"Fidget" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She didn't fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too. She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the stage, but she was attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that she placed no undue emphasis on his visits. In her world men came and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he began to fidget. He uncrossed his legs and hunched his body deeper into the back of his seat. Presently his eyes began to creep up the paper in front of him. When they reached the top, he hesitated a moment, making a survey under cover, then he dropped his hands and stared stupidly at ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... betray his impatience, and the great clock immediately over our heads presently striking the half-hour after ten, he started and made as if he would have approached the king. He checked the impulse, however, but still continued to fidget uneasily, losing his reserve by-and-by so far as to whisper to me that his ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... entered the church in the middle of the sermon and seated himself in the back pew. After a while he began to fidget. Leaning over to the white-haired man at his side, evidently an old member ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... command?" he asked, bending low before King Seaphus. The King did not reply for a moment. He was a wise King, and thought for several minutes before he spoke. This made the Prime Minister fidget about on his tail. If he had been a Prime Minister of any land, and not of the sea, he probably would have stood first on one leg and then on the other, but, as he had no feet, he shifted about uneasily on his ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... him so to his face!' thought the wife. 'Oh! I wish he would sit anywhere but in Arthur's chair, and not fidget me with playing with that horrid little piece of watch-chain!' 'He is very well, thank you. He had a bad cold last week, but it is quite gone now. I hope he ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... row of those peas left," she returned, "and when I've reset them I'll give you your answer. That'll be in fifteen minutes. Now go away, or you'll fidget round, and I sha'n't get 'em straight." And without another word she ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... nearer and nearer to the rectory, as Lucilla began to flush and fidget in eager anticipation of her re-union with Oscar, that uneasiness of mind which I had so readily dismissed while I was in Italy, began to find its way back to me again. My imagination now set to work at drawing pictures—startling pictures of Oscar as a changed being, as ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... would better have been left unsaid. It was my duty to go accurately from guest to guest, to shake hands, and to say perfectly naturally not "Hunh!" as so many modern children do, but "How do you do, Mrs. Lessing," or "How do you do, Mrs. Green," and not to stare and fidget or be awkward. Then I had my tea, discolored hot water with sugar and cream, my buttered toast, and a bit of cake. After that my mother would make it exceedingly easy for me to get away. My second public appearance was just before dinner. Then, ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... break down at the "never, never, never," part of the tune. Dr. O'Grady began to fidget nervously ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... for novelties. Now I'm much mistaken if this one has ever had her tea out of doors in all her born days. What! do you think our little stuffy room would be any treat to her, after the drawing-room at Font Abbey? Come, you be off till half-past five; you'll fidget yourself and fidget ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... bustle, bustle," exclaimed that fidget John; and in less time than my lady-readers would believe, I had put on my pink bonnet and my white dress, and was bowling down to Richmond by the side of my cousin, behind a roan and a chestnut that stepped away in a style that it did one ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Flaxman, glancing to the right, saw a group of men standing, and amongst them a slight sharp-featured thread-paper of a man, with a taller companion, whom he identified as the pair he had noticed on the night of the story-telling. The little gasfitter was clearly all nervous fidget and expectation; the other, large and gaunt in figure, with a square impassive face, and close-shut lips that had a perpetual mocking twist in the corners, stood beside him like some clumsy modern version, in a commoner clay, of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wife's brother Garland was called in as consulting physician, last month at the penitentiary. He has so stirred her sympathies for the woman whom he pronounces a paragon of all the virtues and graces, that I begin to fidget now at the sound of the prisoner's name, and can hardly look my wife straight in the face. When I go up to court next week, I will call on the Governor, and add a personal appeal to the one I have already signed. According to the evidence, she is guilty; but when justice is vindicated, one can ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "can't you tell me just as well sitting still? You fidget so that you make me dreadfully nervous. ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who ought to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... go—yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray ball of himself in his joy ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... under the hill, the maidens danced, and the matrons fanned themselves, while the fiddlers and zimblers scraped and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast, and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride grew faint, and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... always in a fidget to get to work. Miss Gibbs took her annual week's holiday just then, and had plenty of time to note her cousin's behaviour; and the way in which Toni swallowed her breakfast and clad herself for the start was a revelation to one who knew her former ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... it is work he wants, though it is beastly work—dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh water and food. A nation who can produce men of that sort may well be proud. No wonder England ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... like a tar-kiln, and I wonder that the smoke had not been pouring out of me at all points. The next day, Major Gibson got in. He brought a worse tale than I had, though he stated the same facts as far as I went. This seemed to put our Colonel all in a fidget; and it convinced me clearly of one of the hateful ways of the world. When I made my report I was not believed, because I was no officer. I was no great man, but just a poor soldier. But when the same thing was reported by Major Gibson, why then it was all true as preaching, ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... individuality is otherwise? Good-night, again, and may all sweet dreams attend you; for my part, I never dream, being past the dreaming age, and realities fortunately disappear with daylight; even cross children are wheedled into quietness, and servants forget to fidget and giggle; and, for mosquitoes, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... will made the baronet fidget and swear to hide his compunction. But his evil angel got ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... stare that Blake began to be embarrassingly conscious of it, to fidget under it. When he looked up he did so circuitously, pretending to peer beyond the white face and the staring eyes of the young woman confronting him. Yet she ultimately coerced his unsteady gaze, even against his own will. And as he had expected, he saw written on ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... solitude for which they were both waiting seem more precious to see her thus at a distance, pale and fragile and miraculous against the sombre background of the Roscarna oak. Then Jocelyn would begin to yawn, and fidget for the nightcap of hot whiskey that Biddy prepared for him, and at last discreetly vanish. And so the most precious of their ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... table were uncomfortably hot. When Mr Verloc returned to sit in his place, like the very embodiment of silence, the character of Mrs Verloc's stare underwent a subtle change, and Stevie ceased to fidget with his feet, because of his great and awed regard for his sister's husband. He directed at him glances of respectful compassion. Mr Verloc was sorry. His sister Winnie had impressed upon him (in the omnibus) that Mr Verloc would be found at home ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... perpetual motion, Full of bother And pother, Would make paralytic old Bridget A Fidget. So you see (to my notion), Better leave our downy Diminutive browny Alone, near his "diggings;" Ever free to pursue, Rush round, and renew His loved vaulting Unhalting, His whirling, And curling, And twirling, And swirling, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... mean?" whispered Dickenson, for his pony stopped short, as did the others, the sergeant's mount uttering a sharp, challenging neigh and beginning to fidget. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... wonder if the flies was bothering th' horse," surmised Mrs. Dodge; "he does fidget an' stamp somethin' terrible when the flies gets after him; his tail ain't so long as some.... Well, I'll let you know; and if you could drop around and see the table and all— Yes, some day this week. Of course ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... time now the enemy showed no disposition to expose himself to the fire of Jack and the others. The forest was as still as death. Jack began to fidget. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; '80, that is the wine you must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has the most frightful headaches if he drinks anything but ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... smilingly answered, but the landlord does not move—not he; what is to be gained by being in a hurry? why fidget? an hour hence is quite as good as the present quickly fleeting by. So soothing his conscience by the word straxt, he leisurely goes on with his work, and as "like master, like man," those below him do not hurry either, for which reason most things in ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... passed like a nightmare. To add to the misery of her secret, her mother began to fidget over the continued lack of any communication from her husband. Had the weather been fair, Ruth would have insisted on her going out with her; but to the rain of the day before was added a heavy windstorm that made any unnecessary ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... I am sorry for you, girl," cried Polly. "You're in a diseased frame of mind; you are in a fidget of work; you don't know the enjoyment of idleness, the luxury of laziness. You'll spoil your complexion; your hair will grow grey; no man will dare to trifle with ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... you know best; but what about Fanny? I shall not ask her again. How very forward, and indeed altogether"—Another stoppage, another twitch at her gown, with another fidget on the chair, the eyes going up to Dr. Flavel's bands as before. "In OUR house too—to put herself ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... any sort of quarrel that isn't? It is impossible to say beforehand what Colonel Gainsborough might like to do. He's a fidgety man. If there's a thing I hate, in the human line, it's a fidget. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... not anything that could be sent down from the Hall that was wanted by the patient, but only the use of the fresh air that was about her, and the observance of her doctor's simple directions. Sir William next began to make his horse fidget, and Hope ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... got up, drew her round again and kissed her. 'I think you would fidget me,' she remarked as she released her. Then, as if this were too cheerless a leave-taking, she added in a gayer tone, as Laura had her hand on the door: 'Mind what I tell you, my dear; let her go!' It was to this that the girl's lesson in philosophy reduced itself, she reflected, as she walked back ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... the District Attorney goes around tellin' everybody in a whisper that you're a desperate character; the clerk of the court, the stenographer and all the bailiffs sort of wake up and act busy; the men waiting to be examined for jobs on the jury begin to fidget and wonder whether the judge is a "crab" or a nice, decent feller what'll let 'em off when they tell him they got sickness in the family, and all of 'em ha tin' you worse than poison because you didn't ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... his dismal face and began to fidget awkwardly. "There, there," it said. "I had no intention of—I am afraid that I—Stuck, did you say? Very easily mended, my dear fellow! Merely a question of—Here, let me look." It crashed through the thicket to where David ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... went beyond her to say. He had everything he could wish for: yes, everything, except perhaps a little more time to himself, and better health. He was not as strong as she would have liked to see him. Nothing radically wrong, of course, but enough to fidget him. Might not this ... this—he himself called it "want of tone"—be a reason for the scant pleasure he got out of life? And: "I think I'll pop down and see Dr. Munce about him one morning, without a word to him," ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... willing to give way. Keble and Froude advocated their continuance strongly, and were angry with me for consenting to stop them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his own friends; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, took a high tone in his project of measures for dealing with bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scandalised him considerably. As for me, there was matter enough in the early ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... impatience or desire to fidget left in Jabe Smith now. As he watched the beavers at work in the moonlight, looking very mysterious in their stealthy, busy, tireless diligence, and conducting their toil with an ordered intelligence which seemed to him almost human, he ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on tiptoe as Dashall broke the seal of a letter that was handed to him on arrival at home. Mortimer was on the fidget, and Tallyho straining his neck upon the full stretch of anxiety to hear the news, when Dashall burst into a laugh, but in which neither of the others could join in consequence of not knowing the cause of it. In a few minutes however the mystery was ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... rather have a bare and open pasture than such a yard as that shown in Fig. 9, even though it contained the choicest plants of every land. The pasture would at least be plain and restful and unpretentious; but the yard would be full of effort and fidget. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... themselves much wiser, have not the same consideration," thought Humphrey, as the pony trotted along. Humphrey thought a good deal about the danger that Edward had been subjected to, and said to himself, "I really think that I should be more comfortable if Edward was away. I am always in a fidget about him. I wish the new king, who is now in France would raise an army and come over. It is better that Edward should be fighting in the field than remain here and risk being shot as a deer-stealer, or put in prison. The farm is sufficient for us all; and when I have taken in more ground ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... a sign of low-breeding to fidget with the hat, cane or parasol during a call. They are introduced merely as signs that the caller is in walking dress, and are not intended, the hat to be whirled round the top of the cane, the cane to be employed in tracing out ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... late to-night," he said, when they reached the little gate leading into the causeway. "The mother's begun to fidget about you, an' she's got the little un ill. An' how did you leave the old woman Bede, Dinah? Is she much down about the old man? He'd been but a poor bargain ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... is distressed If you fidget when you're dressed. If you fidget like Miss Midget, Hopper, or her sister Bridget. Goops like that are so much bother, That they ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... that, why, as human nature is weak—excuse what I may feel compelled to do; but for the present pray oblige me by keeping your seat and the peace; or, if you must move and fidget about, go and make that pugnacious Tim Carroll as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... obviously useless, and Mulford, perceiving that Rose began to fidget, had sufficient tact to ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... undoubtedly a most delicate one. But no consideration whatever should prevent our studying it from every possible viewpoint. Cardinal Newman, in his Historical Sketches, speaks of "that endemic perennial fidget which possesses certain historians about giving scandal. Facts are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put upon memorable acts, because they are thought not edifying, whereas of all scandals such omissions, such ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... Xerxes, too, bridging the famous straits to carry victory into Greece, till at last his navy went under at Salamis. We saw the pathetic figure of Byron swimming where Leander swam; and, in all, such an array of visions that the lure of the Eternal Waterway gripped us, and we were a-fidget to be there. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... a great deal of fidget concerning what other people think of them and their peculiarities. Some are too much disposed to take the illnatured side, and, judging by themselves, infer the worst. But it is very often the case that the uncharitableness of others, where it really ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... to stop her, he dropped straight into the seat. "I assure you there has really been nothing." With a continuation of his fidget he pulled out his watch. "Won't she ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... suppose I mun. I shall catch it downstairs, I know. He'll be in a fidget till you're getten to bed, I know; so you mun be quiet if you are so bent ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... filled with a tumult of energy; every instinct longed to skip; she thought of jouncing as high as the poplars, right over the house and into Washington Square beyond. "Miss Fidget!" her grandfather exclaimed, exasperated, releasing her hand. "You're like holding ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... IS," Martie reflected. "Workers needing jobs, and jobs needing workers." And suddenly she hit upon the keynote to her new philosophy. "MEN don't worry and fidget about keeping their jobs, and I'M not going to. I'm just as necessary and just as capable as if I were—say, Len. If Len came on here for a job I wouldn't worry myself sick about ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... them? Well, no, she isn't. I saw her talking to a man at the gate. He looked to me like a burglar. No doubt she'll let him take the impression of the door-key in wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at Bobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. Now, don't fidget so; it will ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... monstrous as a house on wheels and drawn by an hundred laborious oxen, came bumping and joggling the ale that thirsty Connaught princes would drink. On a road again the learned men of Leinster, each with an idea in his head that would discomfit a northern ollav and make a southern one gape and fidget, would be marching solemnly, each by a horse that was piled high on the back and widely at the sides with clean-peeled willow or oaken wands, that were carved from the top to the bottom with the ogham signs; the first lines of poems (for it was an offence against wisdom to commit more ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... kept bringing them back to his mother's face with a dreamy upward gaze. 'I will try, mother, I really will. I will keep my hands tight in my pockets, and my feet close together; I will pretend I'm going to be shot by a file of soldiers, and then I really think that will help me not to fidget. I promise you I'll be ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... me, to begin with, very restless—made me, instead of going straight to the station, fidget a little about that many-coloured Common which gives Wimbledon horizons. There was a worry for me to work off, or rather keep at a distance, for I declined even to admit to myself that I had, in Miss Anvoy's phrase, been saddled with it. What could have been clearer indeed than the attitude ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... manuscript she had left in my hands. After having sent off the letter, I did not go out of the house all day, and pondered all the time on what might be happening at the Ratsches'. I could not make up my mind to go there myself. I could not help noticing though that my aunt was in a continual fidget; she ordered pastilles to be burnt every minute, and dealt the game of patience, known as 'the traveller,' which is noted as a game in which one can never succeed. The visit of an unknown lady, and at such a late hour, had not been kept secret from her: her imagination at once pictured a yawning ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a lump for you. Susan Hicks, you'd better keep out of my way for the present. 'Pon my word! look at this quill, why I could make a pen with it; disgraceful, perfectly disgraceful. Molly, I wish you wouldn't fidget. What in the world do you ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... the German mercantile marine was laid on the ice till the end of war, they had turned him on to this show. He was bored by the business, and didn't understand it very well. The river charts puzzled him, and though it was pretty plain going for hundreds of miles, yet he was in a perpetual fidget about the pilotage. You could see that he would have been far more in his element smelling his way through the shoals of the Ems mouth, or beating against a northeaster in the shallow Baltic. He had six barges in tow, but the heavy flood ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... would be sure to create a disturbance and lead to a furious dispute and an exchange of insults and obscenities. When we were all in bed, no one could stir without causing inconvenience to his neighbours. A sleepless night, invariably accompanied by the restless impulse to stir and fidget, was unforgettable misery, but fortunately our work was so hard that sleepless nights were ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... Grange. He remembered a very sad-looking lady, with a sweet face, who had held his hand as he stood by her chair, and that he had half liked it, and felt half awkward as she spoke to him. He remembered that as he had stood there, he had felt afraid to move or fidget in the least bit, and that every now and then, as he had stolen a glance at her, he had seen that her large dark eyes had been fixed upon him. He had been very glad when the nursery dinner-bell rang and he was obliged to go, without ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... their system was once more to get on beautifully in this further lounge without a definite exchange. Yet he finally spoke—he broke out as he tossed away the match from which he had taken a fresh light: "I must go for a stroll. I'm in a fidget—I must walk it off." She fell in with this as she fell in with everything; on which he went on: "You go up to Miss Ash"—it was the name they had started; "you must see she's not in mischief. Can you find ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... he was in a fidget, having fixed no hour for his visit to Holloway. It was not likely that she should be out or engaged, but he determined not to go till after lunch. All employment was out of the question, and he was rather a trouble ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... at this happy stage, the Captain, who had been put in a fidget by the crowd clustering round—'a pack of star-gazing fools' as he whispered pretty audibly to Mrs Gilmour—thought it was time ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fleet is cotched fast somewheres long about the straits. An' a bottle o' rum for a cold night! Well, well! I bet ye, Dannie," says he, "that the Likely Lass is gripped by this time. An' ye got a bottle o' rum!" cries he, in a beaming fidget. "Rum's a wonderful thing on a cold night, lad. Nothin' like it. I've tried it. Was a time," he confided, "when I was sort o' give ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... and don't fidget. Don't you see how tired Aunt Raby looks?" exclaimed Rose. "Prissie can't be here yet, and you are such a worry when you jump up and down ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... fidget in his chair. If I had kept my attention on him, I should have seen in his face a warning to me to be silent. But my interest at the moment was absorbed in my aunt. Encouraged by her amiable reception, I was not merely ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... at the post fret, and fidget, and curvet about. At length they are again in line. Down goes the white flag! 'Good start!' shouts an excited planter. Down goes the red flag. 'Off at last!' breaks like a deep drawn sigh from the crowd, and now the six horses, all together, and at a rattling pace, tear up the hill, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... she seemed easier if he were at hand. I remember, one day, he was tied in front of the house, and she was loose, grazing near by. As long as he could see her, all went well enough, but the moment she sauntered around the fence, he began first to fidget, then to paw and neigh, and finally to struggle, until in the end, he broke loose and rushed after his inamorata. And what a time he made over her! whinnying, and demonstrating his delight in a dozen different ways. She? oh, she took it coolly, but that was all feminine bosh, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... again in the roof, we had a musical ride, performed by six men and six women mounted on very shiny horses. Mrs. Ascher, of course, objected strongly to the music. I could see her squirming in her seat. Ascher did not find the thing interesting and began to fidget. It was, indeed, much less suggestive than either the learned horse or the acrobats. You cannot discover in a musical ride any parable with a meaning applicable to life. Nothing in the world goes so smoothly and pleasantly. There are always risks ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... is in a dreadful fidget whenever the little gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her mouth to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... springing distance, when he would stop and lift his great head, wrinkling his chops to show the long white fangs, and rumbling a warning deep in his massive chest. Then the caribou would lose his nerve; he would stamp and fidget and bluster, and at last begin to circle nervously, crashing his way into the scrub as if for a chance to take his enemy in the flank. Whereupon the old wolf would trot quietly along the path, paying no more heed to the interruption; ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... with her and carries her muff And coat and umbrella, and that kind of stuff; She loads him with things that must weigh 'most a ton; And, honest, he likes it,—as if it was fun! And, oh, say! When they go to a play, He'll sit in the parlor and fidget away, And she won't come down till it's quarter past eight, And then she'll scold him 'cause ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... to bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,"—turning to the bureau—"it's that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget my life out." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... pomade, plaited in three long tails, and tied with bows of ribbon: a task my unaccustomed fingers found great difficulty in performing. She told me her nurse could do it in half the time, and, by keeping up a constant fidget of impatience, contrived to render me still longer. When all was done, we went into the schoolroom, where I met my other pupil, and chatted with the two till it was time to go down to breakfast. That ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... excited her impatience so much that it seemed to her that the enemy would never decamp. She was obliged to control herself; but by the time she might speak, she was very irritable. She told Rollo not to grin and fidget in that manner, but to let ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... it would not do to stare at him. The instant she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... public place, such as a church, concert or theatre, send a similar message to someone seated a little distance in front of you. Use the same methods as in the first exercise, and you will obtain similar results. It will seem queer to you at first to notice how the other person will begin to fidget and move around in his seat, and finally glance furtively around as if to see what is causing him the disturbance. You, of course, will not let him suspect that it is you, but, instead will gaze calmly ahead of you, and ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... the condition of human existence which statuary most easily and most naturally expresses; and few things are more obnoxious to a refined taste than that sculpture which, like that of Roubiliac, affects movement, fidget, flutter, and unquiet. But in the Phoenician sculpture the repose is overdone; except in the expression of faces, there is scarcely any life at all. The figures do nothing; they simply stand to ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... doctors did not talk much as they were rowed towards the Loulia. Both were preoccupied. As they drew near to her, however, Doctor Hartley began to fidget. His bodily restlessness betrayed his ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... (labor) 686; painstaking, diligence; perseverance &c 604.1; indefatigation^; habits of business. vigilance &c 459; wakefulness; sleeplessness, restlessness; insomnia; pervigilium^, insomnium^; racketing. movement, bustle, stir, fuss, ado, bother, pottering, fidget, fidgetiness; flurry &c (haste) 684. officiousness; dabbling, meddling; interference, interposition, intermeddling; tampering with, intrigue. press of business, no sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was to me a very terrible one, dwelling much on hell and judgment, and what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God. No one ever knew it, but this sermon haunted me, and day and night it crossed me. I began to pray a good deal, though only night and morning, with a sort of fidget and impatience, almost angry at feeling so unhappy, and wanting and expecting a new heart and have everything put straight and be ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... had finished his letters before that artificer arrived, thus saving Dorothea all responsibility in the valuable packet confided to his charge, for Mr. Ryfe received it himself in the outer office, whither he had resorted in a fidget to compare a time-table with a railway-map of England. He fretted to set off at once. He had finished his business; he had nothing to do now but eat an early dinner at his uncle's, and so start by ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and went over to the fireplace, where he leaned against the mantelpiece, and began to fidget with his ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... stop and inquire of himself, he would be forced to acknowledge that he did not want Hill to be different from what he was. Then he would not serve his purpose. To be sure, sometimes, when Hill permitted an extra strong oath to escape his lips, Hiram would fidget and look uneasy, and beg his visitor to break himself of such a wicked habit. But the secret of Hiram's power did not lie in his moral influence certainly, for Hill's habit of swearing did not improve, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... proper supply of nourishment from the food-canal, the state of affairs is quickly revealed in the mouth mirror. Those muscles which open the mouth, instead of resting peacefully in the consciousness of duty well done, are in a state of perpetual fidget, twitching, pulling, wondering whether they ought not to open the portal for the entrance of new supplies of material, since the tissues are crying ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... out larger; the rats came, and then came puss, and the rats went with a scuffle and patter; the pagan grey came in like a sleep-walker, and made the barn dreary as a dull dream; then the horses began to fidget with their big feet, the cattle to low with their great trombone throats, and the cocks to crow as if to give warning for the last time against the devil, the world, and the flesh; the men in the adjoining chamber woke, yawned, stretched themselves ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... little absently). He is still pacing up and down restlessly—to and fro—along and across—he that is usually so innocent of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have gone out there ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... you, mademoiselle, except when you pull your head aside. But in truth it is hard to comb your hair properly when you move and fidget about. You are ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... we kissed good-bye, but he soon proved himself the best of companions in the diligence. All the way he amused me with tales of his little parish up in the mountains, and I in my turn told him stories about the camp; but, my faith, I had to pick my steps, for when I said a word too much he would fidget in his seat and his face would show the pain that I had given him. And of course it is not the act of a gentleman to talk in anything but a proper manner to a religious man, though, with all the care in the world, one's words may get ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... before him, up he gets, and saying, 'Our prayer has been accepted,' he opens the purse, and, counting the altoons, finds that one is wanting. 'Never mind,' says he, 'He who gives these can give one more,' and takes possession of the money. The Jew now began to be in a fidget, and, getting up, knocked at the Cogia's door. 'Good day, Cogia Efendi,' said he, 'please to give me back my altoons.' Quoth the Cogia to the Jew, 'You are a merchant, and not a fool; I made a request to God on high, He gave me what I asked; what business had you to fling ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... opened. A woman's head looked out, with suspicion. "Oh, thank Heavens!" it said with abrupt fervor. "I was afraid it mightn't be you, Miss Sylvia. I'm so glad you're back. There ain't—hasn't been a minute these past two nights that I haven't been in a fidget." ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... dolly?—or why do you fidget? You're hurting my shoulder, you troublesome midget! Perhaps it's that hole that you told me about. Why, darling, your sawdust is ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... he sat down on the edge of the stool, but even there it was warm, and after a while he began to fidget, saying, 'Dear me, mother-in-law! how hot your house is! Everything I touch ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... if it weren't for this heat," she said pettishly. "Do put that photograph down, George!—you do fidget so! Haven't you got any news for me—anything to amuse me? Oh! those horrid papers!—I see. Well! they'll wait a little. By the way, the 'Morning Post' says that young scamp, Lord Ancoats, has gone abroad. I suppose that girl was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Would that I had been brute enough to slay him!— Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head, His every smile and word As we sat by our fire, stung my fool's heart.— How we laughed to see him curtsey, Fidget strings about his waist,— Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys' hem Drawing it tight about his neck, 'just like Our Baucis.' Could not sleep For thinking of the life they lead in towns; He said so: when, at last, He sighed from dreamland, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... deepened into darkness; the fire, which was blazing when we entered, had settled into a glow, and the room was lit by one shaded lamp. To me the dimness was restful, but Dale, who, with the crude instincts of youth, loves glare, began to fidget, and presently asked whether he might turn on the electric light. Permission was given. My hostess invited me to smoke and, to hand her a box of cigarettes which lay on the mantelpiece, I rose, bent over her while she lit her cigarette ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... this sanguine prediction, however, she did not return as promptly as she had promised, and Mr. Tolman began to fidget uneasily. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... "isn't a gambler in the ordinary sense. He never plays cards. Little pictures on paste-board fidget him, he says; he loathes Monte Carlo because it's vulgar, and he dislikes roulette and bridge. He's only a gambler in the best sense of the word—and that's a ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... am concerned, batuchka, Rodion Romanovitch, I will tell you something which shall reveal to you my disposition," answered Porphyrius Petrovitch, continuing to fidget about the room, and, as before, avoiding his visitor's gaze. "I live alone, you must know, never go into society, and am, therefore, unknown; add to which, that I am a man on the shady side of forty, somewhat ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... as he spoke. Mr Gillooly began to fidget in his chair, and his countenance grew redder and redder. He cast a glance at his whip and hat. Suddenly seizing them, he paid a hurried adieu to my mother, and turning to the lawyer, added, "Your servant, Tim Laffan. I will be after remembering what ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... for a quarter of an hour. Then he began to fidget in his chair, but he stoically sat on until, when at the end of an hour Katinka showed no signs whatever of leaving off, he rose, and ceremoniously regretting that his duties prevented him from having the pleasure of hearing the conclusion of the charming ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... upon her stool and her hands on her lap, listening with a sense so long at double exercise that now she could not readily relax the strain on it M'Iver was in a great fidget to be off. I could see it in every movement of him. He was a man who ever disliked to have his feelings vexed by contact with the everlasting sorrows of life, and this intercourse with new widowhood was sore against his mind. As for me, I took, in ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... small talk flagged, and Buntingford began to fidget. Slowly Lady Georgina rose from her seat, and again extinguished the flame under the silver kettle. Would she go, or would she not go? Cynthia dropped some stitches in the tension of the moment. Then Buntingford got up to open the door for Georgina, who, without deigning to ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... President Lincoln, one of his family was accused of communicating our plans to the Rebels, and this at a time when the favorite charge against his administration was the having no plan at all. The public mind, as the public folly is generally called, was kept in a fidget by these marvels and others like them. But the point to which we would especially call attention is this: that while the war slowly educated the North, it has had comparatively little effect in shaking the old nonsense out of the South. Nothing is more striking, as we trace Northern opinion through ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... (Puff.) Mamma, take my advice; don't you fidget so. Let things alone. Why hurry her into marrying Mr. Hurd or anybody? Look here; I'll keep dark to please you, if you'll keep ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... dared to be myself! But my fear of ridicule was greater than my fear of vice. 'Bless me, my dear Lady Delacour,' whispered Harriot, as we left this house, 'what can make you in such a desperate hurry to get home? You gape and fidget: one would think you had never sat up a night before in your life. I verily believe you are afraid to trust yourself with us. Which of us are you afraid of, Lawless, or me, or yourself?' There was a tone of contempt in the last words which piqued me to the quick; and however strange it may seem, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... grasp, while they fasten eagerly on the light and insignificant. They fidget themselves and others to death with incessant anxiety about nothing. A part of their dress that is awry keeps them in a fever of restlessness and impatience; they sit picking their teeth, or paring their nails, or stirring the fire, or brushing a speck of dirt off their ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... He began to fidget. He took his legs out of the fender and put them back again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but without relief. He turned over his Spectator to see what it had to say about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... began to grow decidedly restless. He would sit up, look and listen, and then lie down again. Then he would fidget about nervously, all of which was most unusual with him, for Reade's was one of those strong natures that will endure work day and night as long as is necessary, and then go in for complete rest when there is nothing else ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... glories of our city, those that spelled the cryptic riddle of its meaning clapped their hands for pleasure and turned their eyes to where the lady thus bepraised stood and smiled at her, and she, delighted, would bridle and fidget with her fan and seek to maintain herself as if she did not care one whit for what in reality she prized very highly. So the river of sweet words ran on, sweetly voiced, and flowing in its appointed course with a golden felicity ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Coleridge returned back to Naples: they are to make further enquiries, and let me know the particulars. We have seen little or nothing of Manning since you went. Your friend [George] Burnett calls as usual, for Charles to point out something for him. I miss you sadly, and but for the fidget I have been in about the Farce, I should have missed you still more. I am sorry you cannot get your money. Continue to tell us all your perplexities, and do not mind ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... box and hides himself under the car again, while Runyon Q. Sampson begins to fidget around and look at his watch like it was the first one ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... you rashness is not in my line at all, and I don't suppose we shall ever get within five hundred yards of a Prussian soldier. You need not be in the least uneasy, even supposing that you were inclined to fidget about me?" ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... and you are to do whatever anybody requests you to do. And, above all, don't be surprised at anything that may happen. You'll be nervous enough; I expect that. You'll probably color up and flush and fidget; I expect that; I count on that. But don't lose your nerve entirely; and don't think of ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... but one was the Gorla Mustelford debut, and the house settled itself down to yawn and fidget and chatter for ten or twelve minutes while a troupe of talented Japanese jugglers performed some artistic and quite uninteresting marvels with fans and butterflies and lacquer boxes. The interval of waiting was not destined, however, to ...
— When William Came • Saki
... dinner, Clifford turned to Selby and said, "You want to ask me something; I can tell by the way you fidget about." ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... don't grate on a fellow; if he's worth his salt he's sure to understand that he must move like clockwork in a fight, and that he's to go to hell at double-quick march, and mute as a mouse, if his officers see fit to send him. That's all right, but they don't fidget you here about the little fal-lals; you may stick your pipe in your mouth, you may have your lark, you may do as you like, you may spend your decompte how you choose, you may settle your little duel as you ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... said, "you need not fidget about poison, my lad. The place will soon heal. Now then, ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... "Don't you fidget about me, Charlie," he said. "Ferrers tells me that there are at least a score of Jacobites here, and that they form quite a society among themselves. Living is very cheap, and he will introduce me to a man of business, who will see that ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... said he, hobbling quickly down. 'Niver fidget theesel' wi' gettin' ready to go search for her. I'll tak' thee a bet it's Philip Hepburn's voice, convoying her home, just as I said ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... sails, and when he got plenty of employment he bade mother stay at home and look after Mary and me, while Jack went with him. As, however, it would not have been prudent to give up her business altogether, she hired a girl, Nancy Fidget, to take her place, as Jack had done, when she ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... of my sight, you despicable thief!" he cried. "My control is going. If you stand and fidget there, I'll ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss |
