"Nervously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hill in silence, Ardita's hand still resting in Carlyle's as it had when they finished dancing. She felt it clinch nervously from time to time as though he were unaware of the contact, but though he hurt her she made no attempt to remove it. It seemed an hour's climb before they reached the top and crept cautiously across the silhouetted plateau ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... few steps and crouched. The tip of his sinuous tail twitched nervously. He was upon the point of charging when his eyes were ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the beast —went and came daily in the same occupations with the infallible accuracy of mechanism. But, as they said in their idiom, they had eaten their white bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all persons nervously agitated by a fixed idea, became hard to please, and nagging, less by nature than from the need of employing her activity. Having no husband or children to occupy her, she fell back on petty details. She talked for hours about mere nothings, on ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... elderly, were already gathered there. They had brought their own chairs. Jan's wife wore her bonnet and shawl, ready to start at a moment's notice. Her luggage in a blue handkerchief lay on the table. As she moved about and supplied her guests, her old lips twitched nervously; but when she spoke it was with no ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I was cold and hungry. Suddenly, however, the danger of my position was brought home to me in a very sudden manner. Away in the distance I heard the long drawn wolf-howl, than which I firmly believe there is no more blood-curdling sound in existence. The horses pricked up their ears nervously and hastened their lagging pace, and I myself felt a thrill go up my spine. It was not many seconds before the first howl was answered by a ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... fumbled nervously with the latch, all the time calling upon his daughter to open the door; then wrathfully placed his solid shoulder and knee in just the right place, and with a groan and wrench the latch gave way, and the solid oak door swung open, precipitating the anxious group somewhat ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Wentworth, laughing nervously. She did not want to be left out of the conversation entirely, so ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... tend to the vines on the summerhouse, Rachel, and the pansies—you don't think they'll let them run to seed, do you? Oh, dear!" And Tabitha sprang nervously to her feet and started ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... quickly replied that she was expecting her every moment; that she had gone out for a short walk, and had not perhaps seen the fly arrive. No doubt, she added a little nervously, Miss Starbrow would like to see and converse with Miss Affleck's ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... missive courteously and opened it. The expression of astonishment which came over his face as he read it for a moment gave place to one of anger. His eyes flashed, his face reddened, and his fingers nervously played with the end of his moustache. Then, as he read it over the second time, a rather contemptuous smile seemed to lurk about ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... Vilda, glancing at her nervously, perceived with relief that she was "taking things easy." Ah! but it was lucky for poor David Milliken that he couldn't see her at that moment. Her whole face had relaxed; her mouth was no longer a thin, hard line, but had a certain curve and ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said nervously, limping towards the door (he was rather lame). "Yes? Please come in. Can I be ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... just stood there," said Nan, her eyes searching nervously for the reappearance of the two men on deck. "I guess I was just too surprised or frightened to speak, for the shadow on the door was that of a man, and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... she answered, slowly. "And I think you do right." Her face was set white; she played nervously with the baby. "I would not urge you; but I am glad you say so. I want you to stop; yet I could not love you so much if I did not see you ready to play the man at such ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... by the young aviators in compactly packing their personal belongings, and in the evening the two young men had dinner at the Zept home. The young Count, whom they had not seen since the day before when he accompanied Colonel Howell at the closing exercises of the Stampede, was present and nervously enthusiastic. ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... there," repeated Prissie. She glanced nervously at Maggie, who had taken up a book and was pretending to read. "He came and he spoke to me. He was very, very kind, and he made me ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... began to whisper together, although the patient and the notary were still perfecting some concluding formalities. But presently the notary began to read aloud the instrument he had prepared, keeping his face buried in the paper and running his nose and purblind eyes about it nervously, like a new-born thing hunting the warm fountain of life. All gave close heed. We need not give the document in its full length, nor its Creole accent in its entire breadth. This is only ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... sent for. She glided noiselessly in and took her place at the Davenport; while Zillah, sitting by her father, buried her head in the bed-clothes, his feeble hands the while playing nervously with the long, straggling locks of her hair which scattered themselves over the bed. The letter was soon finished, for it contained little more than what has already been given, except the reiterated injunction that Guy should make all haste to reach Pomeroy Court. It was then ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Parkinson, very nervously, "to remember sending Waters to me on Monday or Tuesday last, with a paper which had been served by some one on ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Le Loutre set fire to all houses outside the fort walls. In a few days the English cannon had been placed in a circle round the fort, and set such strange music humming in the ears of the besieged that the Acadian farmers deserted and the priest nervously thought of flight. Louisburg {232} could send no aid, and still the bombs kept bursting through the roofs of the fort houses. One morning a bomb crashed through the roof of the breakfast room, killing six officers on the spot; and the French at once hung ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... that never in Merchester's long history had her citizens so frequently or so nervously ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Gwen snatched her share nervously. Would any of the letters contain the longed-for postal orders? No, they all had halfpenny stamps, and were ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, though the shut-up room had but lately ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... glad to have this chance of speaking to you," she began rather nervously. "I wanted ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... having hard work to keep her teeth from nervously chattering, despite the heat of the day, "Who do you suppose ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... particular, the Deputy Commissioners were a good deal too driven to make representations, and the measure was one which dealt with small land-holders only. Nevertheless, the Legal Member prayed that it might be correct, for he was a nervously conscientious man. He did not know that no man can tell what natives think unless he mixes with them with the varnish off. And not always then. But he did the best he knew. And the measure came up to the Supreme Council for ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... by little they had died away, Raissa got up and nervously paced to and fro. At first she was pale, then she flushed all over. Her face was contorted with hate, her breathing was tremulous, her eyes gleamed with wild, savage anger, and, pacing up and down as in ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was praying—actually praying for courage. Her throat was working, her grey eyes had their most startled look. She was twisting her hands nervously together. ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... manner of grave courtesy which served to steady the girl. Probably never before in all her rough frontier experience had she been addressed thus formally. Her closely compressed lips twitched nervously, but her questioning eyes ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... apprehensive," said old Henry nervously, "of the state of the weather. I have had some conversation about it with an old gentleman on deck who professed to have sailed the Spanish main. He says you ought to put into ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... others by himself, he did not believe the things he saw, and assumed that everybody else also had his real vital life passing under a veil of mystery as under the cover of the night. Every man's intimate existence is kept mysterious, and perhaps, in part, because of that civilised people are so nervously anxious that a personal secret should ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... nothing—a mere scratch," he answered, a little nervously, putting his handkerchief to his brow to stanch a few drops of blood, as he added: "But I had a narrow escape certainly. But why did you venture so far from the light, Miss Craye? Your cousin has been searching for you everywhere, and at last sent me to find you. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... answered. "Yes, there is one matter," he added nervously. "I see, Mr. Hare, that you are thinking of my boy Tom, not very kindly I am afraid. As you have been so good as to forgive me I hope that you won't be hard on Tom. He is not at all a bad sort of a lad if a little thoughtless, like many other ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... quick breathing, in the restlessness of this man, a pent-up energy that clamoured to exhaust itself in violence and debauch. His fierce blue eyes were wild and roving, his lips twitched nervously. He was an atavism; of the race of those white-bodied, ferocious sea-kings that drank deep and died in the din of battle. He must live in the white light of excitement, or sink in the gloom of despair. I could see his fine nostrils quiver ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... saw you with him the other night at the Opera." She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her vague forget-me-not eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... nervously at the end of his rug. She looked up and down along the row of chairs. There were one or two slumbering forms, but most were empty. There ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Southern grace, amid the cockney squalor and finery. Doris coolly recognised it, as she stood, herself invisible, behind her uncle's large easel. Thence she perceived also the other persons in the studio:—Bentley sitting in front of the poetess, hiding his eyes with one hand, and nervously tapping the arm of his chair with the other; to the right of him—seen sideways—the lanky form, flushed face, and open mouth of young Dunstable; and in the ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... He was followed by a well-dressed man, whose countenance and sharp features, full of sternness, indicated much mechanical study. He hesitated as the young man advanced, took Marston by the hand, nervously, led him aside, whispered something in his ear. Taking a few steps towards a window, the intruder, for such he seemed, stood almost motionless, with his eyes firmly and watchfully fixed upon them, a paper in his right hand. "It is too ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... came a pause. My companion had laid his cue down. I still retained mine in my hands, and, more as a means of bridging the awkward gulf of silence which followed the introduction, I asked him to continue the game—another stroke or two, and the mocassined President began to move nervously about the window recess. To relieve his burthened feelings, I inquired if he ever indulged in billiards; a rather laconic "Never," was ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... vivid imagination, and are talking perfect nonsense." Tamara laughed nervously. "I refuse to be the least upset by ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... Bob, nervously, as he half raised his rifle, which he had insisted on holding in his hand all the time since that meeting with Peg. "Think you see signs of trouble from Peg and his bunch; or is it ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... I squirmed nervously for a bit. Scholar Phelps was too close to the truth to make me like it, because he was scoffing. He went ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... being spoken Miss Fairlie looked down at the table beneath her. Her fingers moved nervously among the crumbs that were scattered on the cloth. The paleness on her cheeks spread to her lips, and the lips themselves trembled visibly. I was not the only person present who noticed this. Miss Halcombe saw it, too, and at once set us the example ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... hands one to cabby, who glances at it, hands it back and says politely, "Thank you, lady, but I'm a married man." Lady nervously looks at the title, and reading, "Abide with me," hurriedly departs, to the great amusement ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... on the library lounge, luxuriously surrounded by all sorts of downy cushions and having her injured ankle bound in soothing cloths by the tenderest of hands. Delia, full of sympathy and the desire to help, was bustling about nervously, tripping over bandages and upsetting bottles of liniment, but meaning so well all the while that one ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... Umbezi replied nervously, and he gave some orders to certain men behind him. "I am glad to see that you have become rich in this sudden fashion, Saduko, though how you have ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... not talk of it," she begged, a little nervously. "I must do as he wishes. We will hope that he says ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mind a more powerful lecture on temperance, than the silent pantomime of a man trying to hang his plug hat on an invisible peg in his own hall, after he had been watching the returns, a few years ago. I saw that he was excited and nervously unstrung when he came in, but I did not fully realize it until he began to hang his hat ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... in front of the chair, and stood to attention. The prisoner gazed fixedly at the letters "R.F.," which flanked the arms of the Republic on the wall above the President's head, and stood as motionless as on parade. A close observer, however, would have noticed that his thumb and forefinger plucked nervously at the seam of his trousers, and that his hands, though held at attention, were never quite still. The ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... comrades, encountered the unremembered eyes of strangers—for they were strangers—this tall young man, with his gray eyes, pleasantly fashioned mouth, and cleanly moulded cheeks; and this long-limbed girl, who sat, knees crossed, one long, slim foot nervously swinging above its shadow on ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... hall together, Mrs. Pendleton whispered nervously to her husband that it must be "poor Docia's heart that made her so disagreeable and that she would feel ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... true, and by ones I believe," she said stoutly. "Oh, there's queer things goes on. Doddridge Knapp or the devil, it's all one. But it's ill saying things of them that can be in two places at once." And the old dame looked nervously about her. "They've hushed things up in the papers, and fixed the ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... had succeeded in their being together for three days before either knew they were the central figures in the drama. Now they felt farther apart than at any moment since they had met, but nervously admitted they had fared ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.) ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... boy flushed. Tall, straight, handsome he sat in the boat, fingering the oar-handle nervously. In appearance he was the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... heard without. Newman dropped the letter on the same spot again, pressed it with his foot to prevent its fluttering away, regained his seat in a single stride, and looked as vacant and unconscious as ever mortal looked. Arthur Gride, after peering nervously about him, spied it on the ground, picked it up, and sitting down to write, glanced at Newman Noggs, who was staring at the wall with an intensity so remarkable, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... starts nervously about, and confronts Mr. McIlheny bearing down upon him with a countenance of ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... such a gathering possible in the South. There is a loud rap: the hum of voices ceases. The individual who gives the signal stands at a small table at the end of the long narrow hall. One hand rests upon the table, with the other he nervously toys with a gavel. He is a tall, lean, lank, ungainly chap, whose cheek bones as prominent as an Indian's seem to be on the eve of pushing through his sallow skin. A pair of restless black eyes, set far apart, are apparently at times hidden by the scowls that occasionally wrinkle his forehead. ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... She nervously wondered why the woman had not discovered her mistake and returned, and went again towards the bell-pull. Approaching the chimney her back was to Fitzpiers, but she could see him in the glass. An indescribable thrill passed through her as she perceived that ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... went with a broad grin on his face. Keith laughed loudly and nervously, his eyes on the huge cake. But the mother said ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... with the Marquis, I waited upon the solicitor, who entered into the few details minutely, calling frequently upon Ulster, a young fresh-looking man, for corroboration. We then drove to the jeweller's new quarters, took him, under charge of the officers, to his place of business, where he nervously showed me every point that could bear upon the subject, and ended by exclaiming, that he was ruined, and all for a stone he had never seen. I sat quietly for a few moments. It stood, then, thus:—G. had given the thing to the solicitor, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... with this little salon, where he had more than once seen Marsa seated at the piano playing her favorite airs. He remembered it all so well, and, nervously twisting his moustache, he longed for her to make her appearance. He listened for the frou-frou of Marsa's skirts on the other side of the lowered portiere which hung between the two rooms; but he heard ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... stirred as they had been stirred by her confession. She almost dreaded her next meeting with him. She wandered softly to and fro in the hall, with a shyness unaccountable to herself; with a terror of being discovered and spoken to by her sister or Miss Garth, which made her nervously susceptible to the slightest noises in the house. The door of the morning-room opened while her back was turned toward it. She started violently, as she looked round and saw her father in the hall: her heart beat faster and faster, and she felt herself turning pale. A second look at him, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... and a slim little thing all in white, with a violin under her arm and a distracted pucker on her face, hurried up to the piano. Nervously feeling her belt to make sure that she was presentable before turning her back on the audience, she whispered to the girl who was to play her accompaniments, and began tuning the violin. Then, tucking it under her chin as if she loved it, she listened an instant to the piano ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... speak, the old housekeeper broke in, rather nervously, 'Miss Stella, dearie, you must not be angry with David; it's my fault as well as his; we only wanted to save you both worry and annoyance; and so it would, for you would never have known aught about it but for David bringing them in here. He must be daft, after my telling him he was to be ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... followed the Prophet from the room with a waddling gait and a terrible sensation of having nothing on. The coat and trousers which he wore flapped about him as he descended the stairs in the wake of the Prophet, glancing nervously about him and starting at the slightest sound. In the library they found Madame, holding the great Juvenile upside down ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... and speedily at that, I sat down to wait, lighting a cigar for company; for burning gas-logs are not as sociable as their hissing, spluttering originals, the genuine logs, in a state of ignition. Several times I started up nervously, feeling as if there was something standing behind me about to place a clammy hand upon my shoulder, and as many times did I resume my attitude of comfort, disappointed. Once I seemed to see a minute spirit floating in the ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... stood up, nervously pulling at the man's top waistcoat button as she furtively glanced first over one shoulder and ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... gone, Stumps went nervously to the door and peeped out. Nothing was visible, save the tail of a waiter's retiring coat. Cautiously shutting and bolting the door, he took up a strong walking-cane, and, after some difficulty, forced the lock of the portmanteau therewith. Abstracting from it the two bags containing ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the boudoir. My Lady Barbara was playing nervously with the rings Lord Farquhart's servant had returned to her. Mr. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... he said a little authoritatively. Her brother ought to have backed her up, but the young fool wouldn't; he stood shamefacedly over by the door. "I'll get hold of your brother," Winn added, turning away from her. The waiter hovered nervously in ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... eighth of September approached—the day Pollyanna was to arrive—Mrs. Ruth Carew became more and more nervously exasperated with herself. She declared that she had regretted just ONCE her promise to take the child—and that was ever since she had given it. Before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her sister demanding that she be released ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... and genius seems to lead one to unfortunate conclusions, it has been rashly conceded in certain quarters that the virtue of a great poet may have no immediate connection with his poetic gift. It is conceived by a few nervously moral poets that morality and art dwell in separate spheres, and that the first transcends the second. Tennyson started a fashion for viewing the two excellences as distinct, comparing them, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... at him. Until then he has been standing with the photograph in his hand. Now he tears it up and flings the pieces under the table. Then he sits down on a chair, pulls nervously at his tie, runs his fingers through his hair, crumples his coat lapel, ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... got to hustle!" sighed Tom Reade nervously. "If I don't succeed in raising the wire, and in a mighty short space of time, I may be to-night's fool yet. I'd really like to wish that on the black ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... a constant dread about you that you are going to fail! Pushing yourself boldly into men's offices a dozen times a day, yet always nervously dreading the reception they may give you. Catching late trains and early trains; missing meals or sitting down to tables where things are so uninviting you cannot eat. And all the time, day and night, wondering if your employers are satisfied with your sales and if ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... exclaimed the girl. Ned felt her hand clutch him nervously. A sudden repulsion to this Geisner shot through him. He pulled his arm ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... whisperings of the assemblage the committee, six men and six women, Aphrodite included, took their places in the circle. Ambrose and the mulatto were seated opposite each other and were perhaps twelve feet apart. Raffin, nervously licking his lips, sat bolt upright while members of the committee passed ropes around him and the back of his chair, and tied his hands. In direct contrast to his rival, Ambrose slouched down in his seat and joked with the trembling members as ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... him by declaring that I had supped heartily and did not want for anything in the world, and then, with some sort of an inarticulate excuse, he left me. I knew very well that this nervously correct personage had jumped up from his dinner in order that he might meet me at the door and thus prevent my unconventional attire from shocking ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... The resignation, the courage of this child, who of his future kingly duties already knew the first—to die well—overcame him. His heart was bursting. He threw upon the table the crumpled parchment which for a moment he had been nervously holding in his hand, and fell sobbing in an arm-chair. Frederique, still suspicious, read the deed through from the first line to the very signature, then going up to a candle, she burned it till the flame scorched her fingers, shaking the ashes upon the table; ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... seated on the grassy verge of the spring, with his back towards me. He was a slender figure, dressed in black broadcloth, which was none of the finest nor very fashionably cut. On hearing my footsteps he started up rather nervously, and, turning round, showed the face of a young man about my own age, with his finger in a volume which he had been reading till my intrusion. His book was evidently a pocket Bible. Though I piqued myself at that period on my great penetration into people's characters and pursuits, ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cites a lecture of mine, delivered nearly half a century ago, a part of which has had the honour of being embalmed in the work of that most eminent theologian, the late Dean Westcott, on "The Historic Faith." I turned rather nervously to the lecture to see what it was that I had said. Not that I should have been much shocked had I found that my opinions had even been completely changed. Since that lecture was delivered science and criticism ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith
... young and fascinating guide, wearing a white satin tie, and on the third day he recited some verses of Stecchetti and was about to risk a declaration of worship in ornate prose, when he was suddenly rather badly scared by the lady's yellow eyes, and ran on nervously with a string of ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... milder climates may render the moderate use of alcoholic drinks comparatively harmless to races less nervously organized than ours. And there doubtless are individuals in our midst whose strong constitution, phlegmatic temperament, or social training enable them to use wine daily for years without appreciable injury. They can walk with comparative safety the narrow bridge. There are multitudes ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... every hundred convicts there are eight or ten whom misery and wrong have made reckless, whose morbid rebelliousness needs, to break forth, only the shadow of opportunity to kill before being killed, and they accept it. But it was not to be that day, and we relaxed, and grinned, nervously or grimly, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... intonation in the voice which affected Mr. Menteith deeply. He made no remark, but busied himself in drawing up the will, which Lord Cairnforth seemed nervously anxious should be completed that ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... went to bed, she lay long sleepless, wondering, nervously dreading the morrow. For these people who should know gave Hill's Corners the same name that Mr. Templeton had given it, the same name it bore as far as Crystal City and beyond. It was one of those far removed towns which are the last stand of the ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... face twitched nervously, as, dropping his hat, he threw off his light coat and, opening his shirt-collar and turning away his head, showed his shoulder covered with wales, still raw ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... hastily, for some reason wrapped her shawl tightly around her head, and ran to Fedya Mazin, who, she knew, was sick and not working. She found him sitting at the window reading a book, and moving his right hand to and fro with his left, his thumb spread out. On learning the news he jumped up nervously, his lips trembled, and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... here, Andy," said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache. "You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught.... I think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your head.... But even if ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the quotations vibrated nervously about the seventy mark. I was about to start for Mr. Harding's office when a man with a loud voice read ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... Schofield, I presume," he announced, thrusting his hand nervously into his pocket and bringing out a fistful of papers. So eager and excited was he that, unnoticed, he dropped one flimsy sheet, many ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... for the purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; he was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslatable word "bosh." As he could make nothing of this, he gazed appealingly at the benignant features of Mr. Verdant ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... it. The least noise makes him worse, even the chirping of the birds and squirrels in the trees overhead, irritates him; and only an hour ago, I had to lead the goat and her kid farther away to tether them; for, at every bleat they made, he started nervously, and moaned," said Jane, who had great faith in quietness, and soothing applications in ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... held back, laughing nervously. "No, no; we mustn't spoil the magic of the ring." Her voice trailed off into a dreamy, wistful monotone. "Who knows—Cinderella's godmother came to her when it was only a matter of ragged clothes and a party; the need here was far greater. Who knows?" She caught her breath with ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... joy in them; for the great tree bent slowly down and swung itself entirely across the chasm. Its reach was great, and Satan skipped along the trunk as spryly as a cat on a fence, his arms and tail held out for balance and twitching nervously. Half-way over he spied the three spectators and stopped. Their circulation stopped also. He grinned from ear to ear, showing two rows of tusk-like teeth, shook his fist playfully, and shouted a laugh so loud, so awful, that they believed their last moment ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... and the little maid went through the piece with appropriate gestures, unconscious of her audience and not forgetting a word,—to the joy of her instructor, Laura, whose heart beat nervously while she ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... belonged to her above all men. I strode to her. She half-lifted from her couch as if drawn upward to me. And then we looked with all our eyes, blue eyes and black, until Pilate's wife, a thin, tense, overwrought woman, laughed nervously. And while I bowed to the wife and gave greeting, I thought I saw Pilate give Miriam a significant glance, as if to say, "Is he not all I promised?" For he had had word of my coming from Sulpicius ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... peace, and his ship a raging furnace beneath his feet! The captain's eyebrows lifted impatiently and nervously, and his fist clenched as if he were about to strike a blow ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... to be here," said Miranda, glancing nervously at the tall clock for the twentieth time. "I guess everything's done. I've tacked up two thick towels back of her washstand and put a mat under her slop-jar; but children are awful hard on furniture. I expect we sha'n't know this ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wooden door, and passed between the hedges; the next door stood open, and he already saw Emily; she had seated herself under one of the pear trees, and was reading. As soon as his eyes discovered her he paused; his hands clasped themselves nervously behind him. Then he proceeded more slowly. As soon as he stepped within the garden, Emily heard his approach, and turned her head with a smile, expectant of Jessie, At the sight of Dagworthy the smile vanished instantly, she became noticeably pale, and at length ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... word, Adrian," said Mr. Landale, clenching his hand nervously round his fine cambric handkerchief, "there must be something of importance in the wind to have altered your bearing towards me to this extent. I have no wish to interfere. I came back and gave up ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... "This," answered Leonard, nervously; "you can show your confidence in me by allowing my engagement to Jane to be proclaimed." Here Mr. Beach waved his hand once more as though to repel some ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the house a trifle nervously, positive that his only clean shirt, at present spread over his precious shot-gun, had been worn once more than he could have wished, but, after all, how much of one's shirt showed? It would pass. The coat-shirt not ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... mighty voice rolled and shook through the cabin. It even affected the mate, for the visitor, glancing towards him, saw that he had nervously concealed himself beneath the bedclothes, and was ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... a youth, he made the king's subjects fear him by his imperious manner. His appearance in the streets was the signal for everyone to run into his house, bar the doors, and peer nervously through the casements. He was a reckless rider, and woe betide the unfortunate persons who happened to be in his way. Sparing neither man, woman, nor child, he callously rode over them, or lashed out vindictively with the long whip he always ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... say, at any rate, whether or no she had made the point that her aunt designed her for Lord Mark: it had only sufficiently come out—which had been, moreover, eminently guessable—that she was involved in her aunt's designs. Somehow, for Milly, brush it over nervously as she might and with whatever simplifying hand, this abrupt extrusion of Mr. Densher altered all proportions, had an effect on all values. It was fantastic of her to let it make a difference that she couldn't in the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... nose, which hung like a rigid sentinel over the thin-lipped mouth,—like Victor Hugo's Javert, loyal, untiring, merciless. No traitorous comfits ever passed that guard; no death-laden bark sailed by that sleepless quarantine. The small ferret-eyes which looked nervously out from under bushy brows, roaming, but never resting, were of the true Minerva tint,—yellow-green. The encircling rings told of unsettled weather. While elf-locks and straggling whiskers marked the man careless of forms, the narrow, knotted brow suggested the thinker ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... were back in their places, leaning nervously forward. This was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting into a panel by itself with black lines around it—and they were sure ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... to a few detached phrases from the orchestra. Then the awfulness of the situation overwhelmed him, and he fairly ran off the stage, leaving Matilda alone. That lady made a final appeal to the conductor, switched her dress nervously with her riding whip, went to the wings, got a glass of water, and then disappeared. The audience, which had good-humoredly applauded till now, began to laugh, and the demoralization was complete. It would have been a relief had the curtain ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... great little girl," he said, nervously; "and it's all going to come out right. It does rile me to think of your working for Steve. Never mind, my ship will come in and then we'll ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... about the room. Smarlinghue, still twining his hands in a helpless, frightened way, still circling his lips nervously with the tip of his tongue, followed the other's movements in ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the top button of his coat nervously, as his sister said this, and, partly turning himself ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... right now," said Collins, nervously smoothing back a strand of his pale hair. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Orde. These 'jumpers' ... and that confounded mixed stuff from seventeen ..." he trailed off, his eye glazing in the abstraction of some inner calculation, his long, nervous fingers reaching unconsciously ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... thrust his hand into his pocket, and Richard, rising to his feet, stepped back into the shadows of the box. Something passed between them. Katharine turned her head and clutched nervously at the programme which lay before her. She was looking towards them, and her face was as pale as death. Her host stepped forward at once and smiled ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was seated in his office, poring over a mass of reports, when Duvall entered. He glanced up, rose, shook hands nervously, then motioned ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... didn't consider it no objection. I told him I was goin' to be a bill poster, and wanted to study every branch o' the business." At this point Bog hitched his chair nervously, uncrossed and recrossed his legs, as if he were conscious of trespassing on the patience of his auditors, and then went on: "Well, I hurried home, and saw that aunt didn't want for nothin', and then I started on my travels. I should ha' called and seen you, Mr. Minford," he added, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... unstable emotionality, her tendency to morally warp when long nervously ill, she is then far easier to deal with, far more amenable to reason, far more sure to be comfortable as a patient, than the man who is relatively in a like position. The reasons for this are too obvious to delay me here, ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... She drank her tea nervously. It seemed to her she needed a vivifying draught. "Auntie, you don't quite understand. We ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... something of this showed in my face; for Madame's eyes mirrored a dim reflection of trouble as she looked at me, and Mademoiselle talked nervously and at random. At any rate, I fancied so, and I hastened to compose myself; and the two, in pressing upon me the simple dainties of the table soon forgot, or appeared to forget, ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... and packages without warning at their feet. "Look out, you Swedish devil!" cries a sailor who has to open the iron doors. The Swede backs in bewilderment, but his hand involuntarily flies to his pocket and fingers nervously ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... she asked, her fingers playing nervously with a brooch on her breast. In that moment Tuppence knew that the fish was hooked, and for the first time she felt a horror of her own money-loving spirit. It gave her a dreadful sense of kinship to the woman ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie |
