"Dexterity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... here to emphasize the training of the hand or the development of technique in handwork processes to the extent commonly expected of a course in manual arts, though considerable dexterity in the use of tools and materials will undoubtedly be developed as the work proceeds. While careless work is never to be tolerated in construction any more than it would be tolerated in writing or drawing, the standard is to be only such a ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... shining gold curls falling down his collar; he walked in, and it was only after a careful second look that I recognized in our visitor the redoubtable "desperado." Evans courteously pressed him to stay and dine with us, and not only did he show the most singular conversational dexterity in talking with the stranger, who was a very well-informed man, and had seen a great deal of the world, but, though he lives and eats like a savage, his manners and way of eating were as refined as possible. I notice that Evans is never quite himself or perfectly comfortable when he is ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... dispassionateness every phase of life and every dispensation of Providence. They are not always practical, for the development of the spiritual and intellectual natures in man does not at the same time promote dexterity in the use of the baser organs of the body, I have known philosophers who could not harness a horse or even ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... as to stand parallel to the short handle, at about the distance or six inches. The labourer, therefore, must either stoop exceedingly, when at work, or must sit on his heels, which is the most usual posture. Still these people use it with great dexterity, and one man in three days digs up a Rupini. After each hoeing, the women and children break the clods with a wooden mallet fixed to a long shaft, which does not require them to stoop. Almost the only other implement of agriculture these people have is the Khuripi, or weeding iron, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... his own lack of social dexterity. Why did he act so readily on the whimsical suggestion of another person, and follow the minister, when he might have said that he would call on Mr. Woodwell to-morrow, and, making himself known to Miss Power as the visiting architect of whom ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... record, as it may possibly be of some service to future explorers. As the boat was leaving, one of them, supposing, I presume, that they were out of our reach, and might therefore attack us with impunity, threw a stone at the boat, which luckily did no harm, though hurled with great dexterity and force. Upon this, a pistol was discharged over their heads, when they retired with far greater ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Gandharvas, became filled with amazement. And, O Bharata, all on a sudden, some hundreds and thousands, with eyes wide open in wonder, exclaimed, 'Well done! Well done!' And having repeatedly displayed their skill and dexterity in the use of bows and arrows and in the management of cars, the mighty warriors took up their swords and bucklers, and began to range the lists, playing their weapons. The spectators saw (with wonder) their agility, the symmetry of their bodies, their grace, their calmness, the firmness ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... afraid to remain in the house, under the protection of Lord Edward, and she could easily attend to the cow and the chickens. It would be a holiday for her too. Old John, the man who occasionally worked for us, would come up sometimes and see after things. With her customary dexterity Euphemia swept away every obstacle to the plan, and all was settled before we ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... Fortunio echoed her imprecations. The Seneschal gasped, his fears lost in amazement at so much valour and dexterity. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... sixth century of our era, one Asanga, or Asamga, wrote the Shastra, called the Shastra Yoga-chara Bhumi.[28] With great dexterity he erected a sort of clearing-house for both the corrupt Brahminism and corrupt Buddhism of his day, and exchanging and rearranging the gods and devils in both systems, he represented them as worshippers and supporters of the Buddha and Avalokitesvara. In such a system, the old ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... journey of man through the ages. Macaulay had an intimate acquaintance both with the imaginative literature and the history of Greece and Rome, with the literature and the history of modern Italy, of France, and of England. Whatever his special subject, he contrives to pour into it with singular dexterity a stream of rich, graphic, and telling illustrations from all these widely diversified sources. Figures from history, ancient and modern, sacred and secular; characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of every ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... now pariahs. What are they doing here? And how comes it that the eyesore has not yet been detected and uprooted by those keen-sighted authorities that perform such wonders in making the visitor feel at home, and hush up with miraculous dexterity everything in the nature of a ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the feeling in all Western America. The Chinese are considered stupid, because they are imperfectly acquainted with English. They are held to be base, because their dexterity and frugality enable them to underbid the lazy, luxurious Caucasian. They are said to be thieves; I am sure they have no monopoly of that. They are called cruel; the Anglo-Saxon and the cheerful Irishman may each reflect before he bears the accusation. I am ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... It will be observed that his notions concerning races were somewhat confused; his experience of them had hitherto been confined to that branch of the business requiring, not technical knowledge but manual dexterity. In short, he had done no more than pick the pockets of the spectators. Arrived at San Francisco he was hastening to the dwelling of his clerical agent, when he met an acquaintance, to whom he put the triumphant question, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... certain neatness and delicacy of touch ought to accompany his use of the knife, but all pantomimic and venturesome and fashionable suppleness and over-finicalness ought to be far away from his hand, so freedom of speech admits of dexterity and politeness, provided that a pleasant way of putting it does not destroy the power of the rebuke, for impudence and coarseness and insolence, if added to freedom of speech, entirely mar and ruin the effect. And so the harper plausibly and elegantly silenced Philip, who ventured ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... him to raise the standard of rebellion from one end of the island to the other. He is, however, too sharp-sighted, and much too sure of attaining his ends by safer means, to wish to bring on any such violent crisis. He has certainly shown great dexterity in availing himself of the temper of the country at this moment, legally, openly, and in the face of Government, to acquire a power scarcely inferior to that of the sovereign; indeed, though without arms or armies, in some instances far surpassing it. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... business and politics had impaired his agreeableness. The simpletons in the House, now that they had at last found in Pitt a political chief who could beat the Whig leaders on their own ground of eloquence, knowledge, and dexterity in debate, took heart as they had never done under Lord North. They now made deliberate attempts to silence the veteran by unmannerly and brutal interruptions, of which a mob of lower class might have been ashamed. ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the rig, and the dexterity with which he handled brake and control rod gave him pride. He had seated his sister on a bench out of the way, where she was protected from the drizzle, and he felt her eyes upon him. It gave him a sense of importance ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... a huge earthen dish well stored with slices of fat pork fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company, being seated round the genial board and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish—in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... painter!" he told Edith as he gained upon it; she obeyed his orders with prompt dexterity. "You can always depend on old Skeezics," Maurice told himself, with a friendly look at her. He had forgotten Eleanor's behavior, and was trying to suppress his grins at the forlorn and dripping people, who were on land now, shivering, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... of potatoes and a lot of green corn were secured and placed by the natives in the yawl. Meanwhile another party, taking torches, proceeded to a corral near by, and slaughtered a fat ox, with great dexterity. This, in its turn, was placed in the boat, after which all hands prepared ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... again rushed on their prey, but were scared off by a hail of the explosive bullets. Two men then jumped into a boat and attached a line to the dead monster. The latter was hauled into the jetty, and the Malays started to cut it up with a dexterity that showed they were ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... "outlandish" notion. The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which they were founded was the display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, coolness, and dexterity—all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert. It is undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so fascinating to English aficionados, of whom there are many, and have caused the fiestas ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... vanquished. Perhaps fresh indignities would have been attempted, had not the King of Navarre thrown himself on his side, shared with him the brunt of all the grotesque weapons, and battled them off with infinite spirit and address, shielding him as it were from their rude insults by his own dexterity and inviolability, though retreating all the time till the infernal gates were closed ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passed the time merrily in shooting-matches, with Bothwell for her partner, against Lords Seton and Huntly; other accounts represent Huntly and Bothwell as left at Holyrood in charge of the infant Prince. Gracefully and respectfully, with statesmanlike yet feminine dexterity, the demands of Darnley's father for justice on the murderers of his son were accepted and eluded by his daughter-in-law. Bothwell, with a troop of fifty men, rode through Edinburgh defiantly denouncing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... vinegar, two loaves of Chinese mo-mo, or steamed bread, and a pot of tea, would usually cost us about three and one quarter cents apiece. Everything in China is sliced so that it can be eaten with the chop-sticks. These we at length learned to manipulate with sufficient dexterity to pick up a dove's egg—the highest attainment in the chop-stick art. The Chinese have rather a sour than a sweet tooth. Sugar is rarely used in anything, and never in tea. The steeped tea-flowers, which the higher classes use, are really more tasty without it. In ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... that I wish to blaspheme Circe, who always seems to me to have adjusted herself to a disconcertingly changed situation with more than demi-goddesslike dexterity and good humour. It may perhaps be not irrelevant, to discussion of novels in general, to mention something which I have never yet seen put in Homeric discussion, though the bare idea of anything new there being possible may seem preposterous. The arguments of the splitters-up are, naturally enough, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... a single chess-board and a single pack of cards. Sometimes as many as twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love. There were feats of dexterity, puzzles for the intelligence and a regular daily competition to guess the vessel's progress; at twelve o'clock when the result was published in the wheel house, came to be a moment of considerable interest.... We had beside, romps in plenty. ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... corner circle whence it had started, and where the two met, point by point perpetually, in the center circle, they as it were intersected, men and women wriggling, sliding, and darting with incredible dexterity through each other's ranks; and the pattern was a cross, a tricolor. Then they wheeled round the circle that was and was not their goal, and did it all over again; but instead of intersecting at the center circle they struck off there at a tangent, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... up to him, brandishing his whip, but, before he had time to strike, Israel, with the utmost coolness, and with great strength and dexterity, seized him by the collar, and swinging him round to some distance, flung him to the ground with such force as to stun him, saying, "Mind I don't call myself a fighting character, but if thee offers to get up I shall feel free to keep ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... not be mistaken for a mere hamlet. The stocks have left their mark on English literature. Shakespeare frequently alludes to them. Falstaff, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says that but for his "admirable dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the town," says Luce in the Comedy of Errors. "Like silly beggars, who sitting in stocks ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... in this spectral fashion. There was no hail from those who sat in the boat, one using the paddle with the usual dexterity of a Maine guide; and of course none of the scouts thought of calling out, knowing who ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... personalities and back again, as a conversation may three days before a wedding, but Patty was not entirely won over to Hawley's view of his responsibility for having with unprecedented dexterity and precision planted a smashing "right" on the bridge of his friend's nose in the ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... it. As I had to deal with an enemy of greatly superior force, I was under the necessity of closing with him, to prevent the advantage which he had over me in point of manoeuvre. It was my intention to lay the Bonhomme Richard athwart the enemy's bow, but as that operation required great dexterity in the management of both sails and helm, and some of our braces being shot away, it did not exactly succeed to my wishes; the enemy's bowsprit, however, came over the Bonhomme Richard's poop, by the mizzen mast, and I made ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... unhurried colored women, who throw in their buckets, and with a dexterity that comes of long practice draw them out full of water. Black mothers shout at their children not to fall into this pit, and now and then, when a pig fails to come up for its evening slops, a black boy will go to the public well to ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the Reformatory," she became impressed by its audacious cleverness. It would have been impossible to manage a tremendous shift in position with more consummate dexterity. Indeed, she was almost ready to take the Post's word for it that no shift at all had been made. From beginning to end the paper's unshakable loyalty to the reformatory was everywhere insisted upon; that was the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... climb the rigging of the brig, ascending to the mast-heads. One day Mr. Marchinton saw me quite at the main-truck; and, calling me down, I got a severe flogging for my dexterity and enterprise. It sometimes happens that punishment produces a result exactly opposite to that which was intended; and so it turned out in the present instance. My desire to be a sailor increased in consequence of this very flogging; and I now began ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Miss Bloomer's dexterity. Often did he watch her guidance of a high-mettled steed, now urging it to its utmost speed, and then reining in the impatient animal. The sergeant, we have said, greatly admired Miss Bloomer's dexterity; ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... charms a voice attuned to convey slightest shades of meaning. James caught her half-shuttered smoldering glance and divined her a woman subtle and complex, capable of playing the world-old game of the sexes with unusual dexterity. The hint of challenging mystery in the tawny depths of the mocking eyes fired his imagination. She was to him a new find in women, one altogether different from those he had known. He had a curiosity to meet at close ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,—using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Broadvale, Ohio, Slady. Ever hear of it? It's west of Dansburg—about fifty miles. I worked in a lumber concern out there. Can you guess the rest? Here's what did it, Slady, (and with admirable dexterity he went through the motions of shuffling cards and shooting craps). I swiped a hundred, Slady. Don't ask me why I did it—I don't know—I was crazy, that's all. So now what have you got to say?" he inquired with a kind of recklessness, releasing ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... completed these, the outward ceremonies of his joy, he again commanded that his captains and soldiers should show unto Mansoul some feats of war: so they presently addressed themselves to this work. But oh! with what agility, nimbleness, dexterity, and bravery did these military men discover their skill in feats of war to the now ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... community. It is the chief guardian of our safety, and the parent of every personal and domestic comfort. It is, in short, familiarity with its exercise that imparts confidence to the philosopher, decision to the legislator, dexterity to the artificer, and perfection to the artist. In each case it is the accumulation of knowledge put to use, which makes the distinction between one man and another; and it is by the aggregation of such men that a nation becomes prosperous. It must never therefore ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... as a gazelle in climbing about the rocks, leaping from stone to stone, and even making her way up a tree that had convenient branches, if the whim took her, using her hands and arms like a gymnast, and performing whatever feat of. daring or dexterity as if the exquisitely molded form was all instinct with her indomitable will, and obeyed it, and always with an air of refinement and spirited breeding. A child of nature in seeming, but yet a woman who was not to be fathomed by ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... recuperative of sane and heroic life, I say a new founded literature, not merely to copy and reflect existing surfaces, or pander to what is called taste—not only to amuse, pass away time, celebrate the beautiful, the refined, the past, or exhibit technical, rhythmic, or grammatical dexterity—but a literature underlying life, religious, consistent with science, handling the elements and forces with competent power, teaching and training men—and, as perhaps the most precious of its results, achieving the entire redemption of woman out of these incredible holds and webs of silliness, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... anticipating the oblivion which awaited their names and feats, the champions advanced through the lists, restraining their fiery steeds, and compelling them to move slowly, while, at the same time, they exhibited their paces, together with the grace and dexterity of the riders. As the procession entered the lists, the sound of a wild barbaric music was heard from behind the tents of the challengers, where the performers were concealed. It was of Eastern origin, having been ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... is a little taste and dexterity, for of course you must try to avoid making your frames look stiff. Begin at the top of the frame, and make it higher and more imposing than the sides; put first a fir-cone, and then a couple of beech-nuts, and then an oak-ball, or a piece of ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... took place between the captain of the privateer and his lieutenant and a sailor, who seemed to be the mate of the vessel; then the mate gave a whistle, and the men jumped on board the Saint-Ferdinand, and completely dismantled her with the nimble dexterity of a soldier who strips a dead comrade of a coveted ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... had been the most handy vessel in the world, she would have had a very narrow squeak for it. I never saw anything so beautiful as her behaviour. Had she been a living creature, she could not have dodged, and wound, and doubled, with more conscious cunning and dexterity; and it was quite amusing to hear the endearing way in which the people spoke to her, each time the nimble creature contrived to elude some more than usually threatening tongue of ice. Once or twice, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... of, upon what ground and occasion, they being our mere subjects, should show themselves more unkind and wilful in this matter than all other universities, both in this and all other regions do: we, trusting in the dexterity and wisdom of you and other the said discreet and substantial learned men of that university, be in perfect hope that ye will conduce and frame the said young persons unto order and conformity as it becometh you to do. Whereof we be desirous to hear with incontinent diligence; ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... company of rabbit soldiers came in. They wore green and gold uniforms and marched very stiffly but in perfect time. Their spears, or pikes, had slender shafts of polished silver with golden heads, and during the drill they handled these weapons with wonderful dexterity. ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... as Coinneach na Cuirc, or Kenneth of the Whittle, so called from his skill in wood carving and general dexterity with the Highland "sgian dubh." He succeeded his father in 1561. In the following year he was among the chiefs who, at the head of their followers, met Queen Mary at Inverness, and helped her to obtain possession of the Castle after ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... of November 1873. He is the author of some three hundred and sixty original plays, twenty-three of which are in prose. No Spanish dramatist of the nineteenth century approaches him in comic power, in festive invention, and in the humorous presentation of character, while his metrical dexterity is unique. Marcela o a cual de los tres? (1831), Muerete; y veras! (1837) and La Escuela del matrimonio (1852) still hold the stage, and are likely to hold it so long as Spanish ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... to the driver's hands. The latter, a wiry, long-bearded Mohammedan, is armed with a long whip attached to a short thick stock, and though he sits low, on the same level as the passenger beside him on the front seat, he guides his half broken horses with amazing dexterity round sharp curves and by giddy precipices, where neither parapet nor fencing give the startled mind even a momentary impression of security. The road from Simla to Kalka at the foot of the hills is so narrow that if two vehicles meet, the one has ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... "Tigers" gathered for the final practice before the first and most important game of the season. Silvey knocked grounders innumerable to the different members of the infield who handled them with uncanny dexterity, or sent long flies out to the waiting players until he grew tired and Sid supplanted him. Red Brown and one or two of the fleeter spirits of the team raced from base to base, practicing a little trick of sliding which Red had noticed at a park ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... holds. This casual employment seems to have left upon his mind the strongest impression of what "hard work" was; and he often used to revert to it, and say to the young men about him, "Ah, ye lads! there's none o' ye know what wark is." Mr. Gooch says he was proud of the dexterity in handling a spade which he had thus acquired, and that he has frequently seen him take the shovel from a labourer in some railway cutting, and show him how to use it more deftly in filling waggons of earth, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... knew that Congress had already provided for its redemption at par. Immense sums were thus filched from the poor and ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough before. Men thus enriched by the dexterity of a leader, would follow of course the chief who was leading them to fortune, and become the zealous instruments of all ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... battle-cry incessantly: "GOTCHER BUMPUS! GOTCHER BUMPUS!" For the boys had been inspired by the unusual water to transform Penrod's game of "Gotcher bumpus" into an aquatic sport, and to induce one another, by means of superior force, dexterity, or stratagems, either to sit or to lie at full length in the flood, after the example ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... part of the coast are useless. Were they to attempt to land they would soon be swamped and knocked to pieces, and the crews drowned. Native canoes of from eight to twenty paddles are only used, and it requires great caution and dexterity by the black boatmen to prevent their being upset. I once came off in a large canoe with twenty paddles. On the third rolling surf she was half filled, and I was washed out of the chair among the paddlers. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and we observed that each of them carried between its talons stones, or rather rocks, of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone, but by the dexterity of the steersman it missed us, and falling into the sea, divided the water so that we could almost see the bottom. The other roe, to our misfortune, threw his messy burden so exactly upon the middle of the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... admired your dexterity in escaping being horse- whipt three times a day for your ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... sugar plums so as to represent it, but also that these two objects must have been manufactured on different principles. We do not for a moment doubt that the real foot was designed, but we are so astonished at the dexterity of the designer that we are at a loss for some time to think who could have designed it, where he can live, in what manner he studied, for how long, and by what processes he carried out his design, when matured, into ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... bolts, whatsoever I desire is mine. Do not imagine that I steal like a common thief, I only take some of the superfluity of the rich. Poor people are safe, I would rather give to them than take anything from them. It is the same with anything which I can have without trouble, cunning and dexterity I never touch it." "Alas, my son," said the father, "it still does not please me, a thief is still a thief, I tell thee it will end badly." He took him to his mother, and when she heard that was her son, she wept for joy, but when he told her ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... extravagance of killing and dressing it. The meal was seasoned by talk of old times and by the plans which Ailie laid out for futurity, in which she assigned her young master all the prudential habits of her old one, and planned out the dexterity with which she was to exercise her duty as governante. Morton let the old woman enjoy her day-dreams and castle-building during moments of such pleasure, and deferred till some fitter occasion the communication of his purpose again to return and spend his ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... not so hot, sir!" said the quartermaster, and, lifting Scarrow like a child, he laid him on the table. With the quick dexterity of a seaman, he tied his spread-eagled hands and feet with a rope which was passed underneath, and gagged him securely with the long cravat which used to adorn the chin of the Governor of ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... degree; and for the latter sense ever is preferable to never, because the degree ought to be possible, rather than impossible: "Ever so little of the spirit of martyrdom is always a more favourable indication to civilization, than ever so much dexterity of party management, or ever so turbulent protestation of immaculate patriotism."—Wayland's Moral Science, p. 411. "Now let man reflect but never so little on himself."—Burlamaqui, on Law, p. 29. "Which will not ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... plain crockery piled up and it was rushed into a capacious receptacle and washed with great dexterity. Then wipe, young men, wipe! Will you allow a young lady to wash faster than two can wipe? Never, boys, never! and with incredible speed the surface of the plates and dishes was changed into mirrors. There was one young lady who was ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... merely a matter of practice," Roger said. "My people are famous for their dexterity with the bow, and I have seen men hit a mark no bigger than the palm of my hand, ten times ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... initiated him in many of the astute wiles and twisted lines of reasoning that lead to what is termed sharp practice, and so may have confirmed and aided his propensities to artifice; while the mere manual operation tutored his fingers to dexterity at quaint penmanship. He had much leisure too; for it is recorded that his master's business seldom occupied him more than two hours a-day. He was left to devote the rest of his time unquestioned to all the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... remaining, and from thence began to fire incessantly at the Pirates. But these were not in the least negligent either to assault him or defend themselves with all the courage imaginable. Thus it was observed that, amidst the horror of the assault, they made very few shot in vain. For aiming with great dexterity at the mouths of the guns, the Spaniards were certain to lose one or two men every time ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... allow them to tumble about on the sands all foul and dirty, leaving them all day in the sun, so that they look more like buffaloe calves than human infants; indeed I never saw such filthy creatures. In the evening they get milk again. Yet by this manner of bringing up they acquire marvellous dexterity in running, leaping, swimming, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... cost me seventeen livres entree; the others being luckily in my servant's pocket, escaped duty free. All wrought silver imported into France, pays at the rate of so much per mark: therefore those who have any quantity of plate, will do well to leave it behind them, unless they can confide in the dexterity of the shipmasters; some of whom will undertake to land it without the ceremony of examination. The ordonnances of France are so unfavourable to strangers, that they oblige them to pay at the rate of five per cent. for all the bed and table linen ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... insincerity in the artist, who is self-convicted of having neglected truth for the sake of our applause; and we refuse our applause to the flatterer, or give it contemptuously as to a mountebank whose dexterity has ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... scrutinizing, like a hungry rat, every nook and corner under the cafe tables on the terrace, carries a stick spiked with a pin. The next instant, he has raked the butt of your discarded cigarette from beneath your feet with the dexterity of a croupier. The butt he adds to the collection in his filthy pocket, and shuffles on to the next cafe. It will go so far at least toward paying for his absinthe. He is hungry, but it is the absinthe for which he is working. He is a "marchand ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... so—possibly to pay the bills. There was a mother, stout and good-humored, rather vulgar, very fussy, and no end of a talker: she always reminded Ashburner of an ex-lady-mayoress. There were three or four young men, sons and cousins, with the usual amount of white tie and the ordinary dexterity in the polka; and two daughters, both well out of their teens. The knowing ones said that one of these young ladies was to have six thousand a year by her grandfather's will, and the other little ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... they were, in sooth, The old man and the fiery youth! The old man, in whose busy brain Many a ship that sailed the main Was modelled o'er and o'er again;— The fiery youth, who was to be The heir of his dexterity, The heir of his house, and his daughter's hand, When he had built and launched from land What the elder ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... his drab figure from the doorway when Captain Dashwood blotted out the light and dived in upon them with a dexterity ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... handling of these vehicles and the realisation of their characteristic types of beauty have come to be regarded as the craftsman's paramount concern. And in a certain sense this is a right conclusion; for dexterity in the manipulation of the chosen vehicle and power to create a beautiful object, distinguish the successful artist from the man who may have had like thoughts and feelings. This dexterity, this power, are the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... instead of Agriculture, Homer instead of Hygiene, Shakespeare instead of the Stock Exchange, Bacon instead of Banking, Plato instead of Paedagogics! Meaning intellect before intelligence, thought before dexterity, discovery before invention! Meaning the only thing that is really practical, ideas; and the only thing that is really ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... not only in the saddle, but to sit a horse bare-backed, or under any conceivable circumstances which might occur. He had to bend the stout yew bow and to wield the sword, he had to couch the lance, which art he acquired with dexterity by the practice at ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... we had the good fortune to see M. Xambotte at work. His reputation as a surgeon is worldwide, and it was pleasant to find that his dexterity as an operator was equal to his reputation. It is not always the case. He is an expert mechanic, and himself makes most of the very ingenious instruments which he uses. He was fixing a fractured femur with silver wires, and one could see the skilled workman ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... between the anthropomorphism which is to be acquiesced in because we know no better, and that which is to be spurned because we know too much. Ferishtah's thought is a game of hide-and-seek, and its movements have all the dexterity of winding and subterfuge proper to success in that game. Against the vindictive God of the creeds he trusts his human assurance that pain is God's instrument to educate us into pity and love; but when it is asked how a just God can single ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... having, as he frequently said, learned wisdom abroad. The Popish Church never fails to turn to account any particular gift which its servants may possess; and discovering soon that Murtagh was endowed with considerable manual dexterity—proof of which he frequently gave at cards, and at a singular game which he occasionally played with thimbles—it selected him as a very fit person to play the part of exorcist; and accordingly he travelled through a great part of Ireland, casting out devils ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... from artis by dropping the termination is. DEFINITION: 1. cunning—thus, an animal practices art in escaping from his pursuers; 2. skill or dexterity—thus, a man may be said to have the art of managing his business; 3. a system of rules or a profession—as the art of building; 4. creative genius as seen in painting, sculpture, etc., which ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... and in my sorrow—ostensibly informing me that I was to be brought up for sentence on Thursday, but in the same breath adroitly putting to me the question if I knew any of the men recently arrested near Dungarvan, and now in the prison of Kilmainham. Coming thus, with a detective dexterity, carrying in one hand a threat of sentence and punishment—in the other as a counterpoise and, I suppose an alternative, a temptation to treachery. Did he suppose that seven months of imprisonment had so broken my spirit, as well ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... fingers were astonishingly gentle, they worked with marvellous dexterity, and, for the first time, the dreaded examination was almost painless. He asked innumerable questions both of Allison and the nurse, and wanted to know who had been ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... pencils are to his in humor, in depicting the public manners, in arresting, amusing the nation. The truth, the strength, the free vigor, the kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, a woman, a child! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. What plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem! What famous thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on the back of them, scampers ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... painful marches. Water and forage were so scarce, that the cattle suffered terribly on the way. The camels fell dead by scores on the desert; and further on, the Beloochee robbers carried them off with appalling dexterity. When the column reached a cultivated tract of country, the green crops were used as forage for the horses. The ryots were liberally paid on the spot; but the agents of the Beloochee chiefs often plundered the unhappy cultivators of the money that had been ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... court in person. In that case they would not claim to have come from Spychow, but could have prepared another missive to give to the princess instead of Jurand's fictitious letter. All this had been arranged with hellish dexterity, and the young knight, who so far had known the Teutons only from the battlefield, thought for the first time, that the fist was not sufficient for them, but that they must be overcome with the head as well. This ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... this feat of dexterity when he chanced to look up from his work at sound of fast-pattering feet. Not thirty feet away, charging head on at him, rushed the great brown-and-white collie ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... they did not lack priests or priestesses for the sacrifices, which each one offered for his own purpose or necessity. The Tagalogs called those cursed ministers catalonan, and the Visayans babaylan. Some were priests by inheritance and relationship; others by the dexterity with which they caused themselves to be instructed and substituted in the office of famous priests by gaining their good-will. Others were deceived by the devil with his wonted wiles, and made a pact with him to assist them, and to hold converse with him through their idols or anitos; and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... crowd gathered to see the struggle, watching every movement in perfect silence and with the deepest gravity. Suddenly Ito pounced. He caught a favourable gust of wind, and swung his line across Kanaya's with the greatest dexterity. Saw-saw went the line, and at the next moment the great kite went tumbling down the wind, and Kanaya and Ito exchanged the regulation bows. Then the latter looked at his brother without a word, and Taro ran to ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... After his first appearance in Vienna, the foremost musical critic there wrote of him: "From the outset Chopin took place in the front rank of masters. The perfect delicacy of his touch, his indescribable mechanical dexterity, the melancholy tints in his style of shading, and the rare clearness of his delivery are in him qualities which bear the stamp of genius. He must be regarded as one of the most remarkable meteors blazing on the musical horizon." In Paris he gave a concert at Pleyel's ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... belly of a twenty-foot grampus just to relieve his feelings, and be off again before the outraged monster, bleeding through his six inches of blubber, had time to even make a pretense of charging him. And he was already a terror to the seals, who, for all their speed and dexterity, could neither catch ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... equally well if they were to attempt it? If it were the common custom for families to absent themselves from public worship in the afternoon, and to stroll about the fields, or ride, or sail, how many parents, do you suppose, would have the dexterity and talent to check all that was inconsistent with the duties of the day? Is it not your ready command of language, your uncommon tact in simplifying and illustrating, your knowledge of natural history ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible coup-de-main, and all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... himself, leaped upon Black Star. He did not even lose the swing of the horse. Like a leech he was there in the other saddle, and as the horses separated, his right foot, that had been apparently doubled under him, shot down to catch the stirrup. The grace and dexterity and daring of that rider's act won something more than admiration ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... has a million arms of steel that can reach around the world, and a million eyes which are never closed, that can pierce the thickest gloom with sleepless vigilance. The poor, unhappy criminal, by fortunate dexterity, may escape for a little, but at last society lays her iron grasp on him, and with giant force hurls him into a dungeon. As for the short-lived, tempestuous success that some few criminals have, is there any sweetness in it? I say no; success won ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Bout over the choicest of Wines have I had with him at his Inn, as their College-halls are sometimes called. He could drink like a Fish, and fight like a Paladin. He was a good Practical Sailor and Master of Navigation; Rode with ease and dexterity; and was a Proficient in that most difficult trick of the Manege, that of riding a horse en Biais, as the French term it, and of which our Newcastle has learnedly treated; was an admirable Performer on the Guitar and Viol di Gamba; Sung very ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... mental gifts. I have no idea that he will ever acquire the reputation of a great statesman. His views are not sufficiently profound or enlarged for that; his celebrity in the House of Commons will chiefly depend on his readiness and dexterity as a debater, in conjunction with the excellence of his elocution, and the gracefulness of his manner when speaking.... His style is polished, but has no appearance of the effect of previous preparation. He displays considerable acuteness in replying to an opponent; he is quick ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... the rind might not choke him! The mournful fact was ascertained a little before we drove into the courtyard of the house. Mr. Coleridge bore the loss with great fortitude, observing, that we should never starve with a loaf of bread and a bottle of brandy. He now, with the dexterity of an adept, admired by his friends around, unbuckled the horse, and, putting down the shafts with a jerk, as a triumphant conclusion of his work, lo! the bottle of brandy that had been placed most carefully behind us on the seat, from the force of gravity, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... a notion to go out to ride, and desired me to dress her little boy, and then get ready for church. Extensive hoops were then worn, and as I had attached my whole wardrobe under mine by a cord around my waist, it required considerable dexterity and no small amount of maneuvering to hide the fact from my mistress. While attending to the child I had managed to stand in one corner of the room, for fear she might come in contact with me and thus discover that my hoops were not so elastic as they usually are. I endeavored to ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... necessity, always arranged that it should take place before the audience assembled, so as to prevent any sound of scraping or blowing. Unfortunately, on one occasion, some wag got access to the orchestra where the ready-tuned instruments were lying, and with diabolical dexterity put every string and crook out of tune. Handel enters. All the bows are raised together, and at the given beat all start off con spirito. The effect was startling in the extreme. The unhappy maestro rushes madly from his place, kicks to pieces the first double-bass ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris |
