"Fidgety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Auntie all in a flutter and tryin' to hide it. Vee looks at me inquirin' and anxious, but I chats on for a while just as if nothing had happened. Somehow, I was enjoyin' watchin' Auntie squirm. My mistake was in forgettin' that Vee was fidgety, too. No sooner has Auntie left the room, to send Helma scoutin' down to the front door, than ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... graceful action, she did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of her head-dress. But I do not think she did, for she recovered her balance, and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, condescending manner, very different from the fidgety way she would have had if she had suspected how singular her appearance was. "Mrs Jamieson is coming, I think ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in the countess-dowager, apart from her great breadth, was her restlessness. She seemed never still for an instant; her legs had a fidgety, nervous movement in them, and in moments of excitement, which were not infrequent, she was given to executing a sort of war-dance. Old she was not; but her peculiar graces of person, her rotund form, her badly-made ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to the Parliament House above thirty years ago as retained the ancient Scottish custom of a meridian, as it was called, or noontide dram of spirits. If their proceedings were watched, they might be seen to turn fidgety about the hour of noon, and exchange looks with each other from their separate desks, till at length some one of formal and dignified presence assumed the honour of leading the band, when away they went, threading ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... for having perceived by magic that their wives had looked through the hole in the sky, and knowing that they were lying when they denied it, they gave them leave to go back to earth. Yet there were conditions, and those not easy to such fidgety damsels as these; for they said, "Ye shall lie together all this night, and in the morning when ye awake ye shall be in no haste to open your eyes or to uncover your faces. Wait until ye shall have heard the song ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... my chances for the vice-presidency. She asked twenty questions about that and declares she is going to help me. And yesterday, when I wanted her to help, she didn't take any interest. I never saw such a change. And she is so—so fidgety and—and nervous and high-spirited and silly. She laughed at nothing and kept jumping up and walking about and sitting down again. I declare! it made ME jumpy ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... silently went to work on the screws. The screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly worked them out. It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety. Then he ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... of that ease and self-possession which can only be acquired by long habitual intercourse with well-bred persons, this surely is the wisest course that could be adopted, and a hundred degrees above that fidgety, jackdaw-like assumption of nonchalance with which the ill-bred amongst ourselves seek ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... was taking the voyage to restore his shattered nerves. From the first the captain disliked Henry. He was utterly unused to the sea and was nervous and fidgety in the extreme. He complained that at sea his genius had not a sufficient degree of latitude. Which was ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... his disquieting thoughts, still outwardly he was cool. But Mr. Hugh Wenlock was on deck in the sprucest of his apparel, and was visibly anxious and fidgety, as befitted a man who shortly expected to enter into the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... again, and a good many doubtless know that what they leave undone will be done by their mistress. The German kitchen with its beautiful cleanliness and brightly polished copper pans I have described, but I have not said anything yet about the fidgety housewife who carries her Tuechtigkeit to such a pitch that she ties every wooden spoon and twirler with a coloured ribbon to hang by against the wall. In England you hear of ladies who tie every bottle of scent on the toilet table with a different ribbon, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... tree, but I am sure that the change did not please his wife. She could not look at him, and she could not ask him how he was getting on and if he wanted anything. I could see that she was worried and fidgety, although endeavoring to work as faithfully and steadily as usual. Twice during a break in the dictation she asked me to excuse her for just one minute, while she ran into the parlor to take ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... you done?" demanded Martin sternly. "Haven't I warned you time and again that milk cows are sensitive, nervous? Fidgety people drive them crazy. Why can't you behave simply and directly with them! Why is it I always get more milk from mine! It's your own fault this happened—fussing around, taking out your ill temper at me on her. Shouting at me. What ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... 607; fluctuate; pendulate^; alternate &c (oscillate) 314; keep off and on, play fast and loose; blow hot and cold &c (caprice) 608. shuffle, palter, blink; trim. Adj. irresolute, infirm of purpose, double-minded, half-hearted; undecided, unresolved, undetermined; shilly-shally; fidgety, tremulous; hesitating &c v.; off one's balance; at a loss &c (uncertain) 475. vacillating &c v.; unsteady &c (changeable) 149; unsteadfast^, fickle, without ballast; capricious &c 608; volatile, frothy; light, lightsome, light-minded; giddy; fast and loose. weak, feeble-minded, frail; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to feel that being carried to hounds without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... overlooked her habitual inaccuracies. She never, I discovered, finished anything by the time she had promised, and she frequently spent more money on materials than her customer had authorized. Once, when I arrived at six o'clock, Lena was ushering out a fidgety mother and her awkward, overgrown daughter. The woman detained Lena at the door to ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... with him. I told him I'd go if he would bring me around here to let you know what had become of me, and so he did. Now, good-by, and I'll be sure to be present at the next meeting. I have to hurry because he'll get fidgety." ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... dynasty! That alters the case. Perhaps he's a young man about town. There are young men about town, I believe, who have addresses at clubs and libraries, and sleep on doorsteps, or in the Park. Well, Hennessey, I see you are getting fidgety. You had better be off. Buy me some roses for my room on your way home. I'm expectin' someone to have tea with the poor victim of prophecy ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... fidgety; she hurried away from the fence. "Come over here, Florence," she said. "Let's go over to the other side of ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... contrast, as far as outward characteristics went, was offered by the other great orator of the same time. Sheil was very small, and of mean presence; with a singularly fidgety manner, a shrill voice, and a delivery unintelligibly rapid. But in sheer beauty of elaborated diction not O'Connell nor any one else could surpass him. There are few finer speeches in the language than that in which he took Lord Lyndhurst to task for applying the term "aliens" to the Irish ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... too,—in no other state of life will they find such thorough discipline and chastening!—it is the only life which makes a true and perfect woman. But if they wish it, let them not be so untidy, so fidgety, so domineering, that no man in his senses would put up with them! And if she be a "leisured girl" with no duty calling her from home (or very possibly many duties calling her to remain at home), let her think, not twice, but many times, before a wish for independence and Bohemianism (which she ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... similar cutaneous diseases. To pacify them I made some ointment of animal fat and flowers of sulphur, extracted with difficulty from some man's hoard, and told them how to apply it to some of the worst cases. The horse, being unused to a girth, became fidgety as it was being saddled, creating a STAMPEDE among the crowd, and the mago would not touch it again. They are as much afraid of their gentle mares as if they were panthers. All the children followed me for a considerable distance, and a good many of the adults made an excuse ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... room. But, even in that brief moment, had the fair Polly glanced aside at her father, instead of devoting herself wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have taken warning of some mischief nigh at hand. The old man was nervous, fidgety, and very pale. Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed his face with a sort of galvanic grin, which, when Feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged for a scowl; at the same time shaking his fist, and stamping his gouty foot—an incivility which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... a shrug of the shoulders, "is just what is bothering me. However, we shall soon discover. Our men have had time to hide themselves, and the guide is getting fidgety. But I say, Jack, I wish I ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... his notes. He'd asked for reports on all deaths, and he finally found the account. The two old men had been nervous and fidgety for weeks. They were twins, living by themselves, and nobody paid much attention. Then one morning both were seen running wildly in circles. The village managed to tie them up, but they died of ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... onwards, Winter, stationed on the south side, looked at his watch many times. A little man, mingling with the disreputable rascals on the north side, was similarly fidgety. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... dressed and ready to start when the mother came into the kitchen to give the boy a farewell kiss as usual. He was in high spirits, but fidgety with ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... blank surfaces of the closed doors. To either end were the heads of four nervous animals, eight ponderous hulks of steel-shod horseflesh, high strung and fidgety, verging almost on panic under the unusual conditions they were enduring, and subject at any minute to new fits ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... and linnets, cowslips and hawthorn, were to be found in the toy-books and little histories read to him. "Everything was British: even the robin, a domestic bird," wrote the doctor, "instead of a great fidgety, jerky, whooping thrush." But when Peter Parley, Jacob Abbott, Lydia Maria Child, Mrs. Embury, and Eliza Leslie began to write short stories, the Annuals and periodicals abounded in American ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... Be calm and restful. Do not fidget. Command of the tongue is a valuable accomplishment to cultivate. Many a young girl is actually fidgety, because she thinks to be a success she must be "full of life" and always "on the go." She wants to be bright and vivacious. If such is her temperament and her vivaciousness comes spontaneously it is perhaps attractive, though it is very likely ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... didn't you say so before?" said Phelan angrily, at which the fidgety little brown son ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... Loire, and in this corner there continually blow in winter, winds sharp as a hundred needle-points. The good hunchback, well muffled up in his mantle, failed not to come, and trotted up and down to keep himself warm while waiting for the appointed hour. Towards midnight he was half frozen, as fidgety as thirty-two devils caught in a stole, and was about to give up his happiness, when a feeble light passed by the cracks of the window and came ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... and sausage and the ordinary incidents of the trenches; here and there Karl wrote about an old grandfather, and a big china pipe, and pinewoods and roast goose. Then the diarist seemed to get fidgety about ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... led through a large herd of blue wildebeests, zebras, and springboks, which gazed at us in utter amazement. At length I fired my second barrel, but my horse was fidgety, and I missed. I continued riding alongside of him, expecting in my ignorance that at length he would come to bay, which rhinoceroses never do; when suddenly he fell flat on his broadside on the ground, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... though it was, did not take her altogether by surprise. She would have needed to be both deaf and blind not to notice that the store-bell rang much seldomer than it used to, and that Richard had more spare time on his hands. Yes, trade was dull, and that made him fidgety. Now she had always known that someday it would be her duty to follow Richard to England. But she had imagined that day to be very far off—when they were elderly people, and had saved up a good deal of money. To hear the date fixed for six months hence was something ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Mr. Smithson seemed to grow more fidgety, more annoyed at the state of affairs. Like every one else employed by Lady Ludlow, as far as I could learn, he had an hereditary tie to the Hanbury family. As long as the Smithsons had been lawyers, they had been lawyers to the Hanburys; ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... within limits, and had a run nearly every day. Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidgety watch upon his movements; but evidently the only son's will ruled, and he was more than faithful to his compact with Rose. She was able to see this from her commanding window, and to hear it from Bruce's mouth; and day by day her heart warmed towards ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... while the nest was shallow, only one could work at a time; and if Petro came back with his plaster before Eve had patted the last of hers into place, she would squeak at him in a fidgety though not fretful voice, as if saying, "Now, don't get in my way and bother me, dear." So he would have to fly about while he waited for her to go. The minute she was ready to be off, he would be slipping into her place; and this time she would give him a cosy ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... in a languid conversation. The Marquise fidgety, cast longing glances at Saval, seeking some pretext, some means, of getting rid of her daughter. She finally realized that she would not succeed, and not knowing what ruse to employ, she said to Servigny: "You know, my dear Duke, that I am going to keep you both this evening. ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... sun's almost gone down ... and Mubby and Darrie will be home a long time by this time ... and Mubby will be getting fidgety." ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... departure, Hollins had fallen into his old manner, convinced, apparently, that Candor must be postponed to a better age of the world. But the quarrel rankled in Shelldrake's mind, and especially in that of his wife. I could see by her looks and little fidgety ways that his further stay would be very uncomfortable. Abel Mallory, finding himself gaining in weight and improving in color, had no thought of returning. The day previous, as I afterwards learned, he had discovered Perkins Brown's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... been fidgety on the journey up, he was almost distracted on the journey down. If he found Eldred, what could he say? That it had been discovered that the book was a rarity and must be recalled? An obvious untruth. Or ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... saw the whole file, like so many organ-grinders, still stupidly intent on their work, unmindful of everything beside, he could not but smile at his late fidgety panic. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... He seemed hurried and fidgety in his manner; which rather surprised me, as I knew he was a seasoned hand in these matters, and it contrasted unfavourably with the calm bearing of his antagonist, who by this time had thrown his hat on the ground, and stood with one foot on the handkerchief that marked his position, the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Jim continued fidgety and wide-awake as he took his seat near the table and the county papers. He squirmed on the cushions, smoked hard and complained of the tobacco, the weather, the police magistrates, his tight shoes, the careless washerwoman and a string of matters incidental to the world's work and its burdens ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Bowser the Hound, over at Farmer Brown's, bayed at the moon. Reddy Fox always is nervous and by this time he was so fidgety that he couldn't stand still. When Bowser the Hound bayed at the moon Reddy Fox jumped a foot off the ground and whirled about in the direction of Farmer Brown's house. Then he remembered that Bowser the Hound is always ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... taking no special pains for gentleness, stripped off the outer garments of the prostrate Schwartzmann, who moaned and groaned throughout the process, though he never opened his eyes. Blenheim urged haste upon us; he was getting more fidgety every instant; he bit his lip, drummed with his fingers, kept an ear cocked, as if expecting to hear pursuers at the door. Still, he neglected no precautions. He demanded my revolver. I surrendered it amiably, and then doffed my ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... one of the boys—it was little Jonathan—was recovering from an attack of scarlatina, and was very fidgety and uncomfortable, nothing but some kind of story would keep ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... the passengers, but, by proving him a laggard in his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon his reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself to a friend, it could not be done at that sacrifice. After a minute or two of fidgety waiting for the song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no longer, and, cautiously hazarding a glimpse of his profile beyond the edge of the flat, he called in a hurried whisper: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo'se! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... that have also to pay for thee; and, whether the art wholly worth the cost, concerns not thee, but thy master. Thou hast of late many enemies in seats of office, and elsewhere; ministers, and scribes, and feeble folk in fidgety fear of hypothetical hydrophoby. "Out with the dog!" says one. "That cur looks mad!" says another; "Muzzle him!" says the third. "Knock me him on the head with a constable's staff!" cries the fourth; "Give him euthanasia at the Dog's Home!" suggests ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... hands under any class or type; there is no democracy of hands. Some hands tell me that they do everything with the maximum of bustle and noise. Other hands are fidgety and unadvised, with nervous, fussy fingers which indicate a nature sensitive to the little pricks of daily life. Sometimes I recognize with foreboding the kindly but stupid hand of one who tells with many ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... most fidgety of women, and born of a well-shorn family, was unhappy from the middle to the end of the week that she could not scrub her husband's beard off. The lady's sense of human crime, and of everything hateful in creation, expressed itself mainly in the word "dirt." Her rancor against that nobly tranquil ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... that day Lady Macleod had presided over the two teacups in a state of nervous excitement which was quite visible to Alice. More than once Alice asked little questions, not supposing that she was specially concerned in the matter which had caused her aunt's fidgety restlessness, but observing it so plainly that it was almost impossible not to allude to it. "There's nothing the matter, my dear, at all," at last Lady Macleod said; but as she said so she was making up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the new director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and daughter-in-law. Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house, had a restless, fidgety look in his ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... school this morning cried for some time, then she sat silent, her crape veil still down, and her eyes watching furtively her fellow-passengers. They consisted of two rather fidgety old ladies, who wrapped themselves in rugs, were very particular on the question of hot bottles, and watched Hester in their turn with considerable curiosity and interest. Presently one of them offered the little girl a sandwich, which she was too proud ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... painful; but it was not that British grenadier who grew embarrassed and fidgety—it was the other party to the transaction. His gaze never shifted, his eyes never wavered—but I ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... didn't look the same. You were all strung up and excited and fidgety; you got to looking peakid and run down. Now then, Lamhorn had been going with us a good while, but I noticed that not long ago you got to picking on him about every little thing he did; you got to quarreling ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... Malone was beginning to get fidgety. He needed to be doing something—even if it were only ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... faces and screwed themselves down in the tub as well as they could, the irrepressible Alfy laughing meanwhile, and saying he did not think they need take such great precautions. Mansy, however, was rather fidgety ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... with a sigh, 'there ain't much more to tell. Jane says Mrs. Fairfax shuts herself up and won't see a single visitor; Miss Grace, the eldest daughter, who was never very strong, has become a confirmed invalid, with very crotchety and fidgety ways, and makes every one miserable who comes near her. Miss Nesta is the only one that keeps bright; and Jane says her temper is that sweet, she bears with all her sister's crossness and unreasonableness, and her mother's icy coldness, like an angel. She ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... my way there and took up the receiver without any special interest. Ralph was fidgety these days, and I had no doubt that he had something to say to me about the shooting. His first words, however, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said Diagoras, with a fidgety and nervous trepidation. "Well, he chooses strange hours to visit us. But he is right; his visits cannot be too private. Cleonice, you look ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... her close, and I have no more to say on her score than she had on any. As for the Maestro himself, I got to know him better. On mere sight I could guess something of him. A master evidently, unhappy when not ordering something; fidgety by the same token; yet a fellow of humours, and fertile of inventions whereon to feed them. The more I considered him the more subtle ministry to his pleasures did I find this morning's work to be. A man, finally, happiest in dreams. I looked at him ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... seeming on the eve of dissolution. They evinced alarm at my presence, but I told them not to be scared, inasmuch as I was an intimate acquaintance of the General, for whom I carried Cape Cod. On the left side of the kitchen there stood at a great deal table an aged maid whose mien was somewhat fidgety. This visible nervousness was increased with the labour necessary to prepare the ponderous pile of soft dough-nuts she worked upon; which, she said, when ready (though of little substance) were intended to satisfy the Down-easters, who never expected much, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... dressin' her!—well, if she 'd known as Hiram was sleepin' a sleep as next to knowed no wakin' she could n't have put on more things wrong side out an' hind side before! She was n't dressed till most every one was there 'n' I was gettin' pretty anxious, for Hiram was n't there neither, 'n' the more fidgety people got the more they caught their corners on Mrs. Dill. I just saved her from Mr. Kimball, 'n' Amelia saw her goin' as a result o' Judge Fitch 'n' hardly had time for a jump. The minister himself was beginnin' to cough when, all of a sudden, some one cried as ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... I said; and we waited on a full hour, with Esau growing more and more fidgety, and by degrees ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Lieutenant Lion. Gawain, Sir, his amusements. Gay, S.H., Esquire, editor of National Antislavery Standard, letter to. Geese, how infallibly to make swans of. Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifically classed. Getting up early. Ghosts, some, presumed fidgety, (but see Stilling's Pneumatology.) Giants formerly stupid. Gideon, his sword needed. Gift of tongues, distressing case of. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey. Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to. Glory, a perquisite ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus became fidgety and anxious. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... was dangerous, even going to the Baths of Titus from the Esquiline was risky. Anyone like Falco was certain to feel safer indoors. And the tense uncertainty of those twenty-four days made everybody restless, feverish, fidgety and morose: civil war between Severus and Pescennius Niger, lord of the East, was inevitable. How Clodius Albinus, in control of Gaul, Spain and Britain, would act, was problematical. We were all ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... fidgety again and began opening a drawer in the chest. Lavretsky sat still without ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... after which they proceeded to eat greedily, their new masters patting their necks and talking to them while they did so. Then their saddles and bridles were put on, and they were led out of the stable and along the streets. At first they were very fidgety and wild at the unaccustomed sights and sounds, but their fear gradually subsided, and by the time they were well in the country they ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... my dear," said Manvers kindly. And she did, by tumbling into his arms. Here, then, was a situation for the student of Manners; a brisk discharge of stones from an advancing line of skirmishers, a strictly impartial crowd of sightseers, a fidgety horse, and himself embarrassed by a girl in ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... this seldom happened once to any man—could hardly happen more than once to any man. He had hired a carriage for her, not thinking it fit that Lady Ongar should be taken to her new home in a cab; and when he was at the station, half an hour before the proper time, was very fidgety because it had not come. Ten minutes before eight he might have been seen standing at the entrance to the station looking out anxiously for the vehicle. The man was there, of course, in time, but ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... reading peaceably just now, and I suddenly thought how I would feel if I saw you coming in at the door. I started and could hardly believe that I will really see you—in something besides visions. When night comes I usually get fidgety, and can hardly realize I do not need to worry over phantoms. Then I go on with "Classicism and Romanticism in Music," and I think of you—and read a line and think of you! You see, it doesn't do for me to be too intense, for I just devour myself, and that is all. My ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... and fidgety state she would very likely be jealous of his sitter, and of the way in which Madame de Pastourelles' portrait possessed his mind. No, it really couldn't be done!—it really couldn't! He must finish the two pictures—persuade Lord Findon to buy the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Emperor during this governorship shows him still unchanged; upright and conscientious, but irresolute, pedantic, and totally unable to think and act for himself in any unusual circumstances. The contrast between Pliny's fidgety indecision and the quiet strength and inexhaustible patience of Trajan, though scarcely what Pliny meant to bring out, is the first and last impression conveyed to us by this curious correspondence. The nine books of his private ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... Melton grimly. He subsided after this into one of his fidgety, grimacing, finger-nail-gnawing reveries. He was wondering whether he dared tell Lydia of a talk he had had that morning with her father. After a look at Lydia's flushed, tired face, he decided that he would better not; but as the two women ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the attention of even the fidgety Peter. He looked at his employer and wondered blankly what he ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... sleepers, seemed to have a chance at last. For after being baffled all day by intermittent rushing fiends, and unwarrantable shuntings to and fro, and droppings of sudden red-hot clinkers on their counterpanes, an inexplicable click or two—apparently due to fidgety bull's-eyes desirous of change—could scarcely be ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... of the straying horse over his arm, and the animal trotted obediently by the side of the fidgety ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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. You can't ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... is—he is awfu' fwightened of Pole Star, and he sha'n't wide him. Now, G'eased Lightning, he'll do anything for me, and so what I say is this—let Orion wide him, and if he begins to dance about and get sort of fidgety, why, I'll stwoke him down. You know I could pwactice widing a little on Pole Star ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... admirable, sparkling with wit and with a humour that unfortunately grew rarer, bitterer, and even coarser often, in his later career. Some of his rapidly sketched pictures were incidents of home life. This one represents his mother's fidgety disposition:— ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... and composed under all circumstances. Do not get fidgety. If you feel that time drags heavily, do not let this be apparent to others by any ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... made Emma Jane nervous and fidgety, but she was Rebecca's slave and obeyed her lightest commands. At the last pair of bars the two girls were sometimes met by a detachment of the Simpson children, who lived in a black house with a red door ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Grandeur that was Rome, by Mr. J. C. Stobart, of the English Cambridge. One greatest trouble about historical study is, that it allows you to see no great trends, but hides under the record of innumerable fidgety details the real meanings of things. Mr. Stobart, with a gift of his own for taking large views, sees this clearly, and goes about to remedy it; he does not wander with you through the dark of the undergrowth, labeling bush after bush; but leads you from ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Immediately after breakfast Mr. Robarts escaped to the Dragon of Wantly, partly because he had had enough of the matutinal Mrs. Proudie, and partly also in order that he might hurry his friends there. He was already becoming fidgety about the time, as Harold Smith had been on the preceding evening, and he did not give Mrs. Smith credit for much punctuality. When he arrived at the inn he asked if they had done breakfast, and was immediately told that not one of them was yet ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... coughed in embarrassment and motioned to a prim, thin-faced woman in the front room who came forward with fidgety shyness, begging the gentlemen to forgive her if she had done wrong, but there was something on her conscience and she ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... more sentimental than he cared to show, and the topsy-turvydom of the room made him fidgety. Scraps of his daily life lay scattered all over chairs and chests of drawers; his black portmanteau yawned wide-open like a coffin; his white linen was carefully laid on the top of his black suit, which showed slight traces of wear and tear at the ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... But there were two men on board who didn't take things easy. They wanted to know what had happened, and they wanted to know what was likely to happen next. I was one of these men, and a stock-broker from New York was the other. He was an awful nervous, fidgety, meddling sort of a man, who was on this cruise for the benefit of his health, which must have been pretty well worn out with howling, and yelling, and trying to catch profits like a lively boy catches flies. He was always poking his nose ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... corridor, turned at right angles into a second, and, that passed, gained the head of the great staircase. "No romance here," he said to himself, looking down the handsomely carpeted stone stairs into the bright modern hall. "Nothing to startle Midwinter's fidgety nerves in this house." There was nothing, indeed; Allan's essentially superficial observation had not misled him for once. The mansion of Thorpe Ambrose (built after the pulling down of the dilapidated old manor-house) ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... and his good meaning became laughable, from the whimsical uncertainty of his conduct; so that the wisest things he ever said, and the best actions he ever did, were often touched with a strain of the ludicrous and fidgety character of the man. Accordingly, though at different periods of his reign he contrived to acquire with his people a certain degree of temporary popularity, it never long outlived the occasion which produced it; so true it is, that the mass of mankind ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... violent soliloquies; the stamping of the captain up and down the floor; and the contusions, palpably, suffered by her furniture. The captain's temper was not very pleasant that evening, and he was fidgety and feverish besides, expecting every moment a note from town to apprise him of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the Fieldhead pew in Briarfield Church appeared peopled with a prim, trim, fidgety, elderly gentleman, who shifted his spectacles, and changed his position every three minutes; a patient, placid-looking elderly lady in brown satin; and two pattern young ladies, in pattern attire, with pattern ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... exploratory tour upon Dr. Surtaine's domed forehead. Following it thus far, the visitor's gaze rested. Dr. Surtaine brushed off the insect. He could not brush off the regard. Under it and his caller's continued silence he grew fidgety. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hear any disturbance that night—the opening and shutting of doors, the anxious whispering voices, the sound of wheels driving rapidly up to the door. He knew nothing of it all. For, alas! his tiresome, fidgety temper had caused him to be looked upon as no better than a sort of naughty child in the house—of no use or assistance, concerning whom every one's first thought in any trouble was, "We must manage to get Geoff out of the way, or to ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... world; and even the comforting effect of ROBINSON CRUSOE wore off, after Penelope left me. I got fidgety again, and resolved on making a survey of the grounds before the rain came. Instead of taking the footman, whose nose was human, and therefore useless in any emergency, I took the bloodhound with me. HIS nose for a stranger was to be depended ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... came to him now as though they had been but yesterday. It was afternoon, in the glorious summer, and he had gone to Hester's home. Only the day before Hester had promised to be his wife, and he remembered how fidgety and uneasy and yet wondrously happy he was as he sat out on the big white veranda, waiting for her to put on her pink muslin dress, which went go well with the gold of her hair and the blue of her eyes. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... train all night after being on it all day. One of mine with a bullet still in his chest, and some pneumonia, who seemed very ill when he was put on at Merville, said this morning he felt a lot better and had had the best night for five days! And my fidgety boy with the wound in his throat made a terrible fuss at being put off at Boulogne when he found he was the only one in his compartment to go and that I ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous |
