"Nervous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a certain importance. "Do you remember," he asked, "when you were married, how did you feel about it? Were you kind of nervous, or anything ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... a prostrating, nervous headache. She attempted to rise, but fell helplessly back upon the pillow. Then she reached forth her hand and rang the bell that hung at ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... liked talking to Laura; but he shrank inexpressibly from approaching Nina, the woman with unquiet eyes and nervous gestures, and a walk that suggested the sweep of a winged thing to its end. A glance at Nina told him that wherever she was she could look ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... my darling! You are in one of those moments of exaltation and nervous excitement in which a woman sometimes commits ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... transformed the dusty roads into deep mud. But in the excitement that preceded an assault of such magnitude the condition of the weather could not dampen the feverish ardor of the troops. There was so much to be done that there was no time to consider anything but the work in hand. A nervous exhilaration prevailed among the men, who looked eagerly and yet fearfully forward to the hour for the great offensive from which such great things ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... greatest men, sought to gain a substructure for something new, not by a critical examination of the old ideas, but by incorporating them all into one whole. People were anxious to have assurance, and, in the endeavour to find this, they were nervous about giving up any article of tradition. The boldness of Origen, judged as a Greek philosopher, lies in his rejection of all polytheistic religions. This made him all the more conservative in his endeavours to protect and incorporate everything else. This conservatism welded together ecclesiastical ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... their attention. Holcomb was the genial host, watchful of their wants and solicitous that they should be supplied. No sign of anxiety betrayed that he was keyed up to a high nervous tension. He told stories, laughed at those of the others, high spaded for drinks (though as a matter of fact he was as host furnishing the liquor), made post-mortem examinations of the deck, and otherwise showed a proper interest. It ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... she hurried off with a confused nervous farewell to her friends. Her breath came quick as she lay back in the brougham and closed ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... doctor, fumbling with nervous fingers at the envelope. "By Jove, though," he continued, as he glanced over the contents, "you're right. He has. Poor lad! he's more cut up about it than we can be, so we ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me," she whispered. "I am not at all nervous, but ever since they killed Hendrik I cannot bear the sight of those animals. I always think that there is something human ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... an exhibition of Paintings, breathing through her Nose for at least an Hour as she studied the new Masterpieces of the Swedo-Scandinavian School. Each looked as if executed with a Squirt Gun by a Nervous Geek on his way to a Three Days Cure. Just the same, every Visitor with a clinging Skirt and a Mushroom Hat gurgled like ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... with our own eyes, it seems to me, a very different hypothesis suggests itself. What little we know of his earlier obscure years, distorted as it has come down to us, does it not all betoken an earnest, affectionate, sincere kind of man? His nervous melancholic temperament indicates rather a seriousness too deep for him. Of those stories of "Spectres;" of the white Spectre in broad daylight, predicting that he should be King of England, we are not bound to believe much—probably no more than of the other black ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... at home alone, at night, a nervous anxious shiver of apprehension would run through her ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... outside the wire that transmits it, and it could sustain no other than a transient relation to any outside material through which it passed. But if we know anything, we know that the human mind or spirit is a vital part of the human body; its source is in the brain and nervous system; hence, it and the organ through which it is manifested are ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... timid in his personal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men of polished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, are thrusting a poniard; while others in domestic life with the simplicity of children and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate or the bar with the vehemence of their eloquence and the intrepidity of their spirit. The writings of the famous BAPTISTA PORTA are marked by the boldness of his genius, which formed a singular contrast with the pusillanimity ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the illusion of his own peculiar personal importance. He had become profoundly and sincerely humble, and his humility was as far as possible from being either a conventional pose or a matter of nervous self-distrust. It did not impair the firmness of his will. It did not betray him into shirking responsibilities. Although only a country lawyer without executive experience, he did not flinch from assuming ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... nervous. She tried to laugh and cry at the same time, and then bit her lip hard, ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... above evil. The Shadowy Sister, too, had gone forth to meet him, majestic and unashamed. What spell was that which had come over her, a perfect vein-dilation in the brilliant light? Why, it had seemed to her that she could feel the pulse of flower-stems, and paint the nervous systems of the bees. Painting—what a pitiful transaction was art (in the divine stimulus at that hour) compared to the supernal happiness of evolved motherhood! And what exquisite homage had he shown ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... wood consumed at my cottage. Between two and three years ago I found it painful labour to walk one mile, I have since walked twelve miles in a day, besides attending to other duties—an improvement of my general system, which is already acting sensibly and encouragingly on the seat of thought and nervous influence. In my lonely voyage from Toronto to Port Ryerse, the scene was often enchanting, and the solitude sweet beyond expression. I have witnessed the setting sun amidst the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, from ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... have largely increased their fund," he wrote Lincoln, three days before the election, "and they are now using money lavishly. This stimulates and to some extent inspires confidence, and all the confederates are at work. Some of our friends are nervous. But I have no fear of the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Dinah Kippen quickly, a dingy and defiant young woman carrying a tablecloth. She is a nervous creature, driven half-mad by the burden of her cares. Conceiving life, necessarily, as a path to be traversed at high speed, whenever she sees an obstacle in her way, whether in the physical or in the moral sphere, she ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... entire regions; two of these (Scatha and Glaurung) were known as "the Great Worms". This usage expresses the connotation that the RTM hack was a sort of devastating watershed event in hackish history; certainly it did more to make non-hackers nervous about the Internet than ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... spoil a good story, but Private Doe did not throw down the pig into an army blanket held out to receive it. He clambered down a smouldering flight of ladder stairs, with His Pigship under his arm, quite unharmed, save for a severe nervous shock. Aside from a few scorched kit bags, the loss of the top sergeant's cherished pipe, and a few lungfuls of smoke acquired by Private Doe, the fire was not a success—that is, from a historical standpoint. But as a social event, in bringing the Americans—and Private Doe, kissed by the lady ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, "I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... through the Saxon Alps, where we spent several right merry days of innocent and youthful gaiety. Only once was this disturbed by a passing fit of jealousy on my part, for which, indeed, there was no occasion, but which fed itself in my heart on a nervous apprehension of the future, and upon the experience I had already gained of womenkind. Yet, despite this blot, our excursion still lingers in my memory as the sweetest and almost sole remembrance of unalloyed happiness in the whole of my life as a young man. One evening in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... carefully, and was soon walking with springy step across the beach, and up the valley to the old church. He cast a nervous glance towards Dinas, wondering whether Valmai would remember her promise—fearing lest she might have overslept herself—that Essec Powell or Shoni might have discovered her intentions and prevented their fulfilment; perhaps even she might be shut up in one of the rooms in that ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... down, saw that his body, beneath the camel's hair coat, was thin. The fat and fatigue of too many years of rich eating and drinking, of sedentary work, of immense nervous pressures, had been swept away without diet, without tiresome exercise. He was young again—and he almost ran the Pontiac into a ditch at the side of ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but East keeps the wet sponge going so scientifically that he comes up looking as fresh and bright as ever. Williams is only slightly marked in the face, but by the nervous movement of his elbows you can see that Tom's body blows are telling. In fact, half the vice of the Slogger's hitting is neutralized, for he daren't lunge out freely for fear of exposing his sides. It is too interesting by this time for much shouting, and the whole ring ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of the two sides of the horse-shoe. Tommy was on Lord Reggie's right hand. The tall footmen moved noiselessly about handing the various dishes, but at first a difficulty presented itself. Jimmy Sands was far too nervous to accept any food from the gorgeous flunkeys. He started violently and blushed most prettily whenever they came near him. But he shook his head shyly at the dishes, and as all the other boys followed his lead, the supper at first threatened to be a failure. It was not until Mr. ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... you ought to know, so's to be kinder to them. Oh, Barby, I'm so sorry I ever was saucy to him. And I wish I hadn't teased his cats. I tied paper bags on all of John Darcy and Mary Darcy's paws, and he said I made old Y-yellownose n-nervous, tickling his ears——" ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... herself in one of the easy-chairs and idly twitching blossoms from the hyacinths in a bowl near her. All day she had been especially nervous and irritable, her least movements were characterized ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... decorated, and luxurious dining room. Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married. Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and, with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on his face, began to talk—as one who has long had something on his mind and suddenly ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... 70. Wears shoes of plaited bast. Is nervous, restless, hurried, and tries to cover ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... discussed with the utmost freedom. Any could ask questions of the miracules or of the other doctors. The certificates of the sick were read aloud. I may observe, too, that if there was any doubt as to the certificates, if there was any question of a merely nervous malady, any conceivable possibility of a mistake, the case was dismissed abruptly. These certificates, then, given by the doctor attending the sick person, dated and signed, are of the utmost importance; for without them no cure is registered. ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, in the fulness of our knowledge, might very likely have interpreted it rather as a glance of nervous apprehension. Anyhow, it was a glance that perfectly checked the impetus of his intent. Something snapped and gave way within him; and he needed no further signal that the occasion for passionate avowals was ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... instilled into him the intensely British feeling of shame respecting good works. He could take chaff as well as any man, for he was grave by habit, and a grave man receives the most chaff most good-humoredly. But he had a nervous dread of being found out. He had made a sort of religion of suppressing the fact that he was a prince; the holy of holies of this cult was the fact that he was a prince who sought to do good to his neighbor—a prince in whom ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... breath and hinders motion, and she saw her Hector in the attitude of a man crushed. The Baroness stole in on tiptoe; Hector heard nothing; she went close up to him, saw the letter, took it, read it, trembling in every limb. She went through one of those violent nervous shocks that leave their traces for ever on the sufferer. Within a few days she became subject to a constant trembling, for after the first instant the need for action gave her such strength as can only be drawn from the very wellspring ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... time, you'll see," I reassured her. "Barrymore is a magnificent driver; and look, Miss Destrey isn't nervous at all." ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the odor, and the crying wind drove the violets quite out of both the two heads that drooped silently over that pine log. If Sally had been nervous or poetical, she would have been glad to recollect them; but no such morbidness invaded her healthy soul. She sat quite still till George said, in a suppressed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... to tell you," he added, "that Bramshaw has made a full confession of his crime. He is a nervous wreck, and this morning he ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... know what else to say; she was not of a nervous disposition, but there was something about George's manner that alarmed her very much, and she glanced anxiously around to see if any one was within call, but the place was ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... seek thereby to make a demonstration that should conciliate the sympathies of Europe, which had been estranged from us." This Note seems to have irritated the Sultan. Abdul Hamid, with his small, nervous, exacting nature, has always valued Ministers in proportion to their obedience, not to their power of giving timely advice. In every independent suggestion he sees the germ of opposition, and perhaps of a palace plot. He ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Hazelton retorted. "I haven't given him a thought this evening. No, I'm still nervous about our job here. The first test was all right—that is, it was all right to-day. But these quicksands are treacherous. Our roadbed may be all right for a fortnight, and may seem as safe as we could wish it to be. Then, all of a sudden, within sixty seconds, it may sink before ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... in Sandro Sansevero," interrupted her mother, "I'm sure I can't imagine. He's always bobbing and bowing and gesticulating, and he talks broken English. He makes me nervous! I'd infinitely rather be without a title than have it at ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... A nervous shiver passed through Guy as he recognized the repulsive face of his old enemy, and instinctively he pulled his burnouse closer around his head. Oko Sam darted a curious glance at the two motionless figures on the camels and then advanced ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... quickly, jerkily. She glanced at him with a nervous movement as she drew back. He was not laughing for once, yet she fancied there was the shadow of a smile quivering about his face. Possibly it was an illusion. The dim light made everything indefinite. But the suspicion roused in her in full strength her prejudice ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... wind, moaning among the leaves, made strange noises. Once there was a crash in a thicket beside them, and they jumped in momentary alarm, but it was only a startled deer, far more scared than they, running through the bushes, and Henry was ashamed of his nervous impulse. ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... would have been on the verge of hysteria, Lowell thought, but, while Helen was plainly under a nervous strain, her self-command returned. The agent was in possession of some information—how much she did not know. Perhaps she could goad him into betraying the source ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... lamps not only were sources of danger but their feeble varying intensity caused serious damage to the eyesight of miners. This factor is always present in inadequate and improper lighting, but its influence is noticeable in coal-mining in the nervous disease affecting the eyes which is known as nystagmus. The symptoms of the disease are inability to see at night and the dazzling effect of ordinary lamps. Finally objects appear to the sufferer to dance about and his vision is generally very ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... more numerous than he had anticipated when recording his determination to devote them to natural history. Already his health had shown signs of giving way, and presently there was a nervous break-down which necessitated his giving up all work and being out in the open air as much as possible. But what appeared to be probably the wrecking of his life provided the opportunity which might not otherwise have occurred of encouraging ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... whooping cough here to destroy the summer holidays; then came the Milsoms' measles, and I could not go and carry infection. Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his grandmother was too nervous to be left with him. And by and by some one told her the scarlatina ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the sob passing loudly down his father's throat and opened his eyes with a nervous impulse. The sunlight breaking suddenly on his sight turned the sky and clouds into a fantastic world of sombre masses with lakelike spaces of dark rosy light. His very brain was sick and powerless. He could scarcely interpret the letters of the signboards of the shops. By his monstrous way of ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... him," replied the young inventor. "Thank him just the same. It was only an ordinary faint, caused by the slight electrical shocks, and by getting a bit nervous, I guess. I'm all right—see," and he ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... The banker who was then younger and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turning to the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... had spoken with as much indifference as if he had been contemplating a trip of two days. Garstaing drew a deep breath, and, returning his pipe to his capacious mouth ignited a match over the lamp chimney and re-lit it. Then, with a quick, nervous movement he picked up a separate bunch of the papers on the table before him and flung them across ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... roundly abused for giving him away. For in these matters the judgment of the general reader is wayward, and his attitude undecided, with a leaning toward hypocrisy. The story of the domestic tribulations and the conjugal bickerings of a great writer, of the irritability that belongs to highly nervous temperaments, and which has always made genius, like the finest animals, hard to domesticate, has lost none of its savour with the public. But if all letters that record such scenes and sayings are faithfully reproduced in preparing the votive tablet ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... spent over one note. A week on a single page was good progress. One little passage cost her many a sorrowful hour. Somehow she could not get it right for a long time. Once she played it over forty-seven times before her nervous and irritable master would let her off. Other pupils were waiting. They could wait. She was to play that measure just right if it took all day. It was useless to cry. If she was obstinate and naughty about it she should be punished. She must ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... he had a nervous breakdown; they sent him to a rest-cure. He came back. The Creature was fascinating—he was terrified, but he could ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... for him that his brother George, a very intelligent man, happened to be in America instead of Europe, where he lived the greater part of his life. The assault on Sumner strengthened the Republican party, and secured his re-election to the Senate; but it produced nervous irritation of the brain and spinal cord, a disorder which can only be cured under favorable conditions, and even then is likely to return if the patient is exposed to a severe mental strain. Sumner's cure by Dr. Brown-Sequard was considered a remarkable one, and has a place in the history ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... and somehow, mysteriously, joy seemed to quiver in the iris. Helena appreciated him, feature by feature. She liked his clear forehead, with its thick black hair, and his full mouth, and his chin. She loved his hands, that were small, but strong and nervous, and very white. She liked his breast, that breathed so strong and quietly, and his arms, and his thighs, and ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... that she never had seen a person at Mrs. Kitson's advanced stage of life with such a healthy, rosy visage. But every one has some pet weakness. Mrs. Kitson's was always fancying herself ill and nervous. Now, Flora had no very benignant feelings towards the old lady's long catalogue of imaginary ailments; so she changed the dreaded subject, by inquiring after the health of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... promised never more to have a dream, At least to dream so loudly as just now; She wonder'd at herself how she could scream— 'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow, A fond hallucination, and a theme For laughter—but she felt her spirits low, And begg'd they would excuse her; she 'd get over This weakness in ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... so anxious to do his duty, that he could not do it. Why do we whistle to a horse overburdened with a heavy load uphill? That his mind may grow tranquil, and his ears train forward, his eyes lose their nervous contraction, and a fine sense of leisure pervade him. But if he has a long hill to surmount, with none to restrain his ardour, the sense of duty grows stronger than any consideration of his own good, and the best ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... has long hair, eyes a la Chinoise, a flat nose, thick lips, high cheek bones, broad shoulders, strong and nervous limbs, and bronze colour; he greatly resembles the Chinese of the southern provinces of ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... not naturally a nervous man, he thought, but he had never taught girls before, and he found the calm, cool scrutiny to which he was being subjected by every member of the class something formidable. He would rather teach fifty boys, he said to himself, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... you about Sally Ann's experience?" she said, as she laid two three-cornered pieces together and began to sew with her slender, nervous ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... breath scorched my cheek, his hands gripped my arm with nervous force, his hysterical whisper was barely audible, although his lips were within a few inches of ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... captain's pale face and excited, nervous manner were occasioned by the fears that had been conjured up by the sudden appearance of that strange vessel in the offing, or by the rage and disappointment he felt over the loss of the valuable prize he had so confidently expected to ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... Carmona caught her nervous movement, saw how self-consciously, almost rigidly, she sat when she had recovered herself, and, suspicion instantly alert, turned ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a steel snap. Her face, in the midst of this whirlpool of finery, peeped out anxiously, covered as it was with a smear of paint and powder, and when she saw Valentine standing alone to receive her, her nervous eyes ranged uncomfortably about in obvious quest of ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... she began, in a low, nervous voice, for she knew that there was no evading the questions of Lord Mount Severn, when he was resolute in their being answered, and, indeed she was too weak, both in body and spirit, to resist—"I believed that his love was no longer mine; ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... on the judge's bench, was furtive, scared, nervous, fiddling with his papers and clearing his throat from ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... sleepy woman she is probably dreaming by this time, and may not discover until morning that her lord and master is not by her side. If she is a bad-tempered woman, she will probably lie for an hour or two, thinking over what she shall say to him when he comes in. If she is a nervous woman, she will get up and ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... to the kitchen, and she hastened off. There she found a single candle burning dimly; by its light she picked up her bundle, and, leaving the door open to see her way, returned to the front of the house. Though not a nervous woman, she felt an undefined fear at the mysterious darkness and silence; and as she passed the brothers standing in the doorway, she was struck with fresh terror at the livid pallor of those two stern faces that looked out from the black shadow. When ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... with exaggerated earnestness. "Honest and truly, I wouldn't! I NEVER write letters to strangers, unless I'm SURE the strangers are Patty Fairfield. And I'm sure I shouldn't dare to write a letter to the young lady of the photograph that came to me. She looked like an angel in the last stages of nervous prostration." ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... Dean's stall, and asked him what he thought of the spectacle: Lake agreed that it was well worth seeing. "I suppose," he said, as they walked towards the altar-steps together, "that you're too much used to going about here at night to feel nervous—but you must get a start every now and then, don't you, when a book falls down or a ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... With a nervous, shrinking paw, One Eye stretched out the porcupine to its full length and turned it over on its back. Nothing had happened. It was surely dead. He studied it intently for a moment, then took a careful grip with his teeth and ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... fine feeling of orderly arrangement of major forms which runs through the entire grouping. It is simplicity itself, and it serves an excellent practical purpose, enabling one to visit the Exposition without being left a nervous ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... indescribable mental headiness in the admiration we inspire, or in the effect of playing a part, which fends off criticism from reaching the idol. An atmosphere, produced perhaps by unceasing nervous tension, forms a sort of halo, through which the world below is seen. How otherwise can we account for the perennial good faith which leads to so many repeated presentments of the same effects, and the constant ignoring of warnings given ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... his lectures, studied fourteen hours a-day for eight months successively, and wrote 1,600 sheets. Such intense application, which, however, not greatly exceeds that of many authors, brought on the bodily complaints he has minutely described, with "all the dispiriting symptoms of a nervous illness, commonly called vapours, or lowness of spirits." Bayne, who was of an athletic temperament, imagined he had not paid attention to his diet, to the lowness of his desk, and his habit of sitting with a particular compression of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Gerlach, who met him shortly afterwards, speaks of him as still looking wretchedly ill. This prolonged illness forms an epoch in his life. He never recovered the freshness and strength of his youth. It left a nervous irritation and restlessness which often greatly interfered with his political work and made the immense labour which came upon him doubly distasteful. He loses the good humour which had been characteristic of him in early life; he became irritable and more ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... ever lived. I'm not planning half so much to make you girls happy as I am to be happy myself. Every time I think that I might have gone to some other college and never have known you and Miriam and Anne, it nearly gives me nervous prostration. By the way, Grace, I have an idea Miriam is going to find her work pretty suddenly. I could see at commencement that Mr. Southard was in love with her. She didn't know it then. She knows it now though, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... girl with a nervous little laugh, "perhaps I was mistaken, after all." She placed a hand lightly on the driver's arm. And the words she spoke then were not audible to the rider, so softly were they uttered. And the driver laughed with satisfaction. "You've said it!" he declared. "I'm certainly able to ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... friend,' said the doctor to a pale-looking man on his right hand, 'you must eat three slices more of this roast-beef, or you will never lose your ague.' 'My friend,' said he to another, 'drink off this glass of porter; it is just arrived from England, and is a specific for nervous fevers.' 'Do not stuff your child so with macaroni,' added he, turning to a woman, 'if you wish to cure him of the scrofula.' 'Good man,' said he to a fourth, 'how goes on the ulcer in your leg?' 'Much better, indeed,' replied the man, 'since I have lived at your ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... finest fighting races of the world. Their ancestors were the Saracens who gained a great empire in Europe and Asia. Their hardihood and powers of endurance are brought to the highest pitch by the rigours of desert life, while owing to their lack of nervous sensibility the shock and pain of wounds affect them less than civilised troops. And in addition their religion teaches that all who die in battle against the infidel are transported straight to a paradise teeming with material and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... when he with a somewhat formal air removed it, discovered thin black locks, beginning to part company with the crown of his head. In his large, brown eyes an expression of moving melancholy was established; a nervous tremulousness almost twitched his refined lips, which, to my surprise, were not concealed by the universal moustache,—indeed, the smooth chin and symmetrically trimmed mutton-chop whiskers, in the orthodox English mode, showed that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... Projectile of a very unusual character, and was it not becoming more and more violent every moment? Could the wine have caused it? No; though not teetotallers, they never drank to excess. Could the Moon's proximity, shedding her subtle, mysterious influence over their nervous systems, have stimulated them to a degree that was threatening to border on frenzy? Their faces were as red as if they were standing before a hot fire; their breathing was loud, and their lungs heaved like a smith's bellows; their eyes blazed like burning coals; their voices sounded as loud and ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... ask you all to go away now," he said. "Painting pictures is very difficult work. It would make me nervous to have so many people ...
— The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit - Sleepy-TimeTales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Trost, getting angry, and judging it kind to treat me with some severity; "what you have heard me say is, that our race will and must act as a nervous centre to the utmost development of mechanical processes: the subtly refined powers of machines will react in producing more subtly refined thinking processes which will occupy the minds set free from grosser labour. Say, for example, that ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... they had a son; they were bound to sink misunderstandings, in the interests of their little son. He ventured to say that the child was a link uniting them; and she looked at him. He blinked rapidly, as she had seen him do of late, but kept his eyes on her through the nervous flutter of the lids; his pride making a determined stand for physical mastery, though her look was but a look. Had there been reproach in it, he would have found the voice to speak out. Her look was a cold sky above a hungering man. She froze his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the periodic physical examination of teachers that will give timely warning of attention needed. Until there is some system for giving this right to all teachers in private, parochial, charitable, and public schools, we shall produce many nervous, acrid, and physically threadbare teachers, where we should have only teachers who inspire their pupils with a passion for health by the example of a good complexion, sprightly step, bounding vitality, and forceful ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... a beverage and its frequent deleterious effects upon the nervous system; acute and chronic coffee poisoning. Medical Record, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... infection—e.g., stricture, gleet, arthritis, abscesses, salpingitis, &c. (b.) Congenital syphilis (c.) Tertiary syphilitic manifestations or disabilities directly attributable to syphilis infection:— (i.) Affecting nervous system—e.g., gumma, locomotor, G.P.I., &c. (ii.) Affecting ear, eye, &c. (special senses)—e.g., optic atrophy, &c. (iii.) Affecting respiratory system—e.g., syphilitic laryngitis, &c. (iv.) Affecting digestive system—e.g., syphilitic ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... species of paralysis, growing out of a sense of insecurity. It is purely an unnatural sensation, that temporarily disorganizes the nervous system. I knew a man who, whenever placed in such a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... watching verse-writers gain eminence by imitating Coventry Patmore! The bolder spirits declare that there never was such a thing as a tradition, that it is no use learning, because there is nothing to learn. But they are a little nervous for all their boldness, and they prefer to hunt in packs, of which the only condition of membership is that no one should ask what ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... It was nervous work, but he went on down the first flight, running his hand slowly along the hand-balustrade, all down which he had so often slid while Kitty looked on laughing, and yet alarmed lest he should fall. And what a long time ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... lay piled in various corners. "Pardon the confusion, dear sir," cried Cameron cheerfully, "and lay it not to the charge of my landlady. That estimable woman was determined to make entry this afternoon, but was denied." Cameron's manner one of gay and nervous bravado. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... up to them, and it seemed to Alan that there was something unconvincing about his broad grin. He looked nervous. Alan wondered whether he looked the ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... outcome of an acute nervous sensibility, amounting at times to an almost neurotic irritability, such as peeps out from his confession that the shape of Earl Grey's head, when he was a Parliamentary reporter in the Gallery, "was misery to me and weighed down my youth". This peculiarity ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... ear, on his way to school? Think you it is no concern of yours what infamous advertisements, placarded on the walls, or in the public newspaper, shall smite the vision of your innocent little ones? Shall I be nervous about a stagnant pool of water, lest it breed malaria, and be careless when there are in the very heart of our city thousands of houses, devoted to various forms of dissipation, which day and night steam with miasma, and pour out the fiery ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... resolute, but mournful and gloomy. The example she set was good, but she cast a chill on officers and men alike. Queen Christina—passionate, a woman to her finger tips, careless of danger, but shedding tears of nervous excitement when the bullets smashed her windows and flew hither and thither about the apartments—magnetised her defenders. In the one case you cried "Welcome, Death!" in the other you shouted "Forward!" ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Jacques, he was again plunged in doubt. His mind beset with hallucinations, persisted in believing that she whom he had loved so well was on the point of awakening, and as faint nervous contractions, due to the recent action of the plaster, broke at intervals the immobility of the corpse, this semblance of life served to maintain Jacques in his blissful illusion, which lasted until morning, when a police official called to verify the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... and of friendly affection; but the inmost circle was small—the men who were comrades and brothers; the sister and the brother united with him in love and trust; the wife to win whom he served so long, and without whose sustaining help and comradeship his quick spirit and nervous temperament could hardly have endured the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... so peculiarly and so stolidly hanging in the air came plunging down toward them. From it there reached down twin fans of death and destruction: one flaming and almost invisibly incandescent violet which tore at the eyes and excruciatingly disintegrated brain and nervous tissues; the other dully glowing an equally invisible red, at the touch of which body temperature soared to lethal heights and foliage burst cracklingly into ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... loud word "Papa!" and it would whiz down the chain from daughter to daughter to the clamorous direction, each to each, "Papa!—Papa!—Papa!—Papa!" The cup would reach Mr. Fargus at the speed of a thunderbolt; and Mr. Fargus, waiting for it with agitated hands as a nervous fielder awaits a rushing cricket ball, would stop it convulsively and usually drop and catch at and miss the spoon, whereupon the entire chain of Farguses would give together a very loud "Tchk!" and immediately shoot at their parent a plate of buns with "Buns—Buns—Buns—Buns" all down ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... yet Hereditary Prince, he was only second son: but the elder died; and he became Elector, King; and had to go with his spine distorted,—distortion not glaringly conspicuous, though undeniable;—and to act the Hohenzollern SO. Nay who knows but it was this very jerk, and the half-ruin of his nervous system,—this doubled wish to be beautiful, and this crooked back capable of being hid or decorated into straightness,—that first set the poor man on thinking of expensive ornamentalities, and Kingships in particular? History will forgive ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... glorifying power is seen even in birds and beasts at the pairing-time, in a new brilliancy of plumage, and a wonderful increase of courage. Love produces a greater secretion of force in the brain and other nervous centres. This exuberance of spirit, or exaltation of function, is usually a transient phenomenon, the gratification of its impulses bringing its cause to a termination. It may, however, be made permanent ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... could, I could not do it if I would; for a single hour with a family in trouble uses up more of my vitality than to prepare a sermon." My reply to him was: "That may be true, but, after all, the business of a minister is to endure these strains upon his nervous system if he would be a comforter, as well as the teacher of ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... invaders and the post regain. Here, gallant Hull, again thy sword is tried, Meigs, Fleury, Butler, laboring side by side, Wayne takes the guidance, culls the vigorous band, Strikes out the flint, and bids the nervous hand Trust the mute bayonet and midnight skies, To stretch o'er craggy walls the dark surprise. With axes, handspikes on the shoulder hung, And the sly watchword whisper'd from the tongue, Thro different paths the silent march they take, Plunge, climb ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... frightened in the dark (we were not frightened, of course; only a little nervous), the worst thing to do is to keep the eyes on one spot. Then one begins to see things. It is not necessary to be a soldier, and it is not necessary to go to the front line in France to make sure of that statement. Stare ahead into the ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... is too ill to play himself," she explained, "so I must find a hotel near Mr. Daly's house, and then I shall play every night until our fortune is made. Tonight I lost nearly two thousand dollars. But I was nervous in that strange place. And the system expressly says that one may lose at first. To-morrow I raise the stakes and we shall begin to ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... mental; or, to express the distinction more comprehensively, either muscular or nervous; and it is necessary to include in the idea, not solely the exertion itself, but all feelings of a disagreeable kind, all bodily inconvenience or mental annoyance, connected with the employment of one's thoughts, or muscles, or ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Polizzi's reply with ill-contained impatience. I could not even remain quiet; I would make sudden nervous gestures— open books and violently close them again. One day I happened to upset a book with my elbow—a volume of Moreri. Hamilcar, who was washing himself, suddenly stopped, and looked angrily at me, with his paw over his ear. Was this the tumultuous existence ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Drishtam implies 'Sruti', for it is as authoritative as anything seen. 'Pura' implies a city, a citadel, or a mansion. Here it refers to the body. The avasatha within the pura refers to the chakra or nervous centres beginning with what is called the muladhara. At the time when Brahman is realised, the whole universe appears as Brahman and so nothing exists, besides Brahman, upon which the mind can then dwell. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... The sails were spread; the shore receded,—the stone walls of the fort, the huge cross that the friar had reared, the wigwams, the settlers' cabins, the group of staring Indians on the strand. The lake was rough; and the men, crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the northern shore, to escape the fury of the wind which blew savagely from the north-east; while the long, gray sweep of naked forests on their right betokened that winter was fast closing ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... a nervous moment. Once they were in, side the great projectile, sealed up, would they ever be able to emerge again? ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... would seem not improbable that the innutritious dietary and other deprivations of the majority of the population of Ireland must, when acting over many generations, have led to impaired nutrition of the nervous system, and in this way have developed in the race those neuropathic and psychopathic tendencies ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell |
