"Jerky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voice was rising, and it was as if the heat of it rekindled her animation. With a jerky movement she flung up both her hands, grasping tensely the arms that held ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... rather vulgar-looking man. At a distance—say ten yards—his height, figure, and carriage gave him somewhat of a commanding appearance, but this was rather marred by a jerky, twitchy, uneasy sort of air, that too plainly showed he was not the natural, or what the lower orders call the real gentleman. Not that Sponge was shy. Far from it. He never hesitated about offering to a lady after a three days' acquaintance, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... them, and were ushered into the presence of their infuriated captain. They were each handsome, broad-shouldered athletes, with keen, sparkling, fearless eyes that indicated fearlessness. He made a short, jerky, almost inarticulate speech on the wickedness and indecency of committing an act of gross disrespect to the vessel, the owner and himself, all of whom should ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... start in early spring was gone. By this time the spare spaces in the wagons were kept filled with meat, for always there were buffalo now. Lines along the sides of the wagons held loads of rudely made jerky—pieces of meat slightly salted and exposed to the clear dry air ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... 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 ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... as if he were placing himself under a tremendous obligation to her, by making her go to so much trouble; and, after assuring the others that she would not be long, followed Denis with that jerky mutinous gait in which each footfall is an angry stamp;—it is characteristic of women all the world over, when they are induced to do something of which they disapprove. For she was wondering where Lord Henry could be, and feared lest, ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... constantly expectorating, which so many Boers have, he has never lost. He is quite ignorant of conversation in the ordinary acceptation of the word; he is an autocrat in all his ways, and has a habit of almost throwing short, jerky sentences at you generally allegorical in form, or partaking largely of scriptural quotations—or misquotations quite as often. Like most of the Boers, the Bible is his only literature—that book he certainly studies a good deal, and his religion is a very large ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... he heard a rumpus that shot him erect, and sent his extraordinarily conspicuous orange dagger of a beak darting from side to side in that jerky way of listening ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... cheeks, and his sides shaking with gusts of merriment, my father took me upon his knee, and gave me the funniest kiss I ever had—a jerky kiss, as if a bee had ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... first hour Christophe was still under the excitement of the fight: he talked volubly in a loud voice: in a breathless, jerky fashion he kept on telling what he had seen and heard: he was proud of his achievement and felt no remorse. Manousse and Canet talked too, by way of making him forget. Gradually his feverish excitement subsided, and Christophe stopped ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... a loss, 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 ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... and began to walk up and down the whole length of the platform. Therese watched the jerky movements of the hands of the clock, and ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... sticks of wood, tapering toward the top, and 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 Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... came to visit him in the Rue Fortunee, they were much shocked by the change in his appearance. His breathing was short, his speech jerky, and his sight so bad that he was unable to distinguish objects clearly. Nevertheless, as Gautier says,[*] every one felt such intense confidence in his wonderful constitution that it seemed impossible to think of ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... done. They couldn't go on like this.... Her mind went to and fro, quickly, with short jerky movements, distressed; it had to do so much thinking ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... jerky trot shook the cart so terribly that the chairs began to dance, and threw the travelers into the air, to the right and to the left, as if they had been dancing puppets, which made them make horrible grimaces and screams, which, however, were ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the clutch, but the engine was still running, though in a jerky, uncertain fashion, which indicated to the trained ear of the young inventor that ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... 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 be added ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... deepened. Across the street a sort of bubbling explosion, followed by a jerky glare that shot athwart the room, announced the lighting of the big arc-lamp on the opposite side-walk. She resented it, being in the mood for undiluted gloom; but she had not the energy to pull down the shade and shut ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and Michael failed to see each other. And Michael, spilling over with unused vitality from the cramped space of the Eugenie's deck, scampered down the beach in a hurly-burly of joy, scenting a thousand intimate land-scents as he ran, and describing a jerky and eccentric course as he made short dashes and good-natured snaps at the coconut crabs that scuttled across his path to the safety of the water or reared up and menaced him with formidable claws and a spluttering and foaming of the shell-lids of ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... nervous, jerky fashion, 'that is not the proper way from your schoolroom to chapel, ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... the stranger's greeting, and Smoke's heart went out to the man in ready liking. "Just in time for a snack. There's coffee in the pot, a couple of cold flapjacks, and some jerky." ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... said a jerky little voice in answer, "your aunts, remember, were all young once, and considered great beauties in their day." There was a world of gentle pride in Aunt Matilda's voice as she said this, and it sounded so well that she said it over again. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the energy he could into a series of short jerky strokes, using the muscles of his arms, failing altogether to get the weight of his body on the oar. At the end of twenty minutes ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... was still in the air but over it now was draped the net, the rocks in its fringes weighing it down in spite of its jerky attempts to rise. In its struggles to be free, it might almost have led the watcher to believe that it had intelligence of a sort. Now the mermen were coming out of the stream, picking up rocks as they advanced. And a hail of stones flew through ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... by throwing doubts before these same tenants whether they should pay or not before Moll's succession is made sure. And I have good reason to fear they will not, for I observed yesterday when I called upon Farmer Giles to invite him to our feast, he seemed very jerky and ill at ease, which perplexed me greatly, until, on quitting, I perceived through a door that stood ajar old Simon seated in a side room. And 'tis but natural that if they find prudent excuse for withholding their ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... 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." ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... 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
... what 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 ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... spent all of his waking moments between receiving and sending telegrams at the camp of the Tontine group. The men were gathered on the porch. There was talk, jerky sentences. Only a man finely and delicately balanced and organized as was the old scientist could have resisted the pall of gloom and dread that ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... 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. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the inside bank till the car seemed standing on end, rushed ahead till the earth of the outer edge broke under the front tires and splashed in the water. Davies, now off, and again on the running board when needed, accompanied the car in its jerky and erratic progress, tossing robes and coats under the tires, calling instructions to Drexel similarly occupied on the other side, and warning Miss Drexel out ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... walking with long, jerky strides. The pressure against his ribs brought a gasp of agony from his lips. Each jarring step was an individual and excruciating torture. His breath was cut off by the relentless constriction of one of the tentacles which ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... over to Yancey's plane. The gangling Texan was testing his rudder controls and flipping his ailerons with jerky movements of ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... eyeglasses. Henry looked older and feebler than any of the company. His scant hair hung in thin and long white locks, and his tall, slender figure had gained a still more meagre effect from his dress, while his shoulders were bowed in a marked stoop; his gait was rigid and jerky. He assisted himself with a gold-headed cane, and sat in his chair ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... 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 water that comes down around it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 before he knew ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... 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
... of the human mind, with its every-day, jerky reasoning powers and its submerged, smooth intuitions, finds its strongest support in ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... be managed without fear of 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, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... not a pretty sight. His mouth was open, disclosing a gap in the upper row where several teeth at some time had been knocked out. He breathed stertorously, at times grunting and moaning with the pain of his sleep. Also, he was very restless, tossing his arms about, making jerky, half-convulsive movements, and at times rolling his head from side to side in the burrs. This restlessness seemed occasioned partly by some internal discomfort, and partly by the sun that streamed down on his face and ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... of 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
... 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
... unconscious manner in which he uttered his notes between two mouthfuls, never mounting a twig or making a "performance" of his music. I have watched one an hour at a time, going about in his jerky fashion, tearing up the ground and searching therein, exactly after the manner of a scratching hen. This, by the way, was a droll operation, done with both feet together, a jump forward and a jerk back of the whole ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... up and down before the scarce hearing Jose and unfolded his story in a quick, jerky voice, with many a gesture and much rolling of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... with ice-gray sailor's beard and dark-blue face was there, a fish-dealer from the capital, who understood German. He seemed to be wholly stopped up as to nose, and inclined to apoplexy, for he drew short, jerky breaths and raised from time to time his beringed forefinger to one of his nostrils, in order to shut it and procure the other one a little air by means of vigorous snorting. None the less he paid constant court to the brandy bottle, which stood before him at breakfast as ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... head 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 ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... across him," responded the officer, in his usual short, jerky way. "Lucky to catch you here, too, before you ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... 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, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... your pardon," he exclaimed in a quick, jerky way. "The three thousand dollars is here, but these bills have been put in the box this morning; they were not there last night. It is not the money that was taken away, either. That was one bill, a thousand-dollar note; and here ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... 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 ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... men all around the platform—a solid phalanx of them on the slope above. They were heavily armed. Other masked men stood on the platform. They seemed rigid figures—stiff, jerky when they moved. How different from ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... 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 ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... seems, in saddle. The winter weather was glorious at Averill. They had a fine pack of hounds; coursing for jack-rabbit was their favorite sport, and, despite the fact that Foster had a beautiful and speedy horse, "his seat was so poor and his hand so jerky he never managed to get up to ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... no flour, nor rice, not jerky, anyhow," said the puncher, examining the bags. "Nor bacon, either. The only chance we stand to make a haul ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... 