"Fidget" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hands, unlike the lady's, began to fidget confusedly, and, the silence continuing, she coughed several times, to effect the preface required by her sense of fitness, before she felt it proper to observe, with ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... the fidget he fell into, trying this and that effect, with his head slanted one way and then slanted the other, his hand held up to shut out the mountain below the granite mass of Lion's Head, and then changed to cut off the sky above; and then both hands lifted in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... with happy foreign travel; and their system was once more to get on beautifully in this further lounge without a definite exchange. Yet he finally spoke—he broke out as he tossed away the match from which he had taken a fresh light: "I must go for a stroll. I'm in a fidget—I must walk it off." She fell in with this as she fell in with everything; on which he went on: "You go up to Miss Ash"—it was the name they had started; "you must see she's not in mischief. Can ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... an abrupt movement. It might have been caused by surprise, annoyance, anger, or simply by the desire to fidget which overcomes every one, not paralyzed, at some time or another. His action knocked over a chair, and he stooped to pick it up and set it in its place before he spoke. Then ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... grinned Tommy O'Connor. Then he began to fidget. He ought to go out and buy a paper. See what was doing. See what became of Mac and the rest of the boys. Maybe they'd all been nabbed. But they couldn't do him harm. On account nobody knew where he was. No pal. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... and some electricity within him made the animal under him fidget and prance, for he stirred neither hand nor foot. "And you tell me Dinah ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... enough to be about, but not quite. If you go back to your habitual hours of sleep you will fret and fidget indoors, and you are not yet sufficiently recovered to resume your normal life. You need fresh air. I have considered what is best and what is possible. I have talked with your friend Opsitius. Through him I have arranged ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... mantelpiece struck six, I rose from my chair and began to fidget about the room, looking every few minutes to see how the time ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the castle, my heart beats ready to burst. I fear man and beast alike for this innocent darling; I dread volts, passes, and manual exercises; in fact, I dread everything. I live not in myself, but in him alone. And, alas! I like to endure these miseries, because when I fidget, and tremble, it is a sign that my offspring is safe and sound. To be brief—for I am never weary of talking on this subject—I believe that my breath is in him, and not ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... t' the nor'ard. Ye'll find, I bet ye, that the fishin' fleet is cotched fast somewheres long about the straits. An' a bottle o' rum for a cold night! Well, well! I bet ye, Dannie," says he, "that the Likely Lass is gripped by this time. An' ye got a bottle o' rum!" cries he, in a beaming fidget. "Rum's a wonderful thing on a cold night, lad. Nothin' like it. I've tried it. Was a time," he confided, "when I was sort o' give ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... your voice is near me. Now don't you fidget yourself, dear friend. I like these little excitements. I have told you so before. Listen. How calm and silent it all is; the place; the night! The mind seems to fill with great ideas, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... says: "But what is the matter, my dear? You fidget and fidget—I want to sleep." He turns over ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... "you niver gave no answer at all. 'Far as I could see you've done naught but fidget like an angletwitch and look ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for novelties. Now I'm much mistaken if this one has ever had her tea out of doors in all her born days. What! do you think our little stuffy room would be any treat to her, after the drawing-room at Font Abbey? Come, you be off till half-past five; you'll fidget yourself and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... into the middle of the stream I should not be able to paddle myself back against it—which, indeed, might very well have proved the case. Then I became nervous, and paddled all on one side, by which means, of course, I only turned the boat round. S—— began to fidget about, getting up from where I had placed her, and terrifying me with her unsteady motions and the rocking of the canoe. I was now very much frightened, and saw that I must get back to shore before I became more helpless than I was beginning to feel; so laying S—— down in the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... ride, performed by six men and six women mounted on very shiny horses. Mrs. Ascher, of course, objected strongly to the music. I could see her squirming in her seat. Ascher did not find the thing interesting and began to fidget. It was, indeed, much less suggestive than either the learned horse or the acrobats. You cannot discover in a musical ride any parable with a meaning applicable to life. Nothing in the world goes so smoothly and pleasantly. There are always risks even when there are ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... her and carries her muff And coat and umbrella, and that kind of stuff; She loads him with things that must weigh 'most a ton; And, honest, he likes it,—as if it was fun! And, oh, say! When they go to a play, He'll sit in the parlor and fidget away, And she won't come down till it's quarter past eight, And then she'll scold him 'cause they get ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... if it weren't for this heat," she said pettishly. "Do put that photograph down, George!—you do fidget so! Haven't you got any news for me—anything to amuse me? Oh! those horrid papers!—I see. Well! they'll wait a little. By the way, the 'Morning Post' says that young scamp, Lord Ancoats, has gone abroad. I suppose ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... see Maude Adams in her new piece this spring?" said Miss Connie, who began to fidget with the cups and carefully cut the cake ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... said, "you need not fidget about poison, my lad. The place will soon heal. Now then, any ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... the one to wait upon me? Most all my shirt waists fasten up the back, and there's got to be someone round to fix them, or I'm all undone. I guess you're pretty tidy by the looks of you, Aunt Soph. I can't see after things myself, but I fidget the life out of everybody if I'm not just so. I've got the sweetest clothes.—Do you have gay times over here in Norton? Is there a good deal of young society? I love prancing round and having a good time. Poppar says the boys spoil me; there's always a crowd of ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fresh cigar between his teeth when the pitching of the steamer told us we were heading into the China Sea. We were clear of the channel by the time he had finished the adventure he was relating, and Trego was beginning to fidget. We all moved as ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... up as out of place. Then I assumed an air of frigid composure, and toyed with my watch-chain. But a little girl screwed her eyes into me, and said, evidently, in her mind: "That old gentleman is a fidget." Then I leaned back gracefully, but something whispered: "That's all right at home, Father Dan, but please remember that the convenances of society require a different posture;" and I sat bolt upright in a moment. My eye caught in a blissful moment my new handsome umbrella ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the Almighty frequently accomplishes His purposes by means which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in a fidget lest they should be thought to mix in low society, or to bestow a moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of a perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the acquaintance of the old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had an ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... I could cut it off,—like a boy's. It is miles too long. You might as well head Zachariah off. She has been gone since one o'clock. I am sure I heard the front door close before I dropped off to sleep. Don't fidget, Kenny. They've probably got old Martin in the calaboose by this time. Mother never fails when she sets out to do a thing. That good-for-nothing sleepy-head, Hattie, never heard a sound last night. What ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... then, that I should turn as red as a cardinal flower, and fidget uneasily, and stutter when I tried to set myself right with my ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... sleep The merry lambs and the complacent kine, The flies below the leaves and the young mice In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks Of red flamingo; and my love Vijaya, And may no restless fay, with fidget finger Trouble his sleeping; give ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... came across Mr Crawley's face. After all, others besides himself had their troubles and trials. Mrs Proudie saw and understood the smile, and became more angry than ever. She drew her chair close to the table, and began to fidget with her fingers among the papers. She had never before encountered a clergyman so contumacious, so indecent, so unreverend,—so upsetting. She had had to deal with men difficult to manage;—the archdeacon for instance; ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Thoughts, a Chair or a Chariot would be thought the most desirable Means of performing a Remove from one Place to another. I should be a Cure for the unnatural Desire of John Trott for Dancing, and a Specifick to lessen the Inclination Mrs. Fidget has to Motion, and cause her always to give her Approbation to the present Place she is in. In fine, no Egyptian Mummy was ever half so useful in Physick, as I should be to these feaverish Constitutions, to repress ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... began to fret and fidget most awfully,—"Beginning of the seasons—why, we may not get away for a week and all the ships will be kept back ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly work—dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh water and food. A nation who can produce men of that sort may well be proud. No wonder England ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... prediction, however, she did not return as promptly as she had promised, and Mr. Tolman began to fidget uneasily. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the door to decide who should be the first to enter, the scuffle resulting in Fred being made the advance-guard, and pushed in before his cousins; Harry, being the most active, securing to himself the last place. The boys were in a dreadful fidget: they had done wrong, and they knew it well, and therefore felt prepared to receive a terrible scolding; but the anticipation proved worse than the punishment itself, for Mr Inglis looked up smiling when they entered, and seeing Harry's scheming to get last, called him at ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... morning he was in a fidget, having fixed no hour for his visit to Holloway. It was not likely that she should be out or engaged, but he determined not to go till after lunch. All employment was out of the question, and he was rather a trouble to his sister; but in the course of the morning there came a ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... not at the apartment at dinner, and an inquiry at the laboratory was fruitless also. So I sat down to fidget for a while. Pretty soon the buzzer on the door sounded, and I opened it to find a messenger-boy with ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... he? But if Gering was bent on trouble, why, there was the last resource of the peace-lover. He tapped the rapier at his side. He ever held that he was peaceful, and it is recorded that at the death of an agitated victim, he begged him to "sit still and not fidget." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said Cassandra. "You are always in such a fidget to learn, Ruth. Come into the garden; I want ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... good likeness of her, as you see her combing my hair. She is not young, you perceive, nor yet very old. Sometimes I get a little impatient, and fidget, because she is so particular; but our quarrels always end in my kissing her, and saying, "You are ...
— The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... was her neighbor, I plainly saw; but instead of turning toward me, she began to fan herself in a nervous way and to fidget with the buttons of her gloves. I ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... easier if he were at hand. I remember, one day, he was tied in front of the house, and she was loose, grazing near by. As long as he could see her, all went well enough, but the moment she sauntered around the fence, he began first to fidget, then to paw and neigh, and finally to struggle, until in the end, he broke loose and rushed after his inamorata. And what a time he made over her! whinnying, and demonstrating his delight in a dozen different ways. She? oh, she took it coolly, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... did not talk fast enough to suit him, his mind leaping on ahead of their tongues, his fingers wriggling to wrap themselves around something valuable—preferably the eggs of the golden goose—and a general eagerness to be up and about and onwards. He was one round fidget on two legs, yet a good man ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... stand in your place than mine; especially since my wife's brother Garland was called in as consulting physician, last month at the penitentiary. He has so stirred her sympathies for the woman whom he pronounces a paragon of all the virtues and graces, that I begin to fidget now at the sound of the prisoner's name, and can hardly look my wife straight in the face. When I go up to court next week, I will call on the Governor, and add a personal appeal to the one I have already signed. According to the evidence, she is guilty; ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... woman's head looked out, with suspicion. "Oh, thank Heavens!" it said with abrupt fervor. "I was afraid it mightn't be you, Miss Sylvia. I'm so glad you're back. There ain't—hasn't been a minute these past two nights that I haven't been in a fidget." ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... can't get ... get to sleep if you fidget like that. You're keeping me ... awake. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... planted. For myself, I would rather have a bare and open pasture than such a yard as that shown in Fig. 9, even though it contained the choicest plants of every land. The pasture would at least be plain and restful and unpretentious; but the yard would be full of effort and fidget. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... laid on the ice till the end of war, they had turned him on to this show. He was bored by the business, and didn't understand it very well. The river charts puzzled him, and though it was pretty plain going for hundreds of miles, yet he was in a perpetual fidget about the pilotage. You could see that he would have been far more in his element smelling his way through the shoals of the Ems mouth, or beating against a northeaster in the shallow Baltic. He had six barges in tow, but the heavy flood of the Danube ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... at Jurgen for a while without speaking: and in the eyes of the Centaur was so much of comprehension and compassion that it troubled Jurgen. For somehow it made Jurgen fidget and consider this an unpleasantly personal ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little Gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the wind ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... upon it. He blew very well, and this morning all his soul went into the wail. For he was ill. He was tortured with the feeling that he could not get away and do—do something, instead of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four hours in the rain was better than this: he had not wanted to fidget in the rain. But now the air was like wine, and the stubble was smelling of wet, and over his head white clouds trundled more slowly and more seldom through broadening tracts of blue. There never had been such a morning, and he shut up his eyes ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... sometimes gives them the appearance of "fidgeting," but it is an easy, graceful fidget and not as disturbing as that ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... the cold wind softened and grew still; the stars swelled out larger; the rats came, and then came puss, and the rats went with a scuffle and patter; the pagan grey came in like a sleep-walker, and made the barn dreary as a dull dream; then the horses began to fidget with their big feet, the cattle to low with their great trombone throats, and the cocks to crow as if to give warning for the last time against the devil, the world, and the flesh; the men in the adjoining chamber woke, yawned, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... myself quite aware that the two ladies would do well to take leave, the question of Mrs. Nettlepoint's good will being so satisfactorily settled and the meeting of the morrow at the ship so near at hand and I went so far as to judge that their protracted stay, with their hostess visibly in a fidget, gave the last proof of their want of breeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on her mother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, in spite of Mrs. Mavis's evident "game" of making her own absorption of refreshment last ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... The fidget of silk and of crinoline, the rattling of keys, the creaking of stays and of shoes, will do a patient more harm than all the medicines in the world ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... time now the enemy showed no disposition to expose himself to the fire of Jack and the others. The forest was as still as death. Jack began to fidget. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... saying is, and they gave him up for dead. Well, well, you have not come to that yet, God be thanked, ill though you may be. Count on me; I would pull you through all by myself, I would! Keep still, don't you fidget like that." ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... his hands on a table behind him, his long spare frame in a nervous fidget, his eyes bright and hostile, and a spot of red on either thin cheek. Beside Chicksands, who was of middle height, solidly built, and moderately stout, with mental and physical competence written all over him, the Squire of Mannering seemed but the snippet of a man. He was singularly thin, ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... follow that because men are capable of doing hard work they like it. Some, indeed, fidget and fret if they cannot otherwise work off their superfluous steam; but on the other hand there are many big lazy fellows who will not get up their steam to full pressure except under compulsion. Again, the character of the stimulus that induces hard work differs greatly in different ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... abbot turned round from the altar, and began to fidget with the fastenings of his rich robes. And they made a lane for us up to the west door; then I put on my helm and we began to go up the nave, then suddenly the singing of the monks and all stopped. I heard a clinking and a buzz ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... to the ladies' knees, or trample out the gathers of their dresses, and fidget with their ornaments, startling some luckless lady by the announcement, "I've got your bracelet undone at last!" who would find one of the divisions broken open by force, Amelia not understanding the working ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... little absently). He is still pacing up and down restlessly—to and fro—along and across—he that is usually so innocent of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... he may cast his eye aloft to detect something to alter in the position of the head-yards. Or if he hears any noise in the galley, or even on the lower deck, he can walk forward till he is able to peer down the fore-hatchway, by stooping under the bows of the boat on the booms. Most of this fidget probably arises, not so much from any wish to find fault with what is wrong, as to maintain what is right. The true preventive service of an officer is to interpose his superintending vigilance between the temptation, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... in her manner since I came here, weeks ago, to look over the house. She has something on her mind,—I see it in her eyes.' Then it occurred to me, too, that the woman's manner had altered, and that she seemed always in a tremble and a fidget. I went at once to her room, and charged her with stealing the book. She fell on her knees, and told the whole story as I have told it to you, and as I shall take care to tell it to all to whom I have so foolishly blabbed my yet more foolish suspicions of yourself. But ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for things to pass in free of duty. We then steamed round New York through much shipping and under a most marvellous new suspension bridge, which is to join New York and Brooklyn, to the dockyard; where we had another most hearty reception from our hostess. They had all been in a fidget at our being so many days late, and directly the ship was telegraphed off Sandy Hook the last night, in spite of the pouring rain, the Commodore had gone down in the tug to the Quarantine Harbour to try ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... didn't fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too. She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the stage, but she was attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that she placed no undue emphasis on his visits. In her world men ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said it was much more useful to learn to sit still and not fidget than to fill the ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... at this, it struck him, an inspiration; which he required however a minute or two to decide to carry out; a minute or two during which the shake of his foot over his knee became an intensity of fidget. "Of course I know I still owe you a large sum of money. If it's about that you wish to see me," he went on, "I may as well tell you just here that I shall be able to meet my full obligation in the future as little as I've met it in the past. ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... to fidget with some account books and papers that he had brought from his house. He eyed his partner with furtive glances; Mallalieu eyed him with steady and ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... that fidget John; and in less time than my lady-readers would believe, I had put on my pink bonnet and my white dress, and was bowling down to Richmond by the side of my cousin, behind a roan and a chestnut that stepped away in a style that it did one ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... instant, dared to be myself! But my fear of ridicule was greater than my fear of vice. 'Bless me, my dear Lady Delacour,' whispered Harriot, as we left this house, 'what can make you in such a desperate hurry to get home? You gape and fidget: one would think you had never sat up a night before in your life. I verily believe you are afraid to trust yourself with us. Which of us are you afraid of, Lawless, or me, or yourself?' There was a tone of contempt in the last words which piqued me to the quick; and however strange it may seem, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... I had a photograph of that gathering of people to put right in here, on this page! Many of them would have looked much better at this point than they did after four hours of patient waiting. How that crowd did fidget and fix and change position, as far as it was possible to change, when there was not an inch of unoccupied space. How they talked and laughed and sang and grumbled and yawned, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... fidget to send me travelling up again, just because he fancied he saw something amiss at the window. Nothing but a curtain flapping, or a shadder, for the poor dears is sleeping like lambs.' We heard her say this to herself, and a general titter ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... more about them; she was busy washing and showing the others. By and by it began to look as though she had forgotten that there were more than five. She could not count. But most mothers can number their children, even if they cannot count, and soon Calico began to fidget, looking up at the hat which the hungry, motherless squirrels kept rocking. Then she leaped out upon the floor, purring, and bounded upon the table, going ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... hair still and for ever hanging about her ears, was seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the parlor window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high fidget and complaint. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... fidget you are, my love," said the physician, who, being pressed close against her by the throng, had no need of personal effort for contact. "Just as well have patience: there's ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... finance-gambler through one whole day. What monstrous cruelties and mendacities might underlie the surface of this gay and melodious existence! Why was the stout man looking for 'B. F.'? Why did he turn away with such a set countenance? Why was that old bore at the club in such a fidget about the 'Britannia'? ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... drew her round again and kissed her. 'I think you would fidget me,' she remarked as she released her. Then, as if this were too cheerless a leave-taking, she added in a gayer tone, as Laura had her hand on the door: 'Mind what I tell you, my dear; let her go!' ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... doctors did not talk much as they were rowed towards the Loulia. Both were preoccupied. As they drew near to her, however, Doctor Hartley began to fidget. His bodily ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... brought home a sheaf of papers under his arm. He would sit at the table inside the window in the candlelight and, as the music rose outside, singing to the child and the flowers and the stars, he would scowl and fidget and tap irritably on the table with the point of his pen, for he did not love his ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... his man guest and the hostess with her woman guest. This was the rule of courtesy; kings observed it as well as burgesses. Children were taught how to behave towards a sleeping companion, to keep to their own part of the bed, not to fidget, and to sleep ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... do wish you would not fidget with your feet. You know your dear father often told you of it;" or, "As your dear father used to say, Ned;" until the boy in despair would throw down his book and rush out of the room to calm himself by a run in the frosty night air; while Mrs. Sankey would murmur to herself, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... am concerned, batuchka, Rodion Romanovitch, I will tell you something which shall reveal to you my disposition," answered Porphyrius Petrovitch, continuing to fidget about the room, and, as before, avoiding his visitor's gaze. "I live alone, you must know, never go into society, and am, therefore, unknown; add to which, that I am a man on the shady side of forty, somewhat played out. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... bayonets; four hundred thousand Parisians were there, like himself, full of good-will, who had taken up their guns with the resolve to die steadfast. Ah, the misery of defeat! All these brave men for five months could only fidget about the place and eat carcases. May the good God forgive the timid and the prattler! Alas! Poor old France! After so much glory! Poor France of Jeanne ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... hunt, which I was told was absolutely necessary, seven ball dresses, five gowns for tea. Such a quantity of boxes and bundles arrived at the house in Paris that Mademoiselle Wissembourg was in a blue fidget, fussing about, boring me with silly, unnecessary suggestions, and asking so many useless questions that I wished her at the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who ought to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... here wid her old mammy off en on. Yes'um, I wants to see her mighty bad since it be dat she been gone from here so long. When she first went up dere, she worked for a white family dere to Hartford, Connecticut, but it won' long fore she got in a fidget to marry en she moved dere to Philadelphia. Dat whe' she livin now, so my ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... cookery, miss? Lor' bless me, I could die of laughing to think a pair of hands like yours could make better paste than mine! You'd best be careful or you'll catch it. If ever there was a fidget about his food it's Master Lambert. Come, now, Tom, I am going to clear away, so you must budge. Why, you've left half your victuals on the platter. I'll feed ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... into his beard and began to fidget in the saddle. King gave him another view of the bracelet, and again he found a ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... do you fidget? You're hurting my shoulder, you troublesome midget! Perhaps it's that hole that you told me about. Why, darling, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... seldom does lie quiet, and you have to cramp your hand by holding it or else put it on the table with a paraphernalia of matters to keep it down, a tablespoon on one side, a knife on another, and so on, which things always tumble off at a critical moment, and fidget you out of the repose which is absolutely necessary to reading; whereas, a big folio lies quiet and majestic on the table, waiting kindly till you please to come to it, with its leaves flat and peaceful, giving you ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... don't hurt you, mademoiselle, except when you pull your head aside. But in truth it is hard to comb your hair properly when you move and fidget about. You are ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... down and frighten more birds. Now then, don't fidget. If the stone goes, you'd still hold on by the rope, and I should be left sitting there all the same. I shouldn't do it if I didn't feel that I could. I'm not a bit nervous, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... memory now that she had spoken of it. Virtue had gone out of it. But she was too fatigued to grieve, and presently there stood by her bedside a phantom Harry, a pouting lad complaining of his own mortality. She put out her hand to him and crooned, "There, there!" and told herself she must not fidget if he were there, for the dead were used to quietness; and profound ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... temper by lemons and sugar. The black children absolutely dance and scream when they see one, pumpkin and sugar being their delight. To the half of a shrivelled pumpkin hanging at the door of my tent on my first essay in settling, one of our sooty satyrs could do nothing for some minutes but fidget and skip; and with his eyes sparkling, and countenance beaming with ecstacy, exclaim, "Dam my eye, pambucan; dam my eye, pambucan!" such being the nearest point they can attain to the right pronunciation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... not bad. They're rather creditable; but," Austin added, turning with a laugh to his brother, "the mother will fidget, you know, and the somewhat—let us say rococo style of architecture has got on her nerves. I think the whole thing had ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... not fidget about Victor, Marie. Elise is with him, and will come and let you know if he wakes; but I hope that he has gone off fairly to sleep for the night. He knew me, and I think I have put his mind at rest a little as to how he came here. ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... a fidget to know what's going on, particularly when Congress is in session. He takes ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... closured by a wild outcry from the wood, hounds and horn lifting up their voices together in sudden delirium. Old horses pricked their ears, and young ones, and notably, Nancy, began to fret and to fidget. Some one said, unnecessarily: "That's him!" A man, farther down the road, turned his horse, and standing in his stirrups, stared over the wall into the thick covert, rigid as a dog setting his game. Then he ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... distressed If you fidget when you're dressed. If you fidget like Miss Midget, Hopper, or her sister Bridget. Goops like that are so much bother, That they ought to dress ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... elude their grasp, while they fasten eagerly on the light and insignificant. They fidget themselves and others to death with incessant anxiety about nothing. A part of their dress that is awry keeps them in a fever of restlessness and impatience; they sit picking their teeth, or paring their nails, or stirring the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... promising campaign. Here you have moral heroism; ordinary valor is more impulsive. A weaker man, albeit total stranger to fear, ready to lead his division or his corps into the very mouth of hell, if commanded, being set himself to direct an army, will be either rash or else too timid, or fidget from one extreme to the other, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... that it would not do to stare at him. The instant she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... I was saying, as Cyrus was driving into Cadgwith yesterday to see Martha George's husband, who was run over by the Helston coach, and she such a regular attendant at the Prayer-meeting, but in the midst of life (Jasper, don't fidget)—well, whom should he see but Jane Ann Collins, with the finest pair of ducks, too, and costing a mere nothing. ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyers' clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... unnaturally willing to give way. Keble and Froude advocated their continuance strongly, and were angry with me for consenting to stop them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his own friends; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, took a high tone in his project of measures for dealing with bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scandalised him considerably. As for me, there was matter enough in the early Tracts ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... the pole, JOKIM, or we shall be all adrift. We'd better have kept to our first pitch; it was quiet there, and we hooked one or two sizeable ones. (Aside.) Fact is, you're such a fidget, you lose your fish, and then want to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various |
