"Dexterous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by Bancroft's persistent, undeserved contempt, the girl felt that now at last she had met some one who appreciated her, and she gave herself up to the charm of dexterous flattery. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... a tall, strong black, a burglar, working at his proper trade of making screws and the like. His time was nearly out. He was not only a very dexterous thief, but was notorious for his boldness and hardihood, and for the number of his previous convictions. He entertained us with a long account of his achievements, which he narrated with such infinite relish, that he actually seemed to ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... master's wife was fallen in love with him, both on account of his beauty of body, and his dexterous management of affairs; and supposed, that if she should make it known to him, she could easily persuade him to come and lie with her, and that he would look upon it as a piece of happy fortune that his ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and interrupted, commented on at every salient point, scrutinized, sifted, dissected, and taken to pieces by two keen women, sharp by nature, and sharper now by collision of their heads. No candor, no tolerance, no allowance for human weakness, blunted the scalpel in their dexterous hands. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... admirably cultivated naturalist, acquainted also with everything known in his day, more prudent metaphysician than Plato but without his depth, a precise and sure logician and the founder of scientific logic, a clear and dexterous moralist, an ingenious and pure literary theorist; Xenophon, who commanded the retreat of the ten thousand, moralist and Intelligent pedagogue displaying much attractiveness in his Cyropoedia, the sensible, refined, and delightful master of familiar and practical ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... daughter of nine years old, a child of towardly parts for her age, very dexterous at her needle, and skilful in dressing her baby. Her mother and she contrived to fit up the baby's cradle for me against night: the cradle was put into a small drawer of a cabinet, and the drawer placed upon a hanging shelf for fear ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... by one cheek-bone, and the other end against the other; and their noses so stretched that only a small slip of them appears about the ornament. They have also great holes in their ears, wherein they wear such stuff as in their noses. They are very dexterous, active fellows in their proas, which are very ingeniously built. They are narrow and long, with outriggers on one side, the head and stern higher than the rest, and carved into many devices—viz., some fowl, fish, or a man's head painted or carved; and though it is but rudely done, yet the ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... turned a kind of post or letter carrier for those who thought fit to employ him beyond sea. By these means he got the names and habitations of men of quality, their relations, correspondents, and interests; and upon this bottom, with a daring boldness, and a dexterous turn of fancy and address, he put himself into the world. He was skilful in all the arts and methods of cheating; but his masterpiece was his personating men of quality, getting credit for watches, coats, and horses; borrowing money, bilking vintners and tradesmen, lying ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... bat flits unheeded. The delicate snakes seem literally strangling each other in terrified struggle to escape from the Medusa brain. The hue which violent death always brings with it is in the features; features singularly massive and grand, as we catch them inverted, in a dexterous foreshortening, crown foremost, like a great calm stone against which the wave of ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... chief Anglo-Saxon novelists and playwrights from the pasture of the platitudinarian. Jones and Pinero both made their first strikes, not as the artists they undoubtedly are, but as pinchbeck moralists, moaning over the sad fact that girls are seduced. Shaw, a highly dexterous dramaturgist, smothers his dramaturgy in a pifflish iconoclasm that is no more than a disguise for Puritanism. Bennett and Wells, competent novelists, turn easily from the novel to the volume of shoddy philosophizing. Kipling, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... lady Meeker, who lived next the vacant lot on Southern Avenue, where the boys gathered occasionally on their way from school for a game of marbles or to play split-top on one of the loose, decayed fence planks. Never did a glassy go spinning from the big dirt ring through a dexterous shot, or a soft, evenly grained top split cleanly to the spear head amid the proper shouts of approval than her fretful, piercing voice put an end to further fun. Such goings-on made her head ache, ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... ago. You know, I daresay, what a start this young man made in the last exhibition, and what a favourable notice his picture attracted. He wishes to make an additional opening for himself in the illustration of books. He is an admirable draughtsman, has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and beauty, and a capital power of observation. These qualities in him I know well of my own knowledge. He is in all things modest, punctual, and right; and I would answer for him, if it ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... he took to dodging her. Yet it was a pity—oh, a pity! and Jan, still thinking what a pity, was going out for a lonesome walk one night, when who should meet him on the front stoop but that same top-floor girl! And no sliding by her this time. She nipped the lapel of his coat with a dexterous thumb ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... voice however soon told him he had a lady to deal with, and he entered into a long harangue by way of apology. This not being acceptable to the offended party, he was surrounded by a host of Charleys springing their rattles all at once, and, notwithstanding the dexterous use of his whip, he was obliged to yield. At this moment, Tallyho was again sounded in his ears, issuing from another quarter; but his struggles to pursue the party from whom it came were ineffectual. A rough-hewn Sailor with a pipe in his mouth, and an ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... is that of grace less so—"that artless balance of motion and repose, sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest, that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little grace. It is evident that the lecturer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... reddened with time, written in a hand that made the artist uneasy. He recognized it; it was dimly associated in his memory with some person whose name had escaped him. Fool! It was his own handwriting, the laborious heavy hand of his youth which was dexterous only with the brush. There in those yellow folds was the whole story of his life, his intellectual efforts to say "pretty things" like men who write. Not one was missing; the letters of their early engagement when, after they had seen and talked to each other, they still ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... There was among the Indians a long-legged, wiry fellow who had been named Attick, or Reindeer, because he was a celebrated runner. Those who disliked him—and they were numerous—said he was good at running away from his foes. However that might be, he was undoubtedly dexterous in the use of his fingers—and it was through this propensity that we were first introduced to him. It ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... was yet oscillating beneath his feet, one of the men in the trench below, by a dexterous drive of his pick, loosened the earth on the side of the excavation; and, hardly had Mr Flinders got out his defiant words than he and the plank on which he was standing came tumbling down, the bully going plump into the pool of water that had accumulated at the open end ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... very intelligent young woman. The pedlars were Irish Yankees, and the way in which they "traded" was as amusing as "Sam Slick." They not only wanted to "swop" my pony, but to "trade" my watch. They trade their souls, I know. They displayed their wares for an hour with much dexterous flattery and persuasiveness, but Mrs. Link was untemptable, and I was only tempted into buying a handkerchief to keep the sun off. There was another dispute about my route. It was the most critical day of my journey. ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... inexplicable mystery; but he did accomplish it somehow, and whirled them, by one of his tremendous marches, of three days and two nights, himself in the rear and the enemy's horse close in pursuit all the while, past Arbroath, and so, by dexterous choice of roads and passes, in among the protecting Grampians. "Truly," says his biographer Wishart, "I have often heard those who were esteemed the most experienced officers, not in Britain only, but in France and Germany, prefer this march of ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... resemble a water cask, being first given to the coachman, servants, and guards. As they proceeded, the advance guard passed it unobserved, but the coachman discovered it just as the consular carriage was on a parallel with it; instantly the dexterous and faithful charioteer lashed his horses into full speed, and turned the corner of the Rue Marcem. In one moment after, the terrible machine exploded, and covered the street with ruins. The thunder of its discharge shook the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... last generation are dead—Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, Swinburne. The great "makers" have passed away, and there remain to us but certain highly dexterous word-artificers and melodists, a varied chorus of dainty, musical, scholarly, but mostly uninspired, writers of verse. We have passed the crest of the poetical wave, and are sunk into its trough. It is not unnatural, therefore, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... month, and by that time we met with a fresh recruit on the coast of Mexico, where we often saw them in the heat of the day floating in great numbers on the surface of the water fast asleep. Our mode of taking them was this; we sent out our boat with a man in the bow, who was a dexterous diver; when the boat came within a few yards of the turtle, the diver plunged into the water, and took care to rise close upon it; on seizing the shell near the tail, and pressing down the hinder parts, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... admonition and by example. One of them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and a rich vein of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous, and taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of Adrumetum, and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild temper and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... incredibly swift. It was his duty to remove full spools and replace them by empty ones, and he did this duty for sixteen spinning frames. Seeing the "new hand's" astonishment at his deftness he became reckless and, intending an unusually dexterous movement, miscalculated his reach, and the result was a momentary tangle among the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Priests of Aesculapius carried on their impostures, and the popularity which their dexterous management, no less than the vulgar credulity obtained for them, will cease to surprise us on maturer consideration. It could not be a difficult task for them to give the minds of their patients whatever bias ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... plates and send them round, rather than ask each individual what particular part they would prefer; and if in a larger company a similar plan were introduced, it would be attended with many advantages. A dexterous carver, would help half a dozen people in less time than is often wasted in making civil faces to a single guest. He will also cut fair, and observe an equitable distribution of the dainties he is serving ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... life. Critics, indeed, might have been tempted to sneer at a certain oracular grandiloquence, that bore away her soberness in moments of elation; though even the most captious must presently have smiled at the humor of her descriptive touches, her dexterous exposure of folly and pretension, the swift stroke of her bright wit, her shrewd discernment, promptitude, and presence of mind. The reverential, too, might have been pained at the sternness wherewith popular men, measures, and established customs, were tried and found guilty, at her tribunal; ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... us is irresistible—either our author is egregiously in error, or he has made a great discovery. Who can doubt it? We feel at once driven to the wall by the horns of so dexterous a dilemma; and unable as we are, in the kindness of our hearts, to adopt the more uncivil supposition, we succumb, without a struggle, to the only choice left us, and concede to such a disputant all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... number of new dexterous men into business and credit: It was argued, that the war could not last above two or three campaigns, and that it was easier for the subject to raise a fund for paying interest, than to tax them annually to the full expense ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... wearing well with him. Much of all this comes out through his letters, which may be regarded as a department of his essays. He is an old-fashioned letter-writer, the essence of the old fashion of letter-writing lying, as with true essay-writing, in the dexterous availing oneself of accident and circumstance, in the prosecution of deeper lines of observation; although, just as with the record of his conversation, one loses something, in losing the actual tones ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... Flemish hero. When will this country have such a man? It is what she needs—no thin Idealist, no coarse Realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens while his feet step firmly on the ground, and his hands are strong and dexterous in the use of human instruments. A man, religious, virtuous, and—sagacious; a man of universal sympathies, but self-possessed; a man who knows the region of emotion, though he is not its slave; a man to whom this world ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... He had recovered his spirits, shaken by the arrival of the King's messenger. Aided by the dexterous renegade, Braxton Wyatt, he would soon persuade Bernardo Galvez that he had acted for the best in the matter of the ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... shoved a revolver right up in the teeth of the prosperous one. Skyward the podgy, bejeweled hands, and we deftly went through him, securing his wallet, watch, scarf-pin, and then stripped his fingers of their adornment. It was over in a flash, and the fat man on his back by a dexterous push and go-down which the Japs might add with advantage ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... threw herself upon her mother-in-law for safety, and Madame Cadotte put both arms and the smoking candle around her. A feeble yet dexterous scramble on the sill resulted in something dropping into the room. It moved toward the hearth glow, a gaunt vertebrate body scarcely expanded by ribs, but covered by a red blanket, and a head with deathlike features overhung ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... state of consternation. They had discovered a large, sticky splash of molasses candy on the baby's white embroidered cloak. They had washed the baby's sticky little face, but they did not know what was to be done about the cloak, which lay over a chair. Josephine essayed, with a dexterous gesture, to so fold the cloak over that the stain would be for the time concealed. But Ida Edgham had not been a school-teacher for nothing. She saw the gesture, and immediately took up ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek], dexterous men; and [Greek], men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for their ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... unsaid. Let me now the vices trace, From the father's scoundrel race. Who could give the looby such airs? Were they masons, were they butchers? Herald, lend the Muse an answer From his atavus and grandsire:[1] This was dexterous at his trowel, That was bred to kill a cow well: Hence the greasy clumsy mien In his dress and figure seen; Hence the mean and sordid soul, Like his body, rank and foul; Hence that wild suspicious peep, Like a rogue that steals a sheep; Hence he learnt the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... it was a bustling, prosperous town, with so much money in it that it seemed strange that a man with a trained brain and dexterous fingers should be starved out of it for want of employment. At his desk, Dr. Horace Wilkinson could see the never-ending double current of people which ebbed and flowed in front of his window. It was a busy street, and ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that in reality there was no high-flown quixotism in a woman's nature; the smooth arms, made he had thought for caressing, seemed muscular; the hands meant for the doing of works of pity in his system, appeared dexterous in the giving of "stingers," as Barnes might say, and the smiling lips could sneer with great ease. Nor was he more fortunate in his personal experiences. As has been told, Mrs. Dixon spoke of him in connection with "judgments," and the younger ladies ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... dwelling did not change his judgment and if he was crack-brained at San Garcia, he remained crack-brained at Toledo, consuming in this resort his money upon worthless drugs and quacks which did not cure his blindness and impoverished him more and more every day, so that if his daughter had not been so dexterous with her fingers in making and broidering garments of linen, wool, and silk, I promise you that this miserable Juan would have had to go for more than four Sundays without a clean shirt to put on or a mouthful to ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... to his own position, in view of the ambition of Zebehr, and harassed by the importunities of England, Ismail, acting on the advice of his able and dexterous Minister, Nubar Pasha, one of the most skilful diplomatists the East has ever produced, came to the decision to relieve himself from at least the latter annoyance, by the appointment of Gordon. This was the main object the Khedive and his advisers had in view ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... sardine boxes, but after a faithful trial this proved useless. At length Melick, who had gone off in search of something more effective, made his appearance armed with an axe. With this he attacked the copper cylinder, and by means of a few dexterous blows succeeded in cutting it open. Then ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... have not been clearly specified, nor the manner of the elaboration defined. It has been held, that our thoughts are produced by some mysterious assemblage and arrangement of IDEAS, which the mind or soul performs by a dexterous and imperceptible contrivance; although we are conscious of all our acts of intelligence, and on a moment's consideration it will be evident, that such intelligence would be ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high, containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... side of the path to let us pass, which we did perfectly shouting with laughter, which broke out again every time we looked at each other and stopped to take breath—so sudden, grotesque, uncouth, and yet dexterous a gambado never came into the brain or out of the limbs of anything ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... solemnity of the occasion warranted, and even exacted, such costume. Her new sash—a birthday present from Margaret Hall, which she had reason to believe Cyril himself had bought, and in return for which she had indeed given him a set of cambric bands in a handsome case—was tied by the dexterous fingers of Fanny, who took no little pleasure in arraying her fair young mistress for the occasion. Her simple bonnet had been trimmed to correspond with her sash; her pretty but inexpensive scarf of white crape suited her dress. When ready she formed a picture, not bright enough ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... America, but in the manufacturing and mining regions of Great Britain, and in some of the countries, especially the Scandinavian countries, of continental Europe. The able handling of an emigration fund, and the dexterous combination of appeals to many passions and interests at once, have availed to draw together in the State of Utah and neighboring regions a body of fanatics formidable to the Republic, not by their number, for they count only about one ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... had now turned and was proceeding with open jaws to attack the first officer's boat. Another minute and he would have destroyed it, and perhaps all on board. Just at that moment Tite's boat came up, and with a quick, bold, and dexterous movement, rounded close under the whale's off side, and with a strong arm sent a lance home. That lance made a deep and fatal wound. The enraged monster forgot in a moment the object he was in pursuit of, threw up a ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendancy which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... workshops that stand where grass grew two short years ago, wherein are bright-eyed English girls, Irish colleens and Scots lassies by the ten thousand, whose dexterous fingers flash nimbly to and fro, slender fingers, yet fingers contriving death. I have wandered through a wilderness of whirring driving-belts and humming wheels where men and women, with the same feverish activity, bend above ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... by adroit manipulation of a certain lock, with wrench and a pair of tweezers, he readjusted a certain valve hinge in the petrol tank which he had heard Monsieur Cheval grumbling about before. This he did with such dexterous rapidity and ease that ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... in the habit of carrying, in cowboy fashion, a lariat suspended from his belt. This he now unwound and with a dexterous throw caught the outer loop over a sturdy bush growing over one of the ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... shouted loudly to the crowd to separate, as though wishing to show Paul the blood in his favorite mare. He punched her with a little stick from which the sharp point of a nail protruded and by a dexterous movement dodged the flying hind feet that were aimed ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... are now, in all that we do, absolutely without sincerity;—absolutely, therefore, without imagination, and without virtue. Our hands are dexterous with the vile and deadly dexterity of machines; our minds filled with incoherent fragments of faith, which we cling to in cowardice, without believing, and make pictures of in vanity, without loving. False and base ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... wore while en deshabille in camp. No sooner had he alighted than his posterior was raised, his head lowered, and his weapons, consisting of four hair-like styles, unsheathed from the proboscis-like bag which concealed them, and immediately I felt pain like that caused by a dexterous lancet-cut or the probe of a fine needle. I permitted him to gorge himself, though my patience and naturalistic interest were sorely tried. I saw his abdominal parts distend with the plenitude of the repast until it had swollen to three ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... freely from the pricks of their riders' spurs, shows you with what earnestness the whole affair is conducted. There, the ring is thrice carried off at the point of the lance. Feats of horsemanship follow in a covered building, to the right; and the juggler, conjurer, or magician, displays his dexterous feats, or exercises his potent spells, in a little amphitheater of trees, at ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... light vessel was run down, and he beat the water with long powerful strokes which drove the tiny craft forward with great power. Jim Dent had begun to rummage in the stern, and soon drew out a broad-bladed steering paddle. He dipped this into the water and added a strong dexterous stroke to the efforts of the boatman; now the sampan ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... he poured some coffee from his canteen. From some mysterious place in his clothes he drew forth sugar and dropped it into the cup. Next, from an old worn haversack, he took a "chunk" of raw bacon and a "pone" of corn bread. Then, drawing a large pocket knife, in a dexterous manner he sliced and ate his bread and meat, occasionally sipping his coffee. His evening meal leisurely completed, he filled his pipe, smoked, and stirred up the imaginations of the boys by telling how dangerous a duty they were performing; ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... is the terror of the neighborhood. I think I have not done the young gentleman an injustice. If there is a window broken within the radius of two miles from our house, Johnny's ball, or a stone known to come from his dexterous hand, is almost certain to be found in the battered premises. I never hear the musical jingling of splintered glass, but my porte-monnaie gives a convulsive throb in my breast-pocket. There is not a doorstep in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... contemplating a butterfly of the penwiper class, whose constitution her dexterous needle had been rendering less rickety than Blanche ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... ostentatious submissiveness peculiar to their species. They had nearly passed him when there was a sudden hitch in the procession. From where he stood he could see that a projecting plank had struck a pile of chips and become partly imbedded in it. To run to the obstruction and, with a few dexterous strokes and the leverage of his stout stick, dislodge the plank was the work not only of the moment but of an evidently energetic hand. The teamster looked back and merely nodded his appreciation, and with a "Gee up! Out of that, now!" the skids ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... neatly labeled with ivory tablets, inscribed "Bell," "Door," "Window." The cords comprising this rigging for invalid use were at least five times more numerous than was necessary for the purpose they were designed to serve; but Mrs. Blyth would never allow them to be simplified by dexterous hands. Clumsy as their arrangement might appear to others, in her eyes it was without a fault: every useless cord was sacred from the reforming knife, for ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... and he produced tobacco in a screw of newspaper from the pocket of his coat, and began rapidly to make cigarettes. Rainham watched the dexterous movements of his long nervous hands—the colour of old ivory—and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... by AEolian Lipare, before Sicania, looms an island from the deep, With smoking rocks. There AEtna's caverns roar, Hewn by the Cyclop's forges from the steep. There the steel hisses and the sparks upleap, And clanging anvils, smit with dexterous aim, Groan through the cavern, as their strokes they heap, And restless in the furnace pants the flame. 'Twas Vulcan's house, the land even ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... playing, takes him far away, allows him no more to see his family, teaches him many strange languages, drills him till his joints are supple, paints his face and dresses him in ridiculous clothes, and imparts to him all the mysteries of the acrobat's trade until he is sufficiently dexterous to appear in public and amuse ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... me urge you eventually to make your own tackle. Personally, I am not dexterous when it comes to matters of finer handicraft; and when I became interested in this game I made up my mind that the construction of a bow or the building of a decent arrow was outside my line, and that I would not attempt it. After a while Pope persuaded me I ought ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... and out of colour schemes. Each of the Seven Ages of Man has its appropriate setting in colour as in line. One learns the dexterous manipulation of colour from furnishing, as ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... in dissipating the gains of their fathers' industry, he forgot the precepts of Candidus, spent the evening in parties of pleasure, and the morning in expedients to support his riots. He was, however, dexterous and active in business: and his master, being secured against any consequences of dishonesty, was very little solicitous to inspect his manners, or to inquire how he passed those hours, which were not immediately devoted to the business of his profession: when ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... profound that Pilar heard the mingled music of the pines on the hills above the Presidio and of the distant ocean, Dona Brigida marched her to the very middle of the square, then by a dexterous turn of her wrist forced her to her knees. With both hands she shook her daughter's splendid silken hair from the tight rope into which she had coiled it, then stepped back for a moment that all might appreciate the penalty a woman must pay who disgraced her sex. The breeze from ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Proportions of the specifick Articles. Had our Money been stable we might have contracted for the Supply of our Army; but the Paper, as all the World knows, is depreciated, for which we are in part obligd to our Enemies, who are dexterous ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white; and I perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out something that looked like a small shrimping net, I stepped around the bush, crossed silently ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... places where a herd has recently halted, I have sometimes seen the bark peeled curiously off the twigs, as though it had been done in mere dalliance. In the same way in eating grass the elephant selects a tussac which he draws from the ground by a dexterous twist of his trunk, and nothing can be more graceful than the ease with which, before conveying it to his mouth, he beats the earth from its roots by striking it gently upon his fore-leg. A coco-nut he first rolls under foot, to detach the strong outer bark, then stripping ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... face to face with the banded opposition of kings, parliaments, churches, and the members of the force, who am I—who are we, dear sir—to affect a nicety about the tools employed? You might, perhaps, expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister Gladstone, the rigid Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error. Our appeal is to the body of the people; it is these that we would touch and interest. Now, sir, have you observed the ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... powers had soon begun to fail, while, though panting heavily, thickset, sturdy, bulldog like Tom had plenty of force left in him still, the result being that Pete's effort to lift and throw him proved a failure, ending in a dexterous wrench throwing him off his balance, and another sending him down with his adversary upon ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... in its agonies; but the long boredom of the man and woman is only too faithfully shared with the reader. La-Bas is a more artistic creation, on a more solid foundation. It is a study of Satanism, a dexterous interweaving of the history of Gilles de Retz (the traditional Bluebeard) with the contemporary manifestations of the Black Art. 'The execration of impotence, the hate of the mediocre—that is perhaps one of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... to one year. The next year, in accordance with the urgent petition of the inhabitants, a bill was introduced against these restrictions.[69] By dexterous wording, this bill, which became a law March 2, 1805,[70] swept away all restrictions upon the slave-trade except that relating to foreign ports, and left even this provision so ambiguous that, later, by judicial interpretation of the law,[71] the foreign slave-trade was allowed, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... for glory. Perchance this combat was too delicate an art for his ungainly hands. Twice the missile lodged in the rim of the shield; once it sprang beyond upon the sand. Moerocles, who followed, surpassed him. Amyntas was hardly worse. Glaucon came last, and won his victory with a dexterous grace that made all but the hottest Laconian swell the "Io! paian!" of applause. His second cast had been into the centre of the target. His third had splintered his second javelin as it ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... advances of the last two centuries. The little group of appliances for telegraphic communication attracted the Master so strongly that his delightfully prepared dinner, served by a number of charmingly dexterous girls, waited for a space. The habit of smoking had almost ceased from the face of the earth, but when he expressed a wish for that indulgence, enquiries were made and some excellent cigars were discovered in Florida, and sent to him by pneumatic despatch while ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Luckett would never let her touch the salt, which will ruin the hands. Cicely, however, who would do something, turned the cheeses in the cheese-room alone. Taking one corner of the clean cloth in her teeth, in a second, by some dexterous sleight-of-hand, the heavy cheese was over, though ponderous enough to puzzle many a man, especially as it had to come over gently that the shape ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... the glass, while Bennet's dexterous fingers unbraided the silky hair and brushed it before coiling it up for the night. Looking at the face reflected in the glass, she perceived that it was not quite so tranquil as usual, and was irritated at finding that ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... glowing hot, Playing our games, and on the very spot, As happy as we once, to kneel and draw The chalky ring and knuckle down at taw, To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat;— The pleasing spectacle at once excites Such recollection of our own delights That, viewing it, we seem almost t' obtain Our innocent, sweet, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... appearance, clearly not one of the regular Butt-enders. "Let go!" cried Travis, and the primitive ram was again shot forward, but not with equal success. Several of the Locos were knocked down, but others threw themselves desperately on the plank, and their general, by a dexterous movement, placed himself within it. Travis recognized his cousin Lloyd! It was a fine bit of romance, but there was no time to fabricate reflections corresponding, for even as he made the discovery, the amateur Spartan was springing up the stairs, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... year, and two-year-old oxen furnish a large quota of the "roast beef of old England." The so-called improvement of stock is simply the forcing of them into an unnatural degree of fatness at an early age; and this end is attained by dexterous selection and crossing of breeds, by avoidance of cold, by diminishing as much as possible their muscular activity, and lastly, and chiefly, by ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... as alert as rigid, and he opposed his officer's sword against Peyton's broken cavalry blade, guarding himself with unexpected swiftness, and giving back, for Harry's sweeping stroke, a thrust which only the quickest and most dexterous movement turned aside from entering the Virginian's lungs. As Harry stepped back for an instant out of his adversary's reach, the Tory raised his pistol. At the same moment the two soldiers, having turned ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... has with the Catholic population of his parish—have made the introduction of tithe proctors very general, sometimes as the agent of the clergyman, sometimes as the lessee or middleman between the clergyman and the cultivator of the land, but, in either case, practised, dexterous estimators of tithe. The English clergymen in general are far from exacting the whole of what is due to them, but sacrifice a little to the love of popularity or to the dread of odium. A system of tithe- proctors established all over England (as it is in ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... to see if, amid the ceaseless soughing of the wind among the long yew branches, he could hear the rustle of the young men's footsteps as they crept behind. But he could distinguish nothing. The hish-wishing of the thin leaves was so incessant, the wind was so dexterous and tormenting in the tricks it played and the sounds it produced, that the whole place seemed alive with phantom rustlings and footsteps; and Bill felt as if Master Arthur was right, and that there was "no limit" to the number ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... final exodus. It does not take long to make. The spinning-mill suddenly alters the raw material: it was turning out white silk; it now furnishes reddish-brown silk, finer than the other and issuing in clouds which the hind-legs, those dexterous carders, beat into a sort of froth. The egg- pocket disappears, drowned in ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... reconnoitre the position of the enemy, he thought he might without danger initiate the vidame into the secrets of his situation. The old commander loved Auguste as a father loves his wife's children; he was shrewd, dexterous, and very diplomatic. He listened to the baron, shook his head, and they both held counsel. The worthy vidame did not share his young friend's confidence when Auguste declared that in the time in which they ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... went joyously forward—Christmas-games and incantations, the dexterous introduction, by a jocose old gentleman, of a mistletoe-bough into the festoons draping the chandelier, and divers other tricks, all of which were taken in excellent part by the victims thereof, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... scrapheap of the "common" the ready-made white ruching for neck and sleeves which she had always before taken for granted. Eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were always set off by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid with dexterous carelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh that they were obviously renewed by a skilful hand after only a few hours' wearing. The first time she saw Eleanor, Sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... beautiful tan face-fall that flows like a rain of gold from his head can be kept perfectly straight and free from curl or wrinkle; and no grease or pomade, even if their use were officially permitted, could impart to the coat the glistening sheen that is given by the dexterous application of the brush. The gentle art of grooming is not to be taught by theory. Practice is the best teacher. But the novice may learn much by observing the deft methods employed by an ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the true Sacred-writing; of which even Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and there a line. As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they strive bravely; and, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic writing, pick out, by dexterous combination, some Letters in the vulgar Character, and therefrom put together this and the other economic Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature is more than some boundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh inexhaustible Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the whole secret ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... this meant the capture or assassination of the President. "Lincoln quietly grinned." But Hay who plainly enjoyed the episode, charming women and all, had got himself into trouble. He had to do "some very dexterous lying to calm the awakened fears of Mrs. Lincoln in regard to the assassination suspicion." Militia were quartered in the Capitol, and Pennsylvania Avenue was a drill ground. At the President's reception, the distinguished ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... as to decorations. Many crafty and dexterous men are there in all our ships who take a delight in this kind of work: they also vie with each other as to the quality of their plum puddings. Time would fail to tell you the ingredients with which they are ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... was as clever as she was kind about it. This evening she seemed to have surpassed herself, as I judged by the admiring exclamations of our younger sister Phillis—a good little maid, who stood behind my chair with combs and pins in her hand as Fatima's aide-de-camp. Finally, the dexterous fingers interwove some sprays of ivy with the hair, and added white rosebuds for lack ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... crept cautiously forward to a very likely-looking hole. "Bismillah!" and with a dexterous throw, the net described an exact circle as it fell ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver's behalf, Rose Maylie would ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... about that six people assembled in the tiny pink parlor of Mrs. Jasher at the hour of seven o'clock. It required dexterous management to seat the whole company in the dining room, which was only a trifle larger than the parlor. However, Mrs. Jasher contrived to place them round her hospitable board in, a fairly comfortable fashion, and, once seated, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... these parts to every ploughboy; which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by late writers, and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in his Physico-theology, p. 250: an insect worthy of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions afterwards; for more modern entomologists ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... was out of her sight, irritated at the amount of his time which Miss de Gervais claimed, and she had ascribed these things to the depth of her love for him! But now, with a sudden flash of insight, engendered by the Russian's dexterous suggestion, she realised that it was jealousy, sheer primitive jealousy of another woman that had gripped her, and her young, wholesome, spontaneous nature recoiled in horrified self-contempt at ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... cleverest feat,—though he did a great many of clever; and his Brother used to say, glancing towards him, "There is but one of us that never committed a mistake." A highly ingenious dexterous little man in affairs of War, sharp as needles, vehement but cautious; though of abstruse temper, thin-skinned, capricious, and giving his Brother a great deal of trouble with his jealousies and shrewish whims. By this last consummate ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Her wonderful hair, the color of freshly hewn redwood, had escaped from her hat in her passage through the underbrush, and even as she swept down upon them in her majesty she was jabbing a hairpin into it with a dexterous feminine hand. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... few inches of where the lad's feet had rested as he slept, was a large rattlesnake still in its coil and giving forth its ominous rattle. A dexterous blow or two finished the reptile, but the odor given forth by the creature in its anger filled ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... did not once attempt to strike a solid blow, nothing but that humiliating, open-handed slap, that dexterous swing of his foot that plunged Monohan headlong. He grinned steadily, a cold grimace that reflected no mirth, being merely a sneering twist of his features. Stella knew the deadly strength of him. She wondered at his purpose, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... opened fire first—a single ball from the dexterous band of General Harris taking General Ames in the very pit of his stomach. A cheer went up from Fort Slatter. In an instant the air was thick with flying missiles, in the midst of which we dimly descried the storming ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... having, with a dexterous twist of her frying-pan, flopped her omelet to its other side. "Victor! And what brings ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... prominent a way. He struck his hoop with a force sufficient to overthrow not only Ernest's hoop, but Ernest himself; but the young champion knew well what he was about. Instead of waiting for the blow, by a dexterous turn he brought the edge of his light hoop against the side of Blackall's, which went reeling away among the following crowd, and was instantly upset. Ernest was in time to treat another hoop of the second line in the same fashion, and ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... last exploit, the consequences of which he ignored, enchanted him. Never had the crew seen so jolly and dexterous a fellow. He formed warm friendships with the sailors, and amazed them with his acrobatic feats. He thought they managed the vessel like gentlemen, and that the stokers fired up like heroes. His loquacious ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... has been counterfeited with such perfection as the emerald; and in fact it is utterly impossible to distinguish the artificial from the real gems by the aid of the eye alone: even the little flaws which lull the suspicions of the inexperienced are easily produced by a dexterous blow from the mallet of the skilled artisan. Not only emeralds, but most of the gems and precious stones, are now imitated with such consummate skill as to deceive the eye, and none but experts are aware of the extent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... foolishly called "the mere handiwork, the furnisher's business, of the poet." It is the delight of the true artist that the product of his talent should be wrought to a high technique equally by the shaping brain and the dexterous hand. Browning is great because of his formative energy: because, despite the excess ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... submissive lips. The smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... picture of a forest of pines, or sheets of sparkling stars and crystals? I am sure you have. Well, we do all that work on your windows, not with artificial snow and ice such as you see here, but by dexterous management we catch the falling flakes and mould them to our will, sometimes doing nothing more than spangling a sheet of glass, and again working out the most elaborate and fantastic marvels of embroidery. But in art our productions are almost ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... all this precious information from a gamester named Raymond. It appears that the first meeting between him and this man was at a subscription-ball, where the sharper managed to fleece him and others to a considerable amount, contriving a dexterous escape when detected. Houdin afterwards fell in with him at Spa, where he found him in the greatest poverty, and lent him a small sum—to practise his grand theories as just explained—but which he lost—whereupon Houdin advised him 'to take up a less dangerous occupation.' He then appears to ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the two lads, were gazing in at the gloomy portals of a water-floored cave, in and out of which birds were flying, a dexterous turn of the oar sent the boat quickly round, head to wind, the sail flapped over their heads, and Vince seized the boat-hook without being told, and, reaching over the side, hooked towards him a couple of good-sized pieces of blackened cork, through which a rope had been passed and knotted ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... oar in the waves with a practised hand to alter the head of the boat and was in the act of pulling his hand up to make his stroke against the pressure of the waves—but he did not complete the movement, nay he counteracted the stroke by a dexterous reverse action; a strange vision arrested his attention. On the terrace, which lay full in the bright moonlight, there appeared a white-robed figure ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first be conquered, and his kingdom will be weak. When Ishbosheth had lost his Abner, his kingdom was made weak: nor did he sit but tottering then upon his throne. So when Satan loseth his strong men, them that are mighty to work iniquity, and dexterous to manage others in the same, then is his kingdom weak; 2 Sam. iii. Therefore, I say, Christ doth offer mercy in the first place to such, the more to weaken his kingdom. Christ Jesus was glad to see Satan fall like lightning from heaven, that is, suddenly or head ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... all turned toward the palace. You will have accomplished the thing before they know that you have undertaken it. Take two other men with you, who, as soon as you release the chains, must fling the gates together, while you relock them. Now be dexterous, and you will have performed no unimportant feat ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... zealous this rhetoric is, the more certainly it fails of its effect. In every case we are conscious that the subject itself is not brought immediately before us, but that we view it through the medium of a different way of thinking. When, however, by a dexterous manoeuvre, the poet allows us an occasional glance at the less brilliant reverse of the medal, then he makes, as it were, a sort of secret understanding with the select circle of the more intelligent of his readers or spectators; he shows them that he had previously seen and admitted ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the wall with her hands behind her, watching the manoeuvres of the leathern rag as it flashed up and down the nickel spokes and around and about the hubs, guided by the dexterous hand of the ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... his oddity, and well acquainted with the science of the world, with all his trifling. He must have known the art of pulling the strings of parliament, before he could have managed the puppet show of power with such unfailing success. He must also have been dexterous in dealing with wayward tempers, while he had to manage the suspicious spirit, stubborn prejudices, and arrogant obstinacy of George II. It may be admitted that he had great assistance in the skill and subtlety of his brother Pelham; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various |
