"Fractious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had, on his son's suggestion, taken with him his long unused spud. The two had wandered far afield; perhaps the elder man had found the unwonted length of exercise too much for him, for, as he approached the house, on his return, he became what nurses call in children 'fractious,' and ready to turn on his companion for every remark he made. Roger understood the case by instinct, as it were, and bore it all with his usual sweetness of temper. They entered the house by the front ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... were cut up in the Champion—is it not so? this day so am I—even to shocking the editor. The critic writes well; and as, at present, poesy is not my passion predominant, and my snake of Aaron has swallowed up all the other serpents, I don't feel fractious. I send you the paper, which I mean to take in for the future. We go to M.'s together. Perhaps I shall see you before, but don't let me bore you, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the work of sorting, branding, cutting-out, went steadily on. Though an outsider would not have perceived it, the work was as crisp-cut and exact in its methods as the work in a counting-house. One of the cow-boys, in hot pursuit of a fractious heifer, encountered a gopher-hole, and horse and rider were down in a heap. In a second a dozen helping hands were dragging him from under the horse. He limped painfully, but stooped to examine his horse. The beast had broken a leg, and turned on the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... was about to open it for them when I was restrained by what I saw working in the old woman's face. She had set her will on escaping from my loathed presence without a "scene;" but her rage at having been outgeneraled was too fractious ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... head and changed the subject. That afternoon, however, Billy Porter buttonholed DeWitt in the corral where the New Yorker was watching the Arizonian saddle his fractious horse. When the horse was ready at the post, "Look here, DeWitt," said Billy, an embarrassed look in his honest brown eyes, "I don't want you to think I'm buttin' in, but some one ought to watch that young Injun. Anybody with one eye ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... for the kind of work at hand I had full confidence in my mount. Whenever Custer was not looking I slyly spurred the mule ahead, and when he would start forward I would rein him in and pat him by way of restraint, bidding him not to be too fractious, as we hadn't yet reached the sandhills. In this way I set a good lively pace—something like nine miles an ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... strange humour, like a fractious child, and she did more than bear with it. She ignored it altogether. As they drove out of London, the business of threading the maze of traffic kept him from talking even if he would, but when they had run into silence and the peace of the ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... she says; "it's easy enough if you just think of them as children. He'd be a bit fractious at times, that's all. Underneath, ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... now. I only want to say this, we must take our punishment like men, and not whine like fractious children who want the moon—the moon is no nearer for all that." He sighed a little bitterly, for he was tired and depressed; and after that Cedric was more reasonable, and Malcolm regained some ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was our driver signified to his team by the usual horse-language that we should be glad to go. The horse did not even agitate his left ear—a phenomenon which I associate with a horse in that moment when he is quietly making up his mind to be fractious. "Go, my brother," said the driver in a mellifluous and really fraternal tone of voice. The horse disdained to acknowledge the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... drawing the curtains, sat down before the fire (which I had mended during the night), dejected in mind, and heavy with lack of sleep. Somewhere further down the corridor I could hear Bentley snoring, and the sound, rising and falling in the quietude with wearisome monotony, irritated my fractious nerves to that degree that I was of half a mind to go and wake him. Since Penelope had left for London, two days before, he and I had been staying with Jack at the Manor. And very silent the great place had seemed without her; ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... appearance or character which a pure product would be expected to show. Solvents such as benzene, ethylacetate and chloroform fail to effect a separation of active from inactive material. In all fractioning operations the vitamine tends to distribute itself between the fractious rather than to become concentrated in ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy
... was unusually fractious with some slight childish indisposition, and Sylvia was obliged to have recourse to a never-failing piece of amusement; namely, to take the child into the shop, when the number of new, bright-coloured ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... come back to Pheasantina, who, I am told, was a delicate and somewhat fractious infant, giving to both father and mother considerable cause for anxiety. Her first attempts at rising in the world were attended with disaster, for as she was lying in a cradle, with carved iron canopy, and was for a moment left by her nurse in full ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... away, pick-a-back, o' course I shall leave it the least bit o' time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you won't reduce me to extremities; in saying wich, I merely quote wot the nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ven he vouldn't come out of his shell by means of a pin, and he conseqvently began to be afeered that he should be obliged to crack him in the parlour door.' At the end of this address, which was unusually ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... dream of the things that are transpiring about them! In Luther's days, how little they knew the magnitude of the results pending that controversy of fractious monk and haughty pope! How little did the frivolous courtier know the vastness of that struggle in which Hampden, Milton and Cromwell acted! We are in just such another era. Dates will begin from the period in ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... happy at last. Peggy wouldn't have taken it upon herself to call it a remarkably suitable alliance had she been asked; but then she hadn't been asked, and Peter was such a sweet-natured, loving, lovable dear that he would get on with anyone, and Rhoda, though sometimes a silly and sometimes fractious, was a dear little girl too. The two facts that would have occurred to some sisters-in-law, that they had extremely few pennies between them, and that Rhoda wasn't precisely of Peter's gentle extraction, didn't bother Peggy ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... the table, as well as the two Endicotts, had listened to this colloquy with varying feelings. Segrave was burning with impatience, Lord Walterton was getting more and more fractious, whilst Sir Michael Isherwood viewed the young secretary with marked hauteur. At the last words spoken by Lambert there came from all these gentlemen sundry ejaculations, expressive of contempt or annoyance, which caused an ugly frown to appear between de Chavasse's ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... him ride a fractious horse, not because he was fond of riding, but because nobody in the stables could cope with this animal. Steel tamed it in ten minutes. But a groom remarked upon the shortness of his stirrups, in Rachel's hearing, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... have enough for her and Aunt Alice; but you must let her talk to you of me; and show her that (whatever others may do) you think I died innocent. I don't reckon she'll stay long behind when we are all gone. Be tender with her, Job, for my sake; and if she is a bit fractious at times, remember what she has gone through. I know mother will never ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... breathless cry of "Balbus, look sharp," apprised him that another of the electioneering agents had returned. He then cautiously opened the door, and in tumbled D'Arcy, gasping, yet triumphant, under the weight of three fractious youngsters. ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... way for the redoubtable Hercules. Hercules was evidently not in a good humour. His ears were laid back, and the rolling white eye showed mischief. Sponge saw all this, and turned to see whether Thornton's clumsy, wash-ball seat, would be able to control the fractious ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... "that understands horses, has a pretty considerable fair knowledge of women too, for they are jist alike in temper, and require the very identical same treatment. Encourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, but lather ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... a fractious state. The situation was perhaps perilous. But she could not allow her conduct to be influenced by danger or difficulty, which indeed nearly always had the effect of confirming her purpose. If something had to be done, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... soothingly, as if he were speaking to a fractious child. "I am quite sure that the Colonel will express his regret at what has happened, and will acknowledge that he was ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accompaniment. Webb and Leonard, at work in a field not far away, often paused to listen, the former never failing to catch Amy's clear notes as she sat on a rock, the gentle power behind the throne, that had maintained peace and good-will among all the little fractious subjects. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... so," said the officer, dryly. "You say you have no complaint to make about that affair?" he added to Nimbus. "No," said he; "'twan't a tingob any 'count, nohow. I can't make out what'twas made Marse Potem so fractious anyhow. I reckon, as he says, dar must hev ben some mistake about it. Ef he'll fix up dis matter wid Lugena, I hain't no mo' complaint, an' I'se mighty sorry 'bout dat, kase Marse Desmit hab allus been mighty kin' ter me—all 'cept dis time ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to themselves had said, "This is my own, my native land," and who yet looked upon the Boer as an object of commiseration. But these were, first, men linked either by birth or family ties with the Afrikander cause; second, fractious Irishmen and political obstructionists who posed for notoriety at any price; and, third, eccentrics and originals, whose sense of opposition forbade them from floating at any time with the tide of public opinion. Every one else cried aloud ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... to Russia, falling from a fractious horse. Left a sweetheart, too, they tell me. Married, I ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... of a man placing at my disposal plenty of rope with which I might entangle myself. He appeared to think me excitable, and used soothing expressions as if I were a fractious child to be calmed, rather than a sane equal to be reasoned with. On many occasions I had the facts at my finger ends, while he remained in a state of most complacent ignorance, and though this attitude of lowering himself to deal ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... recesses of her bosom she spoke the Scotch she scorned to utter aloud; "and sits jist like himsel', wi' a wee stoop i' the saiddle, and ilka noo an' than a swing o' his haill boady back, as gien some thoucht had set him straught.—Gien the fractious brute wad but brak a bane or twa o' him!" she went on in growing anger. "The impidence o' the fallow! He has his leave: what for disna he tak' it an' gang? But oot o' this gang he sail. To ca' a man like mine a heepocreet 'cause he wadna procleem till a haul market ilka secret ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... liked and wanted, where his books and papers were, what was good for him to do. She did not understand a word of what he said, but she knew both when he had talked too much, and when he had not talked enough, so that his mind was pent up in itself, and he became cross and fractious. Now, in reality, the little maid was one of the oldest and most beautiful of spirits. She had lived many lives, each apparently humbler than the last. She never grumbled about her work, or wanted to amuse herself. She loved the silly flies that darted about her kitchen, or brushed their ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... education were free, and elementary education compulsory. A large number of special and technical schools were founded, as well as two universities, one at Jassy (1860) and one at Bucarest (1864). After the coup d'etat of 1864 universal suffrage was introduced, largely as an attempt to 'swamp' the fractious political parties with the peasant vote; while at the same time a 'senate' was created as a 'moderating assembly' which, composed as it was of members by right and members nominated by the prince, by its very nature increased the influence of the ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... but also is manifested in behavior. Excluding involution melancholia there is probably no psychosis in which the patients exhibit such infantile reactions as in stupor. Except for the stature and obvious age of these patients, one could easily imagine that he was dealing with a spoiled and fractious infant. One thinks at once of the negativism which is so like that of a perverse child and of the unconventional, personal habits to which these patients cling so stubbornly. Masturbation, for instance, is quite ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... incapable of judging fairly the actions of the other. To wounded and embittered France, the perfectly honest British explanations of the reasons for delay in evacuating Egypt seemed only so many evidences of hypocrisy masking greed. To Britain the French attitude seemed fractious and unreasonable, and she suspected in every French forward movement in other fields—notably in the Eastern Soudan and the upper valley of the Nile—an attempt to attack or undermine her. Thus Egypt, like Tunis, illustrated the influence of European politics in the extra-European field. ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... have been his other deficiencies as an escort, Whiskey Dick was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious brute, exhibited such skill and confidence as to at once satisfy the young girls of his value to them in the management of their own horses, to whom side-saddles were still an alarming novelty. Jessie, who had probably already learned from her sister the purport of ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... that he was a great man, but it is certain that through all my younger years I received kindnesses from many people because I was my father's son. For my own part I but faintly remember him, he having been killed by a fractious horse when I was ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... and rose to meet the doctor with an alacrity that made Edmonson bite his under lip hard. She thought that dressing the wound took a long time that evening, that the physician had never been so slow before, nor the patient so fractious. But to Edmonson it seemed as if ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... was one of the Hampshire Coopers, and the first earl. He was a sort of English Voltaire: small and thin, nervous and fractious, with a great cold brain, no affections and no illusions; he had faith in organizations, but none in man; was destitute of compunctions, careless of conventions and appearances, cynical, penetrating, and frivolous. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... against a stanchion, his hands lashed behind him by bonds which confined him to the upright support. But the most uncomfortable feature of his predicament was a marlinespike which was stuck into his mouth like a bit provided for a fractious horse, and was secured by lashings behind his head. He was effectually gagged. Furthermore, the back of his head ached in most acute fashion. He rolled his eyes about and discovered that he had a companion in misery. A very pretty young woman was seated on a camp-chair across the cabin. Her ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... horses with their manes entwined with roses, and necks enchained with garlands, fractious at the shouts that ran along the line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of the Capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... 6. Samuel Miles, alias Robert King. Samuel was a representative of Revel's Neck, Somerset Co., Md. His master he regarded as a "very fractious man, hard to please." The cause of the trouble or unpleasantness, which resulted in Samuel's Underground adventure, was traceable to his master's refusal to allow him to visit his wife. Not only was Samuel denied this privilege, but he was equally denied all privileges. His master ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... "Law of Nations." Mr. Adams suggested sending a pointed reply, agreeing to meet the British Commissioners "at any place other than their own lodgings;" but Mr. Gallatin, whose valuable function was destined to be the keeping of the peace among his fractious colleagues, as well as (p. 078) betwixt them and the Englishmen, substituted the milder phrase, "at any place which may be mutually agreed upon." The first meeting accordingly took place at the Hotel des Pays Bas, where it was arranged that the subsequent conferences ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... do. Leave the child alone now, you'll make her quite fractious," said Nurse, rescuing Cicely from a too-energetic embrace. Pennie looked round for something fresh to caress, and her eye fell on the Lady Dulcibella sitting in her arm-chair by the dolls' house. ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... the fifth time in the course of one forenoon, "I'se jus' erbout wo'ed out! I done been knowin' Mawstuh Caspah ebber sence I was Ol' Mistis's tiah-'ooman—dat's what she call me in de plantashum days—an' I ain't nev' seen him so fractious ez he been sence dat letter come tellin' him come get dat po' li'l gal-child o' Mawstuh Louis's. Seems lak he jus' gwine r'ar round twel he ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... soon afterwards with a prepared oration, wearisome as a fast-day sermon after the third turn of the hour-glass, pragmatical as a schoolmaster's harangue to fractious little boys. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I am endowed with unparalleled patience, having scarcely uttered a murmur at their tardiness, so perfectly satisfied am I with the prospect before me." Some time later he notes: "We have been three weeks effecting what might be accomplished in two days. This extraordinary delay makes me more fractious than can be imagined, and I begin to lose the character for patience which I had given myself, by so tiresome a situation." It was still the season of westerly winds, and the voyage from Alexandria to ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... best after all. Well, if I take you you'll have to be a good girl, you know—good and smart and respectful. I'll expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that. Yes, I suppose I might as well take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert. The baby's awful fractious, and I'm clean worn out attending to him. If you like I can ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... been a long piece of work. The weather has been fractious—and a master's eye is needed. Besides," said he, as if he had found the reason for which he sought to account for his absence, "I have heard of her from Rowland Jones. I was at the surgery for some horse-medicine—he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the bearer of the note, hastening to ward off a refusal, "do, please'm, let the little girl come. He's that fractious he has us all wore out. And he do say if the little girl don't come he'll scream ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... before, and the one object of my future career will be to catch her finally in the meshes of a romance. Romance will come into her life some time. She is not at all of an unsentimental nature—only fractious—new-womanish, perhaps; but none the less lovable, and Cupid will have a shot at her when she least expects it; and when it does come, I'll be on hand to report the attempted assassination for the delectation of the ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... and open conversation. The steward's eldest daughter was now contented and cheerful, while the younger was not only saddened by the disappearance of her lover, but also, from being unhappy in her new home, she had become fractious and easily moved to shed tears. All was well with the younger orphans; they were often taken to see Selene, and spoke with affection ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... them. He said, of course, 'Within limits.' But that we shall see. I'm not a pauper, you know. My trustees pay Lord Buntingford whatever I cost him, and I shall have a good deal to spend. I shall have a horse—and perhaps a little motor. The chauffeur here is a fractious idiot. He has done that Rolls-Royce car of Cousin Philip's balmy, and cut up quite rough when I spoke ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "There, my fractious young lady," she said, "you can feed, and as you feed, I hope you will consider the error of your ways, and give up any more attempts to buck me off. You ought to know me better by ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete convalescence, the more difficult ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... this fine young German Emperor, who aims to lead the dance, Has a very trying vis-a-vis, that fractious dame, La France, To keep step with that lady, without treading on her train, Would tax Terpsichore herself; he finds the effort vain; Does this fine ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... not yet taken my first lesson in agriculture, except that I went to see our cows foddered, yesterday afternoon. We have eight of our own; and the number is now increased by a transcendental heifer belonging to Miss Margaret Fuller. She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick over the milk-pail. . . . I intend to convert myself into a milkmaid this evening, but I pray Heaven that Mr. Ripley may be moved to assign me the kindliest cow in the herd, otherwise I shall perform my duty with fear ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fell, bounced noisily, and then settled over the crowd. Gofredo went on talking to them: "Take it easy, now; easy." He might have been speaking to a frightened dog or a fractious horse. "Nobody's going to hurt you. This is nothing but the ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... "I should prefer not to take the responsibility of advising you," nor "Pray do as you think best"; she simply said, in a tone she might have used to a fractious boy: ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in the endeavor to regain a footing, until some of their comrades righted them; and others, after getting over safely, would slip back from the sandy bank, and take an involuntary immersion. Some clung to the rear of the wagons, but in the middle of the stream the mules would become fractious, or the wagon would get jammed against a stone, and the unfortunate passengers were compelled to drop off and wade ashore, greeted by roars of derisive laughter. On such occasions soldiers give full play to their humor. They accept the hardships with good nature, and make the best of any ridiculous ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it isn't quite sporting to shoot out of season." Barry's manner was as if dealing with a fractious child. ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... away her head from the rice pudding in a kind of gesture of repulsion. She was in the fractious period of influenza, and Maggie had had a hard time ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... no to help oursells i' this world, what for have He gied us the trouble o' tha thrid to spin? and why no han't He made tha shirts, an' tha sheets, an' tha hose grow theersells? And ta passon niver answered her that, he only said she was fractious and blas-phe-mous. Now she warn't, she spoke i' all innocence, and she mint what she said—she mint it. Passons niver can answer ye plain, right-down, nataral questions like this'n, and that's why I ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sold, and Faye has bought another, a sorrel, that seems to be a very satisfactory animal. He is not as handsome as Ben, nor as fractious, either. Bettie is behaving very well, but is still nervous, and keeps her forefeet down just long enough to get herself over the ground. She is beautiful, and Kelly simply adores her and keeps her bright-red coat like satin. Faye can seldom ride with me because of his numerous duties, and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... is made for me, but I can come away early and make up lost sleep. I do hate to be so fractious," and Rose rubbed the forehead that ached with ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... discovered—a disagreeable habit of running away every time he saw a train of cars. Perhaps the horse couldn't help it; it was no doubt an inherited disposition, descended to him through long lines of fractious ancestors, and therefore it need not be set down against him in the catalogue of wilful sins. But whether so or otherwise, this little unpleasantness in his disposition was an established fact, and unfortunately there were two railroads to cross between East Schodack and Castleton. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... kind and considerate. One unfortunate little creature differed from the rest in all respects. It was slightly lame, misshapen rather than awkward, and with a face that indicated bad health, bad temper, or both. Its manner was peevish and fractious, its tones sharp and harsh, and its actions rough and hasty. I took it for a mother's sickly favourite, deformed in character to compensate for physical deformity. Watching them for a short time, I saw the little creature repeatedly break out in all the humours of an ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... or not," returned the trader. "It's a fact. His wife's a Sioux chief's daughter. She went north with a gang of half-breeds and hunters last month; and he's been fractious crazy ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the next morning, that fractious animal could not resist having another set-to, just to convince himself that his master was really on his back. Hil was quite agreeable and having satisfied the creature on that point, she and May started at a brisk canter along ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... of her old spirit. 'Perhaps; but you must know there is another who hath my heart. I have been singing him to sleep, and I pray you do not come in with a heavy tramp of your big boots and wake him. He has been fractious to-day. Speak softly,' she said, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... full of water, and the officer (spurs, boots, and all) was sitting in it with his legs out of one end and his head groaning and bellowing from the other. This was his specific for sea-sickness, and for three days he behaved about as well as a fractious child who sadly wants a good whipping. It is no discredit to a man to be sea-sick. Nelson, we are told, was so far human. But it is somewhat unmanly for an officer to whine and blubber like a baby, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c. (bellicose) 720; cantankerous, exceptious[obs3]; restiff &c. (perverse) 901a[obs3]; churlish &c. (discourteous) 895. cross, cross as crabs, cross as two sticks, cross as a cat, cross as a dog, cross as the tongs; fractious, peevish, acaritre[obs3]. in a bad temper; sulky &c. 901a; angry &c. 900. resentful, resentive[obs3]; vindictive &c. 919. Int. pish! Phr. a vieux comptes nouvelles disputes[Fr]; quamvis tegatur proditur vultu furor [Lat][Seneca]; vino tortus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ever been called upon to sing Pop Goes the Weasel in a falsetto voice before a fractious baby, a small but intensely critical child, a stolidly contemptuous nurse, an agitated mother and a gaping photographer, with the knowledge that success or failure hangs upon your lips, and that all the time a diabolical machine in the street below is scoring threepence against you every minute ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... of them and go off on her good time. It wouldn't be housekeeping and spinning and looking after fractious children. But those evenings out on the stoop, and the timid invitations to take a walk, the pressure of the hand, the smile out of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Prairie Springs[820] and lingered there a little while, then moved on to Honey Springs, where was better grazing.[821] He felt obliged thus to make his stand in the Creek country; for the Creeks were getting fractious and it was essential for his purposes that they be mollified and held in check. Furthermore, it was incumbent upon him not to expose his "depots ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... Arpan sub-base like a fractious child. Kincaide and I endeavored to cheer him up, and Hendricks, the Ertak's young third officer, tried in vain to induce Correy to take in ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... works, this fellow is an evil feature in other people's lives. They would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do without his services in the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at the well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to fight with herself, to watch her faults and try to conquer them. It was hard work; often she felt discouraged, but she kept on. Week after week and month after month she grew less selfish, kinder, more obliging than she used to be. When she failed and her old fractious temper got the better of her, she was sorry and begged every one's pardon so humbly that they could not but forgive. The mother began to think that the elves really had bewitched her child. As for the children they learned ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... is, the better and kinder he will be. The greater part of unamiability, ill-temper, impatience, bitterness, and uncharitableness comes out of unhappiness. It is because a man is so miserable that he is such a sour, suspicious, fractious, petted creature. I was amused, this morning, to read in the newspaper an account of a very small incident which befell the new Primate of England on his journey back to London, after being enthroned at Canterbury. The reporter of that small incident takes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... of the death of his uncle, who had been thrown from a fractious horse, not far from Mink Run, and had broken his neck in the fall. A hasty search of the premises did not disclose the concealed treasure. The secret lay in the mind of the stricken woman. As soon as Dudley learned that Viney had eaten and drunk ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... was eager to begin work. Prudence, however, held her back from visiting the scene of debauchery at Ifako. A few women had come home with fractious babies, or to procure more food for the revellers, and gathering these about her she held a little service, telling them in her simple and direct way the story of the Christ who came from the Unseen to make their lives ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... friend from Iowa who confessed that he had been in an automobile but once before. He had ridden with a relative through a retired section of his native state, traversed for the first time by an automobile, and he had quit trying to remember how many run-aways and smash-ups were caused by the fractious horses they met on the short journey. Visions of damage suits haunted him for months thereafter. In our meanderings through the London streets, the fears for the other fellow which had harassed him during his former ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... had reached an age when it was convenient, if possible, to throw the blame of all nursery differences on Polly. In families where domestic discipline is rather fractious than firm, there comes a stage when the girls almost invariably go to the wall, because they will stand snubbing, and the boys will not. Domestic authority, like some other powers, is apt to be magnified ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... you think I should be a tyrant, but no one would tyrannize over you, for you are any man's equal, and he never would forget it. I could not love a fool. I want a mate. And I should love you so much that I never should cease atoning for my fractious and other unpleasant qualities—" ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: 'Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like'—so Miss Lucy say—'he listen to you mo' dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to 'suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be 'round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes'—so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin' in her po', thin face—'but he ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... I would I had never gat out. Gramercy, but how fractious is the Queen! I counted we ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... are a man's feelings anyway, compared with a woman's? And what rights has he as against hers? No: between man and man all that can be needed is plain speech and manly frankness—aided by a little diplomacy. I'll break you to pieces, James H., if you are fractious; and I've got the weapons to do it with. It is all for your good, and you'll bless me the rest of your life. One thing must be understood: I can't have you coming to my place and practising your wild backwoods manners on my family, and then ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... timeworn expedient of a revolt. Though the uprising lasted but twenty days, the diplomatic corps at the capital proffered its mediation between the contestants, in order to avoid any further bloodshed. The result was that the fractious Governor withdrew his candidacy and a radical change was effected in the relations of Buenos Aires, city and province, to the country at large. The city, together with its environs, was converted into a federal district and became solely and distinctively the national capital. Its ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... he opened his dark eyes and smiled upon us; he demanded a battered "boy stout" doll, and hugged it to his pneumonia jacket; he drank his milk, and said "More!" he grew cross and fractious—oh, welcome, gladdening sign!—and said, "Doe away! No more daddies! No more nursies! Don't want nobodies! Boo-hoo-hoo!" and we ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to be needed. Grant wanted to move on Mobile from Lake Pontchartrain, but was not permitted to do it. Having gone to New Orleans in obedience to a necessity of conference with General Banks, he suffered a severe injury by the fall of a fractious horse, as he was returning from a review of Banks's army. For a long time he was unconscious. As soon as he could be moved he was taken on a bed to a steamer. For several days after reaching Vicksburg he ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... in consequence of the operation being rather awkwardly performed, some small particles of glass were introduced into the arm with the matter. Perhaps this may in some degree account for his being rather fractious; at least, so nurse says. We propose to have him christened at twelve o'clock on Friday, at Saint George's church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick Charles William. Pray don't be later than a quarter before twelve. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... until the last of the lights had gone out, and the house stood out a mere black outline in the moonlight, then he disappeared within the barn again, and presently reappeared leading his fractious mare. A few moments later he rode quietly off. And the manner of his going brought a grim smile to his lips, for he thought of the ghostly movements of the night-riders as he had witnessed them. His way lay in a different direction from that of his comrades. Instead of taking the trail, as they ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... a more fractious patient than Du Meresq as he lay listlessly on the sofa, while the bone reunited. He had speculated on many a stolen walk with Bluebell in that unfrequented wood, where they would be far less liable to interruption ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Iris by the arm, and would have assisted her, but she shook herself free. She felt, and conducted herself, like a fractious child. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... to that," answered the retired buccaneer, "And from what gossip I glean in the tavern, Cap'n Bonnet had best steer for his home port of Barbadoes and quit his fancy piratin'. This fractious Governor has set his heart on hangin' him. And Colonel Stuart is up and about again and has ordered the King George to fit for sea. 'Tis rumored he has sent messages to the north'ard for Lieutenant Maynard to sail ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... cow whose yearling calf had not yet felt the searing-iron. Into the very midst of the seething mass would a vaquero dart, single out his victim without a moment's halt, drive the animal to the open space, and throw his lasso with unerring aim. If a steer proved fractious two of the centaurs would divide the labor, and while one dexterously threw the rope around his horns, the other's lasso had quickly caught the hind foot, and together they brought ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... further excuse for deferring my promised lecture. The month of May had arrived. My father delicately broached the subject of the announcement. Being a little fractious, perhaps from some ebb in my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... "Isn't dadda fractious today?" said Billie reprovingly, giving the Earl's hand a pat. "Quit knocking your ancestors! You're very lucky to have ancestors. I wish I had. The Dore family seems to go back about as far as the presidency of Willard ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... at Ranelham next Friday is expected to prove an exciting event, especially as Stella, Lady Killaloo, has entered her large crocodile, Horace—called after her late husband—who is known to prove rather fractious at times. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... don't remember you so fractious since you were cutting your teeth!" complained her ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... a chair. In her secret heart Eunice knew that when her sister was tired out she was fractious; she loved her too well ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... so, Ann," she agreed. "Dolly got kind of fractious over his headstall when I was harnessin'. He don't seem to like his sun hat, and I dunno's I blame him. I guess if our ears stuck up through the top of our bunnits like his we ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... in York County, Will Shag by name, who was a persistent runaway, and who whipped the overseer and was obstreperous generally. Another slave committed so serious an offense that he was tried under state law and >vas executed. When a bondman became particularly fractious he was threatened with being sent to the West Indies, a place held in as much dread as was "down the river" in later years. In 1766 Washington sent such a fellow off and to the captain of the ship that carried the ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... the use of Hetty's parents taking her home, if the little maid intends to be just as fond of Harry absent as of Harry present? Why not let her see him before Ball and Dobbin are put to, and say, "Good-bye, Harry! I was very wilful and fractious last night, and you were very kind: but good-bye, Harry!" She will show no special emotion: she is so ashamed of her secret, that she will not betray it. Harry is too much preoccupied to discover it for himself. He does not know what grief ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... experience, however, the cares of command. I discovered that there were cabals breaking out in the company, headed by the clown, who you may recollect was a terribly peevish, fractious fellow, and always in ill-humor. I had a great mind to turn him off at once, but I could not do without him, for there was not a droller scoundrel on the stage. His very shape was comic, for he had to turn his back upon the audience and all the ladies were ready to die with laughing. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Beauty to their charge ... he had never been able to understand or agree with their arguments against great engines and the instruments of power and energy ... and it seemed to him that many of these writers were querulous, fractious people who had not the capacity to make themselves at ease in a striving world. That poet fellow ... what was his name? ... whom he had met at Hampstead ... Palfrey, that was the man's name ... ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies, Chambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar. In consequence Tom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was "fractious," as Roxy called it, and overbearing; Chambers was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mirror in the parlor that I, lying on the sofa beneath it, kicked clear off its hook and into the middle of the floor,—and seven for that very looking-glass which my father used to shave by, and which I, sparring at my image in it, to amuse my little brother, knocked into smithareens with my fractious fist. Why, man, it was not only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... devised a slavery like to that, our slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny, which this necessity exercised upon us. Half-a-dozen jests in a day, (bating Sundays too,) why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number every day in our lives as a matter ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... beyond his anticipations, for the doctor's old mare—at first surprised and restless from the wounds made by the sharp spines—speedily became indignant and fractious, and at last, half frantic with pain, started on a gallop down the street, setting all the town agog ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... to," was the fractious reply. "That's where we are being over-careful. She can hear ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out repeatedly, protesting and forbidding you to sacrifice Thermopylae and the Phocians: {30} and the men to whom I refer were those who then said that a water-drinker[n] like myself was naturally a fractious and ill-tempered fellow; while Philip, if only he crossed the Pass, would fulfil your fondest prayers; for he would fortify Thespiae and Plataeae; he would put an end to the insolence of the Thebans; he would cut a canal through the Chersonese at his own charges, and ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... hands by giving occupation to the boys. Then came out the result of training at the Refuge. Those who had been some time there showed themselves amenable to discipline; but the late arrivals were more fractious, and difficult to manage. These were the lads "upon whom," as Miss Macpherson says, "the street life had left sore marks." Even when only nearing the American coast, this indomitable lady's spirit is planning ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... good to distil When babies are fractious and witches do ill. But why should we waste What gives such a taste To Summer-time salads that with it are graced? Old witch, work your will! Sweet babe, take a pill! And I'll eat my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... climb a bank like that," was Davies' comment. "What it did do was to go down the bank—take a scout after it, Charley, while Wemple and I get Mrs. Morgan off her fractious mount. No machine ever built could travel ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... all these gowns into that trunk passes my comprehension. There's a tray for each, of course; but a ball dress is such a fractious thing. I could shake that Antoinette Roche for disappointing you at the last minute; and what you are to do for a maid, I don't know. You'll have so much dressing to do you will be quite worn out; and I want you to look your best ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... incompetent to form any opinion on an educational subject; and as a mere matter of policy, I should, in dealing with them, be only too glad to be able to make it clear that some of the defects and shortcomings inherent in this (as in all systems) had been disguised, and that even the most fractious of Examiners had said their say without let ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... saw from the height of the pass. One foaming stream they forded eight times in three hours, driven from side to side by precipice and windfall; and in places they could advance only by ascending the stream bed. This was risky work on a fractious pony, and some of the riders preferred wading to riding. At noon on the 22nd of August the riders crossed a small stream and set up their tents on the border of a sedgy lake. Then {70} somebody noticed that the lake emptied west, not east; and a wild halloo ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... invite him to dinner, an honour which the young lieutenant declined in terms sufficiently strong to indicate that his feelings had been hurt. On this, the admiral sent for him and exclaimed, "What! can't you put up with the fractious disposition of an old man?" The admiral, who could not bear to be, even for a day, at variance with Lieutenant Saumarez, would do anything to serve him; and, when he obtained the command on the East India station, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... that the first rule for all who believe in a progressive world is not to believe in it too much. Long ago Plato said that he drove two horses, one white and tractable, the other black and fractious; Jesus said that two masters sought man's allegiance, one God, the other mammon; Paul said that his soul was the battle-ground of two forces, one of which he called spirit and the other flesh; and only the other ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... something up more than you think, sir; there is indeed. He was that fractious that he wouldn't hold the hosses for me, not for a minute, till I could go in and see, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... untrue, for the scar will give way much more easily than the uncut gum. If the tooth does not come through after two or three days, the lancing may be repeated; and this is more especially needed if the child be very fractious, and seems in much pain. Lancing the gums is further advantageous, because it empties the inflamed part of its blood, and so relieves the pain and inflammation. The relief children experience in the course of two or three hours from the operation is ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... the doctor, as he rode away, "though she wears her womanhood so ungraciously—as a rough husk rather than a flower. All the same, she's laying up misery for herself in her devotion to this fractious child; I wish I'd had ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... Twenty-seventh Congress met in December, 1841, it was evident that there could be no harmonious action between that body and the President, but he was not disposed to succumb. Writing to a friend, he said the coming session was "likely to prove as turbulent and fractious as any since the days of Adam. But [he added] I have a firm grip on the reins." In this he was mistaken, or, rather, he had been deceived by the sycophants around him. Neither House paid any attention to the recommendations which he made in his messages, and only a few of his nominations ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... did not know what to say. Mrs. Jernyngham had, he gathered, been unusually fractious for the last week or two, and Cyril was invariably forbearing. Indeed, Prescott sometimes wondered at his patience, for he imagined that his comrade had outgrown what love he had borne her. The man had his virtues: he was rash, but he seldom failed to face the ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... been doing?" she asked, when I got into her room, where her maid was settling her veil before the glass, and trembling over it. Lady Ver is sometimes fractious with her—worse than I am with ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... housewife with the wonderful tales of French gaieties, or the splendid castles in the air she had heard in the Queen's rooms, but she resented the doubt and disapproval they sometimes excited; she was petulant and fractious at any exercise of authority from her foster-mother, and once or twice went near to betray herself by lapsing into a tone towards her which would have brought down severe personal chastisement on any real daughter even of seventeen. It was well that the Countess and her sharp-eyed daughter ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her? A sickly, fractious thing! I saw enough of her in the old days. There! be quiet! I have done. If it hadn't been for her, I'd have asked you to come here to your old home; you and I should jog along together first-rate. But Sibylla bars it. She may be a model of a wife; I don't insinuate ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... her. Lite was much like a man who lets a small boy believe he is driving a skittish team all alone. Jean believed that she was acting alone in this, as in everything else. She had yet to learn that Lite had for three years been always at hand, ready to take the lines if the team proved too fractious ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... fact, a prodigious writer, having left behind him when he died a vast quantity of memoirs, letters, and even good verse; and besides these, maps and charts in great numbers. No matter how trying the day had been, with fractious crews and boisterous ocean, no matter how little sleep the anxious commander had had the night before, no matter how much the ill-smelling swinging lamp in his cabin rocked about, he never failed to ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... You will perhaps let your boat. We will talk to my mother," Robert answered, as one soothes a fractious child. Then, before I had breath to answer, he swept us away from the beach, and drew up before an aggressively comfortable villa on a terrace ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... just there in a little town in the heart of Sweden, and, taken unawares, fell an easy prey. However, they do not invariably succeed in that way: sometimes, if their officiousness is excessive, their English very exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just arrived at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of these persuasive personages snatched her bag out of his hand and walked into the rival albergo ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... rear was well started, patrolled the length of the drive in his light buckboard. He had a first-class team of young horses—high-spirited, somewhat fractious, but capable on a pinch of their hundred miles in a day. He handled them well over the rough corduroys and swamp roads. From jam to rear and back again he travelled, pausing on the river banks to converse earnestly with one of the foremen, surveying the situation with ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... pity—something far deeper. Had he been fretful, fractious, disagreeable, she would still have been very sorry for him and very kind to him. But now, to see him as he was—cheerful, patient; so ready with his interest in others, so utterly without envying and complaining regarding himself—changed what would otherwise have been mere ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... neither was the case; Robert was merely fractious, and in that particular mood when he wished to have his mind imperceptibly made up for him, while prepared to combat any direct suggestion. From what quarter the ignoble proposition that we should go home arose is immaterial. It is enough to say that Robert believed it to ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... by her long journey, retired early that night. Lying upon her white, cool bed, she rested deliciously, but sleep coquetted long with her. She listened to faint noises whose strangeness kept her faculties on the alert—the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the ceaseless, low symphony of the wind, the distant booming of the frogs about the lake, the lamentation of a concertina in the Mexicans' quarters. There were many conflicting feelings in her heart— thankfulness and rebellion, peace and disquietude, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the warrant has my endorsement," said the Seigneur, "and, as the justice most concerned, I shall give proper information to the gentleman under suspicion." He waved a hand at the Abbe, as at a fractious child, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of five children, who, by the death of both parents, had been thrown penniless upon the world, and found a temporary asylum in the county poor-house. Her mother she remembered merely as a feeble, fractious invalid; and her father, who had long been employed as superintendent of large mills belonging to Miss Jane Grey, had, after years of reckless intemperance, ended his wretched career in a fit of mania a potu. His death occurred at a season when Miss Grey was confined to her bed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... should move down from the north and unite with Rosecrans, and that then the combined force should attack Bragg promptly. But Rosecrans lay still for about six weeks, to repair losses and fatigue, and again played the part of the restive steed, responding to the President's spur only with fractious kickings. It was August 16 when he moved, but then he showed his usual ability in action. The march was difficult; yet, on September 6, he had his whole force across the Tennessee and in the mountains south of Chattanooga. Burnside, meanwhile, had advanced to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... times a most malevolent temper, accompanied by Will, who, though only seven years of age, yet sat his pony with the ease and grace that distinguished the veteran rider of the future. Presently Betsy Baker became fractious, and sought to throw her rider. In vain did she rear and plunge; he kept his saddle. Then, seemingly, she gave up the fight, and Samuel ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... John came out on Monday, he looked like a different boy; he had lost his fractious, rebellious look; he spoke as civilly as could be expected of a small Merrifield, and showed no signs of being set against his lessons. To be sure it was a bad way of spending a Sunday, to be laid up with ailments brought on by over-eating; but even this was better than ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reason of their own the team became less fractious. He limped along the road, his hand at the bit of the more vicious. She could ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... stream, breaking his leg in the fall. These and other disastrous attempts might be defended in the words of Wilbur Wright, written in 1901, while he was experimenting with his own gliders. 'There are two ways', he says, 'of learning how to ride a fractious horse: one is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on a fence and watch the beast awhile, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... woman's husband. It is the day of the village bazaar, and amid a lot of hustle and bustle Catherine enters—the prodigal daughter most inopportunely returned! As the day progresses Old Mrs. Deveral becomes fractious, the Fete entertainment falls through and Judy decides to run away with the unpleasant Rodney. Things are going from bad to worse when Catherine steps in. She pacifies her mother, gives a talk on her experiences to the Village ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... their time, and heating themselves in fractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible, these men ought to know, and if they do not it is civility to inform them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is sufficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... singing about the house. And really the child had done her best. But how could any one expect her to manage her father and the house, especially on the scraps of time left her by her V.A.D. work? The Squire had been like a fractious child over the compulsory rations. Nobody was less of a glutton—he pecked like a bird; but the proper food to peck at must be always there, or his temper was unbearable. Pamela made various blunders; the household ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Cook's Prescription. Incident at Glendale. Peculiar Feature in the Meeting at Madisonville. The Fractious Preacher at Sonora. Closes his Evangelistic Labors. Establishes the Old Path Guide. The Bruner ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... obliged to resign himself; and so exceedingly fractious was he, that Clara had been feeling quite dispirited, when her brother called her to tell her joyously that Lord Ormersfield and Louis were coming home, and would call in on their way the next evening. Those wretched children must not take her ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Brandeis took to most ungracefully. After the holiday rush and strain she invariably had a severe cold, the protest of the body she had over-driven and under-nourished for two or three weeks. As a patient she was as trying and fractious as a man, tossing about, threatening to get up, demanding hot-water bags, cold compresses, alcohol rubs. She fretted about the business, and imagined that things were at a stand-still during ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... dear, your fractious disposition kept us upon half breath; there wasn't time to yawn. I meant to have eased my breast by laughing afterwards, but ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner |
