"Fidget" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sat quietly for a quarter of an hour. Then he began to fidget in his chair, but he stoically sat on until, when at the end of an hour Katinka showed no signs whatever of leaving off, he rose, and ceremoniously regretting that his duties prevented him from having the pleasure of hearing the conclusion of the ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little Gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... him in the fidget he fell into, trying this and that effect, with his head slanted one way and then slanted the other, his hand held up to shut out the mountain below the granite mass of Lion's Head, and then changed to cut off the sky above; and then both hands lifted in parallel to confine the picture. He made ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Now I'm much mistaken if this one has ever had her tea out of doors in all her born days. What! do you think our little stuffy room would be any treat to her, after the drawing-room at Font Abbey? Come, you be off till half-past five; you'll fidget yourself and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... febra. Few kelkaj, malmultaj. Fiance fiancxo. Fiance fiancxino. Fiasco fiasko. Fibre fibro. Fickle sxangxebla. Fictitious fiktiva. Fiddle violono. Fiddler violonisto. Fidelity fideleco. Fidget movadigxi. Fie! fi! Field kampo. Fierce kruelega. Fiery fervorega. Fife fifro. Fig figo. Fight batali. Figure (represent) figuri. Figure (cipher) cifero. Figure (image) figuro. Filament fibro. Filch ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... going for two years, and had had a great success, as hitherto it had had no large losses; but the king, who knew that the luck might turn, was always in a fidget about it. With this idea he told Calsabigi that he must carry it on on his own responsibility and pay him a hundred thousand crowns per annum, that being the cost ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... The fidget of silk and of crinoline, the rattling of keys, the creaking of stays and of shoes, will do a patient more harm than all the medicines in the world will do ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... sheet across the room he half turned in his chair, so that the yellow light fell across his face. Fidget, the pup, always alert for action, was on her feet in a moment, eager to lead the way to the door and whatever adventure might lie outside. But Grant did not leave his chair, and, finding all her tail-waving of no avail, she presently settled down again by the stove, her chin on ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... minute I set eyes on him—he never ought to have been sent out like this ... He's been to a wedding this morning, so I heard, and it's upset him a little, that's all ... Upset him—we're lucky if he doesn't upset us. What a fidget you are! I shan't take you into Switzerland next year, if you're like this... If Switzerland's full of a lot of drunken men, I don't want to go... Well, what had we better do about it? Perhaps this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... arranged. Briggs performs "parlor magic" for an hour. Guests, fidget, yawn and commence to drop ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... eyes, as the saying is, and they gave him up for dead. Well, well, you have not come to that yet, God be thanked, ill though you may be. Count on me; I would pull you through all by myself, I would! Keep still, don't you fidget ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... 'look how you worry all the time! If you'd only have what I call a quiet set-down and a chat, without being always on the fidget, always looking either at the glass or at the clock, one might ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... back, and went over to the fireplace, where he leaned against the mantelpiece, and began to fidget with ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... and again Cappy eyed him over the tops of his spectacles; again the terrible silence. Skinner commenced to fidget. ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... am glad he is going with you, Mark; for although I know well enough that they could never be watching for those diamonds to turn up all these years, I feel sure I should fidget and worry if you were alone. You are not going to take ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... and the use of her needle; for the moment she came home, and before she had well entered the parlour door, and made her courtesy, her little tongue began to rattle like a mill clack."—"Mamma, said she, Tommy Careless was flogged for tearing his book, Jackey Fidget because he was a naughty boy and would not sit still, Polly Giddybrains, for losing her needle and thread paper, and, Lord bless me! my ma'am was so cross, that she was going to put the nasty fool's cap on my ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... silence for assent, she packed Christabel and her belongings away again, and went to get the book. Annie waited sullenly. Then, as her friend did not come back immediately, she began to fidget. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... tell you about that afterwards. Sit down, do, and don't fidget.... Well, I've been thinking, Sidney, that we really ought to ask the Chevril Thistletons to a quiet little dinner. Not to meet any of our usual set, of course! We could have the dear Rector, who, if he is Low Church, is very well ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... favourite one, consisting of three words only, 'Lord, succour us!'—and looked after the house with much good sense, taking care of every halfpenny, and buying everything herself. Her nephew she adored; she was in a perpetual fidget over his health—afraid of everything—not for herself but for him; and directly she fancied the slightest thing wrong, she would steal in softly, and set a cup of herb tea on his writing-table, or stroke him on the spine with her hands, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... whatever anybody says to you, and you are to do whatever anybody requests you to do. And, above all, don't be surprised at anything that may happen. You'll be nervous enough; I expect that. You'll probably color up and flush and fidget; I expect that; I count on that. But don't lose your nerve entirely; and don't think of ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... always been the great goddess which is perpetually worshipped. All are scholarly and deliberate in their movements. When the Speaker calls the House in order and the debate commences, deep silence comes save for the movement of hundreds of nervous hands that touch papers or fidget to and fro. Every man uses his hands, particularly when he speaks, not clenched as a European would do, but open, with the slim fingers speaking a language of their own, twisting, turning, insinuating, deriding, a little history of compromises. It would be interesting to write the story of ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... still and for ever hanging about her ears, was seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the parlor window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high fidget and complaint. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... fiddlers and zimblers scraped and tinkled. But as the hours went by, the matrons became restless and the dancers wearied. The poor relations grew impatient for the feast, and the babies in their laps began to fidget and cry; while the bride grew faint, and the bridegroom's party began to send frequent messengers from the house next door, demanding to know the cause of the delay. Some of the guests at last lost all patience, and begged leave ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... two or three different kinds of small nails, tin tacks, and neat little brass-headed nails. Bridget stayed at the door of both these shops: she thought them not at all interesting, and mamma and Alie did not press her to come in. The little girl was in a great fidget to get to Pier Street, and stood murmuring to herself that she didn't believe they'd ever come; Alie might make mamma be quick, she knew how she, Biddy, wanted to see Celestina and ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... And then what a fidget the landlord was in about his wines, for he doubted not but such a guest would be extremely critical and hard to please; but, to his great relief, the baron declined taking any wine, merely washing down his repast with a tumbler of cool water; and then, although the hour ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... talking to a man at the gate. He looked to me like a burglar. No doubt she let him take the impression of the door-key in wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at Kobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. Now, don't fidget so, it will be bad for ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... shipping and under a most marvellous new suspension bridge, which is to join New York and Brooklyn, to the dockyard; where we had another most hearty reception from our hostess. They had all been in a fidget at our being so many days late, and directly the ship was telegraphed off Sandy Hook the last night, in spite of the pouring rain, the Commodore had gone down in the tug to the Quarantine Harbour to try and ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too. She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the stage, but she was attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that she placed no undue emphasis on his visits. In her world men came and went, brought ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... myself into the deep comfort of gratitude that her situation has overtaken her in this country, where every perfect ministration will surround her, rather than in your far-off insular abyss of mere—so to speak—picturesqueness. I should have been, in that case, at the present writing, in a fidget too fierce for endurance, whereas I now can prattle to you quite balmily; for which you are all, no doubt, deeply grateful. Give her, please, my tender love, and say to her that if London were actually at ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... threatens rain. In his absence, I will ask you to listen while I walk about in his room. One can't be too particular, when rest is of such importance to your young lady—and it has struck me as just possible, that the floor of his room may be in fault. My dear, the boards may creak! I'm a sad fidget, I know; but, if the carpenter can set things right—without any horrid hammering, of course!—the sooner he is sent for, the more relieved ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... what this world IS," Martie reflected. "Workers needing jobs, and jobs needing workers." And suddenly she hit upon the keynote to her new philosophy. "MEN don't worry and fidget about keeping their jobs, and I'M not going to. I'm just as necessary and just as capable as if I were—say, Len. If Len came on here for a job I wouldn't worry myself sick ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... know any sort of quarrel that isn't? It is impossible to say beforehand what Colonel Gainsborough might like to do. He's a fidgety man. If there's a thing I hate, in the human line, it's a fidget. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... that I had been brute enough to slay him!— Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head, His every smile and word As we sat by our fire, stung my fool's heart.— How we laughed to see him curtsey, Fidget strings about his waist,— Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys' hem Drawing it tight about his neck, 'just like Our Baucis.' Could not sleep For thinking of the life they lead in towns; He said so: when, at last, He sighed from dreamland, thoughts I had been day-long brooding ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... from getting their proper supply of nourishment from the food-canal, the state of affairs is quickly revealed in the mouth mirror. Those muscles which open the mouth, instead of resting peacefully in the consciousness of duty well done, are in a state of perpetual fidget, twitching, pulling, wondering whether they ought not to open the portal for the entrance of new supplies of material, since the tissues are crying ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... not alone when your voice is near me. Now don't you fidget yourself, dear friend. I like these little excitements. I have told you so before. Listen. How calm and silent it all is; the place; the night! The mind seems to fill with great ideas, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... protested Gaga. "I can't get ... get to sleep if you fidget like that. You're keeping ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... foothills, faint and clear, the sounds of the chase could now be heard. Dean's men were closing on the fleeing warriors, for every little while the silence of the range was broken by the crack of rifle or carbine. Shaughnessy's fellows began to fidget and look eagerly thither, and he read their wish. "Two of you stay with Mr. Folsom," he said, "and the rest come with me. There's nothing we can do here, is ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... indefatigation|; habits of business. vigilance &c. 459; wakefulness; sleeplessness, restlessness; insomnia; pervigilium[obs3], insomnium[obs3]; racketing. movement, bustle, stir, fuss, ado, bother, pottering, fidget, fidgetiness; flurry &c. (haste) 684. officiousness; dabbling, meddling; interference, interposition, intermeddling; tampering with, intrigue. press of business, no sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, busy hum of men, battle of life, thick of the action. housewife, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the matter with her landlady, and that she was to pay a dollar a week as rent. "I should not tell your patient about this," he said. "It will look to him as if I considered his stay was likely to be a long one, and it might fidget him." ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... to fret and fidget most awfully,—"Beginning of the seasons—why, we may not get away for a week and all the ships will be kept back in ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... are to be found in this free country. What think you, gentle reader, of Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle and Prudence Fidget; all veritable names, and belonging to substantial yeomen? After Ammon and Ichabod, I should not be at all surprised to meet with Judas Iscariot, Pilate, and Herod. And then the female appellations! But the subject is a delicate one ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... He began to fidget. He took his legs out of the fender and put them back again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but without relief. He turned over his Spectator to see what it had to say about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, and found that he was not interested ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... spent the first part of Wilkins's speech in a state of restless fidget, his hat over his eyes, was alternately sitting erect with radiant looks, or talking rapidly to Bennett, who had come to sit beside him. The Home Secretary got up after Wilkins had sat down, and spent a genial forty minutes in delivering the Government non possumus, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... record—flying start—for the twenty-six steps. After this little explanation Griffin showed a marked disinclination for the company of Bellefont, and became, indeed, quite a useful member of the community, though he always retained such acute memories that an angry tone from Stover would cause him to fidget and calculate the distance ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... had gone well on towards the end of the first act, and Godolphin was beginning to fidget. From where she sat Louise saw him take out his watch and lean towards her husband to say something. An actor who was going through a piece of business perceived that he had not Godolphin's attention, and stopped. Just then Mrs. ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... best of companions in the diligence. All the way he amused me with tales of his little parish up in the mountains, and I in my turn told him stories about the camp; but, my faith, I had to pick my steps, for when I said a word too much he would fidget in his seat and his face would show the pain that I had given him. And of course it is not the act of a gentleman to talk in anything but a proper manner to a religious man, though, with all the care in the world, one's words may get out ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... confine conversation with him to trade exigencies; but after a few days they had grown to accept him as part of the household, and were civil to him again. Mrs. Kettering liked to get him to herself of an evening and talk to him for two hours at a time. Kettering himself would fidget a good deal at such times, but scarcely ventured to intrude, though apparently his greatest delight was also to converse with Morgan. But Mrs. Kettering showed no such scruples about entering into the conversation and eventually ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... after all, Beriah. I'm sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open the letter—open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir out of our places. I am all in a fidget to know ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... tell the meester how ye tease and fidget and bother to be let out in the air; and if he says it, I'll bundle ye warm tomorrow and give ye a turn on your feet. But I'm freezing you with this door open. I declare if there isn't Gretel with her apron full, ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... but Lemm did not emerge from his corner, maintained silence, quietly quivered all over like a spider, looked glum and dull, and grew animated only when Lavretzky began to take his leave. Even when he was seated in the calash, the old man continued to be shy and to fidget; but the quiet, warm air, the light breeze, the delicate shadows, the perfume of the grass, of the birch buds, the peaceful gleam of the starry, moonless heaven, the energetic hoof-beats and snorting of the horses, all the ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. Yet, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... to fidget with some account books and papers that he had brought from his house. He eyed his partner with furtive glances; Mallalieu eyed him ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... compose and quiet her in her idlest moods. To- night she lay broad awake, tumbling about on the very hard mattress, stuffed with chaff, wondering how Rose could bear to sleep on it, trying to guess how there could be room for both when her sister came to bed, and nevertheless in a great fidget for her to come. She listened to the howling and moaning of the wind, the creaking of the doors, and the rattling of the boards with which Rose had stopped up the broken panes of her lattice; she rolled from side ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your tricks," retorted Mrs. Milo, wisely. "You'd even trapse out in that get-up.—Please don't fidget while ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... and listened intently, like children who hear and do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held in thrall by the sound ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... 'massacred' St. Bartholomew. But vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were matters of but casual concern crowded out of my life and out of my companions' lives (in a convent boarding-school) by the more stirring happenings of every day. How could we fidget over obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and our very dreams were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over 'natural laws' in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a hill ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... all the rest on the fidget, and without troubling to lay 'that or that' together, they desert their breakfasts, hurry to the stables, get out their horses and rattle away, lest their watches should be wrong or some arrangement ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... is. Don't fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; '80, that is the wine you must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has the most frightful headaches if he drinks anything but the very best. I hope he'll find the '80 ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... de way I be," declared Mandy, as she plumped herself down on the garden bench and began to fidget with resentment. ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... the flies was bothering th' horse," surmised Mrs. Dodge; "he does fidget an' stamp somethin' terrible when the flies gets after him; his tail ain't so long as some.... Well, I'll let you know; and if you could drop around and see the table and all— Yes, some day this week. Of course I'll have to buy new furniture to put in their places; so will Mrs. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... guidance. There must be sympathy, tact, and humour. In adopting the attitude of the giver instead of the receiver the young teacher is too apt to put away the remembrance of childish difficulties, and to forget the restless vitality which made her, as a child, long to fidget, and do ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... and Meredith won steadily. He talked a lot about his abnormal luck, but one man present seemed to be constantly on the fidget. Jim had been weaned on cards in a place where gambling was the salt of life, and "tinhorns" were as plentiful as mosquitoes in summer. He kept his eyes on the slim, nimble hands of Meredith, and what he saw did ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... you that everybody has that sort of fidget occasionally, and there's no reason to stand on your hindlegs about it. Come on ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... moral heroism; ordinary valor is more impulsive. A weaker man, albeit total stranger to fear, ready to lead his division or his corps into the very mouth of hell, if commanded, being set himself to direct an army, will be either rash or else too timid, or fidget from one extreme to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to carry victory into Greece, till at last his navy went under at Salamis. We saw the pathetic figure of Byron swimming where Leander swam; and, in all, such an array of visions that the lure of the Eternal Waterway gripped us, and we were a-fidget ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... tool box and hides himself under the car again, while Runyon Q. Sampson begins to fidget around and look at his watch like it was the first one he ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... more to get on beautifully in this further lounge without a definite exchange. Yet he finally spoke—he broke out as he tossed away the match from which he had taken a fresh light: "I must go for a stroll. I'm in a fidget—I must walk it off." She fell in with this as she fell in with everything; on which he went on: "You go up to Miss Ash"—it was the name they had started; "you must see she's not in mischief. Can you ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... minutes to five he started to fidget with his rifle, and then suddenly springing up on the fire step with a muttered, "I'll send over a couple of souvenirs to Fritz, so that he'll miss me when I leave," he stuck his rifle over the top and ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... vaguely into my ears; I was a lay-figure in the scene, and my soul wandered elsewhere. Mr. Somers began to fidget gently, which father perceiving, rose from the table. Soon after the guests departed. The remains of the feast vanished; the fires burnt down, "winding sheets" wrapped the flame of the candles, and suppressed gaping ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... of hand and of eyesight is requisite in taking lunars that shall give results reliable to seven or eight miles, and so small an exertion or flurry spoils that delicacy, that economy of labour and fidget is a ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Spot would thank you at all," said Mr. Norton. "The cream would make her ill, and the ribbon would fidget her dreadfully till she pulled ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... would probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who ought to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... said it was much more useful to learn to sit still and not fidget than to fill the world with rubbish ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... further enquiries, and let me know the particulars. We have seen little or nothing of Manning since you went. Your friend [George] Burnett calls as usual, for Charles to point out something for him. I miss you sadly, and but for the fidget I have been in about the Farce, I should have missed you still more. I am sorry you cannot get your money. Continue to tell us all your perplexities, and do not mind being ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Froude advocated their continuance strongly, and were angry with me for consenting to stop them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his own friends; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, took a high tone in his project of measures for dealing with bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scandalised him considerably. As for me, there was matter enough in ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... be too particular, because I'm late and must hurry down or Jane won't get things straight, and it does fidget me to have the saltcellars uneven, the tea strainer forgotten, and your uncle's paper not aired," returned Miss Plenty, briskly unrolling the two gray curls she ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... she looks any worse to me either; but Dr. Van Anden is in a fidget, and I suppose ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... horribly," Ralph said. "I suppose they don't like me; and that would be all well enough if I had done anything to offend them, but it was just as bad the first day I came. I am sure Mr. Penfold does not like it. I can see him fidget on his chair; and he talks away with me pretty well all the time we are at table, so as to make it less awkward, I suppose. Well, I am stopping with him, and not with them, that's one thing; and it doesn't make much difference to me if they do choose ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... levity. O that I had, at this instant, dared to be myself! But my fear of ridicule was greater than my fear of vice. 'Bless me, my dear Lady Delacour,' whispered Harriot, as we left this house, 'what can make you in such a desperate hurry to get home? You gape and fidget: one would think you had never sat up a night before in your life. I verily believe you are afraid to trust yourself with us. Which of us are you afraid of, Lawless, or me, or yourself?' There was a tone of contempt in the last words which piqued me to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... well. What a fidget you are! Apparently you attach as much importance to rosy cheeks ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... fidget about me, Charlie," he said. "Ferrers tells me that there are at least a score of Jacobites here, and that they form quite a society among themselves. Living is very cheap, and he will introduce me to a man of business, who will see that my ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... smilingly answered, but the landlord does not move—not he; what is to be gained by being in a hurry? why fidget? an hour hence is quite as good as the present quickly fleeting by. So soothing his conscience by the word straxt, he leisurely goes on with his work, and as "like master, like man," those below him do not hurry either, for which reason most things in Finland are ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... wonderfully delighted. This excited her impatience so much that it seemed to her that the enemy would never decamp. She was obliged to control herself; but by the time she might speak, she was very irritable. She told Rollo not to grin and fidget in that manner, but to let her ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... abundant hair was to be smeared with pomade, plaited in three long tails, and tied with bows of ribbon: a task my unaccustomed fingers found great difficulty in performing. She told me her nurse could do it in half the time, and, by keeping up a constant fidget of impatience, contrived to render me still longer. When all was done, we went into the schoolroom, where I met my other pupil, and chatted with the two till it was time to go down to breakfast. That meal ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... especially since my wife's brother Garland was called in as consulting physician, last month at the penitentiary. He has so stirred her sympathies for the woman whom he pronounces a paragon of all the virtues and graces, that I begin to fidget now at the sound of the prisoner's name, and can hardly look my wife straight in the face. When I go up to court next week, I will call on the Governor, and add a personal appeal to the one I have already signed. According to the evidence, she is guilty; ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... follow that because men are capable of doing hard work they like it. Some, indeed, fidget and fret if they cannot otherwise work off their superfluous steam; but on the other hand there are many big lazy fellows who will not get up their steam to full pressure except under compulsion. Again, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... desire; for to them accrue all the profits of its salubrious fountains. I protest, I knew nothing of all this yesterday, so entirely was I taken up with the rocks and meadows; no chance of meeting either card or billiard players in their solitudes. Both abound at Ems, where they hop and fidget from ball to ball, unconscious of the bold scenery in their neighbourhood, and totally insensible to its charms. They had no notion, not they, of admiring barren crags and precipices, where even the Lord would ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... lookin' bird, that guy is;" the District Attorney goes around tellin' everybody in a whisper that you're a desperate character; the clerk of the court, the stenographer and all the bailiffs sort of wake up and act busy; the men waiting to be examined for jobs on the jury begin to fidget and wonder whether the judge is a "crab" or a nice, decent feller what'll let 'em off when they tell him they got sickness in the family, and all of 'em ha tin' you worse than poison ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... fidget: he stood on one foot, then on the other; he put his hands in his pockets and jingled the things he had there, till he remembered that papa doesn't like us to do that, then he took his hands out. He straightened up, and shook his coat collar into place, and he cleared ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... fidget about Victor, Marie. Elise is with him, and will come and let you know if he wakes; but I hope that he has gone off fairly to sleep for the night. He knew me, and I think I have put his mind at rest a little as to how he came here. I have told him it was an accident ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... be very well if it weren't for this heat," she said pettishly. "Do put that photograph down, George!—you do fidget so! Haven't you got any news for me—anything to amuse me? Oh! those horrid papers!—I see. Well! they'll wait a little. By the way, the 'Morning Post' says that young scamp, Lord Ancoats, has gone abroad. I suppose ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... absently). He is still pacing up and down restlessly—to and fro—along and across—he that is usually so innocent of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have gone ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... and the hostess with her woman guest. This was the rule of courtesy; kings observed it as well as burgesses. Children were taught how to behave towards a sleeping companion, to keep to their own part of the bed, not to fidget, and to sleep with their ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... closured by a wild outcry from the wood, hounds and horn lifting up their voices together in sudden delirium. Old horses pricked their ears, and young ones, and notably, Nancy, began to fret and to fidget. Some one said, unnecessarily: "That's him!" A man, farther down the road, turned his horse, and standing in his stirrups, stared over the wall into the thick covert, rigid as a dog setting his game. Then he held up his hat, and, a moment later, something brown glided, with the fluent swiftness ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... It was the long evenings she used to dread; now they had become part and parcel of her daily pleasures. They dined about four, and when dinner was over it was time to talk about what kind of house they were going to have, to fidget about in search of brushes and combs, the curling-tongs, and to consider what little necessaries she had better bring down to the theatre with her. At first it seemed very strange to her to go tripping down these narrow streets at a certain hour—streets that were filled with people, for the stage ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... following morning he was in a fidget, having fixed no hour for his visit to Holloway. It was not likely that she should be out or engaged, but he determined not to go till after lunch. All employment was out of the question, and he was rather a trouble to his sister; but in the course of the morning there came a letter which ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... church, concert or theatre, send a similar message to someone seated a little distance in front of you. Use the same methods as in the first exercise, and you will obtain similar results. It will seem queer to you at first to notice how the other person will begin to fidget and move around in his seat, and finally glance furtively around as if to see what is causing him the disturbance. You, of course, will not let him suspect that it is you, but, instead will gaze calmly ahead of you, and pretend ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... been so nice if he hadn't been disagreeable," she thought after a bit. Then he began to fidget and to kick the floor a little with one foot, and she began to cry and to wipe her tears away very softly and quickly, so that he might not ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... manner should be assiduously cultivated. Do not fidget or loll about in your chair, or twist your fingers constantly, or play with something while you talk, or restlessly beat a tattoo with fingers or feet. All such faults render your companionship a burden to ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... somewheres long about the straits. An' a bottle o' rum for a cold night! Well, well! I bet ye, Dannie," says he, "that the Likely Lass is gripped by this time. An' ye got a bottle o' rum!" cries he, in a beaming fidget. "Rum's a wonderful thing on a cold night, lad. Nothin' like it. I've tried it. Was a time," he confided, "when I was sort o' give t' usin' ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... noted for long memories, but their intentions were good, and the first day of Aunt Anne's visit passed very well, the children remembering to rub their feet on the mat, shut the door softly, and not fidget at meals. But the exertion seemed too much for them, and the second day began rather boisterously, and did not improve as it went on. After lunch, when the twins came into the drawing-room, Lucy drew a footstool near her aunt, and sat down meekly ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... Crawley's face. After all, others besides himself had their troubles and trials. Mrs Proudie saw and understood the smile, and became more angry than ever. She drew her chair close to the table, and began to fidget with her fingers among the papers. She had never before encountered a clergyman so contumacious, so indecent, so unreverend,—so upsetting. She had had to deal with men difficult to manage;—the archdeacon for instance; but the archdeacon had never been so impertinent to her as ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... trouble, Rusty began to fidget. And he moved about so uneasily that his wife was all the surer of his guilt. She stopped right in the middle of her scolding to ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "music paper," as Blanche called it; the music seemed to come out of her fingers of itself. And this was Basil's happiest moment of the day. Blanche liked it too, but not as much as Basil. She would sometimes get tired of sitting still, and begin to fidget about, so that now and then her mother would tell her to run off to bed without waiting for nurse to come for her. But not so Basil. There he would sit,—or lie perhaps, generally on the white fluffy rug before ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... not bad. They're rather creditable; but," Austin added, turning with a laugh to his brother, "the mother will fidget, you know, and the somewhat—let us say rococo style of architecture has got on her nerves. I think the whole thing had better come down, ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... left at the post fret, and fidget, and curvet about. At length they are again in line. Down goes the white flag! 'Good start!' shouts an excited planter. Down goes the red flag. 'Off at last!' breaks like a deep drawn sigh from the crowd, and now the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Reade began to grow decidedly restless. He would sit up, look and listen, and then lie down again. Then he would fidget about nervously, all of which was most unusual with him, for Reade's was one of those strong natures that will endure work day and night as long as is necessary, and then go in for complete rest when there is ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... purposes by means which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained is calculated to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in a fidget lest they should be thought to mix in low society, or to bestow a moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of a perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the acquaintance ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... into his beard and began to fidget in the saddle. King gave him another view of the bracelet, and again he ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... talk much as they were rowed towards the Loulia. Both were preoccupied. As they drew near to her, however, Doctor Hartley began to fidget. His bodily ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... him in a whisper (yet not so softly but that every one could hear me, seeing that every one was staring at me in dead silence) to "bring, if you please, a half-bottle of champagne." At this Woloda reddened again, and began to fidget so violently, and to gaze upon myself and every one else with such a distracted air, that I felt sure I had somehow put my foot in it. However, the half-bottle came, and we drank it with great gusto. After that, things went on merrily. Dubkoff continued his unending fairy ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... presently re-appeared to conduct himself with the utmost decorum. He did not even fidget when referred to pointedly as "the other young man," by Mrs. Watson, with an accompaniment of nods and blinks and wreathed smiles which was, to say the least, suggestive. Geoff's manners could be trusted under all circumstances, and the little ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... go, Bob. Gerald is quite right. It is better you should begin to think for yourself; and I am sure I should like you to see things, and to enjoy yourself as much as you can. I don't know why I should fidget about you, for you showed you had much more good sense than I credited you with, when you gave up your chance of going to sea and went into ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... is distressed If you fidget when you're dressed. If you fidget like Miss Midget, Hopper, or her sister Bridget. Goops like that are so much bother, That they ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... at four days and nights after opening. It was hard to wait, hard not to fidget under the watchful—the only word—eyes of the GG. They were up to something, undoubtedly. But there was something far more important: I'd narrowed the 2,499,999,999 ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,"—turning to the bureau—"it's that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and scream when they see one, pumpkin and sugar being their delight. To the half of a shrivelled pumpkin hanging at the door of my tent on my first essay in settling, one of our sooty satyrs could do nothing for some minutes but fidget and skip; and with his eyes sparkling, and countenance beaming with ecstacy, exclaim, "Dam my eye, pambucan; dam my eye, pambucan!" such being the nearest point they can attain to the right pronunciation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... wings every ten days. It would be more in keeping with the traditions of our public life if the scientific man simply confessed that he was baffled by this problem of the grasshopper's back legs. Yet, as I have said, if a public speaker may fidget with his back legs while he is stridulating, why not a public grasshopper? The more I see of science the more it strikes me as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... out all right, but pretty soon a man and a woman on the stage began to quarrel. They were married (not really, but in the play, I mean), and I guess it was some more of that incompatibility stuff. Anyhow, as they began to talk more and more, Mother began to fidget, and pretty soon I saw she was gathering up our things; and the minute the curtain went down after the first ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... dreamy content as she read to him. This happy arrangement might go on forever except that, in the course of time, his shoulder was bound to heal. And then—he knew well enough that old Dame Society was even at the end of these first ten days beginning to fidget. He knew that Marjory knew it, too. It began the day Dr. Marcellin advised him to take a walk in ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... what I was coming to than a babe, and once you're here, you stays here." "Well, never mind for the present, my man. Why, you're a regular lawyer, you rascal; I shall have to mind my p's and q's with you. Now don't talk any more, or you'll fidget, and that won't do your back any good. Will you have bread and milk, or beef-tea and toast, you luxurious person? And I must be ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... must be plainer.—Do sit down, and don't fidget so.—How long have you been here now? Nearly two months. Well, that's long enough to know something of what's going on. You must have both seen and heard that Louise has no eyes for anyone but a certain person, to put it bluntly, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... butterfly is to its torpidity as a chrysalis; indeed a fanciful person might be apt to suppose, that on emerging from their bandages, they indemnify themselves for the previous constraint by a life of perpetual fidget, and that the same re-action takes place as in the case of Munchausen's horn, which played for half an hour of its own accord when unfrozen. To speak seriously, nothing can be more piteously ridiculous than the state of a poor Languedoc child, swathed and bandaged into ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... were gone out for the day, and had left me charge of the children. It was very hot, and they kept up a continual fidget. I bore it patiently for some time, for children will be restless in hot weather, but at length I requested that they would ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... remember the satirist who remarked that to love one's self is the beginning of a lifelong romance. We know this lifelong romance will resume its sway; we shall lose our tempers, be obstinate, peevish and crank. We shall fidget and fume while waiting our turn in the barber's chair; we shall argue and muddle and mope. And yet, for a few hours, what a happy vision that was! And we turn, on Christmas Eve, to pages which those who speak our tongue immortally associate with the season—the pages of Charles Dickens. Love ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley |
