"Jerky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a sparely built, muscular man, of medium size, quick and jerky in his movements, and springy in his gait. His face is broad and tanned, his cheek bones high, and his nose a snub. His beard is short and thin and grizzled, and his gray hair, curling at the ends, hangs around his neck. His shoulders ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... hangings of the baldacchino, between the wing-like drapery on either side, enclosing, as it were, a brasier of glory, he assumed real majesty of aspect. He was no longer the feeble old man with the slow, jerky walk and the slender, scraggy neck of a poor ailing bird. The simious ugliness of his face, the largeness of his nose, the long slit of his mouth, the hugeness of his ears, the conflicting jumble of his withered features disappeared. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 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
... vertical position long enough to allow any moisture outside the tube to run down, and then the liquid is allowed to run out to the level of the upper mark; this is easily effected by lessening the pressure. If the finger is wet, the flow will be jerky, and good work impossible. The pipette is next held over the vessel into which the 100 c.c. are to be put, and the liquid allowed to run out. When the bulb is nearly empty, the flow should be checked by replacing the finger, and the liquid allowed ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... 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 means, acquired an idea very near the truth. He thought that ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences, like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest and boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him—yes, but I hated him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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. They'd call ...
— I'll Kill You Tomorrow • Helen Huber
... scrub trotted a huge, shaggy, black thing, all head and shoulders, with body slanting back abruptly to a pair of weak hindquarters. Down the slope it ran in quick, noiseless, jerky steps; the yearling turned his head, still munching, ears cocked forward. And suddenly the monster rushed at him with a squeal, and the yearling shrieked and fled, chased clear ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... faces around me. Mr. Tubbs's eyes had grown bright; he licked his dry lips. His nose, tip-tilted and slightly bulbous, took on a more than usually roseate hue. Captain Magnus, who was of a restless and jerky habit at the best of times, was like a leashed animal scenting blood. Beneath his open shirt you saw the quick rise and fall of his hairy chest. His lips, drawn back wolfishly, displayed yellow, fang-like teeth. Under the raw crude greed of the man you seemed to glimpse something ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... 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, might also have ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... displacing 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
... instrument must be directed obliquely upwards, so as to make the opening and position of the trocar dependent. When the trocar is withdrawn the fluid may be allowed to flow so long as it keeps in a full equable stream; whenever it becomes jerky and spasmodic, the canula should be removed before the sucking noise of air entering the chest ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... of being able to wear the pony down. It was now only a question of how long he could stick on. He knew he would be done if the sorrel started to roll, but as yet the beast had shown no inclination that way. But as the bucks grew quicker and more jerky, Wilbur began to wonder within himself whether he would prefer to pitch over the pony's head or slide off over his tail. Suddenly, with a bound, the pony went up in the air and gave a double wriggle as he came down and Wilbur found himself on the ground ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and, on the stage, the Roofers were glittering with gold and silver and their boyish voices came in gusts, punctuated by the jerky flights of their ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... and reckless rattle of the abrupt rhymes intended to express a sudden vehemence of change and energy; the constant repetition or reiteration of interjections and ejaculations which are evidently supposed to give an air of passionate realism and tragic nature to the jingling and jerky dialogue; many little mannerisms too trivial to specify and too obvious to mistake; the occasional spirit and beauty, the frequent crudity and harshness, of the impetuous and uncertain style; the faults no less than the merits, the merits as plainly ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... dinner. Besides, he felt dull; his gout bothered him and he had 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
... with the lieutenant in the peopleless city of Belgrade and waited for his captors. They came then, timidly reassured by his non-violence. While he talked to them pleasantly the citizens of London and Paris suddenly began to dance jerky and grotesque jigs on the pavements of their cities. In the same moment the Chief Justice of the Court of the Nations, at a cocktail party in Washington, writhed in the exquisite pain of total muscle cramp, his august features twisted into a mask of ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... his man closely without appearing to do so. He saw Barker flush slightly, and did not miss the jerky nervousness of his answer—that ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... not withdraw his eyes. The suffering passivity of the woman, the sly, sinister humor in Tom Mowbray's heavy, grey face, the livid and impotent hate that frothed in the crippled man, and his strange jerky gestures, the atmosphere of nightmare cruelty and suffering that enveloped them like a miasma these bit themselves into his imagination and left it sore. He saw and tasted nothing of what he ate and drank; he was lost in watching the three at the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... absence of learning like her own. "I really dreaded to come—I go out so little, you know—but Jerry and the Colonel thought I ought, you know—and now I've really enjoyed it—and if Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the Colonel will be quite satisfied. And so, of course, will I." With which rather jerky valedictory she finally got herself out of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... contradicted fiercely, as if that could make it different. He thought he could not bear those jerky sentences. ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... here heaped up—for it is rather an unsifted accumulation than an artistic presentation and evolution—would have sufficed many a composer for several movements. The ideas are very unequal and their course very jerky till we come to the second subject (D major), which swells out into a broad stream of impassioned melody. Farther on the matter becomes again jerky and mosaic-like. While the close of the first part is very fine, the beginning of the second is a comfortless ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... awkwardness of the conductor's hand movements. This grace in baton-manipulation need not interfere in any way with the definiteness or precision of the beat. In fact an easy, graceful beat usually results in a firmer rhythmic response than a jerky, awkward one. For the first beat of the measure the entire arm (upper as well as lower) moves vigorously downward, but for the remaining beats the movement is mostly confined to the elbow and wrist. In the case of a divided beat (see pages 23 and 24) the movement comes ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... no illusion—a slight rolling proves to me, beyond a doubt, that I am not on land. We are evidently moving, but the motion is scarcely perceptible. It is not a jerky, but rather a gliding movement, as though we were skimming through the water without effort, ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... chair again, but only for a moment; then, drawing himself up, he hurried toward the door with a jerky step. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... up against your ad. in the Silver City Times [the communication began]. If you haven't found your man yet, maybe I can put you onto the right lead. I'm driving a jerky on the road from Mountain Home to Oriana, but me and the old man we don't jibe any too well. I've got a sort of disgust on me. Think I'll quit soon and go to mining. Jimmy Breen he runs the Ferry, he can tell you all I know. Fifty miles from ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... 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, ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... too free, too fluent, for perfect naturalness? And was not Dorset, to whom his glance had passed by a natural transition, too jerkily wavering between the same extremes? Dorset indeed was always jerky; but it seemed to Selden that tonight each vibration swung ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... a 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
... grade than that by which we had ascended; and we descended it joyfully at a swinging trot, with a new life in us that made us break out into lively talk and laughter that set the echoes to ringing. And presently, in a very jerky fashion because of his rapid motion, Pablo piped away on his mouth-organ with "Yankee Doodle"—and this was the first time that he had had the heart to play upon his beloved "instrumentito" since our passage of the lake beneath which lay the city of ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Spalding, the old timber-jack, told Mrs. Gaynor in his abashed stammer that Mark King had showed up while they were gone. Gloria, on her way to her room, whirled and came back, and extracted the tale in its entirety, pumping it out of the brief, few-worded old Spalding in jerky details. King had appeared late yesterday afternoon, coming out of the woods. Looked like he'd been roughin' it an' goin' it hard, at that. Had told Jim he wanted to telephone. Had stuck around for a while gettin' ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... 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, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... man pointed the boat's stem down stream, and after a little jerky work on the bar stood clear out ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... 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 an ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Nelson, with his eyes cast down, gave me the whole story of the Heemskirk episode in Freya's words; then went on in his rather jerky utterance, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... addressed as Bob. He spoke in short, jerky sentences. He was dressed as a seafaring man; had wide, helpless-looking brown eyes, an apologetic smile, and a bass voice of appalling depth and power. "Boat's aground," he repeated, seating himself ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... is utterly impossible, Hamilton," I cried, when in short jerky sentences, as if afraid to give thought rein, he had answered my uncle's ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... forward. It wasn't Danglar. That was what had instantly taken hold of her mind, and she knew a sudden relief now. The man on the stairs—she could see that it was a man now—though he moved silently, swayed in a grotesquely jerky way as though he were lame. It wasn't Danglar! She would go to any length to track Danglar to his lair; but not here—here in the darkness—here in the garret. Here she was afraid of him with a deadly fear; here alone with him there would be ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... Dimsdale made a jerky movement, as if pulling himself together. He put an unsteady hand into his breast-pocket. "It came this afternoon, my lady, about an hour ago. I am afraid it's bad news—very bad news. Yes, my lady, I'm telling you, I'm telling you. I regret to ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... appearance and in guilt, was the formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible fidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no notion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter, was a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression, ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... In a jerky, strained voice he told of his mailing a letter, from a village within a short distance of Bug Hollow, to a girl friend of his on the afternoon of the night of the robbery. He swore positively that this ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wouldn't want THAT to happen!" exclaimed the Clown, as he brought his queer, jerky dance to an end. "If you'd rather, I ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... boat gradually neared them, though in a very jerky fashion, showing how unskilled the rower was, till, unhappily, glancing over his shoulder, he caught sight of the group awaiting them, and raised his oars by way of salute. But, in lowering them, one ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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
... house. Breathing unevenly, she watched, lynx-eyed, every inch of Annie Johns' progress: watched her pick up her books, edge out of her seat and sidle through the rows of desks; watched her walk to the door with short jerky movements, mount the two steps that led to it, fumble with the handle, turn it, and vanish from sight; and when it was all over, and there was nothing more to see, she fell back in her ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed in pursuit of it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the great mire, and my acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft to tuft behind it, his green net waving in the air. His gray clothes and jerky, zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge moth himself. I was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his extraordinary activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the treacherous mire, when I heard the sound of steps and, turning round, ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... 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 helped to ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... in the dusk, he could see Lawler riding near the herd. For an instant Antrim hesitated, plainly debating the wisdom of leaving his men; then he smiled with whimsical recklessness. And his movements became rapid, jerky. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... over, "birthdays" were called for, and the little Hamilton girl trotted importantly forward to the superintendent's table, where she let seven pennies drop from her fat fingers into a yawning frog, receiving in exchange a printed text. Acknowledging this courtesy with a jerky bow, she switched her way back to the pew she had left, and crumpled herself into a space not half wide enough to hold her. The minister rose to lead in prayer. Hannah bowed her head devoutly, trusting in the power of example. She was conscious of the heavy breathing of Margaret beside ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... 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 ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... 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 in those compositions, they had the one supreme ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... von Aurnhammer's after dinner nearly every day. The young woman is a fright, but she plays ravishingly, though she lacks the true singing style in the cantabile; she is too jerky." ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... you want some more money. Write to the office, not to the house. I only wish you had asked me before this happened. I've been pretty successful, at least in business; but that's not everything." He paused and then went on, in short, jerky sentences. "Don't marry a saint, Jimmy. They're better to watch than to live with. Your sister never forgives anything, and that's a big mistake. It makes life hard sometimes. I suppose I'm getting a bit old, and I feel things. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Jerky, little by little, Wilfred sketches out the answer. Army life wasn't what he'd expected. Not at all. He was sore on the whole business. He'd been let in for it, that was all. It wasn't so bad for some of the fellows, but they'd been lucky. As for him—well, he'd come here to learn to be an ambulance ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... fast!" panted Bunny, in a sort of jerky way, for the cart rattled over some bumps just then, and if Bunny had not been careful how he spoke he might have bitten his tongue ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... course something did happen. That is why he went back to live in Winesburg and why we know about him. The thing that happened was a woman. It would be that way. He was too happy. Something had to come into his world. Something had to drive him out of the New York room to live out his life an obscure, jerky little figure, bobbing up and down on the streets of an Ohio town at evening when the sun was going down behind the roof ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... message, and ask the operator to get it in the hands of the chief of police without an instant's loss of time," directed Mr. Seaton, speaking in jerky haste. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... daily delight now the sun was glinting over the sea and the gorse was in bud, and the stonechats, which had vanished during the cold weather, were back among the boulders, darting from stone to stone in short, jerky flight, with that sharp, jarring cry which is the prelude to their sweeter spring note. The moorland air at 8 a.m. was so fresh and pure and exhilarating that it seemed to blow away all the cobwebs, and Gwen often felt inclined to dance along the path for sheer ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... while she was so looking that the car behind shot suddenly past and ahead, and she saw its tail lights moving away with a pang of hopelessness. Then, before she realised what had happened, the big car ahead slowed and swung sideways, blocking the road, and the cab came to a jerky stop that flung her against the window. She saw two figures in the dim light of the taxi's head lamps, heard somebody speak, and the door ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... around the falls without our knowing it. Hung about here, waiting to steal something from our camp. Had a snare set for jack-rabbits. Saw some torn skins in the camp," was what the cowboy replied, in his jerky way. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... 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 hurry ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... 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 youths ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... looking for, close to the 'water circle.' It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living person if they touched the hot bar of ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... 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 line ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... sentiment, was Rationalism pure and simple. Its god was not the creator of the visible universe, of angels and archangels, dominions, principalities, and powers, of incalculable natural and supernatural forces, but a jerky loose-jointed pasteboard divinity, the exclusive possession, since it is the exclusive invention, of the Anglo-Saxon race, through whose gaping mouth any and every self- elected prophet was free to shout, as heaven-descended truth, in the name of progress and liberty, whatever ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... hopes all things, the bloom of which has not been rubbed away by the rough touch of the world. It is only when that shyness is prolonged beyond the appropriate years, when it leaves a well-grown and hard-featured man gasping and incoherent, jerky and ungracious, that it is a painful and disconcerting deformity. The only real shadow of early shyness is the quite disproportionate amount of unhappiness that conscious gaucherie brings with it. Two incidents connected with a ceremony most fruitful in nervousness ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... against one of the studio walls, Steve sat dizzily, his head reeling. He saw things through a mist in a queer jerky way. But still a smile beamed on his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... deep gulping sigh of relief, flashed across the room on tiptoe, and went down on his knees beside the monstrous thing, moving the candle this way and that along the length of it, as if searching for something, and laughing in little jerky gasps of relief when he found nothing that was not as it had been—as it should be—as he wanted it to be. And then, as he rose and patted the clay, and laughed aloud as he realized how hard it had set, then, at that instant, a white shape lurched forward ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that he couldn't get any play for ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... spiders, it was a favourite hunting-ground of those insect desperadoes, the mason-wasps, that flew about loudly buzzing in their splendid gold and scarlet uniform. There were also many little shy birds here, and my favourite was the wren, for in its appearance and its scolding, jerky, gesticulating ways it is precisely like our house-wren, though it has a richer and more powerful song than the English bird. On the other side of the hedge was the potrero, or paddock, where a milch-cow with two or three horses were kept. The manservant, whose name was Nepomucino, presided ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Globe-Democrat, and he was a part of the art department force of that paper. At that time—and he never seemed to change later even so much as a hair's worth until he died in 1908—he was short, stocky and yet quick and even jerky in his manner, with a bushy, tramp-like "get-up" of hair and beard, most swiftly and astonishingly disposed of at times only to be regrown at others, and always, and intentionally, I am sure, most amusing to contemplate. In addition to all this he had an air ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... his wrists, so as to throw the thumb and forefingers a trifle forward. This simple action relieved Blue Grass, alias Miss Mayfield, and made the coach steadier and less jerky. ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... mean to keep you in the dark after this, Perk," he was told in jerky, broken sentences, as though Jack found it difficult to talk and pay the proper attention to what he was doing, for the amphibian had again commenced a steep dive, seeking a much lower altitude. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... a quarter of a mile further down the road before either spoke, and then Johnny said, and his voice was jerky and uncertain: ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... manicurist; but his colour was peculiar, being almost unhumanly florid, and, as Mrs. Schofield afterward claimed to have noticed, his eyes "wore a nervous, apprehensive look", his hands were tremulous, and his manner was "queer and jerky"—at least, that is ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... in the cage a bluebottle, one only, to avoid confusion. Her fat belly proclaims the advent of a laying time. An hour later, when the excitement of being put in prison is allayed, my captive is in labor. With eager, jerky steps, she explores the morsel of game, goes from the head to the tail, returns from the tail to the head, repeats the action several times and at last settles near an eye, a dimmed eye sunk into ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... 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, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Sebastian's or Hilda's had been. She had taken a big dose, so as to secure immobility. The question now was, would she recover at all from it? Hour after hour we waited and watched; and not a sign of movement! Only the same deep, slow, hampered breathing, the same feeble, jerky pulse, the same deathly pallor on the dark cheeks, the same corpse-like rigidity ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... 