"Touchy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... outward demonstration of doubt upon his patron's part since the quarrel between the two lords, Harry yet saw that Lord Castlewood was watching his guest very narrowly; and caught signs of distrust and smothered rage (as Harry thought) which foreboded no good. On the point of honour Esmond knew how touchy his patron was; and watched him almost as a physician watches a patient, and it seemed to him that this one was slow to take the disease, though he could not throw off the poison when once it had mingled with his blood. We read in Shakespeare ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Nay, in naught unless perchance a service rendered when a boy—a simple service, merely that of saving life—hath rendered him the touchy fool he is. But ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... husband's mind off himself," Mrs. Apwall would whisper at parting. "He isn't half so touchy when you've cheered ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the red moccasins. Silently, for never another word said he to his mother concerning the matter he had so near at heart. He knew she would laugh at him, and call him a monkey—our hero, bear in mind, being as touchy to ridicule as a raw mouth to ginger. You might scold him and rate him, sneap him and snub him, to a degree you would suppose sufficient to break the heart of any boy who knew his catechism, yet not a fig nor a flint would he care for it all. Perhaps, he would kick up his heels in the very face ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... thing," and more said "it was the foolish thing," and among the latter was Andrew's mother; though as yet she had said it very cautiously to Andrew, whom she regarded as "clean daft and senselessly touchy about ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... touchy race at any time. Amateur actors are said to have—one and all—a belief that each and every one can play any part of any kind. Shakespeare found that some of them thought they could play every part also! But besides ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... pirated from the next village, to the man-eating Kanaka. The grumbling, the secret ferment, the fears and resentments, the alarms and sudden councils of Marquesan chiefs, reminded me continually of the days of Lovat and Struan. Hospitality, tact, natural fine manners, and a touchy punctilio, are common to both races: common to both tongues the trick of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was poor Alice,—"the place is quite changed. I'm blessed if the whole thing isn't as dark as ditch-water. I'm a plain man, I am; and I do hate your swells." Against this view of the case Captain Bellfield argued stoutly; but Cheesacre had been offended, and throughout the next day he was cross and touchy. He wouldn't play billiards, and on one occasion hinted that he hoped he ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... is before them. She would bluster and be rude; he would be pleasant and take it as a joke. Both of them—even if they offered money—would fail. But I begin to understand the man's nature; he does not love the child, but he will be touchy about it—and that is quite as bad for us. He's charming, but he's no fool; he conquered me last year; he conquered Mr. Herriton yesterday, and if I am not careful he will conquer us all today, and the baby will grow up in Monteriano. He is terribly strong; ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... there is a keen revival of interest but more resistance to open family discussion than in the pre-adolescent age. Maturing children are touchy, sensitive, self-conscious, modest, seclusive. They run to cover at too intimate a topic, especially in the hands of adults who are inclined to strike a wrong note; to be preachy and teachy and inquisitive ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... evil of thinking too much about the party you belong to. It makes a man touchy; and then he fancies when another is merely, it may be, analysing a difference, or insisting strongly on some great truth, that he is ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... that it was high time for some other institution to shelter this touchy and truculent person, and that he would lay the case before the next weekly Visitor and ask for it to be submitted to the Committee at ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... of the mountain fastness and have Emma sit up and 'con-centrate' all night. If she can move a house and lot with her con-centration stunt, she surely should be able to move that touchy mountain savage further away from us," suggested Hippy to the discomfiture of Emma and the great ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... Soil Fugitive Law Territory of Refuge TREATMENT DISCUSSED. Corporal Punishment Forfeiture and Testimony System for Ultimate Freedom The Blackest Feature in Slavery VISIONARY DEPUTATION Inveterate Slaveholder Touchy Slaveholder, and Swaggering Bully Clerical Slave Advocate Amiable Planter Recriminator Abolitionist and Intelligent Slaveholder A frightful Question Closing Observations ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... very touchy on certain points," admitted the president. "But I'm glad you're not going to do any more talking here in town. You're somewhat of a new man here, and you don't know the folks as I do. I suppose some ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... not repeat that to Mr. Brandon," said John, "he is rather touchy about his book. It has been very ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to the cottage, let her find a nice little note of apology (along with the cold fowl, or whatever else they give her after her journey) begging her to join us at the picnic, and putting a carriage at her own sole disposal to take her there. Gad, sir!" said young Pedgift, gayly, "she must be a Touchy One if she thinks herself ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... was up), and as it sank she gallantly kicked off from the roof of the fast disappearing car. She was an excellent swimmer, but two R.A.M.C. men sprang overboard to her rescue, and I believe almost succeeded in drowning her in their efforts! This serves to show what an extremely touchy job it was, and one we had to perform in fogs or the early hours of a winter's morning when it was almost too dark to see anything. Some Red Cross men drivers from Havre watched us once, and declared their quay down there was wider by several feet, ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... gradually integrated, but, as he put it, "the difficulty is that my superiors are not prepared to admit that we are already launched on a progressive integration program" in the United States. The whole problem was a very touchy one, McAuliffe added.[17-93] ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... concern himself with. Tom did not lack these, but he was none the less keenly sensitive upon the point of Margaret's propriety and good name. 'Twas the extraordinary love and pride he had centred upon her, that made him so observant and so touchy in the case. He brooded upon her actions, worried himself with conjectures, underwent such torments as jealous lovers know, such pangs as Hamlet felt in his uncertainty regarding the integrity of ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Burdovsky. Gentlemen, I have no hesitation in telling you that it was the fact of Tchebaroff's intervention that made me suspect a fraud. Oh! do not take offence at my words, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake do not be so touchy!" cried the prince, seeing that Burdovsky was getting excited again, and that the rest were preparing to protest. "If I say I suspected a fraud, there is nothing personal in that. I had never seen any of you then; I did not even know ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... these party nicknames," interrupted her sister, who seemed remarkably touchy about some points. "Perhaps we shall part in better humor, if we ...
— The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my Tokay. He is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. I have to study him, I assure you." They had strolled out on to the terrace again, and along it to the further end where at a touch from the Baron's chauffeur the great car shivered ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in answer to Miss Ruth's look of inquiry, "I am not in the least to blame. I'll leave it to the girls if I am. Fan Eldridge is so touchy! She came in a minute ago and Nellie Tyler happened to be sitting by me, and Fan marched up to her and says, 'I'll take my seat if you please'; and I said, 'It's no more your seat than it is Nellie's,' We don't have any particular seats, you know we don't, Auntie, but sit just as it ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... to subdue her. She said that she supposed people would expect her to do something at such a time. It was always expected that 'people of wealth' should show themselves grateful. What could she do that would not offend such touchy people? ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... to see your criticisms; you might perhaps send them to me. I believe you know that is not dangerous; one folly I have not - I am not touchy under criticism. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fat man—if I am not correct. But do not ask a fat woman unless, as in the case of possible fire at a theater, you already have looked about you and chosen the nearest exit. Taken as a sex, women are more likely to be touchy upon this detail where it applies to ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... brilliant receptions, gay routs, levees, state balls given at the Castle during Lord Dorchester's administration—the lively discussions—the formal protests originating out of points of precedence, burning questions de jupons between the touchy magnates of the old and those of the new regime. Whether la Baronne de St. Laurent would be admitted there or not? Whether a de Longueuil's or a de Lanaudiere's place was on the right of Lady Maria, the charming consort of His Excellency Lord Dorchester—a daughter of the great ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... gazing at it. The daisy was not a cold white one, neither was it a red one; it was just a perfect daisy: it looked as if some gentle hand had taken it, while it slept and its star points were all folded together, and dipped them—just a tiny touchy dip, in a molten ruby, so that, when it opened again, there was its crown of silver pointed with rubies all ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... until I've looked around a bit," replied Mr. Appleby. "You needn't be so touchy. Ain't I seen you before, somewhere?" he asked, peering into Tom's face by the dying glow of ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... grinned. Continuing, he said, "Now, men, these Mohammedans are very touchy. You've got to be careful how you treat them. For example, their headgear is sacred. Don't touch it. And when you get a little of home-brewed Scotch into you, don't knock their head-dress off. They'll probably knife you. It isn't a pleasant thing ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... he explains, the outpouring of the gentleman's feelings. The principal stricture passed on the virtuoso was that he played too softly, or, rather, too delicately. Chopin himself says that on that point all were unanimous. But the touchy artist, in true artist fashion— or shall we be quite just and say "in true human ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... pressing. A week later we were installed there, and for nearly two years we lived there. At the risk of offending an adorable but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is capable of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in a rough-and-ready fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that without female assistance or supervision of any kind we passed through those two years, and ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... considerable ceremony, for he perceived that they were as exigent and punctilious as to all points of courtesy as any noble in Italy, France, or Spain; and it would not be good to fall out with such touchy gentlemen on a point of manners. Indeed, as he retraced his steps to the office of the Signors of the Night, where his gondola was waiting, he really congratulated himself on having escaped without a quarrel, and hoped that the next interview ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... replied, "I shall be delighted to do so; and that is that you will allow me to ask the Rats from the Inn. They are touchy people, and do not readily forgive ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... "Don't be touchy, old man. I speak and I think of her with every respect. We have all misjudged and misunderstood her: she is a young girl, little more than a child, and a child astray, pining uncomplainingly for her mother, doing her ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... but far more wanton than true. Mrs. Maldon in her ignorance could not appreciate the truth, but she could appreciate its wantonness. She was wounded—silly, touchy old thing! She was wounded, and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... very late the following night when they reached their destination. Bill had come to the conclusion that Frank was not a very jolly traveling companion. He was moody and inclined to be really grouchy. And touchy.... Whew! It was all Bill could do to say the right thing. Finally he remembered that some people are always car-sick when they travel, and on being asked, Frank admitted that he didn't feel so very good. So Bill let him alone and things ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... he urged; "you're wrong in bearing me a grudge! My cousin Lin is a girl so very touchy, that though every one else distinctly knew (of the resemblance), they wouldn't speak out; and all because they were afraid that she would get angry; but unexpectedly out you came with it, at a moment when off your guard; and how ever couldn't she but feel hurt? and it's because I was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... called as the little man started off, "just bring the saddle back to me here when you've weighed. I'll put it on Diablo myself; he's a touchy cuss, and I don't want ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... striding the yard exact, took measurement for the battery. The hill was crowned with a ring of Scotch firs, casting a quiet shade upon the warlike haste of the Captain. If Admiral Darling smiled, it was to the landscape and the offing, for he knew that Stubbard was of rather touchy fibre, and relished no jokes unless of home production. His slow, solid face was enough to show this, and the squareness of his outline, and the forward thrust of his knees as he walked, and the larkspur impress of his lingering heels. And he seldom ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was so formidable that the council gave up the consideration of the menacing message they had been about to send, and instead agreed upon a letter of amnesty, as likely to succeed better with a people of so "peevish and touchy" a humor. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... respect among his friends. To know him personally, after only knowing him through his writings and his tilts with those with whom he had "a crow to pick," was a revelation. He had the reputation of being always "spoiling for a fight," and the most touchy, crusty, and aggressive author of his time, surpassing in this respect even Walter Savage Landor. But, though his trenchant pen was sometimes made to do almost savage work, it was generally in the chivalric exposure of some abuse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... brother that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to perceive that something is wrong in the social system; what ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... type are rather too prominent. The central conception of Charlemagne as a generally dignified but too frequently irascible and rather petulant monarch, surrounded by valiant and in a way faithful but exceedingly touchy or ticklish paladins, is no doubt true enough to the early stages of feudalism—in fact, to adapt the tag, there is too much human nature in it for it to be false. But it communicates a certain sameness to the chansons which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... no unkindness—nay, among the various changes that matrimony had produced in her, her temper appeared rather to have improved than otherwise; there was now seldom any trace of that touchy sharpness which used to be called "poor Selina's way." And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to herself, with a sigh, the old phrase, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... was more or less amusing to see the two of them sitting up there together on the front row at chapel. I wonder if Eleanor remembers any of the remarks she used to let drop about the genius of 19—. See here, Betty," she added quickly, "have you any idea why Eleanor is so touchy about that story? She won't even have it ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... girl—to keep the affection of such a one as Miss Starbrow? And as the days and weeks went by, that vague anxiety did not leave her; for the more she saw of her mistress, the less did she seem like one of a steadfast mind, whose feelings would always remain the same. She was touchy, passionate, variable in temper; and if her stormy periods were short-lived, she also had cold and sullen moods, which lasted long, and turned all her sweetness sour; and at such times Fan feared to approach her, but sat apart distressed ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... Though I am touchy enough with those I love, I did not think you dilatory, nor expect that answers to letters should be as quick as repartees. I do pity you for the accident that made you think yourself remiss.(648) I enjoy your patient's recovery; but almost smiled unawares at the idea of her ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "This is touchy stuff," Malone said. "We're going to have to take a lot of care in handling it. And I don't want you throwing raids all over the place and mixing ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... think it was a man's belief concerning a dogma that would fix his place in eternity. This was because we believed that God was a grumpy, grouchy old gentleman, stupid, touchy and dictatorial. A really good man would not damn you even if you didn't like him, but a bad ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... of these pleases me!" said Fontrailles, in an under voice. "I shall not be obliged by Monsieur to carry his confounded treaty to Madrid, and I am not sorry for it; it is a somewhat touchy commission. The Pyrenees are not so easily passed as may be supposed; the Cardinal is ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... I'm afraid," he said frankly. "You see, I've felt rather touchy about the thing. I want people to know that you and I have agreed on making Terry the heir to the ranch. I don't want anyone to suspect that we differed. I suppose I talked too much about ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... on Romarin's face. He was not conscious of having adopted a superior attitude. But again he told himself that he must make allowances. Men who don't come off in Life's struggle are apt to be touchy, and he was; after all, the same old Marsden, the man with whom he desired to ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... doesn't happen again," MacHeath said. "Balancing these babies so that they work properly is hard enough for a deuteron accelerator, but the Monster here is ten times as touchy." ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... who was warm-hearted, sensitive and thoughtful, Edith had a singularly happy disposition. First, she was good-tempered; not touchy, not easily offended about trifles. Such vanity as she had was not in an uneasy condition; she cared very little for general admiration, and had no feeling for competition. She was without ambition to be superior to others. Then, though she saw more deeply into things than the generality ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... arrived, instead of bringing up the old charges, they accused Athanasius of having prevented the sailing of the grain vessels from Alexandria to Constantinople in order to cause a famine. It was a clever trick. Constantine was extremely touchy about the prosperity of his new city and had just condemned to death a friend of his own for the same crime. He turned on Athanasius ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... to be dangerous for the interviewer, since Americans were being murdered rather profusely in Mexico at the time in spite of the astute assurances of Mr. Bryan, and no matter how substantial his references the correspondent was likely to meet some temperamental and touchy soldier with a loaded rifle who would shoot first and afterward carry his papers to some one ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... say always. Many a ship on the Spanish Main I've had to leave unboarded through want of a brother-in-law. They're touchy about it somehow. Unless the captain's brother-in-law comes first ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... some Acts of Parliament. Then we probably review the household troops— With the usual "Shalloo humps!" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern potentate. After that we generally Go and dress our private valet— (It's a rather nervous duty—he's a touchy little man)— Write some letters literary For our private secretary— He is shaky in his spelling, so we help him if we can. Then, in view of cravings inner, We go down and order dinner; Then we polish the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... man who had a temper of his own, and who was a little touchy on the score of age. Linda knew that he was touchy on the score of age, and had exaggerated her statement with the view of causing pain. It was probably some appreciation of this fact which caused Herr Steinmarc to continue his solicitations ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... at this brazenness had prevented him from thinking clearly. He was getting "touchy" about his uncle's political record of late and had had occasion to defend it with some heat during certain discussions among friends; there had been several newspaper attacks which he had resented greatly ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... seen him before. That may be the reason he's so touchy about having us land on the island. The last time I saw him it was down at dad's office. Uncle Ed—that's Mr. Fulton, you know—was there, and when I opened the door on them suddenly, he and this Billings were having ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... sea, and rove about in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing round, make a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:—plucking the reverend mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos. Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have an eye at the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons. In short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... taken the first step on the dreary journey which was henceforth to separate my life from Miss Fairlie's seemed to have blunted my sensibility to every consideration connected with myself. I had done with my poor man's touchy pride—I had done with all my little artist vanities. No insolence of Mr. Fairlie's, if he chose to be insolent, could ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... even in his dazed state a little touchy about such a dogma; "how do you know it will be ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... yourself about that. But if I were you I'd be very careful. Boys are as touchy as girls when it comes ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do. But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once more he felt the working of those uncanny ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... agreeably surprised, when the veil was removed, at finding her dazzlingly beautiful. He enfolded her in his arms with joy unspeakable, and so the honeymoon began. Short dream of bliss; she became capricious at once, and seven devils at least seemed to have nestled in her lovely bosom. Sid was touchy himself, and not the man to bear with such humors. Every day she sat at his bountiful board, and, instead of partaking the food which he set before her, she would daintily and mincingly pick out a few grains of rice with the point of a bodkin. Sid asked her what she meant by such conduct, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rather nervous duty - he a touchy little man) - Write some letters literary For our private secretary - (He is shaky in his spelling, so we help him if we can.) Then, in view of cravings inner, We go down and order dinner; Or we polish the Regalia and the Coronation Plate - Spend an hour in titivating All our Gentlemen-in-Waiting; ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... "I suppose I'm about as ignorant of business as anybody in the world," he said. "But I've heard they pay very high wages to people in dangerous trades; I've always heard they did, and I'm sure it must be true. I mean people that handle touchy chemicals or high explosives—men in dynamite factories, or who take things of that sort about the country in wagons, and shoot oil wells. I thought I'd see if you couldn't tell me something more about it, or else introduce me to someone ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... in. "What F.B.I. man would suggest an illegal course of action? But why should I delegate? If this is so touchy, I should handle ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... for the numbers and names of their children; and the only complaint that even his valets had against him was that he remained his own barber and evinced a certain reluctance in casting his suits until they had begun to show a suspicion of wear. In outward relations he was a kind, touchy, companionable soul; inwardly he was one who suffered acutely from lack of companionship and conversation, not because he had not plenty of people to talk to, but because so many things came into his head that he must not say, while the correct substitutes ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... you could afford to fight shy of. Besides, the most genuine excuse could not be given without mortally offending Apse & Sons. The firm, and I believe the whole family down to the old unmarried aunts in Lancashire, had grown desperately touchy about that accursed ship's character. This was the case for answering 'Ready now' from your very death-bed if you wished to die in their good graces. And that's precisely what I did answer—by wire, to have it over ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Jack; why, you'd be in bed at that time: besides, I don't suppose your grandmamma would have let you go, even if you had been here, for you might have been stung. It's rather a touchy job, is taking a wasp's nest,—very different from hiving bees; we give them a home, but we take ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... of perturbation. Lady Mildmay was still in love with her handsome well-preserved husband, and had every confidence in him, but to a chosen friend she would sometimes admit that he was "difficult"; she called him not proud and obstinate, but sensitive and a little touchy; she hinted that he could not bear unpleasant looks, and yet was not very ready to make concessions to friendship. No doubt he needed some management, and Lady Mildmay, like many wives, found one of her chief functions to consist in ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... democracy, freedom, etc., in the trenches. I also learned that, of all the ways of attaining cabinot, by far the simplest was to apply to a planton, particularly to a permanent planton, say the beefy one (who was reputed to be peculiarly touchy on this point) the term embusque. This method never failed. To its efficacy many of the men and more of the girls (by whom the plantons, owing to their habit of taking advantage of the weaker sex at every opportunity, were even more despised) attested by not infrequent spasms of consumptive ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... returned Frank stoutly. "Is that what Big-Eyes was crying about? I hate people to be touchy and blubber over a thing ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Of course no British troops have been there since, but if we are sent there I had made up my mind to bring the matter before the general, and ask him to interfere on the poor girl's behalf; though I know that it would be an awkward matter. For if there is one thing that the Portuguese are more touchy about than another, it is any interference in religious matters, and the bishop, who is a most intolerant rascal, would be the last man who would give way ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... remember him as Everard Constable, a touchy, ill-conditioned, cantankerous brute if ever there was one, who does not care a straw for anyone but himself. I can't think what she sees in him. But an Earl's an Earl. I always forget that. I have lived so much apart from the world and its sordid motives and love of wealth and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... tariff reformers are so touchy and intolerant that they resent the slightest attack or criticism from their opponents as if it were sacrilege, that is nothing to the fury which they exhibit when any of their friends on the Conservative side begin to ask a few ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... because the venerable Mere Superior is touchy on the point of family,—but I am not her nephew, voila la differance!" as the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... where I will have a difficult job ahead of me, handling the touchy and sensitive supervisor of this hash-foundry, Watson," Holmes remarked as we entered the kitchen and said "Good morning" to Louis La Violette the chef; "for I have good reason to believe that he knows where a certain party has hidden one ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... Ramsey's mind. As an administrator, as an Irwadian public servant in a touchy job, Garr Symm, a drunkard, was obviously grossly incompetent. What other qualifications did he have which gave him the top Irwadian Security job? Ramsey didn't know. He sighed. The Vegan girl's mouth formed ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... Morris replied. "Well, we ain't asking 'em to buy the fixtures, Abe; we only sell 'em the garments. Anyhow, if our customers was so touchy, Abe, they would of been insulted long since ago. For we got them fixtures six years already, and before we had 'em yet, Abe, Pincus Vesell bought 'em, way before the Spanish War, from Kupferman & Daiches, and then Kupferman ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... been very happy at the ironworks, and very industrious beside my kind mother. In the evening I came home on the little chestnut. Since the day before yesterday, when he got a strain and hurt his foot, he has been very restive and very touchy, and when he got home he refused his food. I thought at first that he did not fancy his fodder, and gave him some pieces of sugar and sticks of cinnamon, which he likes very much; he tasted them, but would not eat them. The poor little beast seems to have same ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he came up while I was talking to her," replied Copplestone. "Yes, I saw him. I'm afraid Mr. Stafford, who came in here with me, you know, offended him," he continued, and gave Mrs. Wooler an account of what had happened. "Is he rather—touchy?" he concluded. ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... be so touchy," said Benny. "I'm not going to disturb you. I'm sure I shouldn't care ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... me at my best when he suffered this little shiver of serious surmise to be blown across the painted scene. The worthy little monster was pardonably proud of his conception, and explained it to me point by point. Touchy as his infirmities had left him, his vanity of author made him as tender as a green wound. He set all his hopes upon his invention; rightly rendered, he said, the whole theatre would be moved by it. It should be received with a moment of absolute silence, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... suddenly stopped short and grinned at the brusque line officer, who, for all his bullying tactics, knew how to take the edge off a touchy situation. Walters sat down again and Hemmingwell spread out several large maps on Walters' desk. He pointed to a location on the chart of the ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... have proud stomachs, and ye have offended his honor by your charges, but to-day's fighting will be the best medicine." And then he hurried his friend away, and as they left to join their troop he seemed to be remonstrating with him for his touchy scruples. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... humors, whether grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 700 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... peeled you to-day, Miss Bermuda Onion? Aw, touchy! No harm meant. You're too big to suit me; I like 'em squab size. Rag up a bit between now and to-morrow, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... it impossible to look people in the face. Let only a chair creak, and I become more dead than alive. Today, therefore, I crept humbly to my seat and sat down in such a crouching posture that Efim Akimovitch (the most touchy man in the world) said to me sotto voce: "What on earth makes you sit like that, Makar Alexievitch?" Then he pulled such a grimace that everyone near us rocked with laughter at my expense. I stopped my ears, frowned, and sat without moving, for I found ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that Barry's tender years—he was only sixteen—and smallness would make it impossible for him to play with success for the first fifteen. He refrained owing to a conviction that the remark would not be wholly judicious. Barry was touchy on the subject of his size, and M'Todd had suffered before now for commenting on it ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... "it is in these situations sometimes the parvenues show the yellow streak, these and being touchy. They don't always come up to the scratch, otherwise there is no difference in them, and that is ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Without knowing anything about my real disposition and principles, she was evidently prejudiced against me, and seemed bent upon showing me that her opinions respecting me, on every particular, fell far below those I entertained of myself. I was naturally touchy, or it would not have vexed me so much. Perhaps, too, I was a little bit spoiled by my mother and sister, and some other ladies of my acquaintance;—and yet I was by no means a fop—of that I am fully convinced, whether ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... She had a very sweet disposition, but was a trifle touchy regarding her own independence. Sundry rather sharp passages which had occurred between Mrs. Fordyce and herself on this very subject made her now readier to resent this ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... so touchy! A body can laugh, can't he, and no harm done? You 'd better be good-tempered and jolly, and then I 'll tell you where I 'm going,—which, I believe, was what you wished to know in the first place, was ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... that "perfect ceremony" of love which consists in returning calls and making protestations and giving presents and paying the trumpery attentions which men of genius always refuse to bother about, and to which touchy people who have no genius attach so much importance. No leader who had not been tampered with by the psychopathic monomaniacs could ever put any construction but the obvious and innocent one on these passages. But the general vocabulary of the sonnets to Pembroke (or whoever "Mr W. H." really ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... only Prussian I ever knew who was an agreeable man was Bismarck. All others with whom I have been thrown—and I have lived for years in Germany—were proud as Scotchmen, cold as New Englanders, and touchy as only Prussians can be. I once had a friend among them. His name was Buckenbrock. Inadvertently I called him Butterbrod. We have never spoken since. A Prussian lieutenant is the most offensive specimen of humanity that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... "it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You 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 ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... steadily at the speaker. "You hadn't ought to 'a' let me say it," he replied. "How did I know he was so touchy?" His gaze left Cowan and lingered in turn on each of the others. "Some of you ought to 'a' told me. I wouldn't 'a' said it only for what I said just before, an' I didn't want him to think I was challenging him to no duel in the brush. So I says so, an' then he goes an' takes it up ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... carry him through each successive day, and no more, he was tranquilly sure of himself; and from the very same cause he was not in the least conceited. It is your imaginative superior who is touchy, overbearing, and difficult to please; but every ship Captain MacWhirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace. It was, in truth, as impossible for him to take a flight of fancy as it would be for a watchmaker to put together a chronometer ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... believe any one does. In the field he is as bold as a lion, fearless, quick to see what to do at the moment, never losing a chance. Yet more than once I've noticed, beforehand, a strange hesitation. He gets fits of the dumps, broods, wonders whether he is doing the right thing, and is as touchy as a bear with a sore head. Well, 'tis almost noon; I must be off; we'll see what the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... wouldn't do such a thing. In spite of all that is said about the Russian Government, its members are gentlemen. Of course, if such a thing happened, there would be trouble. That is a point where we're touchy. A very cheap Englishman, wrongfully detained, may cause a most expensive campaign. Our diplomatists may act correctly enough, and yet leave a feeling of resentment behind. Take this very case. Britain says coldly ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... in a garden, and also in a kitchen frequented by crickets or black-beetles. Its food is chiefly grubs, insects, worms, and such like. The creature is easily tamed, and becomes a lovable and not a touchy pet. It is ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... as you say your case is now complete, I will see what I can do in the way of refutation. And first about that meat. Though, upon my word, I blush for Zeus when I name it: to think that he should be so touchy about trifles, as to send off a God of my quality to crucifixion, just because he found a little bit of bone in his share! Does he forget the services I have rendered him? And does he think what it is that he is so angry about, and how ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... touchy ladies here, and so superior," Diana urged, when he demurred; "and you know I am never safe for two minutes with that type. I should be driven into saying appalling things, and our reputation ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... fault that I vexed you last night," he said. "You have never before been touchy, and so I have become accustomed to saying what I choose. And it is not in my ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... "Touchy lot, these school-teachers!" mused Dr Mant on his way back to the town. "I never can like 'em, somehow. . . . Maybe I ought to have used a little tact and told him that, as I understood it, Mrs Steele called the meeting; and it was for women-workers only. That wouldn't quite account for Farmer ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... financial successes of present Government, steady removal of all legitimate grievances, and triumphs of our diplomacy in all parts of the world. Shall have to say a good word for Liberal-Unionists. TOLLAND says there are about thirty of them, all very touchy. Must try to work in the story of the boy and the plum-cake. It made them scream at the Primrose League ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... lawn. Luke is on the lawn, I was going to say," declared Agnes, making innocent eyes again. "Why so touchy?" ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... don't serve me such a trick as that again, old fellow." But it let me into a secret of his character, and ever after that, I was as particular in my invitations as possible. Men thought him proud, and cold, and touchy, which he was not; and stingy, which he scorned to be, from his contempt for ostentation in any shape. The rarity of his wine-parties, and his never having other wines produced than port or sherry, he himself explained to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... telling if you're glad to see me," said Wessner, with something very like a breath of relief. "We been hearing down at the camp you were so mighty touchy you didn't allow a man within ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Dutch, the ignorant opposition of his officers, the libels of his political opponents. There was a touch of irony in the simple expedients by which he sometimes solved problems which had baffled cabinets. The touchy pride of the king of Prussia in his new royal dignity, when he rose from being a simple Elector of Brandenburg to a throne, made him one of the most vexatious among the allies; but all difficulty with him ceased when Marlborough rose at a state banquet ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... doing around that devil-island. What kinds of laws they're breaking out there nobody knows. They may be doing anything from shooting fish to catching chicken-halibut or baby barracuda. We don't know what. But we do know they're mighty touchy on who cruises round El Diablo. When our boats get around that infernal island something always happens. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... don't want to get into a quarrel with you, for I have found that you are very touchy on a certain point; but I cannot help hinting that you are destined to meet a great disappointment when through with your earthly worry. I wish my chances were ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... you've spoken at last. It's been on my mind more than anything. I thought you might have misunderstood him, and was over touchy; but—her money!" ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... the night. And I verify ate up the language. I had a gift that way anyway. Even Kim marvelled at the way I mastered the idiom. And I learned the Korean points of view, the Korean humour, the Korean soft places, weak places, touchy places. Kim taught me flower songs, love songs, drinking songs. One of the latter was his own, of the end of which I shall give you a crude attempt at translation. Kim and Pak, in their youth, swore a pact to abstain from drinking, which pact was speedily broken. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... sort of shies talkin' art with me. A touchy party, F. Hallam. The least little thing would give him the sulks. And even when he was feelin' chipper his face was long enough. As a floorwalker in a mournin' goods shop he'd be a perfect fit. But you couldn't suggest anything that sounded like real work to Hallam. He claims that he was livin' ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... Northerners fancy is a proof of equality and independence, we never met with, and duels and street quarrels are almost unknown. We detected none of the touchy sensitiveness of the punctilious Spanish hidalgos. Their compliments and promises are without end; and, made in the magnificent and ceremonious language of Spain,[24] are overwhelming to a stranger. Thus a fair ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... didn't tap Clyde for so much real information. In fact, if I'd been at all touchy I might have worked up the notion that I was ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Harlowes, Jack: they have been called The proud Harlowes: and I have ever found, that all young honour is supercilious and touchy. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... into your head, and don't make absurd scenes of jealousy. You know whom you have to do with; Marguerite isn't a saint. She likes you, you are very fond of her; let the rest alone. You amaze me when I see you so touchy; you have the most charming mistress in Paris. She receives you in the greatest style, she is covered with diamonds, she needn't cost you a penny, unless you like, and you are not satisfied. My dear ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... but I refrained, and listened coldly while he told me what David did when you said his toes were pigs going to market or returning from it, I forget which. He also boasted of David's weight (a subject about which we are uncommonly touchy at the club), as if children were for throwing forth for ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... duplication of oaths would set a bad precedent and risk giving the executive undue powers over the court. Far from being an artificial objection, the letter noted, this latter point was extremely touchy for the justices' standing in a great many matters was based on seniority, and both the prestige and chances for financial rewards that went with the office depended on ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... your head taken off for your pains," said Ernestine, walking over to the glass, and smiling at her own unruffled image. "Olive's a touchy goose, but I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, and I'm sorry for it; so that's the best I can do ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... coy mistress, and will not easily be courted, so she is a mighty nice touchy lady, and is soon affronted; if she is ill used, she flies at once, and it is a very doubtful thing whether ever you gain ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... touchy. Her aunt says that her tear bags must lay near her eyes and that she will cry if you look at her, and that she is the strangest, oddest creature she ever saw, and I heard she did not wish ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... appointed to that responsible post. We became good friends. He began work at the early age of thirteen, had grown up on the railway and at nineteen was a station master. He was skilful in out-door railway work, and an adept in managing trains and traffic. Ambitious and a bit touchy regarding his office, all was not always peace between his and other departments, particularly the goods manager's. The goods manager was not aggressive, and it was sometimes thought that Mathieson inclined to encroach upon his territory. Often angry correspondence and sometimes angry discussion ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... moment of resenting his savage personalities, but as soon as the meal was over they made haste to get away. 'Don't go. You're just getting amusing, you fellows. I hope I haven't said anything that annoyed you. You're such touchy devils.' Then, changing the note into one of almost abject entreaty, Hummil added, 'I ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... by this time able to take a genuine interest in the collection. But he was much amused, sometimes annoyed, with the behavior of the laird in his closet: he was more nervous and touchy over his things than a she-bear over ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... animals so well, he doesn't like to be meddled with in his management of them. I daresay he told you that, if they didn't know better, he had to teach them better! They are troublesome little wretches.—Yes, I confess he is a little touchy ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of Argyll, but I'm not lord of the king's highway, and if an honest stranger cares to take a freeman's privilege and stand between the wind and Simon MacTaggart's dignity—Simon MacTaggart's very touchy dignity, it would appear—who am I that I should blame the liberty? You did not ride ventre a terre from Strongara (I see a foam-fleck on your breeches) to tell me we had a traveller come to admire our scenery? Come, come, Sim! I'll begin ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... leaves us at present. Your daughter is my neighbor and a blessed girl she is, and it is because I love her so well that I am trying to write to you now, not being handy at it, as you see; also my pen spits. As near as I can make out you and her's cut off the same cloth; both of you are touchy and quick, and, if things don't suit you, up and coming. But she's got a good heart in her as ever I see. One day she told me a lot about how good you were to her when her mother died, and about the prayer her mother used ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... you at all,' said Crewe, in a voice singularly subdued, sympathetic, respectful. 'I have done all I could, short of telling him that I know you. He's very touchy still on that ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... I won't," said Swampy, hurriedly. "But since you're so blasted touchy and suspicious about it, you take this job an' I'll take the next that turns up. How'll ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... way as a fellow can get into ever. I was little better than sick myself; and, while the others went off after eggs and game, I stayed to keep the fire going and take care of Wade. No small stint I had of it too; for he was peevish and touchy as a young badger. I knew he ought to take something hot of the herb-tea sort, and so started off and gathered a dipperful of the tea-plant leaves. Then, getting a lump of ice, I melted it, and made ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... hard siege of it an' it showed. His face was lined, his hair was white at the temples, an' the' was a wistful look in his eyes which was mighty touchy. Barbie was more chummy with him too, an' they was edgin' back to ol' times; but I was darn glad to see Hawthorn finally admit that he was sufficiently recovered to drive over an' see what had ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're big enough ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... didn't mean that. Don't be so touchy all the time—always standing there as if to say: 'Who's going to do anything for me, good or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... release me. With a smile He feigns stupidity: I burn with bile. "Something there was you said you wished to tell To me in private." "Ay, I mind it well; But not just now: 'tis a Jews' fast to-day: Affront a sect so touchy! nay, friend, nay." "Faith, I've no scruples." "Ah! but I've a few: I'm weak, you know, and do as others do: Some other time: excuse me." Wretched me! That ever man so black a sun should see! Off goes the rogue, and leaves me in despair, Tied to the altar, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... and probably more, was actually due by me on my mother's account to Christie, who had lent it in a moment of great necessity, and that the returning it in a light or ludicrous manner was not unlikely to prevent so touchy and punctilious a person from accepting a debt which was most justly her due, and which it became me particularly to see satisfied. Sacrificing, then, my triad with little regret (for it looked better by candlelight, and through the medium of a pot of porter, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... in a temper. There had been an argument with the fish-man which had left him red in the face and very touchy. So he bought two bunches of arbutus and ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... has got a old pair of steers down in our back medder that was always touchy and kinder quarrelsome. They are gittin' along in years, but mebby there is some fight ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... word, I think, Mr. Spencer," said General Turner coldly; "we refuse to be interesting to any simple Sassenach." Then he saw the confusion in the innkeeper's face and laughed. "Upon my word," he said, "here I'm as touchy as a bard upon a mere phrase. This is very good drink, Mr. Spencer; your purveyance, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... luggage on the cab...! George Cannon had not once appeared in the last sensitive weeks, and he had therein been wise. And all that had to be done had been done—not by Hilda, but by Sarah Gailey the touchy and the competent. Hilda had done little ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... gardeners are very touchy on this point. A friend of mine was on a similar occasion addressed, in true Egyptian lingo, by an old Adam-son, "Ya ibn al-Kalb! beta'mil ay?" (O dog- son, what ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... (throw) jxeti. Total tuto, a. Totality tuteco. Totter sxanceli. Touch tusxi. Touch (feel) palpi. Touch lightly tusxeti. Touch up (improve) korekti. Touch palpo. Touchiness ofendsenteco. Touching tusxanta. Touching (emotion) kortusxanta. Touchy ofendsentema. Tough malmola. Tour vojagxo. Tourism turismo. Tourist turisto. Touring club turisma klubo. [Error in book: turing klubo] Tow posttreni. Tow stupo. Toward al. Towel visxilo. Tower turo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... with bad sciatica, slower in look, with a mournful, rather monkeyish expression in their eyes, as if puzzled by their sufferings. Here is a true Frenchman, a Territorial, from Roanne, riddled with rheumatism, quick and gay, and suffering, touchy and affectionate, not tall, brown-faced, brown-eyed, rather fair, with clean jaw and features, and eyes with a soul in them, looking a little up; forty-eight—the oldest of them all—they call him Grandpre. And here is a printer from Lyon with shell-shock; ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... nice little old woman, who has two rooms, very minute and cosy, with a little supply of faggots close at hand, and all the dignity of a householder, although the occupant only of an infinitesimal toy house within a house. How do they agree, one wonders, these little old ladies of a touchy age under ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... the procession of the Holy Ghost question divides us with the Gulf of Jehannum. The gardener of this house is a Copt, such a nice fellow, and he and Omar chaff one another about religion with the utmost good humour; indeed they are seldom touchy with the Moslems. There is a pretty little man called Michail, a Copt, vakeel to M. Mounier. I wish I could draw him to show a perfect specimen of the ancient Egyptian race; his blood must be quite ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... her away as soon as possible. My great fear is that the work may be too much for you, poor Dorothy; and that—that—we may have to keep you waiting sometimes for your wages," she added, rather hesitatingly fearing to offend Dorothy's touchy temper, and yet determined to put the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... rest, Haynes represents the New Witness much more than a reviewer does, being both on the board and the staff; and he has put your view in the paper—I cannot help thinking with a more convincing logic. Don't you sometimes find it convenient, even in my case, that your friends are less touchy ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Borrow's, and the banker's wife said to him: "Oh Mr. Borrow, I have read your books with so much pleasure!" the great man exclaimed: "Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean my account books?" How touchy he was, Mr. Walling shows, by his story of Borrow in Cornwall neglecting a lady all one evening because she bore the name of the man his father had knocked down at Menheniot Fair. Several stories of his ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... Rathburn. "You stopped because you saw my gun? An' I'm to blame, for it? If I'd known you were touchy about guns down here I'd have worn mine in ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts |
