The starlings flew by every few minutes to their nests in the thatch of the old house, and out again to the meadow.
Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had not time to follow them completely; they formed a burr—an indistinct flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them in the raised position had not time to fade from the eye before a fresh impression arrived exhibiting them depressed to their furthest extent; you thus saw the wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the upper part answers to the wings lifted, the lower part to the wings down, and you see both together. Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable other positions between these two extremes; like the leaves of a book opened with your thumb quickly—as they do in legerdemain—almost as you see the spokes of a wheel run together as they revolve—a sort of burr.
To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.
The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the air like a meteor.
Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere's veins.
Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of Amadis Iden's cheeks—absolute lack of blood—began to give way to the faintest colour, little more than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though he could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If you threw a wine-glassful of the Goliath on the hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most lively manner. Fire in it—downright fire! That is the test.
Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful, yet a faint pink began to steal into his face, and his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply of another cup.