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 ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... 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 pump, ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... his return, he had tried the movies. The picture showed soldiers in the trenches and the jerky scenes and figures made his eyes ache and set his poor sick nerves on edge. Once he had almost asked Margaret if he might go over to East Bridgeboro and see her. He was glad when Friday morning came, and the day passed quickly and gayly, because of the troop meeting that ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in the road, he saw a man walking in the same direction in which he was going; a young man, slight and wiry, walking with quick, jerky strides. Calvin observed him. ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... gentle movement of the elevator is necessary. A jerky movement may change the direction of motion so suddenly as to produce dangerous air stresses upon the surfaces, in which case there ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... in Mullally's nature that made Henry instinctively angry with him: his vague features, his weak, wandering eyes, peering from behind large glasses, his tow-coloured hair that seemed to have "washed-out," and above all, his squeaky voice that piped on one jerky note.... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Savonarola on principle and deserted for the unlit tramp, drove this latter destiny-maker through the coral passage in daylight, and around to the harbor, amid the subdued rejoicing of the Defenders. Subdued, because the Defenders were jerky with fear of a trick, even with the guns and ammunition safely stored in the Capitol—until the message from Bedient to Jaffier ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... was also dressed like a doll. The boy looked very handsome, in a black velvet suit with lace ruffles at the wrists and knees, and long white stockings with black slippers. He was clever, too, in assuming the character, and walked with stiff, jerky strides, like a mechanical doll that ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... man of middle age, with a thin voice and jerky manner. "I had Forbes yesterday, Mrs. Chiverton, to speak to me in your name," he announced. "Do you know him for the officious fellow he is, for ever meddling in other people's matters? For ten years he has pestered me about Morte, which is ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... eyes through the gathering night to turn him into the smoothest way, lapsing into jerky, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... ever in her thin face, 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
... 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 one of them desperately ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... a short, round-bodied, thin-legged little man, with a jerky quality in his motions; he had seen fit to clothe his extraordinary mind in a cricket cap, an overcoat, and cycling knickerbockers and stockings. Why he did so I do not know, for he never cycled and he never played cricket. It was a fortuitous concurrence of garments, arising I know ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... replied, and walked forrard to Jacobs's bunk. Some time before, he had rigged up a pair of curtains, cut out of an old sack, to keep off the draught. These, some one had drawn, so that I had to pull them aside to see him. He was lying on his back, breathing in a queer, jerky fashion. I could not see his face, plainly; but it seemed rather pale, ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... 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 to ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... including some voluble Swedes and a company of dapper Japanese gentlemen, who were seeing Europe. After much pushing, crowding, shouting, and gesticulation on the part of both the public and officials, the train at last started and pursued its jolting and jerky way. It ran first through the poorer district of Naples, where dilapidated houses, whose faded walls showed traces of former gay pink, blue, or yellow color-wash, stood in the midst of vegetable ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... When he has leisure to adorn, he translates the simplest, most obvious reflections into the "jargon" of political philosophy, but, driven impetuously forward by the excitement of his theme, he throws off jerky, spasmodic sentences containing but a single clause. His style is a curious ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... descent was almost headlong, and down it the horse, urged by his rider, sprang in dizzy leaps; where the footing was worst Laramie tried to ease his frantic plunges. Stricken with terror, the beast caught his breath in convulsive starts and breathed in grunting snorts. Halting and bucking in jerky recoveries; leaping from foothold to foothold as if every jump were his last, and taking on a momentum far beyond his own or his rider's control, the frightened pony dashed recklessly ahead. It was as if a great weight, bounding on living springs, ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Dorking Hen, as she strutted around the poultry-yard. She held her head very high, and paused every few minutes to look around in her jerky way and see whether the other fowls were listening. Once she even stood on her left foot right in the pathway of the Shanghai Cock, and cackled into his ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... chocolate is sometimes made into a refreshing drink. Only a small amount of sugar and 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 ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... resting on the back just at the base of the tail; the tail should be spread out like a fan and contain at least twenty-eight feathers. These feathers should be laced on the ends. The model fantail should have a nervous jerky motion and never be at rest. Each of these points is given a certain value on a scale of marking and in judging the birds they are marked just as you may be in your lessons at school. The fancier tries to breed a ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... Then there were some impatient handclappings. A few persons whispered: "Why is he late?" "Why doesn't he come?" "I wonder where Diotti is," and then came unmistakable signs of impatience. At its height Perkins appeared, hesitatingly. Nervous and jerky he walked to the center of the stage, and raised his hand begging ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... the man in sharp, jerky sentences, each one definite and pointed. She spoke with the certainty of ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... between the outstretched fingers—(first and second)—and the ball is securely held by the muscle at the ball of the thumb. By bending the first and second fingers that hold the cup, its lip is brought in close proximity to the secreted ball. By a sharp or jerky movement forward to place the cup on the ground, and at the same time releasing the muscle of the ball of the thumb, the woollen ball naturally finds its place under the cup and the deception is complete. The performer then picks up one of the three exposed ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... falling a victim to ill-health; there was a bent, tired look about his figure, and his features were drawn and thin. A glance at him sufficed to reveal a nervous, highly-strung temperament; his movements were jerky, and altogether, about his entire person, there was a noticeable lack of repose. He was about thirty-five years of age, though he gave the impression of a rather older man. The fact that he was very short-sighted gave ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... hopped half a light-year in overdrive, and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect the star-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year, and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion. ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... he was able to break it. A few yards further on the water was up to his chin. He was now breaking the ice by trying to climb upon it. Frank was watching him closely, and noticed that he no longer proceeded about his work deliberately, but with a hurried and jerky action, as if he felt his strength failing him. Frank pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and handed them to the cripple, kicked off his boots, and stood ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... should 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 ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... short breakfast she lit a cigarette, and began to pace up and down her sitting-room with a jerky, nervous gait, quite unlike her wonted graceful, easy, swinging walk. She had to relight her cigarette, and as she did so, Elizabeth Twitcher, who was clearing away the breakfast, perceived that ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... very dream-like and strange: the awful, overwhelming, crushing sound of the wind seemed to press upon my brain so that I could not for a long time think, only lie and try to breathe without catching each inspiration in a jerky, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... those empty, tripping metrical stories, and superior even to "Morte Arthure" and to "William of Palerne,"[575] written in English verse at the time of Chaucer, ranks "Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight,"[576] being incomparably the best specimen of the style. Instead of puppets with jerky movements, and wooden joints that we hear crack, the English poet shows in this work real men and women, with supple limbs and red lips; elegant, graceful, and charming to behold. These knights and ladies in their well-fitting armour or their tight dresses, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... his breath with a low, hissing sound; his face, by the yellow light of the lamp, looked ghastly in colour, and his hands were twitching convulsively as the trembling fingers clenched and opened with a monotonous, jerky movement ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... predecessor. The connection and relation of 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 ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... the back the man bustled out in his jerky fashion, leaving her weeping over the verdict ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... them away with that, and turned again, with his jerky suddenness, to his telegrams and letters. The colonel had not meant for Macdonald to pass out of the door through which he had entered. That was the military portal; the other one, opening into the hall from which Frances ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... shop. We run two monthlies and a weekly, one critical, one household, one entirely for children. The boss is a great pal of mine. Name of Farraday—an American. Come on!" And he wheeled her abruptly back the way they had come. She followed unresistingly, intensely amused at his quick, jerky sentences and crisp manner—the very antithesis of his ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... between them?" Halfman 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 ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... him—entirely within his head—he walked light-heartedly up the rue de la Gaiete, with his helmet tossed backwards on his shaggy head, his heavy kit swinging in disordered fashion from his shoulders, his mouth open, shouting meaningless things to the passers-by, and his steps very short, jerky and unsteady. Thus it happened, that many people, seeing him in this condition, shuddered, and asked what France had come to, when she must place her faith in such men as that. Other people, however, laughed at him, and made way for him, or closed in on him and squeezed his arm, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte |
