"Nervous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... easily to keep pace with his great step. Beside the gift of English, Eleanor had its comrade gift of excellent silence. Those who are born to know rightly the charm and the power and the value of words, know as well the value of the rests in the music. Little Eleanor, her nervous fingers clutched around the Bishop's big thumb, was pouring strength and comfort into him, and such an instinct ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... freshness and an intensely modern character. In 1878, 1879 and 1880 they accepted la Serre, the surprising symphony in blue and white which shows Mr George Moore in boating costume, the portrait of Antonin Proust, and the scene at the Pere Lathuile restaurant, in which Manet's nervous and luminous realism has so curious a resemblance to the art of the Goncourts. In 1881 the portrait of Rochefort and that of the lion-killer, Pertuiset, procured the artist a medal at the Salon, and Antonin Proust, the friend of Manet's childhood, who had become Minister ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... then we put on our buckskin suits, which were the costumes we were to appear in. The theater was being rapidly filled, and it was evident that we were going to make our debut before a packed house. As the minutes passed by, Jack and I became more and more nervous. We occasionally looked through the holes in the curtain, and saw that the people were continuing to crowd into the theatre; our nervousness ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... a leather-covered flask from one hand to the other, Caroline saw a strange face with drawn, purplish lids where she had always known two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could not believe Delia's. A nervous fear seized her, and she turned to run away; but she remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to her; how that very morning—it seemed so long ago, now—Delia had helped her with her stubby braids of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing at her ignorance of the customs of the park. She ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... in a hurried, excited way, and the listener heard him draw his breath sharply through his teeth from time to time, as if he shivered from nervous dread. ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... affection, ardent and submissive at the same time, there was almost as much admiration as love. A woman!... Sagreda for the first time realized the full significance of this word, as if up to then he had not understood it. His present companion was a woman; the nervous, dissatisfied females who had filled his previous existence, with their painted smiles and voluptuous ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... I have no skill in reminiscences, no art to bring the living aspect of the man before those who never knew him. I faintly seem to see the eager face, the light nervous figure, the fingers busy with rolling cigarettes; Mr. Stevenson talking, listening, often rising from his seat, standing, walking to and fro, always full of vivid intelligence, wearing a mysterious smile. I remember ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... distracted by their miserable situation, weary from exhaustion, and nervous from lack of repose, a panic arose in their midst which added much to their distress. For suddenly news was spread that the French, Dutch and English papists were marching on them, prepared to cut their ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... and as far as my observation went it was one of considerable importance. When the soft parts only were affected, even high velocity did not produce much effect; but when to a flesh wound a severe bone fracture or injury to any part of the nervous system was added, shock might be severe or profound. The question of shock dependent on visceral injury will be considered in succeeding chapters, but it may be well to state here that the most severe shock appeared to follow ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... hand upon his shoulder tremble like a leaf; but he never turned his head, only moved steadily onward and downward, with a regularity and solidity which soon told upon Winifred's nervous dizziness. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... I, "will be in great anxiety about his niece. She is the only relative he has, I believe, and he will be extremely anxious if she does not return this evening. He is a nervous, highly-strung man—" ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... are—she had the faculty of adapting herself to circumstances, and of identifying herself with the family in which she lived, in a way that stood in stead of a good deal. She was quite too smart for the patient endurance of the whims of a nervous invalid, and found positive refreshment in the present bustle and hurry, and was inclined not only to be agreeable, but confidential on ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... half a day and keep it up. The Presence in the household was in delicate health. It needed to be coddled and pampered, and the strain of it told on us. The Little Woman developed an anxious look, and grew nervous and feverish at the clamor of an "extra." Sometimes I heard her talking "plus" and "minus" and "points" in her sleep and knew that she had taken the Stock to ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to The Yews, and got there ten minutes before they did. I hid in the hedge on the north side of the house, and saw that as soon as they walked up the drive Mr. Bailey rushed out to welcome them. The lady seemed very nervous, I thought. I know she was an English lady, because she spoke to me ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... once to Vienna, via Schallberg. He is trustworthy and discreet. Can I be of further service to monsieur? No? Then I shall go." Without waiting for any reply, he closed the door behind him as though upon a nervous patient. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... eloquence, and without offence only; 'tis nervous and solid, that does not so much please, as it fills and ravishes the greatest minds. When I see these brave forms of expression, so lively, so profound, I do not say that 'tis well said, but well thought. 'Tis the sprightliness of the imagination that swells and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had broken through, when I was thankful that Attas could only bite and not sting as well. At such a time as this, the greatest difference is apparent between these and the Eciton army ants. The Eciton soldier with his long, curved scimitars and his swift, nervous movements, was to one of these great insects as a fighting d'Artagnan would be to an armored tank. The results were much the same ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... your delivery, and don't forget the signals," advised Mullin, as the two were warming up. "And don't get nervous. You'll do all right." ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... restless, aggressive spirit. I do not believe they will desert their officers in trying moments, in so great numbers as the whites; they have not the will, audacity or fertility of excuse of the straggling white, and at the same time they have not the heroic, nervous energy, or vivid perception of the white, who stands firm ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the shop this morning." The recital seemed simple and orderly now. "I helped to fit her. I usually do. She's never very cordial, but this morning she was—oh, she was a beast! She nagged and nagged and nagged, until I got nervous. I couldn't help it. I got worse and worse, until I stuck a pin into her. Not just a scratch." ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... passed, and the old gentleman's arms and loins began to ache from the novel and constrained posture in which he stood. He grew nervous and uneasy at the want of sport; and thinking that perhaps the little fellow was acquainted with the locality, he turned towards him, saying, in the blandest but still most indifferent tone he could assume, lest he should compromise his dignity ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... with a nervous tenderness in contrast with her alarmed and entreating expression of face, and gently pushed ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... uttering a word of vague sympathy and consolation, to which she paid not the slightest heed. The poor girl was tired out, and half-numb with the piercing cold,—the excitement which had kept her up for days and days, had yielded to the nervous exhaustion, which was its natural result,—and she kept on weeping without exactly knowing why she wept. Throughout the long and fatiguing journey she had maintained unflinching energy and perseverance,—undaunted by storm, sleet, and darkness, she had ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... delightful, and he had no occasion to speak at all; yet Ulrich felt timid and nervous. It seemed like a deliverance when the footsteps of the guard were heard, and Carmen drew him away through the gate with her into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you all to go away now," he said. "Painting pictures is very difficult work. It would make me nervous to have so many people ...
— The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit - Sleepy-TimeTales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... nervous at the piano that she left it, and snatching up her hat and cape went out and walked, hurrying through the streets like Christian fleeing from the City of Destruction. And while she walked she cried. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the conversation; she had only introduced the argument for the purpose of defining her point of view and accustoming Yeovil to it, as one leads a nervous horse up to an unfamiliar barrier that he is required eventually ...
— When William Came • Saki
... wrong, my dear husband; but sickness and suffering have made me, I fear, not only nervous and frightened, but selfish: I must and will shake it off. Hitherto I have only been a clog and an incumbrance to you; but I trust I shall soon behave better, and make myself useful. If you think, then, that it would be better that you should ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... that accompanied each dreadful moment I am forced to recall: there is nothing that happened in those ill-starred years that I cannot recreate in that chamber of the brain which is set apart for grief or for despair; every strained note of your voice, every twitch and gesture of your nervous hands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase comes back to me: I remember the street or river down which we passed: the wall or woodland that surrounded us; at what figure on the dial stood the hands of the clock; which way went the wings of ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... The banker who was then younger and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turning to the young lawyer, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... Drishtam implies 'Sruti', for it is as authoritative as anything seen. 'Pura' implies a city, a citadel, or a mansion. Here it refers to the body. The avasatha within the pura refers to the chakra or nervous centres beginning with what is called the muladhara. At the time when Brahman is realised, the whole universe appears as Brahman and so nothing exists, besides Brahman, upon which the mind can then dwell. Telang, I think, is not correct in rendering manaschasya ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... door was closed and the Signor Gradenigo was again alone, he once more consulted the time-piece, passed his hand slowly and thoughtfully across his brow, and resumed his walk. For nearly an hour this exercise, or nervous sympathy of the body with a mind that was possibly overworked, continued without any interruption from without. Then came a gentle tap at the door, and, at the usual bidding, one entered, closely masked like him who ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... With a nervous glance at her brother, who stood mute, his head slightly bent, himself immovable as a figure of stone, Teresa ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... it made a great deal of sport, but at length little feeble Gracie grew frightened and nervous, and running to "Mamma Vi" hid her head in her lap with a burst of ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... sections of repealers ended in the secession of the Young Irelanders from the Repeal Association. O'Connell was at heart glad of this, for his physical and intellectual energies were flagging, and the constant tantalising to which he was subjected in the association by these young men irritated his nervous system, and impaired his health. He made a show of conciliation, and sent a Roman Catholic clergyman of considerable importance, the Rev. Dr. Miley, to open negotiations with Smith O'Brien, whom he did not hesitate publicly to declare ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... little more than disturbances of the nervous system as a consequence of the war excitement in non-combatants. Take the first trifling example which comes to our recollection. A sad disaster to the Federal army was told the other day in the presence of two gentlemen and a lady. Both the gentlemen complained ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... but Trevor persisted in his story, and continued in such evident distress that at last his father took him home, hoping that his mother would be able to soothe him. For many weeks, however, the boy gave his parents much anxiety; he became nervous and strange in his manner, refusing to leave the cottage by himself, and constantly alarming the household by waking in the night with cries of "The man in the wood! ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... called my name. I stepped quickly to his bedside, he took my hand saying, "sit down close to me Walter, I have something to say to you." I took a seat near him, and after a few moments' silence he said: "You may perhaps think I am nervous and fanciful, when I tell you I feel certain I shall never recover from this illness; the physician tells me I will soon be up again, but such will not be the case." Observing that I was much startled, he said, "Do not be alarmed Walter, but ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... joyously, observing the work of these cunning woodsmen's teeth, noting the trails by which the remoter cuttings had been dragged down to the water, and studying the excavations on the canal. Then, fearing to make the little citizens of the pond so nervous that they might not come out to business that night, he withdrew over the slope and made his way back to camp. He would sleep out the rest of the afternoon to be fresh and keen for the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... drained of its vitality. No bad taste warns the victim, nor do the preliminary symptoms begin until nine to fourteen hours after the poisonous mushrooms are eaten. There is then considerable abdominal pain and there may be cramps in the legs and other nervous phenomena, such as convulsions, and even lockjaw or other kinds of tetanic spasms. The pulse is weak, the abdominal pain is rapidly followed by nausea, vomiting, and extreme diarrhoea, the intestinal discharges assuming the 'rice-water' condition characteristic of cholera. The latter ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... 50 feet. Most birds which rear their broods in holes enter and leave the nest cavity fearlessly, even when they know they are being watched by human beings, evidently feeling that their eggs or young birds are securely hidden away in the heart of the tree. Not so the Megalaema. It is as nervous about the site of its nest as a lapwing is. Nevertheless, on one occasion, when the nest of a pair of the great Himalayan barbets was opened out and found to contain an egg and a young bird, which latter was left unmolested, ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... was in poor health, he left that position for one that would take him more into the open air. Though his health was not strong, he was by no means an invalid; for at nineteen his muscles were solid and his fund of nervous energy was inexhaustible. So, with the natural taste of a boy for a more exciting life, he took a position as clerk on a Mississippi River steamboat. While he had nothing to do with actually running the boat, he certainly kept his eyes open to everything going on both on board and in ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... his chief for several moments. Thomson was standing before the window, the cold spring light falling full upon his face, with its nervous lines and strongly-cut, immobile features. He felt a curious indisposition to speak, a queer sort of desire to wait on ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this unfortunate class, and under what circumstances did they become enthralled by such a habit? Neither the business nor the laboring classes of the country contribute very largely to the number. Professional and literary men, persons suffering from protracted nervous disorders, women obliged by their necessities to work beyond their strength, prostitutes, and, in brief, all classes whose business or whose vices make special demands upon the nervous system, are those who for the most part compose the fraternity of opium-eaters. The events of ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... chafed, a helpless nervous system dominated by a cruel idea. Was there no way out? Only one—that she herself had been duped by her own imagination. But then, how was that possible? Unless, indeed, she was taking leave of her senses. Because, even supposing that she could fancy that another model ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... their bread in the streets than suffer their beloved Harry to go forth, carrying his life in his hands, in order that they might be comfortably housed and clothed and sufficiently fed! And indeed the picture which they drew was sufficiently alarming to have daunted a lad of nervous and timid temperament, and perhaps have turned him from his purpose. But Harry Escombe was a youth of very different mould, and was built of much sterner stuff. There was nothing of the milksop about him, and the dangers of which his mother and sister spoke so eloquently had no terrors ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... tribes racked their brains to discover nerve-shaking ordeals to try the daring of the growing youth. The safety of the tribe depended upon the valour of the fighting line, and it would have been an inexcusable blunder to put the nervous ones ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.) Nothing would satisfy him but a big London practice and a name. He might—ultimately—specialise. If he did he rather thought it would be gynaecology. He was interested in women's cases. Or it might be nervous diseases. He wasn't sure. Anyhow, ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... also, I was certain. It was O'Connor's manly voice. It was not a shriek, the death-wail of a struggling wretch, but a bold, nervous hail. ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... sometimes secretly referred to his room as "his editorial sanctum." This newspaper did not appear regularly, but only when it happened to be ready. It usually appeared once a year, but sometimes twice, if his nervous condition ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... deals with things great and small, with everything that concerns men, is the literary expression of this view of life. Its language is the new-Hebrew, a simple, nervous idiom suited to practical life, but lacking the power and poetry of the Biblical Hebrew. It is a more useful but less polished instrument than the older language. The subject-matter of the Mishnah includes both ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it by dire experience, will not envy his exalted endowments. That it was, in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. He told Mr. Paradise[193] that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient, that he could not distinguish the hour ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... pronounced, to Jemima's almost sick relief. "I wish my own mentality were as sound! For years she has been using up her nervous vitality without replacing it, that is all. This mental torpor is Nature's way of giving her a rest. Let her alone! That splendid body of hers will reassert itself presently. Rest is what she needs. And happiness," he added casually, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... Villa and Carranza and everything that was happening in the north of Mexico, but at last the light is dawning on them in spite of themselves and they are beginning to see things as they really are. I would be as nervous and impatient as your friends in London are if I feared the same things that they fear, but I do not. I am convinced that even Zapata would restrain his followers and leave, at any rate, all foreigners and all ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... his health. He had worn out his nervous forces by the tremendous strain, and he paid in excruciating suffering the debt he owed to nature. But he had won a ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... was, he only acknowledged civil marriages. I was a little shamefaced to see march past, taking their share of the fine and tranquil smile distributed by Marie, some women who had formerly been my mistresses—Madame Lacaille, nervous, subtle, mystical; big Victorine and her good-natured rotundity, who had welcomed me any time and anywhere; and Madeleine Chaine; and slender Antonia above all, with the Italian woman's ardent and theatrical face, ebony-framed, and wearing a hat of Parisian splendor. For Antonia ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... their very lack of all allusion to his own feelings, spoke whole volumes to the woman who knew him and could interpret them. The thought of him grieved her; it was getting to be now the only grief she had. Her own letters to him were brief and rare. Diana had a nervous fear of letting the Clifton postmark be seen on a letter of hers at home, knowing what sort of play sometimes went on in the Pleasant Valley post office; so she never sent a letter except when she had a chance to despatch it from New York. These epistles were very abstract; they spoke of the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Paris—he thinks the world of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came to the conclusion that it was a nonconductor or something like that, and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you I saw in a moment what was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your fires!—no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... record it is necessary to add but a word personal. Colonel Daggett is a typical New Englander; tall, well-formed, nervous and sinewy, a centre of energy, making himself felt wherever he may be. Precise and forceful of speech, correct and sincere in manners, a safe counsellor and a loyal friend, his character approaches the ideal. Stern and commanding as an officer he is nevertheless tender ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... as we prepared to turn in. "He says that he isn't quite sure but that Mrs. Willoughby may have a touch of vertigo. At any rate, he has consented to let me come out to-morrow with him and visit her as a specialist in nervous diseases from New York. I had to tell him just enough about the case to get him interested, but that will do no harm. I think I'll set this alarm an hour ahead. I want to get up early to-morrow, and if I shouldn't be here when you wake, ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... opened, to admit a short, slender man in whose black hair and beard the hand of time had scattered but little of that white dust that marks its passage. His face was pale, thin, and wrinkled, and his grey eyes had a nervous, restless look that dwelt not long on anything. He was dressed in black, with simple elegance, and his deep collar and ruffles were of ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... the present title cannot be even pronounced by many without inflicting a shock upon their nervous system. Do you think, for instance, that my friend, Lady Priscilla Graves—who is a great novel-reader indeed, but holds all female writers unfeminine deserters to the standard of Man—could ever come out with, 'Pray, sir, have you had ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... melancholy; shook off reflection as I would have done a serpent, and again betook myself most zealously to the sharpening of my penknife. A single, well articulated stroke on the door of my apartment, roused me at once to action, and I shouted, "come in," with nervous eagerness; it opened, and gave egress to a staid matron, of high stature, and sharp countenance; I would have pledged my existence on her shrewishness from the first moment I beheld her. When I had placed a chair for her, and reseated myself, this prelude to my prosperity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... OF A HIGHLY SUSCEPTIBLE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT OUGHT NOT.—There are other women who ought never to become nurses. The mother of a highly nervous temperament, who is alarmed at any accidental change she may happen to notice in her infant's countenance, who is excited and agitated by the ordinary ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... to the wagons and still no sign of life, no positive sign of death, though we looked carefully for both. We fear that perhaps there are Indians in ambush, and with nervous irregular breathing we counsel what to do. Finally Rogers suggested that he had two charges in his shot gun and I seven in the Coll's rifle, and that I fire one of mine and await results before we ventured any ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... astonished at the calibre of his superintendent, glanced from the boy to his sister in silence. The girl's head remained steadily lowered over the papers on her knee, but he saw her foot swinging in nervous rhythm, and he was conscious of her silent impatience at something or other, perhaps at the interruption in ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... favourite, Robin Adair. Fortunately, it did not occur to her, that the last time she had sung that song at Wyllys-Roof, with Hazlehurst as part of her audience, was the evening before their rupture; she appeared to have forgotten the fact, for no nervous feeling affected her voice, though her tones were lower than usual, as she did not wish to disturb Jane, who was in a distant part of the house. A letter from Mr. Reed was brought in, and drew Harry into the circle again; it was connected with the next day's interview, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... nearer. Now and then a vivid flash of lightning split the sombre clouds. At such times the nervous girls would jump in their seats, and there would follow hysterical, though quickly subdued, bursts of laughter from their more stolid ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... did the wound itself. Betty and Anthony were sitting on two of the stiffest and most uncomfortable-looking chairs in the room, with very grave expressions on their pale but not too clean faces. Dan was standing by the window looking intensely nervous and uncomfortable. He glanced frequently from Jabez to his father, and back again, and Kitty could see he was longing to say something, but did not know how to. She was very sorry that it had been Dan who had dealt the fatal blow. She almost wished that it had been she herself who had ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... interrupted, in a terrible voice. She was seized by a fit of nervous laughter; she cried out: "Mme. Brohl! I will not be called Mme. Brohl. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... colony, when Gov. Perier planned a master-stroke of diplomacy. Just above New Orleans lived a small tribe of Indians, the Chouchas, who, not particularly harmful in themselves, had succeeded in inspiring the nervous inhabitants of the city with abject fear. Perier armed a band of slaves in 1729 and sent them to the Chouchas with instructions to exterminate the tribe. They did their work with an ease and dispatch that should have been a warning to their white masters. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... looks in his uniform!" Mrs. Ingham-Baker said, with that touch of nervous apprehension which usually affected all original remarks addressed by ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... important character. Fortunately, Fairfax Lee had a very high opinion of Frank Merriwell. Otherwise he would not have heard him at all in behalf of Badger. Even as it was, he at first listened with nervous impatience, unwilling to believe that anything could be ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... up Mr. Bedelle, who considered himself a nervous dyspeptic and, being already in a state of antidigestive excitation, glowered and imposed silence on the ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... elements in the most solemn and devout manner with his own hand. He came to church every morning, preached commonly in his turn, and attended the evening anthem, that it might not be negligently performed. He read the service, "rather with a strong, nervous voice, than in a graceful manner; his voice was sharp and high-toned, rather than harmonious." He entered upon the clerical state with hope to excel in preaching; but complained that, from the time of his political controversies, "he could only preach pamphlets." This ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... six children altogether. Two of them are dead. There are three girls and one boy living. The oldest is fifty-seven; the next, fifty; and the youngest, forty-eight. The youngest is in the hospital for nervous and mental diseases. She has been there ever since 1927. The oldest had an arm and four ribs broken in an auto accident last January on the sixteenth of the month. She didn't get a penny to pay for her trouble. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... anything back. J. Bedford Cornish was Mr. Elkins's glittering ball; his psychic subject was the world in general and Lattimore in particular. Scientific principles, confirmed by experience, led us to the conclusion that the attitude of fixed contemplation carried with it some nervous strain, ought to be of limited duration, and hence that Mr. Cornish should remove from our midst the glittering mystery of his presence, lest familiarity should breed contempt. So in about ten days he went away, giving to the Herald a parting interview, in which he expressed unbounded delight ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... of thought from his victim, the settler was in the next moment at the side of Middlemore. Seizing him from behind by the arm within his nervous grasp, he pressed the latter with such prodigious force as to cause him to relinquish, by a convulsive movement, the firm hold he had hitherto ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... and a fury was gathering in her soul, and I, on the other hand, was getting used to the peasants and more and more attracted to them. For the most part, they were nervous, irritable, absurd people; they were people with suppressed imaginations, ignorant, with a bare, dull outlook, always dazed by the same thought of the grey earth, grey days, black bread; they were people driven to cunning, but, like birds, they only hid their heads ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... comparatively uninteresting during the progress of the repast. There was none of that conviviality which one is accustomed to find at a friendly banquet; each member of the circle appeared constrained and nervous in the presence of his comrades and an undefined suspicion that he had been decoyed into a trap of some kind flashed through Pomeroff's brain. Drinking, rather than eating, formed the chief part of the entertainment ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... though the references in the sermon to that unhappy object of interest in the front pew were many and pointed, his time had not really come until the minister signed to him to advance as far as the second step of the pulpit stairs. The nervous father clenched the railing in a daze, and cowered before the ministerial heckling. From warning the minister passed to exhortation, from exhortation to admonition, from admonition to searching questioning, from questioning to prayer and wailing. ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... sketch the scene before me, but could not form a stroke. I cannot now take a short walk without feeling its ill effects; and my hand shook so much from nervous weakness, that after a few vain efforts to steady it, I sorrowfully gave up the attempt. On returning home by the Coliseum, and through the Forum and Capitol, I met many things I should wish to remember. After ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... fight, some rejected for health, some Quakers, unwilling to kill, but willing to risk their own lives on behalf of the wounded, others again boys under military age, who go, as soon as they can, to the Navy or the Flying Corps. It is brave and nervous work they do, driving ambulances in the dark, ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... nervous at the thought of letting anybody see them, and locked them up in her desk before Miss Davis and ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... nervous hand extended to him, and held it with a grasp that sent courage into the heart of Judge Latimer. It was a hand that had guided bucking bronchos and held lassoed steers, and the man weary with life's battles knew that a friend had ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... rat," and take measures to prevent the medium from learning, in the way I have stated, what question is written, he (the medium) gets nervous and discontinues the "sitting," alleging that conditions are ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... earnestly had said, "My boy, we are going to Rome next week, so that you may go to school. I have made up my mind that you deserve as good an education as the son of any knight or senator." Horace had cried a little at first in nervous excitement, and in bewilderment at his father's unwonted gravity. But all that was soon forgotten in the important bustle of preparations for a journey to the Capital. The whole village had made them the centre of critical interest. Once a bald, thick-set centurion ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... minute. For a few seconds the canoe remained stationary, and seemed to tremble on the brink of destruction— the strength of the water and the power of the men being almost equally balanced—then, inch by inch, it began slowly to ascend the stream. The danger was past! A few nervous strokes, and the canoe shot out of the current like an arrow, and floated in safety in the still ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... sir," was the assurance. The inventor was plainly nervous as the crucial moment of the test approached. He went here and there upon the barbette, testing the various levers and gear wheels of ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... Nicholas, "he was half-cracked about her. She refused him five times. James, he's nervous about ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in a very pregnant sense he must have been a disciple of Plutarch. In those plays founded on Plutarch's stories he picked out every dramatic point, and occasionally employed the very phrases of North's nervous, graphic, and characteristic English. He seems to have felt that it was an honour to his work to embody in it the words of Plutarch himself, as he knew them first. From him he seems especially to have learned how to bring out the points of a character, by putting ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... be a man of strong will-power end self-control. The following facts may be noted as possibly symptomatic of neurasthenia; fondness for the poetry of Whitman and Browning (see Nordau); tendency to dabble in irregular systems of medical practice; pronounced nervous and emotional irritability during adolescence; aversion to young women in society; stubborn clinging to celibacy. In posture, gait and general movements, the following may be noted: vivacious in conversation; possessed of great mobility of facial expression; anteroposterior sway ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... wrong," with another pull, and then "stupendous injustice," with another. Several times she says Judith has rushed up to the parlor with "Ma'am, whath the matter! the bell rung three timth right off." She thinks that her nervous system will last longer without the papers than with them. As she told me this, she was shutting down the lid of the piano for the night. As it fell into its place, the strings set up a beautiful murmur. "Oh, hear that!" said she; "how solemn it is!" "I suppose," ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... 5567. Cain sentenced to the wood-pile for four hours for enquiring of Adam why he called the Yak a Yak when everybody knew he looked more like a Yap. Adam is getting very nervous under this ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... Gentlemen!" Julia glanced anxiously through the darkness of the room beyond the open window beside her, to where the light of the library lamp shone upon a door ajar; and she was the more nervous because Noble, to give the effect of coolness, had lit ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... the former, which fascinates and attracts; the latter often pains and distracts, by an intense and varied action which admits of no repose. It is as the tranquil elegance of the Venus of the Tribune, or the calm dignity of the Apollo of the Vatican, contrasted with the nervous energy of the works of Buonarroti, or the sublime but fearful agony of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... was oddly supplied by the remnants of tapestried hangings, window-curtains, and shreds of pictures, with which he had bedizened his tatters. His face, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poor creature looked hollow-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous to a pitiable degree.—After long hesitation, he at length approached Waverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, and said, 'A' dead ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the stake, with a strong hope and belief of rescue. Those left behind could do nothing but picture up scenes of horror, and pass their time in alternately praying and weeping. They were all sadly shaken and nervous during the short time that remained for them at Mount Pleasant; but the sea voyage and the fresh breezes soon brought health and colour into their cheeks, and none of them ever after felt any bad ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... the public had reached the utmost possible height. Every shifting of the wind was watched with nervous agitation. The road from The Hague to the sea was constantly covered with a crowd of every age and sex. Each sail that came in sight was watched and examined with intense interest; and at length, on the 26th of November, a small boat was seen to approach the shore, and the inquiring ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... the present hour." It is for lack of this ballast that the Jews have become victims of a fanaticism in which Christians from a mistaken idea of kindness have frequently encouraged them. In reality nothing is more cruel than to encourage in the minds of a nervous race the idea of persecution; true kindness to the Jews would consist in urging them to throw off memories of past martyrdom and to enter healthfully into the enjoyment of their present blessings, which are the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Louise tried to believe that it was all going to be as plain sailing as this fortuitous beginning, but she was aware of a nervous fluttering in her throat while she waited, and she knew that she positively dreaded hearing Seabeck gallop up behind her on the frozen trail. "Why will people do things that make a lot of trouble for others?" she cried out petulantly. And then she heard the steady pluck, pluckety-pluck ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... a long time, her hands nervous, her eyes unfaltering on his. She looked at once drawn and repelled, fascinated like a little bird fluttering under the baleful eyes ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... some mother say to her son, "Don't let your slate-pencil squeak so! Try not to make distracting noises. You may have a nervous wife, and you might just as well learn to be quiet. There is no sense in thinking just because you are a boy that you can make unnecessary and superfluous noises!" I think I should die of joy! Or how would it sound to hear her say, "Whenever you come in and find your sister ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... his watch and began to talk with Browning, while Ready and Badger drew aside to confer. Merriwell could see that Badger was a bit nervous when the game was called. There was a flush in his face and a glitter in his eyes that told of excitement, but this seemed to disappear as he took the clean new Spalding ball in his hands and entered ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... had not the slightest effect to undeceive my imagination. I was awe-struck, as though the phantoms of some antediluvian race had arisen from the valleys of the Adirondack and were marching in silence to their old fanes on the mountain-tops. I cowered in the boat under an absolute chill of nervous apprehension.—The second phenomenon was, that I heard mentally a voice which said distinctly these words,-"The procession of the Anakim!"—and at the same time I became conscious of some disembodied spiritual being standing near me, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... basketful of stuff," jerking her head towards the treasure at her side. "An' gives 'IM," with another jerk towards her mate, "money enough to 'elp us along till I'm fair on my feet. That quick it was—that quick," passing her hand over her forehead, "as if it wasn't for the basket," with a nervous, half-hysteric giggle, "I wouldn't believe but what it ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the patient lingered between life and death. The nervous fever which had set in seemed ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... man of from twenty-four to twenty-five years of age, tall and slender, wearing gracefully the picturesque military costume of the period. His large boots contained a foot which Mademoiselle de Montalais might not have disowned if she had been transformed into a man. With one of his delicate but nervous hands he checked his horse in the middle of the court, and with the other raised his hat, whose long plumes shaded his at once serious and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Jack of Sweden, and Jack the Finn, looming through the smoke of their pipes, and turning faces that looked as if they were carved out of dark wood, towards the young lady dancing the hornpipe: who found the platform so exceedingly small for it, that I had a nervous expectation of seeing her, in the backward steps, disappear through the window. Still, if all hands had been got together, they would not have more than half-filled the room. Observe, however, said Mr. Licensed Victualler, the host, that it was Friday night, and, besides, it was ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... some day soon. But I must go back now. You see I left off at a comma, and it's so awkward not knowing how the sentence finishes! Besides, you've got to go through Dogland first, and I'm always a little nervous about dogs. But it'll be quite easy to come, as soon as I've completed my new invention—for carrying one's-self, you know. It wants just a little more ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... another struggle, as fierce, as silent, as desperate as that other—and as short. Wiry, tough, and strong as he was, with a lean, sinewy, nervous vigor, fighting desperately for his life as he was, Levi had no chance against the ponderous strength of his stepbrother. In any case, the struggle could not have lasted long; as it was, Levi stumbled ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... who came under the influence of her radiant smile. That smile was the reflection of a sunny disposition and a nature at rest with itself. She and her husband looked like a couple who lay down at night to peaceful slumbers, undisturbed by nervous dreams of ambition, and awoke in the morning refreshed and well prepared for the duties of the new day, which never ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the right word. "Next to" is not much better, but at least it has no implied up-and-down orientation. The surface gravity of the asteroid was only two millionths of a Standard Gee, which is hardly enough to give any noticeable impression to the human nervous system. ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... In this nervous, half confiding and half shrinking mood, she leaned lightly upon his arm, ever turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of her well-meaning friends who still hoped to dissuade her ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... having seen the ghost to anybody, for fear of frightening them—some people are so nervous about ghosts,—but determines to wait for the next night, and see ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... then the recollection of her business in Grellingham Place came back to her with a suddenly sobering effect and she hastened on her way up the street, pausing at last at No. 57. She mounted the steps reluctantly, and with a nervous, spasmodic intake of the breath pressed ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... forehead, the furrowed cheeks and the stooping form might tell of the long years of his life, those eyes were full of youthful ardor and strength— only the body of this white haired man was old; in his soul he had remained young—a youth of fervid imagination, procreative power, and nervous activity. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... me," said the Glass Cat, in a nervous voice. "I'm a little brittle, you know, and can't ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... was a healthy, normal, honorable Jew; not fanatical but deeply religious. He was philosophic toward life, he cared nothing for money and was content without it. His mother, on the other hand, was nervous and worldly. She was dependent on the externals of life and to her no money was misery. There was a big house with much food, many new clothes, much hospitality, and many big brothers and sisters; something like eleven children. The ceremonies of the Jewish faith were observed beautifully, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... away as usual to preach after Christmas; but before he went Mark was clothed as a novice together with two other postulants who had been at Malford since September. Of these Brother Giles was a former school-master, a dried-up, tobacco-coloured little man of about fifty, with a quick and nervous, but always precise manner. Mark liked him, and his manual labour was done under the direction of Brother Giles, who had been made gardener, a post for which he was well suited. The other new novice was Brother Nicholas whom, had Mark not been the fellow-member of a community, he would ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... automobile, the clanging of bells, and the chatter of human tongues create a babel that confuses and tires the unsophisticated ear and brain. They become accustomed to the sounds after a time, but the noise registers itself continually on the sensitive nervous system, and many a man and woman breaks at last under the strain. Another element that adds to the nervous strain is haste. Life in the city is a stern chase after money and pleasure. Everybody hurries from morning until night, for ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... truly great or free, who are not virtuous. If the soul aspires for liberty—pure and perfect liberty—it also aspires for everything that is noble in Truth, everything that is holy in Virtue. It is greatly to be feared that all those nervous and impatient efforts which have been made and are still being made by the Italian people to better their condition, will be of little avail, until they set up a better standard of principle and make their private actions more conformable with their ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... contradicted by his face. He is miserably irresolute, does not know where to stand or what to do with his hands and feet, is afraid of Burgess, and would run away into solitude if he dared; but the very intensity with which he feels a perfectly commonplace position shows great nervous force, and his nostrils and mouth show a fiercely petulant wilfulness, as to the quality of which his great imaginative eyes and fine brow are reassuring. He is so entirely uncommon as to be almost unearthly; and to prosaic people there is something noxious in this unearthliness, just as ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... diminish wealth be punishable, is there no moral guilt in those legalized libels that do their utmost to destroy a character for wisdom, wit, learning, industry, and invention?—Critical flayer, try thou to write a book; learn experimentally how difficult, yet relieving; how nervous, yet gladdening; how ungracious, yet very sweet; how worldly-foolish, yet most wise; how conversant with scorn, yet how noble and ennobling an attribute ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... early in the afternoon, and was shut into the kitchen. He struck me as a handsome cat, but nervous. He ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse |
