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More "Touch on" Quotes from Famous Books



... uniform tint, more or less indicative of shade, and then scratch out a white spot or streak in it of any shape; by putting a dark touch beside this white one, you may turn it, as you choose, into either a ridge or an incision, into either a boss or a cavity. If you put the dark touch on the side of it nearest the sun, or rather, nearest the place that the light comes from, you will make it a cut or cavity; if you put it on the opposite side, you will make it a ridge or mound; and the complete success of the effect depends less on depth of ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... a dramatic society," said Nat to his companions, one day. "Perhaps we can put an extra touch on 'Henry the Eighth' or 'The ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... as he was bidden, for a few years ago he had been the complaisant victim of Hetty's pleasantries, and felt a light touch on his lips. Then, there was a pluck at his belt, and Hetty was several yards away when he made a step forward with his eyes wide open. She was laughing at him, but there was a ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... cry of rage that might have come from some animal which saw its prey escaping, struck out at him with the heavy stick. The blow missed Pratt's head, but it grazed the tip of his ear, and fell slantingly on his left shoulder. And then the anger that had been boiling in Pratt ever since the touch on his arm in the dark lane, burst out in activity, and he turned on his assailant, gripped him by the throat before Parrawhite could move, and after choking and shaking him until his teeth rattled and his breath came in jerking ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... Mary with a curious expression in her eyes, but neither of them added her voice to the other girls' solicitations, and the little group stood there in what threatened to become a painful silence when Nan felt a light touch on her shoulder, and, turning around, discovered Miss Blake standing at ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... Apparently at the first touch on the door, the girls had retreated to the farthest corner. They stood huddled there, gathered behind Julia. They stood close together, swaying, half-supporting each other, their pinions drooped and trailing, their eyes staring black with horror ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... a strongly resistant feeling: he was inclined to shake off hastily the touch on his arm; but he managed to slip it away and said coldly, "I am ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... "You touch on very deep things—things I should like to discuss with you," Paul said. "I should like you to tell me volumes about yourself. This is ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James

... the Chiaja - as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that evening - I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table, white through her rouge, and cries, "My sister in Spain is dead! I felt her cold touch on my back!" - and when that sister IS dead at the moment - what do ...
— To be Read at Dusk • Charles Dickens

... clambered from his position near the forward bulkhead to the compartment amidships, where the pumps were located. A shift of valves followed by a touch on the levers connecting the storage batteries with the electric pumps started the process ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... "But won't it make your eye water, neighbour Grabguy, one of these days! Bring a tall price among some of our young bucks, eh!" He gives neighbour Grabguy a significant touch on the arm, and that gentleman turns his head and smiles. How ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... in a daze, remembering nothing of the confused shock of bodies that had gone before, wondering how much longer he could hold out—to last out the game as the captain had told him. He was groggy, from time to time he felt the sponge's cold touch on his face or heard the voice of Tough ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... December 4, 1782, and March 22, 1783, paint vividly the general distress in the Carolinas. They are taken up mostly with accounts of bad debts and of endeavors to proceed against various debtors; they also touch on other subjects. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... troubles bring. I love to touch on Cupid's harp each string, Though each unto my questioning touch replies ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... scarcely taken three steps in the narrow corridor when he felt a touch on his shoulder, and turning abruptly, found himself ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... an hour, ranging farther and farther from the Sea Hound. Then Tom felt a touch on his arm. He turned and saw Bud pointing off excitedly ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... to address you because I am President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the most venerable organization of the sort in America, perhaps in the world. Thus, to-night, though we shall necessarily have to touch on topics of the day, and topics exciting the liveliest interest and most active discussion, we will in so doing look at them,—not as politicians or as partisans, nor from the commercial or religious side, but solely from the historical point of view. We shall judge of the present in its ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... advantage. This is noticeable in reference to Cyrus' criticisms of their arms before battle. That is not a slip, but a dramatic touch on the part of the author, I think. And Cyrus is speaking of cavalry there, and ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... to a cinder. Aloha!" She had vanished like flame. Kamehameha, on this revelation of his destiny, sprang to his feet. His breath was quick and strong, a smile was on his lips, and he looked into the distance with lifted face and flashing eye, as if a glorious vision had arisen there. A touch on his foot brought him to himself. Pepehi was grovelling before him, baring his breast and offering to Kamehameha the poisoned dagger he had but a few moments before aimed at the young king's heart. Lifting him from the ground, Kamehameha comforted the priest with a few words and sent him homeward ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... of her Puritan ancestral faith, longing to become a reality in her heart again, if only for this dire emergency. She turned, eager but painfully embarrassed, to Mrs. Stoddard, detaining her by a touch on ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... acting, have done with it," growled Lindley, whose wound was hurting; who, in reality, was almost fainting from loss of blood. "You've saved my life as well as your own, Johan. But we'll touch on that later. There's no fear, is there, that your dead man ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... under the steep, high-pitched roof common among houses in old Paris. In the one dingy window of the place sat a young girl, who sprang up at once when she heard some one at the door; it was the prompting of love; she had recognized the painter's touch on ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... the best cases are unknown. The comparison ought to have been exclusively between rising and fringed volcanic islands, and sinking and encircled volcanic islands. I have read Naudin (87/7. Naudin, "Revue Horticole," 1852?.), and Hooker agrees that he does not even touch on ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... the account of a single event, not of a sequence; and that event is contemporary, not antecedent. In the third scene, the meeting of Macbeth and Banquo with the Witches, we have what may be called an exposition reversed; not a narrative of the past, but a foreshadowing of the future. Here we touch on one of the subtlest of the playwright's problems—the art of arousing anticipation in just the right measure. But that is not the matter ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... successful voyage to the Indies with Ovando, and had ample command of means. He was a gentleman by birth and station—Ojeda was that also—and was grand carver-in-chief to the King's uncle! Among his other qualities for successful colonization were a beautiful voice, a masterly touch on the guitar and an exquisite skill in equitation. He had even taught his horse to keep time to music. Whether or not he played that music himself on the back of the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... that last crack, the grinning devil? A sinister intent was there, behind his smooth talk. Blaine half rose from his seat in quick anger, but the girl's gentle touch on his arm restrained him. She depended on him now and he'd have to go easy ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... in through the open church window, stirring the curly lock which Boyd now and then impatiently pushed away from his eyes ... was a delicate fingertip touch on Drew's cheek. A subdued shuffle of feet could be heard as the congregation arose. It was Sunday in Gainesville, and a congregation such as could only have gathered there on this particular May 7, 1865. Rusty gray-brown, patched, and ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... the blame of over-medication must, I fear, rest with the profession, for yielding to the tendency to self-delusion, which seems inseparable from the practice of the art of healing. I need only touch on the common modes of misunderstanding or misapplying ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... completely relevant to the nervousness of the housewife, it is not without some point to touch on the "neurosis of the engaged." The freedom of the engaged couple is part of the emancipation of youth in our time. Frankly, a love-making ensues that stops just short of the ultimate relationship, an excitement and a tension are aroused and perpetuated through the frequent and protracted ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... The circumstance of having engines at work on both sides of the house does not alter the case. The fire very often burns up through the centre, and frequently, when the space between the windows is large, along the front or back wall, till it arrives at the roof, which the water cannot touch on account of the slates or tiles. On the other hand, when the firemen enter the house, the fire is almost wholly under their command. And when it happens that there is any corner which the water cannot ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... confidently, or rather audaciously, they do, and to other admirable Inventions, injuriously arrogated by Strangers, tho' due of right to Englishmen, and Members of this Society; but 'tis not the business of this Preface to enumerate all, tho' 'twas necessary to touch on some Instances. ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... But now that she had begun to respond I should have been well content to continue the conversation. There was something so unusual in most of her opinions that I wanted to hear more, although I confess that what she said interested me less than she herself did. Before I could touch on another topic, however, the ladies ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... who ought to be ashamed to boast of his greater experience, when every day shows him to how little profit it has been turned, to presume to render our acquaintance less formal by alluding to interests more personal than strangers have a right to touch on. You speak of the two parts of the world just mentioned, in a way to show me you are equally acquainted ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... and the Daily Chronicle. He was a keen business man, and a Radical politician of some note; and though not naturally inclined to speculative thought, would sometimes take part in our discussions if ever they seemed to touch on any practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were often very much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive and polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth the course of debate. It was therefore with mingled ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... service just performed, there was nothing whatever in her bearing which showed a disturbed mind: her gray-brown eyes carried in them now as at other times the well-known expression of common-sensed rectitude which never went so far as to touch on hardness. She shook hands with him, and Downe said warmly, 'I wish you could have come sooner: I called on purpose to ask you. You'll ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... all that befell my father during his eight years of wandering I cannot speak certainly, for he was very silent on the matter, though I may have need to touch on some of his adventures. But I know it is true that he fell under the power of the Holy Office, for once when as a little lad I bathed with him in the Elbow Pool, where the river Waveney bends some three hundred yards above this house, I saw that his breast and arms ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... the Norwegians, and the Danes (if I may class these together); what a clear, clean-minded, healthy people are these, so direct in their touch on Nature and the human instincts, so democratic, bold, and progressive in their social organizations—what a privilege to have them as our near neighbours and relatives! Or the Germans, in many ways resembling the last mentioned group, only richer ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... that felt the cold touch on her throat, Awaking knew the sword, and turned herself To Gawain: 'Liar, for thou hast not slain This Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain Me and thyself.' And he that tells the tale Says that her ever-veering ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... the girl is more aggressive than the boy and that at that age she begins to be modest.[6] It may fairly be said that complete development of modesty only takes place at the advent of puberty.[7] We may admit, with Perez, one of the very few writers who touch on the evolution of this emotion, that modesty may appear at a very early age if sexual desire appears early.[8] We should not, however, be justified in asserting that on this account modesty is a purely sexual phenomenon. The social impulses also develop about puberty, and to that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... intestine and the liver and kidneys may be relieved by a more or less abrupt modification of the diet, or even a starvation period, and the bowels will generally become cleaned; but frequent profuse purging with salines or some drastic cathartic puts the final touch on a cardiac failure. ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... philosophy which he liked to impress with a vivid touch on his listener's shoulder: "Put your finger on the present moment and enjoy it. It's the only one you've got, or ever will have." This light and joyous creature could not but be a Pariah among our Brahmins, and I need not say that I never met him in any of the great Cambridge houses. I am not sure ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... begun at Marlow, and thrown aside—till I found it; and, at my request, it was completed. Shelley had no care for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind, and develop some high or abstruse truth. When he does touch on human life and the human heart, no pictures can be more faithful, more delicate, more subtle, or more pathetic. He never mentioned Love but he shed a grace borrowed from his own nature, that scarcely any other poet has bestowed on that passion. When he spoke of it as ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... passing word erewhile did lightly touch On wanderings of my own, that now embraced 320 With livelier hope ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... anecdotes illustrate the triviality; but the facts certainly left a number of people, wholly unfamiliar with such experiments, under the impression that Miss Angus's glass ball was like Prince Ali's magical telescope in the 'Arabian Nights.'[19] These experiments, however, occasionally touch on intimate personal matters, and cannot ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... little need to touch on aught but the quality of thy wine. The girl is not like most of her sex, and she takes sudden offence when there is question of her appearance. Indeed, the mask she wears is as much to hide a face that has little to tempt the eye, as from any wish ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... twice as big as she, but she went at him with all her strength, and he did as most animals will do when caught wrong-doing, he turned and ran away. Only one was left, a little thing like its mother, but of more pronounced color—gray with black spots, and a white touch on nose, ears, and tail-tip. There can be no question of the mother's grief for a few days; but that wore off, and all her care was for the survivor. That benevolence was as far as possible from the motives of the murderous old Tom there can be no doubt; but he proved a blessing in ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... sound of running feet. In his fear and agony he could have shrieked, but from his parched throat there issued no sound. Friend or foe, for him it meant the same fate—one touch on that knob and a ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... the steps, between the lions, the child's feet stumbling a little as they went, but Achilles's hand held fast and his touch on the bell summoned hurrying feet... there was a fumbling at the chains—a swift, cautious creak, and the door swung back. "Who is it?" said a voice that peered out. The dawn ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... they started for church, but toward the end of the Psalms Donovan felt a touch on his arm. He turned to Erica; she was a white as death, and with a strange, glassy look ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... herself? I assure you that you can trust her, and I happen to know that her view of the man about whom we are talking is exactly your own. More I could say as to her reasons and motives, but we entirely decline to touch on the past or to offer any opinion about the characters of our patients—the persons about whose engagements we are consulted. He might have murdered his grandmother or robbed a church, but ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... MacCaura, what anguish to touch on The fatal stain of thy princely escutcheon; In thy story's bright garden the one spot of bleakness, Through ages of valour the one hour of weakness! Thou, the heir of a thousand chiefs, sceptred and royal— Thou to kneel to the Norman and swear to be loyal! Oh! a long night of horror, and outrage, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... defensive alliance, though he knew nothing about it; two or three men I knew walked through the room and left me alone; I was, I thought, in an almost impregnable position and I closed my eyes, but before I had passed from the stage of wondering whether I should snore if I went to sleep, I felt a touch on my arm, and ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... or a thorn in his path is a man's soul quenched as a flame; For his lust of an hour or his wrath shall the worm and the man be the same. O God sore stricken of things! they have wrought him a raiment of pain; Can a God shut eyelids and wings at a touch on the nerves of the brain? O shamed and sorrowful God, whose force goes out at a blow! What world shall shake at his nod? at his coming what wilderness glow? What help in the work of his hands? what light in the track ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... A touch on Pine's shoulder made him leap to his feet with the alertness of a wild animal on the lookout for danger. By his side stood Chaldea, and her eyes glittered, as she came to the point of explanation without any preamble. The girl was painfully direct. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... to be armed. The double armour of this plant betrays it. In a thick tuft, where the leaves disappear, I thrust in my hand, and the bite of the thorns betrays the topmost stem. In the open again, and when I hesitate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine sense and retractile action betrays its identity at once. Yet it has one gift incomparable. Rome had virtue and knowledge; Rome perished. The sensitive plant has indigestible seeds - so they say - and it will flourish ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Rafaravavy, who was standing near the Queen's chair, felt a touch on her arm. She looked round with a start, for, like every one else, she had been fascinated and quite engrossed ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... faced about and went into the hotel. Racey felt a touch on his arm. He turned to find that Marie had almost bumped into him. Her head was still turned away. One of her hands was groping for his arm. Her fingers clutched his wrist, then slid upward to the crook of ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... inattentive, and I perceived that he was profoundly perturbed. As Miss de Barral (she had moved out of sight) could not possibly approach the hotel door as long as we remained where we were I proposed that we should wait for the car on the other side of the street. He obeyed rather the slight touch on his arm than my words, and while we were crossing the wide roadway in the midst of the lumbering wheeled traffic, he exclaimed in his deep tone, "I don't know which of these two is ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... the fringe of the now angry crowd, when, turning round at a touch on my shoulder, I perceived my ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... concerns Reginald Simpkins and his transformation to manhood. And therefore, before I tell of the raid itself, I will touch on one or two matters concerning that transformation, and the ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... at feeling its soft, light touch on my hands. And I sat there, my heart beating with disgust and desire, disgust as at the contact of anything accessory to a crime and desire as at the temptation of some ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... in which this was said, and the gentle touch on his arm, almost overcame the stubborn man, but he ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... a delicate matter to touch on. I know, of course, that you're in the enviable position of having your fortune invested in the best joint-stock company in ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... which elicited the fact that Henry represented this journal at Geneva. For himself, he was, it transpired, correspondent of the Daily Sale, a paper to which the British Bolshevist was politically opposed but temperamentally sympathetic; they had the same cosy, chatty touch on life. ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... Ashley had been withdrawn she gathered from small signs—the feigned stolidity of some of them and the overacted astonishment of others—that they had probably been even better informed than Drusilla Fane. After that the food they brought her choked her and the maid's touch on her person was like fire, while she still found herself obliged to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... unpleasant descriptions. So for drunken the euphemism intemperate came to be used, but is now hardly a more polite description. We would not willingly speak of a person being "fat" in his presence. If it is necessary to touch on the subject, the word "stout" is more favoured. In the absence of the fat person the humorous euphemism may be used by which he or she is said to "have a ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... Donna Matura shrank from what she saw and heard, it becomes not me to tread. Donna Matura was of her country, that cheerful, laughing Midland of the Po, and neither felt the Venetian throb of pleasure nor conceived the excesses of Venetian pain. Extremes touch on the Lagoon. Donna Matura saw her gold-haired mistress white and drawn, saw her witless shaking, saw her tear and rend herself, heard her jerked words of loathing, blasphemy, and obscene defiance—and fairly fled the house. "For," as she said, "if words of man ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... talked cheerfully, mainly on sheep and prices. Now talk would touch on neighbours, and there would be the repetition of some tale or saying. "There was a man in the glen called Rorison. D'ye mind Jock Rorison, Sandy?" And Sandy would reply, "Fine I mind Jock," and then ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... the lights, and the music of the night he had dined at the lodge came back to him. He recalled a touch on his arm, an upturned face with wistful gray eyes, and remembered Katrine's warning. As he did so a great anger came to him at the way he had been used, and his newly awakened manhood called to him for action. There should be another side to the matter, he determined. McDermott's ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... us, and has taken all our nature upon Himself. If there is an outcast and abandoned soul on earth which may not feel that Jesus has laid a loving and healing touch on him, Jesus is not the Saviour for the world. He shrinks from none, He unites Himself with all, therefore 'He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him.' His conduct is the pattern and the law for us. A Church is a poor affair if ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... are bent with thought and women waste fair moments gathering lint and pricking coloured stuffs to mar their breasts, while she, adored, wastes not her fingers, worn of fire and sword, wastes not her touch on linen and fine thread, wastes not her head in thought and pondering, Love, why have you sought the horde of spearsmen, why the tent Achilles ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle

... strength, so that he hung in his bounds, his head lolling forward on his breast. Warmth pressed against him, a warm wet touch on his cold skin, a sensation of friendly concern in his mind. Shann gasped, found that he was no longer filling his lungs with that chill staleness which was the breath of the fog. He opened his eyes, struggling ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... went the first sergeant with a protest against cutting ice, saying that they were musicians and could not be expected to do such work, that it would chap their lips and ruin their delicate touch on the instruments. Colonel Mills listened patiently and then said, "But you like ice during the summer, don't you?" The sergeant said, "Yes, sir, but they could not do such hard work as the cutting of ice." Colonel Mills said, "You are musicians, you say?" The unsuspicious sergeant, thinking ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... all explained," said he, hurriedly. "I can't touch on that. My affair is this: The captain sent me with the letter, and I have been to a lot of trouble to get it to you. Now, he is not going to pay me for all this,—if he thanks me, it will be more than I expect,—and I am going to be perfectly ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... best known and most respected citizens of Lowell. Dignified and sedate, but just touch on old Exeter days and watch their eyes ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute

... his horse gaining; the going increased; His touch on the mouth felt the soul of the beast, And the heave of each muscle and the look of his eye Said, "I'll come to those horses, and pass ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield

... at a convenient point surveying the Falls, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Such was the force of habit that Mr. Palmer started violently, and turned ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... she cannot help writing; her works, contained in forty-odd volumes, touch on the most vital subjects in the world about her. She tells the truth precisely as she sees it. We may hope for much yet from the pen of this lady, who is still in the best years of her ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... consideration even in the district itself. Still, there are a few who realise that every county in England is more or less a mine of interest, and for such I have written. Realising my limitations, I have not gone deeply into any single subject; my endeavour has been to touch on every branch of country life with as light a hand as possible—to amuse rather than to instruct. For, as Washington Irving delightfully sums up the matter: "It is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct, to play the companion rather than the preceptor. What, after all, is the mite of ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... over the edge, gripping the twisting rope, and Brian tightened his lips to keep down his groans, for the agony was cruel to him. He was forced against the body of Cathbarr, and swirl after swirl of pain went over him at each touch on his burns. ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... from Father O'Connor touch on the deepest—perhaps the only deep—problem for them both. For far the hardest thing was the struggle against the real danger that he might again drink too much, as he had before the illness that so nearly killed him in 1915. This struggle was rendered especially ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... the brain and nerves for power to move. It has been shown that the gray matter of the brain and spinal marrow furnishes the stimulating power that moves the muscles, and causes sensations of touch on the skin, and the other sensations of the several senses. The white part of the brain and spinal marrow consists solely of conducting tubes to transmit this influence. Each of the minute fibrils of the muscles has a small conducting nerve connecting it with ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... conditions are necessary if a question is to be considered as one of devotion: first, it must be edifying; second, it must be probable and attested by popular report or the testimony of the faithful; third, it must touch on nothing contrary to faith. When these conditions are fulfilled, it is fitting neither persistently to condemn nor to approve, but rather ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... include rules of procedure. On the private law side 18 clauses apply to rights of property and possession, 13 to succession and family law, 37 to contracts, including marriage when treated as an act of sale; 18 touch on civil procedure. A subject which attracted special attention was the law of status, and no less than 107 paragraphs contain disposition dictated by the wish to discriminate between the classes of society. Questions of public law and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... symbol for the state of those who act immediately from the essence of their hidden life, and the recognition of God's will as that essence. But, as I said, this belongs to a far higher region. I only wanted to touch on the relation of the freedoms — physical, mental, and spiritual. To return to the point in hand: I recognise in the story a clear evidence of strife and partial victory in the affair of the ring. The count — we will call him by the name he gives ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... admirals who were assembling for a conference, and did not see Mr. Tower and the Emperor approaching from behind. A touch on my shoulder ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... later he was chosen to the House, and the district continued to send him every two years from that time until his death. He did much excellent work in the House, and was conspicuous in more than one memorable scene; but here it is possible to touch on only a single point, where he came forward as the champion of a great principle, and fought a battle for the right which will always be remembered among the great deeds of American ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... my review; but I have got Sir Henry's original pamphlet,[30] which is very cleverly written. I find I cannot touch on his mode of transplantation at all in this article. It involves many questions, and some of importance, so I will make another article for January. Walked up the Rhymer's Glen ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... untroubled snow, fold over fold of undulating softness, billowing along the skirts of the peaked hills. There is no conveying the charm of immaterial, aerial, lucid beauty, the feeling of purity and aloofness from sordid things, conveyed by the fine touch on all our senses of light, colour, form, and air, and motion, and rare tinkling sound. The magic is like a spirit mood of Shelley's lyric verse. And, what is perhaps most wonderful, this delicate delight may be enjoyed without fear ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... villagers and old friends who had loved her, and Peter and two or three men alone followed her down along the winding road that led to the old cemetery. Cherry was hanging over the bedside of her husband, who still miraculously lingered through hours of pain, but as Peter, responsive to a touch on his arm, crossed the church porch to blindly enter the waiting motor-car, he saw, erect and grave, on the front seat, in his decent holiday black, and with his felt hat held in his hands, Kow, claiming his right ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... that the surroundings may be better understood, let me digress from the story of my boyhood and touch on the early romance of Humboldt Bay—its ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... was printed on every feature. The wild fury of the passionate struggle that convulsed her, had spent itself; and as after a violent wintry tempest the gale subsides, and the snow compassionately shrouds the scene, burning the dead sparrows, the bruised flowers, so submission laid her cold touch on this quivering face, and veiled and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... house, through which he had entered so often. It was unchanged, but seemed deserted. Next, he went to the water-front, where he had left his yacht. Invisibly and sadly he stood upon her upper deck, and gazed at the levers, in response to his touch on which the craft had cleft the waves, reversed, or turned like a thing of life. "'Twas a pretty toy," he mused, "and many hours of joy have I had as I floated through life on board of her." As he moped along he beheld two unkempt Italians ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... household had suffered change. During his absence, the Countess of Charolais had died and been buried at Antwerp. Charles is repeatedly lauded for his perfect faithfulness to his wife, but her death seems to have made singularly little ripple on the surface of his life. The chroniclers touch on the event very casually, laying more stress on the opportunity it gave Louis XI. to offer his daughter Anne as her successor, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... the "Night-watch". The date of the portrait of the Lady with the Fan is not given. They differ widely in style; the portrait of the man is ten years in advance of the portrait of the woman; it seems to approach very closely, to touch on, the great style which he attained in 1664, the year when he painted the Syndics. Of his early style, thin, crabbed, and yellow, there is hardly a trace in the portrait of the Man with the Hawk; it is almost a complete ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... She had never had any lovers, and the fault had been her own, from a strange persistence of childhood in her temperament. She had not attracted, from her own utter lack of responsiveness. She was like an instrument which will not respond to the touch on certain notes, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... The touch on his arm mollified the young man at once. He tried to make out the lines of the pretty face that was so near him and ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... it was to get along and to ask him to get work for Uncle William, but I started to cry again. Mr. Peters came over to my chair and took hold of the arm of it and told me not to cry. Somehow his touch on the arm of the chair thrilled all through me and though I knew that it was wrong I let him keep it there and even let him stroke the upholstery and I don't know just what would have happened but at that very minute Uncle ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... dreamed only of war and battle; he was forever with the officers at Williamsburg; he scoured and cleaned and polished all the guns and swords in the house; he renewed the amusements of his childhood and had the negroes under arms, but eager as he was to be a soldier, he scarcely dared touch on the subject with George, for he saw to his infinite terror how George, too, was occupied with military matters, and having a feudal attachment for his elder brother, and worshipping him with an extravagant ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... her aside and with the touch on her arm Miss Mary's blood turned to water. "She knows about me!" she thought and nearly fell to the ground ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... touch on his forehead, her tender, gentle fingers smoothing his hair as they gazed together at the mysterious shadowy depth beyond which flowed the Colorado; that tender touch on his hair and forehead and the desert stars ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... nearly all tentative—experiments in composition, in which the imperfect or careless pen outline suggested all they required, and was capable of easy change without confusing the eye. But the masters who knew precisely before they laid touch on paper what they were going to do—and this may be, observe, either because they are less or greater than the men who change; less, in merely drawing some natural object without attempt at composition, or greater in knowing absolutely beforehand the composition they ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin

... of that particular war have nothing to do with the history that I am telling, so I do not propose even to touch on them. I served in it for a year, meeting with many adventures, one or two successes, and several failures. Once I was wounded slightly, twice I but just escaped with my life. Once I was reprimanded for taking a foolish risk and losing some men. Twice I was commended for what were called gallant ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... drops its yellow light upon a bed of ferns until each separate frond stands out like a willow plume nodding up and down in the mellow gleam. A flowering dogwood bathed in its ethereal light shimmers like a bridal veil adorning a wood nymph. It lays its gentle touch on the waterfall, transforming it into a torrent of molten silver, and causing each drop to glisten like topaz ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... put the finishing touch on this job while both of us are here to do it. What do you say? Shall we haul up ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... so marvelously adapted to receive knowledge of all kinds; and thy power to create whole mines of wealth is exercised no more. But thou would'st fix thine abode in this island forever, were Nisida to remain thy companion! Well—and if thou losest her? for assuredly a vessel will some day touch on these shores—what would'st thou do then? All lonely, desolate, forlorn, thou would'st curse the day that gave thee regenerated life—thou would'st seek death—and to thee death may not come yet for many, many years! Fernand, thou art worse than mad not to embrace ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... all the blood gone from her cheeks. "Stop, Stephen! Not another word. You must not mention that name to me. I cannot and will not permit it. I have listened too long already. I am very grateful for your kindness and for your offers to me, but you must not touch on my private affairs. I am earning my own living, and I shall continue to do so. And now I would like to ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... whom I had personally seen: and, finally, that Aristotle delivers in the first person his essays "On the Republic" and "On the Eminent Man." I was influenced the more by this from the fact that I was unable to touch on the most important commotions in our state, because they were subsequent to the age of the speakers. Moreover, my express object then was not to offend anyone by launching into the events of my own ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the terrace beside one of the carriages; at a little distance a groom was holding the nervous thoroughbred of Lord Algernon's dog-cart. Suddenly he felt a touch on his shoulder, and Miss Desborough's maid put a note in his hand. It ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... mother; I spoke to her only of my bodily sufferings; yet she knew it all, and I knew that she knew. And because she knew and understood the temper of my mind as well, she never questioned, never probed, but invariably when alone with me she would with infinite tenderness in her manner touch on spiritual things and tell me of her own state, the consolations of her faith which gave her peace and strength in all our ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... Molly's touch on her arm. It was late afternoon. Rhoda looked up into the squaw's face and drew a quick hard breath as realization ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... your letter in which you touch on Slavery; I wish the same feelings had been apparent in your published discussion. But I will not write on this subject, I should perhaps annoy you, and most certainly myself. I have exhaled myself with a paragraph or two in my Journal on the sin of Brazilian ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... We need not touch on the questions as to whether our Lord's body was really transported to the temple, and, if so, to what part of it. But we may point out that there is nothing in the narrative to warrant the usual interpretation of this temptation, as being addressed to the desire of recognition, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... the poop, scanning the narrow entrance a trifle anxiously. He had no desire to cast his new command away in making her first port. But Vandersee undoubtedly knew his business. The Barang, for all her slowness, answered to the master touch on her helm and edged surely up for the deep water until the slop of the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... cheerfulness, being moved neither by fear of punishment nor by desire for reward, as frequently before stated. This admonition has been so oft repeated in the preceding epistle lesson that we know, I trust, what constitutes a Christian. Therefore we will but briefly touch on the subject. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... high authority assured me that 100 million yen (pre-War figures) could be laid out to advantage. A Japanese economist's comment was: "Why not touch on the extraordinary proportion of land owned by the Imperial Household and also by the State for ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... is calculated to Castelli's "gull-wing" curve. Raise a few feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of an inch and she will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under control again. Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. Cant the whole forward—a touch on the wheel will suffice—and she sweeps at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle and she presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring her up all standing within ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling

... aloud triumphantly, and slapped my hand down upon my knee with the feelings of a fugitive debtor, who, hotly pursued by a sheriff's officer, escapes over the line into another county, and snaps his fingers at Monsieur Bailiff. I was aroused from my merry mood of reverie by a touch on my shoulder. I turned suddenly. It was the hard-faced little old gentleman, peeping in from the street. His broad-brimmed hat and two-thirds of his face were just lifted above the window-sill. He was evidently standing on ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... of the word. I never saw in any other person so sweet a smile as hers, or such grace and beauty of movement as hers. If you liked music, she sang beautifully; and few professed musicians had such a touch on the piano as hers. If you preferred talking, I never yet met with the man (or even the woman, which is saying a great deal more) whom her conversation could not charm. To say that such a wife as this could be first cruelly neglected, and then barbarously murdered, by the man—no! by the martyr—who ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... was is abject a tool as possible. I would be very certain he is an author before I should think him worth mentioning. If ever you should touch on Lord Willoughby's sermon, I should be obliged for a hint of it. I actually have a printed copy of verses by his son, on the marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so ridiculously unlike measure, and the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... himself? There he sits with a load on him that weighs him down every hour of his life. I called him back; I gave him life; but I gave him memory and remorse, and the ghosts that haunt him: the voice in his ear, the touch on his arm, the some one that is 'waiting—waiting—waiting!' That is what I did, and that is what the brother of the Cure did for me. He drew me back. He knew I was a drunkard, but he drew me back. I might have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was startled by a light touch on the arm. He turned with almost a jump, and he saw Scrope bending across the table towards him, his eyes ablaze with an excitement no less keen ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... Jamaica. The admiral himself came on board to see Ripley and to congratulate him on his achievement. "Your promotion is certain, Captain Ripley," he said kindly; "and I should think his Majesty, when he hears of your gallantry, won't forget to give a touch on your shoulder with the flat of his sword, eh. You will find a handle to your name convenient, and you deserve it, that you do, ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... scarcely slept an hour when I was roused by a touch on my shoulder. At first, I fancied it was a dream, but as I opened my eyes, I saw one of my Indians with his fingers upon his lips to enjoin me to silence, while his eyes were turned towards the open prairie. I immediately looked in that direction, and there was a sight that ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... his story briefly told, Henri wandered out among the men again. He was very happy. He had never thought to be so happy. He felt the touch on his sleeves of hard brown, not overclean hands, infinitely tender and caressing; and over there, as though she had never gone, was Sara Lee, ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of facts connected with the hand that people have rarely, if ever, heard of, and I think it will not be out of place if I touch on them here. For instance, in regard to what are known as the corpuscles, Meissner, in 1853, proved that these little molecular substances were distributed in a peculiar manner in the hand itself. He found that in the tips of the fingers they were 108 to the square line, with 400 papillae; ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro

... quaintly, it was always with the pith of one who had seen a great deal of at least one portion of his fellow-creatures. The conversation, under such circumstances, did not flag; on the contrary, it soon grew more interesting by the stranger's beginning to touch on his private interests. He told me that he was a mariner who had been cast ashore by one of the accidents of his calling, and, by way of cutting in a word in his own favor, he gave me to understand that he had seen a great deal, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... trying, now right, now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... Admiralty and War Departments; but, as we shall see, Dundas strongly objected to the creation of a Secretary of State for War, because his duties would overlap those of the other Departments, and important decisions must be formed by the Cabinet as a whole.[209] I shall touch on this question more fully in Chapter XII, but mention it here as a sign of the mental cloudiness which led British Ministers for the first eighteen months of the war to plod along with the most haphazard arrangements known even ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... withdrawal of the cooling touch on his forehead, and then hasty steps that went away from him, and the sound ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey

... to Tad that he had been asleep but a few minutes when he felt a touch on his shoulder. He sat up, instantly wide awake. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin

... the taboo corresponds exactly with the rule of holiness.[4] But instances are still more numerous among savages of taboo attaching to an object because it is connected with a malignant power. The savage is surrounded on every side by such prohibitions; there is danger at every step that he may touch on what is forbidden to him, and draw down on himself unforeseen penalties. The nature of the early deities also excludes idolatry in connection with them; there is no need for a representation of a being who is ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... Tower of David! O Star of the Sea! have you no comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least despair!'—and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the borders of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as if ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... struck four. Some time after this he must have lost consciousness, for gradually his waking thoughts blurred imperceptibly into unreal, his head resting heavily on the bed beside the sleeping girl. He was roused by a touch on his shoulder and a voice saying ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... do? He gave the belt of gold, that meant such a hard struggle, one swift glance. But that soft child-touch on his hand, and that face and voice strangely affected him. He couldn't save both;—which? The quick-as-flash thoughts came all in a heap. Then he dropped the gold, and took the child, made the plunge, and by and by reached ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... say something about asking questions," began Cosme with grimness, but changed his tone quickly with a light, apologetic touch on her arm, "but—but I won't. I ran away from school when I was fourteen and I've been knocking around the West ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... a touch on his elbow. Jane stood beside him with a hand on his arm. She was smiling. Something radiated from her, and like an electric current accelerated the motion of ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... of the creative mood and moment is the reward of the little group whose touch on any kind of material is imperishable. It comes when the spell of inspired work is on them, or in the moment which follows immediately on completion and before the reaction of depression—which is the heavy penalty of the artistic temperament—has ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... I took train to Juliaca, rising to 15,000 feet; thence two days to Cuzco, the celebrated southern capital of the Incas, whose history I will not here touch on. Not only are there abandoned Inca remains, but also in high Peru and Bolivia remains of structures erected, as it is now supposed, 5000 years ago. The pottery recently found would suggest this, it being as gracefully moulded ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... full-grown, and Nature's mothering instincts were strong within her. One evening, as she louped along her accustomed trail towards the turnip-field, she discovered a suitor following in her wake. Half in misgiving, half in wantonness, she turned aside and hid in the ditch. Presently she felt a soft touch on her neck: the jack-hare was pushing his way through the undergrowth. For a moment she stopped to admire him as the moonlight gleamed on a white star in the centre of his forehead. Then away she jumped, dodging round the bushes and hither and thither ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... to turn over these records of a dearly-valued friendship. They begin years ago with words of encouragement as to certain investigations in which both of us felt interest. Here and there they touch on matters of social or personal value, but for the most part they deal only with science. I used to wonder in those days, and still am surprised anew as again I turn over these letters, at the amount of what I might call suggestiveness in Wyman. He replies, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... such charming union of pleasaunce and residence as the Fenways; the system of parks is a garden of delight; and now the State has taken up the work, no doubt at the city's suggestion, and, turning from the land to the water, has laid a restraining touch on the tides of the sea, which, ever since the moon entered on their management, have flowed and ebbed through the channel of the Charles. The State has dammed the river; the brine of the ocean no longer enters it, but it feeds itself ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... that the religions of Chaldaea and Assyria are less well known to us than that of Egypt; the insufficiency of our knowledge of the political and social organization of the two kingdoms is to be explained by the same reasons. The inscriptions, prolix enough on some subjects, hardly touch on others that would be much more interesting, and, moreover, their interpretation is full of difficulty. The Greek travellers knew nothing of Nineveh, while their visits to Babylon were paid in its years of decadence. They seem to have been chiefly struck ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... to the pantry door, whither Bates had led them. His hand was on the knob when Creighton checked him with a touch on his elbow, at which the old man ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... seen by a lady who is also a friend of both the compilers. One night she was kneeling at her bedside saying her prayers (hers was the only bed in the room), when suddenly she felt a distinct touch on her shoulder. She turned round in the direction of the touch and saw at the end of the room a bed, with a pale, indistinguishable figure laid therein, and what appeared to be a clergyman standing over it. About a week later she fell into a ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... a very pleasant chat. She was charming. At first she was apt to touch on James a shade too frequently, but before long I succeeded in diverting our conversation into less ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... it grumblingly recognized that, "Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose," and went on enduring. [Footnote: If a student of philology were allowed to touch on such high matters as legislation, I would moralize on the word kiddle, meaning an illegal kind of weir used for fish-poaching, whence perhaps the surname Kiddell. From investigations made with a ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... remark that I have not been able, nor am I yet able, to express in formula my opinion of the nature of these bodies, but little known as yet; I have only made use of the language mostly employed, without wishing to touch on questions raised by the effects of the presence, and by the more complex effects of living bodies, which exercise ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... sound on that breast fair and ample; Dull brain, and dim eyes, and deaf ears, Feel not the cold touch on your temple, Heed not the faint clash of the shears. It comes!—with the gleam of the lamps on The curtains—that voice—does it jar On thy soul in the night-watch? Ho! Samson, Upon thee ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... hammering and grunting at a great rate, and the forge fire was throwing upon the ceiling fantastic illuminations and causing a thousand still more fantastic shadows, when, wholly without preliminary warning or greeting, Billy felt a slight touch on his arm. It was a slight touch, as I said, but a cold one, a very cold one indeed. Billy turned swiftly around with his hammer in one hand and his red-hot iron in the other. Standing almost beside him, with the glare of the fire working a curiously weird ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... the particular way in which he sees life is a matter of personal temperament and constitution, a matter of nerves. The Goncourts have never tired of insisting on the fact of their nevrose, of pointing out its importance in connection with the form and structure of their work, their touch on style, even. To them the maladie fin de siecle has come delicately, as to the chlorotic fine ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain: it has sharpened their senses to a point of morbid acuteness, it has given their work a certain feverish beauty. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... shivers as if a volcano is beneath our feet. The pock-marked ridges in the distance are covered with the advancing waves of field-grey forms. Our boys are going up happily shouting and singing to the battle. Sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said about being in touch on the right. The brazen roar of the cannon is mingled with the intermittent rattle of innumerable machine guns. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various

... but interested; and she indicated in the charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... that one "Walter Besant" has some capital notions concerning the subject which I have ventured to touch on. If he were a rough—as I am during much of my time—he would be able to talk more to the purpose. Still, I deliberately say that that novelist, who is often treated as a moony creature, is a very wise and practical statesman, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... felt a touch on his shoulder and drew his head away with a jerk. Von Holtz was looking down at him, very pale, with his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... how it is that the religions of Chaldaea and Assyria are less well known to us than that of Egypt; the insufficiency of our knowledge of the political and social organization of the two kingdoms is to be explained by the same reasons. The inscriptions, prolix enough on some subjects, hardly touch on others that would be much more interesting, and, moreover, their interpretation is full of difficulty. The Greek travellers knew nothing of Nineveh, while their visits to Babylon were paid in its years of decadence. They seem ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... Suddenly a touch on his arm stopped him. The same cold, deathly touch he had felt once before. He had drank just enough to feel remarkably brave, and turning, he encountered the strangely gleaming eyes that had frozen his blood that ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... Chiaja - as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that evening - I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table, white through her rouge, and cries, "My sister in Spain is dead! I felt her cold touch on my back!" - and when that sister IS dead at the moment - what do you ...
— To be Read at Dusk • Charles Dickens

... Apostle are not a definition of faith, yet if we consider the matter aright, this definition overlooks none of the points in reference to which faith can be defined, albeit the words themselves are not arranged in the form of a definition, just as the philosophers touch on the principles of the syllogism, without employing the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... both the Admiralty and War Departments; but, as we shall see, Dundas strongly objected to the creation of a Secretary of State for War, because his duties would overlap those of the other Departments, and important decisions must be formed by the Cabinet as a whole.[209] I shall touch on this question more fully in Chapter XII, but mention it here as a sign of the mental cloudiness which led British Ministers for the first eighteen months of the war to plod along with the most haphazard arrangements known even to that age. The contrast between the boyish irresponsibility ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... all, Hector," he said, suddenly, as they sat together in the twilight: "well, I excuse you," with a laugh and a touch on ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... understand. The touch on the shoulder had made her think suddenly of Uncle James, and her ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... (2d of the Nineteenth Corps) in four brigades formed line of battle in front and to the right of the gorge. In touch on the left was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and resting on Ricketts' left was Getty's Division of the same corps. Getty had 16 regiments in line; Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... the pantry door, whither Bates had led them. His hand was on the knob when Creighton checked him with a touch on his elbow, at which the old man ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... with full heart I look upon thee, for thou art the same That wert a promise to me ere thy birth And all thy life hast been my daily joy. 335 I will relate to thee some little part Of our two histories; 'twill do thee good When thou art from me, even if I should touch On things thou canst not know of.———After thou First cam'st into the world—as oft befalls 340 To newborn infants—thou didst sleep away Two days, and blessings from thy Father's tongue Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on, And still ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... the yoke on his shoulder, and the off-side bow in his hand, gingerly approached the excited bullocks, essaying a light touch on the near-sider's shrinking shoulder. The next moment, he was reeling backward, and both bullocks were gone. Eve's curse on Cain, in Byron's fine drama, is mere balderdash to what followed on ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... door of his own house, through which he had entered so often. It was unchanged, but seemed deserted. Next, he went to the water-front, where he had left his yacht. Invisibly and sadly he stood upon her upper deck, and gazed at the levers, in response to his touch on which the craft had cleft the waves, reversed, or turned like a thing of life. "'Twas a pretty toy," he mused, "and many hours of joy have I had as I floated through life on board of her." As he moped along he beheld two unkempt Italians having a piano-organ and a ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... violin, when a touch on the shoulder roused me. I looked up. Karl stood there, leaning across me toward Eugen. Something in his face told me that it—that which had been hanging so long over us—was coming. His expression, too, attracted the attention of several other people—of all ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... emboldens me—one who ought to be ashamed to boast of his greater experience, when every day shows him to how little profit it has been turned, to presume to render our acquaintance less formal by alluding to interests more personal than strangers have a right to touch on. You speak of the two parts of the world just mentioned, in a way to show me you are equally acquainted ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... subjects, I must touch on the question of slavery. It has been again and again denied, on behalf of the Transvaal Boers, that slavery existed in the Republic. Now, this is, strictly speaking, true; slavery did not exist, ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... new world, my assets were gradually diminishing. I had only a few pounds left; as my expenditure for lodging alone was at the rate of over two guineas a week; and Monsieur Parole d'Honneur's loan, which I looked upon only in the light of trading capital, I had determined not to touch on for personal need. ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... every possible wish of their possessors. (15) This, I think, I have already shown clearly enough. (16) The method of forming a dominion which should prove lasting I do not, as I have said, intend to discuss, but in order to arrive at the object I have in view, I will touch on the teaching of Divine revelation to Moses in this respect, and we will consider the history and the success of the Jews, gathering therefrom what should be the chief concessions made by sovereigns to their subjects with a view to the security and ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... recognized that, "Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose," and went on enduring. [Footnote: If a student of philology were allowed to touch on such high matters as legislation, I would moralize on the word kiddle, meaning an illegal kind of weir used for fish-poaching, whence perhaps the surname Kiddell. From investigations made with a view to discovering the origin of the word, I came to the conclusion ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... Shenstone does not appear in the Essay on Gardening by Lord Orford: even the supercilious Gray only bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the offices of the landscape designer, adds, that "he will not inquire whether they demand any great powers of mind." Johnson, however, conveys to us ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... at a great rate, and the forge fire was throwing upon the ceiling fantastic illuminations and causing a thousand still more fantastic shadows, when, wholly without preliminary warning or greeting, Billy felt a slight touch on his arm. It was a slight touch, as I said, but a cold one, a very cold one indeed. Billy turned swiftly around with his hammer in one hand and his red-hot iron in the other. Standing almost beside him, with the glare of the fire working a curiously weird effect upon one-half of ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... Chronicle. He was a keen business man, and a Radical politician of some note; and though not naturally inclined to speculative thought, would sometimes take part in our discussions if ever they seemed to touch on any practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were often very much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive and polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth the course of debate. It was therefore ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... a little bow of comprehension. "When Mr. Edestone calls on me tomorrow," he said, "I shall not even touch on the question of the purchasing of this alleged invention, but shall offer to facilitate in every way his mission as peacemaker. I shall take him at his word that he does not intend to sell to any one, and try to persuade him ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... would be the opportunity of private interviews with Dr. Easterby. She longed for the moment, chiefly to free herself from the sense of deception that had all this time seemed to vitiate her religious exercises, deafen her ears, and blow aside her prayers. There was a touch on her shoulder, and one of the Sisters who had received the ladies said, interrogatively, "Miss Vivian? The Mother would be obliged if you ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mommsen's book, as in every other German work that has occasion to touch on abstract matters, there occur sentences couched in a peculiar terminology and not very susceptible of translation. There are one or two sentences of this sort, more especially in the chapter on Religion in the 1st volume, and in the critique of Euripides as to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... blame of over-medication must, I fear, rest with the profession, for yielding to the tendency to self-delusion, which seems inseparable from the practice of the art of healing. I need only touch on the common modes of misunderstanding or misapplying the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... he did it. Viewed superficially, his life consists of fairly conventional incidents, and might easily fall under fairly conventional phrases. It might be the life of any Dublin clerk or Manchester Socialist or London author. If I touch on the man's life before his work, it will seem trivial; yet taken with his work it is most important. In short, one could scarcely know what Shaw's doings meant unless one knew what he meant by them. This difficulty in mere ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... need to touch on aught but the quality of thy wine. The girl is not like most of her sex, and she takes sudden offence when there is question of her appearance. Indeed, the mask she wears is as much to hide a face that has little to tempt the eye, as from ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... well content to continue the conversation. There was something so unusual in most of her opinions that I wanted to hear more, although I confess that what she said interested me less than she herself did. Before I could touch on another topic, however, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... implanted in our natures by an all-wise Providence." She assisted me in understanding this by touching her middle finger. "Philip and I owe a duty to each other, and accept a responsibility under those circumstances—the responsibility of getting married." A touch on her third finger, and an indulgent bow, announced that the lesson was ended. "I am not a clever man like you," she modestly acknowledged, "but I ask you to help us, when you next see my father, with some confidence. You know exactly what to say to him, by this ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... take a more personal shape when the speaker, branching off from the main subject of Socialism, began to touch on temperance. There was no particular reason why Mr Waller should have introduced the subject of temperance, except that he happened to be an enthusiast. He linked it on to his remarks on Socialism by attributing the lethargy of the masses ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... convenient point surveying the Falls, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. Such was the force of habit that Mr. Palmer started violently, and turned ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... had walked through the garden to send him on his way across the fields did Agnes touch on the offending article. They were standing on opposite sides of a sun-dial at the end of a fruit-walk; and both were recalling the earlier Sundays when Eric had asked with sympathetically lowered voice: "No news of ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... suggestion &c. (information) 527; figure of speech &c. 521; acceptation &c. (interpretation) 522. V. mean, signify, express; import, purport; convey, imply, breathe, indicate, bespeak, bear a sense; tell of, speak of; touch on; point to, allude to; drive at; involve &c. (latency) 526; declare &c. (affirm) 535. understand by &c. (interpret) 522. Adj. meaning &c. v.; expressive, suggestive, allusive; significant, significative[obs3], significatory[obs3]; pithy; full of meaning, pregnant with meaning. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... together in front of them both. "I am not going to have you taking cold, now, when you need all your health for your work more than ever. That love-business seems to me perfect just as it is, but I know you won't be satisfied till you have put the very last touch on it." ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... time, he slipped into a half doze. But it seemed to him that the touch on his forehead was his mother's. No, it was Felicia's or was it Charley's? Again Charley and Felicia merged in his mind. Felicia was looking at him with adoring eyes. Thank God once more that she could never grow up to know ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... judge, Squire Champernowne, that I didn't mean to touch on that," I answered. "'Twas dead and buried in my heart, and the kind words you have said to me would have made me keep it there for evermore. I ban't your judge, though you be going to be mine, and I didn't speak them words in no sense to threaten, and I didn't speak 'em to remind you as you'd ever ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... to touch on more than a few characteristic examples of Purcell's achievement. There are many charming detached songs; the Harpsichord Lessons contain exquisite things. There is also a quantity of unpublished sacred and secular music ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... was as abject a tool as possible. I would be very certain he is an author before I should think him worth mentioning. If ever you should touch on Lord Willoughby's sermon, I should be obliged for a hint of it. I actually have a printed copy of verses by his son, on the marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so ridiculously unlike measure, and the man was ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... the 'North British,' by a Rev. Mr. Dunns (This statement as to authorship was made on the authority of Robert Chambers.), a Free Kirk minister, and dabbler in Natural History. I should be very glad to see any good American reviews, as they are all more or less useful. You say that you shall touch on other reviews. Huxley told me some time ago that after a time he would write a review on all the reviews, whether he will I know not. If you allude to the 'Edinburgh,' pray notice SOME of the points which I will point out on a separate slip. In the "Saturday ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... was twice as big as she, but she went at him with all her strength, and he did as most animals will do when caught wrong-doing, he turned and ran away. Only one was left, a little thing like its mother, but of more pronounced color—gray with black spots, and a white touch on nose, ears, and tail-tip. There can be no question of the mother's grief for a few days; but that wore off, and all her care was for the survivor. That benevolence was as far as possible from the motives of the murderous old Tom there can be no doubt; but he proved ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... good way of making money, better than most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our cure has a grand touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a collection, it is better than ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... distance off. He had turned aside when she spoke to Giles, and was asking of Tibble last instructions about the restoration of enamel, when he felt a touch on his arm, and saw Dennet standing by him. She looked up in his face, and held up a crimson silken purse, with S. B embroidered on it with a wreath of oak ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... gargling. It is now that we get the smack of the soil, the taste of cask or wood, the insipidity of salts, or any bitterness. If the whole effect is pleasing to the back part of the mouth, with the absence of all disagreeable impressions, we must, to put the finishing touch on the wine-tasting, not spit it out, but swallow it. As soon as the wine has passed over the root of the tongue and the soft palate and its pillars, a most pronounced odour ascends from the pharynx into the nasal cavities, and gives forth newer and more powerful revelations, ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... by a soft touch on his cheek. Having his nerves under good control, he gave no start. Opening his eyes, he saw Clare's face smiling adorably, not a foot from his own. At first he thought he was dreaming, and lay scarcely daring to breathe, for fear of dissipating ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... blood gone from her cheeks. "Stop, Stephen! Not another word. You must not mention that name to me. I cannot and will not permit it. I have listened too long already. I am very grateful for your kindness and for your offers to me, but you must not touch on my private affairs. I am earning my own living, and I shall continue to do so. And now I would like ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... either material or historical conditions. The longest are those which run parallel to the dreary and almost uninhabited west coast, and form the terraces by which the great plateau sinks down to the margin of the Atlantic. Neither can I touch on the geology, except to observe that a great part of the plateau, especially in the northern part and towards the north-east end of the Quathlamba Range, consists of granite or gneiss, and is believed to be of very great antiquity, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... very pleasant chat. She was charming. At first she was apt to touch on James a shade too frequently, but before long I succeeded in diverting our conversation ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... is now to engage our thoughts—the mystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the Christian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with reverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such mind will be courteous enough to his friendly ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... given in honor of Colonel Ashley had been withdrawn she gathered from small signs—the feigned stolidity of some of them and the overacted astonishment of others—that they had probably been even better informed than Drusilla Fane. After that the food they brought her choked her and the maid's touch on her person was like fire, while she still found herself obliged to submit to these ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... lower hall they separated with scarcely a word, but Malcourt detained his brother-in-law by a significant touch on the arm, and drew him into ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... for a poor man to live in. I don't suppose New York is worse than London in that respect. The poor have a hard time of it anywhere. A man owes it to himself and family not to be poor. Now, that's one thing I like about your book; you touch on poverty in a sympathetic way, by George, like a man who had come through it himself. I've been there, and I know how it is. When I first struck New York I hadn't even a ragged dollar bill to my back. Of course every successful man will tell ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... der Luydens' Duke dull, and dared to utter the opinion. He longed to question her, to hear more about the life of which her careless words had given him so illuminating a glimpse; but he feared to touch on distressing memories, and before he could think of anything to say she had strayed back to her ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... self-sacrifice. Plato's thoughts flew on—he paused not to let his tears fall with the tears of the mourners in Athens; Newton pursued his experiments calmly, nor left them to search for objects of pity or sorrow; and Marcus Aurelius above all (for here we touch on the most frequent and dangerous form of self-sacrifice) Marcus Aurelius essayed not to dim the brightness of his own soul that he might confer happiness on the inferior soul of Faustina. And if this was right in the lives ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... light touch on his shoulder and looked up with dull eyes, clouded with misery and loneliness, into the dark, sallow face of the kitchen-maid, whom he had never noticed before until he saw her tenderly ministering to ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark

... plate three-eighths of an inch and she will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under control again. Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. Cant the whole forward—a touch on the wheel will suffice—and she sweeps at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle and she presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring her up all standing within a ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling

... great pleasure to accept your invitation to attend the Convention, but as circumstances forbid my being present with you, allow me, in addressing you by letter, to touch on those points of this great question which have, of late, much occupied my thoughts. It is often said to us tauntingly, "Well, you have held Conventions, you have speechified and resolved, protested and appealed, declared and petitioned, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... studied her daughter eagerly. She began to have hopes. Now, if only she could get the right touch on her appeal. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... the further development of a few sentences at the end of an article on "Geological Time and the Origin of Species," which appeared in the "Quarterly Review," for April, 1869. I have here ventured to touch on a class of problems which are usually considered to be beyond the boundaries of science, but which, I believe, will one day ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... jewels, such as fairies wear, When moons go out, to light their hair, One tried to touch on ghostly ground; Gems of quick ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... and he forthwith wrote a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons, commanding him to admonish the members "not to presume to meddle with matters of state which were beyond their capacity, and especially not to touch on his son's marriage." The Commons, not dismayed, and conscious of strength, sent up a new remonstrance in which they affirmed that they were entitled to interpose with their counsel in all matters of state, and that entire freedom of ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... Mrs. Morton. "I could almost believe the whole thing a horrible dream." They did not touch on the question of going to a hotel, during the short interval that elapsed before they set out for the studio. Duvall was anxious to see Mr. Baker. He hoped sincerely that by means of the photograph which had been in the company's files, some ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... Republic, said, "I never will forget that you became a Frenchman in the time of our misfortunes." EDMUND ABOUT picturesquely said, "Il s'est fait naturaliser vaincu." BISMARCK has told me that the Emperor WILLIAM, then at Versailles, in the first flush of triumph at touch on his brow of the Imperial diadem, hearing of the event through the capturing of a balloon despatched with the news to dolorous Paris, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... chiaroscuro was accurately based on that of Correggio, it lacked his aerial play of semitones. Though they went straight to Titian for color, they never approached Venetian lucidity and glow. There was something vulgar in their imagination, prosaic in their feeling, leaden in their frigid touch on legend. Who wants those countless gods and goddesses of the Farnese Gallery, those beblubbered saints and colossal Sibyls of the Bolognese Pinacoteca, those chubby cherubs and buxom nymphs, those Satyrs and S. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... practicable method was to intrust, "as the Saint-Simonians, however, proposed (good heavens! there was some merit in their views—let us be just to everybody)—to intrust, I say, the cause of progress to those who can increase the public wealth." Imperceptibly they began to touch on great industrial undertakings—the railways, the coal-mines. And M. Dambreuse, addressing Frederick, said to him in ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... floods. It is worth while to digress for a few moments, to mark shortly the difference in social and intellectual conditions between the philosopher's own city and the city for which he was bound, and to touch on the significance of his journey. We can only in this way understand the position of the Encyclopaedists in Europe, and see why it is interesting to the student of the history of Western civilisation to know something ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... of shame and self-contempt subsided, were forgotten. He heard the wind sough in the Luxembourg trees, he smelled the pink flowering chestnuts, a soft voice was in his ear, a soft touch on his arm, her breath on his cheek, the old, old faces came crowding up. Clifford's laugh rang faintly, Braith's grave voice; odd bits and ends of song floated out from the shadows of that past and through the troubled dream of face and laugh and music, so long, so long passed away, he heard the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... people consider richer than our own, Greece has permitted the most learned men to use words not in ordinary use about subjects which are equally unusual, how much more ought the same licence to be granted to us, who are now venturing to be the very first of our countrymen to touch on such matters? And though we have often said,—and that, too, in spite of some complaints not only of the Greeks, but of those men also who would prefer being accounted Greeks to being thought our own countrymen,—that we are so far from being surpassed by the Greeks in the richness and ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... his hand there it was, safe and sound! "Why, in the name of wonder," says me and Mr. Tatt, in astonishment, "how did you come by that?" "I'll tell you how I come by it," says he. "I saw which of 'em took it; and when we were all down on the floor together, knocking about, I just gave him a little touch on the back of his hand, as I knew his pal would; and he thought it WAS his pal; and gave it me!" It was ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... written with respect to his conduct in relative life, was in a great measure drawn from what I now saw; and I shall mention here some other points in his behaviour which particularly struck my mind, and likewise shall touch on his sentiments on some topics of importance which he freely communicated to me, and which I have remarked on account of that wisdom and ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... disturbed by another touch on his arm; and, looking up, perceived that his friend was attracting his attention almost mechanically, and ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... stood on the ramp and looked down at the ridiculously tiny wings and watched the control surfaces move in response to Jerry's gentle touch on the controls within the blockhouse. The drone control was working perfectly. Rick felt a surge of pride. This particular part of ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... the least intrusive approach by which I can touch on a topic that must of necessity be a delicate one; yet which may well be a difficulty among Latins like yourself. Against this preposterous Prussian upstart we have not only to protect our unity; we have even to protect ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... Hunt immediately proceeded to construct canoes. As he would have to leave his horses and their accoutrements here, he determined to make this a trading post, where the trappers and hunters, to be distributed about the country, might repair; and where the traders might touch on their way through the mountains to and from the establishment at the mouth of the Columbia. He informed the two Snake Indians of this determination, and engaged them to remain in that neighborhood and take care of the horses until the white ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... procedure. On the private law side 18 clauses apply to rights of property and possession, 13 to succession and family law, 37 to contracts, including marriage when treated as an act of sale; 18 touch on civil procedure. A subject which attracted special attention was the law of status, and no less than 107 paragraphs contain disposition dictated by the wish to discriminate between the classes of society. Questions of public law and administration are ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... sometimes—not very often," she said at last, with a sympathetic touch on my sleeve, "an' you must come to the side gate where grandmama won't see you. I'll let you in an' mamma will not mind. But you mustn't come often," she concluded in a sterner tone, "only once or twice, so that there won't be any danger of my growin' like you. It would hurt ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... "Doan't 'e touch on that, Clem. Us had a braave talk 'pon it, for he wanted to make over two hundred pound to me, but I wouldn't dream of it, and you wouldn't have liked me tu. You 'm the last ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... sobbing, but more quietly, for the force of her passion had exhausted her, when a very light touch on her shoulder caused her to raise herself and look up wildly. Prissie was bending ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... this crude study we shall have to touch on what is called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty of modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth. It is the special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies life. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... of singing-birds. There are enthusiasts about all sorts of things, both good and bad, and many of the weavers in Manchester know and care more about birds than any one would easily credit. Stubborn, silent, reserved men on many things, you have only to touch on the subject of birds to light up their faces with brightness. They will tell you who won the prizes at the last canary show, where the prize birds may be seen, and give you all the details of those funny, but pretty and interesting ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... to outline the domestic relations in the maternal family clan, and to examine the sex-customs and forms of marriage. I shall limit myself to those matters which throw some light on the position of women, and shall touch on the features of social life only in so far as they illustrate this. These questions will be discussed in the three succeeding chapters. Some portion of the matter given has appeared already in the section on the "Mother-Age ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... Washington. The engineers want nothing for themselves from Congress. They want efficiency in government, and you contribute to the maintenance of this bureau out of sheer idealism. This organization for consideration of national problems has had many subjects before it and I propose to touch on some of ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's grip dropped his ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... soul quenched as a flame; For his lust of an hour or his wrath shall the worm and the man be the same. O God sore stricken of things! they have wrought him a raiment of pain; Can a God shut eyelids and wings at a touch on the nerves of the brain? O shamed and sorrowful God, whose force goes out at a blow! What world shall shake at his nod? at his coming what wilderness glow? What help in the work of his hands? what ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... true indications for the use of a remedy, analysis of the question leads us invariably back to its physiological effects. If I have failed nevertheless to include the few effects which I am about to touch on, under the head of "physiological effects," I have done so simply in compliance with universal usage, and as a matter of ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon his chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A soft touch on the cheek woke him. Something was ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... of the state of the Aino mind if the hideous indecencies of the original were omitted, or its occasional ineptitude furbished up. Aino mothers, lulling their babies to sleep, as they rock them in the cradle hung over the kitchen fire, use words, touch on subjects which we never mention; and that precisely is a noteworthy characteristic. The innocent savage is not found in Aino-land, if indeed he is to be found anywhere. The Aino's imagination is as prurient as that of any Zola, and far more outspoken. ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... "Walter Besant" has some capital notions concerning the subject which I have ventured to touch on. If he were a rough—as I am during much of my time—he would be able to talk more to the purpose. Still, I deliberately say that that novelist, who is often treated as a moony creature, is a very wise and practical statesman, and he has used his opportunities well. If powerful people ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... at Mary with a curious expression in her eyes, but neither of them added her voice to the other girls' solicitations, and the little group stood there in what threatened to become a painful silence when Nan felt a light touch on her shoulder, and, turning around, discovered Miss ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... sake don't touch on that topic, Elinor! It is a very sore point with Sir James He would be deeply offended if you entered on ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... with her hands and Dr. Grey drew a chair close to her and endeavored to make her sit down, but she resisted and shrank from his touch on her arm. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... picturings of the beauties of nature, adulation of a patron, idealisation of a protege's regard for a nobleman in the figurative language of amorous passion, amiable compliments on a woman's hair or touch on the virginals, and vehement denunciation of the falseness and frailty of womankind—all appear as frequently in contemporary collections of sonnets as in Shakespeare's. He borrows very many of his competitors' words and thoughts, but he so fused them with his fancy as often to transfigure ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... I cannot touch on this subject without admitting the enormous dramatic value connected with the cinematograph. Though it can never take the place of an actual performance, whether in story form or on the stage, it has a real educational value in its possibilities of representation which it is difficult ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... a miserable man, who went through the world with a morbidly sensitive spot in his nature. A touch on it was torture, and unfortunately the circumstances of his daily ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... survived the Restoration taste, so he survived the new classicism of the eighteenth and the romanticism of the early nineteenth century. It is also clear that a full record of the influence of Shakespeare on English-speaking readers would touch on almost all the varied changes of thought and conduct that have entered into the history of ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... and declined. Sixty new members were admitted into the church, and things settled into the old state. School was resumed; I found that not one of my schoolmates had met with a change, but Miss Black did not touch on the topic. My year was nearly out; March had come and gone, and it was now April. One mild day, in the latter part of the month, the girls went to the yard at recess. Charlotte Alden said pleasantly that the weather was fair enough ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... shining as a lock of woman's hair. From the hanks of long tow he seemed to bring out the tresses like magic. In his swift hand each strick flashed out from the rough hank with great rapidity, and every crafty, final touch on the teeth made it brighter. Giving a last flick or two over the small pins, Mr. Baggs set down his strick and soon a pile of these shining locks grew beside him, while the exhaust sucked away the rubbish and fragments, and the mass of short fibre which he had ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of this disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than the worst form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment as if his real trouble had only just begin; it was a touch on the irritated nerve compared with its ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... how hard it was to get along and to ask him to get work for Uncle William, but I started to cry again. Mr. Peters came over to my chair and took hold of the arm of it and told me not to cry. Somehow his touch on the arm of the chair thrilled all through me and though I knew that it was wrong I let him keep it there and even let him stroke the upholstery and I don't know just what would have happened but at that very ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... invited to address you because I am President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the most venerable organization of the sort in America, perhaps in the world. Thus, to-night, though we shall necessarily have to touch on topics of the day, and topics exciting the liveliest interest and most active discussion, we will in so doing look at them,—not as politicians or as partisans, nor from the commercial or religious side, but solely from the historical ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... humble a bard 'Tis a subject too trying to touch on; Such noblemen's names are too hard, And their noddles too soft ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... This angelic princess, already occupied with the pious resolution which she afterwards put into execution in the following year, contented herself with saying some words on the commotion occasioned by my presence at Versailles, and then, as if her delicacy had feared to touch on such a subject, she asked the duc de la Vauguyon, if the king ordered her to receive the comtesse du Barry. "Yes, madame," replied the duke; "it is the express will of his majesty." "I submit to his wish: the lady ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... and courteously welcomed the visitor, giving a kind smile and a touch on the shoulder to young Wenlock. "Let my presence not interfere with you, friend," he said; "but as thou seest I am busily engaged in writing on matters of importance; thou mayst talk state secrets to each other, and I shall not hear them; so, pray thee, Master Christison, ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston

... had vanished like flame. Kamehameha, on this revelation of his destiny, sprang to his feet. His breath was quick and strong, a smile was on his lips, and he looked into the distance with lifted face and flashing eye, as if a glorious vision had arisen there. A touch on his foot brought him to himself. Pepehi was grovelling before him, baring his breast and offering to Kamehameha the poisoned dagger he had but a few moments before aimed at the young king's heart. Lifting him from the ground, Kamehameha ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... putting a good deal of control on herself, though there were moments that morning which made the young governess say to herself that she could understand its being sometimes true that Biddy was tiresome and trying. When Celestina was putting on her hat and jacket to go she gave Biddy a little touch on the arm. ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth









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