"Jerky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Barbara should desert her own party the first night, but vaguely disquieted that she was ill enough to go to bed of her own volition, peeped into her room on his way down to dinner. There was no answer to his jerky, sharp call of "Barbara" and he turned on the light. Her eyes were closed, but she was smiling; he walked to the bed to make certain that she was not trying any of her ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... here into discourse about the affairs of his parish, which comprised all the Protestant inhabitants of the island. His voice went on in the cheerful, jerky, matter-of-fact tone in which he always talked. Caius did not pay much heed, except that admiration for the sweet spirit of the man and for the pluck and hardihood with which he carried on his work, grew in him in spite of his heedlessness, for there was nothing that Pembroke suspected ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... "office," Magnus locking the door behind him. "Very complete you are here, Governor," observed the editor in his alert, jerky manner, his black, bead-like eyes twinkling around the room from behind his glasses. "Telephone, safe, ticker, account-books—well, that's progress, isn't it? Only way to manage a big ranch these days. But the day of the big ranch is over. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the mine down here. We've got the ambulance here and we're about ready to start." There was an evenness about the strange voice that she understood better than its words. If Bill had been hurt the man would have been quick and jerky in his speaking as though he were feeling the boy's pain with him; but he was so even about it ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... think that Peter scrooged down his eyebrows, and in a jerky voice said, "They might have given Him one day to Himself. Can't they see He's tired?" Do you think that likely John chimed in, with that fire in his voice which the after years mellowed and sweetened but never lost,—"Yes, ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... retired terror of the mountains for a long time. The only fly in the ointment of his content was Jerky Johnson, who kept dogs and went pirooting around the hills with a gun, making much noise and scaring the wits out of coyotes and jack rabbits. Old Clubfoot realized that his eyes were dimming and his hearing becoming impaired, and it annoyed ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... plastering it with clay. The top of the chimney was surrounded by a barrel with both ends open, through which the smoke climbed lazily up into the air. Near by stood an oak-tree, in which a jay-bird was screaming and dancing in a jerky way. Sukey then looked away into the blue sky, and the clouds seemed to become pagodas, and palm-trees, and golden ships floating drowsily away. All at once she heard somebody say, in a queer, ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... works were really beautiful, but he had strange obsessions. Berlioz greatly admired his master and could not help showing, especially in his earlier works, traces of this admiration. That is the reason for the syncopated and jerky passages without rhyme or reason and which can only be explained by his unconscious imitation of Leuseur's faults. In imitating a model the resemblances occur in the faults and not in the excellences, for the latter are inimitable. So the excellences of the Requiem ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... at his companion. There were great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and clammy, the other, which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as if attached to some deranged mechanism. Without any apparent concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted, and, seating himself on a log, motioned his companion to a place beside him. Johnson obeyed without a word. Slight as was the act, perhaps ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. "Died of jungle fever and business troubles combined. The jungle fever might not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business troubles, and the business troubles might not have ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sketches, I have never written a line for publication in my life. I have only kept a careful and accurate diary, [Footnote: Out of all my diaries I have hardly been able to quote fifty pages, for on re- reading them I find they are not only full of Cabinet secrets but jerky, disjointed and dangerously frank.] and here, in the interests of my publishers and at the risk of being thought egotistical, it is not inappropriate that I should publish the following letters in connection with these diaries and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... with which the motorman ran the car, and the jerky way in which he stopped and started it, did not bother Nan Sherwood much, for she was not nervous. Miss March, however, began to stare ahead apprehensively, and the way in which she twisted her pocket-handkerchief in her hands as ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... instant, the one to free his arm, the other to retain his grip. Bellamy spurred his horse closer. The more powerful of the two, he slowly twisted around the imprisoned wrist. Inch by inch the revolver swung in a jerky, spasmodic circle. There was a moment when it pointed directly at the mine owner's heart. His enemy's finger crooked on the trigger, eyes passionate with the stark lust to kill. But the pressure on the wrist had numbed the hand. The weapon jumped out of line, went clattering down into the dust ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... excessively exhausting to some people. They are the talkers that have what may be called jerky minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence. They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... under feathers of the tail white, barred with black. The other (Trogon caligatus, Gould) is rather smaller, of similar colours, excepting the head, which is black, and a dark blue collar round the neck. Both species take short, quick, jerky flights, and are often met with along with flocks of other birds—fly-catchers, tanagers, creepers, woodpeckers, etc., that hunt together, traversing the forests in flocks of hundreds together, belonging to more than ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... questioned. Brilliana did not exactly know what she wished. She was fretted at the poor show a King's man had made before a Puritan; if Sir Blaise could do something to humble the Puritan it might not be wholly amiss. So much Halfman gathered from her jerky scraps of sentences; also, that on no account must the disputants be permitted to come to swords. Halfman nodded, caught up a staff, and ran full tilt to the pleasaunce. The moment his back was turned Brilliana, instead of ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I felt instinctively, were the "new" woman and the "new" man, if there are such things. I wondered just how they would hit it off together. For the moment, at least, Clare Kendall was an absorbing study, as she greeted us with a frank, jerky straight-arm handshake. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... my friend, by the rules of hunting,' he said, addressing Yermolai. 'And you, dear sir,' he added in the same jerky, abrupt voice, 'my thanks.' ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... right to buy anything but fifteen by twenty-two eight-wheelers—the smaller they were the more men they would want. I got over that a long time ago; but, at the time I write of, I was cranky about it. The moguls were high and short and jerky, and they tossed a man around like a rat in a corn-popper. One day, as I was chasing time over our worst division, holding on to the arm-rest and watching to see if the main frame touched the driving-boxes as she rolled, Dennis ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... branches were littered about the square and heaped thick under the trees. The brick walls of many of the houses round were pitted and pocked and scarred by the shell fragments. The face of one house was marked by a huge splash, with solid center and a ragged-edged outline of radiating jerky rays, reminding one immediately of a famous ink-maker's advertisement. The bricks had taken the impression of the explosion's splash exactly as paper would take the ink's. Practically every window in the square had been broken, and in the case of the splash-marked house, blown ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... little, her hands still tightly clenched, breathing through half parted lips in short, quick, jerky inhalations like dry sobs. ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... annihilation by fire, and the whisper, whisper of their voices had only emphasized the quiet. And, with every moment that went by, the lit-up tower had seemed more like a symbol to Dion. Then at last the cuckoo-clock had chimed and the wooden bird, with trembling tail, had made its jerky obeisance. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... than before. Looking ahead, it appeared to have been bitten off round the edge here and there, just at the stiffest zigs and zags of the nightmare road. And far down the mountain the way went winding under our eyes, like the loops of a lasso; short, jerky loops, as we came to each new turn, to which the length of our chassis forced us to bow and curtsey on our slippery, sliding skates. Forward the Aigle had to go until her bonnet hung over the precipice, then to be cautiously backed for a foot or two, before ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Then in a harsh, jerky voice, without seeking his words, which, on the contrary, seemed to crowd through the portal of his brain, he dictated the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... humour, was capable of sinking into a theatrical mannerism and cockney vulgarities of wretched taste; Disraeli, with all his wit and savoir faire, has printed some rank fustian, and much slip-slop gossip; and George Meredith at times can be as jerky and mysterious as a prose Browning. Charlotte Bronte and Kingsley could both descend to blue fire and demoniac incoherences. Macaulay is brilliant and emphatic, but we weary at last of his everlasting staccato on the trumpet; and even the magnificent symphonies of Ruskin at his best will ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... a word he was saying, after those first jerky sentences. He stood looking past Bill at a drunken Irishman who was making erratic progress up the street; and he was no more conscious of the Irishman than he was of Bill's scorching condemnation of the town which ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... The soiree was to be three days later. The music is nothing remarkable; in fact, the whole thing (it is called "The Prodigal Son") is not worthy of him. I have not met any of my fellow- performers yet. Forgive this jerky letter; I have been interrupted a thousand times. Charles thinks it is time to go back to Paris; but we have just received an invitation from Baron Alfred Rothschild to spend Ascot week—a sejour de sept jours—with a party at a house he has hired for the race-week ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... have a vague consciousness of the connection between the various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be aware that the bass voice with the flourishes in front of me belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet, unassertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, the "man of acumen" whose father-in-law ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... with leather; and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis, let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... by Chamberlain's work, and made the boat leap forward by a shorter, almost jerky stroke. He came back easily ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... Fly Catcher (Muscicapa Grisola) is fairly common on our lawns, where it will sit quietly on a garden seat, or roller, and thence take its short jerky flight after the flies. I have known it to nest year after year, at the Vicarage, in a hole in the wall, where ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... ridiculously easy, she was so earnest, so close to him. He had a brief kaleidoscope of impressions—Ward's sullen bewilderment, Moulton's angry roar, Dio's jerky rise to his feet as the guards grabbed for ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... desperately low spirits. I had been able to eat nothing during the preceding day. I lay there half asleep, half awake, for, I suppose, a long time, hearing the window rattle sometimes when the cannon was noisy and feeling under the jerky reflections on the wall as though I were in an old shambling cab driving along a dark road, I thought a good deal about that talk with Semyonov that I had. What a strange man! But then I do not understand him at all. I don't think I understand any Russian, such ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... miles from camp, and Faye met me there with an ambulance. I was glad enough to get away from that old stage. It was one of the jerky, bob-back-and-forth kind that pitches you off the seat every five minutes. The first two or three times you bump heads with the passenger sitting opposite, you can smile and apologize with some grace, but after ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... back. This, after it was skinned, the two breeds cut into pieces the thickness of a man's wrist and as long as they could make them, rubbed well with salt and hung on a stretched line in the sun. The purpose and preparation of "jerky" was duly elucidated to Thompson; rather profitless explanation, for he had no rifle, nor any knowledge whatever in ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Of course these tirades often failed of immediate effect, but at least no effort was made to put an effective check on the writer's career. Read a century later in a cold and critical light, Bonaparte's proclamations of the same period seem stilted, jerky, and theatrical. In them, however, there may still be found a sort of interstitial sentimentality, and in an age of romantic devotion to ideals the quality of vague suggestiveness passed for genuine coin. Whatever else was lacking ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... utterance there is a tremulous motion about the muscles of the mouth. The hesitation increases, and instead of a steady flow of modulated, articulate sounds, speech is broken up into a succession of irregular, jerky, syllabic fragments, without modulation, and often accompanied by a tremulous vibration of the voice. Syllables are unconsciously dropped out, blurred, or run into one another, or imperfectly uttered; especially is ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... in dark moments. They were in an old dory, and there was much ice clinging to her, inside and out, as if the fishers had been out for many hours. There were only a few cod lying around in the bottom, already stiffened in the icy air. The wind was light, and one of the men was rowing with short, jerky strokes, to help the sail, while the other held the sheet and steered with a spare oar that had lost most of its blade. The wind came in flaws, chilling, and mischievous in its freaks. "I ain't goin' out any more this year," said the younger man, who rowed, giving a great ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... health of late; his old pains were on him again, and, as well as his hind leg, had seized his right shoulder, where were still lodged two rifle-balls. He was feeling very ill, and crippled with pain. He came up the familiar bank at a jerky limp, and there caught the odor of the foe; then he saw the track in the mud—his eyes said the track of a small Bear, but his eyes were dim now, and his nose, his unerring nose, said, "This is the track of the huge invader." Then he noticed the tree with his sign on ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... with a blow from the shoulder and catching up another by the middle flung him at the naked, wild crowd. "He hurled men about as the wind hurls broken boughs. He made a broad way through our enemies!" related Wasub in his jerky voice. It is more probable that Lingard's quick movements and the amazing aspect of such a strange being caused the warriors to fall ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... sandy-complexioned man, with a straggling beard and light blue eyes. He appeared competent enough, a bundle of nervous energy, and yet there was something about the fellow which instantly impressed me unfavorably—probably his short, jerky manner of speech, and his inability to ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... listlessly, all the jump and fight gone out of him, to the foot of the cliff. There was no apparent way to get down; so, taking my line in hand, I began to lift him bodily up. He came easily enough till his tail cleared the water; then the wiggling, jerky strain was too much. The fly pulled out, and he vanished with a final swirl and slap of his broad tail to tell me ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... down in two minutes, Syd, I'm off," said I, pulling out my watch, and nervously noting the jerky springs of the spidery second-hand that seemed to be in a much greater ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... in a tone that was meant to be serene but proved rather jerky. "It was nothing but my teeth ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... and spoke in short, jerky sentences. "Her death came at the bitterest moment of want. It was Christmas time. Very cold and raw. We hadn't too much at home to keep us warm. She caught a cold and it settled on her chest. Pneumonia! Only three or four days altogether. She lay in the back room; it was quieter. The doctor ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little, toward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under every point, because the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his characteristic habit of phrase making and became more jerky and real. "I respected you, Alice," he went on. "I didn't love you but I hoped I might, and I played the game. I liked to see you in my house. You fitted in and made it more of a home than that barrack had ever been. I began to collect prints and first editions, adjust myself to respectability ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... strained at the bars until it seemed as though they would burst their very sinews; another reluctant click or two of the pawl showed that something was at length yielding; and then, first with a slow jerky motion which quickened rapidly, and ended in a mighty surge as the men drove the capstan irresistibly round, the bows of the schooner swerved to seaward, the vessel herself righted, hung for a moment, and then glided off the tail ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... hurry, acting as if should they linger anywhere more than a minute they would be missing something. There was something in the cool, windy air, fresh from the lively bay, that made Charley himself throw out his chest and step lively. The talk, right and left, was of the jerky, impatient type, and in terms of dollars—dollars, dollars, thousands of dollars. Nobody acted poor, all walked and talked gold; one would have thought that the very dirt was gold—and as he trudged briskly, following the lead of Mr. Grigsby, Charley saw people grubbing on hands and knees, with ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... doubts as to the wisdom of the course she had pursued, she proved herself no agreeable companion, and laid aside the respectful tone and manner with which she had hitherto treated Miss Trevor, till the old lady began to feel uneasy in her turn, and her manner and speech became more queer, jerky, and ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... jovial men have their moments of depression. R. Jones' face clouded, and jerky remarks about hardness of times and losses on the Stock Exchange began to proceed from him. As Scotland Yard had discovered, he lent money on occasion; but he did not lend it to ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and at the same time told the chief engineer secretly to put the engines easy ahead. She was brought head on to the sea, and the wind having risen, a nasty swell came with it, which caused the lighters to jump and put jerky strains on their moorings. A few of their crew jumped aboard, and were trying to pass additional ropes around the rigging of the steamer when the captain blew his whistle. In an instant the tow-rope of ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... the sub-incidents is not always as close as this. In a longer story they could be more distinct and definite and yet preserve the unity of the work; but they should never disintegrate into minor climaxes,[37] nor into such a jerky succession of disassociated scenes as ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... of the launch sounded a series of sharp, jerky calls, followed by the firing of a Mauser bullet. Venning's heart was pumping blood at express speed under the violence of his efforts, and his eyes in a wild stare were fixed on the approaching craft, which had now brought its living freight within recognizable ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Maget's brain scream with the immensity of the sound. Luminous, white disks, three feet in diameter, glared at him, and the creature, which progressed with jerky leaps toward him, almost filled the mouth of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... With a jerky action of the knees, the futurist briskly entered the room with all the easy confidence of a famous comedian following on the heels of a chorus announcing his arrival. He looked particularly long and cadaverous in an abrupt, sporting-artistic, blue jacket, with sleeves so short ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Bothwell opened the pavilion door with a false key, and, having groped his way up the stairs; he went to listen at Darnley's door. Darnley, hearing no further noise, had ended by going to sleep; but he slept with a jerky breathing which pointed to his agitation. Little mattered it to Bothwell what kind of sleep it was, provided that he was really in his room. He went down again in silence, then, as he had come up, and taking a lantern from one of the conspirators, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself: and he walked up to Renine with jerky movements that ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... more honorable than . . . Bah! where is my brain rambling to? You will mutilate it horribly. You will knock out the gems you call 'Latin quotations,' you Philistine, and you will butcher the style to carve into your own jerky jargon; but you cannot destroy the whole of it. I bequeath ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the approving, or correcting, judgment of Mr. E. DROOD, I make bold to guess that the modern true lover's mind, such as it is, is rendered jerky by contemplation of the lady who has made him the object of her virgin affectations," proceeded Mr. DIBBLE, looking intently at EDWIN, but still making farther and farther reaches toward the distant crackers, even to the increased tilting of his chair. "I venture the conjecture, that if he has ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... past are given in his jerky confessions—he is the most miserable and unhappy of men, and you behold that he is reaping ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... really all, except that he was staying at the Parador de las Diligencias, and would call in a week's time. He left his card—Mr. Osmund Manvers, Filcote Hall, Taunton; Oxford and Cambridge Club—elegantly engraved. And then he departed, with a jerky salute to Don Luis, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... letter came. You read blunt, jerky sentences that told you Mark had died suddenly, in the mess room, of heart failure. Captain Symonds said he thought you would want to know exactly how it happened.... "Well, we were 'cock-fighting,' if you know what that is, after ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... forward. John saw that the bleeding from his head had ceased. There was a dark stain down either cheek, but it was drying there, and as Lannes had foreseen, his hair and the cap had acted as a bandage, at last checking the flow effectively. His breathing was heavy and jerky, but John believed that he would revive before long. It was not possible that one so vital as Lannes, so eager for ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had already climbed upon a low projection in the wall of one of the houses opposite. From this point of vantage he could more easily observe what went on inside the cabaret, and in short, jerky sentences he gave a description of what he saw ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... pair of oxen, one red, one white, clanked by, dragging, hooked in the yoke-ring, a log chain that made a jerky trail in the road, like the track of a broken-backed snake, and we spoke to the driver, inquiring which one was the saddle horse, and if the team worked single of a Sunday. And he answered with some laughing jeer that set us ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... disposition, and his temperate method of life, preserved his strength and vigour almost unimpaired. Few can forget his hale and hearty presence, as he strode along the streets of Birmingham; his peculiar walk—the strange jerky spring of the hinder foot, and the heavy planting of the front, as if he were striking the earth with a powerful blow—marking his individuality, whilst the pleasant kindly smile of greeting, and the full firm tones of his ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... saber know, learn, find out. sabroso, -a tasty, delicious, palatable. sacro, -a holy, sacred. sacudido, -a harsh, jerky. sacudir shake, shake off, strike. sagrado, -a sacred, holy. Salamanca pr. n. f. Salamanca. salir come out, go out, get out, emerge, issue, turn out, appear, show up; —— de leave, get out. saltar(se) jump, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month;—but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well- bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they may all be improvements,—I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a Lady Ludlow ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... amid the foliage, motionless in the dense heat. He resumed speaking more slowly and in jerky phrases: ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... if I ain't obleged to ye jest as much as if you'd 'a' minded me.' She ventured near the window, and even put her head out. 'My! they look jest like flies a-walkin'! My! we can't look much to the angels lookin' down. They go awful jerky.' She said no more until we were almost at the bottom, then she turned to Miss Ross: 'I've a good mind to go round ag'in,' she declared, and when she was told that we were all 'going round ag'in,' she ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... had lighted a heavy cigar and was consuming it with jerky puffs, a bit of thoughtlessness rather pardonable under the stress of the moment. For he was beginning to entertain doubts. It was not impossible for this Napoleonic chap to have a chart, to know of the treasure's existence. He wished he had heard this ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... flash of lightning lit up the cave for a brief instant, making it all the darker afterwards. This was followed by a second crashing peal of thunder, as if the very heavens were coming down and were rattling about our ears; while the ground heaved up beneath our feet violently, with its former jerky motion.—"Ze sbirrits of eefel vas valk ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... shake and held up a warning finger. He looked quickly at her father, and saw that his face had undergone a remarkable change. He was sitting motionless, clutching his cigar between the fingers of his right hand. Presently, his lips moved and he spoke in short, jerky sentences. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... the electric street lamps were lit round the pedestal of the Spanish Duke. The organisation of the town was jerky, and often the lights would come on when it was daylight and often disappear when it was dark. Where Germans had been there were always electric light and telephones. No matter how sparse the furniture in the houses, how ragged the roof, how patched the windows—what tin cans, paper ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... been forced to run for his train. He had begun to find out one could not do that kind of thing. Mrs. Cartwright sat opposite, knitting quietly, and her smooth, rhythmic movements were soothing. Clara was never abrupt and jerky. ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... him," responded the officer, in his usual short, jerky way. "Lucky to catch you here, too, before you got ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... her coachman drive fast, and while the horses trotted rapidly along the Rue Royale and the boulevards, she told what had happened to Nana in jerky, breathless sentences. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... not have an abrupt and jerky ending. It is not uncommon especially in class room debate, to hear a student at the close of his discussion say, "This is my proof; I leave the decision to the judges"; or "Thus you see I have established my proposition." Such an ending can in no ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... herself rising. Stiffly, she put Baby Newcomb back into his basket. As she did so, a ripple of shrill, jerky laughter crackled through the room. Lorry put her hands to her ears. "You know I can't say anything. You'd keep quiet. ...
— I'll Kill You Tomorrow • Helen Huber
... large and at the same time pale, a thing which always displeases me and which is, in fact, unpleasant; it impresses me as a sort of diseased healthfulness. Moreover, he had the slow yet jerky way of speaking that characterizes the pedant. Even his manner of walking, which was not that of youth and health, repelled me; as for his glance, it might be said that he had none. I do not know what to think of a man whose eyes have nothing to say. These ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... engine pops away with a sound like the frantic drawing of ginger beer corks; the machine scutters along the ground with its tail well up; then down comes the tail suddenly and seems to slap the ground while the front jumps up, and all the spectators rock with laughter. The whole attitude and the jerky action of the machine suggest a grasshopper in a furious rage, and the impression is intensified when it comes down, as it did twice on Wednesday, in long grass, burying its head in the ground in its ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... hopes are very vague and indistinct, and my efforts in any direction, save the beaten track in which I have been used to earn my bread, are, when perceptible, jerky, irregular, and ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... had been a gliding flight of the automobile became, suddenly, a more or less uneven and jerky progress, accompanied by violent explosions. At the first of these Honora, in alarm, leaped to her feet. And the machine, after what seemed an heroic attempt to continue, came to a dead stop. They were on the outskirts of a village; children coming home from school surrounded ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his head a short, jerky nod for nearly every word, and describing a circle round his crown—as if he were stirring a pint of hot tea—with his forefinger, at ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... on the affected side so as to give all chance for the other lung to work, cheeks are flushed, with anxious expression; the wings of the nostrils move in and out with each breath. The cough is short, dry and painful. Rapid, shallow, jerky breathing, increasing to difficult breathing. On the first day the characteristic expectoration mixed with blood appears (called rusty). Pulse runs from 100 to 116, full bounding, but may be feeble and small in serious cases. After ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... utterly impossible, Hamilton," I cried, when in short jerky sentences, as if afraid to give thought rein, he had answered my uncle's questioning. "Impossible! ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... work savagely on the engine, reassembling it. As he worked, he talked in savage, jerky sentences. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... are you?" he ejaculated in short, jerky accents after a pause, evidently puzzled for the nonce, and, in his agitation, another fistful of snuff got arrested half-way between his waistcoat pocket and expectant nose, the consequence of which was that more than half was spilt on the front of his shirt, and already snuff-stained coat collar. ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... cave. He took my rifle. He can see them coming; he'll have every advantage against attack; and there's another way out of the cave, up on top of the hill. There's just one thing against him. There wasn't even a canteen here. He took some jerky and canned stuff—but only one measly beer bottle of water. When that's used up it's going to be a dull time for him. We can't get water to him very handy without leaving some sign. We mustn't get hostile with the posse. Take it easy—you especially, Pringle. Stella and me, they know where we stand. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... owing to the thank-you-ma'am which they reached simultaneously with the word "suddenly" that when Mr. Logan got that note he thought it was "severely," and that the bad penmanship and generally disgraceful appearance of the loose-leaf sheet, the jerky hand, and the rather elderly envelope which was all Francis could find—it had been living in a pocket with many other things for some time—gave him a wrong idea. Mr. Logan, to anticipate a little, by this erroneous ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... said, speaking in a jerky voice so as not to interfere with the comfort of his pipe, "since I had a fowl for dinner— and I mind very well when it was. It was my wedding-day. Away up in the north it was, and parson gave ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... an imploring hand on Flora Clark's arm when she manifested symptoms of rising and interrupting the reading. Flora was getting angry—I knew by the way her forehead was knitted and by the jerky way she sewed. Poor Harriet Jameson looked more and more distressed. I was sure she saw Mrs. White holding back Flora, and knew just what it meant. Harriet was sitting quite idle with her little hands in her lap; we had ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... water in turning a waterwheel." He recommended, incidentally, that a Boulton and Watt steam engine be used to pump water to supply the waterwheel.[7] Smeaton had thought of a flywheel, but he reasoned that a flywheel large enough to smooth out the halting, jerky operation of the steam engines that he had observed would be more of an encumbrance than a ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... a snail, was entertained by the spectacle of the pursuit. The hunt was up. Short of throwing his head up and baying, the stout young man behaved exactly as a bloodhound in similar circumstances would have conducted itself. He broke into a jerky gallop, attended by his self-appointed associates; and, considering that the young man was so stout, that the messenger boy considered it unprofessional to hurry, that the shop girl had doubts as ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Mr. Roberts, "ye know nothin' of love, Mister Bobo, an' ye never will. I'm sorry for ye, too. Life without love is like eatin' bull-beef jerky ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... sentences which rivet the attention of the reader. They adopt as their motto multum in parvo (much in little) and endeavor to pack a great deal in small space. Of course the extreme of brevity is to be avoided. Sentences can be too short, too jerky, too brittle to withstand the test of criticism. The long sentence has its place and a very important one. It is indispensable in argument and often is very necessary to description and also in introducing general principles which require elaboration. In employing the long sentence the ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... to tell me about them," replied Anthony pertly, "I guess I know how to paddle as well as you do. You don't always need to be handing me directions how to do things." And he started off with a series of jerky dips, which set the canoe swaying from side to side so that Migwan had an effort to keep it straight in the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... moved forward with a jerk, ran with increasing gait for a hundred yards, and then suddenly the jerky progress ceased. The machine swayed gently from side to side, and looking over, the passenger saw the ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... impressed by his deferential manner. "Only it seemed to me rather odd. And just now my nerves are somewhat jerky." He touched his cap, and was shuffling off, when she recalled him. "Stroll along with me, and let's have a talk. What do you do ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... two-thirds of the birds he knows. There can be but one reason for this; the bird is inconspicuous. The olive-green of its back, with its light under parts, serves to hide it completely amid the foliage. Even the bird-lover learns to find it first by its jerky song, and then by watching for its movements ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... he runs a certain risk of falling into evil ways. The risk is multiplied by every addition to the population up to twelve- -the Jury-number. After that, fear and consequent restraint begin, and human action becomes less grotesquely jerky. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... towards the stair-head. The passage was empty and ended in utter darkness. I glanced the other way, and thought I saw—though not distinctly—in the distance a white figure, not gliding in the conventional way, but limping off, with a sort of jerky motion, and, in a second or ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... moved into a new house, was asked to walk up stairs, and on complying saw an old woman preceding her up the staircase. Supposing her to be one of the servants, she took but little notice of her, though struck by the peculiarity of her gait, a sort of jerky limp, as though one leg was shorter than the other. In the course of conversation with her friend she mentioned the old woman, and asked if she was the housekeeper. "Housekeeper? no," said the lady: "we have no such person about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... chin throughout the night; but they have no sandals. The dance is performed by the shaman's assistants, and consists of a peculiar, quick, jumping march, with short steps, the dancers moving forward one after another, on their toes, and making sharp, jerky movements, without, however, turning around. They dance in the space between the fire and the cross, and move in a direction opposite to the sun's apparent movement. Nobody present is allowed to walk in contra-direction to the dancers. After six or eight rounds, they enlarge the circuit so as ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some people. They are the talkers who have what may be called JERKY minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence. They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the cat ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hour she had felt the relief of gliding through the mountains without the strain of piloting, the comfort of having the unseen, mysterious engineer up ahead automatically drive for her. She had caroled to her father about nearing the Pacific. Her nervousness had expressed itself in jerky gaiety. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... Lockyer was archaic, Sanders an antique; Benchley, actually only about fifty-five, had the air of one born in the grandfather class. Lockyer the son dyed his hair and affected jauntiness, but was in fact not many years younger than Benchley and had the stiffening jerky legs of one paying for a lively youth. Norman was thirty-seven—at the age the Greeks extolled as divine because it means all the best of youth combined with all the best of manhood. Some people thought Norman younger, almost boyish. Those knew him uptown only, where he hid the man ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... congregation cannot hear his words. Certainly yes, when the feeling of the speaker behind the phrase makes him enforce his meaning by a suitable movement. In speaking today fewer gestures are indulged in than years ago. There should never be many. Senseless, jerky, agitated pokings and twitchings should be eradicated completely. Insincere flourishes should be inhibited. Beginners should beware of gestures until they become such practised masters of their minds and bodies that physical emphasis may ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... He has a superstition about it. Doesn't want it done until after banking hours. Queerest idea I've ever known." He spoke in quick, jerky sentences. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... good-naturedly. We had all sorts of men, and all sorts of nicknames. An Irishman was called Solomon Levi, and a nice young Jew Old Pork Chop. One fellow who was particularly slow was called Speedy William, and another who always spoke in a quick, jerky voice answered to the hail of 'Slow-up Peter.' One cowboy who was as rough as anybody in the command was christened The Parson, and a fine, high-toned, well-educated college boy had to answer to the name of Jimmy the Tramp. Some ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... little bay and looked through the bushes at the shore beyond, he understood. For there was a long stretch of mingled coral and sand exposed by the low tide, and perhaps fifty yards distant were two birds—curlews—running toward the boys with nervous, jerky motions. They were furtively picking up crabs, and Mart quickly set up his camera and focused it. But the instant he began to turn the crank, the two birds ceased their antics. With an inquiring pipe, they looked toward the slight click; then ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... and Mr. Bullfinch were on their way to Rockville. Jerry had never ridden in Mr. Bullfinch's car before. It was not the car that was jerky, Jerry discovered, but Mr. Bullfinch. Still, he was a careful driver except when he got to talking. Then he seemed to forget his was not the only car on the road and the other cars honked at him. Yet Mr. Bullfinch was good at missing the other cars. At the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down. There was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd, stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him, though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he was; but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly came over him, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to have been enough, but Hardman did not appear to think so. He stepped somewhat closer, and he, too, spoke, still gesticulating with one of his hands. The man addressed was impatient. He nodded again in a jerky fashion, and made answer with less caution, as a consequence of which the eavesdropper caught the words, ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... interested in Rydal, and she sprayed Coryndon with light, pointless conversation, leaving Heath to his meditations for the moment. Hartley would have enjoyed a private talk with his hostess because he loved her platonically, and because it was impossible he was distrait and jerky, trying to appear cordial towards Heath. It was one of those evenings that make everyone concerned wonder why they ever began it, and though Coryndon was of all the invited guests the one who found least favour in the eyes of his hostess, he was the only one who felt glad that he had come, and ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... celebration of the fall of night, the natives continued their grotesque dances. Beating membrane drums, and singing jerky chants, they danced frenziedly, forcing a false hilarity. They felt the overwhelming approach of the dread spectre of famine. In their dances some sobbed, others passed ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... jerky movement of his head Malcolm Sage motioned his visitors to be seated. In that one movement his steel-coloured eyes had registered a mental photograph of the two men. That glance embraced all the details; the dark hair of the younger, greying ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... Tira. She came down the path with long strides, her garments blowing back. At three paces from the sleigh she halted and called to him in a voice so clear and unrestrained that Raven thought Tenney, coming on with his jerky action, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... questionings, that dark-skinned individual had at first betrayed abyssmal ignorance of all save the virtues of stuffed crocodiles, but convinced at last that this was no trap, but a genuine situation from which he could profit, his greed overcame his native caution, and through the aid of his jerky English and Billy's jagged Arabic a certain measure of confidence ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... bluish nimbus I see men encircling the flashing machine and closing in on it. Near to me I make out the silhouette of Mesnil Joseph, who is steering straight and with no effort of concealment for the spot whence the barking explosions come in jerky sequence. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Apparently he was between forty and fifty years of age, exceedingly well dressed, his gray eyes shrewd and full of a grim humor. Keith observed all this in a glance, becoming aware at the same time that his neighbor was apparently studying him also. The latter broke silence with a quick, jerky utterance, which seemed to ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the more privileged seats "under the Gallery," from my days of knickerbockers, I often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather "bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort of good-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off an inconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... because he heard the two talking in low tones. He understood the tongue of the dusky miscreants, but though he listened closely, could not catch the meaning of a word that passed between them. Their sentences were of the short, jerky character common to all American Indians, accompanied by a peculiar grunting, which ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... thought I'd ask if she was about the house," Henley made reply, in a jerky sort of fashion. "There is a little matter I wanted to speak ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself: and he walked up to Rnine with jerky movements that revealed ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... scarf, twisting it and pulling it to pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Chauvin got two more bucks, several tree squirrels and some mountain quail. We made plenty of jerky, while living off ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... Raoul is grotesque. His movements are jerky, as if produced by imperfect machinery; his gait rejects all idea of order, and proceeds by spasmodic zig-zags and sudden stoppages, which knock him violently against peaceable citizens on the streets and boulevards of Paris. ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... moved with their old nervous habit, and the answer came in an odd, jerky, half-connected way: "I dunnot know why it should ha' done. I mun be mad, or summat. I nivver had no hope nor nothin': theer nivver wur no reason why I should ha' had. Ay, I mun be wrong somehow, or it wouldna stick to me i' ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... on his lips; an' one day he fetched up inside a faery rath. The pipers were pipin' an' the Wee People was dancin', an' while they was dancin' they was singin' like this: 'Monday an' Tuesday—an' Monday an' Tuesday—an' Monday an' Tuesday'—an' it sounded all jerky and bad. 'That's a terrible poor song,' says the humpy, speakin' out plain. 'What's that?' says the faeries, stoppin' their dance an' gatherin' round him. ''Tis mortal poor music ye are making' says the humpy ag'in. 'Can ye improve it any?' asked the faeries. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... engaged in composition, he walks about the room, sometimes excitedly, his mind engrossed with his subject, until he has composed an entire paragraph, when he sits down and writes it, never retouching, nor composing sentence by sentence, which he thinks has a tendency to give an abrupt and jerky effect to what is written. Traces of this, he thinks, may be found ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... glass with a jerky motion and downed the contents; the chaser stood disregarded before him and O'Brien regarded his patron with an ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... time the mechanical soldier had returned to the slope, and was parading his beat in a somewhat jerky manner. ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... church-goers. King Charles liked his Church music as good as you like, but lively at all costs, and the royal mind speedily wearying of all things in turn, he wished the numbers that made up an anthem to be short. So Purcell wasted his time and magnificent thematic material on mere strings of scrappy, jerky sections. The true Purcell touch is on them all, but no sooner has one entered fairly into the spirit of a passage than it is finished. Instrumental interludes—if, indeed, they can be called interludes, for they are as important as the vocal sections—abound, ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... you and Ward white," said Stockton. "You'll have good grub. Herky-Jerky's the best cook this side of Holston, and you'll be left untied in the daytime. But if either of you attempts to get away it means a leg shot off. Do you ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... long stroke, using the full blade of the saw. Don't acquire the "jerky" style of sawing. If the handle is held loosely, and the saw is at the proper angle, the weight of the saw, together with the placement of the handle on the saw blade, will be found sufficient to make the requisite ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... thousand imperceptible movements. He was tall, and held himself badly—not from awkwardness, but from weariness or boredom. He conducted capriciously and lithely, with his whole awkward body swaying, like his music, with gestures, now caressing, now sharp and jerky. It was easy to see that he was very nervous, and his music was the exact reflection of himself. The quivering and jerky life of it broke through the usual apathy of the orchestra. Jean-Christophe ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... class of property; but in Paris the law is a dead letter, and, although it is now active in the provinces and in places like Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Nantes, it is applied, even there, in a jerky and intermittent manner. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... voluble, jerky speech. A wild foreboding gripped her heart until she was like to shudder under ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... his feet, uttering low, jerky barks. Dot put aside her saucepan and began to wash her hands. She did not hasten to obey Jack's call, but when she turned to collect glasses on a tray she was trembling and her breath came quickly, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... musn't worry! Reuben Olmstead's a good sailor yet, and, better than all, a good man. His Father will look after him more tenderly than you can," giving her cap an odd little jerky nod, which caused the parrot to ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... contented until some one invented A sort o' jerky tape-line clock, to help on wasteful ways. An' that infernal ticker spends money fur 'em quicker Than any neighbourhood o' men in ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... this was the last day. Clarence was to go on board with Frith, see him out of the river, and come back with the pilot; and we all drove down to the wharf together; nobody saying much by the way, except the few jerky remarks we brothers felt bound to originate ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her. With her elbows resting on her knees and supported by her high heels, she remained silent, tapping the gravel path with her satin slippers. After a few minutes she sat up, moved her arms about in an unconscious way as though she were scarcely awake, then quickly, and in a jerky way, she put her hand between her dress and waistband, pressing the back of her hand against the ribbon as though she were going to burst it. Finally she rose and began to walk, followed ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... reproduced before the eye an impression of smooth, continuous movement is secured. If, however, the object is moving rapidly across the field of view, one picture will be separated from its successor to a marked extent, and the resulting impression will be jerky and unnatural. Recognizing this fact, Edison always sought for a very high speed, so as to give smooth and natural reproductions, and even with his experimental apparatus obtained upward of forty-eight pictures per second, whereas, in practice, at the present ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... had been good in his boyish affection; in both he had been human. Even now, when without reserve he gave himself up to love, he was aware that he would ascend, not on godlike pinions, but by a jerky old apartment-house elevator, to make peace with a vexed girl who was also a human being, with a digestive system and prejudices. Yet with a joy that encompassed all the beauty of banners and saluting swords, romantic towers and a fugitive queen, a joy transcending trains and elevators and prejudices, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... had gone over the road to the penitentiary. Blackwell had been the captured man, and he held a deep respect for the prowess of the officer who had taken him. The sheer pluck of the adventure had alone made it possible. For such an unflawed nerve Blackwell knew his jerky ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... paused in his jerky speech, stiffened as if in wild amazement at that which he beheld, and a sudden cry broke from ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... rather hope this sketch will not be read by anyone nearly related to her, as they might identify her from the description. A middle-aged lady with a brown skin, black hair and dark eyes, an oval face, fairly good-looking, her manner lively and attractive, her movements quick without being abrupt or jerky. She was highly intelligent and a good talker, with more to say than most women, and better able than most to express herself. We were at the same small table and got on well together, as I am a good listener and she knew— being a woman, how should she not?—that ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... perhaps five hundred yards from the Fort, a point of light had appeared. At first it was still, and then it took an odd jerky motion, to this side and to that, up and down like ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... salt can be carried. This fare is augmented by mushrooms, wild fruit and berries and fish. Watercress is a refreshing addition and a good Scout knows where to find it. Some hardened climbers add a little "jerky" (dried meats) to this ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... with great white cotton coverings, and generally drawn by six mules: the driver, usually a colored man, rides the first nigh mule, and has one rein, called the 'jerky rein,' running over the head of the mule before him, through a ring fastened to his headstall, and dividing on the back of the leader, and fastening to his bit. The mule is directed to one side or another by the driver twitching the rein ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... it was so intime, the Turkey Trot was allowed. Bruce wanted to attempt it with Myra Mooney, but she was horrified, and insisted on dancing the 1880 trois-temps to a jerky American two-step. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... the parts. The whole is laid upon bands of straw designed to bring out the sounds and render them stronger and purer. The sounds are produced by striking the pieces of wood with a couple of small hammers. They are short and jerky, and, as they cannot be prolonged, nothing but pieces possessing a quick rhythm can be executed upon the instrument. Dances, marches, variations, etc., are played upon it by preference, and with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... veranda, or even insert a leader between the two scenes as now written, and the mind of the spectator is prepared for almost anything that he may find to be going on in that room when he sees it again. But too much care cannot be taken to guard against everything that may make for jerky or illogical action of this kind. The merciless scissors of a careless operator in the picture theatre may remove three or four inches of the film at a certain point, with the result that a character leaving one side of the room and starting to go out by the door on the other side may be made ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... in the same jerky and subdued voice, 'don't criticise me, don't think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to you, I made an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It seemed to me yesterday,—you seemed to be laughing all the time. Listen,' ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... looking at her so wistfully? She dared not say it was impossible. But Aunt Emma had no such scruples. With a great clatter and racket, that lady fell upon the dishes that held Patty's almost untasted dinner and whisked them away while her tongue kept time to her jerky movements. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... mineralogical flavour. The verse is not so much easy as facile. And not all the grace of internals can atone for external monotony. That trick—that full stop at the end of nearly every fourth line—it impairs the charm of the music and renders its flow jerky; coming, as it does, like an ever-repeated blow, it grows wearisome to the ear, and ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... sneezin' fit. But, take it from me, that sharp-faced little wisp could do things to a violin! Zowie! He could just naturally make it sing, with weeps and laughs, and moans and giggles, and groans and cusswords, all strung along a jumpy, jerky little air that sort of played hide and seek with itself. Music? I should quiver! He had us all sittin' up with our ears stretched, and when he finishes and the applause starts in like a sudden shower on a tin roof what does he do but ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford |
