"Fidgety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... small poodle, the production of some unknown and disadvantageous cross with the true poodle. It has all the sagacity of the poodle, and will perform even more than his tricks. It is always in action; always fidgety; generally incapable of much affection, but inheriting much self-love and occasional ill temper; unmanageable by any one but its owner; eaten up with red mange; and frequently a nuisance to its master and a torment ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... to be worth having; product worth having by one who is neither a fool nor an ascetic; pleasure enough for all for us to be conscious of it while we are at work; not a mere habit, the loss of which we shall feel as a fidgety man feels the loss of the bit of string he ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... comes with age," she smartly reminded him, "your friend Miss Redwood is old enough to be your mother—and she suspected Mrs. Rook of murder, because the poor woman looked at a door, and disliked being in the next room to a fidgety old maid." ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... a very fidgety state all day. I was not accustomed to concealment, and I dared trust no one with my plans. Even Toby Bluff I suspected, would try to prevent me going, unless he was allowed to go also; and that I did not wish, as it would, in the first place, have increased the chances of my being discovered, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... disturbance that night—the opening and shutting of doors, the anxious whispering voices, the sound of wheels driving rapidly up to the door. He knew nothing of it all. For, alas! his tiresome, fidgety temper had caused him to be looked upon as no better than a sort of naughty child in the house—of no use or assistance, concerning whom every one's first thought in any trouble was, "We must manage to get Geoff out of the way, or to keep ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence, short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten's grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so cheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears, only increased ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... for a bit of business. I had an emotional moment yesterday and went off my head a bit. I stand by what I said as to keeping quiet, but—well, I'm like any other old maid who hates dust on her mantelpiece—I'm fidgety not to make some sort of a bluff at putting this ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... isn't asking somebody every day to go sleighing with him. I told him I'd go if he would bring me around here to let you know what had become of me, and so he did. Now, good-by, and I'll be sure to be present at the next meeting. I have to hurry because he'll get fidgety." ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... on wiping them away with her handkerchief, but if she held her handkerchief to her eyes perhaps they would not be able to come out at all. It occurred to him that possibly she was sorry she had said, wicked things about father, and to comfort her, for it made him feel fidgety to see her cry, he whispered to her that he would not tell. But she stared at him hopelessly through her red eyelids, and he felt that he had not said the right thing. She called him her poor boy, and yet it appeared that he was not ill. It was all very mysterious and uncomfortable, and it would ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... poplars. Here the cloth was laid at once for breakfast; and whilst M. Jerome and the princess strolled away to talk of blighted hopes, Russia, serfdom, wedlock, and the conflagration of the Kremlin, Penelope made the necessary preparation; and I, in my character of a fidgety old gentleman, first advised and then assisted her. I am afraid the young damsel had designs upon my heart, for she put several questions to me on the state of vassalage in England; and when I developed succinctly the principles and advantages ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... friend, 'somebody is playing a trick on us. I've heard of people who can throw their voices so the sound seems to come from some other place.' So they settled down once more, and once more the purring began and grew louder. Uncle Joseph got fidgety. His friend watched the lips of the other passengers to see who was hoaxing them. 'It sounds,' he remarked finally, 'as if it came from your overcoat pocket!'—Uncle Joseph plunged his hand down into his pocket and felt ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the official who holds the position corresponding with that of an English Colonial Secretary, and to ask his assistance in obtaining a pass to continue his journey into the interior. Though warned not to call before 7 p.m., just as it was getting dusk, the traveller felt nervous and fidgety, unable to really believe that he would be doing right to make a call so late, and thus six o'clock found him approaching the very modest-looking dwelling in which the great official dwelt. A glance was enough to show that he was wrong ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... any class or type; there is no democracy of hands. Some hands tell me that they do everything with the maximum of bustle and noise. Other hands are fidgety and unadvised, with nervous, fussy fingers which indicate a nature sensitive to the little pricks of daily life. Sometimes I recognize with foreboding the kindly but stupid hand of one who tells with many words news that is no news. I have met a ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... nor were the flowers such as a New England child could ever gather. Only English larks and linnets, cowslips and hawthorn, were to be found in the toy-books and little histories read to him. "Everything was British: even the robin, a domestic bird," wrote the doctor, "instead of a great fidgety, jerky, whooping thrush." But when Peter Parley, Jacob Abbott, Lydia Maria Child, Mrs. Embury, and Eliza Leslie began to write short stories, the Annuals and periodicals abounded in American scenes and ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... just sat down on a rock near by, with my rifle across my knees, and watched him; and he grew so embarrassed and nervous and fidgety that he couldn't stand it any longer, and at last he sneaked off without completing his job and without either of us having said ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... so. But, oh, Patty, how I do dislike her! She's changed so. When I saw her some years ago, she was sweet and gentle, but not so fidgety ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... may have deemed; for having perceived by magic that their wives had looked through the hole in the sky, and knowing that they were lying when they denied it, they gave them leave to go back to earth. Yet there were conditions, and those not easy to such fidgety damsels as these; for they said, "Ye shall lie together all this night, and in the morning when ye awake ye shall be in no haste to open your eyes or to uncover your faces. Wait until ye shall have ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... seem to you, Zelotes," she asked her husband, "as if Albert was kind of discontented or unsatisfied these days? He's so—so sort of fidgety. Talks like the very mischief for ten minutes and then don't speak for half an hour. Sits still for a long stretch and then jumps up and starts off walkin' as if he was crazy. What makes him act so? He's kind of ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... father was more than usually nervous and fidgety, and became alarmed lest there should be some sudden money difficulty, as any threat, however slight, of debt or involvement always made him ill. She sat down beside him, and putting her hand in his, as it rested on a table nervously ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the goat; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the fireside ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to the most probable conjectures about the 7th inst. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the next month; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and reckless. General progress, however, may be seen from the following notes. The "house in Bury Street, St. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'were near completion,' and that he should telegraph them in two or three days at the latest, at the time of writing. The three days were just about to expire, hence the excitement visible in the penmanship of Miss O'Neil. Betwixt impatience and anxiety she confessed herself 'growing really fidgety,' especially as 'Gerry' was always so prompt, 'and then—don't think me silly, dear—but, really, Chicago is such a wicked, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... went. But he wasn't much better on the train than he had been in the station. He was as nervous and fidgety as a witch, and he acted as if he did so wish it would be over and over quick. But at the junction—at the junction a funny thing happened. He put me on the train, just as Mother had done, and spoke to the conductor. (How I hated to have him do that! Why, I'm six ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... at my presence, but I told them not to be scared, inasmuch as I was an intimate acquaintance of the General, for whom I carried Cape Cod. On the left side of the kitchen there stood at a great deal table an aged maid whose mien was somewhat fidgety. This visible nervousness was increased with the labour necessary to prepare the ponderous pile of soft dough-nuts she worked upon; which, she said, when ready (though of little substance) were intended to satisfy the Down-easters, who ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... handed over his pouch without a word. But Mr. Saltoun was fidgety. Unlike his son-in-law, he ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... rides like a fox-hunter," commented Taggart, noticing the ease of the seat, the light handling of the rein, the way in which the fidgety, spirited beast Saxham rode answered to the gentling hand and the guiding pressure of the rider's knee, as a sharp storm of rifle-fire swept from the enemy's northern trenches, and the Mauser bullets spurted sand between the wheels ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... dark, not a star showing, for a faint mist hung above the trees, and for a long time the only thing he heard was a stamp that sounded startling until he made up his mind that it must have been a fidgety movement on the part of one of the ponies, and shouldering his rifle, he stepped out slowly so as to pass right ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... went into my own room, and after I rustled some water I made myself and the kiddies a little more presentable. Then we went into the sitting-room and sat on the "sofy." Presently Bishey sauntered in, trying to look unconcerned and at ease, but he was so fidgety he couldn't sit down. But he told his story, and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... firm—Mrs Jehu and the junior partner. The latter looked into his lady's face, perceived a smile upon it, and then—but not till then, he offered me his hand, and welcomed me with much apparent warmth. This ceremony over, Mr Tomkins grew fidgety and uneasy, and betrayed a great anxiety to get up a conversation which he had not heart enough to set a going. Mrs Tomkins, a woman of the world, evinced no anxiety at all, sat smiling, and in peace. I perceived immediately that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... same period was admirable, sparkling with wit and with a humour that unfortunately grew rarer, bitterer, and even coarser often, in his later career. Some of his rapidly sketched pictures were incidents of home life. This one represents his mother's fidgety disposition:— ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... and fidgety before storms," answered Almira Jane. "That was partly what was the matter with the Wanderer and his Wife the day you brought them here. They were doing their best to tell you that there was trouble ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... his mind when he started for school the next morning, and by the time he got there he was bubbling over with curiosity and questions. He could hardly wait for school to be called to order. Old Mother Nature noticed how fidgety he was. ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... fidgety with waiting as the hours went by. At last, unable to sit still, he went out to kill the time, but a drizzling rain drove him for ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Perhaps the mare fidgets him. It's the one he bought a short time since, and she has an awkward temper. Sometimes she is a paragon and does everything that she ought, but at others she is fidgety and uncertain. Father thinks she has been badly ridden at the start, but that she is good enough to take ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a dynasty! That alters the case. Perhaps he's a young man about town. There are young men about town, I believe, who have addresses at clubs and libraries, and sleep on doorsteps, or in the Park. Well, Hennessey, I see you are getting fidgety. You had better be off. Buy me some roses for my room on your way home. I'm expectin' someone to have tea with the poor victim of prophecy ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... ails my master?" muttered Ben Zoof; "for the last hour he has been as fidgety as a bird returning ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... we had almost come to the train, I cast my eyes downward and perceived that there was missing from my arm a gray shawl of Miss Hallam's, which had been committed to my charge, and upon which she set a fidgety kind of value, as being particularly warm or ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... have gone by, and, though on the look-out, I was not fidgety. Then I was aware of a confused noise from ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... dragged slowly by. The boys became fidgety and restless. They imagined that something had happened ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... a more rational manner! Either come to heel and follow sedately, as a dog of your age should do; or trot on in front, in the gaily juvenile manner you assume when Michael takes you out for a walk; but, for goodness sake, don't be so fidgety; and don't run round and round me in this bewildering way, or I shall call for William, and send you in. I only ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... well be an end of this! Every time I meet your eyes squarely I detect the question just slipping out of them. If you had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account; if this were not the evening of my birthday, and you the only friend who remembered it; if confession were not good for the soul, though harder than sin to some people, of whom I am one,—well, if all reasons were not at this instant converged into a focus, and burning ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... appearance of truth in this statement; Mr. McSnagley's voice had a hollow resonant sound, and his eyes were nervous and fidgety. He had an odd trick, too, of occasionally stopping in the middle of a sentence, and listening as though he heard some distant sound. These things, which Mrs. Morpher recalled afterwards, did not, in the undercurrent of uneasiness about Aristides which she felt the whole of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... new Rebel officer came in to superintend calling the roll. He was an undersized, fidgety man, with an insignificant face, and a mouth that protruded like a rabbit's. His bright little eyes, like those of a squirrel or a rat, assisted in giving his countenance a look of kinship to the family ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... luck would have it, among those attracted by the noise was a little, cursed, fidgety, crabbed uncle of mine; one of those uneasy spirits that cannot rest quietly in their beds in the morning, but must be up early, to bother the household. He was only a kind of half-uncle, after all, for he had married my father's sister; yet be assumed great authority on the strength ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Emma Jane nervous and fidgety, but she was Rebecca's slave and hugged her chains, no matter how ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fidgety and ill at ease, found fault with the dinner, and was pettish with his wife. Mrs. Edmonstone set Philip off upon politics, which lasted till the ladies could escape into the drawing-room. In another minute Philip brought in Charles, set him down, and departed. Amy, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inherited a little property from his benefactor, but soon ran through it. "He was a light-headed fellow," said Johann Helm, "but he knew how to get the confidence of the old Junkers. If he hadn't been so cowardly and fidgety, he might have ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... three weeks before admission her appetite failed somewhat, and ten days before admission, without any appreciable cause, she began to sleep badly, seemed somewhat nervous, became a little "fidgety" and said she worried because her mother had to work so hard. Later she began to speak about people saying that the ambulance would come for her and she heard voices saying "You will be dead." It is not known in what emotional setting these remarks were made. Her ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... then!" continued the Badger. "But, when once the year has really turned, and the nights are shorter, and half-way through them one rouses and feels fidgety and wanting to be up and doing by sunrise, if not ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... pew in Briarfield Church appeared peopled with a prim, trim, fidgety, elderly gentleman, who shifted his spectacles, and changed his position every three minutes; a patient, placid-looking elderly lady in brown satin; and two pattern young ladies, in pattern attire, with pattern ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... a dozen white-eyed natives cautiously oozed through the Jungle, stimulating each other's nervousness by reassuring gestures. Certain that the trespasser on their dominion was incapable of mischief, they began to chatter, showing fidgety interest in the body, which they touched ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... not for me to hear. Then boys lived near me and they asked me to do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it—what my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If she had explained it more it would not have come up that way. I know a girl who does that thing. ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... a place of meeting for luncheon next day. The young cattleman left. He knew from the fidgety manner of Jack that he had some important business he was anxious to talk over with ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... continually blow in winter, winds sharp as a hundred needle-points. The good hunchback, well muffled up in his mantle, failed not to come, and trotted up and down to keep himself warm while waiting for the appointed hour. Towards midnight he was half frozen, as fidgety as thirty-two devils caught in a stole, and was about to give up his happiness, when a feeble light passed by the cracks of the window and came ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... and me to go into the cabinet-making a bit by ourselves, and win a extra pound or two in that way. But it's getting late now—it'll be pretty near eleven before I'm at home, and Mother may happen to lie awake; she's more fidgety nor usual now. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the air. The writer has seen a grouse drum, appearing to strike its wings together over its back. But there is much difference of opinion on the subject, and young observers may settle the question for themselves. When preparing to drum he seems fidgety and nervous and his sides are inflated. Letting his wings droop, he flaps them so fast that they make one continuous humming sound. In this peculiar way he calls his mate, and while he is still drumming, the hen bird may appear, coming slyly from ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... ask what this meant; but he evidently wished to know. He soon knew, for Hugh found himself growing more fidgety and more cross, the further he looked in the volume of Indian Views, till he threw himself back upon the sofa, and stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth, and stared at the fire, struggling, as his mother saw, to help crying. "I will take away the book,—shall ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... body-guard may be broken through, without subjecting the culprit to the penalties of high-treason. A short cough, as if preparatory to a conversation—a hurried look, and then a scarcely perceptible smile—a sort of fidgety uneasiness, as if the stump of the tree was something rather different from an air-cushion—such were the methods pursued by Miss Arabel Howard on the present occasion with complete success. The stranger combated with his respect, and going near to where the sketcher—again utterly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... That same shock drove Gilles de Gurdun back among his people, and the same found Jehane caged in a hoop of steel. So he affronting and she caught up stood together, for a moment. With one mailed hand he held her fast under the armpit, with the other he held a fidgety sword. His head was thrown back; through glimmering eyelids he watched them—as one who says, What next?—breathing short through his nose. It was the attitude of the snatching lion, sudden, arrogant, shockingly swift; a gross ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... clearly-marked differences between individuals. The newborn baby has a personality of his own, and mothers will note with astonishment and delight how strongly marked variations in conduct and behaviour may be from the first. One baby is pleased and contented, another is fidgety, restless, and enterprising. At birth the baby wakes from his long sleep to find his environment completely changed. Within the uterus he lies in unconsciousness because no ordinary stimulus from the outer world can reach ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... the greatest care of you, Mrs. Leigh," said Jack, heartily, grateful for a re-assuring nod from Bluebell in recognition of his contrite gallantry. The mare, tired of waiting, became fidgety to be off. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... sub-sector, almost completely levelling one of their communication trenches with heavy trench mortars during the preliminary bombardment, on account of which we had to stand-to, when back at our rest billets at Bailleulval. On another occasion we had a fidgety night owing to a gas alarm having been given. This however, proved ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... But confess, Elise, that you were very fidgety about Lucia, and heartily glad to get rid of your visitor. Why, I saw it in every line of your letter, which ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... back on their warped bones. Even thus, Momentous with reproach, her grave regard Made me feel mean, cashiered of rank and right, My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbed And all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff, Novel and fevering hallucinations Invaded my attention. So daylight When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... who did not relish interruption, and was a thought fidgety in his natural temper, had laid down the paper on the table, snuffed the candle, and raised his spectacles on his brow. But I said to him, "Excuse freedoms, James, and be so good as resume your discourse." Then wishing to smooth him down, I added, by way of compliment—"Do ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... island; it was impossible even to wade for more than a few yards beyond the dry ground, for the water became quite deep and the current was running fast. F——'s fever lasted its twelve hours; but I began to be fidgety at the state of prostration it left him in, and when Tuesday night brought a third and sharper attack, I determined to make him go to town and see a doctor during his next interval of freedom ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... she talked into something that might have been taken for a conscious temporary submission to her; he had uncrossed his fidgety legs and, thrusting them out with the feet together, sat looking very hard before him, his chin sunk on his breast and his hands, clasped as they met, rapidly twirling their thumbs. So he remained for a time that might have given his young friend the sense of having made herself ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... during which you could have heard afar off the nasal discords of the brethren in choir droning through an office. No one spoke. The prior's lips moved at his prayers; Fra Corinto looked frowningly before him; La Testolina was fidgety to speak, but dared not; Vanna, her long form like a ripple of moonlight in the dusk, cooed under her voice to the baby; he, unheeding cause of so much strife in high places, held out his pair of puckered hands and crowed ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... him to get up at six, when he was not to start till nine, I cannot say. He even routed me from under his pillow at five, so fidgety was he, and as soon as ever I pointed to six he bounced out of bed as ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... dress. They were so curious to see a real, live train robber, bless 'em, that they just wrapped blankets and sheets around themselves and came out, squeaky and fidgety looking. They always show more curiosity and ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... a master of dumb animals, or one so fidgety as to their welfare, I never came across; and this, I confess, prepossessed me in his favour. Every time the train stopped out jumped our fellow-traveller, and off he went to a certain van containing his treasures, from which he emerged with a very red face and a constantly-repeated apology ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... old ladies who have never ridden in a car, she was fidgety about her bonnet, and clung on to it, much to Pierrette's amusement. Nevertheless, Madame seemed to enjoy her ride, for just as we slipped down the hill into Beaulieu she suggested that we should go on to Nice ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... lady grew fidgety again and began opening a drawer in the chest. Lavretsky sat still without ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... bundled bills into the portmanteau, and then locking up the great wallet of cheques, Randall Clayton absently shook hands with the fidgety old accountant, now eager for his leave. "Must catch my train. Take care of yourself," was Somers' hearty adieu, as he vanished with his ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... prevention of similar cutaneous diseases. To pacify them I made some ointment of animal fat and flowers of sulphur, extracted with difficulty from some man's hoard, and told them how to apply it to some of the worst cases. The horse, being unused to a girth, became fidgety as it was being saddled, creating a STAMPEDE among the crowd, and the mago would not touch it again. They are as much afraid of their gentle mares as if they were panthers. All the children followed me for a considerable distance, and a good many of the adults made an excuse for ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... becoming faithless. I suppose it is because our holiday is drawing to a close, and we shall soon forget we ever had any, or be ashamed we ever played so long. Everybody seems to be getting nervous and fidgety and preparing for civilization again. Mr. Banks, for the last few days, has dressed himself regularly as if he were going down town to his office, and writes letters in the corner of the saloon as if it were ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... said Marjorie; 'Harry's in a fidgety mood and will be quarrelling with some one presently if he ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... same idle chase—good honest squires and baronets, with pedigrees of a thousand years, and estates of ten thousand acres—ay, and even noble lords—yea, the noblest of the noble themselves (or at least their ladies), rendered fidgety and uncomfortable by the circumstance of their not somehow or other belonging to one particular little circle in London. Comely round-paunched parsons and squireens, again, all over the land, eating the bread ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... expression in his face, which it is not easy to contemplate for the first time without smiling at him. He is tall and stout, always wears very tight trousers, and generally keeps his wristbands turned up over the cuffs of his coat. All his movements are quick and fidgety. He appears to walk principally on his toes, and seems always on the point of beginning to dance, or jump, or run whenever he moves about, either in or out of doors. When he speaks he has an odd habit of ducking his head suddenly, and looking at ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the occasion, despite its mild diversions, was distinctly epochal, in that it marked the reunion of Hyndsville. Even Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, for the first time, put in his decorative appearance, to The Author's fidgety surprise. He played a highly creditable game of bridge. And after a while he sang "Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms," so exquisitely that a hushed and rapturous silence fell upon everybody, and the old ladies and gentlemen present held their hands ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... and composed under all circumstances. Do not get fidgety. If you feel that time drags heavily, do not let this be apparent to others by any visible ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... to work again, and a good many doubtless know that what they leave undone will be done by their mistress. The German kitchen with its beautiful cleanliness and brightly polished copper pans I have described, but I have not said anything yet about the fidgety housewife who carries her Tuechtigkeit to such a pitch that she ties every wooden spoon and twirler with a coloured ribbon to hang by against the wall. In England you hear of ladies who tie every bottle of scent on the toilet table with a different ribbon, and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... mother at Southwell, some time since, in a monstrous pet with you for not writing. I am sorry to say the old lady and myself don't agree like lambs in a meadow, but I believe it is all my own fault, I am rather too fidgety, which my precise mama objects to, we differ, then argue, and to my shame be it spoken fall out a little, however after a storm comes a calm; what's become of our aunt the amiable antiquated Sophia? [4] is she yet in the land of the living, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... a vast number of fidgety, nervous, and eccentric people who live only to expect new disappointments or to ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... with invitations. Cherie was easily provided for; Aunt Louise had before offered to take her abroad for the winter; Cherie did not in the least want to go; it was likely to be nothing nicer than acting as unpaid companion to a fidgety old lady; but under the present circumstances she would have to go. For Violet it was not quite so easy; it would look rather odd for her to go visiting among obliging relatives, seeing that she was only ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... Miss Vanstone for the coming experiment have been varied by the writing of two anonymous letters in that young lady's interests. Finding her too fidgety about arranging matters with her friends to pay proper attention to my instructions, I wrote anonymously to the lawyer who is conducting the inquiry after her, recommending him, in a friendly way, to give it up. The ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... not come home till nearly five o'clock and the four solemn young people on the front porch were getting decidedly fidgety before his roadster appeared at the curb and he jumped out and hurried up the walk. He said "Hello" to the four as he passed them and he was surprised, therefore, when he turned from his desk to see them enter the office ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... of the straying horse over his arm, and the animal trotted obediently by the side of the fidgety little Cossacks. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... of them ventured (after a glass over a bargain) to call him by it, and a blow from the vermicelli maker's fist sent him headlong into a gutter in the Rue Oblin. He could think of nothing else when his children were concerned; his love for them made him fidgety and anxious; and this was so well known, that one day a competitor, who wished to get rid of him to secure the field to himself, told Goriot that Delphine had just been knocked down by a cab. The vermicelli maker turned ghastly ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... face; unusual care had been taken with his cambric cravat and shirt-ruffles, and he wore his best blue coat, which was entirely too warm for the season. In strong contrast to this external preparation, were his restless eyes which darted hither and thither in avoidance of her gaze, the fidgety movements of his thick fingers, creeping around buttons and in and out of button-holes, and finally the silly, embarrassed half-smile which now and then came to his mouth, and made the platitudes ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... was beginning to get fidgety. He needed to be doing something—even if it were only taking ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and demeanour in your everyday life. Avoid a tense, strained, nervous, fidgety manner and an over-anxious appearance. Be easy, self-possessed and dignified in your bearing. Be courteous, thoughtful and quiet. Mental exercise and Will-Culture will enable you to acquire the proper carriage ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... Philip can Be a little gentleman; Let me see if he is able To sit still for once at table": Thus Papa bade Phil behave; And Mamma looked very grave. But fidgety Phil, He won't sit still; He wriggles, And giggles, And then, I declare, Swings backwards and forwards, And tilts up his chair, Just like any rocking horse— "Philip! I ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... Fidgety!" her mother commented, with good humour. And then they all heard a knock at the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... message, and would then have ordered him fresh breakfast; but he declared if I was fidgety he should have no comfort, and insisted on my sitting quietly down, while he drew a chair by my side, and made his own cold tea, and drank it weak and vapid, and eat up all the miserable scraps, without suffering me to call for plate, knife, bread, butter, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... a grand sight, Peter," Tom said, "but I wish they would begin; it makes one fidgety ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... masters patting their necks and talking to them while they did so. Then their saddles and bridles were put on, and they were led out of the stable and along the streets. At first they were very fidgety and wild at the unaccustomed sights and sounds, but their fear gradually subsided, and by the time they were well in the country they went ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... back of this table, which had a conjuring apparatus scattered over it, a large open book in the centre, and at one of the front angles a monkey fastened by a cord to a small ring and holding a small taper, which in his incessant fidgety movements fell more or less aslant, whilst an impish boy in a white surplice occupied himself chiefly in cuffing the monkey, and adjusting the taper. The man in the mitre also wore a surplice, and ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of the farm stood a cart into which two young calves had just been packed. Hastings was driving it, and Rachel Henderson, who had just adjusted the net over the fidgety frightened creatures, was ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... man," said Meldon; "fidgety to a degree about having everything quite right, always worrying the life out of his servants, which is excellent for them, of course; but, well, if he was married"—he sank his voice again—"I expect his wife would consider herself quite justified ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... singular in any quality or talent on which they hug themselves. More than this; people who are truly original are the last to find it out, for the moment we become conscious of a virtue it has left us or is getting ready to go. Originality does not consist in a fidgety assertion of selfhood, but in the faculty of getting rid of it altogether, that the truer genius of the man, which commerces with universal nature and with other souls through a common sympathy with that, may take all his powers wholly ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... be it respectfully said, I am not sorry that our little confabulation should pass alone. Ladies are very delightful, very delightful, certainly: but they won't let one tell a story one's own way; they are fidgety, you know, sir,—fidgety, nothing more; 't is a trifle, but it is unpleasant. Besides, my wife was Master Clinton's foster-mother, and she can't hear a word about him, without running on into a long rigmarole ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unchained, within limits, and had a run nearly every day. Workmen came to put a railing and gate to the back verandah of his establishment, and Mrs Breen kept a fidgety watch upon his movements; but evidently the only son's will ruled, and he was more than faithful to his compact with Rose. She was able to see this from her commanding window, and to hear it from Bruce's mouth; and day by day her heart warmed towards ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... sort of quarrel that isn't? It is impossible to say beforehand what Colonel Gainsborough might like to do. He's a fidgety man. If there's a thing I hate, in the human line, it's a fidget. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... deep for me, my good friend. All I know is that she is one of this new school, whom I take the liberty to call 'THE FIDGETY CHRISTIANS.' They cannot let their poor souls alone a minute; and they pester one day and night with the millennium; as if we shall not all be dead long before that. But the worst is, they apply the language of earthly passion to the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... morning in conversation and reading. They had to sit with their furs on. Nan looked like a little Esquimaux in hers, for her Uncle Henry Sherwood had bought them for her to wear in the Big Woods the winter before. Finally Bess declared she was too fidgety to sit ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... was strangely repressed. It was plain to Mrs. Strong that she was inwardly agitated. After they left the table she became visibly nervous. She was "fidgety," to speak the thought of her perplexed companion. Time and again she started and appeared to be listening intently, and always there was a queer little expression in her eyes as of expectancy. Once or twice Mrs. Strong surprised ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the straw sandals of the country. They were not made to be worn thus, and showed great uneasiness in their new position, do what we might with the thongs. Everybody tried his hand at it, first and last; but the fidgety things always ended by coming off at the toe or the heel, or sluing round to the side till they were worse than useless. They were supposed to prevent one from slipping, which no doubt they would have done had they not begun by slipping off themselves. They wore themselves ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... meanwhile grew more and more fidgety. From time to time he turned towards my companion, as though about to speak, yet always changing his mind at the last moment. Once he went over and opened the door suddenly, apparently to see if any one were listening at the keyhole, for he disappeared a moment between the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... fidgety manner the beast then descended, as if he expected some danger in store—and he was not wrong; for, attaching a bit of white paper to the fly-sight of my Blissett, I approached him, crawling under cover of the banks until within eighty yards of him, when, finding that the moon shone full ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... that ease and self-possession which can only be acquired by long habitual intercourse with well-bred persons, this surely is the wisest course that could be adopted, and a hundred degrees above that fidgety, jackdaw-like assumption of nonchalance with which the ill-bred amongst ourselves seek to cover their ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... hot, sor, but I git that fidgety. I been so long doin' nothin'; two months now, sor, since ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... things and earned a few pence—I had perhaps even had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety habit, for it's none of the longest yet) I count my real start from the evening George Corvick, breathless and worried, came in to ask me a service. He had done more things than I, and earned more pence, though ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... now; a pale, plain child, with sharp, intelligent eyes, and a busy little mind, that did a good deal more thinking than anybody imagined. She was just at the unattractive, fidgety age when no one knew what to do with her, and so let her fumble her way up as she could, finding pleasure in odd things, and living much alone, for she did not go to school, because her shoulders were growing round, and Mrs. Shaw would not "allow her ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... material. The surroundings being our own, we had compassion on them, neither offering them insult with pretentious prettiness nor domineering over them with vain assumption and display. Low walls, unaspiring roof, and sheltering veranda, so contrived as to create, not tickling, fidgety draughts but smooth currents, "so full as seem asleep," to flush each room so sweetly and softly that no perceptible difference between the air under the roof and of the forest is ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... sitting on the edge of a rocking chair and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... familiar cries were heard, such as a man would address to a fidgety horse which declined to have its saddle-girth tightened. The men were laughing and chatting, too, until a stern order rang out, one which was followed by the trampling of horses—so many that the sergeant turned and gave a significant ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... sun's almost gone down ... and Mubby and Darrie will be home a long time by this time ... and Mubby will be getting fidgety." ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... long before he can get within bow shot," Tom said. "Look, they are getting fidgety already. They scent danger, and he is four hundred yards away. They will be off in ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... Rogers," (that was the disrespectful way in which, I regret to say, we were wont to designate Dr Rogers, our head master) "would like it," I said; "he's got some notion into his head about currents and tides, and that makes him fidgety." ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... home over the meadows, where the grasshoppers were practising for the next day's sports, and were in high glee over this harvest festival, Mr. Goodman seemed fidgety; whether conscience-stricken for the Sabbath fraud he had practised upon me or not, I could not say, but at last he asked how I ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... that was Rome, by Mr. J. C. Stobart, of the English Cambridge. One greatest trouble about historical study is, that it allows you to see no great trends, but hides under the record of innumerable fidgety details the real meanings of things. Mr. Stobart, with a gift of his own for taking large views, sees this clearly, and goes about to remedy it; he does not wander with you through the dark of the undergrowth, labeling bush after bush; but leads you from eminence to eminence, generalizing, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the aisle again to close a window, out of which one fidgety boy kept leaning to spit at the flying telegraph poles. On his way back Mrs. ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... looking down at the patient with his brow knit, and I noticed a fidgety movement about one of ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... ... "one only tortures himself. One says to himself,—'Thou wert a young man then, but now thy last teeth have vanished from thy mouth.' And there's no denying it—the old times were good ... well, and God be with them! And as for those men—I suppose, thou fidgety child, that thou art talking about the accidental men? Thou hast seen a bubble spring forth on water? So long as it is whole and lasts, what beautiful colours play upon it! Red and yellow and blue; all ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... desperately. "People are as they are brought up. My mother don't care for such fidgety notions. I speak to please her, and ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... nest was shallow, only one could work at a time; and if Petro came back with his plaster before Eve had patted the last of hers into place, she would squeak at him in a fidgety though not fretful voice, as if saying, "Now, don't get in my way and bother me, dear." So he would have to fly about while he waited for her to go. The minute she was ready to be off, he would be slipping into her place; and this time she would give him a cosy little squeak of welcome, and he would ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch |
