor could it be of any possible advantage to the church, to descend to my private affairs, and stir up my creditors in the university to take hold of me at a disadvantage, before I could get any money returned; but there are some persons in the world, who think nothing unjust or inhuman in the prosecution ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... air in the court shortly before sunset, after a hard day's work in church. The land was beginning to stir with the resurrection-life of spring; and the hills set round the town had that faint flush of indescribable colour that tinges slopes of grass as the sleeping sap begins to stir. The elm-trees in the court were hazy with growth as the buds ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... his work and do it properly, so that he may be ready for any emergency that may happen to come along. Come and dine with me to-night, and bring the young monkey with you. I'll talk to him like a Dutch uncle, and see if I can't stir him up to a sense of his responsibilities. One word more, my lad. An opportunity to pass may occur while you are over yonder; and if it does, I very strongly advise you ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... and huge, enlarging on the sight, Nature's volcanic amphitheatre, Chimera's Alps, extend from left to right; Beneath, a living valley seems to stir. Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain fir Nodding above; behold Black Acheron! Once consecrated to the sepulchre. Pluto! if this be hell I look upon, Close shamed Elysium's gates; my shade ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... an American boy associates with the Fourth of July is that of gunpowder in some form, and a wild liberty to fire off pistols in all miscellaneous directions, and to throw firecrackers under the heels of horses, and into crowds of women and children, for the fun of seeing the stir and commotion thus produced. Now take a young Parisian boy and give him a fete, and he conducts himself with greater gentleness and good breeding, because he is part of a community in which the art of amusement has been ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... one thing more. I never spoke on it for fear of the bairn being called a tell-tale, but I just comforted him up. He vexes Michael at times, and Michael has struck him before now. I did not want to make a stir; but he's not strong, and a word from thee, Susan, will go ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell

... a bad place to swim, my friend! There ain't enough water to drown you, but if you stir you'll run against ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... needless to speak further of the causes for emigration, so clearly set forth in the foregoing facts; but we give a late one, which in its section of country caused considerable anxiety and stir among this oppressed people. About the close of July an article appeared in the Mercury, edited by Colonel A. G. Horn, at Meridian, Mississippi, in which occurs the following: "We would like to engrave a prophecy on stone, to be read ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... surprised. I remember when a reporter was sent from Albany, New York, to see what we were doing, and reported in the "Country Gentlemen." We had visitors by the score from various states, it made such a stir. They couldn't believe it was possible for a man to take land as poor as that, and make it produce so well. We had some they could see that had not been touched. As I told you, in eleven years we were out of debt. After about ten or eleven ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... "go yourself, sister O'Faley, if you like it, but I'll not let Harry Ormond stir—he is my witness present. Dora is not fainting—if you would only let her alone, she would do well. Dora, listen to me: if you don't really prefer this Black Connal for a husband to all other men, as you are to swear at the altar you do, if ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... moustache, black eyes and a hooked nose. The man at once rushed round the corner and it struck Kuzma Vassilyevitch that he recognised—not his face, for he had never seen it before—but the cuff of his sleeve. Three silver buttons gleamed distinctly in the moonlight. There was a stir of uneasy perplexity in the soul of the prudent lieutenant; when he got home he did not light as usual his meerschaum pipe. Though, indeed, his sudden acquaintance with charming Emilie and ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... matter, as matter is revealed to man, came into being without asking leave; they were interlopers in the intelligible universe. Indeed, Descartes was willing to admit that these inexplicable bystanders might sometimes put their finger in the pie, and stir the material world judiciously so as to give it a new direction, although without adding to its substance or to ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... walk from Stratford to Coventry, the other, the walk from Coventry to Stratford. A short distance northeast of Stratford are Warwick with its castle, the home of the famous king-maker, and Kenilworth Castle, whose historic associations were romantic enough to stir the imagination of a ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... Davy suddenly said, "I can see the fire!" and that, as she did not stir, he cried it again, this time not so near. She dreamed that the sound of splashing boots and shouting came down across the dark water, and that lights smote her eyelids with sharp pain. An overwhelming dread of effort swept over her. She did not want to move ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... Jerusalem to attempt to stir up the people against Hezekiah. "He wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... stir and uproar. And I stood quite still by the wings, shocked by what had happened, not understanding at all, not knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her away. I saw Aniuta Blagovo come up to me. I had not seen her in the hall before ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever seething—an awful Inferno—under the thin crust of the globe on ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... berries went into the clear syrup in the preserving-kettle. Juliet flew to get her glass pots ready. She stopped to stir something in a saucepan. She thrust some eggs into the small ice-chest to cool them for the salad dressing soon to be made. She kept one eye on the clock, for the strawberry preserve had to be timed to a minute—ten, no more, no less. It ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... slow days went by until the world began to stir with the new spring-time—the saddest time of the year to those who live much in the past. Wenna was out and about a great deal, being continually busy, but she no longer took those long walks by herself in which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... Wallace, with their bright, blooming, sunny faces—bright and happy whenever we appeared, most certainly, of late—were in the former direction, and even Dirck cried out 'for Ravensnest.' But, on that route the Onondago refused to stir one foot. He stood, resembling a finger-post, pointing north-westerly with an immovable obstinacy, that threatened to bring the order of our march into ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... relieve the sentries, there was no stir among them until late in the afternoon. Then there was a general movement, and soon all were sitting up, and appeasing their appetite upon the cold meat and dampers they ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... had gathered there under the patronage of the ruling duke, an enlightened protector of the arts and sciences. The noise of guns, the passage of the fugitives and the entry of the victors caused a great stir in this peaceful and studious population; but Marshals Lannes and Soult maintained a firm discipline, and apart from having to provide food for the soldiers, the town suffered no outrage. The Prince of Weimar served in the Prussian army, nevertheless his palace, where ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... Universe yonder; and reconcile yourself with the idea that you are only a farthing rushlight. The cries of the poor widow fall as dead upon him as the smiles of the brightest eyes out of Georgia. He can't stir abroad but those abominable cannon begin roaring and deafening his ears. He can't see the world but over the shoulders of a row of fat pashas, and eunuchs, with their infernal ugliness. His ears can never be regaled with a word of truth, or blessed with an honest laugh. ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... this Newton could draw no other conclusion than that his uncle had plenty of business. The fire in the grate was on so small a scale, that although he shivered with wet and cold, Newton was afraid to stir it, lest it should go out altogether. From this circumstance he drew a hasty and unsatisfactory conclusion that his uncle was not very partial to spending ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... in attics, ain't considered human. I tell you what, though, if Mis' Way had a seen her children starving, and stole a loaf of bread to save their lives, there would have been a stir about it, and a pile of policemen from here to the corner, to 'enforce the law,' and they'd have talked in all the churches, about the depravity of the poor in these cities, and then sent another thousand or two to the heathens. The Lord ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... assistance from the other tribes and from their British Father at Malden. There may have been reason for expecting it from the former, but none from the latter. He entertained strong prejudices against the whites, and being naturally prone to mischief making, was willing to stir up the Indians to resistance, without caring for the results that would be likely to follow a border war. The likeness of him, which is here given, is said to convey a good idea of his style of dress and the ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... in the least touched, and hardly knew how to reply. "Oh, to be sure!" she said. "Glad to see you," said Mrs Jane. "Great loss we've had in Madam. Hope you'll be as good as she was. My sister desired me to make her compliments. Can't stir off the sofa. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... she kissed th' child, a long, soft kiss, and looking in my face to see if I could take her meaning, gave me th' babby without a word. I were loath to stir, but I saw it were better to go. So giving Jennings a sharp nudge (for he'd fallen asleep), I says, 'Missis, what's to pay?' pulling out my money wi' a jingle that she might na guess we were at all bare o' cash. So she looks at her husband, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... ain't none but me as dares touch him. I let the boy try it once, and I found the poor lad half an hour afterwards standing in the middle of the big loose box like a statter, while Brimstone raced round him as hard as he could go, just like one of them circus horses. The boy dursn't stir. If he'd moved a limb, Brimstone 'ud ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... missed at all were the plated things. I had not had teaspoons enough when the English were here—not that they cared. They were quite willing to stir their tea with each other's spoons, since there was plenty of tea,—and a ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... sugar would stir the mind of Mrs. Mackridge. "They say," she would begin, issuing her proclamation—at least half her sentences began "they say"—"sugar is fatt-an-ing, nowadays. Many of the best people do not ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... His expression has been so turbulent that I have feared to give him your kind message. Who knows! Perhaps the Old Sea God as he lay asleep upon the shore, heard the soft music of growing things—the stir of life in the earth's bosom, and his stormy heart was angry, because he knew that his and Winter's reign was almost at an end. So together the unhappy monarch[s] fought most despairingly, thinking that gentle Spring would turn and ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... writings, by the gods inspired, Your constant pattern, practiced and admired. By them alone you'll easy comprehend How poets without shame may condescend To sing of gardens, fields, of flowers and fruit, To stir up shepherds ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... and increased, the business, from the main part, ceased before it had begun. Twice in the day there was a certain stir of shepherding along the seaward hills. At times a canoe went out to fish. At times a woman or two languidly filled a basket in the cotton patch. At times a pipe would sound out of the shadow of a house, ringing the changes on its three notes, with an effect like Que le jour me dure, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... (May 31, 1863) an unusual stir was noticeable in the city. The air was all aglow with excitement. Horsemen were galloping in the streets leading pack-mules, and the sleepy town seemed full of bustle and animation. As we stood at our balcony, we saw many acquaintances, apparently equipped for a journey, speeding past, with ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... a running stream, at all events there is of a mountainous and stony place. The longer I study this master, the more I feel the strange likeness between him and Turner, in our never knowing what subject it is that will stir him to exertion. We have lately had him treating Jacob's Dream, Ezekiel's Vision, Abraham's Sacrifice, and Jonah's Prayer, (all of them subjects on which the greatest painters have delighted to expend their strength,) with coldness, carelessness, and evident absence of delight; ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... "Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steaming column and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... the "round robin" incident which caused a little stir at the moment; Secretary Alger had asked me to write him freely from time to time. Accordingly, after the surrender of Santiago, I wrote him begging that the cavalry division might be put into the Porto Rican fighting, preparatory to what we supposed would be the big campaign against ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie; one look at her quiets and abates the eager students. The beautiful old woman is too much for them. They sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Mrs. John C., in extreme scorn. "I guess 't'll be hard work, but so's a good many things. Don't set there talkin'. Don't you worry, Ann! We'll stir up the neighbors, an' 'f your tea-set's anywheres above ground, we'll have it back, or I'll miss my guess. Come, John, come. Le' ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... thoughts. Will some one now be so good as to fill the kettle with water, and put it on? Let there be plenty of fire under it. Let the water boil—boil briskly; then throw the sausage-stick in. Will his majesty the King of the Mice be so condescending as to put his tail into the boiling pot, and stir it about? The longer he stirs it, the richer the soup will become. It costs nothing, and requires no other ingredients—it only needs ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... last pronounced his given name did not stir him; in fact, it passed over his head and hearing. Like a dragon-brood, he saw in fancy his past follies springing up about him. Not yet could he tell this clean-minded, gentle-bred girl that he loved her. He must prove himself still further before he might utter what so ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me.... I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. [To Nora]. Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there's a small ...
— Riders to the Sea • J. M. Synge

... the hooks. After all this his house was full of smoke, and the floor covered with ashes; which, when Dr. Faustus perceived, he would have gone upstairs, and flying up he was taken and thrown down into the hall, that he was not able to stir hand nor foot; then round about him ran a monstrous circle of fire, never standing still, that Faustus cried as he lay, and thought there to have been burned. Then cried he out to his spirit Mephistophiles for help, promising him he would live, for ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... year was January, the year itself 1892. A clear, cold air with just enough frost in it to stir sluggish blood, induced one to walk briskly. It was still too early in the day for the usual down-town crowd, and I proceeded as fast as I wanted to, allowing my thoughts to dwell undisturbed on the big ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... with level eyes. He spoke quite as a matter of course. "You're no fool, Olson. You wouldn't stir up suspicion against yourself again by runnin' away now, after I tell you that my eye is on the one that ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... years ago, though I'm not quite so sure of that. The Bible, and Shakspere, and Rofudingding, a New Guinea poet, who ate men for his dinner when he had a chance, and, when he had finished, sang lyrics that stir the hearts of all his fellow-islanders to this day,—he lived a hundred years ago,—dealt with men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they were when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men and women, and ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... good deal of stir about it and some applause for the policeman when the Justices gave Teddy two months' hard labour. And that was that. But what you may call the interesting part of the affair happened after, for when the two months was up, instead of selling his house and taking himself off to practise his games ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... because these things stir imagination and link them with the people who once possessed and used these things. Thus, through imagination, is the dead past made again to live and throb and pulse with life. Man is not the lonely creature that those ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... quickly and said, "A young man like you has no business to be 'devoured with ennui.' Why not engage in some pursuit, or take up some subject that will interest you and stir your pulse?" ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but vast number of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat, in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched them. They breed very few horses, but those they have are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their youth in the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... when cold, mix with it the yelks of eight eggs; stir them together over the fire a few minutes; sweeten it to your taste, put some slices of savoy cake in the bottom of a deep dish, and pour on the custard; whip the whites of the eggs to a strong froth, lay it lightly on the top, sift some sugar over it, and hold a salamander ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph

... I hoped," continues Shirley Brooks, in the touching memorial which he contributed to the Illustrated London News only a few weeks afterwards, "I hoped that good was being done; but it was very hard to stir him from his pictures, of which he declared that he must finish a great number by Christmas. It was not for want of earnest and affectionate remonstrance of those close by his side, nor lack of such remonstrance being seconded by myself and others, that he persevered in overlabour at ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... ounces of butter in a large saucepan over the fire, and stir into it four large white onions cut up, not sliced. Stew this very slowly for one hour, stirring frequently to prevent its scorching. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, and about one quart of stock, and cook one hour ...
— Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures • Joe Tilden

... on her hat and coat, before she remembered that Angel had told her she must never stir beyond the hotel garden alone. But then, Angel probably did not know this important fact about fathers lost at sea, returning on Christmas Eve, and ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... thing that began to stir his doubts was her method of engaging the players, for she put on the airs of a grand patron, and such pleasure did this part of the business give her that she prolonged it unduly. She made actors and actresses wait upon her time after time when she had not the slightest intention ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... against a self-control which he must have knocked flat with great satisfaction at times, ejaculated that he wished to speak with him at once. Hamilton replied that he would wait upon him immediately, and hastened to Tilghman's office, wondering what had occurred to stir the depths of his Chief. He was but a moment with Tilghman, but on the stairs he met Lafayette, who was in search of him upon a matter of business. It is possible that Hamilton should not have permitted himself to be detained, but at all events ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... ship before!" cried out the instructor, as I at once proceeded now to climb up to the crosstrees and over the head of the mast. "Look alive, you other chaps! That boy there will have done the job while you are thinking about it. Stir your stumps!" ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... stript stark naked in the Morning at Sunrising, and bound to a Post, so that he could not stir Hand nor Foot, but as he was mov'd; and was placed with his Face Eastward against the Sun. In the Afternoon they turned his Face toward the West, that the Sun might still be in his Face; and thus he stood all Day, parcht in the Sun (which shines here excessively ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... give for the secret history of the 'rather yellow, rather yellow,' chanson? I dare not tell it you. It came from a quarter that will quite astound you, and in a very elegant, small, female hand. You remember Lambton did stir very awkwardly in the Lisbon business. Stanislaus wrote all the songs that appeared in the first number, except that; but he never wrote a single line of prose for the first three months: it all came from ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... am strong enough to take care of that. Moreover, he will be our son-in-law. I wit well that not so much as a mouse will stir in his court but you will know it;" and ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... projectiles were flying around at a lively rate. One of these which had entered the house of an American missionary was brought to the Consulate, and Mr. Gouverneur was urged to take some action. The natives of China were at times a turbulent people who seemed glad for an excuse to stir up the community and, in consequence of this battle of the sea-robbers, a mob formed in Foo Chow which threatened disastrous results. The only foreign vessel in the harbor was a United States man-of-war, the Adams, under the command of James F. Schenck, subsequently a Rear ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... pigs, and they hoped she had forgotten Ivar's talk. They agreed that he was crazier than ever, and would never be able to prove up on his land because he worked it so little. Alexandra privately resolved that she would have a talk with Ivar about this and stir him up. The boys persuaded Carl to stay for supper and go swimming in the pasture ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... matrimonium ex usu, or consuetudine; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife praescriptione. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not,"—and he shrugged his shoulders—"no harm's ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... the Egyptians could change their posture when they desired to do so. If they were sitting down, they could rise up, and if they were standing, they could sit down. On the fourth, fifth, and sixth days, the darkness was so dense that they could not stir from their place. They either sat the whole time, or stood; as they were at the beginning, so they remained until the end. The last day of darkness overtook the Egyptians, not in their own land, but at the Red Sea, on their pursuit of Israel. The darkness was not of the ordinary, earthly ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... military manoeuvre of the whole century, of which Europe has not sufficiently spoken. The despatch informed us that a man, whose person M. Vincent described, had set out from Vienna, and was to pass by Venice, in his way into Abruzzo, where he was secretly to stir up the people at the approach of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... to very great restraint there. What an idea to condemn yourself to a room where you cannot stir or ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... he exclaimed, "what's to do here? I want my supper; I haven't scarce tasted to-day, and nobody cares for me no more nor a dog. I say, mother, stir yourself, and get me my supper." He flung himself into a chair, with an oath, as ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson

... a reality. Before she can stir from the spot, or make effort to avoid them, she feels herself roughly grasped around the waist, and ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... of our own at home. We have to expend such enormous sums for home problems that American Jewry seems unable to bear much more. But notwithstanding this more must be forthcoming. We Jews must give until it hurts, until it really becomes self-sacrifice; we must stir up our people to the terrible condition of our brethren abroad. And the Menorah Societies, which represent the most intelligent and idealistic Jewish youth of the land, should do their share in making known the tragic conditions and in arousing ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... these offers was alike refused. Spain looked on them as insincere. France regarded the terms of alliance as extravagant, while she was anxious to hold the Dutch to their present friendship and inactivity rather than to stir them to war. Holland itself, while desirous to check French ambition, still ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... negro is so distinct from our own that the Ten Commandments have actually no reference to him. Even in the calm region of entomology, where, if anywhere in this sinful world, passion and prejudice should fail to stir the mind, one learned coleopterist will fill ten attractive volumes with descriptions of species of beetles, nine-tenths of which are immediately declared by his brother beetle-mongers to be no ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley

... Effie moved gently at last, and removing her sister's arms from her neck, found her fast asleep. The daylight faded, and the night-lamps were lighted in the room. There was moving to and fro among the beds, as the preparations for the night were made. But Effie did not stir till ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... and claw and grip of jaw I rip and tear and slay, With senses that hear the winds ere they stir, I roam ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... origin whom heaven had blessed (or burdened, as some would think) with a pretty daughter. Mlle. Celeste was a small, graceful, active creature, with a clear and well-coloured skin, and quick-glancing black eyes which gave me a pleasant inward stir the first time they rested on me. In my first acquaintance with this young lady, the black eyes seemed to enlarge and soften when they fell on me: she regarded me with what I took to be interest and approval: her face shone with friendliness, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... as if struck by a blow, but he did not stand still. His nervous thin hands and lean body were in constant motion, although he did not stir from the one spot. In every involuntary movement and gesture there was something that suggested the feline. When spoken to or given an order he replied respectfully and obeyed with alacrity, but when addressed he listened always with eyes averted. This had always exasperated Helen. She could not ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... character of God. If I am to love God, He must not hide in the darkness behind His infinity, but must come out and give me something about Him that I know. The three letters G O D mean nothing, and there is no power in them to stir a man's heart. It must be the knowledge of the acts of God that brings men to love Him. And there is no way of getting that knowledge but through the faith which, as I said, must precede love. For faith realises the fact that God loves. 'We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... were flaring in the narrow passage, people with pallid, haggard faces looked out from open room doors; yet with all this unwonted stir, there seemed to be a strange hushed awe upon them, as though they were calmed by the mysterious presence of ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer

... saw us first, having a look-out on a high tree by the edge of the forest; and as our advanced guard came trotting into the open, he fired. The shot echoed far up the hills like an angry shout, and we could see a sudden stir in the village—men running out of the houses with guns and swords, and women and children running, too, poor things! sick with fear. They fired at us from the village fence, but had no time to close the gate ere our sowars were in. Then they escaped ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... in the group under the chestnut trees. All the rah-rah boys leaped to their feet, but, ere they could stir, there was a whizzing sound on ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... arched neck, in the bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big body as he ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close supervision of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to convince the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if anything could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick to detect) thus to interfere with ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... information. This tiger had been doing great damage, and had carried off about thirty men, women, and children. So great was the fear of him, indeed, that the people in the neighborhood he frequented scarcely dared stir out of doors, except in parties of five or six. We had had several hunts after him, but, like all man eaters, he was old and awfully crafty; and although we got several snap shots at him, he had always managed to save ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... the monumental inscriptions, announce an indigenous and superseded race; their industry, civil rights, property, and free expression in art, literature, and even speech, being forcibly and systematically repressed: while in the mountains of Savoy, the streets of Turin, and the harbor of Genoa, the stir and zest, the productiveness, and the felicity of national life greet the senses and gladden the soul. Statistics evidence what observation hints; Cavour wins the respect of Europe; D'Azeglio illustrates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... in the beautiful green twilight water to the middle, but no one for a time wished to stir, the scene was so grand, made more beautiful as it was from time to time by a gleam of sunshine shooting down across the faint mist of spray which floated upwards, and wherever this bright light fell we had glimpses of what seemed like fragments ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn

... he perceived, in his dim way, a kind of mastery in this heavy-booted, homespun-clad, tobacco-chewing, grave-eyed man from the backwoods, and for a long time he felt none of his usual pugnacity. But by and by the craving for freedom began to stir in his breast, and the blood of his hill-roving ancestors thrilled toward the wild pastures. The glances which, from time to time, he cast upon the backwoodsman at the other end of the rope became wary, calculating, and hostile. This ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... A stir of astonishment and dismay ensued on the part of the small audience, and I heard ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... when we wanted one to University Place, where Mr. Hathorn had his livery-stable: a connection, this last, promoted by my father's frequent need of the aid to circulate (his walks were limited through an injury received in youth) and promoting in turn and at a touch, to my consciousness, the stir of small, the smallest remembered things. I recall the adventure, no infrequent one, of being despatched to Mr. Hathorn to bespeak a conveyance, and the very air and odour, the genial warmth, at ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... am lying on the grass and look down I can see the reeds glistening greenly in the water, and when I look up I can see the rye-fringe brushing the sky. All sorts of beasts come and stare at me, and larks sing above me, and creeping things crawl over me, and stir in the long grass beside me; and here I bring my book, and read and dream away the profitable morning hours, to the accompaniment of the amorous croakings ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... home, she recognized her father in the court before their house, accompanied by several men, with whom he seemed on the point of going forth. She was so anxious to speak to Gerard, that she did not hesitate at once to advance. There was a stir as she entered the gate; the men ceased talking, some stood aloof, all welcomed her with silent respect. With one or two Sybil was not entirely unacquainted; at least by name or person. To them, as she passed, she bent her head; ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... usual bounds of reverie. I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... prows of pausing gondolas on lagoons at moon-rise; in each and all commanding an intensity of calm, chiefly because he never admitted an instant's rigidity. The surface of quiet water with other painters becomes FIXED. With Turner it looks as if a fairy's breath would stir it, but the fairy's breath is not there. So also his boats are intensely motionless, because intensely capable of motion. No other painter ever floated a boat quite rightly; all other boats stand on the water, or are fastened in it; only his float in it. It ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... perhaps, when people who had been out began to stream back with tidings of a sort for their families. No two men had quite the same story to tell. One had heard that a band of Apaches from a low quarter of the town had organized a scare to stir up the military. Another had been told on good authority that the Mexicans had fired guns from across the river and injured one of the tall buildings in El Paso, nobody knew which. A third assured ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, Upon the upturned faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe— Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light, Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death— Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted By thee, and by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe



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