The peril is there always, and the bread turns up with extreme fitfulness.    From Wordnik.com.  [VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea] Reference

It takes a picture (1) of the energy exerted, and (2) of the regularity or fitfulness of the manner in which energy is exerted.    From Wordnik.com.  [Civics and Health] Reference

That fitfulness discredited the party, and Besancenot has thrived on the upshot: disappointed blue-collar and public-sector workers.    From Wordnik.com.  [France Goes Postal] Reference

Rumours of popular conspiracy, fresh discoveries by the police, and new tales of imperial eccentricity, kept the public mind in constant fitfulness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845] Reference

It was confirmed with this outcome that the two men with flair are not only essential to the line-up but also that England will fail if they fall prey to the fitfulness that affected them here.    From Wordnik.com.  [Steven Gerrard pays back the confidence of Fabio Capello] Reference

This accounts for the fitfulness and incompleteness of so much of his literary work, and for the practical, and in many cases temporary, element which runs through even his most elaborate productions.    From Wordnik.com.  [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy"] Reference

The work has been greatly deranged by the draft, some features of which have not been very skilfully arranged, and by the fitfulness with which the laborers have been treated by the military authorities.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863] Reference

Ruffian as he looks, the first word he speaks — to a lady, at least — places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and his conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of genius.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains] Reference

Like a child at play, as if weary of so long holding them in his cold embrace, he drove the massive ice floes out into ocean, only, perhaps, in childish fitfulness, to bring them back directly, by gales quite contrary.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Woman who went to Alaska] Reference

José's sudden anger had the fitfulness of a wild beast's.    From Wordnik.com.  [His Excellency the Minister] Reference

Page 563 from the fitfulness of his voice, and the spasmodic action which accompanied his utterance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sword and the Distaff: Or, "Fair, Fat, and Forty." A Story of the South, at the Close of the Revolution by the Author of "The Partisan," "Mellichampe," "Katharine Walton," Etc. Etc.] Reference

The rains, the winds and the waves, the complexity and the fitfulness of nature, are always before him.    From Wordnik.com.  [Records of a Family of Engineers] Reference

'Sometimes I look for ever so long -- a whole hour,' said Celestina, rather taken aback by Biddy's fitfulness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Rectory Children] Reference

There was sometimes a bit of waywardness about Leslie Goldthwaite; there was a fitfulness of frankness and reserve.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life.] Reference

His impenetrable reserve chills the warmth of enthusiasm, while the fitfulness of his morals produces constant inquietude.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ernest Linwood or, The Inner Life of the Author] Reference

A conversation which took place between him and one of his fellow-workers gives one the measure of his irresolution and fitfulness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Inside Story of the Peace Conference] Reference

Like Max, he was watching her closely, but his eyes moved unceasingly; they glimmered behind his colourless lashes with a weird fitfulness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Keeper of the Door] Reference

Chamberlain, with his admitted fitfulness of temper, will cheat us out of the war, and consequently the opportunity of annexing the Cape Colony and.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lord Milner's Work in South Africa From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902] Reference

As to fitfulness, I have never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of these days are turning round and round.    From Wordnik.com.  [David Copperfield]

Side by side they drew out of the current, the man pulling strongly, his companion seconding his efforts with a fitfulness that testified to her failing powers.    From Wordnik.com.  [Rosa Mundi and Other Stories] Reference

By spreading our efforts over too large a surface we inevitably weaken our force, hinder our progress, and acquire a habit of fitfulness and ineffective working.    From Wordnik.com.  [Self help; with illustrations of conduct and perseverance] Reference

The fitfulness or melancholy which so often is the doom of youth, however otherwise favored, who do not love, was not the condition, capricious or desponding, of Lothair.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lothair] Reference

After a little period of respite she let herself out of the door into the rain that had begun falling with a sobbing fitfulness, and went through the starkness of the woods.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Pagan of the Hills] Reference

As the clouds came and went, the grey-green, cobweb-chastened, light ebbed and flowed over the walls and ceiling; to watch the fitfulness of its streams was a sufficient occupation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Erewhon Revisited] Reference

We was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at No. 4 table, increased by there being something wrong with the meter.    From Wordnik.com.  [Somebody's Luggage] Reference

With the characteristic fitfulness of consumption, Mr. Clifton rallied, and, for a time, seemed almost restored; but at the approach of winter the cough increased, and dangerous symptoms returned.    From Wordnik.com.  [Macaria] Reference

Ruffian as he looks, the first word he speaks -- to a lady, at least -- places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and his conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of genius.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains] Reference

His wild spirit, his dark beauty, his daring valour, won while they awed her; and in the fitfulness of his nature were those perpetual springs of hope and fear that are the fountains of ever-agitated love.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Pilgrims of the Rhine] Reference

A charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted, too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some allowance ought to be made for him.    From Wordnik.com.  [Villette] Reference

"It has the fitfulness of genius distracted by its own emotions.    From Wordnik.com.  [Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion. In Two Volumes. Vol. II.] Reference

Most human, and a fitfulness of sound.    From Wordnik.com.  [Poems: Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary and Contemplative, by William Gilmore Simms, Esq. In Two Volumes: Vol. I. I. Norman Maurice, a Tragedy; II. Atalantis, a Tale of the Sea; III. Tales and Traditions of the South; IV. The City of the Silent] Reference

His fitfulness and discontent.    From Wordnik.com.  [William the Conqueror Makers of History] Reference