"Restlessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But the restlessness of the times has seized upon the other families, the Pooleys, the Gardners, the Eliotts, younger by a century at least. They utilise the perfect peace for the ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... own room, and some time before midnight I went up, hoping that I might sleep. My long life in the open air had made all rooms and roofs seem confining and distasteful to me, and I slept badly in the best of beds. Now my restlessness so grew upon me that, some time past midnight, not having made any attempt to prepare for sleep, I arose, went quietly down the stair and out at the front door, to see if I could find more peace in the open air. I ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... to him, asking of the same business, for he had asked the jarl to speak about it as a friend. So I went in again, and Thora sat by herself yet, looking up to see who came now. I went and stood by her, staring into the fire, and feeling as if I wanted to go out again. Restlessness was in the very air while we ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... sleep. They have left the old, still, safe land far behind, and are out in the dark upon the strange, unstable, perilous sea. It is a new element, a new world, a new life; and the novelty, the restlessness, and even the dangers, have a fascination that charms the imagination and banishes repose. A few voyages cure one of these fancies; but this is how a ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... back and forth across her drawing room floor several times before she answered. She looked older in the early morning light. But her restlessness did not disturb Peter, who was reclining gracefully in a ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... tract of pre-historic savagery, and sharp eyes—notably those of Louis Weber—are beginning to detect certain similarities between this age and that. The peculiarity of the historic age, man's brilliant age, the age of civilization, is the conservatism of its technique and its spiritual restlessness. In the pre-historic age man's best energies were apparently devoted to perfecting the means to material existence. Improving the instrument was the grand preoccupation. From the old stone age to the new, from that to bronze, and from bronze to iron is the ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... what is the use of learning all this? If you do not feel by this time how delightful it is to fill your mind with beautiful pictures of nature, perhaps it would be useless to say more. But in this age of ours, when restlessness and love of excitement pervade so many lives, is it nothing to be taken out of ourselves and made to look at the wonders of nature going on around us? Do you never feel tired and "out of sorts," and want ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... truth, she had none. She was desperately jealous of Miss Todd, but she herself knew not why. She asked all manner of questions as to his going and coming, but she never asked herself why she was so anxious about it. She was in a twitter of sentimental restlessness, but she did not understand the cause of her own uneasiness. On the days that Sir Lionel came to her, she was happy, and in good spirits; when, however, he went to Miss Todd, she was fretful. Sometimes she would rally him on his ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... deep thoughts until the lights in the Girl's room were darkened and everything was quiet. Then he locked the screens inside and went into the night. The moon flooded all the hillside, until coarse print could have been read with keen eyes in its light. A restlessness, born of exultation he could not allay or control, was on him. She had not forgotten! After this, the dream would be effaced by reality. It was the beginning. He scarcely had dared hope for so ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... He seemed better because so quiet, but he grew weaker daily. All knew, and none better than himself, that life was slowly ebbing. His father came in more frequently than ever, for his son showed no restlessness at his presence now. At Mildred's request Vinton even began to greet him with something like a welcome, and the young girl did all in her power to make the old gentleman feel at home; sometimes she would place a large easy-chair by the fire and ask ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... secure against Jack Straw and a whirlwind? How I abominate Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who routed the poor Otaheitans out of the centre of the ocean, and carried our abominable passions amongst them! not even that poor little speck could escape European restlessness.' See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... what he called 'a Brew' of the agreeable beverage for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also became once more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. Micawber told us, 'her mother renewed ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the rest, But keep them with repining restlessness: Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... angry lampoons or rude violence. The poem is an idyll quite as much as a satire. The follies of fashionable life are treated with nothing severer than light raillery; and its actually distasteful features,—its lapses into stupidity, its vacuous restlessness, its ennui,—are cunningly suppressed. But all that made it seem the height of human felicity is preserved, and enhanced in charm. "Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames," one glides to Hampton Court amid youth and gayety and melting music; and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... however, faithful reflections of the restlessness which overcame peoples in all belligerent countries as the war lengthened and produced its logical trend towards anarchy; for civilization cannot resist an unlimited strain put on it by its negation, and there were symptoms of social dissolution throughout the world in ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... days, three days, a week passed by, and Charmian heard nothing more. She grew restless, but concealed her restlessness from her mother, who asked no questions. Claude Heath did not come to the house. As they never met him in society they did not see him at all, except now and then by chance at a concert or theater, unless he came to see them. Excited by Mrs. Mansfield's visit to him, he was much shut in, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... abundant. Of creature comforts she lacked nothing. But the days were long and the island was very still. For a while she talked aloud in the limited vocabulary of her tribe. After a time she entered into companionship with the frogs and birds, imitating their speech. Restlessness vanished, and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... lord Duke had his days of fret and restlessness as less fortunate men have them, and being held on the Continent by duties he had undertaken in calmer moments, lay sometimes awake at night reproaching himself that he had left England. Such hours do not make a man grow cooler, and ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... as a man of the world was to explain her unrest by a lover, some secret or forbidden or impossible lover. But he dismissed that because then she would ask her lover and not him all these things. Restlessness, then, was the trouble, simple restlessness: home bored her. He could quite understand the daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored and feeling limited. But was that enough? Dim, formless suspicions of something more vital wandered about his mind. Was the young ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Neegah affirmed. "And there were others. Why is there such a restlessness upon the Sunlanders?" he demanded petulantly. "Why do they not stay at home? The Snow People do not wander to the ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... crowd, conversing two and two, or giving and receiving introductions, and exchanging salutations; other functionaries in black gowns, and other functionaries in court- dresses, were similarly engaged. In the midst of all these, and stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessness of the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, some few steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with their faces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became, unintentionally, a sort of humane man-traps, and with their own devout legs, tripped ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... vague restlessness of one stared upon by innumerable eyes. "How one would like to speak," she said. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... of perpetual agitation gives the American an appearance of ceaseless restlessness, but it is in reality the true ground of peace and content. The American has no time to be discontented, and this is the most praiseworthy point of their constitution and popular life. The republican has necessarily as many severe and arduous duties to fulfil as the inhabitants of any ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... All Valentine's restlessness before the Visitors arrived was as nothing compared with his rapturous activity, now that they were fairly assembled. Not once had he stood still, or ceased talking since the first spectator entered ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... has pledged his knightly word to be in the firing line when the trumpet sounds. All the while, to the bewilderment of onlookers from the Continent, who confess they are further off than ever from understanding John Bull, to the creation of ominous restlessness among their own supporters, the Ministry, Brer Rabbit of established Governments, have 'lain low and said nuffin',' much less have they done anything. Suddenly, without word of warning, they take steps for the protection of military stores in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... earnest conversation with old Mrs. Wetmore, both seated on the stoop of the cottage, in the mild summer's evening, and Lucy walking, to and fro, on the short grass of the willow bottom, with an impatience and restlessness of manner it was very unusual for her to exhibit. No sooner was Kitty alighted, than she ran to her grandmother, Marble following, while I hastened to the point where was to be found the great object ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... that though returning to my hammock, I did not return to my repose. I lay in all the restlessness of expectation till day-break, when the Captain summoned me upon deck by the grateful intelligence that we were entering the port of Calais. Hurrying upon deck, I beheld a spectacle which immediately dispelled all the uneasy ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... last days of July a strange restlessness had taken possession of Violet Tempest. She could not read or occupy herself in any way. Those long rambles about the island, to wild precipices looking down on peaceful bays, to furzy hills where a few scattered sheep were her sole companions, to heathery steeps that were ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... the past week he had heard it—once as he went by the market-place of Manitou; once as he returned in the dusk from Tekewani's Reservation, and once at dawn from the woods behind the house. His present restlessness and suppressed agitation ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... consented readily enough, and after listening to his heart, and asking him a few questions which might suggest a cause for his restlessness at night, I asked him to look at me fixedly while I gently stroked his forehead above the eyes with my hand. Imagine my surprise when I found him to be an extremely sensitive hypnotic subject. He did not become entirely ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... not offer to join her, but she had a feeling that his eyes followed her wherever she went, and a great restlessness kept her moving. She could not feel at her ease in his vicinity. She wanted very urgently to secure his friendship. She had counted upon that day in his society to do so. But it seemed to be his resolve to hold aloof. He seemed ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... exploration of the great plateau where the Mississippi River finds its sources, and secured his appointment as second lieutenant of topographical engineers. These labors brought him to Washington, where the same Gallic restlessness which made the restraint of schools insupportable, brought about an attachment, elopement, and marriage with the daughter of Senator ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... days I was wild with restlessness. Life revived to dare things. We heard afterwards that about that time the meteor rushed once more across France. Napoleon landed at a Mediterranean port, gathering force as he marched, swept Louis XVIII away like ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had known, of course, that the Gowers still made more or less use of their summer cottage. But he had not come in personal contact with any of them since the night Betty had given him that new, disturbing angle from which to view her. He had avoided her purposely. Now he was afflicted with a sudden restlessness, a desire for other voices and faces besides his own, and so, as he was in the habit of doing when such a mood seized him, he went on ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... remained many weeks hidden within call of each other; but she was unconscious of the fact. I longed to have her share my den, which seemed a more secure retreat than her own; but I had brought so much trouble on my grandmother, that it seemed wrong to ask her to incur greater risks. My restlessness increased. I had lived too long in bodily pain and anguish of spirit. Always I was in dread that by some accident, or some contrivance, slavery would succeed in snatching my children from me. This thought drove me nearly frantic, and I determined to steer ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... is division. If there is a thing specially native to religion it is peace and union. Hence the original attraction towards unity in Rome, and hence the great charm when that unity is once attained." The sharp contrast between the actual restlessness and uncertainty of the dissident Churches, and the calm assurance and self-possession of the Catholic Church, is not that an abiding proof of the security of ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... hours after noon Paula's restlessness had increased so much that now and then she wandered out of the sick-room, which looked over the garden, to watch the Nile-quay from the window of the anteroom; for he might arrive by either way. She never ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... success of our old system of defence depended on four relations. Firstly, there is the relation between the rapidity with which an invasion force could be mobilised and embarked, and the rapidity with which restlessness in foreign ports and places d'armes could be reported; that is to say, the chance of surprise and evasion are as the speed of preparation to ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... who are subject to the influx of their passions because of their natural eagerness in action, are for that very reason more suited for the active life, and this because of the restlessness of their temperament. Hence S. Gregory says[488]: "Some are so restless that if they desist from work they suffer grievously, for the more free they are to think the worse interior tumults they have to endure." Some, on the contrary, have a ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... but that she tires him by her variety—not that she is too static, but that she is too dynamic. He is weary when he gets home, and asks only the dull peace of a hog in a comfortable sty. This peace is broken by the greater restlessness of his wife, the fruit of her greater intellectual ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... Dane. Bernard never spoke to him to praise him, or to enter into any of his pursuits; he only treated him with the grave distant respect due to him as a Prince, or else now and then spoke a few stern words to him of reproof for this restlessness, or ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... empty waste, No lordless host of things; My restlessness but seeks thy rest; My little good doth seek thy best, My needs ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated. In Europe almost all the disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of home, is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and the evil of fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions which frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... fail him. I believe that he really, thought perhaps unconsciously, desired a freer hand, and that he found that the community life on the whole cramped his individuality. His later life was indeed a complete contrast to anything resembling community life; his constant restlessness of motion, his travels, his succession of engagements both in all parts of England as well as in Rome and America, were really, I do not doubt, more congenial to him; while his home life ultimately became only his opportunity ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bullets pinging by, prevented men from greeting so dear a sight. Standing on the beach of imminent strife, in act to plunge, men cried, 'The Tigress, the Tigress!' Instantly a scene flashed back to memory from the book so often near to thought in these days: how Xenophon, weary and anxious with the restlessness and depression of his much-tried troops, heard a clamour from those who had reached a hill-crest, and, riding swiftly up to take measures against the expected peril, found them shouting 'Thalatta, Thalatta.' ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... she returned quickly. "I believe in a girl's taking a profession, when it is the one absorbing interest of her life. It wouldn't be so with Babe. She would take it from restlessness, not love, from sheer unused vitality that must have an outlet. It was different with Ted; it will be different with Allyn. They are ready to give up other things for their ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... is how remarkably our Lord identifies this anxiety and restlessness which He forbids with what at first sight seems its exact opposite, namely a calmness and peace which he also condemns as wholly bad. The whole series of warnings of which our text is part begins with the story of the rich man whose ground brought forth plentifully. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... no longer weighed upon by his exhausted body. A great restlessness had seized it, a desire to walk, to walk on and on without stopping. The young day had lured him into the Regent's Park. So gentle was the weather that, but for bare branches and blanched sky, it might have been a day in Spring. As ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of his kiss. Then they had walked on together, hand in hand; but she remembered that, even before they left the wood, something seemed to have dimmed the extraordinary bliss of the first moment—some restlessness in him—some touch of absent-mindedness, as though he grudged himself ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hilda sighed. This dreadful age, which has produced communists, petroleuses, and liberal thinkers, had communicated its vague restlessness even to her; although she belonged to that higher region where nobody ever thinks at all, and everybody is more or less devout in seeming at any rate, because disbelief is vulgar, and religion is an "affaire des moeurs," like decency, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... itself in every degree of disturbance from mere peevishness and fretfulness to severe and intensely painful attacks in which restlessness passes into grunting, writhing, and kicking; the forehead becomes puckered and the face has an agonized expression; the baby tends to scream violently and draws his thighs up against his belly, which will usually be found to be hard and more or ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... cynic would get, becoming rather more scarlet, however, over the process of reflection than was quite compatible with the ostentatious worldly wisdom of it. Then a sudden inward restlessness would break through, and she would spend a passionate hour pacing up and down, and hungering for the moment when she might avenge upon herself and him the week of silly friendship he had found it necessary as her elder and monitor to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... principle of Satyagrah that effectively checked the spread of violence throughout the length and breadth of India. And even to-day it is not the memory of the black barbarity of General Dyer that is keeping the undoubted restlessness among the people from breaking forth into violence. The hold that Satyagrah has gained on the people—it may be even against their will—is curbing the forces of disorder and violence. But I must not detain the reader on a defence of Satyagrah against unjust attacks. ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... nature of the treatment given to the court of her father by Shakespeare and Fletcher corroborates our view. Further, the growing mastery of technic which is so clearly perceptible in the comedies of the second period must have been accompanied by a restlessness under the hampering conditions as to the manipulation of character and plot which were imposed by the less plastic material of the chronicles. Some effort towards greater freedom the dramatist made in the later histories. The earlier plays of this class ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... impossible. Moreover, he was as certain as a father could be, intimate with, and therefore confident of, his eldest son, that though Hubert might indulge in a little lively flirtation, it could never be otherwise than perfectly harmless. In the terrible suspense and restlessness, he went vibrating about in the torrents of moorland rain between Rock Quay and the Goyle, on the watch for telegrams from the office in London or his wife at home, or for the discovery of anything from the sea, or searching in his son's lodgings, where nothing was found that did not show ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... enlivened for his son by his fund of far-gathered business incidents and adventures, pointed with his crude but apt philosophy, and irradiated with his centripetal optimism. He possessed and was conscious of this prime virtue of talk, that he was never tiresome. Yet recently he had noted a restlessness verging to actual distaste on Hal's part, whenever he turned the conversation upon his favorite topic, the greatness of Certina and the commercial romance ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... would revolve with more energy if geared into the wheels of the working world. But that world and we do not draw our power from the same dynamo. And surely in a day of profound and widespread mental ferment and moral restlessness, some more fundamental gift than this ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... Restlessness drove Zarwell from his flat the next day—a legal holiday on St. Martin's. At a railed-off lot he stopped and loitered in the shadow of an adjacent building watching workmen drilling an excavation for a ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... was nicknamed, his real name being Harry March, had a dashing, reckless, off-hand manner, and a restlessness that kept him constantly moving about from place to place. He was six feet four in height, well proportioned, with a good-humoured, handsome face. Deerslayer was a very different man from Hurry Harry, both, in appearance and character. He, too, was tall, being six feet high, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... That it was an equally interesting probability to the sterner sex was soon made evident by the unusual alacrity with which they joined the circle. They broke up into groups and knots, scattered through the length of the handsome, brilliantly lighted room, but a curious restlessness was apparent; no one settled down to cards or music. Even the "odd" individual moved about and dropped cynical remarks along the route of his progress, instead of sitting down to backgammon as was his wont. A few other misguided individuals, of the male ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... his eye fell again upon the stranger near the door, and he straightway forgot his Dixit Dominus. The face of the young man was no longer hidden by the slouching position he had at first taken. "I only noticed his clothes at first," thought the Padre. Restlessness was plain upon the handsome brow, and violence was in the mouth; but Padre Ignacio liked the eyes. "He is not saying any prayers," he surmised, presently. "I doubt if he has said any for a long while. And he knows my music. He is of educated people. He cannot be American. And now—yes, ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... It was the anniversary of their marriage, and, so far, Jim had won, with what fightings and strugglings and wrestlings of the spirit only Sally and himself knew. And she knew as well as he, and always saw the storm coming before it broke—a restlessness, then a moodiness, then a hungry, eager, helpless look, and afterwards an agony of longing, a feverish desire to break away and get the thrilling thing which would still ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... travelling. There are three wants, he said, that can never be satisfied: that of the rich who want something more; that of the sick who want something different; and that of the traveller who says, Anywhere but here. Their restlessness, he told his countrymen, argued want of character. They were infatuated with 'the rococo toy of Italy.' As if what was true anywhere were not true everywhere; and as if a man, go where he will, can find ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... and Clare was still toying with her cup of tea. A book was in her lap, but her thoughts were far away. Her face still wore its sad and somewhat wistful look; yet there was gradually dawning upon it the sense of repose and rest. Her sisters noted the old fretfulness and restlessness had gone out of her tones, and whilst Elfie wondered, Agatha rejoiced that trouble had ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... inefficiency, and regretting that he had not himself made one of the party, he wandered in his restlessness to another part of the woods, and the ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... that, after their late unpleasantness, it would be more dignified to take no notice of Bub for a while; but curiosity, and baby's restlessness, finally prevailed over pride, and rolling up her troublesome little burden in an old red shawl, she trotted with him down to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... still had that air of expectancy. He seemed to listen. This feeling of imminence reached Bobby; increased his restlessness. He thought he heard an automobile horn outside. He sprang up, went to the door, opened it, and stood gazing through the damp and narrow court. Yet, he confessed, he listened for a repetition of that unearthly crying through the thicket rather than for the approach of those who would try ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... dissatisfaction which she sought to explain by talking of a solution of sympathy was very obstinate, but justice set the responsibility down to her account, not to his; analysing her temperament, without excusing it, she found a spirit of adventure and experiment—or should she say of restlessness and levity?—which Marchmont did not minister to nor yet assuage. The only pleasure that lay in this discovery came from the fact that it was so opposed to the general idea about her. For it was her lot to be exalted into a type of the splendid calm patrician maiden. In ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... notification and celebration, by means of a grand processional entry into the capital, stretching for upwards of a mile; and in January 1816, the late king, now formally deposed, "a stout, good-looking Malabar, with a peculiarly keen and roving eye, and a restlessness of manner, marking unbridled passions," was conveyed in the governor's carriage to the jetty at Trincomalee, from which port H.M.S. Mexico conveyed him to the Indian continent: he was there confined in the fortress of Vellore, famous for the bloody ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... him the homage of the stronger man. And it was clearly his influence that broke up and fired Raeburn's slower and more distrustful temper, informing an inbred Toryism, a natural passion for tradition, and the England of tradition with that "repining restlessness" which is the best spur of ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and only weakened his authority. The usher's miseries grew acute, and he lost the patience that alleviated his sufferings. He could not put up with the lads' restlessness, their happy laughter and light-hearted enjoyment of life. He showed temper, venting his spite on mere acts of thoughtlessness or simple ebullitions of high spirits. Then he would fall into a sort of torpor. He had long fits of absentmindedness, during which he was deaf to every noise. ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... letter-box under "M," I saw a small gray envelope. Instinct told me that it was for me, and that it was from Lucy. Then somehow all my feeling of restlessness and suspense melted away like a lump of sugar in hot tea. I felt at once ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... your mind are too narrow for that flood of energy. Yet it is notable that you are hard to root out of your bed; that you start forth, singing, indeed, on your walk, yet are unusually ready to turn home again; that the best of you is volatile; and that although the restlessness remains till night, the strength is early at an end. With all these heady jollities, you are half conscious of an underlying languor in the body; you prove not to be so well as you had fancied; you weary before you have well begun; and though you mount at morning ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... different from his neighbors. He was dignified, yet his dignity was not like that of a thrush; he was calm and cool, yet not after the manner of an orchard oriole. He possessed a lovely gentleness of disposition, and a repose of manner unparalleled among my birds. Vulgar restlessness was unknown to him; flying about for mere exercise, or hopping from perch to perch to pass away time, he scorned. The frivolous way common to smaller birds of going for each seed as they want it, was beneath him. When he wished to eat he did so like a civilized ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... friends had been brought up in another school, whose maxim was—priusquam incipias, consulta—sed ubi consulueris, mature facto, opus est. The Premier stood unmoved by the entreaties, the coaxings, and the threatenings of those wriggling before him in miserable discomfiture and restlessness on the abhorred benches of Opposition; calmly demonstrating to them the folly and injustice of which they were guilty. Yet the circumstances of the country made his adherence to this first determination exquisitely trying. He relied, however, on the cautious integrity of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... laziness; others trooped down toward the corral. Holderness rolled a cigarette and stooped over the campfire to reach a burning stick. Snap Naab stalked to and fro before the door of the cabin. He alone of the rustler's band showed restlessness, and more than once he glanced up the trail that led over the divide toward his father's oasis. Holderness sent expectant glances in the other direction toward Seeping Springs. Once his clear voice ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... to Ebury Street shortly after, where Philip, weary of waiting, and having made a meal he much wanted off the sandwiches, had gone out again in his restlessness and unhappiness. Elinor, who had become paler and paler as the carriage approached Ebury Street, and who by the time she reached the house looked really as if at last she must swoon, her heart choking her, her breathing quick and feverish, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... constituted to take a great deal of ease. Deprive her of that, and you starve her as effectually as you famish a human being by abstraction of food. Her personal appearance confirms her philosophy; for you can detect not one particle of restlessness about her. All is soft, rounded, and woolly, as if she carried an atmosphere of deafening about ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... true style of his times. But the melancholy poet that was in the man, his lyric pessimism, and his unassuaged thirst for the infinite—these things they did not see. Caylus, who has left the only data of value, speaks of Watteau's hatred of life, his aversion at times from the human face, his restlessness that caused him to seek new abodes—Chopin was always dissatisfied with his lodgings and always changing them. The painter made friends in plenty, only to break with them because of some fancied slight. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... her, I don't know how I ever could do without her. People talk of female curiosity," said my mother, with a slightly belligerent air; "I never found but men had fully as much curiosity as women. Now, what will become of us all if your restlessness about this should be the means of Mary's leaving us? You know the perfectly dreadful times we had before she came, and I don't know anybody who has less patience to bear such ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... presented, as before, that appearance in which reality forsook it, and it became merely an amazing picture. The audience supported the notion of its unreality by having exactly the character of the former audiences, and impressed you, despite its restlessness and incessant agitation, with the feeling that it had remained there from the first day, and would always continue there; and it was only in wandering upon its borders through the promenades, that you regained possession of facts concerning it. In no other way was its vastness more observable ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... to spend the evening with Agatha and her mother. They both remarked that I was pale and haggard. About nine Professor Pratt-Haldane came in, and we played a game of whist. I tried hard to concentrate my attention upon the cards, but the feeling of restlessness grew and grew until I found it impossible to struggle against it. I simply COULD not sit still at the table. At last, in the very middle of a hand, I threw my cards down and, with some sort of an incoherent apology about having an appointment, I rushed from the room. As if in a dream I have a ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... beyond the mere animal life we begin to come upon an incompleteness. The symptoms at first are slight, and betray themselves only by an unexplained restlessness or a dull sense of want. Then the feverishness increases, becomes more defined, and passes slowly into abiding pain. To some come darker moments when the unrest deepens into a mental agony of which all the other woes of earth are mockeries—moments when the forsaken soul can only ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... coronation, she made her appearance twice in public, on the completion of her thirteenth year, in 1832. That was a year in which there was much call for oil to be cast on the troubled waters: never since 1819, the date of the Queen's birth had there been greater restlessness and turmoil throughout the country. For some time public feeling had been kept at the boiling-point by the question of the Reform Bill—groaned over by some as the first step to democracy and destruction; eagerly hailed by others as a new dawn of freedom, peace, and prosperity. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... others, and their number was by no means inconsiderable, remained with their former masters and continued their work on the field, but under new and as yet unsettled conditions, and under the agitating influence of a feeling of restlessness. In some localities, however, where our troops had not yet penetrated and where no military post was within reach, planters endeavored and partially succeeded in maintaining between themselves and the negroes the relation of master and slave, partly by concealing from them the great changes ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... As they headed the canoe in that direction the wolverines nearly brought disaster on them. The animals' restlessness became acute as they sighted and scented the shore and knew that they were close. Taggi reared, plunged over the side of the craft, and Shann had just time to fling his weight in the opposite direction as a counterbalance when Togi followed. They splashed ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... love to express it) does nothing in vain, or, to speak properly, since the Author of our Being has planted no wandering Passion in it, no Desire which has not its Object, Futurity is the proper Object of the Passion so constantly exercis'd about it; and this Restlessness in the present, this assigning our selves over to further Stages of Duration, this successive grasping at somewhat still to come, appears to me (whatever it may to others) as a kind of Instinct or natural Symptom which the Mind of Man has ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... light his lamp in his chambers, whilst he was having his interview with Bows. Bows came back to his own rooms presently, passing by the lodge door, and looking into Mrs. Bolton's, according to his wont, as he passed, but with a very melancholy face. She had another weary night that night. Her restlessness wakened her little bedfellows more than once. She daren't read more of 'Walter Lorraine:' Father was at home, and would suffer no light. She kept the book under her pillow, and felt for it in the night. She had only just got to sleep, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for anything I know at present,' answered Fanny, with indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning restlessness, she added, 'You talk about the clever men, you little thing! It's all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but where are they? I don't see them ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Schlieben had come to this decision, he was troubled with the same restlessness as his wife. Oh, if only it were morning, she groaned. If anybody should steal a march on them now, if the child should no longer be there next morning? She tossed about in her impatience and fear. But her husband also ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... marries misery, but I think there are instances enough in this book to show that genius has nothing to do with the case. Wedded happiness is a result of the lucky meeting of two natures, one or both of which may be accidentally so constituted as to be happy in the other's society without undue restlessness. It would be just as easy to prove, by a multitude of instances, that plumbers or bookkeepers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, or thieves make poor husbands as to prove the same of musicians, artists, poets, architects, or ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... thinking that perhaps a visit from his "best girl" might help to allay the new restlessness she found in him, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... ambition of the village of New Salem was many times multiplied in the restlessness and ambition of Springfield, fifteen or twenty miles away, which, located approximately near the geographical center of Illinois, was already beginning to crave, if not yet to feel, its future destiny ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... themselves absolved from anything more. The penalty of it is a gradual decline of the unused powers, growing difficulty of sustained attention, dislike for what requires effort of mind, loss of wider interests, restlessness and superficiality in reading, and other indications of diminution of power in the years when it ought to be on the increase. Is this the fault of those who so decline in power? It would be hard to say that it is so universally, for some no doubt are pressed through necessity to the ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... had grown yet more angular: his brows seemed to project more broodingly over his eyes, which, though of undiminished brightness, were sunk deep in their sockets, and had lost much of their quick restlessness. The character of his mind had begun to stamp itself on the physiognomy, especially on the mouth when in repose. It was, a face striking for acute intelligence, for concentrated energy; but there was ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the recording angel; but at other times pure, and without blemish. The story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Father's restlessness, both of body and mind, is inimitable. It is the model from which all those despicable performances against modern philosophy ought to have been copied, if their authors had known any thing of the subject ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... large letters, that it belongs to the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company. I believe then, gentlemen, that if there were any life in the national mind in such respects, it would be shown in these its most energetic and costly works. But that there is no such life, nothing but a galvanic restlessness and covetousness, with which it is for the present vain to strive; and in the midst of which, tormented at once by its activities and its apathies, having their work continually thrust aside and dishonored, always seen to disadvantage, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... to the mass of characters because the mass of characters have unconsciously imitated it. Many of the American characteristics are plainly useful in such a life, and consequent on such a life. The eager restlessness, the highly-strung nervous organisation are useful in continual struggle, and also are promoted by it. These traits seem to be arising in Australia, too, and wherever else the English race is placed ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... towards the early dusk that a restlessness came on, and an increase of the distress and oppression of breath, which he thought might be more bearable in his chair; and Mr. Audley, who had just come in, began with Felix to dress him, and prepare to move him. But just as they were helping him towards the chair, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to do or say anything that would cause him to move before the company had had a full enjoyment of the scene. It was voted unanimously that Tomah should be permitted to remain and enjoy the pleasures of society for one evening; but, with characteristic restlessness, he got tired as soon as the music was over, and unceremoniously took his leave of ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... was able to be about again, her pale face was harder than ever; and, had there been about her any one discerning enough to notice it, there was a subtle change in her bearing and manner. A certain nervous expectancy, a fluttering restlessness was gone. Isabella had ceased to hope secretly that her husband would yet come back. She had in her secret soul thought he would; and she had meant to forgive him when she had humbled him sufficiently, and when he had abased himself as she considered ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... room. But, after an hour or two spent with his own thoughts, his restlessness became so great that he sought the gossips below for relief. He found them all clustered about Hazen, who was reeling off stories by the mile. This was unendurable to him and he was striding off, when Hazen burst away from his listeners and, joining ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... sagacious than a restless activity. We should let Fortune perform her part at the wheel in working out her ends, should we not?—for, ten to one, nine times out of ten we are thwarting her if we stretch out a hand. And with the range of enjoyments possessed by Victor, why this unceasing restlessness? Why, when we are not near drowning, catch at apparent straws, which may be instruments having sharp edges? Themison, as Mrs. Burman's medical man, might tell the lady tales that would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... friends, sometimes by employing emissaries, and without troubling themselves much about the manner in which they acquired their information. The King wished to know whether in any part, in any corner, of the kingdom, the people were restless, and what was the cause of their restlessness; or whether there had happened any disturbance to which it was necessary to draw the attention of the council-general, and other similar matters. He sought also to know whether any of the subjugated nations were inclined to revolt; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... more than the minimum wage. We should have, of course, our uneasiness about the final decisions of that universal eye which has turned upon us, we should have those ridiculous sham numbers on our consciences; but that general restlessness, that brooding stress that pursues the weekly worker on earth, that aching anxiety that drives him so often to stupid betting, stupid drinking, and violent and mean offences will have vanished out ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... life. Edgar would have returned to his home and forgotten Eugene, and Eugene would have gone his way and never known that Edgar had a younger sister Julia sitting at the gate awaiting the coming of her prince. But shortly after returning to St. Louis, Field was inspired by his natural roving restlessness—the French call it Fate—to run clear across the state of Missouri, some three hundred miles, to see what kind of a town St. Joseph was and incidentally to visit his college friend. Nearly twenty years later, in the gathering gloom of a rented apartment in London, the still-constant lover ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... education, which is now in a way to become a heritage of all mankind, rather than the privilege of so-called superior peoples, undoubtedly has had the effect of greatly increasing the mobility and restlessness of the world's population. In so far as this is true, it has made the problem of maintaining peace ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... hand, Well knowing that to ask was to command? Well knowing, what all falconers confessed, In all the land that falcon was the best, The master's pride and passion and delight, And the sole pursuivant of this poor knight. But yet, for her child's sake, she could no less Than give assent to soothe his restlessness, So promised, and then promising to keep Her promise sacred, saw him ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... what he would desire. But to-night he was in an unusual mood—a mood that was the culmination of a restlessness covering an entire month. But what the deuce was the name and cause of it? He could no longer attribute it to the fact that he had gone stale physically, because he had now had a rest of several weeks. It was not that he was bored; those who are bored ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... only peculiarity that struck me on those occasions was the uneasy restlessness which he seemed to feel in wearing a hat,—an article of dress which, from his constant use of a carriage while in England, he was almost wholly unaccustomed to, and which, after that year, I do not remember to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... love, for many days," she went on, twining and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers, which poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to cure her of—"I have thought of it very seriously, and I can be sure of my courage when my own conscience tells me I am right. Let me speak to him to-morrow—in your presence, Marian. I will say nothing that is ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... exclaimed his wife, as soon as he had left them. "He has been sitting with me all the afternoon, my poor Herbert, trying to curb his restlessness, because he knows how much worse I am without him. Am I not a trying wife to him? and yet he says he could not do without me. There, it has passed: let us talk of something else. And so you are going to leave us?" ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... very quiet, and the teacher questioned if he were planning mischief. The little pupils watched him, and wondered when his restlessness ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... and devoted friend of mine—having revived the opera, Bohemian society became her hobby; but a tenor in the country or a dancer on the lawn are not really wanted; and, although she spent endless time at Covent Garden and achieved considerable success, restlessness devoured her. While receiving the adoration of a small but influential circle, she appeared to me to have tried everything to no purpose and, in spite of an experience which queens and actresses, professionals and amateurs ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... arms over his chest to crush back the heavy sigh struggling for escape. The long overcoat buttoned from throat to knee, enhanced his height, and upon his stern, handsome features had settled an expression of sorrowful perplexity; while his keen eyes showed the feverish restlessness that, despite his efforts, betrayed heartache. Above the heads of the gay throng he had just left, he had seen all that evening a slender white hand beckoning to him from the bars of a dungeon; and dominating the music ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Gale retreated until it was safe for him to rise and walk on down the arroyo. He found Blanco Sol contentedly grazing. A heavy dew was falling, and, as the grass was abundant, the horse did not show the usual restlessness and distress after a dry and exhausting day. Gale carried his saddle blankets and bags into the lee of a little greasewood-covered mound, from around which the wind had cut the soil, and here, in a wash, he ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... her eyes rested upon the distant, grazing horse. A strange restlessness seemed to be upon her. She was fidgeting with the gauntlet which she had just removed. Then slowly her right hand passed round to her hip, where it rested upon the butt of her revolver. There was a tight drawnness about her lips and her keen gray eyes ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... money-changer, and in a month the fiery dust rises in the track of his desert steed, or in the six months' polar midnight he hears the big wave clashing on the icy shore. The close presence of the sea feeds the Englishman's restlessness. She takes possession of his heart like some fair capricious mistress. Before the boy awakes to the beauty of cousin Mary, he is crazed by the fascinations of ocean. With her voices of ebb and flow she ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... tempted to seek Dexie's presence, and try again to win a word that would give him some hope. All his future plans seemed to depend on the way Dexie treated him, and he waited her coming, uplifted sometimes by hope, but more often depressed by fear, and with a restlessness that made him almost irritable at times. He insisted on filling his usual place in the store, glad enough to keep his mind occupied and his thoughts away ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... mood, fantastic day-dreaming, a heightened subjectivity to the environment, inability to form correct critical judgment concerning unpleasant occurrences about them and a strong tendency to suggestibility. On the physical side these patients were subject to headaches, migraine, restlessness and anxiety, often associated with disturbances of heart-action, hypochondriacal complaints, and a tendency to become easily tired upon physical or psychic exertion. They also showed, as a rule, intolerance for alcohol, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... the bird student there is keen delight in watching for the first spring arrivals and noting their departure with the dying year. It is usually in August that we first observe an unwonted restlessness on the part of our birds which tells us that they have begun to hear the call of the {66} South. The Blackbirds assemble in flocks and drift aimlessly about the fields. Every evening for weeks they will collect a chattering multitude in the trees of some lawn, or ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... firmer voice—'Be sure not to breathe a word about it to any one. We must not alarm Lady Cheverel and Sir Christopher. Miss Sarti may be only walking in the garden. She was terribly excited by what she saw yesterday, and perhaps was unable to lie down from restlessness. Just go quietly through the empty rooms, and see whether she is in the house. I will go and look for her in ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... This restlessness, this desire to escape into a greater and more beautiful world, pursued him to Oxford, and, for the moment, he found that greater and beautiful world in the life of Balliol. Bishop Ryle, a good judge, has ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... attention to her own household, and Adelaide, quite worn out with nursing, needed rest; and so, with a little help from Chloe, Mr. Dinsmore took the whole care of his little girl, mixing and administering her medicines with his own hand, giving her her food, soothing her in her hours of restlessness, reading, talking, singing to her—exerting all his powers for her entertainment, and never weary of waiting upon her. He watched by her couch night and day; only now and then snatching a few hours of sleep on a sofa ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... orders. His own high-flowing phrases came back to me, and I could have laughed, seeing him, but I remembered that those phrases had been the sabre cuts which drove me into action, that but for them I might be dozing like the very dogs, dozing with the unhappy restlessness of enforced inaction. Perhaps I was moving to barren conquests, but barren conquests are better than defeat. He had moved to defeat, and I pitied him. He asked of me excuse and explanation. I, having none to give, was silent. But I think he must ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... of 1908 the restlessness of the Zakka Khel again made a British expedition necessary, under Sir James Willcocks; but the campaign was speedily ended, though in the following April he had again to proceed against the Mohmands, the situation being complicated by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... flashed, and he turned his feet one way and the other in a restlessness that would not find vent for itself in speech. Elizabeth looked at him with a smile at finding her prediction so instantly verified. But she, too, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... as she was, there was one who kept the vigils with her, knowing exactly when she fell away at last into a slumber all the deeper for the restlessness which had preceded it. Anna slept very soundly as Adah knew she would, and when toward morning a light footstep glided across her threshold she did not hear it. The bolt was drawn, the key was turned, and just as the clock struck three, Adah stood ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... working hours an absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art disappeared. He was content to forget the expression of himself—that youthful longing—in contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In other words, the art of creation was attended with less friction. He worked unconsciously, and he did not, ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... This restlessness of the ocean, creating an undulating surface, even during long-continued calms, excites the wonder of all who, never having been abroad upon the waters, imagine its surface is always smooth and unruffled unless disturbed by a gale of wind. This "tramp of the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... say when the little worries, annoyances and disagreements began, when I first felt a restlessness creeping over me. I tried to hide these moods from her, but always she divined them. And yet I was sure that I loved Maude; in a surprisingly short period I had become accustomed to her, dependent on her ministrations and the normal, cosy intimacy of our companionship. I did not like to think ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... disturbance, movement, stir, tumult, commotion, excitement, restlessness, strain, unrest, disquiet, motion, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... three or four days only before his death, speaking of the little fear he had of undergoing a chirurgical operation, "I would give one of these legs for a year more of life, I mean of comfortable life, not such as that which I now suffer;"—and lamented much his inability to read during his hours of restlessness; "I used formerly, (he added,) when sleepless in bed, to read like ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... felt, at length, When March winds brought vague rumours of the spring, A certain sense of "restlessness with rest." My aching frame was weary of ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... order to do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of innocence, he soon became one in all the king's parties of pleasure, without gaining the ill will of the courtiers. In play he was successful, in love unfortunate; or, to speak more properly, his restlessness and jealousy overcame his natural prudence, in a situation wherein he had most occasion for it. La Motte Agencourt was one of the maids of honour to the queen dowager, and, though no sparkling beauty, she had drawn away ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... are modest and unassuming; indeed taciturnity is as much a distinguishing trait of Indian character, as it ever was of the Roman. In their councils and public meetings, they never manifest an impatience to be heard, or a restlessness under observations, either grating to personal feeling or opposite to their individual ideas of propriety: on the contrary they are still, silent and attentive; and each is heard with the respect due to his years, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... baby Maggot's nature was presently exhibited in his becoming tired of the sun, and the restlessness of his disposition displayed itself in his frantic efforts to get out of bed. Being boxed in with a board, this was not an easy matter, but the urchin's limbs were powerful, and he finally got over the obstruction, sufficiently ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the trunks were labeled and set aside, some in the outside hall and some in the corner of the room. She had sat down with some mending on her lap, and Hutchinson was walking about the room with the restlessness of the traveler whose approaching journey will not let ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sleep, and morning's earliest light, All soft and rosy, tempts my restlessness To ask from Nature what of peace she gives. I gaze abroad, and all my soul is moved At that strange calm that floats o'er earth at rest. The silver sickle of the summer moon Hangs on the purple east. The morning star, Like a late watcher's ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... hope you do not think of going there,' said he, 'especially at this moment; the excitement is intense, blood has already flowed, and a catastrophe is imminent.' So back we went to our mountain castle, but in a few days became again a prey to the same restlessness, and, not being able to overcome it, decided to go at all risks and see for ourselves the condition of affairs; and this time, neither advice nor warning having any effect, we not only set out, but we arrived at our destination ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... what, you ask, is the pathway to any such betterment as I have ventured roughly to sketch to-night? I will not attempt to map it, but I feel very confident which way it does not run. I am sure it does not run through the region of disaffection, complaint, threatening, restlessness, petulance, or secession. Mere fretfulness never carries its points. No, the true way to better things is always to begin by holding on manfully to that which we already are convinced is good. The best ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... I suppose I will," answered Everett, with a trace of restlessness in his voice. "I'm just as sound as a dollar now and I'm wild to go with that gang the firm is sending up into British Columbia to thrash out that copper question. I know they counted on me for the final ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... But even more remarkable is what we may call the modernity of this twelfth century Persian poet. We sometimes hear it said that great periods of civilization end in a manifestation of infidelity and despair. There can be no doubt that a great deal of restlessness and misgiving characterizes the minds of to-day in regard to all questions of religion. Europe, in the nineteenth century, as reflected in the works of Byron, Spencer, Darwin, and Schopenhauer, is very much in the same condition as intellectual Persia in the twelfth century, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... began to bestir themselves with the nervous restlessness of pent-up energy. Parker Hitchcock came into the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... complex and exciting world that has its headquarters in Fleet Street. For a short period Dickens occupied the editorship of the Daily News, but the environment was not a very congenial one. Dickens was unsettled with that strange restlessness that seizes all literary men at some time or other. This was the time that saw the publication of 'Dombey and Son.' Chesterton thinks that the essential genius found its most perfect expression in this work though the treatment is grotesque. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... form of association, even into adult life, but it is only in recent years that adults have recognized the legitimacy of such a claim as the right to play. It was thought desirable that a boy should work off his restlessness, but the wood-pile provided the usual safety-valve for surplus energy. Play was a waste of time. Now it is more clearly understood that play has a distinct value. It is physically beneficial, expanding the lungs, strengthening muscle and nerve, and giving poise and elasticity to the whole body. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... "Ere long the restlessness of approaching death appeared, and she was borne to the sofa; on being asked if she were easier, she looked gratefully at her questioner, and said, 'It is not YOU who can give me ease, but soon all will be well, through ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not listen to a word of it. She fidgeted, not with movement of hands or feet, but with the restlessness of mind and eyes. She gazed at the boards of the ceiling, at the boards of the floor, at the log walls on which each shadow had a scalloped edge because of the form of tree-trunks laid one above another. At length her eyes rested on the lid of the coffin, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the need for action—to do what? Impatience was capped by the realization of his own impotence; Rosemary Villa was, no doubt, at that very moment, subjected to a close espionage. He heard the man-servant in the garden, and unable to restrain a growing restlessness to know the worst, Steele mounted the ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... few days ago the lady of my house took wings for New York—a little spree of her own, you understand. And, for Billy Fernmore, I kept out of mischief, for a time, fairly well. After waiting days, lamb-like, for her return, restlessness—;" and here Fernmore's shameless affectation of the neglected husband became so irresistibly funny that it provoked prolonged laughter from his listeners, even Droom showing his yellow snags and stretching his mouth to the fullest extent ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... education and refinement; they were, indeed, many of them, the very cream of Americans. The new scenes and associations, the escape from the influence of home and friends, of wife and children, led some off the dim track, and their restlessness could not well be put down. Reasonable men could not expect all persons under these circumstances to be models of virtue. Then the Missouri River seemed to be the western boundary of all civilization, and ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... schemers. They are trusting to compound interest, rotten officials, and neglected laws to get possession of ducal domains. The bankers, merchant princes, and stock operators are writing their names fast in California's strange "Libro d'oro." All is restlessness. All is a mere waiting for the turbid floods of seething human life to settle down. In the newer discoveries of Nevada, in the suspense of the war, the railroads are yet only half finished, croaked at mournfully by the befogged Solons of the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... dressing herself aside, is self-discussion. It is a disquieting phenomenon. Chronic self-discussion argues chronic ferment of mind, and ferment of mind is a serious handicap to both happiness and efficiency. Nor is self-discussion the only exhibit of restlessness the American woman gives. To an unaccustomed observer she seems always to be running about on the face of things with no other purpose than to put in her time. He points to the triviality of the things in which she can immerse herself—her ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... of his eyebrows, accompanied by an intermittent restlessness in his movements, appeared to indicate some disturbance of this worthy man's professional composure. His mind was indeed not at ease. Even the inexcitable old doctor had felt the attraction which had already conquered three such dissimilar ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... and chancel, stately figures reared aloft beneath gigantic canopies, men and women slumbering with folded hands upon their marble biers—we read in all those sculptured forms a strange record of human restlessness resolved into the quiet of the tomb. The iniquities of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, il gran Biscione; the blood-thirst of Gian Maria; the dark designs of Filippo and his secret vices; Francesco Sforza's ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... The same restlessness that she observed in the wild creatures began to be noticeable in the horses. Time after time they bolted from the trail, and the efforts of all the party were needed to round them up again. Their morale—a high degree ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... as quiet as possible," continued Sanderson, "for if he is disturbed or excited I am afraid I shall have a deal of trouble with him. What I am principally afraid of in his case—as in yours, Lascelles—is an access of fever, which, with its resulting restlessness, may retard the healing of the wound, or even ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... forth, and though it is in a way sweet, the sweetness is mixed with fire; the stream is as a stream of molten lava, scalding, consuming. The note of the music to the second act is utterly different; there is fire, indeed, a golden fire; there is greedy impatience and restlessness; but the fire does not scorch nor scald, the impatience is not despairing, the love is not—as it certainly is in the first act—that passion which is but one remove from deadly hate. Almost at the beginning of the first act Isolda, devoured by a longing for revenge, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... farewell to my Vienna friends, my musical comrades, the Legation hospitalities, and my faithful little Israelite. But the colt frisks over the pasture from sheer superfluity of energy; and between one's second and third decades instinctive restlessness - spontaneous movement - is the law of one's being. 'Tis then that 'Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy.' The enjoyment we abandon is never so sweet as that we seek. 'Pleasure never is at home.' Happiness means action for its own ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... dwell upon the pain of that first hour of our journey; but you will know what it must have been. The dread of it, for some hours before, was almost worse; but it is all over now, blessed be God. Before the first day's journey was at end, we felt inexpressibly relieved—relieved from the restlessness and anxiety which have so long oppressed us—and now we are calmer and happier than we have been for very long. If we could only have papa and Bro and Sette[12] with us! About half an hour before we set off, papa found out that he ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... you the truth, I am mightily relieved. At this period of my history, money troubles seem to me the lightest and airiest of all afflictions. I have sat down, and Sir Roger is walking up and down, with a restlessness unlike his usual repose; on his face there is a vexed and thwarted look, that is unfamiliar to me. The old parrot sits in the sun, outside his cage, scratching his head, and chuckling to himself. Tou Tou's voice comes ringing from the garden. It has a tone of mingled laughter ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... years ago, my troubles, studies, and circumstances forced upon me the question of personal relationship to Christ.... As the sense of sin grew on me, and with it a deep miserable restlessness, a necessity of reconciliation between aspiration and practice, I was mysteriously led to feel a personal affinity to the Spirit of Christ. The whole subject of the life and death of Christ had for me a marvellous sweetness and fascination.... ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... of it—Allen Drew was conscious of a vague restlessness. A feeling of discontent haunted him and robbed the day of beauty. Something was lacking, and he had a sense of incompleteness that was quite at variance with his usual complacent outlook on life. He was not given to minute self-analysis, but as this feeling persisted and bothered ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... in his chair with the paper on his knees, envied them. The best thing he could do would be to publish, with Macmillans, his monograph upon the foreign policy of Chatham. But confound this tumid, queasy feeling—this restlessness, swelling, and heat—it was jealousy! jealousy! jealousy! which he had sworn ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... of chagrin exasperated the complexional restlessness, which now made our author think that he should be more easy any where than in Ferrara; perhaps more able to communicate with and convince his critics; and, unfortunately, he permitted himself to descend ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... frequently put down his book to listen for footsteps, and more than once walked round the house to look abroad. His wife, who was within, cooking supper, and his daughter and little boy, who were beside him in the piazza, observed his restlessness; for Toussaint was a great reader, and seldom looked off the page for a moment of any spare hour that he might have for reading either the books Monsieur Bayou lent him, or the three or four volumes which he had been ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the left of the altar is very powerful: the Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture, landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are experts to question this and ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Thornton out of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched him while he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them in the morning. But after two days the call in the forest began to sound more imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back on him, and he was haunted by recollections of the wild brother, and of the smiling land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide forest stretches. Once again he took to wandering in the woods, but the wild brother came no more; ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London |
