"Nervous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little more than usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of calves'-foot jelly. 'I feel a little stronger to-day,' she said to Lord Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; 'a little more material,' she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught George's eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... wind outside sang its mournful winter-song; the tramp of passing footsteps, the roll of passing wheels on the road ceased in dreary silence. He slept on quietly. The firelight rose and fell on his wizen little face and his nervous, drooping hands. Mrs. Lecount had not pitied him yet. She began to pity him now. Her point was gained; her interest in his will was secured; he had put his future life, of his own accord, under her fostering care—the fire was comfortable; the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... once I noticed that the lion seemed to be getting strangely restless, turning his great head from side to side in a nervous kind of way, as if he saw or heard something that he didn't like. At first I couldn't imagine what on earth was the matter with him, but presently I caught a sound which scared me much worse than it had done the lion. Far in the distance I could hear a dull, booming ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... been abroad a month, he wrote for leave to return home and to throw himself into business. There was, for once, a nervous impatience in his letters, and his father, who pitied him deeply, and was more than ever inclined to reward and indulge him, yielded readily enough; and, on his arrival, signed the partnership deed, and, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the celebrated specialist was summoned, but his examination was sickening in its brevity, and his verdict held out no hope. "The nervous system has received some terribly sudden shock," he said; "and there is a serious rupture of the vessels of the heart. She may recover consciousness, but it will be only momentary. We see many appalling sights in my profession, but rarely one so sad ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... Jessie, and Lucile's hand went out instinctively to silence the interruption. "Sh-h!" she warned, but the Frenchman seemed not to have heard and continued his narrative, while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... for Madame votre mere to quarrel with Bing. He is a Parisian personality. He's quite a power in his sphere. All these fellows' nerves are upset from worry as to what will happen to the Allegre collection. And no wonder they are nervous. A big art event hangs on your lips, my dear, great Rita. And by the way, you too ought to remember that it isn't wise to quarrel with people. What have you done to that poor Azzolati? Did you really tell him to get out and never come near you again, or something ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... face, but he noticed that her dress was threadbare, and she was walking wearily, while the man who read dejection in her attitude was sorry for her. She stopped in the passage, glancing at the card in her hand, then drew herself up a little and with a quick, nervous movement lifted her head. Alton saw her face at last, and though it had grown a trifle hollow and pale, he recognized Miss Townshead. Then she saw him, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Frightened and nervous at the whole affair, Stella began to cry. And curiously enough, Stella's method of weeping was as noisy as her usual manner was quiet. She cried with such loud, heart- rending sobs that the other girls were frightened into quietness again, until they caught sight of Stella's open mouth ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... it in the zoological series. But the biologist, by studying a human embryo of a few days' or a few weeks' growth, can not tell whether it will be male or female, and still less whether it will be a strong or a weak individual, phlegmatic or nervous, intelligent or not. ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... small chance of ever being conquered at all. You never heard of a man being cured of his love of intoxicating drink, for instance, by a gradual process. The serpent's life is not crushed out of it by gradual pressure, but by one vigorous stamp of a nervous heel. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... intended for a job like this. I realize it more and more every day, but I will stick it out till I break down. To be nervous, over-imaginative, terribly sensitive to suffering, is a poor equipment for the man who starts out to drive wounded on the battlefield. I am haunted by the thought that my car may break down when I have a load of wounded. Once indeed ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... had long since disappeared in the distance, and now the other automobiles proceeded on their way. The girls were very nervous, and the boys did all in their power to remove the strain. But the girls declared that they had had a narrow escape from a serious accident, and it put much of a damper ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... said to him, "I'll tell you what your trouble is and how you feel when you are sitting on the gang plow, plowing: You feel you are going to fall off in front of the plow and get killed and that makes you nervous and sick." He said, "Yes sir, that is exactly how I feel." I then said to him, "I can tell you the cure for it: Go home, and falling on your knees, confess your sins to God and call on Him. for salvation. I will be agreed in prayer and I guarantee you will be well—and now, goodbye, Brent, I ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... coronal envelope, and there were some who thought that it would now swing swiftly round and then plunge straight into the sun, with consequences that might be disastrous to us on account of the "flash of heat'' that would be produced by the impact. Nervous people were frightened, but observation soon proved that the danger was imaginary, for although the comet almost grazed the sun, and must have rushed through two or three million miles of the coronal region, no retardation of its immense velocity was perceptible, and it finally passed ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... "You are nervous, Yellow Bird," he said, thinking of the two days and three nights of her conjuring, when she had neither slept nor taken food, that she might more successfully commune with the spirits. "There is no danger. The night is a hard one for ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... persons, having now satisfied their curiosity by their scrutiny of the house, passed on and left Mrs. Forder standing looking into space, with her nervous hands clasped tightly together. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... a half mile, when her breath came in little pants, she stopped with a nervous start and looked about her. The loneliness seemed drawing closer like a mist, and the cry of a whip-poor-will from the little stream in the meadow sent frightened thrills, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... composition to support them. It is certain that this author, when in a happy mood, and employed on a noble subject, is the most wonderfully sublime of any poet in any language, Homer, and Lucretius, and Tasso not excepted. More concise than Homer, more simple than Tasso, more nervous than Lucretius, had he lived in a later age, and learned to polish some rudeness in his verses; had he enjoyed better fortune, and possessed leisure to watch the returns of genius in himself; he had attained ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... reverted to the subject; and in 1682, having obtained a correct measurement of the diameter of the earth, he repeated his calculations of 1666. In the progress of his calculations he saw that the result which he had formerly expected was likely to be produced, and he was thrown into such a state of nervous irritability that he was unable to carry on the calculation. In this state of mind he entrusted it to one of his friends, and he had the high satisfaction of finding his former views amply realised. The force of gravity which regulated ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... nest, they will be very much disappointed. Mr. and Mrs. Long-bill will lead them a will-o'-the-wisp dance; and when the House People are tired, bewildered, and very wet in the shoes, the clever birds will return home by a secret way, chuckling to themselves. You will know this little bird by his nervous Wren-like ways and jerking tail, even if you are not near enough to see his markings and long ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... you will allow the expression, which held the region of religious emotion as holy ground, and which regarded the attempt to open or to penetrate the inner shrines of Christian feeling as something akin to sacrilege—and blend all these in a delicate, highly-strung, nervous organization, and you have the elements of a ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... who started out in other occupations. The craft of an operator, learned without much difficulty, is very attractive to a youth, but a position at the key is no place for a man of mature years. His services, with rare exceptions, grow less valuable as he advances in age and nervous strain breaks him down. On the contrary, men engaged in other professions find, as a rule, that they improve and advance with experience, and that age brings ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of America in general are extremely well made; very few of them are to be seen under five feet and a half, and very many of them above that; their leg seems as if it was fashioned in a mould; it is nervous, and the calf is firm; they are long waisted; their head is upright and somewhat flat in the upper part, and their features are regular; they have black eyes, and thick black hair without curls. If we see none that are extremely fat and pursy, neither do we meet with any that are so lean as ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... the first to speak. She was the only one who had had the opportunity to summon her story to her tongue's end. She began glibly and with nervous haste: ...
— Mrs. Christy's Bridge Party • Sara Ware Bassett
... precocious wit. Mr. John Allan, a merchant of large fortune and liberal disposition, who had been intimate with his parents, having no children of his own, adopted him, and it was generally understood among his acquaintances that he intended to make him the heir of his estate. The proud, nervous irritability of the boy's nature was fostered by his guardian's well-meant but ill-judged indulgence. Nothing was permitted which could "break his spirit." He must be the master of his masters, or not have any. An eminent and most ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... modes of cultivation. Her steps were always followed by a crowd—her seat invariably encircled by a group to itself. I looked on at a distance, wrapped up in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose sleeves were momently plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of jealousy and suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye, addressed to the spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could not but believe, of apprehension;—and yet, at such mcments; I turned perversely ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... observations such as might be expected from the clear insight of a man who has mingled with his fellow-men, and who is curiously critical of the non-romantic phenomena of their daily life. The essays on the Art of Putting Things, on Petty Malignity and Petty Trickery, on Tidiness, on Nervous Fears, on Hurry and Leisure, on Work and Play, on Dulness, and on Growing Old, are full of fresh and delicate perceptions of the ordinary facts of human experience. His best and brightest remarks surprise us with the unexpectedness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... noticed, that in displaying himself amidst his councillors, his officers of the household, and his train of vassals, allies, and dependents, the Marquis of Argyle probably wished to make an impression on the nervous system of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. But that doughty person had fought his way, in one department or another, through the greater part of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, a period when a brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes. The King ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... conventions, and public meetings. On July 4, 1776, Congress adopted a solemn Declaration of Independence. Like the statement of grievances of 1765 and the declaration of 1774, this great state paper, drawn by the nervous pen of Thomas Jefferson, set forth the causes of ill-feeling toward Great Britain. First comes a statement of certain self-evident truths, a reiteration of those rights of man upon which Otis had dwelt in his speech of 1761. Then follows an enumeration ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... forget about tumbling down hill, too," went on Mother Goose, sort of nervous like. "But they must not. If they don't fall down, so Jack can break his crown, it won't be like the story in my book, and ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... one of us in the times in which we fall: the supersession of narrow and selfish and egotistical "private-mindedness" by a vital passion for the winning of a Kingdom of righteousness consonant with the revealed will of God; the lifting of souls from nervous introspection to a height where they become indeed "public souls"; the accomplishing of the Kingdom not by great engines of mechanical power but by the daily offices of every individual; the substitution in place of current hatred, fear and ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... cries of "Turn him out!" etc., were soon lost in vociferous shouts of: "Let them alone!" "Let them speak!" "Let us hear what they have to say." It was in the midst of this hubbub that John Martin in a great state of nervous agitation came to the front of the stage and inquired the cause of the commotion. The shouting still continued, and Gladys, who had come to the performance anticipating something of the sort, called ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... was in absolute torture: this Carraway saw in the white, strained, nervous intensity of her look; yet the knowledge served only to irritate him, so futile appeared any attempt to soften the effect of Fletcher's grossness. Before the man's colossal vulgarity of soul, mere brutishness of manner ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... understanding other than the words which he had just heard from the lips of the woman who held his love—as he had known now these many days—some freak of dual consciousness made him see, for the first time, in that moment, how oddly bleached and wasted seemed the powerful, nervous, brown hands that rested on his knees. And he thought: It will be long ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... let me hear no more of this nonsense, for, ridiculous as it may appear, it is to me very painful. Leave now—I am nervous and low-spirited. Good-by. Come this evening with your sister, I shall be ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... since she had talked with any one, and she was so nervous after all her morbid imagining, that she was feeling utterly unlike the old self-reliant, active-minded girl he remembered when the rector entered the room. She also, on her part, was unprepared for the feelings aroused by the sight of him; and when he came in, his grave face and gentle ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... entered the room immediately afterwards was of a very different type. His mode of entry was of another description. Whereas the man of blood swaggered in with an air of nervous truculence, as if he were afraid that some one was desirous of disputing his equality, the next comer crept in softly, and closed the door with accuracy. He was the incarnation of benevolence—in the best sense ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... some stupid thing from Zennor," she would say, and she would scowl at Cherry until the girl grew quite nervous. She tried to get as far away from the old woman as she could, but, as Cherry said, the old soul seemed to have eyes all over her head, for she always had one on Cherry, no matter where she was ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of sugar and apples, and Norah felt suddenly, for the first time, at home. There were two good cobs, and a hunter with a beautiful lean head and splendid shoulders; a Welsh pony designed for a roomy tub-cart in the coach house; and a good old stager able for anything from carrying a nervous rider to drawing a light plough. The cobs, the groom explained, were equally good in saddle or harness; and there was another pony, temporarily on a visit to a vet., which Sir John had liked to ride. "But of course Killaloe was Sir John's ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... victory stimulated national pride; it strengthened the Protestants, and the left wing of that party. Though the Catholics had shown themselves loyal during the crisis they were subjected, immediately thereafter, to the severest persecution they had yet felt. This was due partly to nervous excitement of the whole population, partly to the advance towards power of the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... I'd put to sleep in this room," said old Mrs. Jinks to the fastidious and extremely nervous young minister who was spending ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... and what with its attendant debility or nervous weakness—names are of no matter now—I have lost the use of my limbs. I never leave my room. I have not been outside this door for—tell him for how long,' she said, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... turned the very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a kind of fit, a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... required. The consumers are not the Indians, who cannot afford it, but the better classes, who generally eat meat three times a day. This, with the quantities of chile and sweetmeats, in a climate which every one complains of as being irritating and inflammatory, probably produces those nervous complaints which are here so general, and for which constant hot baths are ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... my light touch," returned Turnbull. "These hansom-cab rides will raise the tone—raise the tone, my dear fellow—of our London youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, make them acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city. Education, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed out that political reform is useless until we produce a cultured populace. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... insubordination, and—and—let me whisper it to you, little Nora—vulgarity. Yes, I do love to be vulgar. I like shocking mother; I like shocking father. Since Terence came I have had rare fun shocking him. I have learned a lot of slang, and whenever I see Terence I shout it at him. He has got quite nervous lately, and avoids me. He likes Linda awfully, but he avoids me. But, to go on with my day. I am back from school to early dinner, generally in disgrace. I am not allowed to speak at dinner. Back again I go to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... that moment a head was put out of the companion, and a voice called him in pidgin English to go down. He went below, and stood beside the sick captain, whose mind was wandering, and whose spirit was restless in its lodging. He watched the gasping form, and marked the nervous fingers as they clutched at the counterpane as hour after hour went by, till just as the dawn was breaking a quietness stole over the attenuated form, and with a slight tremour the spirit broke from its imprisonment, and death lay before Sartoris in the bunk. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this ruin, and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety in the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he was small and weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp voice. He was not a man adapted for vigorous struggling with the world. Mr. May could do it, in whose hands was the final issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one; and whose powers nobody could deny. Surely ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... had failed! An access of a local complaint, under which he had suffered for some time past, added to a general prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to town before he had well settled himself in the country. The local complaint subsided, but was followed by a low nervous fever. He was not aware of his critical situation, and intended to be at the club on the 25th of March, on which occasion Charles Fox, Sir Charles Bunbury (one of the Horneck connection), and two other new members were to be present. In the afternoon, however, he felt so ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... "Father Gray is nervous, good Mr. Jailor; I hope there's no danger from these dreadful men—all of them together—for I promised Father Gray that he should be safe, myself," said ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... regions; two of these (Scatha and Glaurung) were known as "the Great Worms". This usage expresses the connotation that the RTM hack was a sort of devastating watershed event in hackish history; certainly it did more to make non-hackers nervous about the Internet than anything before ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... a nightmare,' thought the Frenchman, with a nervous shudder, as he saw the wet walls gleaming in the faint light of the candle. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... that Tanya would come out the victor in this combat. Then, finally, it appeared to us that we did not provoke the soldier enough, that he might forget about the dispute, and that we ought to irritate his self-love the more. Since that day we began to live a particular, intensely nervous life—a life we had never lived before. We argued with one another all day long, as if we had grown wiser. We spoke more and better. It seemed to us that we were playing a game with the devil, with Tanya as the stake on our side. And when we had ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... Newcomb, the mysterious and profound, with his long, dark, straight locks of hair, one of which was continually being brushed away from his forehead as it continually fell; with his gold-bowed eye-glass, his large nose and peculiar blue eyes, his spasmodic expressions of nervous horror, and his cachinnatious laugh. There were sturdy Teel, and heavy Eaton, and frisky Burnham, and bluff Rykman, with round-eyed Fanny Dwight and another graceful Fanny, and oh! so many more men and women, friends and workers striving for a sublime idea. I could describe very ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... upon the Prince's forehead the perspiration stood out like beads, and he shrank away from Mr. Sabin as from some unholy thing. Lady Carey had fallen back across her chair. Her hand was still pressed to her side, and her face was very pale. A nervous little laugh ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in their appearance soon after in a twittering, nervous band, snatched their food furtively, and ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... genius fires thy soul? The same which tuned the frantic nervous strain To the wild harp of Collins?—By the pole, Or 'mid the seraphim and heavenly train, Taught Milton everlasting secrets to unfold, To sing Hell's flaming gulf, or ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Why? Because if they had felt perfectly secure, that you are the minions of the South and the slaves of slavery, they would have been perfectly still. (Applause and uproar.) And, therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, if I were permitted to speak —(hisses and applause)—when I found they were afraid to have me speak—(hisses, laughter, and "No, no!")—when I found that they considered my speaking damaging to their ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... The forces at that moment, organised and drilled, numbered 164,614, all duly enrolled and pledged to act together anywhere and at any time, many of them already well armed, and the remainder about to be furnished with modern weapons. The Government was becoming nervous. An order from headquarters required a complete survey of the three barracks of Belfast, with an exhaustive report as to their defensive capabilities. Plans of existing musketry loopholes were to be made, and commanding officers were to state if it would be advisable ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... teacher, Miss Goss, to report. I never had thought of Miss Goss as a blithe spirit. She was associated in my mind with numerous solemn occasions, and I was surprised to find that on this day she unexpectedly developed a trait of breaking into nervous laughter. I had got as far as "Should the base plebeian rabble—" when Miss Goss broke down in what I could not but regard as a fit of giggles, and I ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... its worst, he resolved to attempt the composition of the "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," for which he had been collecting material since his days in college. Suffering from extreme weakness of sight, a condition of the brain prohibiting fixed attention, and a nervous derangement, he yet set out upon this labor, using a wooden frame strung with parallel wires to guide his crayon. Books and documents were read to him, but never, without injury, for more than a half-hour at a time, and frequently not at all for days. ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... could once make up your mind in the fear of God never to undertake more work of any sort than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry, and the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and like one out of breath, would stop and take breath, you would find this simple common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... sides of a central axis or plane; and fourth, there is the vertebrate type of life,—life embodied in a form in which an internal skeleton is built up into two cavities placed the one over the other; the upper for the reception of the nervous centres, cerebral and spinal,—the lower for the lodgment of the respiratory, circulatory, and digestive organs. Such have been the four central ideas of the faunas of every succeeding creation, except perhaps the earliest of all, that of the Lower ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... explained her absences nor her private affairs to Joan. When she did appear at Sylvia's studio she was quiet and nervous. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... muttered, and then had to pull his horse to one side. The animal was now nervous, and in a twinkling it balked and sent Henry flying headlong to the ground! Then, without waiting to note what was happening, the horse set off on a run whence ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... discovery. A dark mass, like some prehistoric monster, was gradually approaching. Tim spoke to a man next to him who was softly swearing and bandaging a shattered hand. He peered through the light and half-light of dawn, and then started to laugh in a nervous way. "Hell, mate;" he said, "the whole German race are advancing against us; it's all up with us. Look, they are coming on like a solid wall ... springing out of the earth just solid ... no ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... blow, given with all the boy's nervous force, as with a bound he threw all his strength into ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... road, we stopped to rest at a point covered with a sensitive plant so delicate that, on stepping on it anywhere, the nervous thrill, if that is what it is, would run three or four feet or more in all directions before dying down. From this point we turned north, our way taking us through a broad open valley, past rice-fields and between clumps of flowering guava bushes. As we neared Bambang, where ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... he's got a nice big room by himself to sleep in. The Physiology's down on crowding, and five boys in one bedroom ain't good for a nervous ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... shaking hand, he lifts the latchet, Steps o'er the threshold stone; The heavy door slips from his fingers— It shuts, and he is gone. What touched, transfixed, appalled, his soul?— A nervous thought, no more; 'Twill sink like stone in placid pool, And calm close ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... to that unhappy object of interest in the front pew were many and pointed, his time had not really come until the minister signed to him to advance as far as the second step of the pulpit stairs. The nervous father clenched the railing in a daze, and cowered before the ministerial heckling. From warning the minister passed to exhortation, from exhortation to admonition, from admonition to searching questioning, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... please come up town as early as you can? Granny had a slight stroke last night. In some mysterious way she found out before any one else this awful news about the bank. Uncle Lovell is away shooting, and the idea of the disgrace has made poor Papa so nervous that he has a temperature and can't leave his room. Mamma needs you dreadfully, and I do hope you can get away at once and ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... accustomed to being moved about,—every year, or two years,—they do not greatly resent it. A real "old resident," who has pushed his rootlets far and wide, and never tried any other soil or aspect, is very slow to settle elsewhere, even if he does not die of nostalgia and nervous shock! In making cuttings, consider the habits and customs of the parent plant. If it has been grown in heat, the cuttings will require heat to start them. And so on, as to dry soil or moist, &c. If somebody gives you "a root" in hot weather, or a bad time for moving, when you have ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... glad of it. Brougham will be so pleased —and yet it shocked you, Mr. Horn—and you really think the poor lady minded it? Dear me! How pleased she will be when I tell her the impression it all made upon you. She's worked so hard over the part and has been so nervous about it. I left her only a moment ago—she and her husband wanted me to take supper with them at Riley's—the new restaurant on University Place, you know, famous for its devilled crabs. But I always like to come here for my clams. Allow me a moment—" and he bent over the steaming tub, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... prepared to go—for to be watched at meals makes me nervous, and leads me sometimes to eat the card with "Foie Gras" on it in mistake for the sandwich—he came up to me and raised ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... to Jacquelin," she cried, in a loud nervous tone. "Tell him to go to Moreau; I must be dressed! Fancy if Monsieur de Troisville surprised me as I am now! and my uncle not here to receive him! Oh, uncle, uncle! Come, Josette; come ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... he could no more think of marrying than flying. Lady Clara faint at seeing him! she fainted before he came up; she was always fainting, and had done so thrice in the last week to his knowledge. Lord Dorking had a nervous affection of his right arm, and was always shaking his stick. He did not say Villain, he said William; Captain Belsize's name is William. It is not so in the Peerage? Is he called Jack in the Peerage? Those Peerages are always wrong. These candid explanations of course had their effect. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... true that he had changed. His face was more deeply lined, his eyes more bright and nervous; there was a long, dark scar just under the short hair at his temple that Melville had never seen before. And the finality of despair seemed to settle over the droll features as he walked nearer and took ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... top, a ball,—memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break! She sat down by the drawer, and leaning her head on her hands over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then, suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial articles, and ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... sanction the introduction of instrumental music into public worship, is not clear. 'The late Abraham Booth and Andrew Fuller were extremely averse to it; others are as desirous of it. Music has a great effect on the nervous system, and of all instruments the organ is the most impressive. The Christian's inquiry is, whether sensations so produced assist the soul in holding communion with the Father of spirits, or whether, under our spiritual dispensation, the Holy Ghost makes use of such means to promote intercourse ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... say to the contrary, there can be no doubt whatever that the consumption of food is an intellectual treat, inasmuch as it sets the body free from the cravings of appetite, and by stimulating those nervous influences which convey vigour and vitality to the brain, not only becomes the direct cause of physical gratification, but induces that state of mind which is most favourable to the development of the interesting creations ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... her with both her capable arms. "My boy, my boy!" she murmured, and upon his painted forehead she now imprinted a kiss of deep reverence. "Run along and play," she ordered. "You're getting me all nervous." Forthwith she moved to the centre of the yard where the tight-rope walker still endangered his life above the heads of a ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... kind-hearted girl, but rather headstrong, and just now a little disappointed. She forgot that her mother had had to struggle hard with many cares ever since she had been left a widow, and that her illness now had made her nervous. ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... a tall, thin man, and he had a slouch hat, which he held in his hands as he talked. He seemed nervous, and his face wore a worried look—extremely worried. He looked like a man who had lost nine hundred dollars, but he did not look like Santa Claus. He was thinner and not so jolly-looking. At first Mrs. Gratz had no idea that Santa ...
— The Thin Santa Claus - The Chicken Yard That Was a Christmas Stocking • Ellis Parker Butler
... my Dinky-Dunk, and no news of him. All day long, at the back of my brain, a nervous little mouse of anxiety keeps nibbling and nibbling away. Last night, when she was helping me get the Twins ready for bed, Struthers confided to me that she felt sure Lady Alicia and my husband had been playmates together in England at one time, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... her, upon a big granite boulder, in climbing which his soft veld schoons, or hide shoes, had made no noise, for Meyer could move like a cat. The last rays from the sinking sun struck him full, outlining his agile, nervous shape against the sky, and in their intense red light, which flamed upon him, he appeared terrible. He looked like a panther about to spring; his eyes shone like a panther's, and Benita knew that she was the prey whom he desired. Still, remembering her resolution, she determined to show no fear, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... says Boulay de la Meurthe, "to whoever would re-establish scaffolds." There is to be no guillotine; its purveyors have been too strongly denounced; they stand too near the red stream and view with too great nervous horror those who fed it. It is better to employ death at a distance, lingering and spontaneous, with no effusion of human blood, "dry," less repulsive than the other sort, but more painful and not less certain; this shall be imprisonment on the marshes of Rochefort, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... man's domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the 'Hat-catcher's Daughter' because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by 'Sich a gettin' up stairs' because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his barrels—the dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how long or how loud the grand chorus in 'Nabucco' ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... say, Oh that you were here! However, if it is absolutely necessary I will summon you. What else is there to say? What else? This, I think: I am certain that all is lost. For why mince matters any longer? But I write this in haste, and, by Hercules, in rather a nervous state. On some future occasion I will either write to you at full length, if I find a very trustworthy person to whom to give a letter, or if I write darkly you will understand all the same. In these letters I will be Laelius, you Furius; the rest shall be in ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... artistic tendency may be a universal nervous system, artists are inclined to ganglionate. The nerve-knots vary in size and importance, and one chief ganglion may serve as a feeding brain, but it cannot monopolize the activity. In America, particularly, these ganglia, or colonies, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... smouldering or burnt-out passions? You look on the black bombazine and high-necked decorum of your neighbor, and no more think of the real life that underlies this despoiled and dismantled womanhood than you think of a stone trilobite as having once been full of the juices and the nervous thrills of throbbing and self-conscious being. There is a wild creature under that long yellow pin which serves as brooch for the bombazine cuirass,—a wild creature, which I venture to say would leap in his cage, if I should stir him, quiet as you think him. A heart which has ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with the inebriates, if it does nothing else; and I am afraid it does nothing else with me. In spite of the warning, I continue to take my favorite beverage as strong and as frequently as ever, and so I suppose must look forward to a cranky nervous ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... still continued, their debility daily increases, distressing pains in the back and loins succeed; the patients become exceedingly nervous, as it is termed, and are unusually susceptible of ordinary impressions; pain in the head, often of great violence, follows, which, in some cases, is succeeded by delirium, in others, by absolute mania. Nor is this the whole catalogue of ills to which in such cases the unfortunate mother is ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... more attention to the embellishment of his person than any man in the detachment, was one of the officers present, and although nervous about the Sultan's visit, and feeling certain that it had to do with the rescue of the slave girls, he could not help a smile at the umbrella, and a congratulatory sensation that Bob Roberts was not present, for he would have been sure to laugh, when an extension ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... some at a cautious distance. Some hold their hands out stiffly, some drop them loosely at their sides. Some dance springily, some glide softly, some move with grave dignity. There are boisterous couples, who tear wildly about the room, knocking every one out of their way. There are nervous couples, whom these frighten, and who cry, "Nusfok! Kas yra?" at them as they pass. Each couple is paired for the evening—you will never see them change about. There is Alena Jasaityte, for instance, who has danced unending hours with Juozas Raczius, to whom she is engaged. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... we have drugs with which we can diminish or increase the number of heart beats per minute, dilate or contract the pupils of the eye, check or stimulate the secretion of mucus, sedate or irritate the nervous system, etc., but all that is accomplished is temporary stimulation or sedation, and such juggling does not cure. The practice of medicine is today what it has been in the past, largely experiment ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... one of the older men of our army, somewhat under the average height and weight, with a precise politeness of manner which reminded one of a Frenchman, and the resemblance was increased by his free use of his snuff-box. His nervous irritability was the cause of considerable chafing in his command, but this left him under fire, and those who had been with him in action learned to admire his courage and conduct. He was with me subsequently at South Mountain and Antietam, and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... ticklish enterprise. As is frequently the case upon these occasions, nervous tension manifested itself much more seriously at Headquarters than in the front-line trenches. The man on the spot is, as a rule, much too busy with the actual execution of the enterprise in hand to distress himself by speculation upon ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... in the plains, which they improve by the addition of a few drops of rum, and each man carries a supply of this in a bullock's horn, called CHIFFLE. They have to be careful, however, not to indulge too freely in alcoholic drinks, as the climate itself has a peculiarly exhilarating effect on the nervous system. As for bedding, it is all contained in the saddle used by the natives, called RECADO. This saddle is made of sheepskins, tanned on one side and woolly on the other, fastened by gorgeous embroidered straps. Wrapped in these warm coverings a traveler may sleep soundly, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... past eight—being precisely sixty minutes behind the period announced, in consequence of the non-arrival of the one fiddle and ditto flute comprising, or rather that ought to have comprised, the orchestra—made his debut, and a particularly nervous bow to the good folks there assembled, "as and for" the character "of Hamlet, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... bending over her said, "My poor Rosamond! has something agitated you?" Clinging to him she fell into hysterical sobbings and cries, and for the next hour he did nothing but soothe and tend her. He imagined that Dorothea had been to see her, and that all this effect on her nervous system, which evidently involved some new turning towards himself, was due to the excitement of the new impressions ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... little of this, and now a little of that; but, having made her selections, she played the piece entirely through, note for note, exactly as it was written. Most people liked to hear Miss Warrington play, for the performance was very complete. She sat gracefully at the piano, showed no nervous anxiety, interpreted the notes conscientiously, and finished the music to the very last octave. But Aunt Faith detected a want of expression in this studied mechanism; it seemed to her that Sibyl did not, in her heart, feel the spirit of the music which her fingers played. Coming in from the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... Kay's voice, unmistakably nervous. Fenn darted from the door and across the passage. At the other side was a boot-cupboard. It was his only refuge in that direction. What he ought to have done was to leave the dining-room by the opposite door, which led via a corridor ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... peril—I mean that of alienating friends. Mr. Cowl is an Imperialist—of a very unemphatic type: he wears (as you will say) gold spectacles, and has a nervous cough, but he is an Imperialist. I never said that it was wrong or even foolish to alienate such a man. I said that a great and powerful section of opinion thought it a breach of honour in one of Ours to do it. Do not run away with the first ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... romantically high-strung, excitable, and irritable. His intense moral fervor, his multifarious activities, and his disappointments were also constant strains on his nervous force. In 1872, further, he was rejected in marriage by a young girl for whom he had formed a deep attachment and who on her death-bed, three years later, refused, with strange cruelty, to see him. In 1878 his health temporarily failed, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... know it, I'll explain now that you must walk ahead of your horse and keep your right hand always in touch with the wall until we see the stars again. There's a ledge-five feet wide in the narrowest place, if you are nervous about ledges—and if you should get off that you'd have a drop of ten feet or so. We found that the ledge makes easier travelling, because the bottom is full of rocks and nasty depressions that are ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... place at the head of the list (doubtless because there was no other class of faults from which I needed to be more carefully protected) those in which I can now distinguish the common feature that one succumbs to them by yielding to a nervous impulse. But such words as these last had never been uttered in my hearing; no one had yet accounted for my temptations in a way which might have led me to believe that there was some excuse for my giving in to them, or that I was actually incapable of holding ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... to be left here to be buried in snow like the Babes in the Wood," protested Van gaily. "No sir-ee! I don't stay here. I'll help hunt for the path too. Now don't go getting nervous, Bobbie, old chap. Two of us can't very well get lost on this mountain. We'll separate enough to keep within hallooing distance, and we'll tie a handkerchief on this tree so we can get back to it again if we want to. We know we're part ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... skirt dance in the center of the floor. The mother played her accompaniments and at the same time watched her daughter with greedy admiration and nervous apprehension. She need have had no apprehension. The child was mistress of the situation. She had been properly dressed for the occasion in black tulle and black silk tights. Her little neck and arms were bare, ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... lazy dog," said Brown cheerfully, "and can't do without my comforts. But you don't know how glad I am to see you. I can't stand being alone. I get most awfully blue and funky, naturally nervous and timid, you know." ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... of heart. She nevertheless went on rubbing Pao-y's hands, which were icy cold. She felt inclined to advise Pao-y not to weep, but fearing again lest, in the first place, Pao-y might be inwardly aggrieved, and nervous, in the next, lest she should not be dealing rightly by Tai-y, she thought it advisable that they should all have a good cry, as they might then be able to leave off. She herself therefore also melted into tears. As for Tzu-Chan, at one time, she cleaned the expectorated medicine; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... making what we called a continuous picnic. And then the stories he would tell us of his adventures among the Blackfeet,—of his trading expeditions,—his being taken prisoner by the Sioux,—his life in the forts,—till Alice would creep nearer to him in her nervous excitement, as if to be sure that he was really with her, and then beg him to go on and tell us something more. Once I asked him how he happened to go out among the Indians. His face darkened,—"My little Kate, you must not ask questions,"—and as I turned to Alice, her eyes were full of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... pursued, And blindly still the vain assault renew'd. Dark Metrodorus next sustain'd the cause, With Aristippus, true to Pleasure's laws. Chrysippus next his subtle web disposed: Zeno alternate spread his hand, and closed; To show how eloquence expands the soul, And logic boasts a close and nervous whole. And there Cleanthes drew the mighty line That led his pupils on, with heart divine, Through time's fallacious joys, by Virtue's road, To the bright palace of the sovereign good.— But here the weary Muse forsakes the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... adorned with yellow stripes symbolical of their role; while other more malevolent spirits can only be driven away by shouting, buffeting and drumming, such as characterize the Mohurrum season in Bombay. The Indian element of nervous excitement might in course of ages have been sobered by the puritanism of Islam but for the presence of the African, who unites with a firm belief in spirits a phenomenal desire for noise and brawling; and it is the union of this jovial African element with the sentimentality of Persia and ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... mounted on the croup of one of their horses, and after a gallop of half an hour reached the French advanced guard. It was already hurrying on, and I must confess that, from the silence of the march and the rapid pace of their battalions, I began to be nervous about the consequences, and dreaded the effects of a surprise on some of our camps. My first apprehension, however, was for you. I thought that you must have been entangled in the route of some of the advancing battalions, and I enquired of the colonel of the first to whom I was brought, whether ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... diseases. A cold-blooded passage in Crozet's journal tells of the beginning of this curse. Though not altogether unskilful surgeons, the Maoris knew virtually nothing of medicine. Nor do they show much nervous power when attacked by disease. Cheerful and sociable when in health, they droop quickly when ill, and seem sometimes to die from sheer lack of the will to live. Bright and imaginative almost as the Kelts of Europe, their spirits are easily affected by superstitious dread. Authentic cases ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Andrew Fraser, Miss Nadine Johnstone, and the lovelorn Mattie Jones, were escorted to London by a head clerk of the estate's solicitors, Prince Djiddin and the "Moonshee" unbent their brows and rested from the nervous strain of the three weeks of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... had got his chance and he knew it. He was nervous and not sure of himself, for he knew very well that she had but a passing attraction for him, beyond the very solid inducement to marry her offered by her fortune. But he knew that the opportunity must not be lost, and he did not waste time. He spoke quietly, not wishing to risk a ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford |
