"Fidgety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from a book called The Grandeur that was Rome, by Mr. J. C. Stobart, of the English Cambridge. One greatest trouble about historical study is, that it allows you to see no great trends, but hides under the record of innumerable fidgety details the real meanings of things. Mr. Stobart, with a gift of his own for taking large views, sees this clearly, and goes about to remedy it; he does not wander with you through the dark of the undergrowth, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... this— I'm too fidgety!" declared Grace. "I'm going to sit up a little while, and read. I'm going to eat a chocolate, too. I'll give you some, Mollie, if you like. I bought a ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... will give the baby his humming top to play with before he gets home—and whether his mother will have apple dumplings for dinner? And then he explores his Sunday pocket for the absent string and marble, and then his little toes get so fidgety that he can't stand it, and he says out loud, "hi—ho—hum!" and then he gets a very red ear from his father, for disturbing his comfortable nap in particular, and the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... of it; but Nancy knows it all, and away you must go. I wish you were off; I'm getting fidgety about it, although I cannot bear to lose you; so good-bye at once, Peter, and God bless you! I hope we ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... he is—he is awfu' fwightened of Pole Star, and he sha'n't wide him. Now, G'eased Lightning, he'll do anything for me, and so what I say is this—let Orion wide him, and if he begins to dance about and get sort of fidgety, why, I'll stwoke him down. You know I could pwactice widing a little on ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... to struggle on a little farther, as it was possible that I might be close to some farm on the Serpentine; but it was difficult to move along. Tip seemed to be getting tired of this slow progress; he grew fidgety, and I fancied he had formed the base resolution of leaving me to myself. Suddenly he started off upon our traces, and I was alone without ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... his hand.—"Gammon," said he, "just cast your eye over this, will you? Really, we must look after Titmouse, or, by Jove! he'll be gone!" Mr. Gammon took the letter rather eagerly, read deliberately through it, and then looked up at his fidgety partner, who stood ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... winds sharp as a hundred needle-points. The good hunchback, well muffled up in his mantle, failed not to come, and trotted up and down to keep himself warm while waiting for the appointed hour. Towards midnight he was half frozen, as fidgety as thirty-two devils caught in a stole, and was about to give up his happiness, when a feeble light passed by the cracks of the window and came down towards ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... her handkerchief, but if she held her handkerchief to her eyes perhaps they would not be able to come out at all. It occurred to him that possibly she was sorry she had said, wicked things about father, and to comfort her, for it made him feel fidgety to see her cry, he whispered to her that he would not tell. But she stared at him hopelessly through her red eyelids, and he felt that he had not said the right thing. She called him her poor boy, and yet it appeared ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... endeavored to hide their agitation by laughing and talking quietly, and some affected to consider their nearest companion as more sure than themselves. Even Hamilton was not free from a little nervousness, and though he talked away to Vernon Digby, who was sitting by him, he cast more than one fidgety glance at the red-covered table, and perceptibly changed color when the class-room door opened to allow the long train of ladies and gentlemen to enter, and closed after Dr. Wilkinson, and a few of his particular friends, among whom ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... transparent, as if Vere's eyes would be able to see all that she must hide if they were together in the evening. And she resolved to go away. She made some excuse—that she wished for a little change, that she was fidgety and felt the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... tendency of their whole existence. Naturally, therefore, the provisions of Mrs. Errington's will surprised the world. Old gentlemen in Clubs stared upon the number of the Illustrated London News which announced the disposal of her money as they might have stared upon the head of Medusa. The fidgety seemed turned to stone as they read. The thoughtless gaped. As for the thoughtful, this will drove them to deep meditation, and set them walking in a maze of surmises, from which they found no outlet. One or two, religiously inclined, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... belonging to the Parliament House above thirty years ago as retained the ancient Scottish custom of a meridian, as it was called, or noontide dram of spirits. If their proceedings were watched, they might be seen to turn fidgety about the hour of noon, and exchange looks with each other from their separate desks, till at length some one of formal and dignified presence assumed the honour of leading the band, when away they went, threading the crowd like a string of wild fowl, crossed the square or close, and following ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... bridle of the straying horse over his arm, and the animal trotted obediently by the side of the fidgety little Cossacks. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... her social chatter, while laying the cloth; but it was always in the most cursory and trivial way, such as "Miss March having begged that the children might be kept quiet—Mrs. Tod hoped their noise didn't disturb ME? but Mr. March was such a very fidgety gentleman—so particular in his dress, too—Why, Miss March had to iron his cravats with her own hands. Besides, if there was a pin awry in her dress he did make such a fuss—and, really, such an active, busy young lady ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... in this world; and even the comforting effect of ROBINSON CRUSOE wore off, after Penelope left me. I got fidgety again, and resolved on making a survey of the grounds before the rain came. Instead of taking the footman, whose nose was human, and therefore useless in any emergency, I took the bloodhound with me. HIS nose for a stranger was to be depended on. We went all ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... grow fidgety at Mildmay's long stay below, I fancy," remarked Lethbridge. "But he need not; Mildmay is a sailor, and a navy man at that; and he may be trusted to take care of himself. He is very thorough in his methods, and you may depend ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... "Yes, yes, Father, and play checkers with you too, like as not!" They explained to Betsy: "Your Uncle Henry is just daft on being read aloud to when he's got something to do in the evening, and when he hasn't he's as fidgety as a broody hen if he can't play checkers. Ann hates checkers and I haven't got ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... awful commotion in the captain's room; the fitful and violent soliloquies; the stamping of the captain up and down the floor; and the contusions, palpably, suffered by her furniture. The captain's temper was not very pleasant that evening, and he was fidgety and feverish besides, expecting every moment a note from town to apprise ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the greatest care of you, Mrs. Leigh," said Jack, heartily, grateful for a re-assuring nod from Bluebell in recognition of his contrite gallantry. The mare, tired of waiting, became fidgety to be off. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... they found how her eagerness to attract the attention of some one mightier made her unable to fix her thoughts on the friendly remarks that they were taking pains to make. In society she was absent-minded, fidgety, obviously on the look-out for a chance of drawing the biggest fish into her little net; but, wealthy as she was, she was not wealthy enough in an age of millionnaires, and not once during the whole of her career was a big fish simple enough to ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... and carried a supply of provisions on a pack mule. The most conspicuous object of their pack was a keg labelled "dynamite." When the clerk placed this dangerous thing near the fire and sat on it, I became fidgety, but was reassured when subsequently I saw him draw the stopper and fill a bottle labelled "Old Crow" from it. They advised me to go prospecting and gave me much valuable information and kindly offered to sell me a prospecting outfit, "for cash," at ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... do, yet how dangerous, how terribly dangerous, with Victoria perhaps peeping from one of the tiny windows at the women's corner of the house, which looked on the court! They could not see her there, but she could see them, and if she were tired of travelling and dancing attendance on a fidgety invalid—if she repented her promise to keep the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... any class or type; there is no democracy of hands. Some hands tell me that they do everything with the maximum of bustle and noise. Other hands are fidgety and unadvised, with nervous, fussy fingers which indicate a nature sensitive to the little pricks of daily life. Sometimes I recognize with foreboding the kindly but stupid hand of one who tells with many words news that is no news. I have met a bishop with a jocose ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... right, than which nothing in the world could have been more cheerless, unless it was sitting at Mrs. Rathbawne's left. But the good lady's habitual complacency was plainly in abeyance, her customary volubility replaced by a fidgety reserve. The dinner, as a social achievement, was a distinct failure, save in so far as Mrs. Wynyard and Colonel Broadcastle were concerned. Several months before, Mrs. Wynyard had frankly announced that she had designs upon the Colonel. Latterly, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his dejeuner, that he was regarded as likely to make away with St Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... had fallen while she talked into something that might have been taken for a conscious temporary submission to her; he had uncrossed his fidgety legs and, thrusting them out with the feet together, sat looking very hard before him, his chin sunk on his breast and his hands, clasped as they met, rapidly twirling their thumbs. So he remained for a time that might have given his young friend the sense ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... fidgety again and began opening a drawer in the chest. Lavretsky sat still without ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... "To think what ye've been through—yere husband near to dyin' afore yere eyes, and ye a-reskin' yere own life to save him—so Tom tells me. When Tom goes out a-fightin' red-skins I'm that fidgety I can't set still. I wouldn't let him know what I feel fer the world. But well ye know the pain of it, who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... me as a fidgety, emphatic, feather-edged sort of bird; the two white quills in its tail which flash out so suddenly on every movement seem to stamp in this impression. My junco was a little nervous at first and showed her white quills, ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... would mean for some, and perhaps all of them, the last great passage to the unknown or oblivion; the bated whispers in which they spoke; even Sir Henry's continuous and thoughtful examination of his woodcutter's axe and the fidgety way in which Good kept polishing his eyeglass, all told the same tale of nerves stretched pretty nigh to breaking-point. Only Umslopogaas, leaning as usual upon Inkosi-kaas and taking an occasional pinch of snuff, was to all appearance perfectly and completely ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... closely, and at last took a mouthful, after which they proceeded to eat greedily, their new masters patting their necks and talking to them while they did so. Then their saddles and bridles were put on, and they were led out of the stable and along the streets. At first they were very fidgety and wild at the unaccustomed sights and sounds, but their fear gradually subsided, and by the time they were well in the country ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... must have shaken its wings over me as I began it; and if it will but sit on the same spray while I go on towards the end, I shall rejoice exactly four-fold. The third paper went to Mr. Dilke to-day, and I was so fidgety about getting it away (and it seemed to cling to my writing case with both its hands), that I would not do any writing, even as little as this note, until it was quite gone out of sight. You know it is possible that he, the editor, may not please to have the fourth paper; but ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... answered the landlord. "I remember him well. Came in about five o 'clock in the afternoon of the 4th just after the London train arrived—and booked a room. He told me he expected to meet a gentleman from New York, and was very fidgety about fixing it up to go off in the tender to the Araconda when she came into the Bay. However, I found out for him that she wouldn't be in until next evening, so of course he settled down to wait. Very quiet, ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... Payne, "it's like anchoring to a thought. Thought is a fidgety thing, restless, perverse. It anchors itself very easily on to a grievance, or an unpleasant incident, or a squabble. Don't you know the misery of being jerked back, time after time, by an unpleasant thought? ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a dynasty! That alters the case. Perhaps he's a young man about town. There are young men about town, I believe, who have addresses at clubs and libraries, and sleep on doorsteps, or in the Park. Well, Hennessey, I see you are getting fidgety. You had better be off. Buy me some roses for my room on your way home. I'm expectin' someone to have tea with the poor victim of ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... them I made some ointment of animal fat and flowers of sulphur, extracted with difficulty from some man's hoard, and told them how to apply it to some of the worst cases. The horse, being unused to a girth, became fidgety as it was being saddled, creating a STAMPEDE among the crowd, and the mago would not touch it again. They are as much afraid of their gentle mares as if they were panthers. All the children followed me for a considerable distance, and a good ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... turn caught the attention of even the fidgety Peter. He looked at his employer and wondered ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the Fieldhead pew in Briarfield Church appeared peopled with a prim, trim, fidgety, elderly gentleman, who shifted his spectacles, and changed his position every three minutes; a patient, placid-looking elderly lady in brown satin; and two pattern young ladies, in pattern attire, with pattern deportment. Shirley had the air of a black swan or a white crow in the midst ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... see there's a new day," chuckled Mr. Dexter, his pale blue eyes twinkling. "And how do you find your Uncle Jase? Not what you'd call a fidgety man, eh? He ain't never stirred up about nothing, Jase ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... now as though they had been but yesterday. It was afternoon, in the glorious summer, and he had gone to Hester's home. Only the day before Hester had promised to be his wife, and he remembered how fidgety and uneasy and yet wondrously happy he was as he sat out on the big white veranda, waiting for her to put on her pink muslin dress, which went go well with the gold of her hair and the blue of her eyes. And as he sat there, Hester's maltese pet came up the steps, bringing in its jaws a ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... began to glint in a sky which was a mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus became fidgety ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... see the paper going beneath the master's eye, and made a few nervous grimaces. Radley read the correspondence pitilessly; and, with his hard mouth unrelaxed, turned first on Doe, as though sizing him up, and then on me. He stared at my face till I felt fidgety, and my mind, which always in moments of excitement ran down most ridiculous avenues, framed the sentence: "Don't stare, because it's rude," at which involuntary thought I scarcely restrained a nervous titter. After this ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... limits, and had a run nearly every day. Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidgety watch upon his movements; but evidently the only son's will ruled, and he was more than faithful to his compact with Rose. She was able to see this from her commanding window, and to hear it from Bruce's mouth; and day by day her heart warmed towards Bruce's master. Many were ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... sir," he answers, and walks solemnly away. We begin to grow fidgety. Fifteen minutes since the soup, and no fish yet. Bunker swears he'll blow the head-waiter up in another minute. Just as he is quite ready for this explosion the fish arrives. All hail! I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... He seemed hurried and fidgety in his manner; which rather surprised me, as I knew he was a seasoned hand in these matters, and it contrasted unfavourably with the calm bearing of his antagonist, who by this time had thrown his hat on the ground, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... five o'clock!" She jumped up in pretended dismay. "And I promised Jim faithfully I'd be back by half-past four. He gets fidgety when I'm out of his sight for long—thinks I'm ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... will be said, old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and disagreeable. If you come to that, they are also avaricious. But these are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all, fretfulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some excuse—not, indeed, a complete one, but one that may possibly pass muster: they ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "O, Lord! these fidgety women!" exclaimed Esq. Camford, impatiently. "I hope you are not one of the sort, are you, Miss Orville? But come into the parlor here, while I go up and rouse ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... anxious, for the houses about there were what the papers call palatial—a word we have not much use for in our parts. I just stopped on the other side of the street and took a general survey before I attempted to go in, feeling more and more fidgety every minute, for that house just took me down with its sumptuousness. Such great windows, with one monstrous pane in a sash, and lace and silk and tassels shining through! The front was four stories high and ended off ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... in embarrassment and motioned to a prim, thin-faced woman in the front room who came forward with fidgety shyness, begging the gentlemen to forgive her if she had done wrong, but there was something on her conscience and she ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... briskly-comical kindness of expression in his face, which it is not easy to contemplate for the first time without smiling at him. He is tall and stout, always wears very tight trousers, and generally keeps his wristbands turned up over the cuffs of his coat. All his movements are quick and fidgety. He appears to walk principally on his toes, and seems always on the point of beginning to dance, or jump, or run whenever he moves about, either in or out of doors. When he speaks he has an odd habit of ducking his head suddenly, and looking at the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... table alongside, she had not left it long. The footman departed, saying, in a magnificent undertone, that "her ladyship" should be informed, and left our hero to enjoy his sensations. Being one of those people whom suspense of any sort makes fidgety, he employed himself in looking at the pictures and china, even going so far as to walk to a pair of very heavy blue velvet curtains that apparently communicated with another room, and peep through them at a ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... am going for a run round the island. It makes me fidgety to sit all day with nothing to do, and I am always contented when I am under sail. As I shan't have time to come in tomorrow morning, for you know we start at nine, I thought that I would drop in this morning, even if the ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... toughest fibre, and she realised long before he did that the Oxford life as he was bent on leading it must end for him in premature breakdown. But, as always happens, neither her remonstrances, nor Mr. Grey's common-sense, nor Langham's fidgety protests had any effect on the young enthusiast to whom self-slaughter came so easy. During the latter half of his third year of teaching he was continually being sent away by the doctors, and coming ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... requested Malignon to hand her a white cashmere burnous that was hanging from the handle of a window fastening. Malignon rose to wrap the burnous round her shoulders, and they began chatting familiarly on matters which had little interest for Helene. Feeling fidgety, fearing that Pauline might unwittingly knock the children down, she therefore stepped into the garden, leaving Juliette and the young man to wrangle over some new fashion in bonnets which apparently deeply ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... creases from the nose to the corners of the mouth like other people, who experienced difficulty in eating because the food would somehow get between his gums and his cheek, who slept a great deal but was excessively fidgety while awake, who seemed to hear what was said to him a long time after it was uttered, as if the sense had to travel miles by labyrinthine passages to his brain, and who talked very, very slowly in a ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the train that comes right on through [he wrote]. Don't take the one that goes to Woods Hole. Zoeth is so fidgety and nervous for fear you will make a mistake that he keeps me on pins and needles. Isaiah ain't much better. He swept out the setting-room twice last week and if he don't roast the cat instead of the chicken he is calculating ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... funny that we let the faults and mannerisms of other people affect us to such an extent. They are nothing to us, and yet a man can work himself into a perfect frenzy of temper merely by looking at or talking to another who has a fidgety way of moving about, a dainty manner of using his hands, or a general demean—or that is delicate and ladylike. Men like what the magazines call "a red-blooded, two-fisted, he-man." But the world is big enough to accommodate us all whether the blood in our veins ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... reviewed an unwieldy past, That like a feasted Mammoth, leisured and slow, Turned its back on their warped bones. Even thus, Momentous with reproach, her grave regard Made me feel mean, cashiered of rank and right, My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbed And all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff, Novel and fevering hallucinations Invaded my attention. So daylight When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... a model of sanity, When with the Holiday-seeker compared. Fidgety folly, and fussy inanity. These be the figments by which we are snared. Soon as you're drawn from your own cosy drawing-room, Far over flood, field, or foam—for your sins— Then, when your breast makes for vulturine gnawing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... I said, he went. But he wasn't much better on the train than he had been in the station. He was as nervous and fidgety as a witch, and he acted as if he did so wish it would be over and over quick. But at the junction—at the junction a funny thing happened. He put me on the train, just as Mother had done, and spoke to ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... a wife, and Mrs. Proudie had given him nothing. Immediately after breakfast Mr. Robarts escaped to the Dragon of Wantly, partly because he had had enough of the matutinal Mrs. Proudie, and partly also in order that he might hurry his friends there. He was already becoming fidgety about the time, as Harold Smith had been on the preceding evening, and he did not give Mrs. Smith credit for much punctuality. When he arrived at the inn he asked if they had done breakfast, and was immediately told that not one of them was yet ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... feet. The bed was in the central part of the ward, near a window. For a moment the poor girl remained on it with her eyes closed, as though exhausted by being moved about so much. Then it became necessary that Pierre should be readmitted, for she grew very fidgety, saying that there were things which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... quality observable in the countess-dowager, apart from her great breadth, was her restlessness. She seemed never still for an instant; her legs had a fidgety, nervous movement in them, and in moments of excitement, which were not infrequent, she was given to executing a sort of war-dance. Old she was not; but her peculiar graces of person, her rotund form, her badly-made front of flaxen ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... appearance of truth in this statement; Mr. McSnagley's voice had a hollow resonant sound, and his eyes were nervous and fidgety. He had an odd trick, too, of occasionally stopping in the middle of a sentence, and listening as though he heard some distant sound. These things, which Mrs. Morpher recalled afterwards, did not, in the undercurrent of uneasiness about Aristides which she felt ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... everybody and everything, but unconscious all the time that he was doing so. He would not have been able in fact, to answer Diogenes a word, had not that worthy inquired of him what he had seen, when he presently drew in his head and returned to his fidgety ramblings about the room. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... quarter to eight Thea was dressed and waiting in the boarding-house parlor. She was nervous and fidgety and found it difficult to sit still on the hard, convex upholstery of the chairs. She tried them one after another, moving about the dimly lighted, musty room, where the gas always leaked gently and sang in the burners. There was no one in the ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... had had a chance to get used to her face being so long and sort of pointed, and her eyes long too, and her black eyebrows running back almost into her hair, he liked every bit of her face. It looked so different from anybody else's. He noticed with an inward smile that she was fidgety under Mr. Bayweather's historical talk. He was the only person with any patience in that whole bunch. But at what a price had ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... writer has seen a grouse drum, appearing to strike its wings together over its back. But there is much difference of opinion on the subject, and young observers may settle the question for themselves. When preparing to drum he seems fidgety and nervous and his sides are inflated. Letting his wings droop, he flaps them so fast that they make one continuous humming sound. In this peculiar way he calls his mate, and while he is still drumming, the hen bird may appear, coming slyly ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... I'd go if he would bring me around here to let you know what had become of me, and so he did. Now, good-by, and I'll be sure to be present at the next meeting. I have to hurry because he'll get fidgety." ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... lonesome, nervous little lady, and at these times only a little more fidgety than ever. Sometimes she cried because of Kenneth, in her room at night, and Ella braced her with kindly, unsympathetic, well-meant, uncomprehending remarks, and made very light of his weakness; but Emily walked her own room nervously, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... population, especially the upper classes. Going anywhere in broad daylight was dangerous, even going to the Baths of Titus from the Esquiline was risky. Anyone like Falco was certain to feel safer indoors. And the tense uncertainty of those twenty-four days made everybody restless, feverish, fidgety and morose: civil war between Severus and Pescennius Niger, lord of the East, was inevitable. How Clodius Albinus, in control of Gaul, Spain and Britain, would act, was problematical. We were all keyed-up, apprehensive ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... time, my dear," said Manvers kindly. And she did, by tumbling into his arms. Here, then, was a situation for the student of Manners; a brisk discharge of stones from an advancing line of skirmishers, a strictly impartial crowd of sightseers, a fidgety horse, and himself embarrassed by a ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... I hope mamma will come!" said Constance with a comical fidgety shake of herself;—"when I think of those greenhouses I lose my self-command. And the park!—Fleda, it's the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life; and it's all that delightful man's doing; only he won't have a geometric flower-garden, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... legate of Bithynia: the extant official correspondence between him and the Emperor during this governorship shows him still unchanged; upright and conscientious, but irresolute, pedantic, and totally unable to think and act for himself in any unusual circumstances. The contrast between Pliny's fidgety indecision and the quiet strength and inexhaustible patience of Trajan, though scarcely what Pliny meant to bring out, is the first and last impression conveyed to us by this curious correspondence. The nine books of his private ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... scale) touched lightly in its exploratory tour upon Dr. Surtaine's domed forehead. Following it thus far, the visitor's gaze rested. Dr. Surtaine brushed off the insect. He could not brush off the regard. Under it and his caller's continued silence he grew fidgety. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... though we had better than a tail hold, we were very ready to let go. But while there were plenty of good shots among us, our horses had now become wary, and could not, when free from ropes, be induced to approach within twenty yards of the bear, and they were so fidgety that accurate aim was impossible. We who had ropes on the old bear begged the boys to get down and take it afoot, but they were not disposed to listen to our reasons, and blazed away from rearing horses, not one shot in ten taking effect. There was no telling how long this random shooting ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... were reluctant to stay there, and it was nervous work on the black nights when the wind, dismal and weird, moaned through the encompassing forest, every shadow a crouching Bolshevik. Often the order came through to the main village to "stand to," because some fidgety sentinel in Upper Toulgas had seen battalions, conjured by the black night. So it was determined to burn the upper village and a guard was thrown around it, for we feared word would be passed and the Bolos would try to prevent us from accomplishing our purpose. The ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... you're a nuisance," she told him, as she accepted his aid with the fidgety impatience of a restless boy. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Dennis,' said Marshall, who was evidently fidgety. 'The room is rather warm. There's nothing in Vincent which irritates me more than those bits of poetry with which ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... are too deep for me, my good friend. All I know is that she is one of this new school, whom I take the liberty to call 'THE FIDGETY CHRISTIANS.' They cannot let their poor souls alone a minute; and they pester one day and night with the millennium; as if we shall not all be dead long before that. But the worst is, they apply the language ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... come to feel that being carried to hounds without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit altogether mostly all ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... a glass over a bargain) to call him by it, and a blow from the vermicelli maker's fist sent him headlong into a gutter in the Rue Oblin. He could think of nothing else when his children were concerned; his love for them made him fidgety and anxious; and this was so well known, that one day a competitor, who wished to get rid of him to secure the field to himself, told Goriot that Delphine had just been knocked down by a cab. The vermicelli maker turned ghastly pale, left the Exchange at once, and did not return for ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... to rake the boulevard: there are no gusts to buffet you at corners: there are no draughts in the streets. The flow of sweet fresh air is rich and steady, but it is never stirred. A mile away you may see dust flying; storm and tempest savage the Pyrenees: upon the gentlest day fidgety puffs fret Biarritz, as puppies plague an old hound. But Pau is sanctuary. Once in a long, long while some errant blast blunders into the town. Then, for a second of time, the place is Bedlam. The uncaught shutters ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... acknowledgment to the fact that poor little, unintellectual Flossy was much more interested than herself. She gave herself up to an old and favorite employment of hers, that of looking at faces and studying them, when a sudden hush that seemed to be settling over the hither to fidgety audience arrested her attention. ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... James, who did not relish interruption, and was a thought fidgety in his natural temper, had laid down the paper on the table, snuffed the candle, and raised his spectacles on his brow. But I said to him, "Excuse freedoms, James, and be so good as resume your discourse." Then wishing to smooth him down, I added, by way ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... said Maria, desperately. "People are as they are brought up. My mother don't care for such fidgety notions. I speak to please her, and that ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... his old manner, convinced, apparently, that Candor must be postponed to a better age of the world. But the quarrel rankled in Shelldrake's mind, and especially in that of his wife. I could see by her looks and little fidgety ways that his further stay would be very uncomfortable. Abel Mallory, finding himself gaining in weight and improving in color, had no thought of returning. The day previous, as I afterwards learned, he had discovered Perkins Brown's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... of you, Sir George, to break up your little holiday for the sake of an anxious, fidgety ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... book as he passed. Mattie followed him out of the door and helped him to lift the trunk into the back of the sleigh. When it was in place they stood side by side on the door-step, watching Daniel Byrne plunge off behind his fidgety horse. ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... taking the voyage to restore his shattered nerves. From the first the captain disliked Henry. He was utterly unused to the sea and was nervous and fidgety in the extreme. He complained that at sea his genius had not a sufficient degree of latitude. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... Cayhill, with the same air of wisdom. "A nice-minded young man stays away, if he sees that his feelings are not returned, or if he has no position to offer.—And another thing I'll tell you, Joan, though you do think yourself so clever. You don't need to worry if Ephie is odd and fidgety sometimes just now. At her age, it's only to be expected. You know very well what I mean. All girls go through the same thing. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... nest was shallow, only one could work at a time; and if Petro came back with his plaster before Eve had patted the last of hers into place, she would squeak at him in a fidgety though not fretful voice, as if saying, "Now, don't get in my way and bother me, dear." So he would have to fly about while he waited for her to go. The minute she was ready to be off, he would be slipping into her place; and this time she would give ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... isn't in the least fidgety," replied the doctor. "That is quite another thing. Some of the most nervous people I know have absolute quiet of manner. Mrs. Little's nervous system has been for several years under a terrible strain. When I was first called to her, I thought her trouble and suffering would kill ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... did not come home till nearly five o'clock and the four solemn young people on the front porch were getting decidedly fidgety before his roadster appeared at the curb and he jumped out and hurried up the walk. He said "Hello" to the four as he passed them and he was surprised, therefore, when he turned from his desk to see them enter the office and ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... to Mr. Chandler," she said a little disconsolately. "The very last words he said to me last night was that he'd be there at ten o'clock. I got quite fidgety as the time went on ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... doubted. If this peculiarity had been troublesome in the early stages of our acquaintance, it was doubly so when we met again, after the lapse of some years. For one thing, the dear ladies were older, and fidgety, foolish little weaknesses of this kind sometimes increase with years. Then I was older also, and if they had doubted their own powers of entertainment when I was a child, they would still less believe ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was added in a whisper, for if there was any one that Roy really disliked, it was his tutor's wife. She was a kind-hearted woman, but fidgety and fussy to the last degree, and was always in a bustle. Having no children, she expended all her energies on the parish, and there was not a domestic detail in any village home that escaped her eye. She had spoken sharply to the boys ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... Charmion came to my room, and we sat together by the fire and talked for three solid hours. As a rule, I get fidgety in the evening when talk is the only amusement, but I can sit and listen to Charmion for as long as she chooses to go on. She is—interesting! She says things in an interesting way, and has interesting things to say. I have met extraordinarily clever and well-informed ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... proving him a laggard in his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon his reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself to a friend, it could not be done at that sacrifice. After a minute or two of fidgety waiting for the song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no longer, and, cautiously hazarding a glimpse of his profile beyond the edge of the flat, he called in a hurried whisper: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo'se! Massa Griffif ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... waiting dragged slowly by. The boys became fidgety and restless. They imagined that something ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... the bad," he said to Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan. "He's nervous, he's fidgety, he talks in his sleep. There's ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... the idle boys in the neighborhood collected around the pony-chaise, expressing, in the occult language of slang, their high enjoyment and appreciation at the appearance of "Ariel" in her man's jacket and hat. The pony was fidgety—he felt the influence of the popular uproar. His driver sat, whip in hand, magnificently impenetrable to the gibes and jests that were flying around her. I said "Good-morning" on getting into the chaise. Ariel only said "Gee up!" and started ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... her father was more than usually nervous and fidgety, and became alarmed lest there should be some sudden money difficulty, as any threat, however slight, of debt or involvement always made him ill. She sat down beside him, and putting her hand in his, as it rested on a table nervously fidgeting with ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... mind was of that flabby but fidgety kind which throws off ideas as a crab its shells, one after another—useless, imperfect moulds of itself. He came home to the mountain-hut in the first flush and triumph of authorship, bringing every newspaper-clipping in his pocket-book ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... be the Alderney cow or the poultry at the Home Farm, or a few fresh tiles on the roof of the pig-sty, which was decaying. A cart wanted a new pair of wheels or a shaft. One of the tenants wanted a new shed put up, but it did not seem necessary; the old one would do very well if people were not so fidgety. The wife or daughter of one of the cottage people was taking to drink and getting into bad ways. This or that farmer had had some sheep die. Another farmer had bought some new silver-mounted harness, and so on, through all ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... volcanoes. The fact that Lakalatcha had behind it a record of a century or more of good conduct did not weigh with her in the least. She was convinced that it would blow its head off the moment the Sylph got within range. She was fidgety, talkative, and continually concerned over the state of her complexion, inspecting it in the mirror of her bag at frequent intervals and using a powder-puff liberally to mitigate the pernicious effects of the tropic sun. But ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... now became fidgety, and he hastened down to the Khoja's door, at which he knocked, and entering, said, "Good-day, Khoja Effendi. May I ask you to be good enough to restore to me my nine hundred and ninety-nine ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... no going to see the Queen. That on the present occasion was done simply by Mr. Monk. But on the Wednesday morning his name appeared in the list of the new Cabinet as President of the Council. He was perhaps a little fidgety, a little too anxious to employ himself and to be employed, a little too desirous of immediate work;—but still he was happy and gracious to those around him. "I suppose you like that particular office," ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... for them. On the table was the gilt-edged china. Mrs. Grant didn't notice it immediately, till she saw her husband smiling at her over his teacup; then she felt fidgety, and couldn't eat. She was nervous, and kept wondering what was behind her, whether it would be a ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... this seldom happened once to any man—could hardly happen more than once to any man. He had hired a carriage for her, not thinking it fit that Lady Ongar should be taken to her new home in a cab; and when he was at the station, half an hour before the proper time, was very fidgety because it had not come. Ten minutes before eight he might have been seen standing at the entrance to the station looking out anxiously for the vehicle. The man was there, of course, in time, but Harry made himself angry because he could not get the carriage ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... self-poised attitude and demeanour in your everyday life. Avoid a tense, strained, nervous, fidgety manner and an over-anxious appearance. Be easy, self-possessed and dignified in your bearing. Be courteous, thoughtful and quiet. Mental exercise and Will-Culture will enable you to acquire the proper carriage and demeanour. Stop swinging your feet and moving your ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... of mistress of this house—women full of sense, and who, with right guidance, would have made him perfectly happy. And now he flies in our faces and asks the boy down. I have had an idea for some little time that he has had something on his mind; he has been more nervous and fidgety than usual, and several times he has seemed to be on the point of saying something, and then changed his mind. Of course, one can understand it all now. No wonder he was ashamed to look us in the face when he was ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her, as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... child. His innocence was more than virginal; his unworldliness simply inconceivable. He carried his heart on his sleeve, and invited you to observe what a soft, tender, and sensitive heart it was. He had the harmless vanity of a child who has a new frock on. He was fidgety and unhappy if anybody but himself was the centre of attraction; and guilelessly happy when he could talk and be admired and sympathized with. His conversation was nearly always about himself, or about the kings and princes and lofty personages who had graciously deigned to take ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... One morning the fidgety Sassenach swore He'd stand it no longer—he drew his claymore, And (this was, I think, in extremely bad taste) Divided ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... let's,' said Marjorie; 'Harry's in a fidgety mood and will be quarrelling with some one presently if he ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... nothing all day I often get fidgety, and I now fancy that Charlie or some of your family [are] ill. When you have time let me have a short note to say how you all are. I have had some fearful sickness; but what a strange mechanism ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... small poodle, the production of some unknown and disadvantageous cross with the true poodle. It has all the sagacity of the poodle, and will perform even more than his tricks. It is always in action; always fidgety; generally incapable of much affection, but inheriting much self-love and occasional ill temper; unmanageable by any one but its owner; eaten up with red mange; and frequently a nuisance to its master and a ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... youngest son was taken: Very rough and thick his hair was, Very round and red his face was, Very dusty was his jacket, Very fidgety his manner. And his overbearing sisters Called him names he disapproved of: Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,' Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.' And, so awful was the picture, In comparison the others Seemed, to one's bewildered ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... them not to be scared, inasmuch as I was an intimate acquaintance of the General, for whom I carried Cape Cod. On the left side of the kitchen there stood at a great deal table an aged maid whose mien was somewhat fidgety. This visible nervousness was increased with the labour necessary to prepare the ponderous pile of soft dough-nuts she worked upon; which, she said, when ready (though of little substance) were intended ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... on the tip-toe of anticipation and suppressed excitement throughout Thursday and Friday, hoping for news concerning the decision of the Tribunal. But when Friday passed without my receiving any tidings I commenced to get fidgety and anxious. My feelings were not assuaged by hearing volleys ring out every morning, followed by a death-like stillness. These reports appeared to stifle the cries and groans of the prisoners a little while. To me the sounds presaged serious news. Apparently there were several prisoners condemned ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... to welcome the farmer, and was shy and fidgety as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over his fat goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea, and his red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was laid at once for breakfast; and whilst M. Jerome and the princess strolled away to talk of blighted hopes, Russia, serfdom, wedlock, and the conflagration of the Kremlin, Penelope made the necessary preparation; and I, in my character of a fidgety old gentleman, first advised and then assisted her. I am afraid the young damsel had designs upon my heart, for she put several questions to me on the state of vassalage in England; and when I developed succinctly the principles and advantages of our free ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... attempted to listen, to what was going on, was doubtful in the extreme. But still, as a rule, church had a soothing effect on her, the quiet and restfulness, the monotony itself, seemed to calm her fidgety querulousness; possibly even the sensation of her Sunday clothes and the admiring glances of the little school-children helped to smooth her down ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the right sub-sector, almost completely levelling one of their communication trenches with heavy trench mortars during the preliminary bombardment, on account of which we had to stand-to, when back at our rest billets at Bailleulval. On another occasion we had a fidgety night owing to a gas alarm having been given. This however, proved but another case ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... bears from camp 323 degrees seven miles; a great deal of spinifex and abrupt creeks between camp and it, not a speck of gold visible but it appears to have undergone the action of fire; this is another day lost. Such detention makes me quite irritable and fidgety. ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... sit still—the hardest thing for some people to do; but I have noticed that you are not fidgety. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... cursing threats in low voices greeted Hambone on all sides, and his work that day was so fidgety, and he made so many mistakes in getting the ranges on the sights, that the Major performed the coup d'etat for which we were all anxiously waiting by transmitting as quickly as he could to headquarters his recommendation that he be retired, and Hambone, ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... they asked me to do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it—what my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If she had explained it more it would not have come up that ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... gate of the farm stood a cart into which two young calves had just been packed. Hastings was driving it, and Rachel Henderson, who had just adjusted the net over the fidgety frightened ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... morning in conversation and reading. They had to sit with their furs on. Nan looked like a little Esquimaux in hers, for her Uncle Henry Sherwood had bought them for her to wear in the Big Woods the winter before. Finally Bess declared she was too fidgety to ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr |
