"Fidget" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suppose I mun. I shall catch it downstairs, I know. He'll be in a fidget till you're getten to bed, I know; so you mun be quiet if you are so ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... will, poor soul," said Phoebe kindly, "and better for your health: but you must not go far from the wagon, for I'm a fidget; and I have got the care of you now, you know, for want of a better. Come, Ucatella; you must ride with me, and help me sort the things; they are all higgledy-piggledy." So those two got into the wagon through the back curtains. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... I could cut it off,—like a boy's. It is miles too long. You might as well head Zachariah off. She has been gone since one o'clock. I am sure I heard the front door close before I dropped off to sleep. Don't fidget, Kenny. They've probably got old Martin in the calaboose by this time. Mother never fails when she sets out to do a thing. That good-for-nothing sleepy-head, Hattie, never heard a sound last night. What a conscience ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... a gambler in the ordinary sense. He never plays cards. Little pictures on paste-board fidget him, he says; he loathes Monte Carlo because it's vulgar, and he dislikes roulette and bridge. He's only a gambler in the best sense of the word—and that's ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... fidget about Victor, Marie. Elise is with him, and will come and let you know if he wakes; but I hope that he has gone off fairly to sleep for the night. He knew me, and I think I have put his mind at rest a little as to how he came here. I have ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... began to fidget. He uncrossed his legs and hunched his body deeper into the back of his seat. Presently his eyes began to creep up the paper in front of him. When they reached the top, he hesitated a moment, making a survey under cover, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... Charity. "I hope she ain't going to be a fanciful woman. I can't get along with fancy folks. Then she'll be in a fidget about her eating; and I can't stand that. I'll cook for her, but she must take things as she finds them. I can't have anything ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Master, with whom Sheffield was acquainted; a sharp, but not very wise freshman, who, having been spoiled at home, and having plenty of money, professed to be aesthetic, and kept his college authorities in a perpetual fidget lest he should some morning wake up a Papist; and a friend of his, a nice, modest-looking youth, who, like a mouse, had keen darting eyes, and ate his bread and ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... it, Dick," said Raven, beginning to fidget under examination, "you're district-attorneying it a trifle too much to interest me. I'm getting bored, son. This ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... success. The amateur who played the lawyer seized the general idea of his role with perfect accuracy; in four minutes it was admirably rendered to his audience, but in four minutes it was exhausted. The preliminary cough, the constant angularity of attitude in the midst of perpetual fidget, the indicative finger from which the legal remarks seemed to pop off as from a pocket-pistol, were grasped at once, and remained unvaried, undeveloped to the close. The very ability with which the actor rendered ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the mantelpiece struck six, I rose from my chair and began to fidget about the room, looking every few minutes to see how the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... fidget at my elbow, as you do at the opera. But you shall tell me more of this by ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... at the post fret, and fidget, and curvet about. At length they are again in line. Down goes the white flag! 'Good start!' shouts an excited planter. Down goes the red flag. 'Off at last!' breaks like a deep drawn sigh from the crowd, and now the six horses, all together, and at a rattling pace, tear up the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... since my wife's brother Garland was called in as consulting physician, last month at the penitentiary. He has so stirred her sympathies for the woman whom he pronounces a paragon of all the virtues and graces, that I begin to fidget now at the sound of the prisoner's name, and can hardly look my wife straight in the face. When I go up to court next week, I will call on the Governor, and add a personal appeal to the one I have already ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Stevie, from the same reason, kept on shuffling his feet, as though the floor under the table were uncomfortably hot. When Mr Verloc returned to sit in his place, like the very embodiment of silence, the character of Mrs Verloc's stare underwent a subtle change, and Stevie ceased to fidget with his feet, because of his great and awed regard for his sister's husband. He directed at him glances of respectful compassion. Mr Verloc was sorry. His sister Winnie had impressed upon him (in the omnibus) that Mr ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... down at the aged pumps he happened to have on, and noticed that one bow was all awry and loose. He stooped to fidget with it, and Mother caught him ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Prime Minister, together with other members of the French Cabinet. I enjoyed the good fortune of sitting next to M. Delcasse, and so of making the acquaintance of one of the great Foreign Ministers of our time. Paris is at its best in spring, and had it not been war-time and had one not been in a fidget to get back to Whitehall, a few days of comparative idleness spent in la ville lumiere after nine months of incessant office work, while the international sailor-men settled their differences, would have been not unwelcome. The pause, however, provided an opportunity ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... burglar. No doubt she let him take the impression of the door-key in wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at Kobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. Now, don't fidget so, it will be bad for ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... dismal face and began to fidget awkwardly. "There, there," it said. "I had no intention of—I am afraid that I—Stuck, did you say? Very easily mended, my dear fellow! Merely a question of—Here, let me look." It crashed through the thicket to where David was caught and thrust its head down through the branches. Its muffled ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... atmosphere in both his schools—the Legal and the Ecclesiastical—I need not take pains to prove. What he has suffered at the hands of his Schoolmaster—the God of Israel (and of Christendom)—he has taken good care to inflict on his pupil, the child. Such phrases as: "Don't talk," "Don't fidget," "Don't worry," "Don't ask questions," "Don't make a noise," "Don't make a mess," "Don't do this thing," "Don't do that thing," are ever falling from his lips. And they are supplemented with such positive instructions as: "Sit still," ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... descended to the beach. A small boat lay there which he was able to launch by himself, and pulling off in her he went on board the lugger. He had left the most trusted part of his crew in her, including his mate, Tom Fidget, on whom he could always rely, not that Tom objected to get drunk "at proper times and seasons," as he observed, but duty first and pleasure afterwards was his maxim. His notions of duty were, to be sure, somewhat lax, according to the strict rules of ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... if he will miss part of his letter," she thought, nervously. "What would he say if I gave it to him, and told him I had read it? No! I dare not do that. I will say nothing about it, and let him fidget as much as ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... its salubrious fountains. I protest, I knew nothing of all this yesterday, so entirely was I taken up with the rocks and meadows; no chance of meeting either card or billiard players in their solitudes. Both abound at Ems, where they hop and fidget from ball to ball, unconscious of the bold scenery in their neighbourhood, and totally insensible to its charms. They had no notion, not they, of admiring barren crags and precipices, where even the Lord would lose his way, as a coarse lubber decorated with stars and orders very ingeniously ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... always been the great goddess which is perpetually worshipped. All are scholarly and deliberate in their movements. When the Speaker calls the House in order and the debate commences, deep silence comes save for the movement of hundreds of nervous hands that touch papers or fidget to and fro. Every man uses his hands, particularly when he speaks, not clenched as a European would do, but open, with the slim fingers speaking a language of their own, twisting, turning, insinuating, deriding, a little history of compromises. It would be interesting ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... miserable that a smile came across Mr Crawley's face. After all, others besides himself had their troubles and trials. Mrs Proudie saw and understood the smile, and became more angry than ever. She drew her chair close to the table, and began to fidget with her fingers among the papers. She had never before encountered a clergyman so contumacious, so indecent, so unreverend,—so upsetting. She had had to deal with men difficult to manage;—the archdeacon for instance; but the archdeacon had never been so impertinent to her as this man. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... nearer and nearer to the rectory, as Lucilla began to flush and fidget in eager anticipation of her re-union with Oscar, that uneasiness of mind which I had so readily dismissed while I was in Italy, began to find its way back to me again. My imagination now set to work at drawing pictures—startling pictures of Oscar as a changed being, as a Medusa's ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... nervous and worried. Seems to me the minister was never comin' to lastly, and I find myself wonderin' whether Laura is listenin' to what the preachin' is about, or is writin' notes to Sam Merritt in the back of the tune book. I get thirsty, too, and I fidget about till Father looks at me, and Mother nudges Helen, and Helen passes it along to ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... impatience, and the great clock immediately over our heads presently striking the half-hour after ten, he started and made as if he would have approached the king. He checked the impulse, however, but still continued to fidget uneasily, losing his reserve by-and-by so far as to whisper to me that his Majesty would ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... be very well if it weren't for this heat," she said pettishly. "Do put that photograph down, George!—you do fidget so! Haven't you got any news for me—anything to amuse me? Oh! those horrid papers!—I see. Well! they'll wait a little. By the way, the 'Morning Post' says that young scamp, Lord Ancoats, has gone abroad. I suppose that ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know?" returned Miss Corny. "Barbara, you have done nothing but fidget all the night; what's the matter with you? Folks come to a concert to listen, not ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and again Cappy eyed him over the tops of his spectacles; again the terrible silence. Skinner commenced to fidget. ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... bustle," exclaimed that fidget John; and in less time than my lady-readers would believe, I had put on my pink bonnet and my white dress, and was bowling down to Richmond by the side of my cousin, behind a roan and a chestnut that stepped away in a style that it did one ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... silence, quietly quivered all over like a spider, looked glum and dull, and grew animated only when Lavretzky began to take his leave. Even when he was seated in the calash, the old man continued to be shy and to fidget; but the quiet, warm air, the light breeze, the delicate shadows, the perfume of the grass, of the birch buds, the peaceful gleam of the starry, moonless heaven, the energetic hoof-beats and snorting of the horses, all the charms of the road, of spring, of night,—descended into ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... at four days and nights after opening. It was hard to wait, hard not to fidget under the watchful—the only word—eyes of the GG. They were up to something, undoubtedly. But there was something far more important: I'd narrowed the ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... listened intently, like children who hear and do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held in thrall ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... this happy stage, the Captain, who had been put in a fidget by the crowd clustering round—'a pack of star-gazing fools' as he whispered pretty audibly to Mrs Gilmour—thought it was time to make ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to five he started to fidget with his rifle, and then suddenly springing up on the fire step with a muttered, "I'll send over a couple of souvenirs to Fritz, so that he'll miss me when I leave," he stuck his rifle over the top and fired two shots, when "crack" went a bullet and he ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... extended walk, for directly as the slowness of the pace is the length of the horse, and so should be the length of the rein. The horse is at his greatest length when standing still, and if you force him to collect himself then, he will be uneasy and fidget.[16-*] But the reins must never be loose. The bearing on the mouth, however lightly, must still be felt; and if the horse, in attempting to stare about, as colts and ill-ridden horses will, should throw his ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget restlessly on the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... first difficulties, and present promising state of affairs; relating everything with so blind an interest as made him not only totally unconscious of the uneasy movements of many of his friends as they sat, the change of countenance, the fidget, the hem! of unquietness, but prevented him even from seeing the expression of the face on which his own eyes were fixed—from seeing Sir Thomas's dark brow contract as he looked with inquiring earnestness at his daughters ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... in a dreadful fidget for the next twenty minutes, and may best be compared to an enthusiastic envoy negotiating a treaty, and suddenly finding his action impeded by the arrival of his principals. Miller was very civil, but not pressing; he seemed to have come more with a view of talking over the present ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... his age—whether he were a young man who looked old or an old man who looked young; it seemed to prove nothing, as against other things, that he was bald and, as might have been said, slightly stale, or, more delicately perhaps, dry: there was such a fine little fidget of preoccupied life in him, and his eyes, at moments—though it was an appearance they could suddenly lose—were as candid and clear as those of a pleasant boy. Very neat, very light, and so fair that there was little other indication of his moustache than his ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... right. I'm not so wet as I look. I'll change my coat, and come in to supper in one minute. Don't you fidget about me so, good Marty." Never was Stephen heard to speak discourteously or even ungently to a human being. It would have offended his taste. It was not a matter of principle with him,—not at all: he hardly ever thought ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the little gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her mouth to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... more marked with emotion, and gave at all times the disconcerting impression that he was looking every way at once. It seemed to Ishmael that that light glittering gaze was fixed on him, and he was aware of acute discomfort. Annie whispered him sharply not to fidget, and the next moment the preacher gave out his text: "For many are called, but few are chosen." With a long breath of anticipation the congregation settled ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... to acquiesce in whatever anybody says to you, and you are to do whatever anybody requests you to do. And, above all, don't be surprised at anything that may happen. You'll be nervous enough; I expect that. You'll probably color up and flush and fidget; I expect that; I count on that. But don't lose your nerve entirely; and don't think of attempting ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... about those wretched bits of green branches, and leave the jars where they are. You're trying to fidget me into a passion." ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... spent the first part of Wilkins's speech in a state of restless fidget, his hat over his eyes, was alternately sitting erect with radiant looks, or talking rapidly to Bennett, who had come to sit beside him. The Home Secretary got up after Wilkins had sat down, and spent a genial forty minutes in delivering the Government non possumus, couched, of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... filled with a tumult of energy; every instinct longed to skip; she thought of jouncing as high as the poplars, right over the house and into Washington Square beyond. "Miss Fidget!" her grandfather exclaimed, exasperated, releasing her hand. "You're like holding on to a ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to say that you will be a good deal with her,' Miss Darrell said, shaking her head gravely; 'for you are to take the second English class under her—I heard them say so at dinner to-day— and I am afraid she will fidget you almost out of your life; but you must try to keep your temper, and take things as quietly as you can, and I daresay in time you will be able to get on ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... scooped out. The post-boy sits behind, or stands up, as a groom does in England; but his position must be uncomfortable in the extreme, as the carriole has no springs, and bounds and jumps heavily over ruts and pebbles, causing him to fidget at intervals, and make an exclamation of discomfort most irregularly. The shafts and wheels are slight, and the body painted uniformly of a chocolate colour. The foot-board is not larger than a tea-tray, about six inches square, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... repulsive in the little plain person of the emancipated woman; but the expression of her face produced a disagreeable effect on the spectator. One felt impelled to ask her, 'What's the matter; are you hungry? Or bored? Or shy? What are you in a fidget about?' Both she and Sitnikov had always the same uneasy air. She was extremely unconstrained, and at the same time awkward; she obviously regarded herself as a good-natured, simple creature, and all the while, whatever she did, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... on the ice till the end of war, they had turned him on to this show. He was bored by the business, and didn't understand it very well. The river charts puzzled him, and though it was pretty plain going for hundreds of miles, yet he was in a perpetual fidget about the pilotage. You could see that he would have been far more in his element smelling his way through the shoals of the Ems mouth, or beating against a northeaster in the shallow Baltic. He had six barges in tow, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... afternoon, and Meredith won steadily. He talked a lot about his abnormal luck, but one man present seemed to be constantly on the fidget. Jim had been weaned on cards in a place where gambling was the salt of life, and "tinhorns" were as plentiful as mosquitoes in summer. He kept his eyes on the slim, nimble hands of Meredith, and what he ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... He looked to me like a burglar. No doubt she'll let him take the impression of the door-key in wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at Bobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. Now, don't fidget so; it will be bad ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... he asked, bending low before King Seaphus. The King did not reply for a moment. He was a wise King, and thought for several minutes before he spoke. This made the Prime Minister fidget about on his tail. If he had been a Prime Minister of any land, and not of the sea, he probably would have stood first on one leg and then on the other, but, as he had no feet, he shifted about uneasily on his fin-tail ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... by Tom Reade began to grow decidedly restless. He would sit up, look and listen, and then lie down again. Then he would fidget about nervously, all of which was most unusual with him, for Reade's was one of those strong natures that will endure work day and night as long as is necessary, and then go in for complete rest when there ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... be too particular, because I'm late and must hurry down or Jane won't get things straight, and it does fidget me to have the saltcellars uneven, the tea strainer forgotten, and your uncle's paper not aired," returned Miss Plenty, briskly unrolling the two gray curls she wore at ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... attention of all future writers on that subject. Independently of the nuisance of its inexpressibly harsh-jingling tones, (as, if you were being hissed by a quantity of rusty iron wire,) it always gives us the fidget to hear it for the sake of poor Abel, (surely its only admirer,) grinding away for dear life, to the extreme exacerbation of the bears growling beneath, under the combined irritation of no supper and his abominable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... enough to be about, but not quite. If you go back to your habitual hours of sleep you will fret and fidget indoors, and you are not yet sufficiently recovered to resume your normal life. You need fresh air. I have considered what is best and what is possible. I have talked with your friend Opsitius. Through him I have arranged for you ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... upon her stool and her hands on her lap, listening with a sense so long at double exercise that now she could not readily relax the strain on it M'Iver was in a great fidget to be off. I could see it in every movement of him. He was a man who ever disliked to have his feelings vexed by contact with the everlasting sorrows of life, and this intercourse with new widowhood was sore against his mind. As for me, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Keble and Froude advocated their continuance strongly, and were angry with me for consenting to stop them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his own friends; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, took a high tone in his project of measures for dealing with bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scandalised him considerably. As for me, there was matter enough in the early ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... a wild outcry from the wood, hounds and horn lifting up their voices together in sudden delirium. Old horses pricked their ears, and young ones, and notably, Nancy, began to fret and to fidget. Some one said, unnecessarily: "That's him!" A man, farther down the road, turned his horse, and standing in his stirrups, stared over the wall into the thick covert, rigid as a dog setting his game. Then ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... don't hurt you, mademoiselle, except when you pull your head aside. But in truth it is hard to comb your hair properly when you move and fidget about. You are very ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... reply. Maud began to falter and fidget. Beth was amused. Patsy was fast growing indignant. Flo had a queer expression on her pretty face that denoted mischief to such an extent that ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... absently). He is still pacing up and down restlessly—to and fro—along and across—he that is usually so innocent of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have gone out there long ago, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... smiled rather incredulously when assured that it was not anything that could be sent down from the Hall that was wanted by the patient, but only the use of the fresh air that was about her, and the observance of her doctor's simple directions. Sir William next began to make his horse fidget, and ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... down some time ago." Helen watched her father fidget with his watch fob for several minutes, then asked with characteristic directness. "What do ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... acquaintance with its mechanism. The hammer, which by its stroke upon the string has produced the sound, falls immediately when the tone resounds; and after that you may caress the key which has set the hammer in motion, fidget round on it as much as you please, and stagger up and down over it, in your intoxicated passion,—no more sound is to be brought out from it, with all your trembling and quivering. It is only the public who are quivering with ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... condition of human existence which statuary most easily and most naturally expresses; and few things are more obnoxious to a refined taste than that sculpture which, like that of Roubiliac, affects movement, fidget, flutter, and unquiet. But in the Phoenician sculpture the repose is overdone; except in the expression of faces, there is scarcely any life at all. The figures do nothing; they simply stand to be looked at. And they stand stiffly, sometimes even awkwardly, rarely with anything ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... away and the trapezes slung up again in the roof, we had a musical ride, performed by six men and six women mounted on very shiny horses. Mrs. Ascher, of course, objected strongly to the music. I could see her squirming in her seat. Ascher did not find the thing interesting and began to fidget. It was, indeed, much less suggestive than either the learned horse or the acrobats. You cannot discover in a musical ride any parable with a meaning applicable to life. Nothing in the world goes so smoothly and ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... strong than sweet, or from a better feeling, the fact was noticeable, that when every one else's spirits went down Elizabeth's went up. Nothing could bring her out of a "grumpy" fit so satisfactorily as her mistresses falling into one. When Miss Selina now began to fidget hither and thither, each tone of her fretful voice seeming to go through her eldest sister's every nerve, till even Hilary said, impatiently, "Oh, Selina, can't you be quiet?" then Elizabeth rose from the depth of her gloomy discontent ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... If you fidget when you're dressed. If you fidget like Miss Midget, Hopper, or her sister Bridget. Goops like that are so much bother, That they ought to ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... master once more, and no need to bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,"—turning to the bureau—"it's that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget my life out." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... monarchs! Our strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... wheels and drawn by an hundred laborious oxen, came bumping and joggling the ale that thirsty Connaught princes would drink. On a road again the learned men of Leinster, each with an idea in his head that would discomfit a northern ollav and make a southern one gape and fidget, would be marching solemnly, each by a horse that was piled high on the back and widely at the sides with clean-peeled willow or oaken wands, that were carved from the top to the bottom with the ogham signs; the first lines of poems (for it was an offence against wisdom to commit more than ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... dreamy upward gaze. 'I will try, mother, I really will. I will keep my hands tight in my pockets, and my feet close together; I will pretend I'm going to be shot by a file of soldiers, and then I really think that will help me not to fidget. I promise you ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... 'massacred' St. Bartholomew. But vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were matters of but casual concern crowded out of my life and out of my companions' lives (in a convent boarding-school) by the more stirring happenings of every day. How could we fidget over obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and our very dreams were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over 'natural laws' in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a hill covered with trees? The ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... period, to drop in. Nothing would be said, nothing done; we would not even trouble to stare at the intruder. Yet he would seldom stop to finish his consommation, or he would bolt it. He would feel something in the air; he would know he was out of place. He would fidget a little, frown a little, and get up meekly, and slink into the street. Human magnetism is such a subtle force. And Madame Chanve didn't mind in the least; she preferred a bird in the hand to a brace in the bush. From half a dozen to a score of us dined at ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... with suspicion. "Oh, thank Heavens!" it said with abrupt fervor. "I was afraid it mightn't be you, Miss Sylvia. I'm so glad you're back. There ain't—hasn't been a minute these past two nights that I haven't been in a fidget." ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... he answered, 'look how you worry all the time! If you'd only have what I call a quiet set-down and a chat, without being always on the fidget, always looking either at the glass or at the clock, one ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... blameless: but what was that towards being praiseworthy? To be only innocent, is not to be virtuous. He afterwards spoke so much against Mrs. Dipple's forehead, Mrs. Prim's mouth, Mrs. Dentifrice's teeth, and Mrs. Fidget's cheeks, that she grew downright in love with him: for it is always to be understood, that a lady takes all you detract from the rest of her sex to be a gift to her. In a word, things went so far, that I was dismissed, and she will remember that evening nine months, from the 6th of April, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... themselves much wiser, have not the same consideration," thought Humphrey, as the pony trotted along. Humphrey thought a good deal about the danger that Edward had been subjected to, and said to himself, "I really think that I should be more comfortable if Edward was away. I am always in a fidget about him. I wish the new king, who is now in France would raise an army and come over. It is better that Edward should be fighting in the field than remain here and risk being shot as a deer-stealer, or put in prison. The farm is sufficient ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... o'clock she began to fidget about her brother. "He certainly meant to be home for dinner," she said several times, with ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the stroke," he said. "Can't you see you lose time by changing your position so often? What makes you fidget so?" ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... and intellectual face and reserved manner. Finally, there was Otto Melick, a litterateur from London, about thirty years of age, with a wiry and muscular frame, and the restless manner of one who lives in a perpetual fidget. ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... to be found in this free country. What think you, gentle reader, of Solomon Sly, Reynard Fox, and Hiram Dolittle and Prudence Fidget; all veritable names, and belonging to substantial yeomen? After Ammon and Ichabod, I should not be at all surprised to meet with Judas Iscariot, Pilate, and Herod. And then the female appellations! But the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... do you fidget? You're hurting my shoulder, you troublesome midget! Perhaps it's that hole that you told me about. Why, darling, your sawdust is ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... cotched fast somewheres long about the straits. An' a bottle o' rum for a cold night! Well, well! I bet ye, Dannie," says he, "that the Likely Lass is gripped by this time. An' ye got a bottle o' rum!" cries he, in a beaming fidget. "Rum's a wonderful thing on a cold night, lad. Nothin' like it. I've tried it. Was a time," he confided, "when I was sort o' give ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... much mistaken if this one has ever had her tea out of doors in all her born days. What! do you think our little stuffy room would be any treat to her, after the drawing-room at Font Abbey? Come, you be off till half-past five; you'll fidget ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... bright, after all, Beriah. I'm sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open the letter—open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir out of our places. I am all in a fidget to ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... his navy went under at Salamis. We saw the pathetic figure of Byron swimming where Leander swam; and, in all, such an array of visions that the lure of the Eternal Waterway gripped us, and we were a-fidget ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... longer enjoyed visiting her friends. She set out in peevish resignation, leaving her house, and when she had sat half an hour with Lizzie or Sarah or Connie she would begin to fidget, miserable till she got back to it again; to the house ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... you would not fidget with your feet. You know your dear father often told you of it;" or, "As your dear father used to say, Ned;" until the boy in despair would throw down his book and rush out of the room to calm himself ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... a side-table on which writing materials were placed. "You shall breakfast in peace, you old fidget," he replied, and addressed himself forthwith to Mr. Darch, with his usual Spartan brevity of epistolary expression. "Dear Sir—Here I am, bag and baggage. Will you kindly oblige me by being my lawyer? I ask this, because I want ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Miss Celia blew away the threatening cloud, however; and for her sake her brother promised to try to be patient; for her sake Ben declared he never would "get mad" if Mr. Thorny did fidget; and both very soon forgot all about master and man and lived together like two friendly lads, taking each other's ups and downs good-naturedly, and finding mutual pleasure and profit in the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... difficulty in this matter. Jonah, was a most unwilling guest of the whale. He wanted to get out. However much he may have liked fish, he did not want it three times a day and all the time. So he kept up a fidget, and a struggle, and a turning over, and he gave the whale no time to assimilate him. The man knew that if he was ever to get out he must be in perpetual motion. We know men that are so lethargic they would have given the matter up, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... middle of the stream I should not be able to paddle myself back against it—which, indeed, might very well have proved the case. Then I became nervous, and paddled all on one side, by which means, of course, I only turned the boat round. S—— began to fidget about, getting up from where I had placed her, and terrifying me with her unsteady motions and the rocking of the canoe. I was now very much frightened, and saw that I must get back to shore before I became more helpless than I was beginning to feel; so laying S—— down in the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... inoffensive birds. His restlessness induced him to make Jarvis his companion; for although he abhorred the captain's style of pursuing the sport, being in his opinion both out of rule and without taste, yet he was a constitutional fidget, and suited his own moving propensities at the moment. Egerton and Denbigh were both frequently at the hall, but generally gave their time to the ladies, neither being much inclined to the ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... as she looks any worse to me either; but Dr. Van Anden is in a fidget, and I suppose he ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; '80, that is the wine you must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has the most frightful headaches if he drinks anything but the very best. I hope he'll ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... the pole, JOKIM, or we shall be all adrift. We'd better have kept to our first pitch; it was quiet there, and we hooked one or two sizeable ones. (Aside.) Fact is, you're such a fidget, you lose your fish, and then want ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... ordinary valor is more impulsive. A weaker man, albeit total stranger to fear, ready to lead his division or his corps into the very mouth of hell, if commanded, being set himself to direct an army, will be either rash or else too timid, or fidget from one extreme to the other, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... She didn't fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too. She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the stage, but she was attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that she placed no undue emphasis on his visits. In her world men came and went, brought or sent small tribute, and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... He began to fidget. He took his legs out of the fender and put them back again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but without relief. He turned over his Spectator to see what it had to say about the Deceased ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... approached to within about six miles, and the gun-layers were beginning to fidget, and to wonder when the action was to commence. Then a signal broke out on board the Chinese flagship, and the two columns swung grandly to starboard in a wide sweep, until their bows pointed full ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... fast. At his heels comes the young man what is your friend, and it seems to me that he couldn't make out what this other was a-doing of. I says to myself, "There's been a quarrel between them two, and him as has gone has hooked it." This young man what is your friend he stood at the gate, all of a fidget, staring after the other with all his eyes, as if he couldn't think what to make of him, and the young woman, she stood on the doorstep, staring after ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... remained quite quiet; but when the minutes lengthened into a quarter of an hour he began to fidget. Would the talkers never stop? Why, their chattering seemed to be endless? Even through the door he could hear Mr. Crowninshield's curt tones and the eager rise and fall of his voice. Once he laughed as if pleased, and twice Walter heard a cry of "Good!" When he did appear ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... that he was gone, but she was accustomed to going thousands of miles in her dreams, only to find, wakening suddenly, that the clock had only measured five minutes. But at last she realized that it really was a long time. The horse began to paw and fidget; the driver, smoking a very reeking pipe, looked in ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... You groaning—groaning—groaning. Enough to make anybody fidget. Why, you're making me sick! Why can't you look after yourself?... What's the use of eating things ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... follow that because men are capable of doing hard work they like it. Some, indeed, fidget and fret if they cannot otherwise work off their superfluous steam; but on the other hand there are many big lazy fellows who will not get up their steam to full pressure except under compulsion. Again, the character of the stimulus that induces hard work differs ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Miss Leverett, the head-mistress of the High School, wished to speak to her in the dining-room. This was no unusual occurrence, as Miss Mohun was secretary to the managing committee of the High School. But on the announcement Valetta began to fidget, and presently said that she was tired and would go to bed. The most ordinary effect of fatigue upon this young lady was to make her resemble the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and evidently annoyed, says: "But what is the matter, my dear? You fidget and fidget—I want to sleep." He ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz |
