"Nervous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tramway to the top of Mt. Pilatus, at a grade of from 25 to 35 degrees. I did not feel this in ascending, but in descending I confess to experiencing real fear. The jog-jog of the cogwheels, the possibility of their breaking, and the sure destruction that would follow, made me very nervous. I would have been less so but for a lady unknown to me, sitting by my side, who became frightened and turned deathly pale. I was glad indeed when we ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... as he watched Hugh, came the unaccountable impression that his sure and chiselled surface covered a nervous anxiety. Then Miss Maria, being a product of the same school, dismissed the idea ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... she did speak that way, but that was no reason why I should submit to it," Harley answered. "It was the fault of her mood. She was nervous, almost hysterical—thanks to her rebellious spirit. The moment I discovered how things were going I should have gone back and started afresh, and kept on doing so until I had her submissive. A hunter may balk at a high fence, but the rider must not give in to him unless he wishes ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... him, which he did by taking him one side and pulling one from a cart. It was a long, yellow-stocked smoothbore, with a flintlock. It had many brass tacks driven into the stock, and was bright in its cheap newness. As the Bat took it in his hand he felt a nervous thrill, such as he had not experienced since the night he had pulled the dripping hair from the Absaroke. He felt it all over, smoothing it with his hand; he cocked and snapped it; and the little brown bat on his scalp-lock fairly yelled: "Get your ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... replied with her usual simple kindness; but she was evidently nervous at the visit of a stranger (for she had never yet seen Mrs. Merton), and still more distressed at the thought of losing Mrs. Leslie a week or two sooner than had been anticipated. However, Mrs. Leslie hastened to reassure her. Mrs. Merton was so quiet and good-natured, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sentenced to the wood-pile for four hours for enquiring of Adam why he called the Yak a Yak when everybody knew he looked more like a Yap. Adam is getting very nervous under this ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... up Gus Sinclair's card Alicia dropped a pecky little kiss on my cheek, and pushed me toward the door. I went down calmly, although I'll admit that my heart was beating wildly. Gus Sinclair was plainly nervous, but I was composed enough for both. You would really have thought that I was in the habit of being proposed to by a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... feel that after all to have only one leg, or one hand, or one eye, or to have three, might be in itself no less beauteous than to have just two, like the stolid majority. Thus William James became the friend and helper of those groping, nervous, half-educated, spiritually disinherited, passionately hungry individuals of which America is full. He became, at the same time, their spokesman and representative before the learned world; and he made it a chief part of his vocation ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an excess of nervous agitation. ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... lesions of the nervous system. It is most pronounced in lesions of the motor nerve-trunks, probably because vaso-motor and trophic fibres are involved as well as those that are purely motor in function. It is attended with definite structural alterations, the muscle elements ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... in the garden of Saint Cloud Marshal Duroc stood with a maid-in-waiting, Watching your Highness at his nurse's breast— Its whiteness, I remember, startled me. Marshal Duroc exclaimed, "Come here!" I came. But there were lots of things to make me nervous: The Imperial child, the gorgeous rosy sleeves The Maid of honor wore, Duroc, the breast— In short, the tuft was shivering on my bearskin; So much so that your Highness noticed it. You gazed upon it pensively: what was it? And while you hailed it with a milky laugh ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... Plainly it was time for someone to say: "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Julia glanced anxiously through the darkness of the room beyond the open window beside her, to where the light of the library lamp shone upon a door ajar; and she was the more nervous because Noble, to give the effect of coolness, had lit an ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to see him. Owen sat criticising, watching him rather cynically, interested in his youth and in his thick, rebellious hair, flowing upwards from a white forehead. The full-fleshed face, lit with nervous, grey eyes, reminded Owen of a Roman bust. "A young Roman emperor," he said to himself, and he seemed to understand Evelyn's love of Ulick. Would that she had continued to love this young pagan! Far better than to have been duped by that grey, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... do I? Nonsense! The term is a stilted affectation, perhaps never better applied than to Mrs. Browning's descriptive spasms. Still, she was undoubtedly a poet. She wrote many beautiful subjective poems, but she wrote much that was not poetry, and which suggests only a deranged nervous system. I have a friend who maintains from her writings that she never loved, that she did not know what passion meant. However this may be, the author of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... very numerous, but the show had other attractions and was an excuse for a general holiday. The crowd was larger than usual, Mrs. Osborn's nervous speech was cheered, and for a time Osborn forgot that the office he had taken might cost him something. He was carrying out a duty he owed the neighborhood and felt that he could do so better than anybody else. He did not admit that he liked to take ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the drawing-room and detaining him, as he was hastening onwards up the stairs. She did her daughter good service that moment, if she had never done it before. Maude had time to fold the letter, put it back, lock the cabinet, and escape. Had she been a nervous woman, given to being flurried and to losing her presence of mind, she might not have succeeded; but she was cool and quick in emergency, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... eyes a la Chinoise, a flat nose, thick lips, high cheek bones, broad shoulders, strong and nervous limbs, and bronze colour; he greatly resembles the Chinese of the southern provinces of ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... insubordinate means to procure his release was in itself a virtual admission that he feared to stay and face the constantly recurring accusations. It was very adroitly and impressively worded, but still the General and chief-of-staff felt nervous and ill at ease. Down in their hearts both realized that nothing had been proved against Loring, and that the chances were ten to one that nothing ever could or would be. What was more, both were beginning to ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... there was admiration in the steady gaze with which the Prince kept the monk in eye; the attraction was stronger—he was looking for a sign from him. He saw the tall, nervous figure cross the brook with a faltering, uncertain step, pass the remainder of the pavement, the torch in one hand, the holy symbol in the other; then it disappeared under the arch of the gate; and when it had come ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... I am half inclined to think we made a mistake in signing that paper," he said. "Of course, I know it's safe in your keeping, but I don't fancy my name standing written on a document that means quite what that means. I fancy that Higgins is a little nervous, too. We'll meet and talk it over ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that leaves Meander at four o'clock tomorrow morning, I shall have to leave here within—" he flashed out his watch with his quick, nervous hand—"within three-quarters of an hour. What do you say, Major ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... are you superstitious as well as nervous? It was the mask I meant. The mask that was Sybil's partner in the quadrille which we danced with them," ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... given him a hint that evening as he looked up to see the girl standing in the doorway; for Dot was so cold, so aloof in her welcome. He did not see what Hill saw at the first glance—that she was quivering from head to foot with nervous agitation. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... neglected, but at one a game of quadrille is in progress. There is much movement and hilarity, but none from one side of the tent, where sit several young ladies, all pretty, all appealing and all woeful, for no gallant comes to ask them if he may have the felicity. The nervous woman chaperoning them, and afraid to meet their gaze lest they scowl or weep in reply, is no other than Miss Susan, the most unhappy Miss Susan we have yet seen; she sits there gripping her composure in both hands. Far less susceptible to shame is the brazen Phoebe, ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... government hostile in the highest degree to the court of Great Britain, and in a state of preparation far exceeding what our cabinet had considered possible. Nelson advised that no time should be lost in attacking the enemy; and Sir Hyde Parker, who was "nervous about dark nights and fields of ice," having yielded to his persuasions, it was determined to force the passage of the Sound. This was done without great loss: on the 31st of March the fleet anchored between ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of protection by a quick change from its set apathy to a cheerful grin of cynical good nature. He gives off the impression of being somehow dissatisfied with himself, but not yet embittered enough by it to take it out on others. His manner, as revealed by his speech—nervous, inquisitive, alert—seems more an acquired quality than any part of his real nature. He stoops a trifle, giving him a slightly round-shouldered appearance. He is dressed in a shabby dark suit, baggy at the knees. He is staring into the fire, dreaming, an open book lying unheeded on ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... from Tikkerarsuk, one of their provision-places in the south: Mark—formerly Siksigak—was dead, and several others dangerously ill. When they went out in the morning, they were all in good health, but were suddenly seized with a nervous affection, which, in a very short time, terminated fatally; notwithstanding every assistance, Samuel died in the night. Next morning another boat arrived, and brought Adam and Isaac, both dead, though they had yesterday been both fishing in their kaiaks; the four dead bodies were ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... he made in public was carefully considered beforehand, and then written out and committed to memory. As he had to speak in a foreign tongue, he considered this precaution absolutely necessary. At the same time it often made him feel shy and nervous when speaking before strangers, and this sometimes gave to those who did not know him a mistaken impression of ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... only, but of women and children. The student of psychology recognizes at once that here are present in an unusual combination the conditions not merely of the ready propagation of influence by example and persuasion, but of those nervous, mental, or spiritual infections which make so important a figure in the world's history, civil, military, or religious. It is wholly in accord with human nature that the physical manifestations attendant on religious excitement in these ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... nervous attack.—There is your father," she added, recognizing the Baron's way of ringing the bell. "Say ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... could have felt it her duty to tell her superior what had happened, and she had necessarily been the only judge of what her confessor should know of the matter. Even now, if she had burst into floods of tears or shown any other signs of being on the verge of a nervous crisis, the elder woman would probably have stopped her and told her not to make confidences that concerned another person until she was calmer. But she evidently had full control of her words and outward bearing, and the Mother listened in silence. Then the ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... fifteen years in the making, of which time three days were spent in the actual writing. When the book was finished, both authors relaxed in the mutual pleasure of nervous breakdowns, from which it is not certain ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his danger—the bullet—was in the wall nearly where his head had been. When Phoebe had answered his questions, he gazed at her, and exclaimed—'Hallo! why, Phoebe, it seems that but for you, Parson Robert would be in possession here!' and burst into a strange nervous laugh, ending by coming to her and giving a hearty kiss to her forehead, ere hurrying away to report ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She was somewhat nervous and trembled a little at the thought of her near discovery, but felt not the slightest qualm of conscience at her ruthless destruction of another's property. On the contrary, she experienced a wicked satisfaction, and smiled to herself as she pictured Miss Thompson's consternation when the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... I've been loafing around this club—nothing to do for a month. Bridge, handball, highballs, and yarns! I'm actually a nervous wreck because my nerves haven't had any ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... toward the pacifists. He called the discussion of preparedness "good mental exercise," and referred to some of its advocates as "nervous and excitable," and in the message to Congress in December, 1914, he took the position that American armaments were quite sufficient for American needs. In this it was apparent that he was opposed by a large part of the American people; how large no one could yet say. But the Congressional elections ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... not go quickly to sleep. The horses were nervous, restless, alert, in spite of their fatigue, continually snorting or standing with their ears forward, peering out into the night, as though conscious of the presence of danger. Roosevelt remembered some half-breed ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... are fairly quiet beasts, but they get restive with their loads, mainly but indirectly owing to the smoothness of the ice. They know perfectly well that the swingle trees and traces are hanging about their hocks and hate it. (I imagine it gives them the nervous feeling that they are going to be carried off their feet.) This makes it hard to start them, and when going they seem to appreciate the fact that the sledges will overrun them should they hesitate or stop. The result is that they are constantly fretful and the ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... covered by Luke's revolver Farmer Mason, though his tremulous hands showed that he was nervous, managed to tie him securely. Fox began to understand the sort of man with whom he was dealing and remained silent, but his brain was busy trying to devise some ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... worse. I've no call to talk, for I've been bad enough. How precious white and seedy young Mark looks! Anyone would think he had been up to some game of his own. Every time I opened the door he give quite a jump in his chair, and, though he laughed it off, he's as nervous as nerves. ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child, is love," said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,—"love in its holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... not as she should be. Write to Dr. Galbraith. Ask him to come here to-morrow. Ask him to dine and stay the night, as if it were only an ordinary visit—not to alarm her, you know. But tell him why we want him to come. I am nervous ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... most important consideration in such a nervous generation as ours: every woman ought to have eight hours' sleep, and more if she needs it, but she should not wake up and then go to sleep again; that second sleep, which is so pleasant, is the sleep of the sluggard. I would like ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... were relatively few people—that is to say, a few hundred, who had sufficient room to move easily to and fro under the eyes of officials. Priam Farll had been admitted through the cloisters, according to the direction printed on the ticket. In his nervous fancy, he imagined that everybody must be gazing at him suspiciously, but the fact was that he occupied the attention of no one at all. He was with the unprivileged, on the wrong side of the massive screen which separated the nave from the packed choir and ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... encountering one once so dear, now associated in her mind with recollections of guilt and sorrow. More than this, she is sensitively alive to the fear of shame, to the dread of detection. If ever her daughter were to know her sin, it would be to her as a death-blow. Yet in her nervous state of health, her ever-quick and uncontrollable feelings, if you were to meet her, she would disguise nothing, conceal nothing. The veil would be torn aside: the menials in her own house would tell the tale, and curiosity circulate, and scandal blacken ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hesitated a moment. "I do not know, godfather! We have not seen Le Gardeur since our arrival." Then after a nervous silence she added, "I have been told that he is at Beaumanoir, hunting with His ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... introduction of instrumental music into public worship, is not clear. 'The late Abraham Booth and Andrew Fuller were extremely averse to it; others are as desirous of it. Music has a great effect on the nervous system, and of all instruments the organ is the most impressive. The Christian's inquiry is, whether sensations so produced assist the soul in holding communion with the Father of spirits, or whether, under ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... excellent, does not matter in the least. The issue remains the same. An apparatus which before would work only on rare occasions—and then without any certitude—between people in the highest state of sympathy or nervous excitement, has now been brought to such a stage of perfection that by its means anybody can talk to anybody, even if their interests are antagonistic, or their ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... but, while she looked, the smile froze stiff as it were on his face, and changed to a nervous grin the sort of grin men wear when they are not quite easy in their saddles. The mare seemed to be sinking by the stern, and her nostrils cracked while she was trying to realise what was happening. The rain of the night before had rotted the ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... consciousness is attention. 3. Content of the mental stream: Why we need minds—Content of consciousness determined by function—Three fundamental phases of consciousness. 4. Where consciousness resides: Consciousness works through the nervous system. 5. Problems in observation and introspection . . . . . . . ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... my—my diamonds?" cried the lovely widow, with a little nervous sob, and instantly her two white hands went up to her ears, covering the blazing gems from his sight, while a painful flush leaped to her brow and lost itself beneath the soft rings of her ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... dies, the question it has become the fashion with a nervous generation to ask is the question, 'Will he live?' There was no idler question, none more hopelessly impossible and unprofitable to answer. It is one of the many vanities of criticism to promise immortality to the authors that it praises, to patronise a ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... incidents so frequent in his life, in reference to which we may quote the joint testimony of two witnesses. Colonel Stanhope writes, "Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous Suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms and loudly demanding their rights. Lord Byron, electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness; ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... toward him an awe-struck countenance and motioned him to be silent. He tip-toed from the room, thoroughly frightened and nervous, and sent a message to ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... resplendent in Sunday blacks, "best frocks" and bead chains, the small girls and boys appearing respectively in white muslins and velveteen Lord Fauntleroy suits; the Squire opened proceedings with expressions of good wishes, interspersed with nervous coughs, and Noreen and Ida led off the musical proceedings with a lengthy classical duet, to which the audience listened ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... husky whisper. "What's the use? Why, of course," grasping at his usual self-confidence, "I'm a fool to get scared this way. You've showed me that you care, you have, honey; and I guess," with a nervous laugh, "the Black Pearl hasn't got any damn fool scruples such as I've been frightening myself out of my skin by attributing ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... for his expedition Henry had his queen crowned, that she might act as regent in his absence. On his way to arrange the ceremony of her entrance into Paris he met his death. Rumours of a plot had reached him and made him nervous. While the conspirators were watching for him to pass, a solitary fanatic, Ravaillac, drove a knife between his ribs, and gave a respite to the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... of localized inhibition centers, the need of such a theory has been felt. The discussion, however, has been mainly physiological, and we cannot undertake to follow it here. The psychologist may not be indifferent, of course, to any comprehensive theory of nervous action. He works, indeed, under a general presumption which takes for granted a constant and definite relation between psychical and cerebral processes. But pending the settlement of the physiological question he may still continue with the study ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... knew you had come to be something far different. You have the hawk-sense of balance, the sixth sense—the sense woman was supposed to have a monopoly of till the day of aeroplanes arrived. You had nerve to go up there and yet you were not nervous." ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... startling bluntness, but he never tried to silence an opponent by dogmatism or bluster. The keenest argument, therefore, could not betray him into the least discourtesy. He might occasionally frighten a nervous antagonist into reticence and be too apt to confound such reticence with cowardice. But he did not take advantage of his opponent's weakness. He would only give him up as unsuited to play the game in the proper temper. In short, he represented what is surely the normal case of an alliance between ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... he seriously begin his literary career. Then for a period of a little more than ten years he worked with success and was happy. His most famous poems are "John Gilpin," "The Task," "Hope," and "Lines on my Mother's Portrait." In the latter part of his life his nervous melancholy again affected him. He ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... to pace the floor with nervous, uneven steps. At length, as he passed the large, oval window, he caught a glimpse of his wife walking in the conservatory. Approaching, he tapped slightly on the glass to arrest her attention. She turned, and a frown gathered on her features as she met his earnest, affectionate ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... dared not open her lips to speak of the matters which filled her thoughts. She was so wretchedly nervous that she felt as though the tears would break out at the sound of her own voice, and at the same time she was disturbed by the consciousness that Johann Schmidt's eyes watched her closely from the corner in which he was steadily wielding his swivel knife. It had been almost natural ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... I was a child and a nervous one, too. Perhaps he considered this, for, while he was angry enough to turn pale, he did not attempt any rebuke, but left it ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... third-degreed her into cowering and trembling indignation, into hectic mental uncertainties. Then, with the fatigue point well passed, he had marshaled the last of his own animal strength and essayed the final blasphemous Vesuvian onslaught that brought about the nervous breakdown, the ultimate collapse. She had wept, then, the blubbering, loose-lipped, abandoned weeping of hysteria. She had stumbled forward and caught at his arm and clung to it, as though it were her last earthly pillar of support. Her huge plaited ropes of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... her,—or that he would accuse her if the money were not forthcoming. But she must learn the fact, and must be imbued with the conviction that her husband would be the most ill-treated of men unless the money were forthcoming. "I am a little nervous about it too," said he, alluding to the expected letter;—"not so much as to the money itself, though that is important; but as to his conduct. If he chooses simply to ignore us after our marriage he will be behaving very badly." She had no answer to make to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... would follow which would send them all to eternity. That this absurdity was immediately denied by the purser, who asserted with some vehemence that there was not a gallon of turpentine aboard, did not wholly allay the excitement, nor did it stifle the nervous anxiety which had now ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of care operates, in another way, by lowering the standard of health, increasing the susceptibility to nervous or sentimental impressions, and thus adding to the other powers of nature over us whatever charm may be felt in her fostering the melancholy fancies of ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... are exhibited just now. Two rooms scarcely hold his riches; and when one thinks that there are here but the elements of Delacroix's production, one is bewildered. What strikes one above all in his sketches is the note of nervous, contained intensity, which during all his full career he never lost; neither fashion nor the influence of others affected it; never was there a more sincere note. Plenty of incorrectness, I grant you, but with a great feeling for drawing. Whatever one may say, if drawing ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... we must not disturb her." She seated herself then on the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning resting on the beating heart of her Raymond; I dared not approach her, but sat at a distant corner, watching her starting and nervous gestures. At length, in an abrupt manner she asked, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... A severe nervous lesion freed him from the galley-bench of a training-camp, and sent him on a weary pilgrimage through the military hospitals to discharge—and freedom; freedom, which to that ardent nature proved to be irksome. For whilst the very springs of his genius were dammed ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... commit, and which was now a source of hourly and unavailing repentance. His son, who should have inherited his wealth, was lost to him, and he dared not mention that he was in existence. Every day Austin became more nervous and irritable, more exclusive and averse to society; he trembled at shadows, and his strong constitution was rapidly giving way to the heavy weight on his conscience. He could not sleep without opiates, and he dreaded to sleep lest he should reveal everything ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... the last music he had composed. We listened, but the public would listen to it no longer. Sedan had taken all the tinkle out of it, and the poor compositeur toque never caught the public ear again. We listened to his chirpy scores, believing that they would revive that old nervous fever which was the Empire when Hortense used to dance, when Hortense took the Empire for a spring-board, when Paris cried out, "Cascade ma fille, Hortense, cascade." The great Hortense Schneider, the ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... for this proceeding, and possibly the first sight of the august assembly made him nervous. He answered in a low voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all things, the Word of God and the salvation of souls, he must beware of giving a rash answer, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... in making his meaning clear to Two Arrows, and the ambitious young Nez Perce was in precisely the frame of mind to agree with him. They even rode a little faster, and were hardly aware of the distance they had travelled. Sile was beginning to grow nervous about his reputation as a hunter and to remember that the camp had only a three days' supply of fresh meat, in spite of the fish. He believed that he had seen everything there was to be seen, but he was mistaken. Suddenly Two Arrows uttered ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... is handling. You see, perhaps, that his mind is powerfully influenced by the singular character of many Catholic miracles. He thinks them strange, unnecessary, unaccountable, absurd, disgusting, degrading. His nervous sensibilities are shocked by an account of the fearful pangs accompanying the stigmata. In the phenomena of ecstasy he can see nothing more than the ravings of delirium, or (if he believes in mesmerism) than the tales of a clairvoyante, and the rigidity of catalepsy. His physical frame, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... twenty years ago, on the old Early and Late—yes, twenty years come Christmas, for I mind that my eldest daughter was expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw him get aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at the time we was all nervous about it—my son-in-law, Daniel, bein' away with me on the East Coast after the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to be back in time for it—this bein' my first grandchild, an' due (so well as ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the door of a small room at his right hand, something rustled lightly in the corridor outside, and a moment afterwards Roma glided into his arms. She was pale and nervous, and after a moment she began ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... hour or two after midnight and slept until morning. Dick lay on the bare ground under the boughs of a great oak tree. It was a quarter of an hour before sleep came, because his nervous system had received a tremendous wrench that day. He closed his eyes and the battle passed again before them. He remembered, too, a lightning glimpse of a face, that of his cousin, Harry Kenton, seen but an instant and then gone. He tried to decide whether it was fancy or reality, and, while ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... six feet tall might easily have frightened Mr. Wordsley into a nervous breakdown by staring at him with that gaunt, hollow-eyed stare, but this creature, though manlike, was fully fifty feet tall, incredibly elongated, and stark naked. Its hair was long and matted; its cheeks sunken, its lips pulled ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... I never heard or read anything more eloquent or nervous. He invoked the names of Henri the Great, and upon his knees recommended the kingdom of France in general to the protection of ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... roused himself from his trance with a shiver. It was not cold, but in him there was a nervous agitation, making him cold from head to foot; his body seemed as impoverished as his mind. Looking with heavy-lidded eyes across the prairie, he saw in the distance the barracks of the Riders of the Plains and the jail near by, and his shuddering ceased. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... fine-looking youth was driving a magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen, through whose somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like name. They had the short, curry heads that belong to the wild bull, the same large, fierce eyes and jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt, nervous way that showed how they still rebelled against the yoke and goad, and trembled with anger as they obeyed the authority so recently imposed. They were what is called "newly yoked" oxen. The man who drove them had to clear a corner of the field that had formerly been given up ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... the mother not infrequently attempts to have her child educated in the schools for hearing children. This is very unsatisfactory and even dangerous, for if persisted in it results in wholly inadequate progress, uneven development, bad speech, irretrievable loss of time, and often in a complete nervous breakdown. This may not come for some years, but the nervous system, once undermined by the excessive strain of trying to keep up under impossible conditions, can never be fully repaired. Here is what a partially deaf woman writes of her ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... state a thing of which he had no knowledge, or give himself accomplices when he had none. Hearing these words, the provost-marshal signed to the executioner and retired himself to the inner room. At that fatal sign Christophe's brows contracted, his forehead worked with nervous convulsion, as he prepared himself to suffer. His hands closed with such violence that the nails entered the flesh without his feeling them. Three men seized him, took him to the camp bed and laid him there, letting his legs hang down. While the executioner ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... days, a number of the immediate heirs of the original proprietors were resident here; and among them this Major Worrell, whose estate has since been purchased by the government. He was a little, nervous, black-haired bachelor, who shared his chamber with a favorite black ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... illuminating his soul, changed almost in an instant the whole tenor of his mind. It might be compared to a stream of nervous energy, emanating from the brain, and shooting down through the network of chords, confirming convulsed muscles, and; imparting to trembling members consistency of action and graces of motion. His reveries were scared by it, as owls under the influence of a sunbeam, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... thanked me and took his leave. That day I spoke upon the subject to Dr. Hemnip, and he thought that Christina had so far recovered her strength that she might see the prisoner the day after the next. At the same time he cautioned her not to become nervous or excited, and not to attempt to speak. She was simply to write 'Yes' on her tablet, in answer to the question asked her by the police. The interview was to be as brief as possible. I communicated with the chief of police, as ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... tired of the noise and the turmoil of battle, And I'm even upset by the lowing of cattle, And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver, And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver, And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting, And I'm nervous, when standing on one, of alighting— Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek ... Say, starting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... say it, in the long run her playing makes me nervous. I am continually led up to false expectations. Always, she seems just on the verge of achieving the big thing, the super-big thing, and always she just misses it by a shade. Just as I am prepared for the culminating ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... leave you to think of it, Bob," said George, putting his hat on carefully; "I am bound for time, and you seem to be nervous. Consult your pillow, my dear fellow; and peep into your old stocking: and see whether you can ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... sprung from the crowd upon one of the spokes of the wheel, and grasping a part of the coach with his right hand, with his left plunged a dagger to the hilt into the heart of Henry IV. Instantly withdrawing it, he repeated the blow, and with nervous strength again penetrated the heart. The king dropped dead into the arms of his friends, the blood gushing from the wound and from his mouth. The wretched assassin, a fanatic monk, Francis Ravaillac, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... I resist such a temptation? I have been longing to hear Madam Forresti, and with Mr. Montague for an escort, I do not see the least impropriety in attending. I need not trouble mother about it, for she is so nervous to-day she will not leave her room; and I do not think she ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... night 'e had reason to remember Bill Chambers's words. He was walking along Farmer Hall's field—the one next to the squire's plantation—and, so far from being nervous, 'e was actually a-whistling. He'd got a sack over 'is shoulder, loaded as full as it could be, and 'e 'ad just stopped to light 'is pipe when three men burst out o' the plantation and ran toward 'im as 'ard as ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... been orderly and dignified. But after Cannae we begin to divine that the stress of disaster is telling more severely on the nervous fibre of the people. Two Vestals were found guilty of adultery always a suspicious event; in such times a wicked rumour once spread would have its own way. One killed herself; the other was buried alive at the Colline ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... his bull. At first he supposed the animal meant to make fight, and set upon him with its tremendous jaws; but it seemed that caprice or alarm directed the movement; for, after coming within a hundred yards of the boat, the creature turned and commenced sculling away to windward, with wide and nervous sweeps of its formidable flukes. It is by this process that all the fish of this genus force their way through the water, their tails being admirably adapted to the purpose. As the men had showed the utmost activity in hauling in upon the line, by the time the whale ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the eye after having passed through the eye-piece, be sufficiently broad. This being once granted, the inference followed, that an image ceases to be well defined, when it does not strike at least two of the nervous filaments of the retina with which that organ is supposed to be overspread. These gratuitous circumstances, grafted on each other, vanished in presence of Herschel's observations. After having put himself on his guard against the effects of diffraction, that is to say, against the scattering ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... in a state of nervous exhaustion with which I struggled for years, traces of it remaining long after Hull-House was opened in 1889. At the best it allowed me but a limited amount of energy, so that doubtless there was much nervous ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... place for her. I do not at all approve of this modern fashion of running about the country, on any and every pretext. Also, if I remember correctly, your father has frequently described Winton to me as a place of great natural charms, and peculiarly adapted to those suffering from so-called nervous disorders. ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... relapsed into a state of indolence and apathy. He remained only the shadow of a mighty name; and, sequestered in the groves of his family residence, ceased to be mentioned by the public. He became melancholy, nervous, and unfit for business. Nor could he be induced to attend a cabinet council, even on the most pressing occasions. He pretended to be ill, and would not hold conference with his colleagues. Nor did he have the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... a feeling of nervous strain that got worse as the day wore on. By going down to the saloon immediately the breakfast-bell rang and making a hurried meal, he and his companions avoided meeting Kenwardine, and, after bribing a steward, were given lunch with the second-class ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... obedience of those limbs which had hitherto served him so admirably; his arms and hands, as if no longer at his own command, now clung to the branches of the tree, with a cramp-like tenacity, over which he seemed to possess no power, and now trembled in a state of such complete nervous relaxation, as led him to fear that they were becoming unable to support him longer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure. "Going to be a battle, sure, is ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... become quite noted for their preaching, and would often go up into the pulpits of the churches, where large crowds gathered to hear them, the Bishop even inviting St. Francis to preach in the cathedral. Now, among the brethren there was one called Ruffino, who was very shy and nervous and felt he simply couldn't preach and face a great crowd of people, all staring at him and waiting for his words. Now, St. Francis hated that any of his Friars should give in to themselves about anything. He also loved them to obey quickly, and do everything they were ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... stars and deepening into ruddier hues that tinged the fronds of the mighty trees as with streaks of blood when Rosendo, like an implacable Nemesis, prodded his little party into activity. Their first day's march through the wilderness was to begin, and the old man moved with the nervous, restless energy of a hunted jaguar. The light breakfast of coffee and cold arepa over, he dismissed the bogas, who were to return to Boque with the canoes, and set about arranging the cargo in suitable packs ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... those quivers and thrills over their thin coats which horses can give at will; they moved their heads up and down, slowly and easily, and made their bells jangle noisily together; the bursts of sound evoked by their firm and nervous pace died back in showers and falling drops of music. All the time Elbridge swore at them affectionately, with the unconscious profanity of the rustic Yankee whose lot has been much cast with horses. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... said, "Dick's temperament is nervous and perhaps he had some grounds for feeling a strain. I expect you have noted that he is attracted ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Carlyle—was deep and intimate. For him she was, in his own phrase, "a divine woman"; her death in 1849 was to Browning almost an overwhelming blow. She was of a nature finely and delicately strung. Her nervous temperament seems to have been transmitted—robust as he was in many ways—to her son. The love of music, which her Scottish-German father possessed in a high degree, leaping over a generation, reappeared in Robert Browning. His capacity for ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... had to sacrifice a number of accustomed ways of working and of living, much nervous energy, material resources, even human life. Yet if one thing is certain in our future, it is that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... lock, and bolt it: I am frightened—of what? Up till the present time I have been frightened of nothing—I open my cupboards, and look under my bed; I listen—I listen—to what? How strange it is that a simple feeling of discomfort, impeded or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... knew that more than once, to keep it from the servants, managing, dissimulating cleverly, she had helped her husband to carry him bodily to his room. Just recently he had been so wise and so deep and so high that I had begun to get nervous—to wonder if by chance there were something behind it, if he were kept straight for instance by the knowledge that the hated Pudneys would have more to tell us if they chose. He was lying low, but unfortunately ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... With nervous, impatient steps the child started up the narrow path and Uncle John followed—not slowly, but scarcely fast enough to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... friends, tends to show that Sir Charles's health has for some time been impaired, and points especially to some affection of the heart, manifesting itself in changes of colour, breathlessness, and acute attacks of nervous depression. Dr. James Mortimer, the friend and medical attendant of the deceased, has given ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... man who had succeeded in his profession chiefly on account of an average amount of natural astuteness, and also because he was one of those favored persons whose nervous system was a whole and perfect thing. Yet, curiously enough, as he sat in this large, gloomy apartment into which he had been shown, a room filled with art treasures whose appearance and significance were entirely strange to him, he felt ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... captain of finance, and when he first came home DeLancey was put in the bank in order that he might work up by degrees into the bond business or some other auriferous form of toil. Wert Payley almost had nervous prostration from overwork that year, and in the end he had to give up. He couldn't carry his own load and make DeLancey work too. It was too much. No human being should be asked to do it. Wert often says that if he had had nothing else to do he could have kept DeLancey ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... past their usual hour of separating, the cronies parted for the night. Solomon Daisy, with a fresh candle in his lantern, repaired homewards under the escort of long Phil Parkes and Mr Cobb, who were rather more nervous than himself. Mr Willet, after seeing them to the door, returned to collect his thoughts with the assistance of the boiler, and to listen to the storm of wind and rain, which had not yet abated one jot ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... appalled him. Colon was weakening! The boy had received such a shock on the previous day, when he came so near being drowned in the river, that he was not in as good condition for bearing the tremendous nervous strain as the ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... office window, English ships daily passing to and fro on the great canal, by which the old roundabout route from England to India by the Cape of Good Hope was abridged by at least a half. The other was a small, slight-built personage, with a nervous, intelligent face, and bright eyes peering out from under eyebrows which he was incessantly twitching. He was just now manifesting unmistakable signs of impatience, nervously pacing up and down, and ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... though the references in the sermon to that unhappy object of interest in the front pew were many and pointed, his time had not really come until the minister signed to him to advance as far as the second step of the pulpit stairs. The nervous father clenched the railing in a daze, and cowered before the ministerial heckling. From warning the minister passed to exhortation, from exhortation to admonition, from admonition to searching questioning, from questioning to prayer and wailing. When the father glanced ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... throughout his life, suffered from some nervous ailment which defied definition; thus, when he was fifteen, his strength and appetite deserted him and he pined and drooped, but an ancient female, a kind of doctress, who had been his nurse in his infancy, ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... see what I can do with him. If I fail, recollect that he is not proverbial for pliability. Look here—are you nervous? Your fingers twitch, and so do your eyelids, occasionally, and your pulse ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... begetting in her a nervous fear of doing anything definable as unladylike, had operated thus curiously in keeping them unknown to each other at a critical moment. Much might have resulted from recognition—at the least a query on either side in one and the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... last sou she possessed. Poor little girl, she did not know the difference between real money and false, and although she thought this sou looked real, she was very nervous when she entered the first baker ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... as a July dawn in my own less ardent clime; but the memory of two round, tender arms, and two little dimpled hands, that so lately had made themselves loving fetters round my neck, in the vain hope of holding mamma fast, blinded my outlook; and as, with a nervous tremor and a rude jerk, we came to anchor there, so with a shock and a tremor I came to ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... long in America, you'll have to get used to the 'phone," said she. "We do half our shopping, and some of our calling, and make about all our appointments that way. If we didn't, there'd be more cases of nervous prostration than there are, and goodness knows there are enough now, even since Blue Rays have come in. Many love affairs are carried on practically entirely by 'phone, and I've heard that in case of necessity, marriage ceremonies ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... my first expedition,—a signal failure from inexperience, and with a loss of L510 worth of my own private property, which I never recovered. I had nothing to show but eleven artificial holes in my body. Had we gone straight from Aden, without any nervous preliminary fuss, and joined the Ugahden caravan at Berbera just as it was starting, I feel convinced we should have succeeded; for that is the only way, without great force, or giving yourself up to the protection of a powerful chief, that any one could travel ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... you know," he said. "They breathe, they eat, they digest, they move about, and they adapt themselves to their environment as men and animals do. They have a nervous system too... at least a complex system of nuclei which have some of the qualities of nerve cells. They may have memory too. Certainly, they know definite action in response to stimulus. And though this may be physiological, ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... face, and perceived that she had really grown painfully nervous and excited. He turned ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... and pour out its molten contents with the most perfect ease and safety. Not only was all risk of accident thus removed, but the perfection of the casting was secured by the steady continuous flow of the white-hot metal into the mould. The nervous anxiety and confusion that usually attended the pouring of the metal required for the larger class of castings was ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... 'out with it, boy. I have no time to waste.' His tone was so serious that Sunni felt a little nervous thrill ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... again, or getting a governess, she was seized with bad headaches, a pain in her back, or weakness of the eyes, at which Mr. Shaw laughed, but let her holiday go on. Nobody seemed to care much for plain, pug-nosed little Maudie; her father was busy, her mother nervous and sick, Fanny absorbed in her own affairs, and Tom regarded her as most young men do their younger sisters, as a person born for his amusement and convenience, nothing more. Maud admired Tom with all ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... around the person of his master, as, it will be seen, his language endeavored to play around his understanding. The hands crushed the crown of a woollen hat between their fingers, and one of his feet described semicircles with its toe, by performing nervous ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... sir; I am very low to-night—very nervous. Having encountered two or three distressing circumstances to-day, these tears relieve me. You have heard me speak of my son, and of my lord; yet I never collected resolution to recount how we were separated. This morning I saw my son pass my window; he looked up; but ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... his head. It struck the side of the flitter with a sharp clack, and fell. Kieran's nervous relays finally connected. He jumped for the open hatch. Automatically he pushed Paula ahead of him, trying to shield her, and she gave him an odd startled look. Webber was already inside. More stones rattled around and one grazed Kieran's ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... off to Enfield, to Allsop's, for a day or 2, with some intention of succeeding them in their lodging for a time, for this damn'd nervous Fever (vide Lond. Mag. for July) indisposes me for seeing any friends, and never any poor devil was so befriended as I am. Do you know any poor solitary human that wants that cordial to life a—true friend? I can spare him twenty, he shall have 'em good cheap. I have gallipots of 'em—genuine ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... prophets had worked miracles, and many were expected from the Messiah, he too was obliged, according to Becker, to undertake them or renounce his hopes. No doubt he performed miracles; for the power of the mind on the body is such that we need not doubt his curing the melancholy and the nervous. As to the miraculous meals, raising the dead, curing the blind and deaf, these things must be attributed to the calculation of his historians; and we need not hesitate to do so after observing such tangible fabrications as Christ's walking on the sea, his blasting the fig tree, devils ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... is a citizen, woman can meddle in politics and vote, because she is a citizen too. When Mr. Beecher based his right, not on the intellect which flashes from Maine to Georgia, not on the strength of that nervous right arm, but solely on his citizenship, he dragged to the platform twelve millions of American women to stand at his side. But the difficulty is, no man can defend his own right to vote, without granting it to woman. The only reason why the demand sounds strange, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that the germ was related to certain other more familiar forms, Ehrlich set the trap for it that culminated in salvarsan, or "606," the powerful drug used in the modern treatment. By the finding of this same germ in the nervous system in locomotor ataxia and general paralysis of the insane, the last lingering doubt of their syphilitic character was dispelled. Every day and hour the man who deals with syphilis in accordance with the best modern practice brings to bear knowledge that arises from our ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... said: "Good-night." Nothing more. I don't know what I intended to say, but surprise made me swallow it, whatever it was. I choked slightly, and then exclaimed with a sort of nervous haste: "Oh! Good-night, Captain ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... haste and open it, Jane; they always make me so nervous! I believe that is the reason Reginald always will telegraph when he is coming,' said Miss Adeline Mohun, a very pretty, well preserved, though delicate-looking lady of some age about forty, as her elder sister, brisk and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... understand the trees because we have ourselves passed through their evolution, and they survive in us still, for the arterial and nervous systems are trees, the roots of one in the heart, of the other in the brain. Has not our body its trunk, bearing aloft the head, like a flower: a cup to hold the precious juices of the brain? Has not ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... joined the group, while the driver looked on from the wagon and the Leslies from the stoop. Prescott and the girl stood a little distance apart and Muriel was sensible of a nervous shiver. When Prescott had first held up his hand to her, she had seen his keen pleasure and her heart had responded to it; now, however, she was filled ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... back to Orchard Street and as she remained alone during the rest of that day and the next in London, became a little afraid of what she had done. She began to think how she should communicate her tidings to her daughter, and thinking of it grew to be nervous and ill at ease. How would it be with her should Arabella still cling to the hope of marrying the lord? That any such hope would be altogether illusory Lady Augustus was now sure. She had been quite certain that there was no ground for such hope when she had ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... you could read anxiety, poverty, the wasting effect of the terrible suffering and suspense of the epoch. All things combined to deepen the colors of the sombre picture. Hope long deferred had sickened the stoutest hearts. Men were nervous, anxious, burnt up by the hot fever of war. Provisions of every description were sold at enormous prices. Fathers of families could scarcely procure the plainest food for their wives and children. The streets were dotted with poor widows, bereaved ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... proposed father-in-law. A hint had been given him that he might as well be home early from shooting, so as to be in the way. As the hour in which he was to make himself specially agreeable, both to the father and to the daughter, had drawn nigh, he became somewhat nervous, and now, at this moment, was not altogether comfortable. Though he had been concerned in no such matter before, he had an idea that love was a soft kind of thing which ought to steal on one unawares and ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope |
