"Nervously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carefully smoothed her blue mitts, observing nervously, "Funny how Mis' Tinneray ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... charged with electricity caused by four men nervously awaiting the boiling of the kettle, and trying ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... head nervously and looked at her. "Allow me to explain, Miss Garman," he began. But he could not withstand the penetrating glance of those clear blue eyes, and hung down his head, and stopped in the middle of his sentence. Rachel turned round, and without saying ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... into cold canvas at any moment. Oh, it was hard, in the might of his love for her, not to forget everything else and cry out another declaration, as he had from the canyon! But her face was very still. She was waiting for him to begin, while her fingers were playing nervously with the tip of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... so?" gasped the professor, nervously, looking as if he contemplated flight. "I received ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... a good deal about Logan's habitual associates, and we have merely glanced at a few of the numberless plots against James which were encouraged by the English Government. If James was nervously apprehensive of treason, he had good cause. But of Logan at the moment of the Gowrie Plot, we know nothing from public documents. We do know, however, on evidence which has previously been in part unpublished, in part unobserved, that from August 1600 onwards, Logan was oddly excited and ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... nervously to the window. Then he turned back and confronted Nevill; there was a look on his face that was not pleasant to see, as if he had ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... manner of grave courtesy which served to steady the girl. Probably never before in all her rough frontier experience had she been addressed thus formally. Her closely compressed lips twitched nervously, but her questioning ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... nervously that people did not flock to the best fishing in the State, in spite of all the peanut butcher had told him. He was glad of that, so long as he was not so alone as to be conspicuous. Aside from the thin sprinkling of passengers, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... kissed his thin hand. Giuliano looked at Simonetta, trying to recall her gaze, but she remained standing in her place, seeing nothing of her companions. She was thinking of something, frowning a little and biting her lip, her hands were before her; her slim fingers twisted and locked themselves nervously, like a tangle of snakes. Then she tossed her head, as a young horse might, and looked at Giuliano suddenly, full in the eyes. He rose to meet her with a deprecating smile, cap in hand—but she walked past him, almost brushing him with her gown, but never flinching her full gaze, threaded ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... bookshelves, well stored, and a panel with a ship upon it—a brig in full sail—carved in high relief and painted. My eyes, however, were not for these, but for a man who sat at the table, poring over the charts, and lifted his head nervously to blink at me. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... regular setting up exercises that this little company of mild-eyed anarchists have every morning?" asked Mr. Waterman in his quiet way. "If so, I am afraid that I cannot recommend it for persons nervously disposed." ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... walk," replied Sahwah and then giggled nervously when she thought how funny that must sound. "What's ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... she not something to do with the curse?" I inquired after a short pause, and nervously I remembered my father's experience on that subject, and I had never before dared to allude to it in the presence of any member of the family. My nervousness was fully warranted. The gloom on Alan's brow ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the first time he knew fear at the thought of singing. It was a terrible thing, after all, to face this sea of staring, dancing people. As lightning reaches to steel, the gay poppies nodding so nervously above his mother's white, anxious face sought the courage place within, and urged him on. He felt himself back in Clothes-line Park, alone with his mother and ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... heavy. And the result is that after work is over they are fit for nothing but walking about the streets in search of diversion. Many indeed who live in hostels have almost no choice between walking in the streets or going to bed. There is no need to say more. First girls are rendered nervously weary and yet eager for fresh air and movement, and then they have to face all that street life may mean. The recreations offered them in cinemas and music-halls are often calculated to give them just the wrong sort of excitement. And so first ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... nervously backwards and forwards, being, I suppose, too punctilious an old-school Latin ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... about nervously for something to clutch. There was a muslin kerchief lying on the table; she took it up and tore it into shreds as she walked up and down, and then pressed it into hard balls ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and your heart is young. It is like the heart of a girl. When you have seen many dead men and many dying, you will do as I do,—you will not cry any more." He coughed, and his face twitched nervously; with all his affectation of stoicism he had to struggle against tears. In order to suppress them completely he ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... cab, I placed her in it and nervously asked the question that had been sometime upon my mind:—"When ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... of children stopped a dozen paces from Stephane and formed in a group, the little ones hiding behind the larger. All of them fumbled nervously with the ends of their belts, and kept their heads down, awkward and ashamed, with eyes fixed upon the ground, but casting sidelong glances at the great leather purse ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... had I not committed some fatal mistake, and left that trusty servant behind, and had not some wizard of the night stepped into his place? A slight splashing in-shore broke the spell and caused me to turn nervously to the oarsman: "Musquash," said he, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... over I hurried to the English Embassy, and there securing files of the London papers looked eagerly and nervously through them. To my intense relief I saw there was nothing in them. Therefore, I knew all was serene in London and that the Old Lady was without doubt giving out sovereigns by the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... "Y" man, a short, red-haired man with freckles, read the Paris edition of the New York Herald. Andrews, in his seat by the window, felt permeated by the stagnation about him: He had a sheaf of pencilled music-papers on his knees, that he rolled and unrolled nervously, staring at the stove and the motionless backs of the men about it. The stove roared a little, the "Y" man's paper rustled, men's voices came now and then in a drowsy whisper, and outside the snow beat evenly and monotonously against the window panes. Andrews pictured himself vaguely ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... her son leaned forward to be the nearer to her while he whispered it, and laid his hand nervously upon her desk, 'is it possible, mother, that he had unhappily wronged any one, and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... his shirt-bosom nervously, and his diamond pin, glaring like a lamp upon the worn garbs and faces of his compatriots, showed them still wanner ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... side) did I awake from the new impressions and sensations of freedom into which the past two days had plunged me. Dimitri was in his kind and sociable mood. That is to say, he was neither frowning nor blinking nervously nor straightening his neck in his collar. For my own part, I was congratulating myself on those noble sentiments which I have expressed above, in the belief that they had led him to overlook my shameful encounter with Kolpikoff, and to refrain from despising me for it. Thus we talked together on ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... "Why," said Clemence, nervously, not replying to this singular speech, "how you startled me. Who would have thought of your being here? How did you find me? Have you any message from ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... had been watching the struggle nervously, now grew confident. It was evident that the ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... under the arching moss and vines that trailed from the trees on the bank. Now and then a snag would be struck, and on such occasions Ruth would start nervously, and cry out: ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... the pitfalls presently," sniggered Hans, shifting his weight nervously from one leg on to the other. "Hark! they ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... nervously, "That story answers my questions so fully that I haven't any foundation to stand on, and as I have been preaching the reality of evil these many years I am at a loss to know what ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... came to bring Phoebe this puppy my sister promised her," Ishmael explained. "It's the pick of our Wanda's litter and Phoebe had set her heart on it." Ishmael held up the squirming little thing as he spoke, and it licked its black nose nervously with a pink tongue that came out curled ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... over that young lady's face, and something glittered in the hard blue eyes. She drew Druse tight against her heart, as though she would never let her go, and then she laughed nervously, trying to soothe her. "There, there, it ain't anything. They're all brutes, but I was ugly myself last night, 'n' made him mad. Tell me something about the country, Druse, like you did the ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... brought into contact with wealth and its accompaniments, and began to fear that more might be expected of him than he would be able to accomplish. The occasion must be urgent indeed, thought he nervously, which should induce wealthy people to have recourse to him—a poor, self-taught, obscure artist—merely because he happened to be the nearest at hand. However, to draw back was impossible; and, although grief is always repellent, there was still an amount of kindness ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... Henry laughed nervously. "You're rather ridiculous, Gilbert," he said. "I've never seen Lady Cecily before. I'm just interested in her because she's so beautiful. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... nervously blowing his nose; "you lay down this proposition: 'The minister's got a job.' Now I ask, ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... again and finding himself close by, and knowing his way, he went nervously into his father's cabin, where a lamp hung beneath the sky-light, but it was turned down very low. The place was empty, and all seemed very dark and lonely, but he could hear the crew stumping about and making ...
— The Little Skipper - A Son of a Sailor • George Manville Fenn
... watch the dancing, dear,' said Christine nervously. It was scarcely a part of their strategy that Roger should come in and find the old lady backing her fancy ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... face wore an expression of discouragement also as she turned to him with the appeal. His lips twitched nervously; but in a moment the trustfulness which she had taught him was at ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... hair shone with unusual lustre; her step was so buoyant she scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all; she was all shy smiles; and as she came, with her slender white right hand she played with the new ring she wore on her left, fingering it nervously. But anyone more ecstatically happy than she seemed it is impossible to imagine. Menteith could not take his eyes off her. He seemed to gloat over every item ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... while he says it, he is nervously searching his pockets, since there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick's emotion, however, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with the daughter,—he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning in her heart of which this sudden tumult of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... inclined her head as gracefully and indifferently as a swan. The grim patriarch became humble under the spell of her white beauty. He fingered his hat nervously. To Ambrose Colina said with subtle scorn meant for ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... white, slender hands opened and closed nervously. Miss Hitty set her feet squarely on the floor, and tucked her immaculate white apron closely about her knees. "When did you come?" she demanded finally, with the air of the attorney for ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... "but I didn't consider it no objection. I told him I was goin' to be a bill poster, and wanted to study every branch o' the business." At this point Bog hitched his chair nervously, uncrossed and recrossed his legs, as if he were conscious of trespassing on the patience of his auditors, and then went on: "Well, I hurried home, and saw that aunt didn't want for nothin', and then I started on my travels. I should ha' called and seen you, Mr. Minford," he added, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... past eleven he stopped deliberately and stood for a moment, nervously fingering his tie. He was thinking about the course of action that he had decided upon in that long, unusual vigil of the night before. His uncertainty lasted until the remembrance of his wife's scornful question swept ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... matter?" said Mowbray, sharply, addressing Chatterly and Winterblossom; but the one shrunk nervously from the question, protesting, he indeed had not been precisely attending to what had been passing among the ladies, and Winterblossom bowed out of the scrape with quiet and cautious politeness—"he really had not ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... lapins! For in Tartarin, as in all the Tarasconese, there is a warren race and a cabbage race, very clearly accentuated: the roving rabbit of the warren, adventurous, headlong; and the cabbage-rabbit, homekeeping, coddling, nervously afraid of fatigue, of draughts, and of any and all accidents that may ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... his unconcerned air; her faintly-quickened pulses sank into quietness; it seemed childish to have been so nervously sensitive in meeting Harold Gwynne. She felt thoroughly ashamed of herself, and was afraid lest her shyness might have conveyed to him and to his mother the impression, which she would not for worlds have given,—that ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... 'em!" implored Ashby, fingering his shotgun nervously. "Get out of my way. I don't want to pepper ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... and I was speculating upon the possibility of capturing and domesticating a few specimens, with the view of testing the commercial value of the hair, when suddenly the animal ceased feeding, threw up its head, twitched its long ears nervously to and fro, and proceeded to sniff the air anxiously, turning its head hither and thither as it ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... of a lunar rainbow, and that I was gazing on the reflection of myself in the mist. As I moved my arms, my body, or my head, the ghostlike figure moved, and I felt myself irresistibly changing my postures—oddly and nervously at first—then, with an awakening sense of the ridiculous in my actions—so as to make my image change and do as I did. I felt like a child placed for the first time in ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... top, looking nervously in every direction. I was familiar with that sound; I had heard it before, during two summer vacations, at the old farm-house on ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... Ford nervously, his own eyes lit with excitement. "Suppose," he exclaimed, "he has been using arsenic? He would have many opportunities, and it's colorless, tasteless; and arsenic would account for her depression and melancholia. The time when he must turn over her money is very near, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... and green drawing-room, whose apparel made so vivid a setting for their unaccustomed costumes, each tried nervously to find a seat, desirous of hiding the emphatic blackness of his trousers. There seemed a sort of indecency in that blackness and in the colour of their gloves—a sort of exaggeration of the feelings; and many cast shocked looks of secret envy at 'the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... muttered oath and the words, 'You shall never win her. I'll see to that.' The tones were not loud but deep, and the wind seemed to carry the sounds directly to my ear," she whispered, laying a trembling little hand on his arm, and glancing nervously from ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... of Mr Nadgett's secret satisfaction arising out of the effect they made, kept pace with the emotions of the reader. At first, Mr Nadgett sat with his spectacles low down upon his nose, looking over them at his employer, and nervously rubbing his hands. After a little while, he changed his posture in his chair for one of greater ease, and leisurely perused the next document he held ready as if an occasional glance at his employer's ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... its pallor. Gleams of light began shooting from her eyes, that were so dull and stony when her husband found her with Edith's letter crushed in her grasp. Her hands opened and shut upon themselves nervously. This went on, the excitement of her forming purpose, whatever it was, steadily increasing, until she swept about the room like a fury, talking to herself and gesticulating as one half insane from the impelling ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... her neck, with a locket, or a cross, or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden under her dress. Once or twice, while she sat silently thinking, she removed one of her hands from before her face, and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon, clutching at it with a half-angry gesture, and twisting it backward and ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Willy," he replied in a tone that made Miss Mattie laugh a little, nervously, "and what I want to know is, are you ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... pause. The girl waited, her hand nervously caressing the Newfoundland's curls. She did not raise her eyes, but ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... eyes were piercingly fixed upon him. A voice was saying inside him—"What a fool you are! What a fool you are! I always told you you were a fool!" And his heart was beating as it had never beat, and his forehead was damp, his throat distressingly dry, and one foot nervously tap-tapping on the floor. This condition lasted for something like ten hours, during which time the eyes continued to pierce the cloud and him with patient, ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... extravagant way,—"When we heard Clara Wieck in Vienna, fifteen years ago, she drew her hearers after her into her poetic world, to which she floated upward in a magical car drawn by electric sparks and lifted by delicately prismatic, but nervously throbbing winglets." At her performance of Beethoven's F Minor Sonata, Grillparzer was inspired to write ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... on board over the crowded gangway, he found himself speculating somewhat nervously as to which of the numerous passengers standing about the deck was his new guardian. Was it the ferocious man with the great black beard who was swearing at his Indian servant in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the ship? Or was it the dissipated-looking ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... and, raven-like, secrete them. I can quite understand the absorption of my young friends. Marvellous, Miss BRADDON! Very few have approached you in sensation-writing, and none in keeping up sensationalism as fresh as ever it was when first I sat up at night nervously to read Aurora Floyd, and Lady Audley's Secret. In this bad time of year (I am writing when the snow is without, and the North-East wind is engaged in cutting leaves), the Baron recommends remaining indoors with this Three-volume ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... "Oh," she replied nervously, "you know the King's attachment to him, and also the Queen's; they impose on him many important errands to London. We cannot ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... is he doing in this troupe of strolling players, pray?" asked the Duke of Vallombreuse, with some heat, toying nervously with the cord and tassels of his dressing-gown as he spoke. "Could I be expected to divine that there was a de Sigognac hidden under that grotesque costume, and behind ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... widely recognized that children are entitled to sexual enlightenment, it cannot be said that this belief is widely put into practice. Many persons, who are fully persuaded that children should sooner or later be enlightened concerning the sexual sources of life, are somewhat nervously anxious as to the precise age at which this enlightenment should begin. Their latent feeling seems to be that sex is an evil, and enlightenment concerning sex also an evil, however necessary, and that the chief ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... certain depth, you might spare yourself the trouble of utterance, because he already knew what you wanted to say, and perhaps a little more than you would have spoken. His figure was full of gentle movement, though, somehow, without disturbing its quietude; and as he talked, he kept folding his hands nervously, and betokened in many ways a fine and immediate sensibility, quick to feel pleasure or pain, though scarcely capable, I should imagine, of a passionate experience in either direction. There was not an English trait in him from head to foot, morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... chair beyond the table. She was young, but she looked worn and faded. Misery and the long strain of the trial had worn her out. Her hands moved nervously in ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... a nervously anxious letter from his poor old aunt, on the subject which had previously distressed her—a fear that Jude would not be strong-minded enough to keep away from his cousin Sue Bridehead and her relations. Sue's father, his aunt believed, had gone back to London, but the girl remained ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... nervously. "No you don't. I suppose you'd be glad to get rid of me that way. You don't come ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... come out so strong in his life before, slipped through the back window, while the crowd, led on by Kitty McQueen, seethed in front, and making a bolt for it to the "'Sosh," was back in a moment with a handful of small change. "Dinna toss ower lavishly at first," the smith whispered me nervously, as we followed Jess and ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously at the fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the gasfitters' ball," she said. "They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... startled the serpent, for his head slewed around nervously, and I felt the ground tremble under me as his mighty coils lashed the ground in anger. Scrambling to my feet, I seized the projector tube of the disintegrator ray and swept the beam upward until it beat upon ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... resembled the well-known downies of our eastern longitudes. I suppose them to have been their western representatives, which are known, according to Mr. Aiken and Professor Cooke, as Batchelder's woodpecker. Near the same place I saw a second pair of mountain bluebirds, flitting about somewhat nervously, and uttering a gentle sigh at intervals; but as evening was now rapidly approaching, I felt the need of finding lodging for the night, and could not stop ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... all events met the one she had previously uttered. "Ever 'forgive'?" this personage echoed in a tone that made as little account as possible of the interruption. "Dear yes! The people I HAVE forgiven!" She laughed—perhaps a little nervously; and she was now looking at Scott. The way she looked at him was precisely what had already had its effect for his sister. "The ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... of a rumpus going on somewhere, to account for the sea that's running," said Mr. Rogers, and checked himself in the act of handing the telescope across the breastwork, as he caught sight of Sergeant Treacher's waistcoat, which the Commandant was nervously shifting from his right arm ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Hegner, perhaps because she had become nervously aware that her husband had looked at her rather crossly a moment ago, blurted out, "There's no fear of that, miss. We sent off a lot this morning to Harwich. I expect they'll have been able to get a boat there ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Creeping as near to him as possible without risking a discovery, they heard, to their amazement, a deep voice apparently proceeding from the tomb, which exclaimed, "Bou gedje kek sohuk der adamlera.—It must be a cold night for mankind." "To pisevo effendi," said Michael in a careless tone, but nervously proceeded to pour a whole bottle of oil into the frying-pan. As soon as the oil was boiling and bubbling, the voice from the tomb again exclaimed, "Gaiour ne apayorsun, mangama pisheriorsun—yuckle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... laid the pistol on the mantel-piece, and nervously resealed the letter, which he then took to the box where the letters were usually left, not wishing anyone to know that Raoul's letter had ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... animal and human. They are ever ready to seize the helpless fawn for food. Her life will be often exposed. You cannot save her from disaster. O, Takcha, my sister, let me still keep her for you!" she finally appealed to the poor doe, who was nervously watching the intruder, and apparently thinking how she might best ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... Platypus an animal, Dot saw at once that it was offended, and in a great huff it turned towards the pool again. "I beg your pardon," said the Kangaroo nervously. "I didn't mean an altogether animal, or even a bird, but any a—a—a——." She seemed puzzled how to speak of the Platypus, when the strange creature, seeing the well-meaning embarrassment of the Kangaroo, said affably, "any mammal or ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face, and looked round at his audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam before them. The Medical Man seemed ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have been the more numerous. With ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... longing, and she clasped her hands nervously together. It was a great moment, and her wonted self-confidence failed her on this threshold of another life. The downcast fame grew so anxious and troubled that Mrs Asplin became distressed at the sight, and, as usual, took the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... the cone, a measured beat, which ended in a clang, which startled Kate into a shriek. "Who is doing that?" she asked, nervously. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... boughs of the jungle trees hung over here and there lower and lower in the great tunnel of greenery, so cramped in size that there seemed to be only just room for the elephant to pass along, Peter kept on looking back nervously, half-expecting to see his companion swept away from ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... He moved nervously. He shifted his position, vainly trying to rid himself of the haunting vision. But panic was upon him. Starvation—that was it. Starvation! God! how terrible was the thought. Starvation! And yet, before—before Jessie had gone he had been no better off. He had had only fifty dollars. But somehow ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... through it somehow, but a ride feasible for fox hunters had never so much as occurred to it. Into this, with practical assistance from the country boys, the deeply reluctant hounds were pitched and flogged; Freddy very nervously uplifted his voice in falsetto encouragement, feeling much as if he were starting the solo of an anthem; and Mr. Taylour and Patsey, the latter having made it up with the black mare, galloped away with professional ardour to watch different sides of the covert. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... him coldly, without looking up from his pile of letters, and Bertie ate his breakfast in silence: that is, he drank his coffee, but food seemed to hurt his throat strangely, and in spite of the brilliant sunshine, he shivered nervously once or twice. Just as breakfast was finished there came a telegram for Mr. Gregory, which, when he had read it, he handed ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... glanced nervously about him. "I must hasten," he said; "I cannot stop for explanations; but you will find me in my office at two o'clock to-morrow, if you care to call. Meantime, my young friend, I am not perhaps as mercenary as you think, and ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... and hurried off and Weldon stood nervously by the door. A minute passed, two minutes. Suddenly he turned, slipped the ornate brass bolt above the Yale lock, stepped quickly to the dead man's side, and went with rapid, tactful fingers from one pocket to another. The clock ticked leisurely, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... became aware that the tall, palefaced, resolute and loving young preacher up there was talking right at them; and more than one mill-owner, merchant, real estate dealer, and even professional man, writhed inwardlly[sic], and nervously shifted in his cushioned pew, as Philip spoke in the plainest terms of the terrible example set the world by the use of property for purposes which were destructive to all true society, and a shame to civilization and Christianity. Philip ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... tones of withering contempt. The criminal, standing before his judge with downcast face and nervously-twitching fingers, found not ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... chorus and they sang, "We all came into this world with nothing!" and the one-legged artistes beat time with their crutches, my! the pink Hour and the scarlet Hour, who were there, got a stitch in their sides. Lily, with her head flung back, full-throated, laughed nervously. Besides, as she said, artistes did as they pleased and didn't care a hang for anybody! All made plans for the morrow, all had been through that sort of thing before and much worse, too: six stories cleared at a bound, to escape from a theater in flames! Falls of seventy ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... slight contempt when he considered the effeminate-appearing young Mexican who had bade him bring water and the girl talking with him; which she must have noticed and taken to herself, for when their eyes met he saw that a flush dyed her cheeks and that she bit her lip nervously. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... so! You don't reckon as I was goin' to make Government a present of 'em, do 'ee?—a man rated up to the ears, as I be!" Here he glanced nervously at his brother-in-law, who (as a town-dweller) held the monstrous belief that farmers enjoyed their share, and even a little more, of relief from rating, and had more than once shown argumentative fight on this subject in the piping times of peace. But ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... my companion. A young fellow, a little over twenty, rather tall, slight, with a perfectly smooth, boyish cheek, delicate, somewhat high features, and a fine, almost feminine mouth, stood at the opening of his tent, and as we turned towards him fidgeted a little nervously with one hand at the loose canvas, while he seemed at the same time not unwilling to talk. He was from Mississippi, he said, had been at Georgetown College, and was so far imbued with letters that even the name of the literary humility before him was not new to his ears. Of course I found it ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... no doubt, and would have faced an army in the field, but he was extremely superstitious, and advanced with a palpitating heart, the torch held high above his head, and eyes glancing nervously from side to side. A crowd of comrades, similarly affected more or less, followed the ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... how we live. The hut is coming down, and might kill one any day; but my old man he says it's good enough, and so we live like kings," said the brisk old woman, nervously jerking her head. "I'm getting the dinner; ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Cobenzl, had relapsed into a tame and undignified policy, which the Swedish Ambassador at Vienna described as "one of fear and hope—fear of the power of France, and hope to obtain favours from her."[1] At Berlin, Frederick William clung nervously to neutrality, even though the French occupation of Hanover was a threat to Prussia's influence in North Germany. The Czar Alexander was, at present, wrapt up in home affairs; and the only monarch who as yet ventured to show his dislike of the First Consul was the King of Sweden. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... more than once well out of this confounded pass, and listened nervously for a good while, and stared once more, half-frightened, in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he said, rising and trying with nervously twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally abandoning the attempt. "I can't prove it to you. You say that everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don't see it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional matter, and to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Edna nervously smoothed out the lap of her dress as though she realized that she might be inflicting pain, but she raised her steady eyes and said ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... year. Up to this, our Conferences had been conferences—informal conventions, where we met, talked over our little troubles, discussed a rubrical or theological question in an academic fashion, and listened with patience and edification to some young man, who nervously read for an hour or so some carefully prepared paper on a given subject. Then, if the Master of Conferences wanted to show how well read he was, he put a few questions here and there around the table. But if he was very persistent, and the chase became too hot, it was easy to draw ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... Jake seemed inclined to stop eating, and to break out with new evidences of his alarm, they forced more food on him. At last, however, he was so full that he could eat no more, and he rose nervously. ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... children, and it was therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella's sake; and who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... horses whilst they were fresh; the noble Master and his aristocratic friends were pounding down a lane running parallel to the line of chase. Mrs. Lumley was getting excited, and the Gitana reared straight on end. Brilliant was fighting most disagreeably with his bridle, and John nervously endeavouring to quiet our horses, and prevail on ourselves to submit to his guidance. We did follow him into the lane; but here what a scene of confusion it was! Mild equestrians, much at the mercy of their infuriated steeds; hot foot-people, springing out of the way of ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... indignation at himself and them. His aunt and Mr. Dimmerly, who soon recovered himself, were endeavoring to look serenely unconscious, with but partial success. All seemed to feel as if they were over a mine of discourteous laughter. The unfortunate object looked nervously around for the beautiful "cousin," and noted with a sigh of relief ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... scare, he prudently beats a retreat, and sets himself up to reconnoiter on some overhanging branch, scrutinizing every movement you make with ludicrous solemnity. Gathering courage, he ventures down the trunk again, churring and chirping, and jerking nervously up and down in curious loops, eyeing you all the time, as if snowing off and demanding your admiration. Finally, growing calmer, he settles down in a comfortable posture on some horizontal branch commanding a good view, and beats time with his tail to a steady "Chee-up! chee-up!" or, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... enters a striped spindle-like body called the striated spindle; the entire structure is called a visual rod. Nerve-fibrils emanating from the optic nerve enter the striated spindle at its lower extremity, and in this way nervously energize the visual rod. There is a deposit of pigment about the visual rod which arrests all rays of light save those which strike the cornea parallel to the long axis of the crystalline cone. We see from this ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir |
