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More "Touchy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is it? And why? Why, sir? I'm one of the best tempered men that ever came from Dublin, let me tell you, and I will not stay here to be insulted by the insinuation that I cannot discuss Ireland as calmly as any one in this company or out of it. Touchy about Ireland, ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... declared that she had never seen him laugh heartily; and Spence, who records the saying, is surprised, because Pope was said to have been very lively in his youth; but admits that in later years he never went beyond a "particular easy smile." A hearty laugh would have sounded strangely from the touchy, moody, intriguing little man, who could "hardly drink tea without a stratagem." His sensitiveness, indeed, appearing by his often weeping when he read moving passages; but we can hardly imagine him as ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... formerly fat man—if I am not correct. But do not ask a fat woman unless, as in the case of possible fire at a theater, you already have looked about you and chosen the nearest exit. Taken as a sex, women are more likely to be touchy upon this detail where it applies to themselves than ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... "Touchy, eh?" sniffed Septemas Scudmore. "Not strange at all. Studious inclination, close application to work, baffling researches, midnight oil—these things irritate the nerves and make a man crusty. But then, I don't think you ever hurt yourself by ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... lady, "I suppose you're not going to quarrel with me because I ask a simple question? You have a touchy temper, you know. If I had had a temper like yours, I should have very few friends ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... months went on, Brunie began to get very thin and very touchy and irritable, and by the time June came she was so cross and savage that even her little ones were sometimes afraid of her. Curiously enough, all the other bears were just as cross and savage as Brunie; perhaps it was that they ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... at this brazenness had prevented him from thinking clearly. He was getting "touchy" about his uncle's political record of late and had had occasion to defend it with some heat during certain discussions among friends; there had been several newspaper attacks which he had resented greatly also. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is, there are two great classes of sins—sins of the body, and sins of the disposition. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... that our good or evil spirits have any particular feeling about wood, that they like it stroked; nobody, I suppose, not even the most superstitious, really thinks that Fate is especially touchy in the matter of salt and ladders. Equally, of course, many people who throw spilt salt over their left shoulders are not superstitious in the least, and are only concerned to display that readiness in the face of any social ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... well-known characteristic of human nature to be touchy about such matters as these. Popular feeling about Washington's procedure was inflamed by reports of the grand titles which Congress was arranging to bestow upon the President. That matter was, in fact, considered by the Senate on the very day of Washington's arrival ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... to get my stately, touchy dowager duchess to explain how it was that there was such a lot of blood, and how it was it got into the house. She just said "it had to go somewhere," and refused to give rational explanations as Chambers's Journal does after telling ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... you I said to Mr F.'s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be agreeable to all parties that she should be engaged at our house when required for I know she often goes to your mama's and I know that your mama has a very touchy temper Arthur—Doyce and Clennam—or I never might have married Mr F. and might have been at this hour but I am running ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... understood it. Perhaps I am touchy; I don't think I am ungrateful. They have always made you like one ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more at a loss to account for the gravity of his expression; she wondered whether he had thought her rude yesterday when she had disappeared from the table at lunch and had never returned, but it was not like French to be touchy. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... they fared well, with only an occasional snub. Their last place of call was at Robert Dickson's by the pond bridge. They stayed to tea here, although they were nearly home, rather than risk offending Mrs. Dickson, who had the reputation of being a very "touchy" woman. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a greater extent in all mediaeval literature—is that the class and the type are rather too prominent. The central conception of Charlemagne as a generally dignified but too frequently irascible and rather petulant monarch, surrounded by valiant and in a way faithful but exceedingly touchy or ticklish paladins, is no doubt true enough to the early stages of feudalism—in fact, to adapt the tag, there is too much human nature in it for it to be false. But it communicates a certain sameness to the chansons which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... for any," he answered. "But Bill might be a bit touchy. Maybe, Dan, it might be worth while for you to hang around. Do as ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... he said, "Now, men, these Mohammedans are very touchy. You've got to be careful how you treat them. For example, their headgear is sacred. Don't touch it. And when you get a little of home-brewed Scotch into you, don't knock their head-dress off. They'll probably knife ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... because the venerable Mere Superior is touchy on the point of family,—but I am not her nephew, voila la differance!" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... probably review the household troops— With the usual "Shalloo humps!" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern potentate. After that we generally Go and dress our private valet— (It's a rather nervous duty—he's a touchy little man)— Write some letters literary For our private secretary— He is shaky in his spelling, so we help him if we can. Then, in view of cravings inner, We go down and order dinner; Then we polish the Regalia and ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... demonstration of doubt upon his patron's part since the quarrel between the two lords, Harry yet saw that Lord Castlewood was watching his guest very narrowly; and caught signs of distrust and smothered rage (as Harry thought) which foreboded no good. On the point of honour Esmond knew how touchy his patron was; and watched him almost as a physician watches a patient, and it seemed to him that this one was slow to take the disease, though he could not throw off the poison when once it had mingled ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not like these party nicknames," interrupted her sister, who seemed remarkably touchy about some points. "Perhaps we shall part in better humor, if ...
— The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... been very happy at the ironworks, and very industrious beside my kind mother. In the evening I came home on the little chestnut. Since the day before yesterday, when he got a strain and hurt his foot, he has been very restive and very touchy, and when he got home he refused his food. I thought at first that he did not fancy his fodder, and gave him some pieces of sugar and sticks of cinnamon, which he likes very much; he tasted them, but would not eat them. The poor little beast seems to have same ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Whatever is the matter?" And she has no sooner heard about the touchy tusk than she says, "Oh, pooh! Just say there isn't any such thing as toothache. Pain, you know, is only a false mental photograph, an error of ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... he said frankly. "You see, I've felt rather touchy about the thing. I want people to know that you and I have agreed on making Terry the heir to the ranch. I don't want anyone to suspect that we differed. I suppose I talked too much about ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go 'ato partnership, but they spend most of their time and all their money in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they are getting involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy, bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen Singn—shall we ask ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... slowly but surely. "Why don't you ride on a private road of your own if no one ain't to speak to you?" asked the heath-keeper, perceiving more and more clearly the bearing of the matter. "Can't no one make a passin' remark to you, Touchy? Ain't I good enough to speak to you? Been struck wooden all ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... impassive as a clod, I pull at his limp arms, frown, wink, and nod, To urge him to release me. With a smile He feigns stupidity: I burn with bile. "Something there was you said you wished to tell To me in private." "Ay, I mind it well; But not just now: 'tis a Jews' fast to-day: Affront a sect so touchy! nay, friend, nay." "Faith, I've no scruples." "Ah! but I've a few: I'm weak, you know, and do as others do: Some other time: excuse me." Wretched me! That ever man so black a sun should see! Off goes the rogue, and leaves me in despair, Tied to the altar, with the knife in air: When, by ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... her away as soon as possible. My great fear is that the work may be too much for you, poor Dorothy; and that—that—we may have to keep you waiting sometimes for your wages," she added, rather hesitatingly fearing to offend Dorothy's touchy temper, and yet determined to put the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... at her with mock seriousness. "Oh, please don't! Please don't!" He spoke imploringly. "I am very touchy about my laugh—it's the only one I've got, you know. It's quite childish, isn't it? Never grew up, you know." He made the funny little sound again. It was like the bleating of a toy lamb when its head is twisted. "You know, they ask me how I do it. I don't know; I try to teach other people—they ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... Miss Starbrow? And as the days and weeks went by, that vague anxiety did not leave her; for the more she saw of her mistress, the less did she seem like one of a steadfast mind, whose feelings would always remain the same. She was touchy, passionate, variable in temper; and if her stormy periods were short-lived, she also had cold and sullen moods, which lasted long, and turned all her sweetness sour; and at such times Fan feared to approach her, but sat apart distressed and sorrowful. And yet, whatever her mood was, she ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... adventures in a vague way, but somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're big enough to look after yourself. Anyway, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... suppose I should have been incensed by this off-hand dismissal. Oh, I was no meek and humble specimen; my temper was only too touchy, and besides there was my reputation as a hard case to look to. But strangely enough I did not become incensed; I never thought of kicking down the door, I never thought of harboring a grudge. It wasn't fear of the big man, either. It was—well, that was Newman. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... in Holderness, smoothly. "You needn't be so touchy about Mescal. She's showed what little use she's got for you. If you must rope her around like you do a mustang, be easy about it. Let's have supper. Now, Mescal, you sit here on the bench and behave yourself. I don't want you shooting up ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... showed no unkindness—nay, among the various changes that matrimony had produced in her, her temper appeared rather to have improved than otherwise; there was now seldom any trace of that touchy sharpness which used to be called "poor Selina's way." And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to herself, with a sigh, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... to concern himself with. Tom did not lack these, but he was none the less keenly sensitive upon the point of Margaret's propriety and good name. 'Twas the extraordinary love and pride he had centred upon her, that made him so observant and so touchy in the case. He brooded upon her actions, worried himself with conjectures, underwent such torments as jealous lovers know, such pangs as Hamlet felt in his uncertainty regarding the integrity ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was blind to this contention. For his own part, he humoured Bridget or smiled at her asperities, as suited him; and it is probable that if he had been appealed to, he would have adopted his old favourite's side, and censured Leslie as touchy, inconsiderate, perhaps a little spiteful. But he never was made umpire, for Leslie had all the disadvantage of a noble temper in an unseemly struggle. Bridget plagued Leslie, but Leslie would not injure Bridget,—no, not for the world. The imperious old woman was Hector ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... four the big Hall began to fill. Everybody was there. Fellows who were on the list, sanguine, anxious, touchy; fellows who were not on the list, cross, sarcastic, righteous. Nearly every one had his paper in his hand, which he furtively glanced through for the last time before the summons to deposit it in the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... you're glad to see me," said Wessner, with something very like a breath of relief. "We been hearing down at the camp you were so mighty touchy you didn't allow a man within a ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... better my fortunes. This is my firm resolve; and now I may properly tell you That which had else been buried for many a year in my bosom. Yes, the father's jest has wounded me deeply, I own it, Not that I'm proud and touchy, as ill becometh a servant, But because in truth in my heart a feeling has risen For the youth, who to-day has fill'd the part of my Saviour. For when first in the road he left me, his image remain'd still Firmly ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... with her handsome well-preserved husband, and had every confidence in him, but to a chosen friend she would sometimes admit that he was "difficult"; she called him not proud and obstinate, but sensitive and a little touchy; she hinted that he could not bear unpleasant looks, and yet was not very ready to make concessions to friendship. No doubt he needed some management, and Lady Mildmay, like many wives, found one of her chief functions ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Mrs. John had inherited money—again, and the result had been an increase in the spaciousness of her existence. George had not expected to see the new house, for he had determined to have nothing more to do with Mrs. John. He was, it is to be feared, rather touchy. He and Mrs. John had not openly quarrelled, but in their hearts they had quarrelled. George had for some time objected to her attitude towards him as a boarder. She would hint that, as she assuredly had no need of boarders, she was conferring a favour on him by boarding ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... imagination to carry him through each successive day, and no more, he was tranquilly sure of himself; and from the very same cause he was not in the least conceited. It is your imaginative superior who is touchy, overbearing, and difficult to please; but every ship Captain MacWhirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace. It was, in truth, as impossible for him to take a flight of fancy as it would ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... ever poor and distrest, and is the bubble of all such as are not gifted with precisely the same sort of magnanimity which for himself he is determined to attain to. To be his friend is the task of all tasks: for he is so touchy, you need only cough, or eat with your knife, or not sip your drink as delicately as a cow, or even pick your teeth, to ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... the following night when they reached their destination. Bill had come to the conclusion that Frank was not a very jolly traveling companion. He was moody and inclined to be really grouchy. And touchy.... Whew! It was all Bill could do to say the right thing. Finally he remembered that some people are always car-sick when they travel, and on being asked, Frank admitted that he didn't feel so very good. So Bill let him alone and things went better. Bill made a good many friends that ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... get through twenty nights without its breast-plate being unbuckled, and forty-eight hours on a handful of rice. On the contrary, Tartarin's body was a stout honest bully of a body, very fat, very weighty, most sensual and fond of coddling, highly touchy, full of low-class appetite and homely requirements—the short, paunchy body on stumps of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... in the first moment of rebuff to be touchy, allowed his natural goodness of heart to prevail. He leaned forward, and said, not without pathos: "Old man, we are all your friends here. Something's the matter. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... cowmen stoppin' here to-night—the ones you talked of payin' to double up—an' there ain't one of 'em that wouldn't be glad to double up, or go out an' sleep on the street if he couldn't get nowhere else to sleep, if you even whispered that there was a lady needed his room. The boys is right touchy when it ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... other day was asserting a wife's right to the control of her own property, and incidentally advocating the equality of the sexes,—a touchy point with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Frank stoutly. "Is that what Big-Eyes was crying about? I hate people to be touchy and blubber over a ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... fancy is a proof of equality and independence, we never met with, and duels and street quarrels are almost unknown. We detected none of the touchy sensitiveness of the punctilious Spanish hidalgos. Their compliments and promises are without end; and, made in the magnificent and ceremonious language of Spain,[24] are overwhelming to a stranger. Thus a fair Quitonian sends by her servant the following ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... for so much real information. In fact, if I'd been at all touchy I might have worked up the notion ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... - he a touchy little man) - Write some letters literary For our private secretary - (He is shaky in his spelling, so we help him if we can.) Then, in view of cravings inner, We go down and order dinner; Or we polish the Regalia and the Coronation ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... better let her alone," suggested the conductor, "particularly as no one has complained; and there might be a row if she turned out to be the nurse to those children. The whole party are Southerners, that's clear; and these Southerners are mighty touchy about their niggers sometimes, and kick and cut like the devil about them. I guess we had better let her alone, unless some one complains ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... as difficult and dangerous a thing to deal with as ladies' attire; as various in its hues and forms, as fanciful in its conceits, as changeable in its fashions, and as touchy in the temper of its wearers. To pull a guardsman by his coat-tail would be as unpardonable an offence as to tread on a lady's skirt; and to offer an opinion upon a lancer's cap might be considered as impertinent as to criticise a lady's bonnet. Having, however, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... "Yes!" mean?' She lifted her chest to shake out the dead-alive monosyllable, as he had done. 'Why are you so singular this morning, Evan? Have I offended you? You are so touchy!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant Fellow; Hast so much Wit, and Mirth, and Spleen about thee, There is no living ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... utilising this fine domicile, as there seemed to be a general feeling of skepticism regarding the ability of Gus to produce a cow in the flesh. This sentiment, however, was not openly expressed, as the lad was found to be decidedly sensitive and touchy on ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... their character and calling. In some of the numbers of the Spectator we still find these 'characters' occurring, such as the character of Will Wimble, [Footnote: Spectator 108.] of the honest yeoman, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] and of Tom Touchy; [Footnote: Spectator 122.] but they are surrounded by circumstances peculiar to themselves, and so are much more highly individualized. The Tatler and the Spectator very greatly extended the range of essay-writing, and with it the flexibility of prose style; it is ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... anxiety was Mrs Nash. It required constant and most assiduous attention to keep her in good temper. And the nearer the time came the more touchy she got. If I suggested anything, she took it as a personal slight to herself; if I was bold enough to differ from her, she was mortally offended; if I ventured to express the slightest impatience, she turned crusty and threatened to let me shift for myself. The affair, too, naturally ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... seem to get husband's mind off himself," Mrs. Apwall would whisper at parting. "He isn't half so touchy when you've cheered ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... am touchy on the subject," she replied quickly; "some of us are fortunate enough to have had our ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Sakehow," said Sagastao; "do not be so touchy. I deserved the talking to that papa gave me. It was wrong of me to whack that Indian boy with my bat as I did, and I ought to have been punished; so if you have any jolly good stories about bad Indian boys, and how they were punished, why, let us ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... child! Don't be so touchy! A body can laugh, can't he, and no harm done? You 'd better be good-tempered and jolly, and then I 'll tell you where I 'm going,—which, I believe, was what you wished to know in the first place, was ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... brought exceedingly close together owing to their isolation. If a quarrel took place, the whole play was spoilt. Arthur was very touchy, and Billy Pillins—really Philips—was worse. Then Paul had to side with Arthur, and on Paul's side went Alice, while Billy Pillins always had Emmie Limb and Eddie Dakin to back him up. Then the six would fight, hate with a fury of hatred, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... "It's not like her to say that. Did she really? She's so touchy about me, generally. Sometimes, the way she goes on, anybody'd think I was the miserablest creature in the world, and always on at her about something. I'm not, you know; only she thinks it. Well, I can't help it, can I? If you knew how I have to work in that ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... sweets, boxes at the theatre; but don't get any other ideas into your head, and don't make absurd scenes of jealousy. You know whom you have to do with; Marguerite isn't a saint. She likes you, you are very fond of her; let the rest alone. You amaze me when I see you so touchy; you have the most charming mistress in Paris. She receives you in the greatest style, she is covered with diamonds, she needn't cost you a penny, unless you like, and you are not satisfied. My dear fellow, you ask ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... he said. He then brought out my key ring, although unable to take the keys off because of having but one hand. "If you're as touchy as all that, and don't care for the real ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "He's touchy on the Irish question, is he?" he thundered. "Drop it, is it? And why? Why, sir? I'm one of the best-tempered men that ever came from Ireland, let me tell you, and I will not stay here to be insulted by the insinuation that I cannot ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... perhaps the most touchy person in American literature at the present time. For a number of years she has been contributing to the newspaper press of the country, and her verses have been subjected to the harshest sort ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... twixt him and glory; and, last of all, a stoup of good old wine in the company of a most noble throng. Indeed, good Guido," he continued, as musing to himself he walked along, "thou wert made, I marry, for better things than cracking the knavish pates of yellow Dons; but guard thy touchy temper well, for even to-night thou couldst but sadly brook a small delay, and wouldst have answered my Lord Catesby's haughty look with scant courtesy. I fear thy warlike nature would poorly thrive upon a diet of quiet living. But these ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... sort of shies talkin' art with me. A touchy party, F. Hallam. The least little thing would give him the sulks. And even when he was feelin' chipper his face was long enough. As a floorwalker in a mournin' goods shop he'd be a perfect fit. But you couldn't suggest anything that sounded like real work to Hallam. He claims ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... no pressing. A week later we were installed there, and for nearly two years we lived there. At the risk of offending an adorable but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is capable of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in a rough-and-ready fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that without female assistance or supervision of any ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... ain't. You ain't takin' me serious, and there's where you're makin' your mistake. I'm touchy about some things, Mr. Pussy-foot. I could 'a' got you three times while you was ridin' down that trail, and I wouldn't 'a' had to stop talkin' to do it. And you with that little old gun out before you ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... be in bed at that time: besides, I don't suppose your grandmamma would have let you go, even if you had been here, for you might have been stung. It's rather a touchy job, is taking a wasp's nest,—very different from hiving bees; we give them a home, but we take one from ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... wandered away from the tribe, as he did more and more often as he approached maturity, to hunt alone for a few days. As a child he had enjoyed romping and playing with the young apes, his companions; but now these play-fellows of his had grown to surly, lowering bulls, or to touchy, suspicious mothers, jealously guarding helpless balus. So Tarzan found in his own man-mind a greater and a truer companionship than any or all of the apes ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Radicals grumbled at the Government for not holding an Autumn Session. That was a fault of omission. Now touchy Tories are angry with it for showing too strong a tendency to what Mr. GLADSTONE once sarcastically called "a policy of examination and inquiry"—into the case of Evicted Tenants, Poor-Law Relief, &c. This is a fault of (Royal) Commission. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... mind to bring the matter before the general, and ask him to interfere on the poor girl's behalf; though I know that it would be an awkward matter. For if there is one thing that the Portuguese are more touchy about than another, it is any interference in religious matters, and the bishop, who is a most intolerant rascal, would be the last man who would give way on ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... is a keen revival of interest but more resistance to open family discussion than in the pre-adolescent age. Maturing children are touchy, sensitive, self-conscious, modest, seclusive. They run to cover at too intimate a topic, especially in the hands of adults who are inclined to strike a wrong note; to be preachy and teachy and inquisitive ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... Rathburn. "You stopped because you saw my gun? An' I'm to blame, for it? If I'd known you were touchy about guns down here I'd have ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... dangerous for the interviewer, since Americans were being murdered rather profusely in Mexico at the time in spite of the astute assurances of Mr. Bryan, and no matter how substantial his references the correspondent was likely to meet some temperamental and touchy soldier with a loaded rifle who would shoot first and afterward carry his papers to some one ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the sole proprietor. Why, at all epochs, have the ministers of State been so reluctant to meddle with the question of wages? Why have they always refused to interfere between the master and the workman? Because they knew the touchy and jealous nature of property, and, regarding it as the principle of all civilization, felt that to meddle with it would be to unsettle the very foundations of society. Sad condition of the proprietary regime,—one of inability to exercise ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... paranoic is rare just as is the extremely trusting person of saintly type. But in minor form every group and every institution has its paranoic, hostile, suspicious, "touchy," quick to believe something is being put over on him and quick to attribute his failure to others. In that last is a cardinal point in the compass of character. Some attribute their failure to others, and some in their ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... founded by the king at Berlin. "Maupertuis has not easygoing springs," the poet wrote to his niece; "he takes my dimensions sternly with his quadrant. It is said that a little envy enters into his calculations." Already Voltaire's touchy vanity was shying at the rivals he encountered in the king's favor. "So it is known, then, by this time at Paris, my dear child," he writes to his niece, "that we have played the Mort de Cesar at Potsdam, that Prince Henry is a good actor, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... me! I haven't said nothing against the Lord. What do you mean?" said I,—for I was touchy, real touchy. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... tuto, a. Totality tuteco. Totter sxanceli. Touch tusxi. Touch (feel) palpi. Touch lightly tusxeti. Touch up (improve) korekti. Touch palpo. Touchiness ofendsenteco. Touching tusxanta. Touching (emotion) kortusxanta. Touchy ofendsentema. Tough malmola. Tour vojagxo. Tourism turismo. Tourist turisto. Touring club turisma klubo. [Error in book: turing klubo] Tow posttreni. Tow stupo. Toward al. Towel visxilo. Tower turo. Towing-vessel trensxipo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... closer the scout crept, quarter-way now along from the stern of the massive bulk that loomed above it, and within fifty feet of the third clamp in the rack. Touchy work, maneuvering into it, with the ZX-1 yawing as she was, and the need for haste desperate. Chris's hands were glued to the stick: his nerves were as tight as violin strings. Then, when only ten feet from the rack clamp, he gave a ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... "This is touchy stuff," Malone said. "We're going to have to take a lot of care in handling it. And I don't want you throwing raids all over the place ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "Dear me, David, how touchy you are! Why will you not accept a patent fact? I have no wish to hurt your feelings, but I really must speak out plain common sense. I always was noted for my common sense, was I not? I don't believe, in the length and breadth of England, you will find better behaved children than my ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... serve me such a trick as that again, old fellow." But it let me into a secret of his character, and ever after that, I was as particular in my invitations as possible. Men thought him proud, and cold, and touchy, which he was not; and stingy, which he scorned to be, from his contempt for ostentation in any shape. The rarity of his wine-parties, and his never having other wines produced than port or sherry, he himself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... still give the mind a twinge, sadden us with a nameless disquiet, shoot through us so keen an anguish when the almond tree is there again on a bright day, if we were decent, healthy, and happy creatures? Perhaps not. It is hard to say. It is a great while since our skinless and touchy crowds of the wonderful industrial era, moving as one man to the words of the daily papers, were such creatures. Perhaps we should merely yawn and stretch ourselves, feel revived with the sun a little warmer on our ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... secretary, he is much more altered by being made a Cabinet minister. Robarts, as he entered the room, could hardly believe that this was the same Harold Smith whom Mrs. Proudie bothered so cruelly in the lecture-room at Barchester. Then he was cross, and touchy, and uneasy, and insignificant. Now, as he stood smiling on the hearth-rug of his official fireplace, it was quite pleasant to see the kind, patronizing smile which lighted up his features. He delighted ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Felicity. "Dan's got so touchy it isn't safe to speak to him. I should think he'd be sorry for all the trouble he made last night. But you just back him ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "it is in these situations sometimes the parvenues show the yellow streak, these and being touchy. They don't always come up to the scratch, otherwise there is no difference in them, and that is the ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... the rifle barrel moved an inch or two, then steadied and stopped, the bone-sight at its tip resting full on the broad of the drunken rider's breast. The boney finger moved inward from the trigger guard and closed ever so gently about the touchy, hair-filed trigger—then waited. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... Government, steady removal of all legitimate grievances, and triumphs of our diplomacy in all parts of the world. Shall have to say a good word for Liberal-Unionists. TOLLAND says there are about thirty of them, all very touchy. Must try to work in the story of the boy and the plum-cake. It made them scream at the Primrose League ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... was there; and had so monstrous a phenomenon occurred I must have seen it. If you think she could really prefer their society to yours, you are as unjust to her as yourself. She may have concealed her real preference out of finesse, or perhaps she has observed that our inferiors are touchy, and ready to fancy we slight them for ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... well, and invited me to meet a very large party at dinner. Mr. Fenimore Cooper, the American novelist, with his wife and daughter, were among the guests. I found him extremely amiable and agreeable, which surprised me, for when I knew him in England he was so touchy that it was difficult to converse with him without giving him offence. He was introduced to Sir Walter Scott by Sir James Mackintosh, who said, in presenting him, "Mr. Cooper, allow me to introduce you to your great forefather in the art of fiction"; ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... bad a way as a fellow can get into ever. I was little better than sick myself; and, while the others went off after eggs and game, I stayed to keep the fire going and take care of Wade. No small stint I had of it too; for he was peevish and touchy as a young badger. I knew he ought to take something hot of the herb-tea sort, and so started off and gathered a dipperful of the tea-plant leaves. Then, getting a lump of ice, I melted it, and made a strong dish of the "tea." Wade was lying under the shelter, face down into his ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... "Don't be touchy, old man. I speak and I think of her with every respect. We have all misjudged and misunderstood her: she is a young girl, little more than a child, and a child astray, pining uncomplainingly for her mother, doing her best to understand the new world she was thrown into, devouring your writings ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... unashamed; we are dealing with hot-eared, ill-kempt people, who are liable to indigestion, baldness, corpulence and fluctuating tempers; who wear top-hats and bowler hats or hats kept on by hat-pins (and so with all the other necessary clothing); who are pitiful and weak and vain and touchy almost beyond measure, and very naughty and intemperate; who have, alas! to be bound over to be in any degree faithful and just to one another. To strip such people suddenly of law and restraint ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... Lossiemouth. You remember him as Everard Constable, a touchy, ill-conditioned, cantankerous brute if ever there was one, who does not care a straw for anyone but himself. I can't think what she sees in him. But an Earl's an Earl. I always forget that. I have lived so much apart from the ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... is reported to have had very thin legs and small eyes, for which he doubtless had to find excuses, and he was wont to indulge in very conspicuous dress and rings and was accustomed to arrange his hair carefully.[4] Diogenes the Cynic exhibited the impudence of a touchy soul. His tub was his distinction. Tennyson in beginning his "Maud" could not forget his chagrin over losing his patrimony years before as the result of an unhappy investment in the Patent Decorative Carving Company. These facts are not recalled here ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... these pleases me!" said Fontrailles, in an under voice. "I shall not be obliged by Monsieur to carry his confounded treaty to Madrid, and I am not sorry for it; it is a somewhat touchy commission. The Pyrenees are not so easily passed as may be supposed; the Cardinal is on ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... you to-day, Miss Bermuda Onion? Aw, touchy! No harm meant. You're too big to suit me; I like 'em squab size. Rag up a bit between now ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... adverse, baffling, contrary, perverse; petulant, peevish, cynical, surly, unamiable, inaffable, crabbed, crusty, captious, fractious, churlish, vixenish, querulous, fretful, choleric, touchy, waspish, morose, sullen, ill-natured, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Mr. Fairland's daughters were touchy on the subject of their ages, their father was no less so on that of his memory, as Miss Calista well knew when she ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... Hazlitt's touchy and difficult temper suspended this inintimacy in later years, though to the last Lamb regarded him as 'one of the finest and wisest spirits breathing'; but for a while it was unclouded. At the Lambs', moreover, Hazlitt ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Euchre, apologetically. "Shore an outlaw an' rustler such as me can't be touchy. But I never stole nothin' but cattle from some rancher who never missed 'em anyway. Thet sneak Benson—he was the means of puttin' a little girl in ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... all right, my girl. I've been young myself, and I know youth is touchy as a gumboil when it comes to love affairs. So it's all off, ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... nature. To my thinking, there is something almost pathetic in this loyal self-deception; and therefore I have never been offended by certain passages in 'Our Old Home' which appear to have caused some irritation in touchy Englishmen. There is something, he says by way of apology, which causes an American in England to take up an attitude of antagonism. 'These people think so loftily of themselves, and so contemptuously of everybody else, that it requires more generosity than I possess to keep always ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Labour is growing towards such a manhood of freedom as has never been achieved elsewhere. It, too, has reached the hobbledehoy height and has all the signs which mark that elevation, the brief aspirations, the splendid unformed hopes, and the touchy irascibility. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... believed by Germans that the American officer resented what he took to be neglect. I mention this, not because I believe it to depict Commander Leary, but because it is typical of a prevailing infirmity among Germans in Samoa. Touchy themselves, they read all history in the light of personal affronts and tiffs; and I find this weakness indicated by the big thumb of Bismarck, when he places "sensitiveness to small disrespects—Empfindlichkeit ueber Mangel an Respect," among the causes of the wild career of Knappe. Whatever ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and imparts a new flavour to his life. Fresh oil is poured into the lamp of his piety, its flame burns brighter, he feels an unction in his prayers; he has a holy relish for the sacraments. His very interests in life change: he looks on everything with supernatural eyes, he becomes touchy about the interests of the Church, anxious about the foreign missions, and feels an insult to the Holy ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... said I to myself; he's so confoundedly independent and touchy no one can say a word to him. It surprised me when he answered quietly, "Yes, mother, I know, but I must finish this book now; it will be the last novel I shall read for some years." And so it was, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... what the joke is?" I said rather dryly (for it is surprising how touchy one can be over one's personal appearance, even at my time of life). He looked up for an instant at me, and then gasped and hid his face again. Slim went up to him and kicked him ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... Morris replied. "Well, we ain't asking 'em to buy the fixtures, Abe; we only sell 'em the garments. Anyhow, if our customers was so touchy, Abe, they would of been insulted long since ago. For we got them fixtures six years already, and before we had 'em yet, Abe, Pincus Vesell bought 'em, way before the Spanish War, from Kupferman & Daiches, and then Kupferman ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... ideas, than her first appearance gave him hopes of. His manner relaxed, his tone became indulgent. When she smiled with a blush, she was his sweet sister Dolly; when her countenance fell grave again, she was the shy, touchy, uncertain little girl who had gone to Fairfield on their first acquaintance so sorely against her inclination. After Jonquil and his assistant retired, Elizabeth was invited to tell how the time had passed on ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... was not well. Vassie had grown in discontent, Annie in melancholy. The girl herself might—probably would, with her beauty and adaptability—have won a place with Ishmael had it not been for the mother. Annie's touchy pride, mingled with what Vassie frankly called her "impossibleness," made the situation hopeless, for the former quality would not let her efface herself, and the latter prevented her daughter being called upon. Therefore, although ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... cut in. "What F.B.I. man would suggest an illegal course of action? But why should I delegate? If this is so touchy, I should handle it myself. ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... he said, and repeated the pious wish, for he felt that it did him good, "how does one whoop up the wrong spout? And what happens if one does? And how remarkably touchy everybody seems to be. Next time I apply to the C.M.S. for an Alpine station, I shall stipulate for a low altitude. I am sure this rarefied air is ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... some time ago. And both of them were so touchy, if anybody seemed to speak about it, that folks got in the way of letting it alone. First Aunt Emma wouldn't speak to her sister because she'd married the man she'd wanted, and then when Aunt Emma made out ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... me, that you apprehend My verse may touchy folks offend. In prudence too you think my rhymes Should never squint at courtiers' crimes: For though nor this, nor that is meant, Can we another's thoughts prevent? You ask me if I ever knew Court ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... lady on the sands who turned out to be his cousin, and he came up while I was talking to her," replied Copplestone. "Yes, I saw him. I'm afraid Mr. Stafford, who came in here with me, you know, offended him," he continued, and gave Mrs. Wooler an account of what had happened. "Is he rather—touchy?" he concluded. ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... going to have money in my pockets! That's the only way to make this old world sit up and take notice. Spondulicks! Then I'm going to carry you off and get spliced. See? Real money. Diamonds. If you weren't so touchy, maybe you'd have diamonds sooner than ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... won't," said Swampy, hurriedly. "But since you're so blasted touchy and suspicious about it, you take this job an' I'll take the next that turns up. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... this point, he walked towards the school buildings again. For a moment it seemed as if Mr Kay intended to call him back, but he thought better of it. Mr Blackburn, in normal circumstances a pacific man, had one touchy point—his house. He resented any interference with its management, and was in the habit of saying so. Mr Kay remembered one painful scene in the Masters' Common Room, when he had ventured to let fall a few well-meant ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Lor, now, how touchy we is,—we white niggers! Look at us now!" and Sambo gave a ludicrous imitation of Adolph's manner; "here's de airs and graces. We's been in a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it was high time for some other institution to shelter this touchy and truculent person, and that he would lay the case before the next weekly Visitor and ask for it to be submitted to the Committee at their ensuing ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... however, that his character should be free from stain he referred the matter to the Marshals of France. They approved of his conduct, and there the matter ought to have ended. Unfortunately the Garde de Corps, aware of the jealousy with which the old army viewed their position, were very touchy on the point of honour. Wherefore the Duc de Luxembourg, his Colonel, considered that St. Morys was under a cloud, and refused to allow him to perform his military duties till his reputation was cleared. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... well, though he was a good bit older than I am," Anthony said. "A little sandy-haired man, very kind-hearted and honest, though rather touchy and quarrelsome if he had too much beer in him, I shouldn't wonder but he died in some spree brought on ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... pirated from the next village, to the man-eating Kanaka. The grumbling, the secret ferment, the fears and resentments, the alarms and sudden councils of Marquesan chiefs, reminded me continually of the days of Lovat and Struan. Hospitality, tact, natural fine manners, and a touchy punctilio, are common to both races: common to both tongues the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brought a box of spellicans, or a set of table croquet, but I'm afraid the Vicar wouldn't like it. A nice man but dretfully particular. We must wait for the end of this piece, the first violin is so touchy." ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... be rather touchy ladies here, and so superior," Diana urged, when he demurred; "and you know I am never safe for two minutes with that type. I should be driven into saying appalling things, and our reputation might be ruined ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Nay, in naught unless perchance a service rendered when a boy—a simple service, merely that of saving life—hath rendered him the touchy fool he is. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... duplication of oaths would set a bad precedent and risk giving the executive undue powers over the court. Far from being an artificial objection, the letter noted, this latter point was extremely touchy for the justices' standing in a great many matters was based on seniority, and both the prestige and chances for financial rewards that went with the ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a fellow famous for taking the law of everybody. There is not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued at the quarter sessions. The rogue had once the impudence to go to law with the widow. ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... to suspect a note of patronage in the other's effusion. Welby—a little checked—returned to the picture, studying it closely, and making a number of shrewd, or generous comments upon it, gradually quenched, however, by Fenwick's touchy or ungracious silence. Of course the picture was good. Fenwick wanted no one ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... training did not make him less thin- skinned than others; in fact, he was terribly tender and touchy about anything. This reason that she gave for finally throwing him over grieved him, shamed him, and mortified him more than can be told in these times, the pride of that day in being able to write with beautiful flourishes, and the sorrow at not being able to do so, raging so high. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... doesn't happen again," MacHeath said. "Balancing these babies so that they work properly is hard enough for a deuteron accelerator, but the Monster here is ten times as touchy." ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the conversation from what was a terribly touchy point with Bigley, who always felt it acutely if anyone hinted that his father ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... ever, I maintained silence. If I were certainly touchy and ill to please, Fraeulein Sartorius, it must be owned, did not know how to apologize gracefully. I have since, with wider knowledge of her country and its men and women, got to see that what made ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... command here," growled Sergeant Madden. "Huks didn't booby trap. Proud as hell, and touchy as all get-out, but not killers. Not crazy killers, anyhow. You go get up yonder. Up where we started down. Then go on away. Back to the squad ship. If I don't come along, anyhow you'll know what's ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Pen; I didn't know your nose was so touchy. I like a glass of whisky as well as anybody, especially in such a temperature; but if I know it'll do me more harm than good, I ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... time of the Edwards, the Commons are very touchy upon the subject of the maritime power and glory of their country; they already consider the ocean as their appointed realm. Do they observe, or fancy they observe, any diminution in the strength of England? They complain to the king in remonstrances more than once heard again, word ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Rosalind was touchy about psycho-analysis; she always got angry if people said it was foolish in any way. She was like that; she could see no weak points in anything she took up; it came from being vain, and not having a brain. She said one of the things angry ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... Mollie, in answer to Miss Ruth's look of inquiry, "I am not in the least to blame. I'll leave it to the girls if I am. Fan Eldridge is so touchy! She came in a minute ago and Nellie Tyler happened to be sitting by me, and Fan marched up to her and says, 'I'll take my seat if you please'; and I said, 'It's no more your seat than it is Nellie's,' We don't have ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... do you lie in my way?" she retorted, "you must not be so touchy. I have nerves of my own, but I ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... take my advice." They both promised her. "You know," says she, "that a small spark will set fire to tinder, and that tinder properly placed will set fire to a house: an angry word is with you as that spark, for you are both as touchy as tinder, and very often make your own house too hot to hold you. To prevent this, therefore, and to live happily for the future, you must solemnly agree, that if one speaks an angry word, the other will not answer, till he or she has ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... the People—the People THAT WANTS TO KNOW. That's a sign of the American people that they DO want to know, and it's the sign of George P. Flack," the young man pursued with a rising spirit, "that he's going to help them. But I'll make the touchy folks crowd in THEMSELVES with their information, and as I tell you, Miss Francie, it's a job in which you can give ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... him," he went on, after the waiter had departed. "If he's too touchy to acknowledge his ignorance on different points that come up, and if he's too proud to ask questions when he's stumped, why, he's going to get in a lot of trouble. If he's willing to rely on his men for knowledge, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... true of the Harlowes, Jack: they have been called The proud Harlowes: and I have ever found, that all young honour is supercilious and touchy. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... outward demonstration of doubt upon his patron's part since the quarrel between the two lords, Harry yet saw that Lord Castlewood was watching his guest very narrowly; and caught signs of distrust and smothered rage (as Harry thought) which foreboded no good. On the point of honour Esmond knew how touchy his patron was; and watched him almost as a physician watches a patient, and it seemed to him that this one was slow to take the disease, though he could not throw off the poison when once it had mingled with his blood. We read in Shakespeare ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... husband's mind off himself," Mrs. Apwall would whisper at parting. "He isn't half so touchy when you've cheered ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the red moccasins. Silently, for never another word said he to his mother concerning the matter he had so near at heart. He knew she would laugh at him, and call him a monkey—our hero, bear in mind, being as touchy to ridicule as a raw mouth to ginger. You might scold him and rate him, sneap him and snub him, to a degree you would suppose sufficient to break the heart of any boy who knew his catechism, yet not a fig nor a flint would he care for it all. Perhaps, he would kick up his heels in the very face ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... thing," and more said "it was the foolish thing," and among the latter was Andrew's mother; though as yet she had said it very cautiously to Andrew, whom she regarded as "clean daft and senselessly touchy about ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... was poor Alice,—"the place is quite changed. I'm blessed if the whole thing isn't as dark as ditch-water. I'm a plain man, I am; and I do hate your swells." Against this view of the case Captain Bellfield argued stoutly; but Cheesacre had been offended, and throughout the next day he was cross and touchy. He wouldn't play billiards, and on one occasion hinted that he hoped he ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... is before them. She would bluster and be rude; he would be pleasant and take it as a joke. Both of them—even if they offered money—would fail. But I begin to understand the man's nature; he does not love the child, but he will be touchy about it—and that is quite as bad for us. He's charming, but he's no fool; he conquered me last year; he conquered Mr. Herriton yesterday, and if I am not careful he will conquer us all today, and the baby will grow up in Monteriano. He is terribly strong; ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... there is a keen revival of interest but more resistance to open family discussion than in the pre-adolescent age. Maturing children are touchy, sensitive, self-conscious, modest, seclusive. They run to cover at too intimate a topic, especially in the hands of adults who are inclined to strike a wrong note; to be preachy and teachy and inquisitive ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... evil of thinking too much about the party you belong to. It makes a man touchy; and then he fancies when another is merely, it may be, analysing a difference, or insisting strongly on some great truth, that he is ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... that it was high time for some other institution to shelter this touchy and truculent person, and that he would lay the case before the next weekly Visitor and ask for it to be submitted to the Committee at ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... of the mountain fastness and have Emma sit up and 'con-centrate' all night. If she can move a house and lot with her con-centration stunt, she surely should be able to move that touchy mountain savage further away from us," suggested Hippy to the discomfiture of Emma and the great ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... Soil Fugitive Law Territory of Refuge TREATMENT DISCUSSED. Corporal Punishment Forfeiture and Testimony System for Ultimate Freedom The Blackest Feature in Slavery VISIONARY DEPUTATION Inveterate Slaveholder Touchy Slaveholder, and Swaggering Bully Clerical Slave Advocate Amiable Planter Recriminator Abolitionist and Intelligent Slaveholder A frightful Question Closing Observations ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... very touchy on certain points," admitted the president. "But I'm glad you're not going to do any more talking here in town. You're somewhat of a new man here, and you don't know the folks as I do. I suppose some ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... not repeat that to Mr. Brandon," said John, "he is rather touchy about his book. It has been very ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to the cottage, let her find a nice little note of apology (along with the cold fowl, or whatever else they give her after her journey) begging her to join us at the picnic, and putting a carriage at her own sole disposal to take her there. Gad, sir!" said young Pedgift, gayly, "she must be a Touchy One if she thinks herself ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... was up), and as it sank she gallantly kicked off from the roof of the fast disappearing car. She was an excellent swimmer, but two R.A.M.C. men sprang overboard to her rescue, and I believe almost succeeded in drowning her in their efforts! This serves to show what an extremely touchy job it was, and one we had to perform in fogs or the early hours of a winter's morning when it was almost too dark to see anything. Some Red Cross men drivers from Havre watched us once, and declared their quay down there was wider by several feet, ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... gradually integrated, but, as he put it, "the difficulty is that my superiors are not prepared to admit that we are already launched on a progressive integration program" in the United States. The whole problem was a very touchy one, McAuliffe added.[17-93] ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... concern himself with. Tom did not lack these, but he was none the less keenly sensitive upon the point of Margaret's propriety and good name. 'Twas the extraordinary love and pride he had centred upon her, that made him so observant and so touchy in the case. He brooded upon her actions, worried himself with conjectures, underwent such torments as jealous lovers know, such pangs as Hamlet felt in his uncertainty regarding the integrity of ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Burdovsky. Gentlemen, I have no hesitation in telling you that it was the fact of Tchebaroff's intervention that made me suspect a fraud. Oh! do not take offence at my words, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake do not be so touchy!" cried the prince, seeing that Burdovsky was getting excited again, and that the rest were preparing to protest. "If I say I suspected a fraud, there is nothing personal in that. I had never seen any of you then; I did not even know ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... these party nicknames," interrupted her sister, who seemed remarkably touchy about some points. "Perhaps we shall part in better humor, if we ...
— The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my Tokay. He is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. I have to study him, I assure you." They had strolled out on to the terrace again, and along it to the further end where at a touch from the Baron's chauffeur the great car shivered ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in answer to Miss Ruth's look of inquiry, "I am not in the least to blame. I'll leave it to the girls if I am. Fan Eldridge is so touchy! She came in a minute ago and Nellie Tyler happened to be sitting by me, and Fan marched up to her and says, 'I'll take my seat if you please'; and I said, 'It's no more your seat than it is Nellie's,' We don't have any particular seats, you know we don't, Auntie, but sit just as it ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... to subdue her. She said that she supposed people would expect her to do something at such a time. It was always expected that 'people of wealth' should show themselves grateful. What could she do that would not offend such touchy people? ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... to see your criticisms; you might perhaps send them to me. I believe you know that is not dangerous; one folly I have not - I am not touchy under criticism. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fat man—if I am not correct. But do not ask a fat woman unless, as in the case of possible fire at a theater, you already have looked about you and chosen the nearest exit. Taken as a sex, women are more likely to be touchy upon this detail where it applies to ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... brilliant receptions, gay routs, levees, state balls given at the Castle during Lord Dorchester's administration—the lively discussions—the formal protests originating out of points of precedence, burning questions de jupons between the touchy magnates of the old and those of the new regime. Whether la Baronne de St. Laurent would be admitted there or not? Whether a de Longueuil's or a de Lanaudiere's place was on the right of Lady Maria, the charming consort of His Excellency Lord Dorchester—a daughter of the great ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... gazing at it. The daisy was not a cold white one, neither was it a red one; it was just a perfect daisy: it looked as if some gentle hand had taken it, while it slept and its star points were all folded together, and dipped them—just a tiny touchy dip, in a molten ruby, so that, when it opened again, there was its crown of silver pointed with rubies all ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... until I've looked around a bit," replied Mr. Appleby. "You needn't be so touchy. Ain't I seen you before, somewhere?" he asked, peering into Tom's face by the dying glow of ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... grinned. Continuing, he said, "Now, men, these Mohammedans are very touchy. You've got to be careful how you treat them. For example, their headgear is sacred. Don't touch it. And when you get a little of home-brewed Scotch into you, don't knock their head-dress off. They'll probably knife you. It isn't a pleasant thing ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... he explains, the outpouring of the gentleman's feelings. The principal stricture passed on the virtuoso was that he played too softly, or, rather, too delicately. Chopin himself says that on that point all were unanimous. But the touchy artist, in true artist fashion— or shall we be quite just and say "in true human ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... pressing. A week later we were installed there, and for nearly two years we lived there. At the risk of offending an adorable but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is capable of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in a rough-and-ready fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that without female assistance or supervision of any kind we passed through those two years, and ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... considerable ceremony, for he perceived that they were as exigent and punctilious as to all points of courtesy as any noble in Italy, France, or Spain; and it would not be good to fall out with such touchy gentlemen on a point of manners. Indeed, as he retraced his steps to the office of the Signors of the Night, where his gondola was waiting, he really congratulated himself on having escaped without a quarrel, and hoped that the next interview ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... replied, "I shall be delighted to do so; and that is that you will allow me to ask the Rats from the Inn. They are touchy people, and do not readily forgive ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... but far more wanton than true. Mrs. Maldon in her ignorance could not appreciate the truth, but she could appreciate its wantonness. She was wounded—silly, touchy old thing! She was wounded, and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... very late the following night when they reached their destination. Bill had come to the conclusion that Frank was not a very jolly traveling companion. He was moody and inclined to be really grouchy. And touchy.... Whew! It was all Bill could do to say the right thing. Finally he remembered that some people are always car-sick when they travel, and on being asked, Frank admitted that he didn't feel so very good. So Bill let him alone and things ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... he urged; "you're wrong in bearing me a grudge! My cousin Lin is a girl so very touchy, that though every one else distinctly knew (of the resemblance), they wouldn't speak out; and all because they were afraid that she would get angry; but unexpectedly out you came with it, at a moment when off your guard; and how ever couldn't she but feel hurt? and it's because I was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... called as the little man started off, "just bring the saddle back to me here when you've weighed. I'll put it on Diablo myself; he's a touchy cuss, and I don't want ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... striding the yard exact, took measurement for the battery. The hill was crowned with a ring of Scotch firs, casting a quiet shade upon the warlike haste of the Captain. If Admiral Darling smiled, it was to the landscape and the offing, for he knew that Stubbard was of rather touchy fibre, and relished no jokes unless of home production. His slow, solid face was enough to show this, and the squareness of his outline, and the forward thrust of his knees as he walked, and the larkspur impress of his lingering heels. And he seldom ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was so formidable that the council gave up the consideration of the menacing message they had been about to send, and instead agreed upon a letter of amnesty, as likely to succeed better with a people of so "peevish and touchy" a humor. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... respect among his friends. To know him personally, after only knowing him through his writings and his tilts with those with whom he had "a crow to pick," was a revelation. He had the reputation of being always "spoiling for a fight," and the most touchy, crusty, and aggressive author of his time, surpassing in this respect even Walter Savage Landor. But, though his trenchant pen was sometimes made to do almost savage work, it was generally in the chivalric exposure of some abuse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... brother that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to perceive that something is wrong in the social system; what ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... type are rather too prominent. The central conception of Charlemagne as a generally dignified but too frequently irascible and rather petulant monarch, surrounded by valiant and in a way faithful but exceedingly touchy or ticklish paladins, is no doubt true enough to the early stages of feudalism—in fact, to adapt the tag, there is too much human nature in it for it to be false. But it communicates a certain sameness to the chansons which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... no unkindness—nay, among the various changes that matrimony had produced in her, her temper appeared rather to have improved than otherwise; there was now seldom any trace of that touchy sharpness which used to be called "poor Selina's way." And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to herself, with a sigh, the old phrase, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... was more or less amusing to see the two of them sitting up there together on the front row at chapel. I wonder if Eleanor remembers any of the remarks she used to let drop about the genius of 19—. See here, Betty," she added quickly, "have you any idea why Eleanor is so touchy about that story? She won't even have it ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... girl—to keep the affection of such a one as Miss Starbrow? And as the days and weeks went by, that vague anxiety did not leave her; for the more she saw of her mistress, the less did she seem like one of a steadfast mind, whose feelings would always remain the same. She was touchy, passionate, variable in temper; and if her stormy periods were short-lived, she also had cold and sullen moods, which lasted long, and turned all her sweetness sour; and at such times Fan feared to approach her, but sat apart distressed ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... Though I am touchy enough with those I love, I did not think you dilatory, nor expect that answers to letters should be as quick as repartees. I do pity you for the accident that made you think yourself remiss.(648) I enjoy your patient's recovery; but almost smiled unawares at the idea of her ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... think it was a man's belief concerning a dogma that would fix his place in eternity. This was because we believed that God was a grumpy, grouchy old gentleman, stupid, touchy and dictatorial. A really good man would not damn you even if you didn't like him, but a bad ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... of these pleases me!" said Fontrailles, in an under voice. "I shall not be obliged by Monsieur to carry his confounded treaty to Madrid, and I am not sorry for it; it is a somewhat touchy commission. The Pyrenees are not so easily passed as may be supposed; the Cardinal is ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... I'm afraid," he said frankly. "You see, I've felt rather touchy about the thing. I want people to know that you and I have agreed on making Terry the heir to the ranch. I don't want anyone to suspect that we differed. I suppose I talked too much about ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... on Romarin's face. He was not conscious of having adopted a superior attitude. But again he told himself that he must make allowances. Men who don't come off in Life's struggle are apt to be touchy, and he was; after all, the same old Marsden, the man with whom he desired to ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... who was warm-hearted, sensitive and thoughtful, Edith had a singularly happy disposition. First, she was good-tempered; not touchy, not easily offended about trifles. Such vanity as she had was not in an uneasy condition; she cared very little for general admiration, and had no feeling for competition. She was without ambition to be superior to others. Then, though she saw more deeply into things than the generality ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... arrived, instead of bringing up the old charges, they accused Athanasius of having prevented the sailing of the grain vessels from Alexandria to Constantinople in order to cause a famine. It was a clever trick. Constantine was extremely touchy about the prosperity of his new city and had just condemned to death a friend of his own for the same crime. He turned on Athanasius ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... to be dangerous for the interviewer, since Americans were being murdered rather profusely in Mexico at the time in spite of the astute assurances of Mr. Bryan, and no matter how substantial his references the correspondent was likely to meet some temperamental and touchy soldier with a loaded rifle who would shoot first and afterward carry his papers to some one ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... say always. Many a ship on the Spanish Main I've had to leave unboarded through want of a brother-in-law. They're touchy about it somehow. Unless the captain's brother-in-law comes first ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... some Acts of Parliament. Then we probably review the household troops— With the usual "Shalloo humps!" and "Shalloo hoops!" Or receive with ceremonial and state An interesting Eastern potentate. After that we generally Go and dress our private valet— (It's a rather nervous duty—he's a touchy little man)— Write some letters literary For our private secretary— He is shaky in his spelling, so we help him if we can. Then, in view of cravings inner, We go down and order dinner; Then we polish the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... man who had a temper of his own, and who was a little touchy on the score of age. Linda knew that he was touchy on the score of age, and had exaggerated her statement with the view of causing pain. It was probably some appreciation of this fact which caused Herr Steinmarc to continue his solicitations ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... seen him before. That may be the reason he's so touchy about having us land on the island. The last time I saw him it was down at dad's office. Uncle Ed—that's Mr. Fulton, you know—was there, and when I opened the door on them suddenly, he and this Billings were having ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... sea, and rove about in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing round, make a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:—plucking the reverend mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos. Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have an eye at the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons. In short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... taken the first step on the dreary journey which was henceforth to separate my life from Miss Fairlie's seemed to have blunted my sensibility to every consideration connected with myself. I had done with my poor man's touchy pride—I had done with all my little artist vanities. No insolence of Mr. Fairlie's, if he chose to be insolent, could ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... even in his dazed state a little touchy about such a dogma; "how do you know it will be ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... yourself about that. But if I were you I'd be very careful. Boys are as touchy as girls when it comes ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do. But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once more he felt the working of those uncanny ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... agreeably surprised, when the veil was removed, at finding her dazzlingly beautiful. He enfolded her in his arms with joy unspeakable, and so the honeymoon began. Short dream of bliss; she became capricious at once, and seven devils at least seemed to have nestled in her lovely bosom. Sid was touchy himself, and not the man to bear with such humors. Every day she sat at his bountiful board, and, instead of partaking the food which he set before her, she would daintily and mincingly pick out a few grains of rice with the point of a bodkin. Sid asked her what she meant by such conduct, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rather nervous duty - he a touchy little man) - Write some letters literary For our private secretary - (He is shaky in his spelling, so we help him if we can.) Then, in view of cravings inner, We go down and order dinner; Or we polish the Regalia and the Coronation Plate - Spend an hour in titivating All our Gentlemen-in-Waiting; ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... "I suppose I'm about as ignorant of business as anybody in the world," he said. "But I've heard they pay very high wages to people in dangerous trades; I've always heard they did, and I'm sure it must be true. I mean people that handle touchy chemicals or high explosives—men in dynamite factories, or who take things of that sort about the country in wagons, and shoot oil wells. I thought I'd see if you couldn't tell me something more about it, or else introduce me to someone ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... in. "What F.B.I. man would suggest an illegal course of action? But why should I delegate? If this is so touchy, I should handle ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... for the numbers and names of their children; and the only complaint that even his valets had against him was that he remained his own barber and evinced a certain reluctance in casting his suits until they had begun to show a suspicion of wear. In outward relations he was a kind, touchy, companionable soul; inwardly he was one who suffered acutely from lack of companionship and conversation, not because he had not plenty of people to talk to, but because so many things came into his head that he must not say, while the correct substitutes ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... you could afford to fight shy of. Besides, the most genuine excuse could not be given without mortally offending Apse & Sons. The firm, and I believe the whole family down to the old unmarried aunts in Lancashire, had grown desperately touchy about that accursed ship's character. This was the case for answering 'Ready now' from your very death-bed if you wished to die in their good graces. And that's precisely what I did answer—by wire, to have it over ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Jack; why, you'd be in bed at that time: besides, I don't suppose your grandmamma would have let you go, even if you had been here, for you might have been stung. It's rather a touchy job, is taking a wasp's nest,—very different from hiving bees; we give them a home, but we take ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... of perturbation. Lady Mildmay was still in love with her handsome well-preserved husband, and had every confidence in him, but to a chosen friend she would sometimes admit that he was "difficult"; she called him not proud and obstinate, but sensitive and a little touchy; she hinted that he could not bear unpleasant looks, and yet was not very ready to make concessions to friendship. No doubt he needed some management, and Lady Mildmay, like many wives, found one of her chief functions to consist in ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... democracy, freedom, etc., in the trenches. I also learned that, of all the ways of attaining cabinot, by far the simplest was to apply to a planton, particularly to a permanent planton, say the beefy one (who was reputed to be peculiarly touchy on this point) the term embusque. This method never failed. To its efficacy many of the men and more of the girls (by whom the plantons, owing to their habit of taking advantage of the weaker sex at every opportunity, were even more despised) attested by not infrequent spasms of consumptive ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... returned Frank stoutly. "Is that what Big-Eyes was crying about? I hate people to be touchy and blubber over a thing ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Of course no British troops have been there since, but if we are sent there I had made up my mind to bring the matter before the general, and ask him to interfere on the poor girl's behalf; though I know that it would be an awkward matter. For if there is one thing that the Portuguese are more touchy about than another, it is any interference in religious matters, and the bishop, who is a most intolerant rascal, would be the last man who would give way ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... remember him as Everard Constable, a touchy, ill-conditioned, cantankerous brute if ever there was one, who does not care a straw for anyone but himself. I can't think what she sees in him. But an Earl's an Earl. I always forget that. I have lived so much apart from the world and its sordid motives and love of wealth and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... tariff reformers are so touchy and intolerant that they resent the slightest attack or criticism from their opponents as if it were sacrilege, that is nothing to the fury which they exhibit when any of their friends on the Conservative side begin to ask a few ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... where I will have a difficult job ahead of me, handling the touchy and sensitive supervisor of this hash-foundry, Watson," Holmes remarked as we entered the kitchen and said "Good morning" to Louis La Violette the chef; "for I have good reason to believe that he knows where a certain party has hidden one ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... Ramsey's mind. As an administrator, as an Irwadian public servant in a touchy job, Garr Symm, a drunkard, was obviously grossly incompetent. What other qualifications did he have which gave him the top Irwadian Security job? Ramsey didn't know. He sighed. The Vegan girl's mouth formed ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... he came up while I was talking to her," replied Copplestone. "Yes, I saw him. I'm afraid Mr. Stafford, who came in here with me, you know, offended him," he continued, and gave Mrs. Wooler an account of what had happened. "Is he rather—touchy?" he concluded. ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... be so touchy," said Benny. "I'm not going to disturb you. I'm sure I shouldn't care ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... me at my best when he suffered this little shiver of serious surmise to be blown across the painted scene. The worthy little monster was pardonably proud of his conception, and explained it to me point by point. Touchy as his infirmities had left him, his vanity of author made him as tender as a green wound. He set all his hopes upon his invention; rightly rendered, he said, the whole theatre would be moved by it. It should be received with a moment of absolute silence, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... suddenly stopped short and grinned at the brusque line officer, who, for all his bullying tactics, knew how to take the edge off a touchy situation. Walters sat down again and Hemmingwell spread out several large maps on Walters' desk. He pointed to a location on the chart of the ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... have proud stomachs, and ye have offended his honor by your charges, but to-day's fighting will be the best medicine." And then he hurried his friend away, and as they left to join their troop he seemed to be remonstrating with him for his touchy scruples. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... humors, whether grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 700 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... peeled you to-day, Miss Bermuda Onion? Aw, touchy! No harm meant. You're too big to suit me; I like 'em squab size. Rag up a bit between now and to-morrow, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... it impossible to look people in the face. Let only a chair creak, and I become more dead than alive. Today, therefore, I crept humbly to my seat and sat down in such a crouching posture that Efim Akimovitch (the most touchy man in the world) said to me sotto voce: "What on earth makes you sit like that, Makar Alexievitch?" Then he pulled such a grimace that everyone near us rocked with laughter at my expense. I stopped my ears, frowned, and sat without moving, for I found ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that Barry's tender years—he was only sixteen—and smallness would make it impossible for him to play with success for the first fifteen. He refrained owing to a conviction that the remark would not be wholly judicious. Barry was touchy on the subject of his size, and M'Todd had suffered before now for commenting on it ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... Without knowing anything about my real disposition and principles, she was evidently prejudiced against me, and seemed bent upon showing me that her opinions respecting me, on every particular, fell far below those I entertained of myself. I was naturally touchy, or it would not have vexed me so much. Perhaps, too, I was a little bit spoiled by my mother and sister, and some other ladies of my acquaintance;—and yet I was by no means a fop—of that I am fully convinced, whether ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... She had a very sweet disposition, but was a trifle touchy regarding her own independence. Sundry rather sharp passages which had occurred between Mrs. Fordyce and herself on this very subject made her now readier to resent this ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... so touchy! A body can laugh, can't he, and no harm done? You 'd better be good-tempered and jolly, and then I 'll tell you where I 'm going,—which, I believe, was what you wished to know in the first place, was ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... that "perfect ceremony" of love which consists in returning calls and making protestations and giving presents and paying the trumpery attentions which men of genius always refuse to bother about, and to which touchy people who have no genius attach so much importance. No leader who had not been tampered with by the psychopathic monomaniacs could ever put any construction but the obvious and innocent one on these passages. But the general vocabulary of the sonnets to Pembroke (or whoever "Mr W. H." really ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... only Prussian I ever knew who was an agreeable man was Bismarck. All others with whom I have been thrown—and I have lived for years in Germany—were proud as Scotchmen, cold as New Englanders, and touchy as only Prussians can be. I once had a friend among them. His name was Buckenbrock. Inadvertently I called him Butterbrod. We have never spoken since. A Prussian lieutenant is the most offensive specimen of humanity that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... "it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere contubernium, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... steadily at the speaker. "You hadn't ought to 'a' let me say it," he replied. "How did I know he was so touchy?" His gaze left Cowan and lingered in turn on each of the others. "Some of you ought to 'a' told me. I wouldn't 'a' said it only for what I said just before, an' I didn't want him to think I was challenging him to no duel in the brush. So I says so, an' then he goes an' takes it up ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... carry him through each successive day, and no more, he was tranquilly sure of himself; and from the very same cause he was not in the least conceited. It is your imaginative superior who is touchy, overbearing, and difficult to please; but every ship Captain MacWhirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace. It was, in truth, as impossible for him to take a flight of fancy as it would be for a watchmaker to put together a chronometer ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... believe any one does. In the field he is as bold as a lion, fearless, quick to see what to do at the moment, never losing a chance. Yet more than once I've noticed, beforehand, a strange hesitation. He gets fits of the dumps, broods, wonders whether he is doing the right thing, and is as touchy as a bear with a sore head. Well, 'tis almost noon; I must be off; we'll see what the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... wouldn't do such a thing. In spite of all that is said about the Russian Government, its members are gentlemen. Of course, if such a thing happened, there would be trouble. That is a point where we're touchy. A very cheap Englishman, wrongfully detained, may cause a most expensive campaign. Our diplomatists may act correctly enough, and yet leave a feeling of resentment behind. Take this very case. Britain says coldly ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... in a garden, and also in a kitchen frequented by crickets or black-beetles. Its food is chiefly grubs, insects, worms, and such like. The creature is easily tamed, and becomes a lovable and not a touchy pet. It is ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... as you say your case is now complete, I will see what I can do in the way of refutation. And first about that meat. Though, upon my word, I blush for Zeus when I name it: to think that he should be so touchy about trifles, as to send off a God of my quality to crucifixion, just because he found a little bit of bone in his share! Does he forget the services I have rendered him? And does he think what it is that he is so angry about, and how ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... fault that I vexed you last night," he said. "You have never before been touchy, and so I have become accustomed to saying what I choose. And it is not in my ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... financial successes of present Government, steady removal of all legitimate grievances, and triumphs of our diplomacy in all parts of the world. Shall have to say a good word for Liberal-Unionists. TOLLAND says there are about thirty of them, all very touchy. Must try to work in the story of the boy and the plum-cake. It made them scream at the Primrose League ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... lawn. Luke is on the lawn, I was going to say," declared Agnes, making innocent eyes again. "Why so touchy?" ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... don't serve me such a trick as that again, old fellow." But it let me into a secret of his character, and ever after that, I was as particular in my invitations as possible. Men thought him proud, and cold, and touchy, which he was not; and stingy, which he scorned to be, from his contempt for ostentation in any shape. The rarity of his wine-parties, and his never having other wines produced than port or sherry, he himself explained to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... telling if you're glad to see me," said Wessner, with something very like a breath of relief. "We been hearing down at the camp you were so mighty touchy you didn't allow a man within ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Dutch, the ignorant opposition of his officers, the libels of his political opponents. There was a touch of irony in the simple expedients by which he sometimes solved problems which had baffled cabinets. The touchy pride of the king of Prussia in his new royal dignity, when he rose from being a simple Elector of Brandenburg to a throne, made him one of the most vexatious among the allies; but all difficulty with him ceased when Marlborough rose at a state banquet ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... doing around that devil-island. What kinds of laws they're breaking out there nobody knows. They may be doing anything from shooting fish to catching chicken-halibut or baby barracuda. We don't know what. But we do know they're mighty touchy on who cruises round El Diablo. When our boats get around that infernal island something always happens. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... don't want to get into a quarrel with you, for I have found that you are very touchy on a certain point; but I cannot help hinting that you are destined to meet a great disappointment when through with your earthly worry. I wish my chances were ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... you've spoken at last. It's been on my mind more than anything. I thought you might have misunderstood him, and was over touchy; but—her money!" ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... the night. And I verify ate up the language. I had a gift that way anyway. Even Kim marvelled at the way I mastered the idiom. And I learned the Korean points of view, the Korean humour, the Korean soft places, weak places, touchy places. Kim taught me flower songs, love songs, drinking songs. One of the latter was his own, of the end of which I shall give you a crude attempt at translation. Kim and Pak, in their youth, swore a pact to abstain from drinking, which pact was speedily broken. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Northerners fancy is a proof of equality and independence, we never met with, and duels and street quarrels are almost unknown. We detected none of the touchy sensitiveness of the punctilious Spanish hidalgos. Their compliments and promises are without end; and, made in the magnificent and ceremonious language of Spain,[24] are overwhelming to a stranger. Thus a fair ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... didn't tap Clyde for so much real information. In fact, if I'd been at all touchy I might have worked up the notion that I was ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Harlowes, Jack: they have been called The proud Harlowes: and I have ever found, that all young honour is supercilious and touchy. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... into your head, and don't make absurd scenes of jealousy. You know whom you have to do with; Marguerite isn't a saint. She likes you, you are very fond of her; let the rest alone. You amaze me when I see you so touchy; you have the most charming mistress in Paris. She receives you in the greatest style, she is covered with diamonds, she needn't cost you a penny, unless you like, and you are not satisfied. My dear ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... but I refrained, and listened coldly while he told me what David did when you said his toes were pigs going to market or returning from it, I forget which. He also boasted of David's weight (a subject about which we are uncommonly touchy at the club), as if children were for throwing forth for ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... your head taken off for your pains," said Ernestine, walking over to the glass, and smiling at her own unruffled image. "Olive's a touchy goose, but I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, and I'm sorry for it; so that's the best I can do ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... coy mistress, and will not easily be courted, so she is a mighty nice touchy lady, and is soon affronted; if she is ill used, she flies at once, and it is a very doubtful thing whether ever you gain ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... appointed to that responsible post. We became good friends. He began work at the early age of thirteen, had grown up on the railway and at nineteen was a station master. He was skilful in out-door railway work, and an adept in managing trains and traffic. Ambitious and a bit touchy regarding his office, all was not always peace between his and other departments, particularly the goods manager's. The goods manager was not aggressive, and it was sometimes thought that Mathieson inclined to encroach upon his territory. Often angry correspondence and sometimes angry discussion ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... moment of resenting his savage personalities, but as soon as the meal was over they made haste to get away. 'Don't go. You're just getting amusing, you fellows. I hope I haven't said anything that annoyed you. You're such touchy devils.' Then, changing the note into one of almost abject entreaty, Hummil added, 'I ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... by this time able to take a genuine interest in the collection. But he was much amused, sometimes annoyed, with the behavior of the laird in his closet: he was more nervous and touchy over his things than a she-bear over ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... animals so well, he doesn't like to be meddled with in his management of them. I daresay he told you that, if they didn't know better, he had to teach them better! They are troublesome little wretches.—Yes, I confess he is a little touchy ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of Argyll, but I'm not lord of the king's highway, and if an honest stranger cares to take a freeman's privilege and stand between the wind and Simon MacTaggart's dignity—Simon MacTaggart's very touchy dignity, it would appear—who am I that I should blame the liberty? You did not ride ventre a terre from Strongara (I see a foam-fleck on your breeches) to tell me we had a traveller come to admire our scenery? Come, come, Sim! I'll begin ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... leaves us at present. Your daughter is my neighbor and a blessed girl she is, and it is because I love her so well that I am trying to write to you now, not being handy at it, as you see; also my pen spits. As near as I can make out you and her's cut off the same cloth; both of you are touchy and quick, and, if things don't suit you, up and coming. But she's got a good heart in her as ever I see. One day she told me a lot about how good you were to her when her mother died, and about the prayer her mother used ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... you at all,' said Crewe, in a voice singularly subdued, sympathetic, respectful. 'I have done all I could, short of telling him that I know you. He's very touchy still on that ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... I won't," said Swampy, hurriedly. "But since you're so blasted touchy and suspicious about it, you take this job an' I'll take the next that turns up. How'll ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... way as a fellow can get into ever. I was little better than sick myself; and, while the others went off after eggs and game, I stayed to keep the fire going and take care of Wade. No small stint I had of it too; for he was peevish and touchy as a young badger. I knew he ought to take something hot of the herb-tea sort, and so started off and gathered a dipperful of the tea-plant leaves. Then, getting a lump of ice, I melted it, and made ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... hard siege of it an' it showed. His face was lined, his hair was white at the temples, an' the' was a wistful look in his eyes which was mighty touchy. Barbie was more chummy with him too, an' they was edgin' back to ol' times; but I was darn glad to see Hawthorn finally admit that he was sufficiently recovered to drive over an' see what had ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion he's just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make of him. You're big enough ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... didn't mean that. Don't be so touchy all the time—always standing there as if to say: 'Who's going to do anything for me, good or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... release me. With a smile He feigns stupidity: I burn with bile. "Something there was you said you wished to tell To me in private." "Ay, I mind it well; But not just now: 'tis a Jews' fast to-day: Affront a sect so touchy! nay, friend, nay." "Faith, I've no scruples." "Ah! but I've a few: I'm weak, you know, and do as others do: Some other time: excuse me." Wretched me! That ever man so black a sun should see! Off goes the rogue, and leaves me in despair, Tied to the altar, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... and probably more, was actually due by me on my mother's account to Christie, who had lent it in a moment of great necessity, and that the returning it in a light or ludicrous manner was not unlikely to prevent so touchy and punctilious a person from accepting a debt which was most justly her due, and which it became me particularly to see satisfied. Sacrificing, then, my triad with little regret (for it looked better by candlelight, and through the medium of a pot of porter, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... in a temper. There had been an argument with the fish-man which had left him red in the face and very touchy. So he bought two bunches of arbutus and ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... has got a old pair of steers down in our back medder that was always touchy and kinder quarrelsome. They are gittin' along in years, but mebby there is some fight ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... word, I think, Mr. Spencer," said General Turner coldly; "we refuse to be interesting to any simple Sassenach." Then he saw the confusion in the innkeeper's face and laughed. "Upon my word," he said, "here I'm as touchy as a bard upon a mere phrase. This is very good drink, Mr. Spencer; your purveyance, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... luggage on the cab...! George Cannon had not once appeared in the last sensitive weeks, and he had therein been wise. And all that had to be done had been done—not by Hilda, but by Sarah Gailey the touchy and the competent. Hilda had done little ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... gardeners are very touchy on this point. A friend of mine was on a similar occasion addressed, in true Egyptian lingo, by an old Adam-son, "Ya ibn al-Kalb! beta'mil ay?" (O dog- son, what ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... (throw) jxeti. Total tuto, a. Totality tuteco. Totter sxanceli. Touch tusxi. Touch (feel) palpi. Touch lightly tusxeti. Touch up (improve) korekti. Touch palpo. Touchiness ofendsenteco. Touching tusxanta. Touching (emotion) kortusxanta. Touchy ofendsentema. Tough malmola. Tour vojagxo. Tourism turismo. Tourist turisto. Touring club turisma klubo. [Error in book: turing klubo] Tow posttreni. Tow stupo. Toward al. Towel visxilo. Tower turo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... with bad sciatica, slower in look, with a mournful, rather monkeyish expression in their eyes, as if puzzled by their sufferings. Here is a true Frenchman, a Territorial, from Roanne, riddled with rheumatism, quick and gay, and suffering, touchy and affectionate, not tall, brown-faced, brown-eyed, rather fair, with clean jaw and features, and eyes with a soul in them, looking a little up; forty-eight—the oldest of them all—they call him Grandpre. And here is a printer from Lyon with shell-shock; ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... nice little old woman, who has two rooms, very minute and cosy, with a little supply of faggots close at hand, and all the dignity of a householder, although the occupant only of an infinitesimal toy house within a house. How do they agree, one wonders, these little old ladies of a touchy age under ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... the procession of the Holy Ghost question divides us with the Gulf of Jehannum. The gardener of this house is a Copt, such a nice fellow, and he and Omar chaff one another about religion with the utmost good humour; indeed they are seldom touchy with the Moslems. There is a pretty little man called Michail, a Copt, vakeel to M. Mounier. I wish I could draw him to show a perfect specimen of the ancient Egyptian race; his blood must be quite ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... rest, Haynes represents the New Witness much more than a reviewer does, being both on the board and the staff; and he has put your view in the paper—I cannot help thinking with a more convincing logic. Don't you sometimes find it convenient, even in my case, that your friends are less touchy ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Borrow's, and the banker's wife said to him: "Oh Mr. Borrow, I have read your books with so much pleasure!" the great man exclaimed: "Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean my account books?" How touchy he was, Mr. Walling shows, by his story of Borrow in Cornwall neglecting a lady all one evening because she bore the name of the man his father had knocked down at Menheniot Fair. Several stories of his ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
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