"Excitable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... command, or riches; if any fear of danger, any debt, any difficulties in pecuniary matters, have had influence; if the man is bold, or fickle, or cruel, or intemperate, or incautious, or foolish, or loving, or excitable, or given to wine; if he had any hope of gaining his point, or any expectation of concealing his conduct; or, if that were detected, any hope of repelling the charge, or breaking through the danger, or even postponing it to a subsequent time; or if the penalty to be inflicted by a court of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... saying, "it is tasteful, and something more. It illustrates, as you well say, the better side of our excitable neighbours across the Channel. Setting patriotism apart and regarding the question merely in its—ah—philosophical aspect, it has often occurred to me to wonder how a nation so expert in the arts of life, so—how ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is an error which I am by nature not liable to. Only excitable people, impulsive people, are exposed to it. But the circumstances of the present case—I being a democrat by birth and preference, and an aristocrat ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... head pressed its audacious ear against the snowy glass. This was a fat, excitable little man, long in the service, but destined forever, it seemed, to hammer brass in the Panama intermediate run. A skillful operator, but his arm broke, as wireless men say, whenever faced by emergency. He distinctly heard Peter Moore state in a voice of emotion: "Too much ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Europe, says the Duke of Richmond, will aid in sending us a surplus of "low, excitable, bad, and disaffected men," who will bring with them their principles, and will adhere to their foreign notions of government, laws, manners, customs, and religion—and that religion Catholic; and yet you, the "son of a now sainted father," of Protestant ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... institution of friendly palavers is an excellent one and establishes confidence and good will among the natives. It is here indeed, that the personal character of the white man is put to the test. A calm, just, firm rule will win both the love and respect of these over-grown children, but an excitable, harsh, uncertain temper and manner, will only awaken distrust and hatred. The more popular the head of the Station, the easier it is for him to find workers in the villages, which in turn affect the general condition of the country around. Although the system of work ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... down on Shawnee's back, smoothed it flat with a palm stroke, and jerked his saddle from the platform. He could not stay right here now that Boyd had smoked him out—maybe nowhere in the neighborhood with this excitable boy dogging him. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... brother he thought the King would certainly go mad; he was so excitable, loathing his Ministers, particularly Graham, and dying to go to war. He has some of the cunning of madmen, who fawn upon their keepers when looked at by them, and grin at them and shake their fists when their backs are turned; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... could not help glancing with some apprehension at Peakslow, not knowing what that excitable neighbor might do, now that Betterson's two barrels ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... written from the gate. My bag and hammock are beside me. Tim lashed them together for me so they wouldn't come undone. We are waiting for the truck. Tony in his excitable way wants to kiss the guard good-by. The guard doesn't want him to. My last moments at Pelham have been hectic. The doctor said I looked one hundred per cent better than when I came in, but that wasn't enough. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... my throat!" gasped the Manager. "Sit down, Velasco! Don't be so excitable, so violent! No wonder you play with such passion; but I am not a violin, if you please. Take your hands off ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... scores of other common fellows in the town done likewise, during "revivals" and other seasons of special religious effort, only to fall back into their old ways soon afterwards? It was all a matter of birth and training, argued Bartram to himself: the feeblest and most excitable intellects, the world over, were the first to be impressed by whatever seemed supernatural, whether it were called religion, spiritualism, mesmerism, or anything else. It was merely a matter of mental excitement: the stronger the attack, the sooner the relapse. ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... Barere was a man of quick parts, and could do with ease what he could do at all, he had never been a good writer. In the day of his power he had been in the habit of haranguing an excitable audience on exciting topics. The faults of his style passed uncensured; for it was a time of literary as well as of civil lawlessness, and a patriot was licensed to violate the ordinary rules of composition as well as the ordinary rules of jurisprudence ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... influence of food on the system is modified by the age of the individual. The organs of a child are more sensitive and excitable than those of a person advanced in years. Therefore a vegetable diet would be most appropriate for a child, while stimulating animal food might be conducive to the health of ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung upon any sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I think that fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable girl almost into a real woman. But I had no sense ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... how I understand my characters. [Translator's Note: In the play "Ivanov."] Ivanov is a gentleman, a University man, and not remarkable in any way. He is excitable, hotheaded, easily carried away, honest and straightforward like most people of his class. He has lived on his estate and served on the Zemstvo. What he has been doing and how he has behaved, what he has been interested in and enthusiastic over, can be seen from the following words of his, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the interest of his theatre. The circumstances related to him contained invaluable hints for a ghost-drama. The title occurred to him in the railway: 'The Haunted Hotel.' Post that in red letters six feet high, on a black ground, all over London—and trust the excitable public to crowd into ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... Loutherbourg to put trust in this arch-juggler? Can it have been that from the painter's native Strasbourg had come to him unimpeachable accounts of Cagliostro's feats during his stay there, which had preceded his nefarious expedition to Paris? But the artist is ever excitable, receptive, impressible—the ready prey of the dealer in illusion and trickery. De Loutherbourg is soon at the feet of the quack Gamaliel; soon he is proclaiming himself an inspired physician, practising mesmerism. Cosway and his wife declared themselves clairvoyants. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the theft, the old man became strangely agitated. "Who was it?" said he. At once the spirit indicated a desire to use the alphabet. As we went over the letters, (always a slow method, but useful when you want to observe excitable people,) my visitor kept saying, "Quicker. Go quicker." At length the spirit spelt out the words, "I know not his name." "Was it," said the gentleman,—"was it a—was it one of my household?" I knocked yes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... tone of this note which gave me great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his excitable brain? What "business of the highest importance" could he possibly have to transact? Jupiter's account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason of my ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Stavrogin, and of how much it was to his interest to murder his wife. Yet, I repeat, the immense majority went on listening without moving or uttering a word. The only people who were excited were bawling drunkards and excitable individuals of the same sort as the gesticulatory cabinet-maker. Every one knew the latter as a man really of mild disposition, but he was liable on occasion to get excited and to fly off at a tangent if anything struck him in a certain way. I did not see Liza and Mavriky Nikolaevitch ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... widespread superstition among religiously-minded people, even among those who, from their education, ought to have known better. I well remember the case of a young mother,—a tender loving woman, who, quite in keeping with her excitable affectionate nature, was passionately fond of her baby, her first-born. But baby sickened and died, and the poor mother, borne down with grief, wept bitterly, like Rachel refusing to be comforted. In the depth of her affliction she was visited by both her pastor ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... was so beside himself that he hardly knew what he was doing. You can see that he is of a very excitable temperament. Then the rest of it is easy to imagine. Poor, poor fellow! how he must have suffered! Didn't you think ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... to take any more chances than were necessary. Steve seemed to be all ready to fire, and he knew the other to be a pretty good shot. But, then, who could wholly depend upon such an excitable fellow? ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... is Mrs. Liebling?" It was his habit to obtrude himself upon everybody. From the gossip of Bulke, his valet, he had learned of Rosa and her cross. The difficult lady she served was the excitable person of whom the barber had told Frederick and with whom he was acquainted from certain impressions of his hearing. Rosa, who was carrying Ella Liebling, a girl of five years, on her crimson arm, looked pleased ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... day forgot that eerie journey through the deserted house, accompanied by Aunt Maria. She never forgot the sickening fear which oppressed her, and the certainty which came over her that Polly, poor, excitable Polly, was ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... a light diet is conducive to good brain work, and as I later learned, the object of this systematic weight control was not alone to save food but to increase mental efficiency, for a fat man is phlegmatic and a lean one too excitable for the best mental output. It would also help my disguise by keeping me the exact weight and build of the ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... it," advised Overton, as he noticed how the man's voice hesitated and trembled, how excitable he was over the subject of his mineral finds and his threatened helplessness. "Don't think of it, and you'll come out all right yet. If I can do anything ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... instance, a woman with an emotional, excitable nature who is suffering from jealousy; she does not call it jealousy, she calls it "sensitive nerves," and the doctors call it "hysteria." She has severe attacks of "sensitive nerves" or "hysteria" every time her jealousy is excited. It is not uncommon for such persistent ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... terrible ugly women, got better to look at as she grew older; and after she was sixty, her hair turned white and she filled out a bit. Her voice was always a pleasant thing about her. It reflected her nature, which was kindly, though excitable. But her people never left her. She'd got a hind and his wife—Noah and Jane Sweet by name; and he was head man; and his son, Shem Sweet, came next—thirty year old he was; and besides them was Nelly Pearn, dairymaid, and two other ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... the stake unsettles the excitable brain of another one—I mean the inflaming details of his crime, and the lurid theatricality of his exit do it—and the duplicate crime follows; and that begets a repetition, and that one another one and so on. Every lynching-account unsettles the brains of another set of excitable white men, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Among one of his own tales (butterflies) he told of a chase he once had made in the mountains of the Moors, in Abyssinia. To illustrate it he took up one of the nets standing in the corner. In his excitable way he was a very good actor. And when he swooped down the net to demonstrate the end of the story, it caught on a button ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... deep for words—too deep for all confessionals, penances, and emotions or acts of contrition; the repentance, not of the excitable, theatric Southern, unstable as water even in his most violent remorse, but of the still, deep-hearted Northern, whose pride breaks slowly and silently, but breaks once for all; who tells to God what he will never tell to man, and ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... called him a passionate Catholic, and an energetic writer in the service of the Church Militant. Shortly after my arrival, I met him at dinner. He was a middle-aged, pale, carelessly dressed man with ugly, irregular features, and a very excitable manner. With him came his wife, who though pale and enthusiastic like himself, yet looked quite terrestrial. He introduced himself as Ernest Hello, contributor to Veuillot's then much talked of Romish paper, L'Univers, which, edited with no ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Bunk, had been for some years inhabited by an elderly half-pay naval officer, Captain Carnegy, and his motherless boys and girls. The other house was the Vicarage, the habitation of Mr. Vesey, the good old vicar, his invalid wife, and a pair of excitable Yorkshire terriers, Splutters and Shutters, thus curiously named for the sake of rhyme, it is to be presumed. They were brothers, and as tricky a pair as one could meet, ever up to their eyes in mischief from morning until night. Indeed, Splutters and Shutters kept what would have been a still, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... mankind—splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more—and so I offer my game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch and that silly scare-monger, and these excitable "patriots," and those adventurers, and all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple of War, with cork carpets everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and fortresses, and unlimited soldiers—tons, cellars-full—and let them lead their ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... colours, and the agreeable sensations produced by others, were much more marked among the excitable Italians than was the case in the St. Vitus's dance with the more phlegmatic Germans. Red colours, which the St. Vitus's dancers detested, they generally liked, so that a patient was seldom seen who did not carry a red handkerchief for ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... and in due time received a formal appointment to the office. Apart from the wretched state of his health, undermined by gout and dropsy, he was in most respects well fitted for it; but his deportment at once gave umbrage to the excitable Champigny, who declared that he had never seen such hauteur since he came to the colony. Another official was still more offended. "Monsieur de Frontenac," he says, "was no sooner dead than trouble began. Monsieur de Callieres, puffed up by his new authority, claims ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... developed. Sometimes only a hand, sometimes only a foot, shadowed itself out of the dim obscurity. She tried to persuade herself that it was all done, somehow or other, by Funkelstein, yet she could not help watching with a curious dread. She was not a very excitable woman, and her nerves were ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... domestic excellence. Neither George I., nor George II., nor William IV. were patterns of family merit; George IV. was a model of family demerit. The plain fact is, that to the disposition of all others most likely to go wrong, to an excitable disposition, the place of a constitutional king has greater temptations than almost any other, and fewer suitable occupations than almost any other. All the world and all the glory of it, whatever is most attractive, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... ring and vanished into the blackness of the side street. Eberhard Ludwig remained looking after him into the gloom. A bitter thought came to him of the superiority of this child of the back streets over the Erbprinz of Wirtemberg—that poor, sickly, excitable boy, whose disappointing personality was a source of constant irritation and humiliation to his father. Eberhard Ludwig loved personal vitality, and that vigorous manliness which he himself possessed, and which he saw ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Midlands and up North. But though the watch-fires of their pickets burned upon the veld, and though the Boer lay in laager over the Border, of him they said not one word. That reticence upon the vital point was characteristically English. The excitable Gaul would have wept, kneaded his manly bosom, and alluded to his mother; the stolid Muscovite would have wept also, referring to his Little Father, the Czar; the Teuton would have poured forth oceans of turgid sentiment about the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Cliffe had been disagreeably surprised to see him that afternoon. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of antagonism acting on the man's excitable nature that had made him fling himself into the wild nonsense he had talked ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from the Book of Esther, second chapter, seventh verse: "For she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful." It was to be expected that the reverend gentleman, who loved to produce a sensation, would avail himself of the excitable state of his audience to sweep the key-board of their emotions, while, as we may, say, all the stops were drawn out. His sermon was from notes; for, though absolutely extemporaneous composition may be acceptable to one's Maker, it is not considered quite the thing in speaking to one's fellow-mortals. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that the sensory surface of consciousness devoted to the Forec. is rendered less excitable by sleep than that directed to the P-systems. The giving up of interest for the nocturnal mental processes is indeed purposeful. Nothing is to disturb the mind; the Forec. wants to sleep. But once the dream becomes ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... writes out a short story. It may be a bit of gossip, a newspaper incident or anything he wishes, it should however be rather excitable in character. He reads the story over, that he may whisper it to one of his neighbors without the aid of the paper. The neighbor listens attentively and in turn whispers it to another neighbor, and it is whispered from one to the other until everyone has heard it. The last person ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... Yankee persistence Hipp developed his idea, and I consented to try the experiment, though with grave scruples. It would require much nerve to talk to strange people upon an excitable topic; and a camp fever, which among other things I had gained on the Chickahominy, had enfeebled me to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... understanding that the Americans should resent a measure which enabled them to buy their tea cheaper than he could himself; and he was, therefore, ready to back the Government in any measures it might take for asserting the authority of Parliament over these excitable colonists whose whims had too long been seriously regarded. This task the Government, now for the first time effectively controlled by the king, was quite willing to undertake, all the more so on account of the recent burning of the Gaspee and the dishonorable publication of Hutchinson's ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... here's a wallupper," cried Davy, who was an excitable man; "we better fish a while langer—bring the cleek, Swankie, he's ower big to—noo, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... windows. A cold rain was falling, and the soldiers, half-clad, were running wildly hither and thither, while the officers were frantically calling them to arms. Mary woke at the first terrible roar and fled to her mother's room. The excitable negro servants uttered most piercing shrieks. The poor little children were too frightened to scream, but clung, trembling, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... prowling about Davies's quarters, but they could not account for it, and strove to make it appear that Brannan was the culprit. And then he began "sparking" Robideau's daughter in town, and had become moody, nervous, excitable; talked about mysterious spies and trailers, and then, suddenly and unaccountably, deserted after a spree in Braska that had cost him much money,—after a mad scrape in which he had terrified Mrs. Davies and thrashed Mr. Willett. Who he ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... frightful dreams, and more than once he came trembling down stairs and took refuge in his mother's room, terrified by something horrible—what, he could not define, but something that came into his room at night and roused him from his slumbers. Thinking that the child was merely nervous and excitable, she changed the arrangements, put him to sleep in the bed-room of one of his brothers, and gave up the apartment in the garret to one of the servants. But in a very short time the complaints were renewed: the girl could not sleep on account of that vague, strange horror, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... said Mrs. Maynard, gently, fearing the excitable child would fly into hysterics. "Never mind it to-night. ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... however, that a considerable number of inhabitants, less excitable than these I have described, remained quietly at home, well knowing that if the fleet had really been on fire, there would have been no time to give an alarm. These persons made every effort to quiet the excited crowd. Madame F——, the very pretty and very amiable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... for a boy, but hitherto unheard of for a girl. Her lessons were recited at night, after Mr. Fuller returned from his office in Boston, often at a late hour. "High-pressure," says Col. Higginson, "is bad enough for an imaginative and excitable child, but high-pressure by candle-light is ruinous; yet that was the life she lived." The effect of these night lessons was to leave the child's brain both tired and excited and in no condition to sleep. It was considered singular that she was never ready for bed. She was hustled off to toss on ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... that seemed to smell like the big sandalwood box in the drawing-room. And beyond everything he loved her smile and the touch of her hand, and her voice that could charm away all nightmare terrors, all questionings and rebellions, of his excitable brain. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... time he was satisfied that the three-masted steamer was gaining very decidedly upon the Snapper. He began to cherish a very lively hope that the sail would prove to be the Chateaugay. Captain Flanger remained on deck all the forenoon, and every hour that elapsed found him more nervous and excitable. ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... for each was constantly providing surprises for the other; and as the divergencies between us were radical, they often gave rise to most exhilarating and instructive experiences. Sulzer was extraordinarily excitable and very delicate in health. It was quite against his own original desire that he had entered the service of the state, and in doing so he had sacrificed his own wishes to a conscientious performance of duty in the extremest sense of the word, and now, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Corinth was the largest and most important city of Greece. The commerce of the world flowed through its two harbours. The population consisted of Greeks, Jews, Italians, and a mixed multitude; it was excitable, pleasure loving, and mercurial. In this city was held a perpetual vanity fair. The vices of the east and west met and clasped hands in the work of human degradation. The Greek goddess Aphrodite had a magnificent ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... triumphantly: 'Well, don't let your brain get as excited as a child's, or, maybe, if you're feverish and run down, you'll go and do them.' He even suggested that possibly it was not you but the Head who had committed the crime. He asked him if he could imagine 'a silly and excitable kid' (which is an excellent description of Ray) dreaming that he had done what actually was done.... The Head was incredulous at first, but the doctor talked so learnedly about the Subliminal Consciousness ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... appropriation of Spanish territory was too much for the excitable Spanish Minister, Don Carlos Martinez Yrujo, who burst into Madison's office one morning with a copy of the act in his hand and with angry protests on his lips. He had been on excellent terms with Madison and had enjoyed Jefferson's friendship and hospitality ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... buffaloes at the sound of that peculiar "bang" stopped chewing their cuds instantly, and in one of their wild, excitable fits started off in a mad rush, males, mothers and calves all huddled together. In an almost incredible time the buffaloes were out of sight, except a few unfortunate mothers and little ones who, having once stumbled, lost their lives by being trampled to death by the others. This was ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... related all that was necessary concerning the fraud practised upon the institution by introducing into it an unfortunate woman, represented to be mad, but really only sorrowful, nervous and excitable. And to prove the truth of his words, Traverse desired Herbert to read from the confession the portion relating to this fraud, and to show the doctor the signature of ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... not so composed as you are. We were an excitable set in my youth—and I haven't got the better of it yet. I feel nervous. Do you ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... and enclosed in an envelope, which he carefully sealed and addressed to John Stretton, Esquire. He placed the other sheets in his own pocket-book, and then went peacefully to bed. He could do nothing more, he told himself, and, although his excitable disposition prevented his sleeping until dawn grew red in the eastern sky, he would not waste his powers unnecessarily by sitting up to brood over the resolution that ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... chance to bolt. The perspiration had come again, and it was cold. But directly the excitable little man, Renault, had appeared on the pavement above him. He ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fellow. But the "Southern gentleman" was a man of different kidney from either of these. A sardonic dignity hedged him about with peculiar sacredness. He was chivalrous and baronial in his instincts, surroundings, and characteristics. He was nervous, excitable, and bloodthirsty. He would "pluck up drowned honor by the locks" and make a target of everyone who laughed. He hunted, fought, gambled, made much of his ancestors, hated niggers, despised Yankees, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... narrated that at this period of his life, young Otis gave strong evidence of the excitable temperament with which he was endowed. In the intervals of his study his nervous system, under the stimulus of games or controversial dispute, would become so tense with excitement as to provoke remark. Nor may we in the retrospect fail to discover in this quality ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... Keyes was a trader on the island of Apiang, one of the Gilbert Group, recently annexed by Great Britain. He was very old, very quiet in his manner, and about the last kind of man one would expect to see earning his living as a trader among the excitable, intractable native race which inhabit the Line Islands. His fellow-trader, Bob Randolph, a man of tremendous nerve and resolution, only maintained his prestige among the Apiang natives by the wonderful control he had learnt to exercise over a naturally fiery temper ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... Raoul blushed, and the excitable prince continued: "War is a distraction: we gain everything by it; we can only lose one thing by it—life—then ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the marquis, "I was irritated, and thoughtlessly gave way to my temper. Although I am gray-headed, my disposition is as excitable as that of a fiery young man of twenty years; and I hope you will forget words uttered in a moment of excitement, and now ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... a future for her, simply through looking in her eyes; but whether notoriety is to be won by downfalling or uprising were better left unstated. Eleanor, he decides, is neither highly-strung nor excitable, but outspoken, fresh, and conscious of her beauty, without conceit. He thinks he loves her at first sight, the lukewarm love arising from admiration, which a man may feel towards a married woman, without blame, but at the close of the evening he ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... a man of many friends among men; he was small and excitable, but was counted handsome. He was versatile to an unusual degree, being an adept at painting, as well as billiards, chess, riding, swimming, and general athletics. He was also something of a scholar ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... round of paper and tried to sew round it, holding it in place with her other hand. I suggested putting in a stitch to hold the paper. Cecil was absorbed in sewing, and it seemed quieting for such an excitable boy and good for his weak hands. One child said, "Fancy a boy sewing," so I told how soldiers and sailors sewed. They sewed just ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... was as silent as Angelique, and, pale from anxiety, looked at him calmly and soothingly. But he, always an excitable man, was now so overcome by what he had just seen that, forgetting his usual submission, he was almost beside himself, could not keep still, but threw his hands up and down in his ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... much like caterwauling, and I need not say that there is no fascination in it—on the contrary its tendency is to destroy any other kind of attraction. It is generally far more due to an ill-trained, unregulated, excitable, nervous temperament ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... who had joined us as partner for the expedition, was a man six years my senior. He had had some experience on the Plains, and he knew what outfit was needed; but he had little knowledge in regard to a team of cattle. He was an impulsive man, and to some extent excitable; yet withal a man of excellent judgment and honest as God makes men. No lazy bones occupied a place in Buck's body. He was scrupulously neat and cleanly in all his ways; courteous to every one; always in good humor and always looking upon the bright side ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... Victoria, and have lived much more quietly and with little display. And thus it comes about that there is very little class feeling in the colony, and politics are carried on without any more dangerous outbursts than the personal conflicts of excitable members of Parliament. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... these hearty laughs with her aunts—James's eldest daughter, Anna—differed widely from her cousin, Edward's daughter, Fanny. She was more brilliant both in looks and in intelligence, but also more mercurial and excitable. Both occupied a good deal of Jane's thoughts and affections; but Anna must have been the one who caused her the most amusement and also the most anxiety. The interest in her was heightened when she became engaged to the son of Jane's old friend, Mrs. Lefroy. Anna's giddiness was merely ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... faith in him and was becoming very tired of his noise and bustle in the stillness and subdued light which meant home to her, and which this loud, excitable, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Sherwood so restless and excitable as during these weeks when the business in Little Ailie Street was being brought to an end, and the details of the transfer to Bristol were being settled. Had it not been inconsistent with all the hopeful facts of the situation, as well as with the ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... temperament. This often makes a man rash and headlong, and hence not reliable; but when combined, as in him, with perfect self-possession and self-control, imparts enormous power. It matters not how nervous and excitable a man is, if danger and responsibility instead of confusing and unsettling him, only winds him up to a higher tension, till he becomes like a tightly-drawn steel spring. Excitement then not only steadies him, but it quickens his perceptions, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... impulse to literature, art, and science, and to show how impossible it is to extinguish the fires of liberty when once kindled in the breasts of patriots, or to put a stop to the progress of the human mind among an excitable, intelligent, though fickle people, craving with passionate earnestness both popular rights and constitutional government in accordance with those laws of progress which form the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... that she looked much more quiet than she used to. Not so active, you know. In her best days she was always excitable, and a little demonstrative; but now she seems to have sobered down, and is as quiet and well-bred as any ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... keyed up from his day at the office. She remembered that his partner was out of town on business, that Joe had been running the office alone. "He will be hard to manage," she thought. He interrupted Fanny in a sharp, excitable tone. ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... follows the level table land almost to the Hudson, when it dips down a steep incline, crosses the Muitzes Kill and joins the river road. Once upon a time, as history records, as an excitable Dutch vrouw was wending her way along the banks of this brook, a sudden gust of wind caught up her cap, the pride of her heart, and whisked it into the water beyond reach, whereupon she set up an outcry, ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... But if mother can't spare you, I'm ready if uncle needs anyone,' answered Rob, in his quiet way, looking much fitter for the trip than excitable Ted. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... conversation they are very plain and unreserved, though by no means gross. They acknowledge that such things as generation, gestation and parturition exist, and it may be that this very absence of mystery tends to keep chaste so excitable and imaginative ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Mrs. Lewes was never good. She was a constant sufferer, was nervous, excitable and low-spirited. Only by the utmost care and husbanding of her powers was she enabled to accomplish her work. In a note to one of her correspondents she has given some hint of the almost chronic languor and bodily weakness from ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... The Conservancy of late seems to have constituted itself into a society for the employment of idiots. A good many of the new lock-keepers, especially in the more crowded portions of the river, are excitable, nervous old men, quite unfitted ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... little black pig." I stood near the table groaning with covetousness, but She didn't pluck him for me, not then, or ever, and perhaps the cook ate him.... This cat's a dissembler. Maybe he ... But away with care! I'm too excitable! I mustn't let myself think of these things. Life is beautiful, O Fire, since you illumine it ... I'm going to sleep ... Watch over my unconscious body ... I'm going ... ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... play the French count in the famous old play, "One of Our Girls." Mr. Bronson Howard had directed in his manuscript that the count, when struck across the face with a glove by an English officer, should become very violent and angry, in accordance with the popular notion of an excitable Frenchman's character. "But Mr. Mackay," says Daniel Frohman, "argued that the French count, having been shown in the play to be an expert duellist with both the rapier and the pistol, and having faced danger frequently, was not ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... bodies are rapidly growing and whose nervous system is tender and excitable, need much more amusement than persons of mature age. Persons, also, who are oppressed with great responsibilities and duties, or who are taxed by great intellectual or moral excitement, need recreations which physically ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wi 'em,' said Margaret bitterly. It was all started, apparently, by a worthless 'felly' from Castleton, who had a great reputation as a medium, and would come over on summer evenings to conduct seances at Frimley and the places near. 'Lias, already in an excitable, overworked state, was bitten by the new mania, and could think ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling those piercingly lovely notes with ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... these scenes, repeated almost every day, a revolution took place in that excitable, extreme character, which knew no middle course, in that heart in which the most violent passions were constantly clashing. Love, in which poison had long been at work, became decomposed and changed to hate. Germinie began to detest her lover and to seek out every possible pretext for ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... introduction of gambling. We do not mean to san that before the coming of the Spaniards the natives did not gamble: the passion for grumbling is innate in adventuresome and excitable races, and such is the Malay. Pigafetta tells us of cock-fights and of bets in the Island of Paragua. Cock-fighting must also have existed in Luzon and in all the islands, for in the terminology of the game are two Tagalog words: sabong, and tari (cockpit and ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... of London—the noted haunt of thieves and outcasts, bankrupts and the abandoned; set her asking for the first time, who was the man with dreadful countenance inside the coach? A previously disregarded horror of a man. She went trembling to the admiral, though his health was delicate, his temper excitable. It was, she considered, an occasion for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... west, and saw a sunset that from the excitable condition of their minds seemed to reflect the scenes recently enacted, and to portend those in prospect now for years to come. Lines of light and broken columns of cloud had ranged themselves across the western arch of the sky, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... highly excitable audience last night, but they certainly did not comprehend—internally and intellectually comprehend—"The Chimes" as a London audience do. I am quite sure of it. I very much doubt the Irish capacity of receiving the pathetic; but of their quickness as to the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... turbulent bands of Indians in the valley of the Minnesota. He was a man of marked ability and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota nation. Yet withal, Shakpe was a petty thief, had a "forked tongue," a violent temper, was excitable, and vindictive in his revenge. These characteristics led him to the scaffold. He was hanged at Fort Snelling, in 1863 for participation in the bloody massacre of '62. He and his followers were so noted for their deception and treachery, that Mr. Pond doubted their sincerity and ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to brush his ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to her room she sat down and penned a farewell letter to Edward Springrove, as little able as any other excitable and brimming young woman of nineteen to feel that the wisest and only dignified course at that juncture was to do nothing at all. She told him that, to her painful surprise, she had learnt that his engagement to another woman was a matter ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... medical art of the Middle Ages attached peculiar virtues, will not be inclined to dispute the powerful and, as it were, systematic effect which certain drugs produce on the imagination of patients with excitable and nervous temperaments. ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... naturally restless, excitable, and untutored in the art of calming the agitation of her mind by active employment, she could do nothing but wander in and out of her aunt's apartment; stand at the window watching for the postman, beating the devil's tattoo upon the panes; ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... he sailed. I suspect that he has now told a falsehood as to these matters. I sent my clerk to Southampton, for it is there he said that he was put on shore; we shall see: the man himself is detained in close custody. I hear that his manner is strange and excitable; but that he preserves silence as much as possible. It is generally believed that he is a bad character, perhaps a returned convict, and that this is the true reason why he so long delayed giving evidence, and has been since so reluctant ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... prohibit melancholy tunes or words, and encourage nothing but cheerful music and senseless words, deprecating the effect of sadder strains upon the slaves, whose peculiar musical sensibility might be expected to make them especially excitable by any songs of a plaintive character, and having any reference to their particular hardships. If it is true, I think it a judicious precaution enough—these poor slaves are just the sort of people over whom a popular musical appeal to their feelings and passions ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Rugg's neighbors were out with lanterns trying to discover the cause of a heavy jarring that had begun to disturb them in bad weather, the excitable gentleman, who had not been seen since his Concord visit, came whirling along the pavement in his carriage, his daughter beside him, his black horse plunging on in spite of his efforts to stop him. The lanterns that for ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... as you please so far as I am concerned," he said in a low tone, "but I warn you that you are taking big risks. Allie is nervous and excitable at any time, and to-night she is close to hysterics, and she won't get over the shock of even a simple operation in a hurry, especially if he is fool enough to attempt it without ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... originality, a fund of ideas, courage, initiative, imagination, that feeling of capacity for responsibility and enterprise which is like love of adventure, judgment, nerve and character. She should not be too excitable and yet she ought to be keen. She should not be easily disturbed and she ought to be a steady worker. Above all, she requires to be able to deal with people, both customers ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... there was any other special resemblance. I do not remember my father myself: he died when I was eight years old. But I am told I am like him in face. He was tall (five feet ten inches) and a large man, very popular, and very excitable in his cases, so that I am told that Counsel against him used to urge him, out of friendship, not to get so agitated. A connection of mine who knew him well, went over to hear Charles Dickens read the Trial Scene, to see if he at all imitated him in voice or manner, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... substance, was the ground taken by Sharpe, who, as a slave, had always been a favorite both with his master and others. This was the commencement of the great insurrection. Its leader had not counted upon the excitable spirit of the slaves when once aroused. Holding as sacred the property of his master, he believed his followers would do the same, until the light of burning barns and out-houses revealed the mischief which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... brightness in her—a still and scattered radiance—which was quite distinct from what is called animation. Rather tall than short, fine slender erect, with an airy lightness of hand and foot, she yet gave no impression of quick movement, of abundant chatter, of excitable nerves and irrepressible life—no hint of arriving at her typical American grace in the most usual way. She was pretty without emphasis and as might almost have been said without point, and your fancy that a little stiffness would have improved her was at ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... the Iconoclasts, which distracted the Church for more than one hundred years, under Leo III., the Isaurian, and his immediate successors. Such were the extravagances of superstition to which the image-worship had led the excitable Orientals, that, if Leo had been a wise and temperate reformer, he might have done much good in checking its excesses; but he was himself an ignorant, merciless barbarian. The persecution by which he sought to exterminate the sacred pictures of the Madonna, and the cruelties ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... nerves were in a very excitable state, it was thought best that she should remain a few weeks under the superintendence of his daughter, Mrs. Gibbons, before she went to the home provided for her. She was slightly unsettled at times, but was disposed to be industrious and cheerful. Having earned a little money by her needle, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... and actresses, to go about to restaurants in taxicabs. But what if the money that paid for the taxicabs were needed for Ted's winter shirts and Margar's new crib? What if the actors were only rather stupid and excitable, rather selfish and ignorant men and women, to whom homes and children, gardens and ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... those gifted for real talk! There are fine merry fellows, full of mirth and shrewdly minted observation, who will not abide by one topic, who must always be lashing out upon some new byroad, snatching at every bush they pass. They are too excitable, too ungoverned for the joys of patient intercourse. Talk is so solemn a rite it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety and forbearance. What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the thread of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping! ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... turpentine." There were on board, as part of the deck load, thirty or forty barrels of "spirits." In a very few moments, a bale of cotton was ripped open, a barrel tapped, and buckets full of the saturated material passed down into the fire-room. The result exceeded our expectations. The chief engineer, an excitable little Frenchman from Charleston, very soon made his appearance on the bridge, his eyes sparkling with triumph, and reported a full head of steam. Curious to see the effect upon our speed, I directed ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... they don't, we must. We don't want their bomb-throwers crawling over here through a hay-field. Let us encourage them by every means in our power. It might almost be worth our while to send them a message. Walk along the trench, Bobby, and see that no excitable ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's! ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... alacrity, and prove that their BELIEF in honest doctrines is a very different thing from their daily PRACTICE of the same. They join with vigor in the shoutings, and their "amens" drown all others, while their excitable natures, worked upon by the wild eloquence of the backwoods' preacher, seem to give evidence of a firm desire to lead Christian lives, and the spectator is often deceived by their apparent earnestness and sincerity. Such ideas are, however, quickly dispelled by a visit to a shanty-boat, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... their intuitive perception of truths which we had deemed far above their comprehension. Madelon's precocity was of quite another order. In her quick, impulsive, energetic little mind there was much that was sensitive and excitable, little that was morbid or unhealthy. One might see that, with her, action would always willingly take the place of reflection; that her impulses would have the strength of inspirations; that she would be more ready to receive ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... Parish succeeded in preventing the permanent settlement of her sister's husband as minister. She seems to have the idea that all that party are emissaries of Satan. I do not wonder her little girl should be so nervous and excitable, being the child of such a nervous, high-strung woman. But I am going to see them again this afternoon; will you go ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... a scramble to get out of the way. Eskiwin, however, was an exception. He was a man of quiet promptitude. Deliberately dropping his pipe, he rose and saddled his horse, while his more excitable comrades were struggling hurriedly, and therefore slowly, with the buckles of their harness. Ali Bobo was not less cool, though more active. Lancey chanced to break ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... of wood smoke, and tobacco smoke, and dogs; the easy scorn of her old friends on her husband's part that so soon alienated her from them; the drink that she quickly learned to regard with uneasiness and distrust. It was not that Jerry ever got really intoxicated, but he got ugly, excitable, irritable, even though quite in control of his ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... "I don't mind a rattling window. Let's change rooms. Nonsense! Why should you make excuses to me? Don't I know how easily trifles upset those excitable nerves of yours? Now the doctor has quieted my mind about my poor little Neelie, I begin to feel the journey; and I'll answer for sleeping anywhere till to-morrow comes." He took up his traveling-bag. "We must be quick about it," he added, pointing to his candle. "They haven't ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... nests are rarely seen. The explanation of this phenomenon appears to be the fact that the nest is well concealed high up in a tree. Moreover, the pie, possessing a powerful beak which commands respect, is not obliged constantly to defend its home after the manner of small or excitable birds, and ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... with boards into a "form," after which concrete was to be mixed and poured in, and some iron rods set to fasten the engine to—an engine bed, no less. It was not so urgent but that it might have been conducted with far less excitement, but what are you to do when you are naturally excitable, love to make a great noise, and feel that things are going forward whether they are or not? Plainly this particular individual loved noise and a great stir. So eager was he to have done with it, no matter what it was or where, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... regard to the theory which connects the desire for whipping with the way in which animals make love, where blows or pressure on the hindquarters are almost a necessary preliminary to pleasure, have you ever noticed the way in which stags behave? Their does seem as timid as the males are excitable, and the blows inflicted on them by the horns of their mates to reduce them to submission must be, I should think, an exact equivalent to being beaten with ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis |