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 ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... I deposited the coin in the slot, whereupon Julianna, with great delight, watched the opening of the front of the box, the exposure of the internals of the figure, and the jerky motions of the Sheik as he extended his mechanical arm over his lifeless legs to ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the pressure of pride upon her throat. There was no dribble of emotion. Only the facts popped out—hard and dry, and to Miss Ram intensely illuminative. Mary did not mention George's name. She concluded her narrative with jerky facts relative to the scene in the Park. "Then I ran away," she said, "and a friend of mine came up. He had seen. And he thrashed him. When I got back to Mrs. Chater's her son had arrived—battered. He told his mother that he had seen me with a man and had ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... all of whom he knew by sight or by name, and not one of whom he had ever met before. But they all shook hands after it was over, and the assistant organist played the Wedding March, and one of the club men insisted in pulling a cheerful and jerky peal on the church bell in the absence of the janitor, and then Van Bibber hurled an old shoe and a handful of rice—which he had thoughtfully collected from the chef at the club—after them as they drove off to ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... she was gone, and the door was shut and locked—they heard the great key scrape—Eric turned joyfully to Ivra. She was staring intently at the closed door, her face very pale. Suddenly she buried her head in her arms and burst into sobs, hoarse, jerky sobs, the first and the last time Eric was ever to hear her cry. Eric and the Wind Children sat cross-legged and waited. Soon she stopped and wiped her ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... 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, ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... responsible in bearing and speech, conversationally reasonable in tone. There was Mr Schreiner, the Premier, almost boyish with plump, smooth cheeks and a dark moustache. He looks capable, and looks as if he knows it: he, too, is conversational, almost jerky, in speech, but with a flavour of bitterness ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... more and more jerky, even incoherent; evidently the material had not even now been fully reduced ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... 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 ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... 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 ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... 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 ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Mattie: she generally prefaced her remarks by an "Oh, dear!" ("That was one of her jerky ways," as Archie said.) "I could not help coming straight to you, for Archie would not talk, and I felt I must tell somebody. Oh, dear, Miss Middleton! What do you think? We have just called at the Friary—and——" but ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... 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 ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... a jerky motion and downed the contents; the chaser stood disregarded before him and O'Brien regarded his patron with ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... supposed to look like him, I believe. He, too, spoke to me that evening about Rosalind's engagement. I remember how he walked up and down the dining-room, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, and his quick, nervous, jerky movements. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... Ivan's 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
... tides. And Wilbur Cowan, who was going to war, had invited her to be present that evening at the opening of Newbern's new and gorgeous restaurant, where the diners, between courses and until late after dinner, would dance to the strains of exotic and jerky music, precisely as they did ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... turned from that stolen reading of the opening verse in jerky, feverish, gouty manuscript, to the writer, let out his soul perhaps; for the poet's face struck fire too, and seeming to detect on a sudden the legible document of something by no means conventional below the young man's well-controlled manner and expression, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... 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 ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... 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' this road. I conna ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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 letter ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 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 had ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... In broken, jerky sentences, Ravone explained to the colonel that they were a party of actors on their way to Edelweiss, but that they had been advised to give the place a wide berth. Now they were making the best of a hard journey to Serros, where they expected but little ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... out his story, a wonderful story, told in jerky sentences, garnished with blasphemies and obscene words. He had been a member of the Lewis Gun team. Very early in the advance the bursting of a high explosive shell had buried him, buried the whole gun ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... loaf after 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
... 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 as ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... 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 a while your hat will not stay in place and your head becomes sensitive, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... 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, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... as of some obstacle grazing against or bumping the side of the yacht. He looked, and saw, to his surprise, a small rowing boat close under the gunwale, so close indeed that the slow motion of the tide heaved it every now and then into a jerky collision with the lower framework of the Eulalie—a circumstance which explained the sound which had attracted his attention. The boat was not unoccupied—there was some one in it lying straight across the seats, with face turned upwards to the sky—and, walking noiselessly to a better post ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the first and second intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother and her—fellows who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew who I was by the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury, that coldly insolent air of theirs—a jerky nod at me without so much as a glance, and no notice of me when they were leaving my box beyond a faint, supercilious smile as they passed with eyes straight ahead. I knew what it meant, what they were thinking—that the "Bucket-Shop ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... short, snappy, pithy 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 ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... change in his expression as he watched the man he had called Dolver. There came no change in the cold, steady gleam of his eyes as he saw the man stiffen and swing the muzzle of his pistol upward with a quick, jerky motion. But he sneered as with the movement he sent a bullet into the man's chest; his lips curving with slight irony when Dolver's gun went off, the bullet throwing up ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... birds shall be of certain shape and size, with the head 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 bird that comes the nearest to this model. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... 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 ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... discrimination in the selection of the meal. In place of the light wine which Mr. Waddington generally chose, they had champagne. They drank Benedictine with their coffee and smoked cigars instead of cigarettes. Their conversation was a trifle jerky and Mr. Waddington kept on returning to the subject of the ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in the wall, in one corner, just under the ceiling, a tiny door fly open, and emerging thence a grotesque, miniature man, holding, uplifted in his hand, a hammer of size proportionate to his own figure. Mr. Norton sat motionless, while this small specimen proceeded, with a jerky gait and many bobbing grimaces, across a wire stretched to the opposite corner of the room, where stood a tall, ebony clock. When within a short distance of the clock another tiny door in its side flew open; the little man entered and struck deliberately with the ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... detective's face grew plainer, it almost gave him the air of being unnerved; and he said quickly, in a jerky voice: "Yes, and I know his way of acting too. During the last ten years I have learnt to unravel his intrigues—to understand and anticipate his manoeuvres.... Oh, his is a clever system! ... Instead of lying low, as you'd expect, he ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... 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
... though hidden from the simple by a maze of high-sounding 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 political or ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... had become perfectly steady and natural in its tones; all his restless, jerky movements had ceased. Outwardly he seemed to be completely master of himself. But of a truth the aspect of the madman now was more terrible than before. His sallow cheeks were the colour of lead, his pale ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... chance and without selection, he knocked violently at any house that he happened to pass. His blows, on which he was expending his last energies, were jerky and without aim; now ceasing altogether for a time, now renewed as if in irritation. It was the violence of his fever striking against ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Shellington it seemed many hours before the small, jerky train that ran between Auburn and Ithaca drew into the latter city. In his eagerness to reach the squatter settlement without loss of time, he hastened from the car into the station. He knew that it would be far into the night before he reached Lon Cronk's, and, with ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... 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
... 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 finally ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... 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, spring, flash. saludar salute, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... around the front leg of my mule, and for a moment I was anxious lest the animal had been bitten; but fortunately the snake, which had been trodden upon, did no damage. Only rarely did we see a bird anywhere, except in villages, where an occasional crow, with its dried-up neck and jerky motions, could be seen. How like the inhabitants ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... heavy and very difficult to decipher. As his hand wanders here and there, his body may sway and the pencil be brought in contact with the paper. When he begins to write, the strokes are crude and jerky and uncertain. The first notes that he delivers to the sitters are very often difficult to make out, and sometimes it is impossible to tell what they are. But this condition will be gradually overcome until the writing is ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... 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
... making molasses candy for her because they happened to be born on the same day of the month. And then he played the fiddle until almost one o'clock. He played all the simple, sweet, old-time pieces, in rather a squeaky, jerky way, I am afraid, but the music suited the time and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... a wide sea, with shapes of pain and agony and revolt. She looked at the sleeping wife. "He, too, is probably asleep," she thought, remembering some information which a kindly warder had given her in a few jerky, well-meant sentences, while she was waiting downstairs in the gaol for Minta Hurd. "Incredible! only so many hours, minutes left—so far as any mortal knows—of living, thinking, recollecting, of all that makes ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that to speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all through was ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was staring rather pensively at the second button from the top of Poopendyke's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid button. She looked up with a nervous ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... later Jerry 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 ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... the window, came forward and welcomed him. Glory held his hand with her long hand-clasp and looked steadfastly into his eyes. His face twitched and her own blushed deeply, and then she talked in a nervous and jerky way, reproaching him for his ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... spontaneous, and never the result of effort. In singing the arpeggio the tones of the voice must be strictly staccato; but the movement of the hands and body must be very smooth, even, and continuous—no short, jerky movements. ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... detachment from Jevons, introduced them. I don't know how she did it. It was as if, without any actual repudiation, she declined to hold herself responsible for Jevons' appearance; for the extraordinary little bow he made; for his jerky aplomb and for his "Glad to meet you, Captain." And for the rest, she just handed him over to her brother and trusted Reggie to be decent ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... 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
... 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... St. Sylvester's, and Bertie ran up panting, waving his music. "Lucky I've not got to sing," said the young fellow in a jerky voice, and rushed to the vestry-door, where Mr. Clifton fidgeted, watch in hand. After such a race it was natural enough that the young organist should be somewhat flushed as he went up the aisle with a surpliced boy at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... regime of oppressive interference, we must assume that its ultimate aim is to turn the child into an animated puppet, who, having lost his capacity for vital activity, will be ready to dance, or rather go through a series of jerky movements, in response to the strings which his teacher pulls. It is the inevitable reaction from this state of tension which is responsible for much of the "naughtiness" of children. The spontaneous energies of ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... 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 of ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... course, both in 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 ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... their wheeling and their cawing; the five-minutes bell, with its jerky, toneless tolling, alone broke the Sunday hush. An old horse, not yet taken up from grass, stood motionless, resting a hind-leg, with his face turned towards the footpath. Within the churchyard wicket the Rector, firm and square, a low-crowned ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not listening. He had already turned aside in his quick, jerky way; for he was a comparatively young man. He was looking through the olives ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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
... as he could into the water, and immersing the whole length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless, with the hooked pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the blackness that upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts, methought, as if he were stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the side of the boat. So obscure, however, so awfully mysterious, was that dark stream, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to find his friend already seated, pouring out tea, and showing an unaffected interest in the choice of food. "I expect this to be a hard day for me," he said, with the curious jerky utterance which seemed to be his habit. "I sha'n't eat again till the evening, very likely. You guess why I'm here, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Herr 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
... white, faintly ruled paper wrapped about the revolving drum, I watched the long-shanked, awkward pen of the barograph in our Weather Bureau station at Galveston. In the jerky, scrawling fashion of a child writing his first copy on a slate, I saw the pen gradually draw what looked like a rough profile map—a long declining plateau, a steep and then a steeper slope, ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... a 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 ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... 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
... and for beggars. Yet it was Miss Magen whose faith in the purpose of the struggling world inspired Una. Una walked with her up Madison Avenue, past huge old brownstone mansions, and she was unconscious of suiting her own quick step to Miss Magen's jerky lameness as the Jewess talked of her ideals of a business world which should have generosity and chivalry and the accuracy of a biological laboratory; in which there would be no need of charity to employee.... ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... are not the same as mine. Of course it is a great temptation for a young author to write a book that will have a large sale; but that should not be all. We should have a higher object than that, and strive to interest those who read the book. It should not be jerky and scattering in ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... deserted the piano and given himself up to a rare hour of retrospect. He was under no misapprehension with regard to St. Marys. The town was growing in jerky spurts, as the old inhabitants took on new courage, or new blood came in from outside. Filmer, who with the exception of Bowers and Belding, was closer to Clark than any of the rest, enlarged his store, and new shops began to appear nearer the rapids. Manson's ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... 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, he went himself into the lower room to see if everything ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... time the mechanical soldier had returned to the slope, and was parading his beat in a somewhat jerky manner. ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... their being almost in the open sea now—for the sides of the bay diverged so greatly after a time that the opposite coasts could not be seen—the boat was under sail instead of being pulled along; and the motion was ever so much more pleasant than when it was oscillated to and fro by the sharp jerky strokes of the rowers. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... jerky letter. Soon I shall proceed to make my contention good. I shall show the higher part intellect plays in conjugal love, the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice. And I shall show that conjugal love is higher and finer than ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... with dismay that Bud was not responding very well, his feeble strokes were jerky and uncoordinated. "Must've lost pressure too fast when his ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... advancing from the direction of the stables—a tall, delicate boy, and a strange old man. The old man walked with a quick, jerky, stride. It was the old country doctor Gaeki. And, unlike any other man of his profession, he would work as long and as carefully on the body of a horse as he would on the body of a man, snapping out his quaint oaths, and in a stress of effort, as though he struggled with some invisible creature ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... haven't got is meat," Bill told her, "except a little jerky; but there's plenty of that in the woods if we can just find it. And I don't intend to delay about that. If the snow gets much deeper, we'd have to have snowshoes to hunt ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... flung, 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
... 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, overwhelming him body ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... 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,' she added, with sudden energy, ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... real fault of articulation once it is started; sometimes preparatory to and during the 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 difficulty found with consonants, ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... giving 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 the end ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... Casa Grande, from whence he 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 rage was ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... guess he's not very light, or very dark, but I think he'll be tall and SOME stout. Don't you know how the lawyer that lives on our street looks? Just as if he owned all the houses on the avenue. I think he'll give us a teenty little bow like this," and she gave a jerky little nod, "but I think he'll be quite nice to us ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... fitful—as wild as the breeze— It wandered about into several keys; It was jerky, spasmodic, and harsh, I'm aware, But still it distinctly suggested ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... always found the little dame in possession, and generally the lord and master gleaning food in redstart fashion; flitting around a branch, darting behind a leaf, over and under a twig, tail spread to keep his balance during these jerky movements, his bright oriole colors flashing as he dashed through a patch of sunlight,—a beautiful object, but a perfectly silent one. When his happiness demanded expression he flew to a maple-tree, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the locker in the bows, and then began to toss out the water like a jerky cascade, Max watching him wildly, but, to his great relief, seeing the water ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... 