"Nervousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up the iron shears in her nervousness and begun to cut the flaxen thread; and in the silence of the room only the rusty click was now heard as she clipped ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... Goldstein," he said—and, but for a slight nervousness, he reproduced with histrionic accuracy the tone and gesture of his employer—"as locum tenens for my principal I must decline to insert the phrase, 'and the present tenancies ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... and resumed his seat, from which he had risen quickly at her coming. Mr. Weatherley motioned to him to move up to his side. His face now was a little flushed, but his nervousness had not disappeared. He was certainly not the same man whom one ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... darkness a dozen pairs of eyes were boring in upon him. And when he stick-tied the dogs, instead of letting them forage free through the night, he knew that he had administered another jolt to the nervousness of Dawson. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... man threw back his head and laughed. He laughed very heartily indeed—so heartily that Pollyanna began to cry from pure nervousness. When he saw that, John Pendleton sat erect very promptly. His face grew grave ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... 'Twas not altogether a breakdown, I hope? You must allow for some nervousness—did you detect it? No? Well, I don't mind owning to you I was nervous as a cat: but there, if you didn't detect it I shall flatter myself I did passably." He laughed, evidently on the best terms with himself. His ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... evidently rested a pair of clasped and sweaty hands on the table top, as two parallel, greasy marks, made by the sides of the hands, showed quite plainly. To Morgan, clasped and sweaty hands indicated a possible state of nervousness. Either this had been the victim or the ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... treated with the same studied silence. And later, I fell in with a little family party on the side of Mount Washington, and they, too, refused me so much as a note. Probably I was too near the birds in every case, though in the third instance there was no attempt at skulking, nor any symptom of nervousness. I have often been impressed and amused by the blue jay's habit in this respect. No bird could well be noisier than he when the noisy mood takes him; but come upon him suddenly at close quarters, and he will be as still as the grave itself. He has ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... minutes of waiting before the appearance of his carriage was inevitable. He stood motionless therefore in his place, a handsome, impressive figure, while Meynell paid his respects to Mrs. Flaxman, whose quick colour betrayed a moment's nervousness. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that the place was perfectly cleared, he sat down in the salon and continued his business correspondence with the noble family and the solicitors. Thus engaged, he heard footsteps outside, footsteps on the gravel, footsteps on the doorstop. He got up, not without the slightest show of nervousness, and opened the door. Lord Harry was right. There stood the woman who had been his first nurse—the woman who overheard and watched—the woman who suspected. The suspicion and the intention of watching ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... revealed the hollowness of his pretensions. Only that morning the wife of a labourer had called and asked him to hurry the mending of a pair of boots. She was a voluble woman, and having overcome her preliminary nervousness more than hinted that if he gave less time to the law and more to his trade it would be better for ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... our rugs and smaller belongings. Then we made our way slowly back to the little space prepared for the reception of the heavier baggage, and around which a barrier had already been erected. There was a slight nervousness in my companion's manner which made conversation difficult. I, too, could not help feeling that the situation was a difficult ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seven o'clock, just after darkness had set in, for the moon was getting very old now, and a late riser. The two boys sat in Hugh's den for considerably more than an hour, talking and planning. Both showed vague signs of nervousness, however. Thad in particular frequently walked over to a window and looked out. Doubtless he was thinking what a joke on them it would be if the marauders came much earlier than expected, when all their fine work with that tub of icy water ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... governess, taking up the corner of her black, silk apron and beginning to scrutinize it very attentively, while her nervousness increased every instant—"I—do not know—that you can do anything for me, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... side and then to the other; but to his dismay he found that the boat no longer obeyed it. Then he tried to get possession of the sheets again, and, clumsily crawling forward, he managed to secure them; after which he crawled back to the stern, and clinging to the sheets, began, as well as his nervousness would allow him, to try a series of experiments. First, he pulled the tiller towards him. At this the boat came up to the wind, and resumed her former course. But this was the very course on which he did not wish to go; ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... He protested with maudlin earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,—that I was intoxicated; then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no judge ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... would be over. But had he not resolved to be silent he would hardly have borne the agony of the wound and gone up-stairs without speaking of it. She almost forgot now the misery of the last year in the intensity of her desire to escape the disgrace of punishment. A sudden nervousness, a desire to do something by which she might help to preserve herself, seized upon her. But there was nothing which she could do. She could not follow him lest he should accuse her to her face. It would be vain for her to leave the house till he should ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... a great reverence for a bishop,—so great that he told a young lady that he used to roll a crumb of bread in his hand, from nervousness, when he sat next one at a dinner-table,—and if next an archbishop, used to roll crumbs with both hands,—-but Sydney Smith would have enjoyed the tingling felicity of this last stinging touch of wit, left as lightly and gracefully as a banderillero leaves his little gayly ribboned ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... his daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention this to his daughter, but Natasha noticed her father's nervousness and anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his daring plans than he was with thoughts of her. So far, it was true, there had been no evidences on his part of any hesitation in confiding his schemes to her. Of that she was positive. But, on the other hand, she had undoubtedly lost some of her influence over him. It did not lessen her nervousness to realise that he had been in the hall for some time without making any effort to see her. Besides, the appointment had been of his own making, inasmuch as he had sent word by one of his band that she should meet him to-night ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... had to face a lonely evening in his solitary room. A bed, two chairs, a table, a washing-stand and a wax candle, which threw its dim light on bare walls. He couldn't suppress a feeling of nervousness. He missed all his little comforts,—slippers, dressing-gown, pipe rack and writing table; all the little details which played an important part in his daily life. And the kiddies? And his wife? What were they doing? Were they all right? He became restless ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... this little car by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, when the car jumped the track and threw its passengers over a precipice. It was not true, but the story had value for me, for it made me nervous, and nervousness wakes a person up and makes him alive and alert, and heightens the thrill of a new and doubtful experience. The car could really jump the track, of course; a pebble on the track, placed there by either accident or malice, at a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... scarcely seemed conceivable. The mere raising of one's eyes was sufficient to make a man dash away frightened. With the exception of the chief, who pretended to be unafraid, notwithstanding that he was trembling with fear, they one and all showed ridiculous nervousness when I approached them to examine the ornaments they wore round their necks, such as the charm-boxes that dangled prominently on their chests. The larger of these charm-boxes contained an image of Buddha, the others were mere empty brass or ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... something in the shape of occupation, for it required all his power to conceal a certain nervousness, which he would not have had Paul see for all the world. He took the tin kettle, and worked as though the safety of the craft depended entirely upon ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... powerless to control it. He felt that he should disgrace himself once more before these rugged but brave shepherds, who betrayed not the slightest symptom of agitation. For one hour of Oliver's calm courage and utter absence of nervousness he would have given years of his life. His friends in the circle observed his agitation, and renewed their entreaties to him to come inside it. This only was needed to complete his discomfiture. He lost his head altogether; he saw nothing but a confused mass of yellow and red rushing towards ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... very few boys in Willoughby whom the captain positively disliked, and that being so Riddell was troubled with none of the half-apologetic nervousness which he usually felt in the presence of his other fellow-seniors. He looked upon Silk both as an enemy to Willoughby and as the evil genius of young Wyndham, and therefore was by no means disposed to beg his pardon ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... met the boy's eyes, it was clear that her own held neither nervousness nor fear, and yet there was something else in them—the glint of invitation. She ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... through nervousness than fright, though she was afraid, too. But she managed to stammer that if she could answer their ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... charge of the bishop's goods, as he loved his life and limbs. This man had been seneschal of Anjou under the king's father, and was well affected to the bishop; but he was between the devil and the deep sea. With some heaviness and nervousness Stephen moved upon Sleaford. Between Peterborough and Market Deeping, whom should he fall in with but the bishop and his party! The uneasy disseizers fetched a compass, halted, and got hold of some of the clergy. They were as humble as ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... sat on one side, Mr. Kirby on the other, of a handsome, broad-topped mahogany desk, equipped with telephones and push buttons, and piled with papers, account books and letter files in orderly array. In marked contrast to his partner's nervousness, Mr. French scarcely moved a muscle, except now and then to take the cigar from his lips and knock the ashes from ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... accepting the grasp somewhat nervously, for she had not expected to be taken so readily at her word. A glance at Lucy revealed her nervousness. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... a martyrdom of nervousness when first—a little late—she entered the Atelier. It is a large light room; a semi-circular alcove at one end, hung with pleasant-coloured drapery, holds a grand piano. All along one side are big windows that give on an old garden—once a convent ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... nervous excitement which this habit produces are bodily weakness, loss of memory, low spirits, distressing nervousness, a capricious appetite, dislike of company and of study, and finally, paralysis, imbecility, or insanity. Let it not be supposed that there are many who suffer thus severely; but, on the other hand, let it be clearly understood that any indulgence whatever in ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... to her in the dusk, put his hands gently on her shoulders. The quivering frame became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness. She was like a ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... it added slightly to my nervousness, which was now beginning to return. To have a man with a tin box in his hand tell me he had been looking for me for thirteen years longer than I had lived, and then to have him add that it was not, however, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... door. Her master's callers were usually cheerful Bohemians, who chatted at sight. Then she caught Grant's eye, and went out, banging the door in sheer nervousness. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... cried, brightening up, but with a feeling of nervousness and excitement making my heart beat more heavily still. "Where ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... all this time?" demanded De Courcy, with something of the nervousness, which might be attributed ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... utterance, the incongruity of my surroundings overcame me, and I electrified the worthy priest by bursting into a guffaw. Looking back on the scene, I can see far more pathos than humor in it; but at the time, the scene was to me irresistibly ludicrous. And oh! the paltry excuse that I raked up. 'Nervousness,' I think. No matter, I had 'spoiled the whole party and broke up the ball!' 'Tis ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... procession, a younger brother is about to publish his biography, and legends are already thickly clustering about his name. He laid the Russian bugaboo before it had a chance to make its debut; there is not today the slightest nervousness about the possible coming of the Cossacks, and there will not be, so long as the Commander in Chief of all the armies in the east continues to find time to give sittings to portrait painters, pose for the moving-picture artists, autograph ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... meal times, which mitigates the effects of the caffein, they are recognized by every one as tending to produce sleeplessness, and often indigestion, stomach disorders, and a condition which, for lack of a better term, is described as nervousness.... The excessive drinking of tea and coffee is acknowledged to be injurious ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Great Pew; he falters as he gives out his text, and thinks, "Ah! perhaps his lordship may give me a living!" Mrs. Trotter and the girls look anxiously at the Great Pew too, and watch the effects of papa's discourse—the well-known favourite discourse—upon the big-wigs assembled. Papa's first nervousness is over: his noble voice clears, warms to his sermon: he kindles: he takes his pocket-handkerchief out: he is coming to that exquisite passage which has made them all cry at the parsonage: he has begun it! Ah! What is that humming noise, which fills the edifice, and causes hob-nailed Melibaeus to ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I. But it might be a luxury I should not deny myself under some circumstances. I don't know that Hamlet would influence me. A certain amount of nervousness about Eternity is inseparable from our want of authentic information. I should hope for a healthy and effectual extinction. Failing that, I should disclaim all responsibility. I should point out that it lay, not with me, but my Maker. I ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the proceedings suited Mr. Peaslee well. In his nervousness and abstraction he had backed up to the rusty, empty iron stove at the end of the room, and stood there, with spread coat-tails, listening intently. On hearing the amount of bail, he gave a sigh of relief. His incautious offer had brought him ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... nervous impatience of mind and body. I then assented to a proposal which involved the necessity of a good deal of steady work, in the hope that constant occupation would divert the attention from the nervousness under which I suffered and would restore the self-reliance which had so long failed me. It was a foolish experiment, and might have proved a fatal one. The business I had undertaken required a clear head and average health, and I had neither. The sleep was short ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... disease. In extreme cases only does it actually change an able boy into a stupid one, an athletic boy into a weak one, and a happy boy into a discontented one; but in all cases it weakens every power a boy possesses. Its most prominent results are these: loss of will-power and self-reliance, shyness, nervousness and irritability, failure of the reasoning powers and memory, laziness of body and mind, a diseased fondness for girls, deceitfulness. Of these results, the loss of will-power leaves the boy a prey not only to the temptations of impurity, but to every other form of temptation: ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... the northern end of the beach an answering red light flashed; and then, nearer to us, a dark body was seen for a moment, kindling two green fires at a little distance from each other. Our men were not given to nervousness, they were rough, tough sailors; but they were all relieved when our signals ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... them comfortably, gave a hurried hand to each, leaving the last for Sara. He had thought a dozen times just what he would say to her at parting, but everything went out of his head in the nervousness of that last anxious moment, with the engine apparently determined to run away with all who would linger over their farewells, and he simply uttered a choked "Well, good-by, Sairay!" as he held her hand an ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... for nervousness, had she been of a timid temperament, when, some years later, during the season of 1717-18, Cibber's political play of "The Non-Juror" was brought out. The comedy was a blow aimed at the Jacobites and the Pretender, who had met with ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... passed over Pierre, to reappear in his daughter. The similarity between husband and wife went, however, no further than their faces; if the worthy son of a steady matter-of-fact hatter was distinguishable in Francois, Marthe showed the nervousness and mental weakness of her grandmother. Perhaps it was this combination of physical resemblance and moral dissimilarity which threw the young people into each other's arms. From 1840 to 1844 they had three children. Francois remained in his uncle's employ until the latter ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... I then thought I would mention my feeling to my wife and suggest leaving the theatre. This was unreasonable. The ladies were enjoying the performance and I disliked exceedingly to spoil their evening with what appeared to be nervousness on ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... remarkably thin. Dark hollows circled his eyes, and a curious nervousness twisted his mouth. He was "a terror for the women," they said. He lavished his money on them faster than he made it. He was vastly more companionable than formerly, but somehow you felt his virility, his ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... the other, who had now lost all that nervousness for which David used to chaff him when on board the Sea Rover. "You only give the word, old man, and ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... strove, and at last I succeeded so well that I was sent to a fine school where I received a first-class education, and the only effect of the great struggles I went through at this time was a sort of nervousness which I shall have all through my life, and which results, no doubt, from intense anxiety all those years not to ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... man said gratefully and hurried into the next room. Mead rapidly opened the windows, and some of the man's nervousness left him. He sank down into the visitor's chair in front of Mead's desk, his eyes drinking in the distances beyond the ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... a former companion of his met full in front; there was no sliding away on either side,—they must speak. Both of them experienced a slight nervousness at first, but Abe plucked up courage and ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... He concealed his nervousness by placing a small gilded chair for Diane to sit on. He himself took a chair a few feet away, seating himself sidewise, with his elbow supported on the back, in an easy attitude of attention. Marion ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... dress of wool, with a sober, fringed black silk mantle, black gloves and an inconspicuous bonnet. She met his harried gaze, and smiled; but beneath her greeting he was aware of a supreme tension. There was, however, no perceptible nervousness in the manner of her accepting an indicated place; she sat with her hands quietly folded in her lap, the mantle drooping back over the chair. Stephen Jannan, facing the Mayor, made a concise statement in a cold, deliberate voice. "I now propose to show your honour," he finished, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with regret that I have to recall Miss Susan Hamerton's unamiable temper at that time; one thing comes in mitigation, but I only knew of it years afterwards: she was suffering much from unavowed nervousness. Her nephew told me that when living in the same house with her he had sometimes noticed that she ate hardly anything and looked unwell; but to his affectionate inquiries she used to answer: "My health is good enough, thank you; and I know what you imply when you ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... present occasion, not being a full-dress rehearsal, there was no curtain, nor was there anything to distinguish the actors from their hearers, save the importance of their faces and the evident nervousness with which they ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... as it was not required of her, and she sat expectant, but with no sign of nervousness. Mrs. Pierce, her companion, was simply quivering with agitation. Now and again she would touch Miss Lloyd's shoulder or hand, or whisper a word of encouragement, or perhaps wring her ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... thinks out to its last result his every move, deliberated half an hour and moved, and then, with a slight flush upon his face, sat quietly awaiting the consequences. Morphy, pale, collected, yet with a look of restrained—though entirely restrained—nervousness, looked steadily at the board for about one minute, after which his hand opened very far back, so that the knuckles were much the lowest part of it, poised over a piece for a second or two, and then swooped ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... trumpet sang its mellow, golden note again. From a point perhaps a mile ahead came a reply, also the musical call of the trumpet. Not an echo, but the voice of a second trumpet, and now Harry knew that another force was coming to join the first. All his pulses began to beat hard, not with nervousness, but with intense eagerness to know what was afoot. Evidently it must be something of importance or strong bodies of Union cavalry would not be meeting in the ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not. It is not right or safe to make such a serious matter of my foolish nervousness. I am not sure there was any one there! It was probably an optical delusion. I was plunged in a reverie, thinking of happy, peaceful, lovely things"—with the sickly feint of a meaning smile into his face—"and, happening to look at the window, I fancied that I saw"—with all her self-command ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... really needed, it either throbs and beats a great deal harder and faster than is necessary, or goes racing away on its own account, and beats "for dear life," when there is no occasion for it, thus tiring itself out without doing any good, and producing a very unpleasant feeling of nervousness and discomfort. This may be due to overwork, whether with muscles or brain; or to worry or loss of sleep, in which case it means that you must put on the brakes, take plenty of rest and exercise in the open air, and get plenty of sleep. Then these danger signals, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... pedigree of these children set forth in the morning papers; and, now that you have them before you, the living specimen of their beauty will fully authenticate anything therein set forth," the vender exclaims, affecting an appearance in keeping with his trade. Notwithstanding this, there is a faltering nervousness in his manner, betraying all his efforts at dissimulation. He reads the invoice of human property to the listening crowd, dilates on its specific qualities with powers of elucidation that would do credit to any member of the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... stopped his angry words abruptly. He had no wish to quarrel with any holy man, for that might make him nervous. And nervousness, then, was misunderstood as superstition. Besides, ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... impulsive tremor which, unless directly checked, would have developed into an outburst of laughter. The first sight of Mr. Rodney was irresistibly ludicrous. He was very red in the face, whether from the cool November night or nervousness, and every movement, from the way he wrung his hands to the way he jerked his head to right and left, as though a vision drew him now to the door, now to the window, bespoke his horrible discomfort under the stare of so many eyes. He was scrupulously ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... less than twenty minutes he had done very little roofing, owing to a nervousness he found it hard to banish, while Napoleon had all but completed his holes. Then Van came leisurely strolling to the place, comfortably loaded with dynamite, of which a man ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... speak. Paul took pains to tell all who questioned him in regard to it that it was not he but Mr. Murphy who was going to give the lecture. Next day Cork was covered with great bills announcing the lecture for the following evening and a feeling of nervousness overcame Paul as he beheld his name in such enormous letters. This nervous feeling was in no way allayed when he perused one of the bills and found that the enterprising manager, had not only promised that he would ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... of pleasure, and the other a life of fatigue; of this household touching on one side poverty, and, on the other, wealth and fashion; and he divined, from the innocent words of this young wife, the hardships of this home, half deserted by the husband, and the nervousness and peevishness of Jacquemin returning to this poor place after a night at the restaurants or a ball at Baroness Dinati's. He heard the cutting voice of the elegant little man whom his humble wife contemplated with the eyes ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... detachment. "How much, with the answer?" The calculation was not abstruse, but our intense observer required a moment more to make it, and this gave her ladyship time for a second thought. "Oh just wait!" The white begemmed hand bared to write rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the cage. "I think I must alter a word!" On this she recovered her telegram and ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... same careless, jaunty air which had marked his first appearance at South Norwalk, and except for a certain nervousness in his manner and a restless wandering of the eager glance which he cast around him, no one would have imagined that he stood upon the eve of a trying ordeal that was to result either in sending him to the gallows or in striking from his wrists the shackles that encircled them, ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... L80 one year when the crop was good, but they are expensive to pick as there is much shifting of heavy ladders, and the work was done by men. In Kent, I believe, women are employed at cherry-picking, ascending forty-round ladders in a gale of wind without a sign of nervousness, but with a man in attendance to pack the fruit and shift the ladders when required. I found Liverpool the best market for cherries, where they were bought by the large steamship companies for the Transatlantic liners, and where they were in demand for the seaside and holiday places in North ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... he knocked out the entire circuit or what had he done in his fit of temper? Well, there was no escape from confession now; no pretending he had not vented his nervousness on the mechanism before him. With honesty he told the truth and even illustrated his hasty action. The thing was simple enough. In some way the make-and-break points of the transmitter spring had become welded together ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... a skilful bit of shadowing the detective did on the journey to the metropolis, so skilful that, though the merchant plainly showed by his nervousness that he thought he might have been followed, he did not, seemingly, suspect the quiet man seated not far from him, reading a little green book. The colonel had adopted a simple ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... did not seem to show any sign of nervousness or caution; and Owen looked in vain to see the suspected thief glance suspiciously around, as though to observe whether his comrades were all ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... accepted his dismissal. His wife's sudden nervousness of manner was not hidden from him. He believed that she was seriously upset, and it pained and alarmed his gentle heart. But the cause of her condition did not enter into his calculations. How should it? The reason of things seemed to be something which his mind could neither ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... than an actress who is really an actress will consent to rely exclusively on her good looks. "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," such as we have seen was one of the governing principles of his life; and he read very well. Of nervousness there was no trace in his composition. To some one who asked him whether he ever felt any shyness as a speaker, he answered, "Not in the least; the first time I took the chair (at a public dinner) I felt as much confidence as if I had done the thing a hundred times." This of course helped ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... for the office of a king. But wherever he introduces King James, either in his Donne or his Wotton, you see a subdued version of the King James of The Fortunes of Nigel. The pedantry, the good nature, the touchiness, the humour, the nervousness, are all here. It only needs a touch of the king's broad accent to set before us, as vividly as in Scott, the interviews with Donne, and that singular scene when Wotton, disguised as Octavio Baldi, deposits his long rapier at the door of his majesty's chamber. ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... mean, Miss Murray, is that you are surprised at a Jew joining a military organisation," said Kellerman with a quiet dignity quite new to him. Formerly his normal condition was one of half defiant, half cringing nervousness in the presence of ladies. To-night he carried himself with an easy self-possession, and it was due to ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... not to be satisfied, although my first vehemence was quieted. In my prayers that night my conscience upbraided me. When I lay down in bed my nervousness returned fourfold. Everybody at all nervously excitable has suffered some time or another by the appearance of ghastly features presenting themselves in every variety of contortion, one after another, the moment the eyes are closed. This night my dear father's face troubled me—sometimes white ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... who had gone away, returning to conduct Herr Groben into the gun-room. Soon after he was seated there, Higson returned on board, little expecting whom he was to find. Though he had never been known to exhibit the slightest signs of nervousness, he looked excessively agitated on seeing the old tutor; who, after telling him that he had lately come from the family of Colonel Paskiewich, requested a private interview. The old German had evidently something of importance to communicate beyond what he had ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... little lady, though she wore a badly made frock, and her hat sat like a hard, extraneous Bath bun on the top of her neat head. Whether or no she were a Native Daughter, native good breeding fought with and got the better of fatigue, nervousness, and irritation. She merely gazed fixedly for a long second at Miss Dene, as if to say, "I know my dress is amateurish, and yours is perfectly lovely, but I have a heart and would hate to hurt the feelings of anybody, especially one who couldn't pay me back, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... know what it is to be nervous at concerts. I have played so much and I am always so sure of what I am going to play that nervousness is out of the question. Of course, I am anxious about the way in which audiences will receive my playing. I want to please them so much and don't want them to applaud me because I am a boy, but would rather have them come as real music-lovers ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... a trace of nervousness in her own tone. "And you talk—well, imperially! Aren't you ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... waiting to be attacked than in attacking," said the captain. "I feel that we must put this danger beyond doubt, or we shall have everyone in the camp suffering from nervousness." ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... personage from the Wentworth of De Vere. Lord Palmerston, then a "very fine young man," and a promising candidate for place, with no other faults, in Mr. Ward's estimation, than what he has certainly got rid of long since—nervousness and modesty!—also figures in the pages, and at a critical ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... from the rifle, but either Frank's aim was bad from nervousness or the powder charge was too heavy, the ball struck the water fully a foot from ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a dozen white-eyed natives cautiously oozed through the Jungle, stimulating each other's nervousness by reassuring gestures. Certain that the trespasser on their dominion was incapable of mischief, they began to chatter, showing fidgety interest in the body, which they touched and poked fearsomely ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... had seen Freedham's entry, and some sign of recognition passed between them. The next ball came swiftly and threateningly down upon the leg side, and Doe, perhaps with the nervousness consequent upon the arrival of a new critic before whom he would fain do well, stepped back. A shout went up as it was seen that the ball had taken the leg bail. Doe looked flurried at this sudden dismissal and a bit upset. He involuntarily shot a glance ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... its preponderant animal character, would be rectified by a different air and soil; and equally good, on the other hand, for the whole American people to be transplanted back to the original island, where their nervousness might be weighted with heavier influences, where their little women might grow bigger, where their thin, dry men might get a burden of flesh and good stomachs, where their children might, with the air, draw in a reverence for ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for this disease is Gu[n]wanigist[)i], which signifies that "something is causing something to eat," or gnaw the vitals of the patient. The disease attacks only infants of tender age and the symptoms are nervousness and troubled sleep, from which the child wakes suddenly crying as if frightened. The civilized doctor would regard these as symptoms of the presence of worms, but although the Cherokee name might seem to indicate the same belief, the real ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... there was a slight attack of nerves in the stock markets, and then the whole thing seemed in a fair way towards being settled. Then the negotiations over the affair began to drag unduly, and there was a further flutter of nervousness in the money world. And then one morning the papers reported a highly menacing speech by one of the German Ministers, and the situation began to look black indeed. 'He will be disavowed,' every one said over here, but in less than twenty-four hours those who knew ...
— When William Came • Saki
... that this was indeed crucifixion. Why had not the doctor spared him this? Did he not know that the letter would come under his eye? His first thought was to decline under the plea of nervousness; then, he thought this would be cowardly and unmanly. No, he would read, and at the close would decide. The bishop was a poor scribe, and his writing was always difficult to decipher; so taking this as an excuse, he plodded along slowly, and thereby gave himself a chance to hide his ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... minutes she was standing by Mrs. Barton's bedside, relieving the terrified Mary, who went about where she was told like an automaton; her eyes tearless, her face calm, though deadly pale, and uttering no sound, except when her teeth chattered for very nervousness. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he has some reason to anger," laughed Riggs, somewhat amused at the nervousness of Meeker. "Has to pack that cheese-knife—chinks pick on him if he don't. Give him a wide berth, though, when they see that ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... in him, and with which I had become familiar in my acquaintance with men of wide authority and outstanding ability. What disturbed me was that his blindness, his ill health, and his suffering had united to these traits an intense excitability and a morbid nervousness. ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... me of the necessity of noticing the situation of it in the house, and the means that exist of gaining easy access to it at any hour of the night. The room in question is the back room on the first floor. In consequence of Mrs. Yatman's constitutional nervousness on the subject of fire, which makes her apprehend being burnt alive in her room, in case of accident, by the hampering of the lock, if the key is turned in it, her husband has never been accustomed to lock the bedroom door. Both he and his wife are, by their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various |
