"Fidget" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frequently accomplishes His purposes by means which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in a fidget lest they should be thought to mix in low society, or to bestow a moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of a perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the acquaintance of the old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had an opportunity ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... each and all, but as few could tell their names I was at a loss to distinguish one from another; my head and eyes were in a perfect fidget, flying from Marshal to Marshal and from Picture ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... first a little condescending preamble concerning the virtues of the deceased, which every one but Roger listened to respectfully. The son felt it as much as he could put up with to sit still and hear it, and began to fidget ominously, and greatly to the disturbance of the speaker. When Mr Pottinger, after a few reproachful pauses, left this topic and began to discourse on his own relations with the late Squire, it was the turn of Dr ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... insults and obscenities. When we were all in bed, no one could stir without causing inconvenience to his neighbours. A sleepless night, invariably accompanied by the restless impulse to stir and fidget, was unforgettable misery, but fortunately our work was so hard that ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... you like. Have some of the cold entree with jelly, that's the best. They'll bring the pancakes directly. Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got everything? (Cough-cough-cough.) That's all right. Be a good girl, Lida, and, Kolya, don't fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman. What ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... command by pulling away his pillow and dragging her brother into a sitting posture in spite of his laughing resistance and evident desire to exhaust her patience; for Dick excelled in teasing, and kept his sister in a fidget from morning till night, with occasional fits of penitence and petting which lasted till next time. Therefore, though dying to 'fess,' he was undecided as to the best method of executing that task in the manner most aggravating to his listener and most agreeable ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... daughter's presence. A dozen times he said that the man was heartless to come to the house at such a time, and he spoke of his cousin always as though the man were guilty of a gross injustice in being heir to the property. But not the less on that account did he fidget himself about the room in which Belton was to sleep, about the food that Belton was to eat, and especially about the wine that Belton was to drink. What was he to do for wine? The stock of wine in the ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... She didn't fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too. She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the stage, but she was attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that she placed no undue emphasis on his visits. In her world men came and went, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "There will be a master once more, and no need to bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,"—turning to the bureau—"it's that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget my life out." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the fidget he fell into, trying this and that effect, with his head slanted one way and then slanted the other, his hand held up to shut out the mountain below the granite mass of Lion's Head, and then changed to cut off the sky above; and then ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... does this mean?" whispered Dickenson, for his pony stopped short, as did the others, the sergeant's mount uttering a sharp, challenging neigh and beginning to fidget. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... answered, but the landlord does not move—not he; what is to be gained by being in a hurry? why fidget? an hour hence is quite as good as the present quickly fleeting by. So soothing his conscience by the word straxt, he leisurely goes on with his work, and as "like master, like man," those below him do not hurry either, for which reason most things in Finland ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... gone well on towards the end of the first act, and Godolphin was beginning to fidget. From where she sat Louise saw him take out his watch and lean towards her husband to say something. An actor who was going through a piece of business perceived that he had not Godolphin's attention, and stopped. Just then Mrs. Harley ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... indeed an intruder. She gave us the permission we waited for, however. There were many good copies of lessons: those I did not dwell upon. But the sketches, spirited though imperfect, I studied as if they had been those of an Allston. Etty was evidently in a fidget at this preference of the smallest line of original talent over the corrected performances which are like those of every body else. I drew out a full-length figure done in black chalk on brown paper. It chained Flora's wondering ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... German mercantile marine was laid on the ice till the end of war, they had turned him on to this show. He was bored by the business, and didn't understand it very well. The river charts puzzled him, and though it was pretty plain going for hundreds of miles, yet he was in a perpetual fidget about the pilotage. You could see that he would have been far more in his element smelling his way through the shoals of the Ems mouth, or beating against a northeaster in the shallow Baltic. He had six barges ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... the monster, the minister would have been digested. We have no difficulty in this matter. Jonah, was a most unwilling guest of the whale. He wanted to get out. However much he may have liked fish, he did not want it three times a day and all the time. So he kept up a fidget, and a struggle, and a turning over, and he gave the whale no time to assimilate him. The man knew that if he was ever to get out he must be in perpetual motion. We know men that are so lethargic they would have given the matter up, and lain down so quietly that ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... for the first time in my life, running into debt. Having always paid my bills weekly I had no credit whatever. Even at the end of the third week I knew that the grocery man and butcher were beginning to fidget. The neighbors had by this time learned of my plight and were gossiping. And yet in the midst of all this I had some of the finest hours with my wife I ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... flies was bothering th' horse," surmised Mrs. Dodge; "he does fidget an' stamp somethin' terrible when the flies gets after him; his tail ain't so long as some.... Well, I'll let you know; and if you could drop around and see the table and all— Yes, some day this week. Of course I'll have to buy new furniture to put in their places; so will ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... sufficient to try and task the fidelity of any woman. It is the last grain that turns the scale—the last drop that overflows the goblet—and the last moment of delay that exhausts the patience. By the time the sun sank below the horizon, the duchess was in a fidget that passed all bounds, and, though several hours were yet to pass before the day regularly expired, she could not have remained those hours in durance to gain a royal crown, much less a ducal coronet. So she gave orders, and ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... are quite safe," she said; "but the ledge is so narrow you must not fidget about. I am going to make you a dear little bed like ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... arranged the matter with her landlady, and that she was to pay a dollar a week as rent. "I should not tell your patient about this," he said. "It will look to him as if I considered his stay was likely to be a long one, and it might fidget him." ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the men into a drawing-room here, knowing how to walk and to curtsey alone, I did not, at first, perceive the great man, who followed so close to his wife's skirts as to be nearly hid. But he was soon flying about the room at large, and betrayed himself immediately to be a fidget. Instead of remaining stationary, or nearly so as became his high quality, he took the initiative in compliments, and had nearly every diplomatic man walking apart in the adjoining room, in a political aside, in less than twenty ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... (labor) 686; painstaking, diligence; perseverance &c 604.1; indefatigation^; habits of business. vigilance &c 459; wakefulness; sleeplessness, restlessness; insomnia; pervigilium^, insomnium^; racketing. movement, bustle, stir, fuss, ado, bother, pottering, fidget, fidgetiness; flurry &c (haste) 684. officiousness; dabbling, meddling; interference, interposition, intermeddling; tampering with, intrigue. press of business, no sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, busy hum of men, battle of life, thick of the action. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... drift into a state of dreamy content as she read to him. This happy arrangement might go on forever except that, in the course of time, his shoulder was bound to heal. And then—he knew well enough that old Dame Society was even at the end of these first ten days beginning to fidget. He knew that Marjory knew it, too. It began the day Dr. Marcellin advised him to take a walk in the ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... to stop her, he dropped straight into the seat. "I assure you there has really been nothing." With a continuation of his fidget he pulled out his watch. "Won't she ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... fidget you are, my love," said the physician, who, being pressed close against her by the throng, had no need of personal effort for contact. "Just as well have patience: there's no ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... silence, quietly quivered all over like a spider, looked glum and dull, and grew animated only when Lavretzky began to take his leave. Even when he was seated in the calash, the old man continued to be shy and to fidget; but the quiet, warm air, the light breeze, the delicate shadows, the perfume of the grass, of the birch buds, the peaceful gleam of the starry, moonless heaven, the energetic hoof-beats and snorting of the horses, all ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... well if it weren't for this heat," she said pettishly. "Do put that photograph down, George!—you do fidget so! Haven't you got any news for me—anything to amuse me? Oh! those horrid papers!—I see. Well! they'll wait a little. By the way, the 'Morning Post' says that young scamp, Lord Ancoats, has gone abroad. I suppose that girl was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fine cookery, miss? Lor' bless me, I could die of laughing to think a pair of hands like yours could make better paste than mine! You'd best be careful or you'll catch it. If ever there was a fidget about his food it's Master Lambert. Come, now, Tom, I am going to clear away, so you must budge. Why, you've left half your victuals on the platter. I'll feed the cat ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... then, that I should turn as red as a cardinal flower, and fidget uneasily, and stutter when I tried to set myself right with my ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... victory into Greece, till at last his navy went under at Salamis. We saw the pathetic figure of Byron swimming where Leander swam; and, in all, such an array of visions that the lure of the Eternal Waterway gripped us, and we were a-fidget to ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; '80, that is the wine you must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has the most frightful headaches if he drinks ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Tom had finished his letters before that artificer arrived, thus saving Dorothea all responsibility in the valuable packet confided to his charge, for Mr. Ryfe received it himself in the outer office, whither he had resorted in a fidget to compare a time-table with a railway-map of England. He fretted to set off at once. He had finished his business; he had nothing to do now but eat an early dinner at his uncle's, and so start by the afternoon train on the path of love, triumph, and success, leaving ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... at four days and nights after opening. It was hard to wait, hard not to fidget under the watchful—the only word—eyes of the GG. They were up to something, undoubtedly. But there was something far more important: I'd narrowed the ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... there ever such a aggravating boy to take anywheres! Set quiet, do, and don't fidget, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... for assent, she packed Christabel and her belongings away again, and went to get the book. Annie waited sullenly. Then, as her friend did not come back immediately, she began to fidget. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... anxiously, the ladies saw his bright face become overclouded with anxiety. "I am the wretched bearer of bad news," he resumed, "and if I fidget in my chair, that is the reason for it. Let us get to the point—and let us get off it again as soon as possible. Here is a letter, written to me by Mr. Linley's lawyer. If you will take my advice you will let me say what the substance of it is, and then put it back in my pocket. I doubt ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... twilight had deepened into darkness; the fire, which was blazing when we entered, had settled into a glow, and the room was lit by one shaded lamp. To me the dimness was restful, but Dale, who, with the crude instincts of youth, loves glare, began to fidget, and presently asked whether he might turn on the electric light. Permission was given. My hostess invited me to smoke and, to hand her a box of cigarettes which lay on the mantelpiece, I rose, bent over her while she lit her cigarette ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... after all always been the great goddess which is perpetually worshipped. All are scholarly and deliberate in their movements. When the Speaker calls the House in order and the debate commences, deep silence comes save for the movement of hundreds of nervous hands that touch papers or fidget to and fro. Every man uses his hands, particularly when he speaks, not clenched as a European would do, but open, with the slim fingers speaking a language of their own, twisting, turning, insinuating, deriding, a little history ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... And then what a fidget the landlord was in about his wines, for he doubted not but such a guest would be extremely critical and hard to please; but, to his great relief, the baron declined taking any wine, merely washing down his repast with a tumbler of cool water; and then, although the hour was very ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... time sped away. It was the second week in March I passed in Sark; the second week in May came upon me as if borne by a whirlwind. It was only a month to the day so long fixed upon for our marriage. My mother began to fidget about my going over to London to pay my farewell bachelor visit to Jack Senior, and to fit myself out with wedding toggery. Julia's was going on fast to completion. Our trip to Switzerland was distinctly planned out, almost ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... and some electricity within him made the animal under him fidget and prance, for he stirred neither hand nor foot. "And you tell ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... to the ladies' knees, or trample out the gathers of their dresses, and fidget with their ornaments, startling some luckless lady by the announcement, "I've got your bracelet undone at last!" who would find one of the divisions broken open by force, Amelia not understanding ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... like a nightmare. To add to the misery of her secret, her mother began to fidget over the continued lack of any communication from her husband. Had the weather been fair, Ruth would have insisted on her going out with her; but to the rain of the day before was added a heavy windstorm that made any unnecessary expedition ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... great day all the visitors were to come, and during the forenoon old Miss Stanbury was in a great fidget. Luckily for Dorothy, her own preparations were already made, so that she could give her time to her aunt without injury to herself. Miss Stanbury had come to think of herself as though all the reality of her life had passed away from her. Every resolution that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... as I am concerned, batuchka, Rodion Romanovitch, I will tell you something which shall reveal to you my disposition," answered Porphyrius Petrovitch, continuing to fidget about the room, and, as before, avoiding his visitor's gaze. "I live alone, you must know, never go into society, and am, therefore, unknown; add to which, that I am a man on the shady side of forty, somewhat played out. You may have ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... at Jurgen for a while without speaking: and in the eyes of the Centaur was so much of comprehension and compassion that it troubled Jurgen. For somehow it made Jurgen fidget and consider this an unpleasantly personal way ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... fidget with some account books and papers that he had brought from his house. He eyed his partner with furtive glances; Mallalieu eyed him with steady ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... noted for long memories, but their intentions were good, and the first day of Aunt Anne's visit passed very well, the children remembering to rub their feet on the mat, shut the door softly, and not fidget at meals. But the exertion seemed too much for them, and the second day began rather boisterously, and did not improve as it went on. After lunch, when the twins came into the drawing-room, Lucy drew a footstool near her aunt, and sat down meekly upon it, thinking that the sooner Aunt Anne ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... be kept from getting their proper supply of nourishment from the food-canal, the state of affairs is quickly revealed in the mouth mirror. Those muscles which open the mouth, instead of resting peacefully in the consciousness of duty well done, are in a state of perpetual fidget, twitching, pulling, wondering whether they ought not to open the portal for the entrance of new supplies of material, since the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... and quite well. What a fidget you are! Apparently you attach as much importance to rosy cheeks as ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... listened intently, like children who hear and do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held in thrall ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... for you, girl," cried Polly. "You're in a diseased frame of mind; you are in a fidget of work; you don't know the enjoyment of idleness, the luxury of laziness. You'll spoil your complexion; your hair will grow grey; no man will dare to trifle with such a ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... an' there's more important things up to me than the dustin', I give it a lick an' a promise, same as the next one, an' let it go at that, till the time comes I can do better. Life's too short to fuss an' fidget your soul out over trifles. It ain't always what you want, but what you must. You sometimes got to cut short at one end so's you can piece out at another, an' you can take it from me, you only pester folks by gettin' 'm down where they can't resist you, an' forcin' a lot of hard facks ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... to say that you will be a good deal with her,' Miss Darrell said, shaking her head gravely; 'for you are to take the second English class under her—I heard them say so at dinner to-day— and I am afraid she will fidget you almost out of your life; but you must try to keep your temper, and take things as quietly as you can, and I daresay in time you will be able ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... with, Toni was always in a fidget to get to work. Miss Gibbs took her annual week's holiday just then, and had plenty of time to note her cousin's behaviour; and the way in which Toni swallowed her breakfast and clad herself for the start was a revelation to one who knew her ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... roof, we had a musical ride, performed by six men and six women mounted on very shiny horses. Mrs. Ascher, of course, objected strongly to the music. I could see her squirming in her seat. Ascher did not find the thing interesting and began to fidget. It was, indeed, much less suggestive than either the learned horse or the acrobats. You cannot discover in a musical ride any parable with a meaning applicable to life. Nothing in the world goes so smoothly and pleasantly. ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Froude advocated their continuance strongly, and were angry with me for consenting to stop them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his own friends; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, took a high tone in his project of measures for dealing with bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scandalised ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... no doubt the condition of human existence which statuary most easily and most naturally expresses; and few things are more obnoxious to a refined taste than that sculpture which, like that of Roubiliac, affects movement, fidget, flutter, and unquiet. But in the Phoenician sculpture the repose is overdone; except in the expression of faces, there is scarcely any life at all. The figures do nothing; they simply stand to be looked at. And they stand stiffly, sometimes ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... pleasant travelling companion," returned Isabel, laughing. "Don't mention it pray," exclaimed Emily, "you have no idea what I endured coming down. Poor Charles, he must have been almost worried to death, she is such a horrid tease, and the old gentleman too, is an awful fidget. I think Arthur Barrington knew what he was about, when he refused to be of our party, and went on by express. Talking of Lady Ashton, how abominably she behaves to you. I was saying so to Harry the other day, ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... fidget. He took his legs out of the fender and put them back again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but without relief. He turned over his Spectator to see what it had to say about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, and found that he was not interested in what it ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... suppose you will stay with your Aunt Ellen long,' said Miss Morton, 'because there is no doubt your father and mother will soon be in England, and then they will be able to look after you. Now,' she added, 'if you think you can keep still and not fidget, you may sit down by the window and watch for ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb
... Enough to make anybody fidget. Why, you're making me sick! Why can't you look after yourself?... What's the use of eating things ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... "You need not fidget about Victor, Marie. Elise is with him, and will come and let you know if he wakes; but I hope that he has gone off fairly to sleep for the night. He knew me, and I think I have put his mind at rest a little as to how he came here. I have told him it was an accident in the street, and that ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... to children, they mitigate the mental pain by wrinkling their brows, or they fidget and put themselves into strange attitudes. These odd motions, which at first are voluntary, after they have been frequently associated with certain states of mind, constantly recur involuntarily with those feelings ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... on the edge of the stool, but even there it was warm, and after a while he began to fidget, saying, 'Dear me, mother-in-law! how hot your house is! Everything I touch ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... sighed, the fox-terriers dropped their ears, and lay down heavily against each other. The Rector had begun to preach. He preached on fruitfulness, and in the first right-hand pew six of his children at once began to fidget. Mrs. Barter, sideways and unsupported on her seat, kept her starry eyes fixed on his cheek; a line of perplexity furrowed her brow. Now and again she moved as though her back ached. The Rector quartered his congregation with his gaze, lest any amongst them should incline to sleep. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... say as she looks any worse to me either; but Dr. Van Anden is in a fidget, and I suppose he knows what ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... said at the shops, on approval. Maggie, certainly, would have been as far as Charlotte herself from positively desiring this, and Charlotte, on her side, as far as Maggie from holding him light as a real value. She made him fidget thus, poor girl, but from generous rigour ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... did you tell me that I wonder?" said Glory, and Lord Robert began to fidget with ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... would be honest, that's all. Now don't you fidget about her, for there are on board this ship six men—I was going to say and a boy, but I can't, for that boy counts as a man in the spirit to do all he can, so I shall say seven good men and true—who will do everything they can to protect as sweet a young English lady ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were matters of but casual concern crowded out of my life and out of my companions' lives (in a convent boarding-school) by the more stirring happenings of every day. How could we fidget over obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and our very dreams were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over 'natural laws' in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a hill covered with trees? ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... knew nothing of all this yesterday, so entirely was I taken up with the rocks and meadows; no chance of meeting either card or billiard players in their solitudes. Both abound at Ems, where they hop and fidget from ball to ball, unconscious of the bold scenery in their neighbourhood, and totally insensible to its charms. They had no notion, not they, of admiring barren crags and precipices, where even ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... lady's, began to fidget confusedly, and, the silence continuing, she coughed several times, to effect the preface required by her sense of fitness, before she felt it proper to observe, with a ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... opened. A woman's head looked out, with suspicion. "Oh, thank Heavens!" it said with abrupt fervor. "I was afraid it mightn't be you, Miss Sylvia. I'm so glad you're back. There ain't—hasn't been a minute these past two nights that I haven't been in a fidget." ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... than two and a half years old; a personage in a jersey and minute knickerbockers, full of dancing energy and spirits, full of vital interest in the smaller problems of life. He was a fidget and he was a talker. Out of a full mind he poured forth an abundant stream of words, carelessly chosen at times, yet on the whole apt to the occasion. His intelligence was marked, of course,—what very young child's is not?—and he had inherited an ample ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... grieve, and presently there stood by her bedside a phantom Harry, a pouting lad complaining of his own mortality. She put out her hand to him and crooned, "There, there!" and told herself she must not fidget if he were there, for the dead were used to quietness; and profound ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... without fretting, and yet, after all, she seemed easier if he were at hand. I remember, one day, he was tied in front of the house, and she was loose, grazing near by. As long as he could see her, all went well enough, but the moment she sauntered around the fence, he began first to fidget, then to paw and neigh, and finally to struggle, until in the end, he broke loose and rushed after his inamorata. And what a time he made over her! whinnying, and demonstrating his delight in a dozen different ways. She? oh, she took it coolly, but that was all feminine bosh, or coquetry on ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... conversation with him to trade exigencies; but after a few days they had grown to accept him as part of the household, and were civil to him again. Mrs. Kettering liked to get him to herself of an evening and talk to him for two hours at a time. Kettering himself would fidget a good deal at such times, but scarcely ventured to intrude, though apparently his greatest delight was also to converse with Morgan. But Mrs. Kettering showed no such scruples about entering into the conversation and eventually taking Morgan ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... his mother's face with a dreamy upward gaze. 'I will try, mother, I really will. I will keep my hands tight in my pockets, and my feet close together; I will pretend I'm going to be shot by a file of soldiers, and then I really think that will help me not to fidget. I promise you I'll ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... mother's face, saw a smile there which said all she wanted. Breakfast went on more vigorously than ever. But after breakfast it seemed to Ellen that her father never would go away. He took the newspaper, an uncommon thing for him, and pored over it most perseveringly, while Ellen was in a perfect fidget of impatience. Her mother, seeing the state she was in, and taking pity on her, sent her upstairs to do some little matters of business in her own room. These Ellen despatched with all possible zeal and speed; and coming down again found her father gone and her mother alone. She flew ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... shuffling his feet, as though the floor under the table were uncomfortably hot. When Mr Verloc returned to sit in his place, like the very embodiment of silence, the character of Mrs Verloc's stare underwent a subtle change, and Stevie ceased to fidget with his feet, because of his great and awed regard for his sister's husband. He directed at him glances of respectful compassion. Mr Verloc was sorry. His sister Winnie had impressed upon him (in the omnibus) that Mr Verloc would ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... are monarchs! Our strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. Yet, hear ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... you fidget yourself about that. There's a pawnbroker's in the next street. I'll take it round there in the evening, if you ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... old fidget to send me travelling up again, just because he fancied he saw something amiss at the window. Nothing but a curtain flapping, or a shadder, for the poor dears is sleeping like lambs.' We heard her say this to herself, and a general titter agitated the white ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... Celia blew away the threatening cloud, however, and for her sake her brother promised to try to be patient; for her sake Ben declared he never would "get mad" if Mr. Thorny did fidget, and both very soon forgot all about master and man and lived together like two friendly lads, taking each other's ups and downs good-naturedly, and finding mutual pleasure and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... peas left," she returned, "and when I've reset them I'll give you your answer. That'll be in fifteen minutes. Now go away, or you'll fidget round, and I sha'n't get 'em straight." And without another word she ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... nice if he hadn't been disagreeable," she thought after a bit. Then he began to fidget and to kick the floor a little with one foot, and she began to cry and to wipe her tears away very softly and quickly, so that ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, 'Come, don't YOU fidget. YOUR bones are young enough, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he, hobbling quickly down. 'Niver fidget theesel' wi' gettin' ready to go search for her. I'll tak' thee a bet it's Philip Hepburn's voice, convoying her home, just as I said he would, an ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that has a spark of individuality is otherwise? Good-night, again, and may all sweet dreams attend you; for my part, I never dream, being past the dreaming age, and realities fortunately disappear with daylight; even cross children are wheedled into quietness, and servants forget to fidget and giggle; and, for mosquitoes, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Such a fidget, such a fuss! There is no escape for us; We shall have it shortly. How I wish that both would go Off to Bath or ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... to half finish my eating Ere Merdle is done; such a fidget is then, He'd starve me I think rather 'n miss of a meeting Where brokers preside o'er the fate of the stocks, As Pales presided o'er shepherds ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... of hours must have passed, and Pomp began to fidget about terribly, making so much noise that if the Indians had been anywhere at hand, they ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... his hand a moment, and seemed to ponder the propriety of what he was about. Mr. Harley said nothing, but sat a-fidget with curiosity. It is not given every American to be taken, via a Count with estates on the Caspian, into the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... efforts, he had but picked up Mr. Freeborn, a young Evangelical Master, with whom Sheffield was acquainted; a sharp, but not very wise freshman, who, having been spoiled at home, and having plenty of money, professed to be aesthetic, and kept his college authorities in a perpetual fidget lest he should some morning wake up a Papist; and a friend of his, a nice, modest-looking youth, who, like a mouse, had keen darting eyes, and ate his bread ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... worry and fretfulness. [Footnote: Cf. W. James's essay on "The Gospel of Relaxation," in Talks to Teachers and Students, or Annie Payson Call's books, of which the best known is Power Through Repose.] This nervous leakage is a notoriously American ailment; we knit our brows, we work our fingers, we fidget, we rock in our chairs, we talk explosively, we live in a quiver of excitement and hurry, in a chronic state of tension. We need to follow St. Paul's exhortation to "Study to be quiet"; to learn what Carlyle called "the great art of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... nasty fidget, am I?" It was going to wring tears from me, I felt, the way she hid her head, ostrich-like, in the other ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... of course not. Matty is nothing to any one who hasn't money, and you'll have none to pay her, or any one else, after I'm gone. You must eat and live for three long years. Do you understand that?... Sit back in your chair and don't fidget," he concluded. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... to that, why, as human nature is weak—excuse what I may feel compelled to do; but for the present pray oblige me by keeping your seat and the peace; or, if you must move and fidget about, go and make that pugnacious Tim Carroll as decent as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... thing; but it struck me immediately that this was the attitude at High Mass, and I gave it up as out of place. Then I assumed an air of frigid composure, and toyed with my watch-chain. But a little girl screwed her eyes into me, and said, evidently, in her mind: "That old gentleman is a fidget." Then I leaned back gracefully, but something whispered: "That's all right at home, Father Dan, but please remember that the convenances of society require a different posture;" and I sat bolt upright in a moment. My eye caught in a blissful ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... long started before he begins to fidget and shuffle, and presently he hauls up a wicker basket beside him, undoes it, and fishes out a very nice dark purple kimono. His top hat goes into the rack. His collar, tie, and stud disappear. His coat comes off and is carefully folded on the seat. We watch the gradual unpeeling ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... But my fear of ridicule was greater than my fear of vice. 'Bless me, my dear Lady Delacour,' whispered Harriot, as we left this house, 'what can make you in such a desperate hurry to get home? You gape and fidget: one would think you had never sat up a night before in your life. I verily believe you are afraid to trust yourself with us. Which of us are you afraid of, Lawless, or me, or yourself?' There was a tone of contempt in the last words which piqued me to the quick; and however ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... these awful, sad, heart-breaking times. From the first I heard all that passed, and my only thoughts and talk were—Politics; but I never was calmer and quieter or less nervous. Great events make me quiet and calm, and little trifles fidget me and irritate my nerves. But I feel grown old and serious, and the future is very dark. God, however, will come to help and protect us, and we must keep up our spirits. Germany makes me so sad; on the other hand, Belgium is a real pride ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... sat anew upon her stool and her hands on her lap, listening with a sense so long at double exercise that now she could not readily relax the strain on it M'Iver was in a great fidget to be off. I could see it in every movement of him. He was a man who ever disliked to have his feelings vexed by contact with the everlasting sorrows of life, and this intercourse with new widowhood was sore against ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Guest, with a laugh. "Married? Looked as if he was going to be hanged. Wonder whether I shall be as nervous and upset if—if—I ought to say when—it comes off? No, not likely, bless her. Might be all in a fidget to get it over for fear of a slip, but I don't think I should look ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... nothing done; we would not even trouble to stare at the intruder. Yet he would seldom stop to finish his consommation, or he would bolt it. He would feel something in the air; he would know he was out of place. He would fidget a little, frown a little, and get up meekly, and slink into the street. Human magnetism is such a subtle force. And Madame Chanve didn't mind in the least; she preferred a bird in the hand to a brace in the bush. From half a dozen to a score of us dined at her long table every ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... eyes, as the saying is, and they gave him up for dead. Well, well, you have not come to that yet, God be thanked, ill though you may be. Count on me; I would pull you through all by myself, I would! Keep still, don't you fidget ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... is in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little Gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
