"Skittish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... got mighty near the bar 'long 'bout sundown last night. Kinder skittish actin' hussy she was, but she turned out an' cleared off without much trouble. We was ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... you to church and take care of you as a woman ought to be took care of by a man. And you know I could do it, Jen, for my wages is good; but you've shied an' shied whenever you've seen me, and baulked an' baulked when you couldn't shy, so as no skittish mare is ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... of Stoneborough," said Clement, leaning affectionately on his broad shoulder; "our skittish pair are grown very sober-minded. But you have not told us ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... said he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, "ponies is often skittish. Keason why one should be, an' another not, I can't comprehend. P'r'aps it's nat'ral, p'r'aps not, but howsomediver so 'tis; an' if it's more nor above the likes o' me, Joseph, you needn't be suprised that it's ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... a moment's notice if anything offends her, that she must be driven with a light rein and a hand as light and gentle as a bit of thistledown floating on a zephyr. This is a hard combination to attain. It is like trying to drive a skittish and headstrong horse, densely constructed of lamp-chimneys and window glass, down a rough cobble-stoned hill road. If given the rein the glass horse will dash madly to flinders, and if the rein is held taut the horse's glass head will snap off and the whole business go to crash. No juggler keeping ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... however, may have meant no more than the natural coyness of a maiden whom the learned Upton somewhat drolly designates as "a skittish female." [3] Indeed, Spenser must have thought so himself, and with reason, for she continues to receive his presents, "the kids, the cracknels, and the early fruit," sent through his friend ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... back, and give him a new album that will fall to pieces whenever you laugh in the same room? Why should you forget the old love for the new? Do we not often impose on the old subscriber by giving up the space he has paid for to flaming advertisements to catch the coy and skittish gudgeon who still lurks outside the fold? Do we not ofttimes offer a family Bible for a new subscriber when an old subscriber may be in a lost and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... I had time to tell you about them, but I haven't. After polo, which I enjoyed watching, we all had tea together and talked very affably. Then Mr. Royle drove me home while Boggley went with Mrs. Royle. I heard, as we were leaving, Mr. Royle say something to Boggley about the horse being young and skittish, and a faint misgiving passed through me, but I forgot it talking to Mr. Royle, and when we reached Rika I went off to dress for dinner, taking it for granted that the others were just behind. Letters were waiting me, and I lingered so long over them I had to dress ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... formed the grander height beyond, thus leading to schemes of more distant rides to verify the conjectures, which Rachel accepted with the less argument, because sententious dogmatism was not always possible on the back of a skittish ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which the direction was of the up-and-down species, and made his progress even slower than usual. But now and then the old fellow would seem to be inspired with a little of his former spirit, and, after a skittish little kick, he would straighten his body with a suddenness which brought Mrs. Adams to her feet, and rush off at a mad pace that soon faltered and failed, when the old brown head would turn, and the gentle eyes seem ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... editor and biographer Mitford. Professor Masson, however, ascertained the date, which is all important. We must picture Milton "affable, erect, and manly," as Wood describes him, speaking from a low pulpit in the hall of Christ's College, to an audience of various standing, from grave doctors to skittish undergraduates, with most of whom he was in daily intercourse. The term is the summer of 1628, about nine months before his graduation; the words were Latin, but we resort to the version of ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... reached the half-dozen ponies, which still kept themselves aloof as if preferring their own more aristocratic company. They were so rested and well fed that they were disposed to turn skittish, and two of them communicated their spirits to three of the others, which joined in, tossing their heads, prancing, and making a show of treating their visitor as one who was hiding bridle and bit ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... answered, good-humoredly, and not the least disturbed by Manning's quiet reflection on the bravery of stage drivers in general. "When a fellow has to manage four tolerably skittish horses with both hands full of leather, he haint much time to fool around huntin' shootin' irons, 'specially when he's got to look down into the muzzle of a repeater which is likely to go ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... been frightened to death if she could only have seen the way they pranced at her funeral last fall. I was determined then that they should never draw me;" and Aunt Pen shivered for herself beforehand. "And I can't have them from Timlin's, for the same reason," said she. "All his animals are skittish; and you remember when a pair of them took fright and dashed away from the procession and ran straight to the river, and there'd have been four other funerals if the schooner at the wharf hadn't stopped the runaways. And Timlins has a way, too, of ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... only falls in love once in her life, and if it waits until she's darn near forty—well, it takes! You see I hadn't even been vaccinated against it by girlish flirtations. I began to be a governess when I was just a kid, and a governess doesn't get many chances to be skittish. So now when it came, it hit me hard. That's when a woman finds herself—when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the tree like a ripe plum. I didn't care if ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... seen her. Though she could remember nothing, the association seemed to be one of pain. In vain she beat her brains. Memory was an almost uncultivated quality with her, and, like the rest of her intellectual powers, had a nervous, skittish way of deserting her in need, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... her. Then they went out, and mounting, rode back in the direction of Mudgee. Uncle Abe winked long and hard and solemnly at Andy Page, and Andy winked back like a mechanical wooden image. The two women nudged and smiled and seemed quite girlish, not to say skittish, all the morning. Something had come to break the cruel hopeless monotony of their lives. And even ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... duller," said Mr. Tredgold to himself, wearily. "Two skittish octogenarians, one gloomy baby, one gloomier nursemaid, and three dogs in the last five minutes. If it ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... scope of intellect, but I can draw up a short list of her passengers (she was not supposed to carry any). I shall give Mr. Todd pride of place, partly because he owned her, but chiefly because sea-sickness incited him to deeds of gallantry. Then there were two skittish nurses, who got on board because one of them knew the second engineer; there was Colonel Tingle (swashbuckler); Senor Canaba (scamp), who had bribed both the captain and the chief engineer (Mr. Bidgood); ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... frock-coats, full to the brim of the best food, like Uncle Tom; but nice, lean, hungry-looking, open-air men who were majors, or country squires, or something interesting of that kind, whose clothes sat well on them, and who drew up in the Row on little skittish, curveting polo-ponies when Aunt Emmy and I walked there. I once asked her, after a certain good-looking Major Stoddart had ridden on, why she did not marry, but she only said reprovingly, with ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... inner room a trim, lithe, almost boyishly slim figure attired in a bewitchingly skittish-looking garment consisting of knickerbockers and snug brassiere of king's blue satin messaline. Dainty black silk stockings and tiny buckled slippers ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... skittish horse when I was a spalpeen of a lad, but never in all my born days have I ridden so ill-mannered a baste; and sure I hope as long as I live that I may not have to break in such another as ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... dissatisfied. Walldorf's a handsome fellow, and lively, and head over heels in love; he seems a little light and frothy now, but that will disappear when he gets a sensible wife like Toni. These model sons are not always to my taste; they get too skittish when they break loose. We have an example of that in Will. Walldorf will resign in the Autumn. I won't have my Toni marrying a lieutenant; I will buy them an estate and they will ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... leering round upon us, "they tell me your pretty Penelope takes something more than a common interest in yonder fop; have a care, Sir John, she's a plaguey skittish filly by the looks of her, have a ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... violent action, the guns became very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they recoiled with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching, or to leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass guns were more skittish than iron, but all guns needed a rest of two or three hours, if possible, after continual firing for more than eight hours at a time. To cool a gun in action, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot, John Roberts advises sponging "with spunges ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... sequel to prevent the young folks from being too intimately acquainted with each other's inclinations. Grimes, of consequence, attributed the reluctance of Miss Melville to maiden coyness, and the skittish shyness of an unbroken filly. Indeed, had it been otherwise, it is not probable that it would have made any effectual impression upon him; as he was always accustomed to consider women as made for the recreation of the men, and ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... "Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I get on you. I'll take some of that ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... a skittish horse—" And then followed the story of an accident caused by the presence of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... pressed his arms closer round Rosalie and smiled—yes, by Jove, smiled—and, if you'll take the word of a retired master mariner, winked, with a peculiar, tender and calfish expression that in anybody else would have been called skittish. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... poor thing!" said Bruce, looking after her commiseratingly; "and a stranger might think her no more nor half-witted. But she has sense enough, poor crittur! and, I reckon, is just as smart, if she war not so humble and skittish, as any ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... concerned. Lady Rotherwood is an excellent, good woman, just the wife for him, and he knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy. But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis—Fly he calls her. She is a little skittish elf—Rotherwood himself all over; and doesn't he worship her! and doesn't he think it a holiday to carry her off to play pranks with! and isn't he happy to get amongst a good lot of us, and be his old ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... trying to flirt with a man even as nice as you are! It would be as bad as an elephant trying to be kittenish and about as absurd as one of your dinosauria getting up and trying to do a two-step. And I'm getting old and prosy, Peter, and if I pretend to be skittish now and then it's only to mask the fact that I'm on the shelf, that I've eaten my pie and that before long I'll be dyeing my hair every other Sunday, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... said Andy. "It gets skittish, just like horses—but if I take it out sometimes, it'll ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... hors-d'oeuvre they settled down to a solid joint of national finance, laid before them by Lord MIDLETON. I am afraid they would have found it rather indigestible but for the sauce provided by Lord INCHCAPE, who was positively skittish in his comments upon the extravagance of the Government, and on one occasion even indulged in a pun. In his view the Ministry of Transport was an entirely superfluous creation, solely arising out of the supposed necessity of finding a new job for Sir ERIC GEDDES. I suppose the PRIME ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... you feel. Now, let me tell you; honest, never a mouse dares show the tip of his nose outside the cellar! If you don't go down there, you're as safe as you would be up in a balloon. And I don't count none the less on you for acting skittish about 'em." ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... said Doane, "approved o' his plan o' leadin' out all the critters, 'fore he touched off the barn. 'Taint everybody 't would hev taken pains to do that. But all the same, I tell Sarai't I feel kind o' skittish, nights, to hev to turn in, feelin' 't there's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... round here over shoe-mouth deep in woe, When they's a graded 'pike o' joy and sunshine don't you know! When evening strikes the pastur', cows'll pull out fer the bars, And skittish-like from out the night'll prance the happy stars. And so when my time comes to die, and I've got ary friend 'At wants expressed my last request— I'll mebby, rickommend To drive slow, ef they haf to, goin' 'long the out'ard track, But I'll smile and say, ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... evidence. At or about Christmas, in the year 1597, there was enacted here in Cambridge, in the hall of St John's College, a play called "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus," a skittish work, having for subject the 'discontent of scholars'; the misery attending those who, unsupported by a private purse, would follow after Apollo and the Nine. No one knows the author's name: but he had a wit which ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Lorenzo; as we feared to trust our friend—for so we had come to regard her—with the mule, a mischievous beast, spoiled by prosperity. Ajax drove a skittish pair of colts. Gloriana and I occupied the back seat ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... "Don't be so skittish!" said the old gentleman. "I ain't come to put the strap on ye.... Habit is a great thing, black hoss, a great thing. In this case I'm kind of dependin' on it. You know what the dog done, don't ye? And the sow that was washed, she went wallerin' in the mire, first chance she ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... Unfortunately, Vaudrey was rather skittish on these particular questions, besides he was informed on the matter. He felt his flesh creep while Molina was speaking. Just before, on seeing the banker's card, the idea of the money of which the fat man was one of the incarnations, had suddenly dawned upon him as a hope. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... skittish horse old Gid shied at the office door. Once he had crossed that threshold and it had cost him ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... prove anything by statistics, if you can only choose your statistics and stop when you want to. But statistics are like automobiles. Sometimes if you hitch yourself up with a statistic, you meet the fate of the farmer who put his fool head in the yoke with a skittish steer. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Haunts an old woman in ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... when I got my orders to accompany them, and, along with Bayne, to do their scouting. My horse was exhausted with the work he had done already; I told Major Forbes, and he at once gave me his. It was a young horse, rather skittish, but strong and fairly ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... not forget that you are off a leeshore; you are mounted on a skittish racehorse, with, if you like, a New Forest fly operating within an inch of his belly-girths. Our situation is so far ticklish, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... a good thing for most of us roughnecks if we did have a smart woman to tell us how to fix up the town. Just as much to her kicking as there was to Jim Blausser's gassing about factories. And you can bet Mrs. Kennicott is smart, even if she is skittish. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... sweeping the doorstep with the one-sided broom when Brit drove out through the gate and up the trail which she knew led eventually to Sugar Spring. The horses, sleek in their new hair and skittish with the change from hay to new grass, danced over the rough ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... cow and the calf and Kate—she was our white mare; you mind she went lame last year and I had to shoot her, but she was just a young mare then and skittish as all get-out—but she was a ...
— Year of the Big Thaw • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... permission. What do you mean by standing?' And the young lady, with a laugh, sat down, looking so pleased, and good-natured, and merry, that even old Tamar was fain to smile a glimmering smile; and little Margery actively brought the tea-caddy; and the kettle, being in a skittish singing state, quickly went off in a boil, and Tamar actually made tea ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... right," said Mrs. Starling reassuringly; "but, you know, girls ain't obliged to see anybody's hand till they have to. You all like 'em better for bein' skittish. I don't. She ain't skittish with me, neither; and she won't be with you, when you've caught her once. Take your time, only I wouldn't be too long about ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... and *make a game* *also *romp* As any kid or calf following his dame. Her mouth was sweet as braket, or as methe* *mead Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath. Wincing* she was as is a jolly colt, *skittish Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt. A brooch she bare upon her low collere, As broad as is the boss of a bucklere. Her shoon were laced on her legges high; She was a primerole,* a piggesnie , *primrose For any lord t' have ligging* in his bed, *lying ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Lydgate was not altogether a common country doctor, and in Middlemarch at that time such an impression was significant of great things being expected from him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases. The evidence of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order, lying in his lady-patients' immovable conviction, and was unassailable by any objection except that their intuitions were ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... chaps are who ought to be ashamed to ship as sailors, for he'd venture aloft sometimes when no one else would dare, and was the first man at the weather-earing when it was 'Reef topsails!' But he had a temper as skittish as the cap'en's, and couldn't stand being swore at. I've heard him many a time mutter after the captain had been going on at him. I know I'd not have liked to have said half to him that Captain Jarvis did, for Black Harry ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... he enlists in the ranks of those who seek pleasure in the night-resorts of the town. He soon becomes the boon companion of shady sporting men, latter-day coachmen, pink and paragraphic journalists, and middle-aged ladies, who, having once been, or been once, on the stage, still affect the skittish manners of a ballet-dancer. He is a man of short speech, but his humour is as broad as his drinks are long. He affects a rowdy geniality and a swaggering gait, by which he seeks to overawe the inoffensive. Though he has but a small stock of intelligence, he passes for a wit amongst his associates ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... was going to the Grange one evening—a dark evening, threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... of hundreds equally well if not better adapted to the sailor's furtive habits, the total of escapes must have been little short of enormous. It could not have been otherwise. In this grand battue of the sea it was clearly impossible to round-up and capture every skittish son of Neptune. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... is no thoroughbred, and he'll probably never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had to clear out then, for it's a secret confab of the whole executive committee that develops, includin' Auntie. But we got a full report later. It seems Rupert was skittish about havin' naval officers snoopin' around the yacht. For one thing, he don't want 'em to find out that this is a treasure-huntin' cruise, on account of the government's bein' apt to hog part of the swag. Then, there's all them guns stowed away below. He explains how ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... loose, play fantastic tricks; tourner casaque [Fr.]. Adj. capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims &c n.; maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky [U.S.], particular, humorsome^, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable &c 83; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle &c (irresolute) 605; frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile. Adv. by fits and starts, without rhyme or reason. Phr. nil fuit unquain sic inipar sibi [Lat.]; the deuce ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... safe to the sands, cried ungratefully that this was the last time that she would ever, ever go with her husband anywhere. Ever. Dwight Herbert, recovering, gauged the moment to require of him humour, and observed that his wedded wife was as skittish as a colt. Ina kept silence, head poised so that her full little chin showed double. Monona, who had previously hidden a cooky in her frock, now remembered it and crunched sidewise, ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... has only enchanted his imagination, not won his heart; though he is not himself aware that such is the case. This fancy-sickness—for it appears to be nothing else—naturally renders him somewhat capricious and fantastical, "unstaid and skittish in his motions"; and, but for the exquisite poetry which it inspires him to utter, would rather excite our mirth than enlist our sympathy. To use an illustration from another play, Olivia is not so much his Juliet as his Rosalind; and perhaps a secret persuasion to ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... officers will bear witness, all the army will tell you that in the second army, ninth corps, second division of infantry, fiftieth yager regiment, Major Plut is the foremost dancer of the mazurka. Come on, young lady! Don't be so skittish, for I shall ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types; girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and then ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... considered the situation. "I guess you'll jest have to wait and git wet. Miss Hildreth's horse is skittish on ferries. I wouldn't wanter go on with you an' leave ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, all shall be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the verse teaches that the skittish god must not be scared by a premature exhibition of the noose hid beneath the sieve of corn. Champagne suppers and love among the roses—yes. But there should be, also, cunningly hidden, the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... remained quiet enough till happening to meet another man, also airing a pair of skittish horses,—the capering of the horses, or something else, roused the brute's savage nature, and he sprang on one of them like a tiger, fastening on his flank, and sucking his blood so greedily that all the two men could do did not make the savage beast quit his ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... Exeter Hall. Brown was credited with having a particularly happy touch in the reporting of religious meetings. He certainly had an open mind, for I remember his saying that day that he thought Christianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish climate like ours than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju worship in London would be sure to cause friction with ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... he said nothing whatever, being fully occupied with the animal he was driving—a skittish young mare impatient ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... had become skittish by seeing her family always in danger, came to me with a very distressed countenance, and said, "What will you do if the mayor of Boston sends him word that you haven't been there? Then he will suspect the letter was a trick; and maybe he'll find out something about it, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... indifferent, Mr. Hickman—if you think you can part with her for her skittish tricks—if my interest in your favour—Why, Mr. Hickman, I must tell you that my Nancy is worth bearing with. If she be foolish—what is that owing to?—Is it not to her wit? Let me tell you, Sir, you cannot have the convenience without the inconvenience. What workman ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... play simply the discharge of surplus nerve force in the animal's organism. He was supposed to play when he felt fresh and vigorous. The horse is "skittish" and playful in the morning, not so much so at night. The dogs lie down and rest when they are tired, having used up their surplus energies. This is called ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand...."—The ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would lose all recollection of her good resolve, and go hurling on at a break-neck speed in the van of some skittish horse, or slowly zig-zag ahead in the path of some stolid coachman, causing him to anathematize all wheelmen in general and this especially provoking specimen in particular, while her watching companion held ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... adventurous spirit craved a spice of the dangerous in everything, had taken immediately to the sorrel, who had apparently been given no name. He was a skittish horse, gentle, as Andy explained, but "pow'ful nervous—had to be sort o' ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... who has a pretty figure, mottled pink cheeks, and yellow hair, Alexandra is very fond, though she keeps a sharp eye upon her. Signa is apt to be skittish at mealtime, when the men are about, and to spill the coffee or upset the cream. It is supposed that Nelse Jensen, one of the six men at the dinner-table, is courting Signa, though he has been so ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... reins of her skittish, snorting pony and picked up Lennon's new sombrero. Through the middle of the high peak was ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... reason, by gad!" said the slighter of the two, setting down his empty glass with a bang, "oh, trust me to know their pretty, skittish ways, trust me to manage 'em; I've ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Portate was keyed up for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the Hottentots were skittish, and ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... frequent guest at the Aubrey Arms o' nights—always attended by Hector, the large Newfoundland dog already spoken of, and who was now lying stretched on the floor at Pumpkin's feet, his nose resting on his fore feet, and his eyes, with great gravity, watching the motions of a skittish kitten under the table. Opposite to him sat Tonson the gamekeeper—a thin, wiry, beetle-browed fellow, with eyes like a ferret; and there were also, one or two farmers, who ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... buggy; old Mr. Smiley's ponderous black with his comfortable phaeton, speaking the presence of Mr. Pound and Mrs. Pound, who used it as their own; the Buckwalters' rockaway and the Rickabachs' spring-wagon. Even Miss Agnes Spinner's bicycle had a fence panel all to itself, as though it were very skittish and likely to kick and set the whole road in commotion. To my own unimportant self I never attributed this assembly of all the great folk of the valley. There was some more potent reason. As I pondered, hunting ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... to the enemy, had inwardly shuddered. She was an excellent, estimable woman; but when ponderously arch, when extensively sly! Oh, dear no! It didn't do. Her gambols were too sadly suggestive of those of a skittish hippopotamus. Dominic Iglesias was conscious that he had a skin too little to-night; he could not witness them with philosophy. The kindliest intention, the best-meant words, might cause him ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... can be compared to a highland cataract of lofty height but small volume, which is more picturesque than useful, and the current from a voltaic battery, a thermopile, or a dynamo to a lowland river which can be dammed to turn a mill. It is the difference between a skittish gelding and a ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... laughed, with a motion towards the ceiling, signifying the direction of the governor's office. "By the way, I was sorry about that bill you were interested in," he went on; "upon my word I was—but we're skittish just now on the subject of corporations. Charters are dangerous things—you can't tell where they're leading you, eh?—but, on ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... had come to light. Everywhere were bits of charred wood. Did no place in James Towne escape the scourge of fire? A kitten came springing over the mounds of excavated earth and began to prowl about the old fireplace. Except for a skittish pebble that she chased across the empty front, she found nothing of interest; no hint of savoury odours from the great spit over the blazing logs that may have caused a James Towne cat to sit and gaze and sniff some two centuries ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... to tongue-lash the boys that are for you," advised Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those that ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... with anything like the same care. . . . A good poem, play, or novel is at least as fine an achievement as a good history; yet the history gets the benefit of an expert's judgment and two columns of thoughtful pimse or censure, while the poem, play, or novel is treated to ten skittish lines by the hack who happens to be within nearest call when the ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... could have cried with anger and vexation. Like many people of strong and resolute will, she was a good deal of a coward on horseback; and she knew that Sweetbriar was what the farmers called "a young and very skittish animal." Still her determined spirit rose against thus being outdone; besides, she knew well that in a case like this, where none of the "afflicted circle," not even her own daughter, would aid her, the whole thing might fall through if she were not present. So she said, "Well, ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... occasion and got most in by persuasion, whilst others were simply lifted in by the sailors. Though all are thin and some few looked pulled down I was agreeably surprised at the evident vitality which they still possessed—some were even skittish. I cannot express the relief when the whole seventeen were safely picketed on the floe. From the moment of getting on the snow they seemed to take a new lease of life, and I haven't a doubt they ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... growing skittish, stranger," smiled Jim Duff. "He's on the point of moving. You'd better ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... the cushion. I must go and get it. But the nose-rope makes the bullocks skittish. I suppose I had better take the ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon that the eye mistook it for storm-cloud. The house Mr. Perekatov had erected for a summer residence had been, with the ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... believe Harlequin in person will never make you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair's furious passion for Lady Walpole (aged fourteen and some months). Mrs. Murray undertook to bring the business to bear, and provided the opportunity (a great ingredient you'll say); but the young lady proved skittish. She did not only turn this heroic flame into present ridicule, but exposed all his generous sentiments, to divert her husband and father-in-law. His lordship is gone to Scotland; and if there was anybody wicked enough ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... busy bees; even Bumpus tried to assist in hauling at the cable, having moved forward when the boat no longer pranced and bobbed on the agitated sea like a skittish horse. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... door as he spoke, and I thought, he looked a little skittish; but I was consider'bly frustrated, and didn't mind much; so I turned about and walked off as smart as I know'd how. He said he would tell me when to stop, so I kep' on 'till I tho't I'd gone far 'nough; I then 'spected suthin' was to pay, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... sit a lazy mist, A fatal tree, and luckless to the gods, Where for disdain in life—Love's worst of odds— The queen of shades, fair Proserpine, did rack The sad Adonis: hither now they pack This little god, where, first disarm'd, they bind His skittish wings, then both his hands behind His back they tie, and thus secur'd at last, The peevish wanton to the tree make fast. Here at adventure, without judge or jury, He is condemn'd, while with united fury They all assail him. As a thief at bar Left to the law, and mercy of his star, Hath bills heap'd ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... made you King that you should reign in my way, but not in yours!"—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—like a well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as variegated and expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the roads of Poland, without himself knowing why ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to him of all, called out to me "Curses this hour on this white stallion's hide, I bought in London for a stiff round sum! I'd part with fifty ducats, I'll be bound, Could I but veil him with a mouse's gray." With hot misgiving he draws near and cries, "Highness, your horse is skittish; grant me leave To give him just an hour of schooling more." And leaping from his sorrel at the word He grasps the bridle of our liege's beast. Our liege dismounts, still smiling, and replies "As long as day is in the sky, I doubt If he will learn the art you wish to teach. But give your lesson ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to Dullhampton the Bishop was in the best of spirits, much on the principle of a naughty boy who, having played truant, means to enjoy his holiday to the full, well knowing that he will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress of Blanford than she had of wedding the author of "The Purple Kangaroo." On the other hand, she realised that it was one of the old gentleman's ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... went below for her luggage. A lonely dory, black of complexion and skittish of gait, had wandered out and hung in the shadow of the steamer, awaiting the passengers. The dory was manned by one negro, who sat with his oars crossed, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... got quite young and skittish; and as for old Worble's aunt Susan's mother, who was bedridden, up she had to get on old Joe Wilkings's third visit, and had to toddle across the room. He drilled her—kept on at it; he was there twice a day; and every time she had to get out of bed and toddle ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sizes and furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery blue ice. It may be easily imagined that it is no seemly place to exercise skittish ponies or mules in a cold wind, but there is no other place when the sea-ice ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... West Salem," I replied. "All our talk has been of West Salem, and if you can content yourself to live with us there, I shall be very glad of your co-operation. Father is still skittish. He will not come back till he can sell to advantage. However, the season has started well and I am hoping that he will at least come down with mother and talk the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... a horse that shied and reared at the flames and confusion. Other horses, skittish and scared, with the smell of spilt blood in their nostrils, fighting the men who led them, ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... been that marriage and not death was the hunchback's goal. How Yossel had found money for the great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been tapped. Her skittish advances had been taken seriously by Yossel. He had boldly proposed to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point, it was said, the old lady had drawn back—she who had led him so far was not to be ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the other day 'don't want to,' literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and resistance - my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her - she has no vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention and humouring; lastly (of saddle horses) Luna - not the Latin MOON, the Hawaiian OVERSEER, but it's pronounced the same - a pretty little mare too, but scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Yes," she said. "I hardly know why I was behaving like that. I suppose we all of us feel skittish at times." She paused and said with some little hesitation, "You have them, I suppose?" and at the same time she rapidly touched her ears, eyes and mouth ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... you sprigged off to marry in town. Get your dimity together, Nancy! Your grandmother Craddock's haircloth trunk is strapped on behind her carriage there, and Rufus will drive you home. These mules are too skittish for him to handle. Fine pair, eh, William?' And right there in the early dawn, almost in front of the garage that contained his touring Chauvinnais and my gray roadster, father stood in his velvet dressing-gown and admired the two moth-eaten old animals. Now, I honestly ask you, Matthew, could ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... more, for he did not know but that Andy's horse might be skittish. He need have no fears, however, for the animal did not seem to have much more life than ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... ill with a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... pity and disgorge some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so constantly at Mrs Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris shivered slightly. "A fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!" Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a moment. "Thank heaven I was once a footballer!" he ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... household. Even Fanny Fitz, with all her optimism, knew better than to expect that William O'Loughlin, who divided his attentions between the ancient cob and the garden, and ruled the elder Misses Fitzroy with a rod of iron, would undertake the education of anything more skittish than early potatoes. It was to the stable, or rather cow-house, of one Johnny Connolly, that the new purchase was ultimately conveyed, and it was thither that Fanny Fitz, with apples in one pocket and sugar in the other, conducted ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... some ob de culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de culled folks ef ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... the new-issue quality ready an' a-waitin' to pull an' haul at 'im,' says I. Not that I begrudge the vittles—not by no means; I hope I hain't got to that yit. But somehow er 'nother folks what hain't got no great shakes to brag 'bout gener'ly feels sorter skittish when strange folks draps in on 'em. Goodness knows I hain't come to that pass wher' I begrudges the vittles that folks eats, bekaze anybody betweenst this an' Clinton, Jones County, Georgy, 'll tell ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... little idiosyncrasies no less than other people. Some are quite surly and obstinate, others good-humoured and light-hearted; where one exhibits all the stately dignity of a College head-porter another may be as skittish and full of fun as a magistrate on the Bench. There was one trawler at our base so vain that they could never get her to enter the lockpits until her decks had been scrubbed and a string of bunting hoisted at the foremast. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... she did regret the change in her name, though she was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived had submitted ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and young women of such clean-cut, high-bred features as to make us wonder. And yet I don't know why we should wonder, either. They all come from good old stock. The young fellows run a little too strongly to patent-leather shoes and their horses are almost too skittish for my liking, but the girls are all right. If their clothes set better than you thought they would, why, you must remember that they subscribe for the very same fashion magazines that you do, and there is such a thing as a mail-order business ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... level with the rest and | delivered the following address... | (III, 559; Farrington's translation). | | Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles | Galileo or Einstein more than it does | the turbulent Paracelsus or the | unquiet and skittish Cornelius | Agrippa. The titanic bearing of the | Renaissance magus is now supplanted | by a classical composure similar to | that of the "conversations" of the | earliest Humanists. Also in Galileo's | DIALOGO and in Descartes's RECHERCHE | DE ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... they 'll take my word about the moral, Which I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel: For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I 've bribed my ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... orders on good people who are worthy of credit. Now, it doesn't make any difference as to his salary if he turns down good people; in fact, if he is in doubt about any man at all, or even the least bit skittish, what does he do but turn him down? This is nothing out of his jeans, but it's taking shoes away from my babies, and I simply ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... find out of the horse shows any viciousness towards other horses or towards human beings; also, whether he is skittish; (8) such defects are apt to cause ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... Manager: "No; if she attempts to be skittish I just threaten to publish the photographs of her two sons who ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Sede, seed. Semescope, jacket. Sets, patterns. Seventeen-hunder, very fine (linen). Shachled, feeble, shapeless. Shaw, show. Shiel, shelter. Shool, shovel. Shoon, shoes. Shouther, shoulder. Sic, such. Siller, silver, money. Sin', since. Skeigh, skittish. Skellum, good-for-nothing. Skelp, run quickly. Skiffing, moving along lightly. Skirl, squeal, scream. Skriech, screech. Slaes, sloes. Slap, gap in a fence. Slea, slay. Sleekit, sleek. Slid, smooth. Smeddum, powder. Smethe, smoke. Smoor, smother. Smothe, vapor. Snaw, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... my young lady's various pranks would fill a thick volume. A favorite trick of hers, on being requested to "walk like Miss Abigail," was to assume a little skittish gait so true to nature that Miss Abigail herself was obliged to admit the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Nora, you must be more careful than you were once on a time, on a skittish young horse which nearly proved your death," observed the old lawyer. "A day like this tries an animal; and unless your steed is as steady as a rock I cannot sanction ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... a glass off at one gulp, his heels well together in military fashion. Minora thought the incident typical of German manners, and not only made notes about it, but joined heartily in the health-drinking, and afterward grew skittish. ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... is skittish about machinery," said Romper Ryan emphatically, "I'm going to see that Dick Austin becomes a scout before he leaves Woodbridge; he's the kind ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... very high. Mounted at the gate with Mr. H. Horse skittish, and wants exercise. Arrive at the old house. All the provisions bespoke by some rakish fellow-commoner in the next room, who had been on a scheme to Newmarket. Could get nothing but mutton-chops off the worst end. Port very new. Agree ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... tires of the music he calls for, of the clown's song (II. iv.). Is his first speech to Viola, on woman's constancy before the song, consistent with his second, after it? Is his own report of himself true,—'Unstaid and skittish in all motions else Save in the constant image of the one beloved'? Is Olivia's unattainableness the main source of her desirableness for him? How is it with Sebastian? Does his loyalty in love seem to be of the sort that suffers impairment when he can win love ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... Peleg Snuggers, the general utility man attached to Putnam Hall Military Academy. "Them hosses is skittish, and—" ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... bicycle, but only a colt—a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight—and skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing's points briefly, then he got on its back and rode around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we would leave that to the last. But he was in error there. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... goes. Yas, suh, settin' yonder after I made that motion, I sez to myse'f, I sez, 'Glass, you done started this thing an' you must see it th'ough. 'Twon't never do in this world fur the gran' marshal to be stuck up 'pon the top side of a skittish, skeery liver'-stable hoss that'll mebbe start cuttin' up right in the smack middle of things and distrac' the gran' marshal's mind frum his business.' I seen that happen mo' times 'en onct, wid painful results. I s'pose, tho, you kin ride mighty nigh ary ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... possessed my soul in patience, until the day came when I received a copy of a newspaper marked in the corner, "Compliments of J.P." I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account of a prize-fight and a skittish article upon chiropody—think of chiropody treated with a leer!—I came upon a column and a half in which myself and my poor statue were embalmed. Like the editor with the first of the series, I did but glance my eye down the head-lines, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had fallen—quite safely, but rather unpleasantly—into a large nettle-bed; whence they crawled out, rubbing their arms and legs, and looking too much ashamed to complain. But they were rather frightened and a little cross, for Jess took a skittish fit, and refused to be caught and mounted again, till the bell rang for school—when she grew as meek as possible. Too late—for the children were obliged to run indoors, and got no more ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock |
