"Skittish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wild, reckless fellow, he is. Uncle wants to bring about a match, because Mad's plantation joins ours. Mad acted as if he owned me already when he was home last, and yet he knows I can't abide him. He seems to think I can be subdued like one of his skittish horses." ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are, Unstaid and skittish in all motions else. Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved. Twelfth Night, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel: For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I 've bribed my ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... to accompany them, and, along with Bayne, to do their scouting. My horse was exhausted with the work he had done already; I told Major Forbes, and he at once gave me his. It was a young horse, rather skittish, but strong and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... safely, but rather unpleasantly—into a large nettle-bed; whence they crawled out, rubbing their arms and legs, and looking too much ashamed to complain. But they were rather frightened and a little cross, for Jess took a skittish fit, and refused to be caught and mounted again, till the bell rang for school—when she grew as meek as possible. Too late—for the children were obliged to run indoors, and got no more rides ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types; girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and then I ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... noses of those who thought fit to salute them; and that they were not wholly averse to such familiarity, the noses of several of our people strongly testified: They were, however, as great coquets as any of the most fashionable ladies in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as an unbroken filly: Each of them wore a petticoat, under which there was a girdle, made of the blades of grass highly perfumed, and to the girdle was fastened a small bunch of the leaves of some fragrant plant, which served ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... to take up, and them folks ain't come back. Why, I never did see Lou as skittish as she is now. I reckon it's because he's the son of a ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... right too," said Oak. "I've danced at your skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long day; and it is hard to begrudge me this ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... write to you, such writing as you have seen—strange! The proper time and season for good sound sensible and profitable forms of speech—when ought it to have occurred, and how did I evade it in these letters of mine? For people begin with a graceful skittish levity, lest you should be struck all of a heap with what is to come, and that is sure to be the stuff and staple of the man, full of wisdom and sorrow,—and then again comes the fringe of reeds and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... over shoe-mouth deep in woe, When they's a graded 'pike o' joy and sunshine don't you know! When evening strikes the pastur', cows'll pull out fer the bars, And skittish-like from out the night'll prance the happy stars. And so when my time comes to die, and I've got ary friend 'At wants expressed my last request— I'll mebby, rickommend To drive slow, ef they haf to, goin' 'long ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... San Lorenzo; as we feared to trust our friend—for so we had come to regard her—with the mule, a mischievous beast, spoiled by prosperity. Ajax drove a skittish pair of colts. Gloriana and I occupied the back seat of ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... older theory considered play simply the discharge of surplus nerve force in the animal's organism. He was supposed to play when he felt fresh and vigorous. The horse is "skittish" and playful in the morning, not so much so at night. The dogs lie down and rest when they are tired, having used up their surplus energies. This is called ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... to reason, by gad!" said the slighter of the two, setting down his empty glass with a bang, "oh, trust me to know their pretty, skittish ways, trust me to manage 'em; I've never failed ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... hatred and the fear, there was a pitiful sneaking admiration. He looked so grand and unruffled—so old, and yet sitting the skittish, high-mettled horse so firmly; so feeble, and yet full of such an absolute confidence in his power to rule and subordinate, accustomed for forty years to the unfailing subjection of such things as servants, horses, and women. Her heart bumped against her stays, and her face became red ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... to describe," said Tom, "but the secret lies in a new way of feeding gasolene into the motor, a new sparking device, and an improved muffler. I think I could start my new airship in front of the most skittish horse, and he wouldn't stir, for the racket wouldn't wake a baby. It's going to ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... Nora, you must be more careful than you were once on a time, on a skittish young horse which nearly proved your death," observed the old lawyer. "A day like this tries an animal; and unless your steed is as steady as a rock I ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the other black with white forefeet. Upon my word, if you had a hundred to pick from, you would not find a better one than the dappled mount. The birds in the air do not fly more swiftly than the palfrey; and he is not too lively, but just suits a lady. A child can ride him, for he is neither skittish nor balky, nor does he bite nor kick nor become unmanageable. Any one who is looking for something better does not know what he wants. And his pace is so easy and gentle that a body is more comfortable and easy on his back than in a boat." Then said Erec: "My dear, I have no objection ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... the boys that are for you," advised Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... hands presented himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand...."—The Hanmer Correspondence, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... When she went down to the brook to bathe her face and wash her hands, the men still, apparently, took no notice of her. She began to hope that Roberts had exaggerated their danger. Her horse was rather skittish and did not care for strange hands. He broke away from the bunch. Joan went after him, even lost sight of camp. Presently, after she caught him, she led him back to camp and tied him up. And then she was so far emboldened as to approach ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... the driver can handle the reins under it, and while it might not be safe to drive a skittish horse with it down, still for the ordinary use in the country it will be ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 49, October 14, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... out, and mounting, rode back in the direction of Mudgee. Uncle Abe winked long and hard and solemnly at Andy Page, and Andy winked back like a mechanical wooden image. The two women nudged and smiled and seemed quite girlish, not to say skittish, all the morning. Something had come to break the cruel hopeless monotony of their lives. And even the settler became ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... intellect, but I can draw up a short list of her passengers (she was not supposed to carry any). I shall give Mr. Todd pride of place, partly because he owned her, but chiefly because sea-sickness incited him to deeds of gallantry. Then there were two skittish nurses, who got on board because one of them knew the second engineer; there was Colonel Tingle (swashbuckler); Senor Canaba (scamp), who had bribed both the captain and the chief engineer (Mr. Bidgood); and lastly a brace ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de culled folks ef ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... got so nervous because you were gone so long, and you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened," she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... there's any white wool in the world; there are so many of these skittish little black ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the bluff—that air whut the country-side will think. Whenst his body is fund his head will be mashed ter a jelly by the fall, an' nobody kin say he kem otherwise by his death—jes' an accident in drivin' a skittish horse-critter." ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... full-grown bicycle, but only a colt—a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight—and skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing's points briefly, then he got on its back and rode around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we would leave that to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... skittish horse old Gid shied at the office door. Once he had crossed that threshold and it had cost ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... with pins and tied round the waist with a small bath towel. She was to be the Dauntless Equestrienne, and to give her enhancing act a barebacked daring, riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we found was freshest and most skittish. Dora was dressed for the Haute ecole, which means a riding-habit and a high hat. She took Dick's topper that he wears with his Etons, and a skirt of Mrs Pettigrew's. Daisy, dressed the same as Alice, ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... the inner room a trim, lithe, almost boyishly slim figure attired in a bewitchingly skittish-looking garment consisting of knickerbockers and snug brassiere of king's blue satin messaline. Dainty black silk stockings and tiny buckled slippers ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... they obtained a readier access to the best markets for their stock and farm-produce. Notwithstanding the predictions to the contrary, their cows gave milk as before, their sheep fed and fattened, and even skittish horses ceased to shy at the passing locomotive. The smoke of the engines did not obscure the sky, nor were farmyards burnt up by the fire thrown from the locomotives. The farming classes were not reduced to beggary; on the contrary, they soon felt that, so far ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... of you will go to the Cross next Saturday and there buy him a fairer wife than he can wed out of our lineages? and a wife withal of whose humours he need take no more account of than the dullness of his hound or the skittish temper of his mare, so long as the thong smarts, and the ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me: For, such as I am, all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.—How ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... others, but pikes for the wagonette and climbs in one of the side seats facin' me. We was just turnin' to back up to the block for the ladies, when a yellow kyoodle dashes around the corner after a cat. Them skittish horses was just waitin' for some such excuse as that, and before Mr. Driver can put the curb bit on 'em hard enough they've done a quick pivot, cramped the wheels, and turned us over on the soggy grass as neat as anything you ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the reins of her skittish, snorting pony and picked up Lennon's new sombrero. Through the middle of the high peak was a neatly ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... patterns. Seventeen-hunder, very fine (linen). Shachled, feeble, shapeless. Shaw, show. Shiel, shelter. Shool, shovel. Shoon, shoes. Shouther, shoulder. Sic, such. Siller, silver, money. Sin', since. Skeigh, skittish. Skellum, good-for-nothing. Skelp, run quickly. Skiffing, moving along lightly. Skirl, squeal, scream. Skriech, screech. Slaes, sloes. Slap, gap in a fence. Slea, slay. Sleekit, sleek. Slid, smooth. Smeddum, powder. Smethe, smoke. Smoor, smother. Smothe, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... your attitude Was witty and satirical and shrewd, But, whether you were serious or skittish, Always a candid critic of things British, Though, when you were unable to admire us, Life's "little ironies" were free from virus. But since the War began your English readers Have welcomed MARTIN's admirable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... "Don't be so skittish!" said the old gentleman. "I ain't come to put the strap on ye.... Habit is a great thing, black hoss, a great thing. In this case I'm kind of dependin' on it. You know what the dog done, don't ye? And the sow that ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... her head. "No!" she said. "They want to, I'm sure of that, but yet neither one of 'em will speak first. Such foolishness I never did see. Now take yesterday! Cousin Sam went to town, and Cousin Sim werried every single minute he was gone. The mare was skittish, and the harness might break, and he might meet the cars, and I don't know what all. If he called me off my work once he did a dozen times, till I thought I should fly. By the time Cousin Sam got back he was all ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... all the duty possible, yet the more a man considers and observes them, the less he finds of difference between them and other men, though (blessed be God!) they are both princes of great nobleness and spirits. The Duke of Monmouth is the most skittish leaping gallant that ever I saw, always in action, vaulting or leaping, or clambering. Sad news of the death of so many in the parish of the plague, forty last night. The bell always going. This day poor Robin Shaw at Backewell's died and Backewell himself ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... and loose, play fantastic tricks; tourner casaque [Fr.]. Adj. capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims &c n.; maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky [U.S.], particular, humorsome^, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable &c 83; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle &c (irresolute) 605; frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile. Adv. by fits and starts, without rhyme or reason. Phr. nil fuit unquain sic ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... I must change my ways, Uncle Amy. I do act like a wild zebra,—I know that. But I'm sorry. Of course it's silly for a girl who's nearly nineteen to be as skittish as I am. And they tell me I'm a bad example to my cousins and the whole town. It's tough to be a bad example. What's this they're ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... tell him you would like any one, and see what will come of it." There was a pretty sun-burnt girl about fifteen years of age that had given me a cock-stand. "That's a pretty girl Smith, I'd give a sovereign to have her,—is she loose?" "Don't think so yet squire, she be skittish; her sister's not fourteen, and they say she be in the family way, when one sister takes to it squire, the others generally do." "Where do you pay their wages?" I asked. The old fellow leered at me. "Why you ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... pictures, one close above the head of the bed, and the other opposite the foot, and both curtained, as we may sometimes see valuable water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of finding something of this last description that M'Naughten's comrade pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... burnished sword? Do I not behold its jewelled hilt flashing with pearls and precious stones as thou sheathest it for the night among the purple Western hills? Do I not hail its golden gleams among the fair-barked trees what time each scented morn I milk my skittish goats? ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... an' jury thunk the same, fur they 'lowed ez she war crazy—an' so she war, ter hev ever married him! They turned her loose, but she never got another husband—I never knowed a man-person but what was skittish 'bout any ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... woman who knew and appreciated the world, she would perceive the advantages offered to her without argument. But a girl, just released from the care of her governess, unaccustomed to society, might have notions, or, in the vernacular of the scion, might be skittish. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... since his last interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law had told him: "I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not in yours!"—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—like a well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as variegated and expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the roads of Poland, without ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of no less distinction than the Duchess Agnes had complained to him of the reckless countess. Only yesterday she had ridden into the forest with her father, and when the young Bohemian princess met her, Cordula's dogs had assailed her skittish Arabian so furiously that it would have been difficult for a less practised rider to keep her seat in the saddle. This time the docile animals had refused to obey their mistress, and the duchess expressed the suspicion that she had not intended to call them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... me,' he answered. 'She's had troubles enough. I wouldn't ask no womern to marry me till the war is fit out. I'm liable to git all shot up any day. I did think I'd ask her but I didn't. Got kind o' skeered an' skittish when we sot down together, an' come to think it all ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the plump, pink, smiling face of one of those very women of the buyer type on whom she had speculated ten minutes before—a good-natured face with shrewd, twinkling eyes. At sight of it you forgave her her skittish white-kid-topped shoes. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Sepulcher they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Haunts an old woman ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... that time such an impression was significant of great things being expected from him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases. The evidence of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order, lying in his lady-patients' immovable conviction, and was unassailable by any objection except that their intuitions were opposed ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... mine. Rufe and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... easy-gaited animals known as Narragansetts, a breed, some readers will recall, described at some length by Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans. A peculiarity of these beasts was that they moved both legs on a side forward at the same time, that is, they were pacers. Washington's two proved somewhat skittish, and one of them was responsible for the only fall from horseback that we have any record of his receiving. In company with Major Lewis, Mr. Peake, young George Washington Custis and a groom he was returning in the evening from Alexandria and dismounted for a few moments near a fire ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... Margery, I'm only here by permission. What do you mean by standing?' And the young lady, with a laugh, sat down, looking so pleased, and good-natured, and merry, that even old Tamar was fain to smile a glimmering smile; and little Margery actively brought the tea-caddy; and the kettle, being in a skittish singing state, quickly went off in a boil, and Tamar actually made tea ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... dexterity, as a horse is never to be depended on that is skittish about the tail. Let your hand fall lightly and rapidly on that part next to the body a minute or two, and then you will begin to give it a slight pull upwards every quarter of a minute. At the same time you continue this handling of him, augment the force of the strokes as well ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... Iglesias, while presenting a dignified front to the enemy, had inwardly shuddered. She was an excellent, estimable woman; but when ponderously arch, when extensively sly! Oh, dear no! It didn't do. Her gambols were too sadly suggestive of those of a skittish hippopotamus. Dominic Iglesias was conscious that he had a skin too little to-night; he could not witness them with philosophy. The kindliest intention, the best-meant words, might ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Punch's way of thinking, 'tis for women, kind and wise, These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize, Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate, And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... the young Bear of Stoneborough," said Clement, leaning affectionately on his broad shoulder; "our skittish pair are grown very sober-minded. But you have not ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to Dullhampton the Bishop was in the best of spirits, much on the principle of a naughty boy who, having played truant, means to enjoy his holiday to the full, well knowing that he will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress of Blanford than she had of wedding the author of "The Purple Kangaroo." On the other hand, she realised that it was one of the old gentleman's ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, because imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways, and shun them. Thus must these timid persons skulk about obscurely with their diffident and skittish guides, and they do not ever venture willingly into the thronged places where men ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... enjoy watching them as they sit around, licking their chops," interjected Edestone, "as they think of the dainty morsel you will make when they eat you alive tomorrow. Be careful. We want no false steps, and there are some pretty skittish ponies in the Emperor's stable. He can hold in check his plough horses, but these young thoroughbreds are getting nervous ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... they could have time to proceed far in explanation; and he was studious in the sequel to prevent the young folks from being too intimately acquainted with each other's inclinations. Grimes, of consequence, attributed the reluctance of Miss Melville to maiden coyness, and the skittish shyness of an unbroken filly. Indeed, had it been otherwise, it is not probable that it would have made any effectual impression upon him; as he was always accustomed to consider women as made for the recreation of ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... well defined as elegantly skittish; She loves a Lord as only a Republican can do; And quite the best of titles she's persuaded are the British, And well she knows the Peerage, for she reads it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... ye'd been out in the world as I have —those that want a husband and those that don't. But six months married, and ye can't pick the one from t' other, try your best. There's nothing brings a lass to the round-about so quick as having to do what she does n't want. They are born contrary and skittish, and they can't help shying at fences and gates, but give 'em the spur and the whip, and over they go, as happy as a lark. And I say so, Janice will marry ye, and mark my word, come a month she'll be complaining that ye ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... black with his comfortable phaeton, speaking the presence of Mr. Pound and Mrs. Pound, who used it as their own; the Buckwalters' rockaway and the Rickabachs' spring-wagon. Even Miss Agnes Spinner's bicycle had a fence panel all to itself, as though it were very skittish and likely to kick and set the whole road in commotion. To my own unimportant self I never attributed this assembly of all the great folk of the valley. There was some more potent reason. As I pondered, hunting for it, we came to the lane. Until I found that ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... behind him, his rifle laid across the saddle in front of him, and his axe, canteen, and other gear hanging to the horn, he was as awful-looking a ruffian as one could see. By way of contrast he rode a small Arab mare, of exquisite beauty, skittish, high spirited, gentle, but altogether too light for him, and he fretted her incessantly to ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Mrs. Lake, and she could not remember where she had seen her. Though she could remember nothing, the association seemed to be one of pain. In vain she beat her brains. Memory was an almost uncultivated quality with her, and, like the rest of her intellectual powers, had a nervous, skittish way of deserting her in need, as if ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... who might have been suspicious of her. She had found out much about those archvillains Felix and Hortense Markle by an assumption of supreme dullness. But no one of her acquaintances had ever seen Josie assume the role of a skittish, dressed-up miss, painted ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... soon he tires of the music he calls for, of the clown's song (II. iv.). Is his first speech to Viola, on woman's constancy before the song, consistent with his second, after it? Is his own report of himself true,—'Unstaid and skittish in all motions else Save in the constant image of the one beloved'? Is Olivia's unattainableness the main source of her desirableness for him? How is it with Sebastian? Does his loyalty in love seem to ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... habit telles you that, a Forrester; That, hauing lost a heard of skittish Deire, Was of good hope I should ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... beggar would like nothing better than to go the pace, as a sort of experimental lap for the instruction of his characters; but he always finds the pace too swift, and lags behind. As result, he isn't fast, but merely skittish. In the same way, he'd like to pose as a black-hearted villain. Instead, he gets to a point where he is just about as unsanctified as a Sunday edition of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... simply because we are not able to see what is worrying it. How often does the dog start suddenly, and bristle up its hair, when nothing is in sight, or within hearing distance. How often does the horse grow "skittish," or even panicky, when there is nothing within sight or hearing. Domestic fowls, especially geese, manifest an uneasiness at the presence of strange persons or animals, though they may not be able to see or hear them. It is a matter of history that this sense, ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... conveying young men and young women of such clean-cut, high-bred features as to make us wonder. And yet I don't know why we should wonder, either. They all come from good old stock. The young fellows run a little too strongly to patent-leather shoes and their horses are almost too skittish for my liking, but the girls are all right. If their clothes set better than you thought they would, why, you must remember that they subscribe for the very same fashion magazines that you do, and there is such a ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... be surprising in anyone else than Haydn. In the first part, where Handel would have been sublime, he is frequently nearly sublime, and this is our loss; but in the later portion, where Handel would have been solemn, earnest, and intolerably dull, he is light, skittish, good-natured, and sometimes jocular, and this is our gain, even if the gain is not great. The Representation of Chaos is a curious bit of music, less like chaos than an attempt to write music of the Bruneau sort a century too soon; but it serves. The most magnificent passage in the oratorio ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... truly formidable aunt. Hence the three young men appeared in fashionable circles at decent intervals. Later, Peter learned to know their redoubtable relatives as "Rabbits" and "The Grampus," and he once saw a terrifyingly truthful portrait of "Rabbits" sketched on a skittish model's bare back, and a movingly realistic little figure of "The Grampus" modeled by her dutiful nephew in a moment of diabolical inspiration. It was explained to him that God, for some inscrutable purpose of his own, generally pleases himself ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... slightest disharmony between sense and nonsense, humor and respectability, despite the skittish tendency to assume that there is. But, why, then, that widespread error? What actual fact of life lies behind it, giving it a specious appearance of reasonableness? None other, I am convinced, than the fact that the average man is far too stupid to make a joke. He may see a ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... they settled down to a solid joint of national finance, laid before them by Lord MIDLETON. I am afraid they would have found it rather indigestible but for the sauce provided by Lord INCHCAPE, who was positively skittish in his comments upon the extravagance of the Government, and on one occasion even indulged in a pun. In his view the Ministry of Transport was an entirely superfluous creation, solely arising out of the supposed necessity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... if she did her duty. I remember once, when I was in the world, I saw a mountebank driving ten horses at once. I dare say he hadn't an easy time of it. But, lack-a-day! we have to drive thirty: and skittish fillies some of them are. I don't know what Sister Roberga has done with her vocation: but I never saw the corner of ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... to clear out then, for it's a secret confab of the whole executive committee that develops, includin' Auntie. But we got a full report later. It seems Rupert was skittish about havin' naval officers snoopin' around the yacht. For one thing, he don't want 'em to find out that this is a treasure-huntin' cruise, on account of the government's bein' apt to hog part of the swag. Then, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... must be thinking I recommend you mere contubernium, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... mysteries, which were not lawful to be seen by any other man. He prayed him, then, to get upon Alborak; but the beast, having lain idle and unemployed from the time of Christ to Mahomet, was grown so mettlesome and skittish, that he would not stand still for Mahomet to mount him, till at length he was forced to bribe him to it by promising him a place in paradise. When he was firmly seated on him, the angel Gabriel led the way, with the bridle of the beast in his hand, and carried the prophet ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... wants and goes straight for it; and she isn't a fool. The daughter is. She was intended by nature to be a dull young woman with a pretty face, but not content with that she puts on an absurdly skittish manner—oh, so ruthlessly bright—talks what she thinks is smart slang, poses continually, and wears clothes that would not be out of place at Ascot, but are a positive offence to the little grey town. I hadn't realised how gruesome provincial ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... meaning plain since the first I saw you; it's to take you to church and take care of you as a woman ought to be took care of by a man. And you know I could do it, Jen, for my wages is good; but you've shied an' shied whenever you've seen me, and baulked an' baulked when you couldn't shy, so as no skittish ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education. That is where I'm a little skittish about this college business. I'm not starting in to preach to you, because I know a young fellow with the right sort of stuff in him preaches to himself harder than any one else can, and that he's mighty often switched off the right path by having it pointed out ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... Man, (escaping, for some unexplained reason, the penalty of Old Age,) is to grow young again,—shake his rattle and cut his teeth afresh? There is a childish vivaciousness, a juvenile recklessness, a skittish impatience of restraint, in this amiable author's speculations, which powerfully corroborate such a ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... 10, 1865, and was sent to San Diego, Texas; but I never was in a battle. And they was only one time when I felt anyways skittish. That was when I was a new recruit on picket duty. And it was pitch dark, and I heard something comin' th'ough the bushes, and I thought, 'Let 'em come, whoever it is'. And I got my bayonet all ready, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... and spectacled and sniffy, appeared to be of maternal kindliness, albeit her only advances had been a muffled request for the salt. The next morning, Miss Arthur's chair had been empty, and her charge, left to herself, had been more glacially circumspect than ever. Whatever skittish traits the pair might develop, Weldon felt assured that they would be solely upon the side ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... too, the tits that pull This rum concern along, so full, Should never back or bolt, or kick The load and driver to Old Nick. But, never fear, the breed, though British, Is now no longer game or skittish; Except sometimes about their corn, Tamer Houghnhums ne'er were born. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Axtell grimly. "It was the least I could do, heaven knows. Some nights I haven't gone to bed at all. Even at that, I felt a little skittish when I went up for my exam. But I was desperate and went in largely on my nerve. When the Prof. looked over my papers I thought I heard him mutter to himself something that sounded like: 'All Gaul is divided into three parts and you've got two of them.' But that ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... honest, never a mouse dares show the tip of his nose outside the cellar! If you don't go down there, you're as safe as you would be up in a balloon. And I don't count none the less on you for acting skittish about 'em." ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... thou shalt loue In the sweet pangs of it, remember me: For such as I am, all true Louers are, Vnstaid and skittish in all motions else, Saue in the constant image of the creature That is belou'd. How dost thou like this tune? Vio. It giues a verie eccho to the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... who was perhaps of no regard or station among natives sits with captains, and is entertained on board of schooners. Five of these privileged dames were some time our neighbours. Four were handsome skittish lasses, gamesome like children, and like children liable to fits of pouting. They wore dresses by day, but there was a tendency after dark to strip these lendings and to career and squall about the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shrinking form; but, instead of doing so, he pressed his arms closer round Rosalie and smiled—yes, by Jove, smiled—and, if you'll take the word of a retired master mariner, winked, with a peculiar, tender and calfish expression that in anybody else would have been called skittish. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... up, coming slap-bang against the brute's nose so blamed hard it knocked me flat; and then, when I fairly got my eyes open, I saw five Sioux Indians creeping along through the moonlight, heading right toward our pony herd. I tell you things looked mighty skittish for me just then, but what do you suppose ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... obliged to return to Head-Quarters, having still to wait upon the King, as usual. The Marechal was kind enough to lend me another horse; but the groom mischievously gave me the charger which the Marechal rode at the Battle of Mollwitz; a very powerful animal, and which, from that day, had grown very skittish. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the doorstep with the one-sided broom when Brit drove out through the gate and up the trail which she knew led eventually to Sugar Spring. The horses, sleek in their new hair and skittish with the change from hay to new grass, danced over the rough ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, rattled and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... it was very nearly the termination of it. I was riding Diaway, the colt just shod; he is seldom ridden, though a very fine hack, as he is such a splendid weight-carrier as a packhorse; he is rather skittish, and if anything goes wrong with his pack, he'll put it right (on the ground) almost instantaneously. I was driving all the horses up to the camp, when one broke from the mob, and galloped across the creek. There was ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... three mile," he said consolingly. "The roads ain't none too good this season, an' Kittie—that's her" (pointing to his mare)—"don't feel over-skittish; she's nigh onter fourteen year, an' right smart, too, fur her age, but sorter broken-winded latterly; but I guess we'll make it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... upper part of his ponderous figure arrayed in a frock-coat. He did not take kindly to what he termed "those skittish sparrow-tailed affairs". Frock-coats suited him, but I am not partial to them on every one. They look well enough on a podgy, fat, or broad man, but on a skinny one they hang with such a forlorn, dying-duck expression, that they ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... who cannot speak without a nautical metaphor; Jeremy an idealised comic servant; and Foresight grotesque farce. Angelica is a shrewd but hearty 'English girl,' and Miss Prue a veritable country Miss; while Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight are broadly skittish matrons. There is nothing in the play to strain the attention or to puzzle the intellect, and it is full of laughter: no wonder it was a success. It is, intellectually, on an altogether different plane from The Way of the World, on a slightly ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... sorts of burdens, to stand without being tied, to go anywhere over all sorts of ground fast or slow, and to jump and swim and fear nothing,—a truly wonderful creature, strangely different from shy, skittish, nervous, superstitious civilized beasts. We turned him loose, and, strange to say, he never ran away from us or refused to be caught, but behaved as if he had known Scotch boys all his life; probably because we were about as wild ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... made that motion, I sez to myse'f, I sez, 'Glass, you done started this thing an' you must see it th'ough. 'Twon't never do in this world fur the gran' marshal to be stuck up 'pon the top side of a skittish, skeery liver'-stable hoss that'll mebbe start cuttin' up right in the smack middle of things and distrac' the gran' marshal's mind frum his business.' I seen that happen mo' times 'en onct, wid painful results. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... there are many little rubs and jars to fret and shake even you; many small things, not over and above agreeable to put up with. Bear them you must; but do try and bear them without losing your temper. If a man have a stubborn Or skittish horse to manage, he knows that the best way to deal with it is by gentle, good-humoured coaxing. Just so it is in other things: kindness, gentleness, and downright good-humour will do what all the blustering and anger in the ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... the manager. "She'll teach you to dance and shy assegais. Pore thing! she buried her 'usband the day afore we come here, but you'll be surprised to see 'ow skittish she can be when she has got ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... all the army will tell you that in the second army, ninth corps, second division of infantry, fiftieth yager regiment, Major Plut is the foremost dancer of the mazurka. Come on, young lady! Don't be so skittish, for I shall punish you ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... grief. They reserved an ironical condolence for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern and great readiness of illustration; "and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away someday, and stampede that theer colt: but thet she should shake YOU, Kernel, diet she should jist shake you—is what gits me. And they ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... a large piece of bacon. "My ole man's gone down to Worrick to-day," she said, "an' won't be back tell night; an' you soldiers, a-leavin' the country all at oncet, hit makes me feel kinder skittish." ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... You shan't abuse our hospitality again. Bud, get a rope and tie our friend. He's skittish, and is likely to run away if ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... peaceful for the time being. But it made the Mayor nervous the way Portate was keyed up for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the Hottentots were skittish, and the Mayor ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... 'The skittish widow of uncertain age has retired in disorder before a complete acquaintance with the Restoration dramatists, and I have frequently routed the serious spinster with religious leanings by my remarkable knowledge of the results of missionary endeavour in Central Africa. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... which of the two latter classes our present medium belonged, one might venture to say she had safely passed the former. She was of that ripe and Rubens-like beauty to which we could well imagine some "Higher" spirit offering the golden apple of its approval, however the skittish Paris of the spheres might incline to sweet sixteen. I had a short time before sat infructuously with this lady, when a distressing contretemps occurred. We were going in for a dark seance then, and just as we fancied the revenants ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... hunchback's goal. How Yossel had found money for the great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been tapped. Her skittish advances had been taken seriously by Yossel. He had boldly proposed to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point, it was said, the old lady had drawn back—she who had led him so far was not to be thus led. Women are changeable, it is known, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... my wife—cousin. I'm goin' in ter see him a minit. Hold the horse, will yer, he's a bit skittish." ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "but I know not exactly how to go. I do not wish to take my carriage; your nag is so skittish that I am afraid to undertake the ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... thought that the hill in front of old Grout Nickelson's wuz steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the creek. But imagine goin' along a road where you could look down thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side of you mountains thousands of feet high. And you between, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... know," said Lorne. "He was talking to manufacturers, you know, a pretty skittish lot anywhere. It sounded independent, but if you look into it you won't find it gave ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the back, and give him a new album that will fall to pieces whenever you laugh in the same room? Why should you forget the old love for the new? Do we not often impose on the old subscriber by giving up the space he has paid for to flaming advertisements to catch the coy and skittish gudgeon who still lurks outside the fold? Do we not ofttimes offer a family Bible for a new subscriber when an old subscriber may be in a lost ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Trafalgar Square," continued Cissie, "I felt skittish, thoughtless and jolly, and I could 'ave declared he laughed at me and ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... that shied and reared at the flames and confusion. Other horses, skittish and scared, with the smell of spilt blood in their nostrils, fighting the men who ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... well-fed and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon that the eye mistook it for storm-cloud. The house Mr. Perekatov had erected for a summer residence ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Be skittish, child, and let who will be graceful, Do whizzy whirls whenever you've the chance; And so make life, death and that grand old staircase One song ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... man. Now Chicky is no thoroughbred, and he'll probably never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own brass buttons for him. I've come across him ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... said he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, "ponies is often skittish. Keason why one should be, an' another not, I can't comprehend. P'r'aps it's nat'ral, p'r'aps not, but howsomediver so 'tis; an' if it's more nor above the likes o' me, Joseph, you needn't be suprised that it's ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... overland through Switzerland and France. Oh, how delightful it would be! You would have so much to see and to talk about afterwards. Edna would get fat and rosy, and you and Mrs Freer would be quite young and skittish by the time you got home! If you went to see him between each of his visits home, the time would ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... casaque[Fr]. Adj. capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims &c. n.; maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky [U. S.], particular, humorsome[obs3], freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable &c. 83; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle &c. (irresolute) 605; frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile. Adv. by fits and starts, without rhyme or reason. Phr. nil fuit unquain sic inipar ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... me," said he, leering round upon us, "they tell me your pretty Penelope takes something more than a common interest in yonder fop; have a care, Sir John, she's a plaguey skittish filly by the looks of her, have a care, or ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... hundreds equally well if not better adapted to the sailor's furtive habits, the total of escapes must have been little short of enormous. It could not have been otherwise. In this grand battue of the sea it was clearly impossible to round-up and capture every skittish ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... the bar 'long 'bout sundown last night. Kinder skittish actin' hussy she was, but she turned out an' cleared off without much trouble. We ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... finding herself in my arms, her whole being would not become languid, and suddenly sink into a state of prostration? I wanted to reason with myself, and bring myself face to face with those cursed suggestions, as one does with a skittish horse before some object that frightens it, and to evoke the recollection of every hour, every minute of that first night of love, and to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... interrupts it with some new Inconsistency of Behaviour. For (as I just now said) the Happiness of a Jilt consists only in the Power of making others uneasy. But such is the Folly of this Sect of Women, that they carry on this pretty skittish Behaviour, till they have no charms left to render it supportable. Corinna, that used to torment all who conversed with her with false Glances, and little heedless unguarded Motions, that were to betray ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish she 's ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... servants with favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, drawing-rooms most magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with his hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly. Here, too, the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... occasion and got most of them in by persuasion, while the ones which refused to be persuaded were simply lifted in by the sailors. 'Though all are thin and some few looked pulled down I was agreeably surprised at the evident vitality which they still possessed—some were even skittish. I cannot express the relief when the whole seventeen were safely picketed on ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Father Baby; but, like a skittish girl, the friar hopped across the room, shook off his wooden shoes, picked up the skirt of his habit, and began to dance. The exhilarating drink, the ruddiness of the fire, the discomfort outside, the smoothness of the oak boards,—these ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... lay hands on that devil yet, and not far away, either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and a skittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that had frightened her. And Miss ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... are mean, then they want to kick or bite at the speedier animal going by. Some cities are like that, too. If an energetic city overtakes them, they are not spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so to speak. Again, there are tough, sturdy little cities like buckskin ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to have been badly broken. There are old cities with a worn-out kind of elegance, like that of superannuated horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fashioned barouche. There are bad, bucking cities, like Butte, Montana. And here and there are cities, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... she'll come, all right," said Mrs. Starling reassuringly; "but, you know, girls ain't obliged to see anybody's hand till they have to. You all like 'em better for bein' skittish. I don't. She ain't skittish with me, neither; and she won't be with you, when you've caught her once. Take your time, only I wouldn't be too long about it, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... So Sirens sing— Sly, seducious, and skittish— To the Tourist, wealthy, British, When Society's on the wing, Or should be, for "Foreign Parts." British BULL mistrusts their arts. "Come away!" (One doth say), "Our Emperor is quiet to-day!" Cries another, "Come, my brother, "Avalanches down again!" Sings ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... were paved with brick, and in one a chimney-place had come to light. Everywhere were bits of charred wood. Did no place in James Towne escape the scourge of fire? A kitten came springing over the mounds of excavated earth and began to prowl about the old fireplace. Except for a skittish pebble that she chased across the empty front, she found nothing of interest; no hint of savoury odours from the great spit over the blazing logs that may have caused a James Towne cat to sit and gaze and sniff some two ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... kill off a few of your skittish horses," observed a stout, sandy-mustached man, one of the two who had left the car. "If you don't, they're liable ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... comfortably off, own good cattle.' That is not how to put it. The truth is that their cattle own them. In all the world there is no 'boss' who behaves as stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... coward though; and no skulker in danger, as some white-livered chaps are who ought to be ashamed to ship as sailors, for he'd venture aloft sometimes when no one else would dare, and was the first man at the weather-earing when it was 'Reef topsails!' But he had a temper as skittish as the cap'en's, and couldn't stand being swore at. I've heard him many a time mutter after the captain had been going on at him. I know I'd not have liked to have said half to him that Captain Jarvis did, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... in, "the testimony was to the effect that he was riding a young, skittish horse, which was startled by stray hogs breaking at a dead run through the bushes, and that the horse bolted and ran away. And the man died from concussion of the brain. That would have happened if we ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... is really grand, and the other is Crown Butte. The drives up and down the river are lovely, and I think that Bettie and I will soon have many pleasant mornings together on these roads. After the slow dignified drives I am taking almost every day, I wonder how her skittish, affected ways will seem ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... that moment, when he was paying not the slightest attention to his mule, the skittish animal, frightened by the approach of the horsemen, threw up her hind quarters, and pitched her rider upon the road. As the latter fell, his head came in contact with a large stone, and with such violence as to deprive him ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... "Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I get on you. I'll take some of that ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... said as he wheeled round, holding out a huge red hand, "since your friend sits above." He laughed, with a motion towards the ceiling, signifying the direction of the governor's office. "By the way, I was sorry about that bill you were interested in," he went on; "upon my word I was—but we're skittish just now on the subject of corporations. Charters are dangerous things—you can't tell where they're leading you, eh?—but, on ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... her surprise had returned as disengaged as she came. Mark Wilson, thoroughly bored by her vacuities of mind, longed now for more intercourse with Patty Baxter, Patty, so gay and unexpected; so lively to talk with, so piquing to the fancy, so skittish and difficult to manage, so temptingly pretty, with a beauty all her own, and never ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... near forty—well, it takes! You see I hadn't even been vaccinated against it by girlish flirtations. I began to be a governess when I was just a kid, and a governess doesn't get many chances to be skittish. So now when it came, it hit me hard. That's when a woman finds herself—when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the tree like a ripe plum. I didn't care if Roger Mifflin ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... perhaps the opportunities of regular essays in "three-decker" reviews—of a lay sermon to working men, of a speech at the greatest public school in the world—discouraged the playfulness which had seemed permissible in addressing a skittish young evening newspaper. But the unpracticalness—not in the Philistine but in the strictly scientific sense—is more glaring than ever, and there are other faults with it. Great part of An Unregarded Irish Grievance is occupied by a long-drawn-out comparison of England's ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... gloriously towards the house, with Bill and Jerry in a full canter, and adroitly throwing himself off before they had any idea of stopping, he brought them up alongside of the horse-post like a tornado. Haley's horse, which was a skittish young colt, winced, and bounced, and pulled hard at ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the city of Louisville, we attracted much attention, my being tied and handcuffed, and a person leading the horse upon which I rode. The horse appeared to be much frightened at the appearance of things in the city, being young and skittish. A carriage passing by jammed against the nag, which caused him to break from the man who was leading him, and in his fright throw me off backwards. My hands being confined with irons, and my feet tied under the horse with a rope, I had no power to help myself. I fell back off of the horse and could ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb |