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 youths ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... noble subject for a painter. At the other end of the field a fine-looking youth was driving a magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen, through whose somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like name. They had the short, curry heads that belong to the wild bull, the same large, fierce eyes and jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt, nervous way that showed how they still rebelled against the yoke and goad, and trembled with anger as they obeyed the authority so recently imposed. They were what is called "newly yoked" oxen. The man ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... in the morning," proffered Dick after a few moments. Then, as this elicited no remark, "We can stock her up with jerky, and there's no reason she shouldn't make it." Sam remained grimly silent. "Is there?" insisted Dick. He waited a minute for a reply. Then, as none came, "Hell!" he exclaimed, disgustedly, and turned away to sit on a log the ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... Here the lady of the house—a vigorous little body, with laughing eyes—sat and sewed, had tea with visitors, read to her children, and wrote letters. Here in the winter twilight before the day at the laundry was finished the man of the house entered with a jerky little masterful step, crossed to the chair where his wife sat reading, leaned over, kissed her, and having established himself with back to the fire delivered himself, so Ernestine judged, of his daily budget of news. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... the people held social dances, the women, dressed in their best gowns, ranged on one side, the men on the other; all sung, and three or four drummers furnished an accompaniment; the music was lively if somewhat jerky. At intervals the people rose and danced, the "step" being a bending of the knees and swinging of the body, the women holding their arms and hands ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... into the "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 ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... "beloved cabin." Afterwards they commence singing the peace song, with an air of great solemnity. They begin to dance, first in a prone or bowing posture. They then raise themselves erect, look upwards, and wave their eagles' tails towards the sky, first with a slow, and then with a quick and jerky motion. At the same time, they strike their breast with a calabash fastened to a stick about a foot in length, which they hold in their left hand, while they wave the eagles' feathers with the right, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... cried with a nervous jump, "don't speak so jerky Mrs. Pool. You make my blood a mask of ice. What ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Being rich in 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 Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... road to lie in wait for General Tenby, and about twenty minutes past the hour wheels rattled on the gravel of the short carriage-drive, and the General drove up to the door. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man of between fifty and sixty, with a red face and a keen blue eye, and a precise, jerky manner. ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at least once a day. Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech, and sinks readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to answer a question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky, half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very especially of South America, is surprising, and he has a whole-hearted belief in the possibilities of our journey which is not to be dashed by the sneers of Professor Summerlee. He ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... broke away from the harsh notes around in soft diapasons, and with a mellifluous soprano which I instinctively knew must belong to a throat that could sing. Was it Nilsson? Just over my head was a jerky croak of a snore, sounding at intervals of half a minute, as if it had retired on half-pay and longed to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... affair that wound up noisily with a big key. It played several jerky little waltzes and four plaintive old songs: "Ben Bolt," "The Last Rose of Summer," "Then You'll Remember Me," and "Home, Sweet Home." The children had sung them so often that they knew all the words, and their voices rang out lustily ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... disappearing through the front gates at about eleven o'clock; very shiny top hat; very tight tail coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; very tight grey-yellow moustache; very tight pasty face; curiously constricted, jerky gait as though his boots, too, were very tight. Precisely the sort of chronic, half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see in billiard rooms or eating cloves in West End bars. By association of ideas with the orientalism of Sultana he was called ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... comfortable little sitting-room of the suite, a young woman rose gracefully from the desk at which she had been writing. With perfect composure she smiled and extended her slim hand to the American as he crossed the room with Medcroft's jerky introduction ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... delivery, it should be remembered that the easiest movement is the best. A long, free sweep of the arm, aided by a swing of the body, will give more speed, be more deceiving to the batter, and allow of more work than any possible snap or jerky motion. Facing the striker before pitching, the arm should be swung well back and the body around so as almost to face second base in the act of delivery; this has an intimidating effect on weak-nerved batters; besides, not knowing from what point the ball will start, it seems somehow ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... 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 ardour of ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... 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, ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews |
