"Skittish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... represseth with his reason his lust and his concupiscence; for, when these passions urge him to aught, it behoveth him to make his reason like unto a horseman skilled in horsemanship who, mounting a skittish horse, curbeth him with a sharp bit,[FN107] so that he go aright with him and bear him whither he will. As for the ignorant man, who hath neither knowledge nor judgment, while all things are obscure to him and desire and lust lord ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... and he, the devout man of Leather,[3] Vansittart, now laying their Saint-heads together, Declare that these skittish young abominations Are clearly foretold in Chap. vi. Revelations— Nay, they verily think they could point out the one Which the Doctor's friend Death was ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... said, they are not. The vast majority of those who appear in the public haunts of sin are there, not to engage in overt acts of ribaldry, but merely to tremble agreeably upon the edge of the abyss. They are the same skittish experimentalists, precisely, who throng the midway at a world's fair, and go to smutty shows, and take in sex magazines, and read the sort of books that our vice crusading friend reads. They like ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... presenting a dignified front to the enemy, had inwardly shuddered. She was an excellent, estimable woman; but when ponderously arch, when extensively sly! Oh, dear no! It didn't do. Her gambols were too sadly suggestive of those of a skittish hippopotamus. Dominic Iglesias was conscious that he had a skin too little to-night; he could not witness them with philosophy. The kindliest intention, the best-meant words, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... aunt Susan got quite young and skittish; and as for old Worble's aunt Susan's mother, who was bedridden, up she had to get on old Joe Wilkings's third visit, and had to toddle across the room. He drilled her—kept on at it; he was there twice a day; and every time she had to get out of bed and toddle across the room. Had to live ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... best by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types; girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and then ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... stated, and Caleb understood that he meant the trap. "An' I reckon I'd better not lug my weapon into the house, neither, hed I? She might——" He nodded in the direction of Sarah's disappearance—"Old Tom says womin folks that's gentle born air kind-a skittish about havin' shootin' irons araound the place. And I don't reckon it's the part of men folks to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... sweeping the doorstep with the one-sided broom when Brit drove out through the gate and up the trail which she knew led eventually to Sugar Spring. The horses, sleek in their new hair and skittish with the change from hay to new grass, danced over the rough ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... of rain this year. But they do say there's a ghost hereabouts—a Trotting Cob, with a man in white on him? Lord, no, that's an old woman's tale. But the girl—she walks—she walks they say, and mighty good reason—too—if all tales be true. Hosses always shy here if they Ve at all skittish. Got that letter, Jack, and the tobacco? That's right! Rum, isn't it, to get all your news of the world at dead of night? Reg'ler as clockwork we pass—a little after one, and the coach from Deniliquin she passes an ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... manner might be well defined as elegantly skittish; She loves a Lord as only a Republican can do; And quite the best of titles she's persuaded are the British, And well she knows the Peerage, for she reads it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... verse teaches that the skittish god must not be scared by a premature exhibition of the noose hid beneath the sieve of corn. Champagne suppers and love among the roses—yes. But there should be, also, cunningly hidden, the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... calves. "It do, indeed. Yet I feels very much for Sir Philip,—I said to Flopsie this morning—'Flopsie, I feels for 'im!' Yes,—I used them very words. Only, of course, he shouldn't 'ave gone with Vi. She's a fine woman certainly—but skittish—d—d skittish! I've allus made it a rule myself to avoid 'er on principle. Lor! if I'd kep' company with 'er and the likes of 'er I shouldn't be the man I am!" And he ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Winter found the man, and persuaded him to trot the animal to and fro in front of the hotel. There was a good deal of noise and hoof-clattering, and people came to their doors to see what was going on. Obviously, if they were watching the antics of a skittish two-year-old in the high-street, their eyes were blind to proceedings in the back premises. Even the postmaster and his daughter were interested onlookers, and a policeman, who might have put a summary end to the display, vanished ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... and loose, play fantastic tricks; tourner casaque [Fr.]. Adj. capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims &c n.; maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky [U.S.], particular, humorsome^, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable &c 83; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle &c (irresolute) 605; frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile. Adv. by fits and starts, without rhyme ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... for her luggage. A lonely dory, black of complexion and skittish of gait, had wandered out and hung in the shadow of the steamer, awaiting the passengers. The dory was manned by one negro, who sat with his ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... she, poor thing!" said Bruce, looking after her commiseratingly; "and a stranger might think her no more nor half-witted. But she has sense enough, poor crittur! and, I reckon, is just as smart, if she war not so humble and skittish, as any of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... February, 1874, was like to have proved a most eventful day in my life, for it was very nearly the termination of it. I was riding Diaway, the colt just shod; he is seldom ridden, though a very fine hack, as he is such a splendid weight-carrier as a packhorse; he is rather skittish, and if anything goes wrong with his pack, he'll put it right (on the ground) almost instantaneously. I was driving all the horses up to the camp, when one broke from the mob, and galloped across the ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... jumped up, coming slap-bang against the brute's nose so blamed hard it knocked me flat; and then, when I fairly got my eyes open, I saw five Sioux Indians creeping along through the moonlight, heading right toward our pony herd. I tell you things looked mighty skittish for me just then, but what do you suppose I ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... to put it. The truth is that their cattle own them. In all the world there is no 'boss' who behaves as stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they don't harm you, they are forever finding a ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... in Middlemarch at that time such an impression was significant of great things being expected from him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases. The evidence of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order, lying in his lady-patients' immovable conviction, and was unassailable by any objection except that their intuitions were opposed by others equally strong; ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... came here to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o't, On blythe Yule night when we were fou, [drunk] Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, [cast, high] Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, [askance, very skittish] Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; [Made, aloof] Ha, ha, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... don't you see? Well, I'm not going to break my heart about it after all; it's only a woman, and it's my opinion people set a higher price upon those cattle than they are worth—they are a shying, skittish breed, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... pressed his arms closer round Rosalie and smiled—yes, by Jove, smiled—and, if you'll take the word of a retired master mariner, winked, with a peculiar, tender and calfish expression that in anybody else would have been called skittish. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... last fall. I was determined then that they should never draw me;" and Aunt Pen shivered for herself beforehand. "And I can't have them from Timlin's, for the same reason," said she. "All his animals are skittish; and you remember when a pair of them took fright and dashed away from the procession and ran straight to the river, and there'd have been four other funerals if the schooner at the wharf hadn't stopped the runaways. And Timlins ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... well-fed and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon that the eye mistook it for storm-cloud. The house Mr. Perekatov ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... and across the common, and round the base of Blackman's Hanger, as fast as her clever mare could carry her with any degree of comfort to either. The clever mare was somewhat skittish from want of work, and inclined to show her cleverness by shying at every stray rabbit, or crocodile-shaped excrescence in the way of fallen timber, lying within her range of vision; but Ida was too anxious to be disconcerted by any such small surprises, and rode on without drawing ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... must change my ways, Uncle Amy. I do act like a wild zebra,—I know that. But I'm sorry. Of course it's silly for a girl who's nearly nineteen to be as skittish as I am. And they tell me I'm a bad example to my cousins and the whole town. It's tough to be a bad example. What's this they're going to do ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... thought that the hill in front of old Grout Nickelson's wuz steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the creek. But imagine goin' along a road where you could look down thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side of you mountains thousands ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... gait either of a horse or a man. Now Chicky is no thoroughbred, and he'll probably never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own brass buttons for him. I've come across him too many times, ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... enabled to buy their coals, lime, and manure for less money, while they obtained a readier access to the best markets for their stock and farm-produce. Notwithstanding the predictions to the contrary, their cows gave milk as before, their sheep fed and fattened, and even skittish horses ceased to shy at the passing locomotive. The smoke of the engines did not obscure the sky, nor were farmyards burnt up by the fire thrown from the locomotives. The farming classes were not reduced to beggary; on the contrary, they soon felt that, so far from having anything to dread, they ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... clear out then, for it's a secret confab of the whole executive committee that develops, includin' Auntie. But we got a full report later. It seems Rupert was skittish about havin' naval officers snoopin' around the yacht. For one thing, he don't want 'em to find out that this is a treasure-huntin' cruise, on account of the government's bein' apt to hog part of the swag. Then, there's all them guns stowed away below. He explains how this Petrel ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... I lie! Ask, and all the officers will bear witness, all the army will tell you that in the second army, ninth corps, second division of infantry, fiftieth yager regiment, Major Plut is the foremost dancer of the mazurka. Come on, young lady! Don't be so skittish, for I shall punish ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Then they went out, and mounting, rode back in the direction of Mudgee. Uncle Abe winked long and hard and solemnly at Andy Page, and Andy winked back like a mechanical wooden image. The two women nudged and smiled and seemed quite girlish, not to say skittish, all the morning. Something had come to break the cruel hopeless monotony of their lives. And even ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... evidence. At or about Christmas, in the year 1597, there was enacted here in Cambridge, in the hall of St John's College, a play called "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus," a skittish work, having for subject the 'discontent of scholars'; the misery attending those who, unsupported by a private purse, would follow after Apollo and the Nine. No one knows the author's name: but he had a wit which has kept something of its salt to this day, and ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the cushion. I must go and get it. But the nose-rope makes the bullocks skittish. I suppose I had better take the cart along with ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... made the Mayor nervous the way Portate was keyed up for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the Hottentots were skittish, and ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... kind of skittish about going below, 'fraid there might be some dead folks, but Hammond went. In a minute or so up he ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... backed off'n the bluff—that air whut the country-side will think. Whenst his body is fund his head will be mashed ter a jelly by the fall, an' nobody kin say he kem otherwise by his death—jes' an accident in drivin' a skittish horse-critter." ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... to be a coward, and I don't think there is any use of going now. I don't like to be in a boat with a fellow who is skittish when the wind blows," continued Paul, who was determined to make the most of their previous experience. "It isn't safe to have a fellow jumping about in the boat when there's a heavy sea on. You might upset her, cantering about over the ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... "The flighty and skittish wife of Ingild longs to observe the fashions of the Teutons; she prepares the orgy and makes ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... bicycle, but only a colt—a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight—and skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing's points briefly, then he got on its back and rode around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... plain since the first I saw you; it's to take you to church and take care of you as a woman ought to be took care of by a man. And you know I could do it, Jen, for my wages is good; but you've shied an' shied whenever you've seen me, and baulked an' baulked when you couldn't shy, so as no skittish mare is half ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... Which I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel: For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I 've ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... tight rein and strong hand, and yet she is so apt to leave at a moment's notice if anything offends her, that she must be driven with a light rein and a hand as light and gentle as a bit of thistledown floating on a zephyr. This is a hard combination to attain. It is like trying to drive a skittish and headstrong horse, densely constructed of lamp-chimneys and window glass, down a rough cobble-stoned hill road. If given the rein the glass horse will dash madly to flinders, and if the rein is held taut the horse's glass head will snap off and the ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... Mary, 1553, at London, and of what he calls "a house of ancient fame." He was educated at Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went, after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. A love affair with "a skittish female," who jilted him, was the cause of his writing the Shepherd's Calendar; which he soon after took with him in manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... you," he answered, good-humoredly, and not the least disturbed by Manning's quiet reflection on the bravery of stage drivers in general. "When a fellow has to manage four tolerably skittish horses with both hands full of leather, he haint much time to fool around huntin' shootin' irons, 'specially when he's got to look down into the muzzle of a repeater which is likely to ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... at all, was as inevitable as the sequence of the seasons. Ella and Grace did not manage badly, considering that they had only their girlish prettiness and the twine hammock to work with. But Flora, with her beauty, captured H. Charnsworth Baldwin. Chippewa gasped. H. Charnsworth Baldwin drove a skittish mare to a high-wheeled yellow runabout; had his clothes made at Proctor Brothers in Milwaukee; and talked about a game called golf. It was he who advocated laying out a section of land for what he called links, and ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... so these must need go hence with one or another imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, because imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways, and shun them. Thus must these timid persons skulk about obscurely with their diffident and skittish guides, and they do not ever venture willingly into the thronged places where men get horses and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... of her skittish, snorting pony and picked up Lennon's new sombrero. Through the middle of the high peak was a neatly ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... credited with having a particularly happy touch in the reporting of religious meetings. He certainly had an open mind, for I remember his saying that day that he thought Christianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish climate like ours than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju worship in London would be sure to cause friction with ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Mayor. is very ill with a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter of Aug. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... might lay hands on that devil yet, and not far away, either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and a skittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that had frightened her. And Miss ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me: For, such as I am, all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.—How dost thou ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... when I got my orders to accompany them, and, along with Bayne, to do their scouting. My horse was exhausted with the work he had done already; I told Major Forbes, and he at once gave me his. It was a young horse, rather skittish, but strong and fairly fresh ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... fatal tree, and luckless to the gods, Where for disdain in life—Love's worst of odds— The queen of shades, fair Proserpine, did rack The sad Adonis: hither now they pack This little god, where, first disarm'd, they bind His skittish wings, then both his hands behind His back they tie, and thus secur'd at last, The peevish wanton to the tree make fast. Here at adventure, without judge or jury, He is condemn'd, while with united fury They all assail ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Inconsistency of Behaviour. For (as I just now said) the Happiness of a Jilt consists only in the Power of making others uneasy. But such is the Folly of this Sect of Women, that they carry on this pretty skittish Behaviour, till they have no charms left to render it supportable. Corinna, that used to torment all who conversed with her with false Glances, and little heedless unguarded Motions, that were to betray some Inclination ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... pocket this year by turning down orders on good people who are worthy of credit. Now, it doesn't make any difference as to his salary if he turns down good people; in fact, if he is in doubt about any man at all, or even the least bit skittish, what does he do but turn him down? This is nothing out of his jeans, but it's taking shoes away from my babies, and I simply won't stand ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... she said. "They want to, I'm sure of that, but yet neither one of 'em will speak first. Such foolishness I never did see. Now take yesterday! Cousin Sam went to town, and Cousin Sim werried every single minute he was gone. The mare was skittish, and the harness might break, and he might meet the cars, and I don't know what all. If he called me off my work once he did a dozen times, till I thought I should fly. By the time Cousin Sam got back he was all worn out, and soon as he heard him ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de culled folks ef ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... wagon, and had hidden at the roadside hoping his pursuers would pass him by. With a determined grip Ree clung to the bridle of the lead horse, though he was nearly jerked to the ground. With his other hand he sought to check his own animal, but the skittish young thing had taken fright and was now running ahead of the ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... is about two feet in height, and 120 of them would be considered an ample number for a quiet little fox hunt. Some hunters think this number inadequate, but unless the fox be unusually skittish and crawl under the barn, 120 foxhounds ought to be enough. The trouble generally is that hunters make too much noise, thus scaring the fox so that he tries to get away from them. This necessitates hard riding and great activity ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... do is to hold on," shouted Mr Stoutheart, as they rode through the gate. "He is usually a little skittish at the start, but quiet as a ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... girls descended the stairs together, and found the other three members of the party awaiting them at the door, Margaret and the little Fresher abeam with smiles, and even Minerva herself looking quite young and skittish. At moments like these it dawned upon the student mind that even a don herself could occasionally enjoy a mixture ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... whenever the horse's traces were not tightened. One of the mares wished to go faster, hearing another horse tramp behind her; "and nothing made her so mad," quoth Platt, "as to be held in when she wanted to go." The near leader started. "O the little devil," said he, "how skittish she is!" Another stumbled, and Platt bantered her thereupon. Then he told of foundering through snow-drifts in winter, and carrying the mail on his back—four miles from Bennington. And thus we jogged on, and got to "mine inn" just as ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... here over shoe-mouth deep in woe, When they's a graded 'pike o' joy and sunshine don't you know! When evening strikes the pastur', cows'll pull out fer the bars, And skittish-like from out the night'll prance the happy stars. And so when my time comes to die, and I've got ary friend 'At wants expressed my last request— I'll mebby, rickommend To drive slow, ef they haf to, goin' 'long the out'ard track, But I'll ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... strewn with boulders of all sizes and furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery blue ice. It may be easily imagined that it is no seemly place to exercise skittish ponies or mules in a cold wind, but there is no other place when the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... to tongue-lash the boys that are for you," advised Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those that are ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... older theory considered play simply the discharge of surplus nerve force in the animal's organism. He was supposed to play when he felt fresh and vigorous. The horse is "skittish" and playful in the morning, not so much so at night. The dogs lie down and rest when they are tired, having used up their surplus energies. This is called ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... Lorenzo; as we feared to trust our friend—for so we had come to regard her—with the mule, a mischievous beast, spoiled by prosperity. Ajax drove a skittish pair of colts. Gloriana and I occupied the back seat of our ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... on that 'ere little skittish creeter? he's as handsome as a picture, too why, do tell if you warn't afraid? it a'most scares me to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... something honest about her very vulgarity. She knows what she wants and goes straight for it; and she isn't a fool. The daughter is. She was intended by nature to be a dull young woman with a pretty face, but not content with that she puts on an absurdly skittish manner—oh, so ruthlessly bright—talks what she thinks is smart slang, poses continually, and wears clothes that would not be out of place at Ascot, but are a positive offence to the little grey town. I hadn't realised ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are, Unstaid and skittish in all motions else. Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved. Twelfth Night, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... to a highland cataract of lofty height but small volume, which is more picturesque than useful, and the current from a voltaic battery, a thermopile, or a dynamo to a lowland river which can be dammed to turn a mill. It is the difference between a skittish gelding and a ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... tottering ruins, nor houses being put up, nor climb to the top of a mast, nor approach the edge of a precipice, nor stand in the way of the lightning, nor cross a swollen river, nor voyage at sea, nor ride a skittish horse, nor be shot at by an arrow, nor confront a sword, nor put thyself in the way of violent death; for this is hateful, and breaketh through all ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you have seen—strange! The proper time and season for good sound sensible and profitable forms of speech—when ought it to have occurred, and how did I evade it in these letters of mine? For people begin with a graceful skittish levity, lest you should be struck all of a heap with what is to come, and that is sure to be the stuff and staple of the man, full of wisdom and sorrow,—and then again comes the fringe of reeds and pink ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... biographer Mitford. Professor Masson, however, ascertained the date, which is all important. We must picture Milton "affable, erect, and manly," as Wood describes him, speaking from a low pulpit in the hall of Christ's College, to an audience of various standing, from grave doctors to skittish undergraduates, with most of whom he was in daily intercourse. The term is the summer of 1628, about nine months before his graduation; the words were Latin, but we resort to the ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... O'Hara lives down by the sea, A skittish and beautiful widow is she; She has black shiny tresses, and curly buff toes, And a heavenly tilt to the ...
— Fishy-Winkle • Jean C. Archer
... she did regret the change in her name, though she was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived had submitted to her fantasies, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... half-mile he said nothing whatever, being fully occupied with the animal he was driving—a skittish young mare ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... will have to kill off a few of your skittish horses," observed a stout, sandy-mustached man, one of the two who had left the car. "If you don't, they're liable ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, drawing-rooms most magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with his hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly. Here, too, the bride's aunt ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... how much he clings to everything that is old about the house. He tries to do everything for my pleasure. Did he not go to Strasbourg the other day to buy a pony for me, because I thought Titania was too skittish? It would be ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Upon my word, if you had a hundred to pick from, you would not find a better one than the dappled mount. The birds in the air do not fly more swiftly than the palfrey; and he is not too lively, but just suits a lady. A child can ride him, for he is neither skittish nor balky, nor does he bite nor kick nor become unmanageable. Any one who is looking for something better does not know what he wants. And his pace is so easy and gentle that a body is more comfortable ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... home overland through Switzerland and France. Oh, how delightful it would be! You would have so much to see and to talk about afterwards. Edna would get fat and rosy, and you and Mrs Freer would be quite young and skittish by the time you got home! If you went to see him between each of his visits home, the time would seem ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nigger wench does to a board fence, or a kitchen wall to home, and put your eyes out with the lime? No, not I; but I could tickel you though, and have done it afore now, jist for practice, and you warn't a bit the wiser. Lord, I'd take a camel's-hair brush to you, knowin' how skittish and ticklesome you are, and do it so it would feel good. I'd make you feel kinder pleasant, I know, and you'd jist bend your face over to it, and take it as kindly as a gall does a whisper, when your lips keep jist a brushin' of the cheek while you are a talkin'. I wouldn't go ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... first appearance; but I said no more, and possessed my soul in patience, until the day came when I received a copy of a newspaper marked in the corner, "Compliments of J.P." I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account of a prize-fight and a skittish article upon chiropody—think of chiropody treated with a leer!—I came upon a column and a half in which myself and my poor statue were embalmed. Like the editor with the first of the series, I did but glance my eye down the head-lines and was more ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the round. "I wants them cayuses an' I wants 'em right now. Yu an' me will amble off an' get 'em. I won't bore yu with tellin' yu what'll happen if yu gets skittish. Slope along an' don't be scared; I'm with yu," assured Mr. Cassidy as he looked over at Mr. Connors, whose ascetic soul pined for the flapjacks of which his ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... hear more about Nate's grant and the gold mine. Rufe and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... are useful brutes, Though somewhat skittish; the foam is whit'ning The crest and rein of my courser "Lightning"; He pulls to-night, being short of work, And takes his head with a sudden jerk; Still heel and steady hand on the bit, For that is "Tempest" ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... comfortable phaeton, speaking the presence of Mr. Pound and Mrs. Pound, who used it as their own; the Buckwalters' rockaway and the Rickabachs' spring-wagon. Even Miss Agnes Spinner's bicycle had a fence panel all to itself, as though it were very skittish and likely to kick and set the whole road in commotion. To my own unimportant self I never attributed this assembly of all the great folk of the valley. There was some more potent reason. As I pondered, hunting for it, we came to the lane. Until I found that reason ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern and great readiness of illustration; "and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away someday, and stampede that theer colt: but thet she should shake YOU, Kernel, diet she should jist shake you—is what gits me. And ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... who had become skittish by seeing her family always in danger, came to me with a very distressed countenance, and said, "What will you do if the mayor of Boston sends him word that you haven't been there? Then he will suspect the letter was a trick; and maybe he'll find out something ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... "They're a skittish lot, the Orleans; they might take it in their heads to fight," suggested Muroc, with a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rent. Sede, seed. Semescope, jacket. Sets, patterns. Seventeen-hunder, very fine (linen). Shachled, feeble, shapeless. Shaw, show. Shiel, shelter. Shool, shovel. Shoon, shoes. Shouther, shoulder. Sic, such. Siller, silver, money. Sin', since. Skeigh, skittish. Skellum, good-for-nothing. Skelp, run quickly. Skiffing, moving along lightly. Skirl, squeal, scream. Skriech, screech. Slaes, sloes. Slap, gap in a fence. Slea, slay. Sleekit, sleek. Slid, smooth. Smeddum, powder. Smethe, smoke. Smoor, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... woman only falls in love once in her life, and if it waits until she's darn near forty—well, it takes! You see I hadn't even been vaccinated against it by girlish flirtations. I began to be a governess when I was just a kid, and a governess doesn't get many chances to be skittish. So now when it came, it hit me hard. That's when a woman finds herself—when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the tree like a ripe plum. I didn't ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... the twelve o'clock brace, pinned it in place again and saw one of his tools floating to the right of his head. He gathered it in and swept his tiny flash around in search of other jetsam from his tool kit. He collected a wrench and the skittish flashlight, started toward the last brace between him and the ladder, and felt his legs go limp. He wasn't particularly alarmed about it; his arms and vision failed him too, but his brain hadn't enough incoming oxygen to care much, one way or the other. The few remaining feet seemed to lengthen ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... got mighty near the bar 'long 'bout sundown last night. Kinder skittish actin' hussy she was, but she turned out an' cleared off without much trouble. We was all ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of such clean-cut, high-bred features as to make us wonder. And yet I don't know why we should wonder, either. They all come from good old stock. The young fellows run a little too strongly to patent-leather shoes and their horses are almost too skittish for my liking, but the girls are all right. If their clothes set better than you thought they would, why, you must remember that they subscribe for the very same fashion magazines that you do, and there is such a thing as a mail-order business in this country, even ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... know," said Lorne. "He was talking to manufacturers, you know, a pretty skittish lot anywhere. It sounded independent, but if you look into it you won't find it gave the cause ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to describe," said Tom, "but the secret lies in a new way of feeding gasolene into the motor, a new sparking device, and an improved muffler. I think I could start my new airship in front of the most skittish horse, and he wouldn't stir, for the racket wouldn't wake a baby. It's going to ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... them; and that they were not wholly averse to such familiarity, the noses of several of our people strongly testified: They were, however, as great coquets as any of the most fashionable ladies in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as an unbroken filly: Each of them wore a petticoat, under which there was a girdle, made of the blades of grass highly perfumed, and to the girdle was fastened a small bunch of the leaves of some fragrant plant, which served their modesty as its innermost veil.[55] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... his imagination, not won his heart; though he is not himself aware that such is the case. This fancy-sickness—for it appears to be nothing else—naturally renders him somewhat capricious and fantastical, "unstaid and skittish in his motions"; and, but for the exquisite poetry which it inspires him to utter, would rather excite our mirth than enlist our sympathy. To use an illustration from another play, Olivia is not so much his Juliet as his Rosalind; and perhaps a secret ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... yourselves but ill bestead if ye might not cheapen such jewels for your money. Which of you will go to the Cross next Saturday and there buy him a fairer wife than he can wed out of our lineages? and a wife withal of whose humours he need take no more account of than the dullness of his hound or the skittish temper of his mare, so long as the thong smarts, and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Nora, you must be more careful than you were once on a time, on a skittish young horse which nearly proved your death," observed the old lawyer. "A day like this tries an animal; and unless your steed is as steady as a rock I ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... the rector's company they must be prepared to put up with his sister's, since the canons of a country neighbourhood forbade inviting the one without the other, and on this particular evening Forrester had chaffed her into such good humour that she became quite skittish, and contributed some truly surprising outbursts of frivolity to ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... got over it of late years. But I know just how you feel. Now, let me tell you; honest, never a mouse dares show the tip of his nose outside the cellar! If you don't go down there, you're as safe as you would be up in a balloon. And I don't count none the less on you for acting skittish about 'em." ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... contrived to create the impression that he was master of the situation is one of the mysteries of his campaigning, because, although he had succeeded in making soldiers of the raw recruits and in enforcing subordination, they were still a very skittish body. They enlisted for short terms of service, and even before their term was completed, they began to hanker to go home. This caused not only inconvenience, but real difficulty. Still, Washington ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... in person will never make you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair's furious passion for Lady Walpole (aged fourteen and some months). Mrs. Murray undertook to bring the business to bear, and provided the opportunity (a great ingredient you'll say); but the young lady proved skittish. She did not only turn this heroic flame into present ridicule, but exposed all his generous sentiments, to divert her husband and father-in-law. His lordship is gone to Scotland; and if there was anybody wicked enough to write about it, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Burr, not finishing his sentence, and the pair, urging their horses to a faster gait came up with the others. Just then the party met a robust countryman who saluted the Morgans, as he trotted by on a skittish colt. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... said the Campbell girls, who didn't appear quite so skittish as she was, "do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one out of ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... were not lawful to be seen by any other man. He prayed him, then, to get upon Alborak; but the beast, having lain idle and unemployed from the time of Christ to Mahomet, was grown so mettlesome and skittish, that he would not stand still for Mahomet to mount him, till at length he was forced to bribe him to it by promising him a place in paradise. When he was firmly seated on him, the angel Gabriel led the way, with the bridle of the beast in his hand, and carried the prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... to the Grange one evening—a dark evening, threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish and would ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... fall to pieces whenever you laugh in the same room? Why should you forget the old love for the new? Do we not often impose on the old subscriber by giving up the space he has paid for to flaming advertisements to catch the coy and skittish gudgeon who still lurks outside the fold? Do we not ofttimes offer a family Bible for a new subscriber when an old subscriber may be in ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... some of them into the horse box, but Oates rose to the occasion and got most in by persuasion, whilst others were simply lifted in by the sailors. Though all are thin and some few looked pulled down I was agreeably surprised at the evident vitality which they still possessed—some were even skittish. I cannot express the relief when the whole seventeen were safely picketed on the floe. From the moment of getting on the snow they seemed to take a new lease of life, and I haven't a doubt they will pick up very rapidly. It really is a ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... were eating dinner, brother Joe said, 'Dimpey, as soon as we get through haying the boys are going to have a drive to Spring Mountain, and take the girls up, for a picnic. Ned Hassel started it; I guess he wants to show off his sorrel horses; but that near horse of his is as skittish a creetur as ever I see—I wouldn't ride after it, if I was you.' 'No, no,' said father; 'Dimpey isn't going to have her neck broken by them beasts; Ned always drives 2.40, as he calls it, and he'll be sure to race with the other teams if ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in hearin' of the Meductic, Sandy sez to me, sez he: 'Jabe, old 'Ductic is a-hoopin' her up to-day. There's a big head o' water on, an' I'm thinkin' we'll hev to keep our eyes peeled. It'll take some skittish steerin', fur ef the old raft jest teches the rocks she'll go all ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... sorts of burdens, to stand without being tied, to go anywhere over all sorts of ground fast or slow, and to jump and swim and fear nothing,—a truly wonderful creature, strangely different from shy, skittish, nervous, superstitious civilized beasts. We turned him loose, and, strange to say, he never ran away from us or refused to be caught, but behaved as if he had known Scotch boys all his life; probably because we were about as wild ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... lock on the inside; and the only sign of adornment was a couple of framed pictures, one close above the head of the bed, and the other opposite the foot, and both curtained, as we may sometimes see valuable water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of finding something of this last description that M'Naughten's comrade pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded, and the curtain ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mere contubernium, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... metaphor; Jeremy an idealised comic servant; and Foresight grotesque farce. Angelica is a shrewd but hearty 'English girl,' and Miss Prue a veritable country Miss; while Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight are broadly skittish matrons. There is nothing in the play to strain the attention or to puzzle the intellect, and it is full of laughter: no wonder it was a success. It is, intellectually, on an altogether different plane ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... level with the rest and | delivered the following address... | (III, 559; Farrington's translation). | | Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles | Galileo or Einstein more than it does | the turbulent Paracelsus or the | unquiet and skittish Cornelius | Agrippa. The titanic bearing of the | Renaissance magus is now supplanted | by a classical composure similar to | that of the "conversations" of the | earliest Humanists. Also in Galileo's | DIALOGO and in Descartes's RECHERCHE | DE LA VERIT ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy. But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis—Fly he calls her. She is a little skittish elf—Rotherwood himself all over; and doesn't he worship her! and doesn't he think it a holiday to carry her off to play pranks with! and isn't he happy to get amongst a good lot of us, and be ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your attitude Was witty and satirical and shrewd, But, whether you were serious or skittish, Always a candid critic of things British, Though, when you were unable to admire us, Life's "little ironies" were free from virus. But since the War began your English readers Have welcomed MARTIN's admirable leaders— Which prove that all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... them sausage-eaters I'd raither 'ave a dozen Lancashire or Devon lads about me than all the Frenchies you could put in Hyde Park. It ain't that these here spec'mens don't 'ave a good sound heart as far as standin' up and takin' knocks is concerned, but they be too frisky and skittish for my likin'. I see 'em all wavin' their arms like as if a carriage and pair has run away, and talkin' all at once and together, likewise and sim'lar. Wot's more, they does it in a lingo that no one can't go for to make out, not ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... managed with dexterity, as a horse is never to be depended on that is skittish about the tail. Let your hand fall lightly and rapidly on that part next to the body a minute or two, and then you will begin to give it a slight pull upwards every quarter of a minute. At the same time you continue this handling of him, augment the force of the strokes as well ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... paper bag full of warm eggs. He don't wait for the others, but pikes for the wagonette and climbs in one of the side seats facin' me. We was just turnin' to back up to the block for the ladies, when a yellow kyoodle dashes around the corner after a cat. Them skittish horses was just waitin' for some such excuse as that, and before Mr. Driver can put the curb bit on 'em hard enough they've done a quick pivot, cramped the wheels, and turned us over on the soggy grass as neat as ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... O'Callaghan, of Bodyke, went to Limerick to buy cattle for grazing on his estate. The cattle were duly bought, but the gallant Colonel had to drive them through the city with his own right hand. I saw his martial form looming in the rear of a skittish column of cows, and even as the vulture scenteth the carcase afar off, even so, scenting interesting matter, did I swoop down on the unhappy Colonel, startling him severely with my sudden dash. He said, "I'm driving ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... got so nervous because you were gone so long, and you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened," she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his bearded ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... blunder if they exchanged styles. Yet Gibbon never denies himself a jest, and Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois was called L'Esprit sur les Lois. M. Renan's Histoire d'Israel may almost be called skittish. The French are more tolerant of those excesses than the English. It is a digression, but he who would fail can reach his end by not taking himself seriously. If he gives himself no important airs, whether out of a freakish humour, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... to wet a bugler's whistle with. Only try it. Don't be afraid of turning up your finger, Bill, another pull! Now, take your breath, and try the bugle, Bill. There's music! There's a tone!' over the hills and far away,' indeed. Yoho! The skittish mare is ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... and down the river are lovely, and I think that Bettie and I will soon have many pleasant mornings together on these roads. After the slow dignified drives I am taking almost every day, I wonder how her skittish, affected ways ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... And beg they'll take my word about the moral, Which I with their amusement will connect, As children cutting teeth receive a coral; Meantime, they'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel; For fear some prudish reader should grow skittish, I've bribed ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... she replied, "but I know not exactly how to go. I do not wish to take my carriage; your nag is so skittish that I am afraid to ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various |
