"Fingering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... just hope he doesn't try to fire on us," muttered Bob, who was nervously fingering his rifle, and wondering how dreadful it would feel to be compelled, even in self-defense, to shoot at a fellow ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... shows that the opposite of what he is charged with is base and low. Thus Lycurgus when he was charged at Athens with having bribed an informer to silence, replied, "What kind of a citizen do you think me, who, having had so long time the fingering of your public money, am detected in giving rather than taking unjustly?" And Cicero, when Metellus told him that he had destroyed more as a witness than he had got acquitted as an advocate, answered, "Who denies that my honesty is greater than my eloquence?" Compare such sayings ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... to the place; the hall is full already; as he enters his young heart swells with pride. Other tricks are to come first. The conjuror surpasses himself and does the most surprising things. The child sees none of these; he wriggles, perspires, and hardly breathes; the time is spent in fingering with a trembling hand the bit of bread in his pocket. His turn comes at last; the master announces it to the audience with all ceremony; he goes up looking somewhat shamefaced and takes out his bit of ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... so much of me as many others have. It is no great thing for a major like me to be engaged in this sort of business, you will think; but an honest living made by vending tin is better than a fortune gained by fingering the affairs of the nation. Indeed I have often thought a man was never so great as when he condescended to make his living honestly. As you see, I have surrendered myself to fortune, and am what some would call 'down in the world.' But I have been up, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... nest and feels a snake, he drew: Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame Creep with his shadow through the court again, Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, 'I will go back, and slay them where ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... sing of Sally Larkin who, I'd have you understand, Played accordions as well as any lady in the land; And I've often heard it stated that her fingering was such That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted with her touch; And that beasts were so affected when her apparatus rang That they dropped upon their haunches and deliriously sang. This I know from testimony, though a critic, I ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... better inclination, for she was weeping when you saw her. But she could not help it. While you lay on the couch in the haunted chamber, where he carried you, the awful death-ghost was busy in your room, was opening your desk, fingering your papers, and stealing your ring. It ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... beside him was a vase of flowers, daily replenished by the children, and a closed volume. It is remarkable that in none of the many woodcuts in which he has been handed down to us do we see him reading; he is always meditating on something he has just read. Occasionally, he is fingering a portfolio of engravings, or leaning aside to examine severely a globe of the world. That is the nearest he ever gets to physical activity. In him we see the static embodiment of perfect wisdom and perfect righteousness. We take him at his own valuation, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... to which he agreed. As he played he observed in Madame de Rouville an excitement over her game which surprised him. Never before had the old Baroness manifested so ardent a desire to win, or so keen a joy in fingering the old gentleman's gold pieces. During the evening evil suspicions troubled Hippolyte's happiness, and filled him with distrust. Could it be that Madame de Rouville lived by gambling? Was she playing ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... the house. He came out again almost immediately, crossed the little front yard and put his head in at Mrs. Saggs' side window. After a short conversation with her he came out to the gate and stood irresolutely fingering the latch. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... more-enduring sculpture must, Till filthy saints rebuked the gust With which they chanced to get a sight Of some dear naked Aphrodite They glanced a thought above the toes of, By breaking zealously her nose off. Love, surely, from that music's lingering, Might have filched her organ-fingering, Nor chosen rather to set prayings To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings. Love was the startling thing, the new: Love was the all-sufficient too; And seeing that, you see the rest: As a babe can find ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... stood against the same wall of the room as that in which the fireplace was, and on our right—that is, on that side of the fireplace which was farthest from the windows. As I spoke, I turned to go and look at it, and Lucy followed me. Many an hour as a child had I passed in front of it, fingering the seven carved brass handles, or rather buttons, which were ranged down its center. They all slid, twisted, or screwed with the greatest ease, and apparently like many another ingeniously contrived lock; but neither ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... from one side to another with an air of constraint, searching for phrases and fingering everything on the table before him as though at a loss what to say. Finally, he informed me that Madame Pierson was ill and that she had sent word to me by him that she would not be able to ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... life, imagining that these effects and these thoughts constitute the essence of what is called art. These men acted as blind men would act who endeavored to find diamonds by touch among a heap of stones they were fingering. As the blind man would for a long time strenuously handle the stones and in the end would come to no other conclusion than that all stones are precious and especially so the smoothest, so also these esthetic critics, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... the pieces, fingering it delicately and inspecting with a critical eye the flat base on which it stood, and reflected for ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... had just finished their parade, and Charles, weary, perspiring, and wearing the abhorred silk hat, entered the box-office of the Opera House on Cleveland Avenue. Sitting in the treasurer's seat at the window he saw a sturdy lad fingering a pile of silver dollars. He slipped them in and out with an amazing dexterity. Hearing a noise, he looked up and beheld young Frohman with the tile ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Ford. "I may take you at your word,"—and just then Mr. Colbrith rose in his place, fingering his thin white beard rather nervously, Ford thought, and rapping on the table ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... was in Novgorod,' he went on, fingering the door-post, 'he made acquaintance, so to say, with a girl. So here is this girl, wants to see you. I met her the other day in the street. I said to her, "Come along; if the master allows it, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... in the velour hat observed, fingering the elk-tooth on his heavy watch-chain, "I'd like to know where they get this stuff about clothes coming down. Now, you take this suit I got on." He pinched his trousers-leg. "Four years ago I paid ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... done a foolish thing," said I, fingering my wineglass. "They are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror. Perhaps they expected to find no living things—certainly no ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... even when there were other men around, and it's not to be wondered at that he had pleasant dreams of what might happen. I could see it in his eyes as he lay there, looking at the long blue rollers slipping by, and fingering that impressive ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... and began fingering the other things. "How nice they are! And silk stockings! They're ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... that was light and air, perfume and colour, every drop of blood in her responded. She loved the roughness of the dry mountain grass under her palms, the smell of the thyme into which she crushed her face, the fingering of the wind in her hair and through her cotton blouse, and the creak of the larches as they swayed ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... sincerity and frankness, that Ethelyn could not dislike her as she had thought she should dislike a sister of Abigail Jones and the terrible Tim. She had not touched her piano since her arrival, for fear of the homesickness which its familiar tones might awaken, and when she saw Tim's big red hands fingering the keys, in her resentment at the desecration she said to herself that she never would touch it again; but when in a low aside Melinda added to her entreaties: "Please, Mrs. Markham, don't mind Tim—he means well enough, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... sure?" and When Guy answered at random, "Yes," she asked, "How did he know? Had he heard that Maddy was that kind of good which lets folks in heaven? Because, Brother Guy," and the little preacher nestled closely to the young man, fingering his coat buttons as she talked, "because, Brother Guy, folks can be good— that is, not do naughty things—and still God won't love them unless they—I don't know ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... wire-drawn soul-dissections. I have tried to hint to you two opposite sorts of men,—the one trying to be good with all his might and main, according to certain approved methods and rules, which he has got by heart, and like a weak oarsman, feeling and fingering his spiritual muscles over all day, to see if they are growing; the other not even knowing whether he is good or not, but just doing the right thing without thinking about it, as simply as a little ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... was the evening of the opening day. The train wagons might be expected any moment. The electric lights were blazing. All the clerks stood expectant, the porters were by the door, the trim, uniformed bell-boys were all in waiting line, the register clerk stood fingering the leaves of the register with a gracious air. A noise is heard outside, the big door opens, there is a rush forward, and four people flock in a man in a linen duster, a stout woman, a lad of ten, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you mind none at all. Why, ma, darlin', I just love naked bread without no butter on it!' says she. My God, Mr. Flint, I bust out a-cryin' in her face. Seemed like I natchelly couldn't stand no mo'!" And smiling vaguely with her poor old down-curved mouth, she went on fingering ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... their correct theoretical positions; and at least the hole below the one giving he sound must be open, to insure perfect venting. Boehm's flute, however, has not remained as he left it. Improvements, applied by Clinton, Pratten, and Carte, have introduced certain modifications in the fingering, while retaining the best features of Boehm's system. But it seems to me that the reedy quality obtained from the adoption of the cylindrical bore which now prevails does away with the sweet and characteristic tone quality of the old conical German flute, and gives us in its place one that is not ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... of the Sea-goddess Benten and of Kwannon-Sama, seated on summits of mountains forming the upper part of miniature landscapes made of some unfamiliar composition, and beautifully coloured; the whole being protected from careless fingering by strong wire nettings stretched across the front of the little shrines containing the panorama. Benten has eight arms: two of her hands are joined in prayer; the others, extended above her, hold different objects -a sword, a wheel, a bow, an arrow, a key, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... awfully cross and cried about everything this week, but she hasn't complained much—that is, of anything but a little backache," John replied, fingering the whipstock of the doctor's buggy and not able to connect the present serious illness with ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... letter, taxes Augustus with being the son not only of a baker, but a usurer. These are his words: "Thou art a lump of thy mother's meal, which a money-changer of Nerulum taking from the newest bake-house of Aricia, kneaded into some shape, with his hands all discoloured by the fingering ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... a stern mouth, and blue eyes whose sharpness was softened by a moist, far-away expression. From beneath a nautical blue cap strayed a wisp or two of white hair. Otherwise, he was buttoned to his chin in a great coat, fastened with imposing brass buttons, dulled by much fingering. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... he leaned over the wash basin, staring at his throat, fingering the suddenly murderous blade. But the pain wouldn't last long—a lot less than there would be under shock treatment, and less pain. He'd read enough ...
— Dead Ringer • Lester del Rey
... him in the face and edged towards him fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... think we are to blame, Edward—MUCH to blame?" and her eyes wandered to the accusing triplet of big bank-notes lying on the table, where the congratulators had been gloating over them and reverently fingering them. Edward did not answer at once; then he brought out a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hand had been once more in his pocket, fingering the bank-notes. He now drew them forth very much in the way in which a man entrapped into a den of robbers might draw a pocket-pistol, and smoothed them out ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... mind very much," she came forward to his side and fell to fingering the top button of his coat caressingly; "would you mind it so very much not to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... in answer loth to render up My precontract, and loth by brainless war To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet; Till one of those two brothers, half aside And fingering at the hair about his lip, To prick us on to combat 'Like to like! The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.' A taunt that clenched his purpose like a blow! For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, And sharp I answered, touched upon the point Where idle boys are cowards ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... din and much apparent ferocity for three-quarters of an hour. The little pedlar was used to this kind of thing, and was quite prepared for the fray. When the lady offered him, after much depreciatory fingering of the chosen material, two-thirds of what he asked for the stuff that was to be made into a pair of winter trousers for the mayor, he spun round and jumped like a peg-top just escaped from the string. Then he raged and swore, said he was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... acquiescence and intelligence that might well have looked like sympathy, as she sat fingering the top of her hand-screen, with her eyelids fallen. She lifted them to say, "I have told you that I will not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have no longer any wish in this matter. I must still remain in ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... those days of wonderment, Wonder and delight, No thought we spent what murder meant, Horror in the night; Or how a hidden dreadful plan Like a fingering weed Was growing up in the mind ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... to the hem of Katharine's skirt, and, fingering a line of fur, she bent her head ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... he was, hot, confused, unhorsed, still a strange, fingering insinuation of something agreeable had begun to waken in him. The Master, not understanding it at all, or being able to analyze sensations so foreign to all his previous thought and experience, cut the Gordian knot of puzzlement by roundly cursing himself, by Allah and the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... removing the stain, and Lydia reappeared with the kettle. She poured a portion of its contents over the fender in her anxiety to plant it firmly on the fire. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "how stupid of me! Oh, Mr. Thorne"—this half archly, half pensively, fingering the curl and surveying the steaming pool—"I'm afraid you'll wish Emma hadn't gone out: such a mess as I've made of it! What will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Gurd 's keepin' company with her this mornin'," said Dr. Spearmint, in a voice softer than a woman's. "I jest stopped to sing a little with 'em on the way. I look dreadful," he added, rather ostentatiously fingering ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... sudden silence. John Copeland, standing by the seaward window, had picked up a lute and was fingering the instrument half-idly. Now the Marquess of Hastings stepped from the throng. "Pardon, Highness. But ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... to a peasant, put the money by the side of the antiquity, and say that he must take one or the other: fingering the cash is irresistible, ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... monotony of the earth lay open to the sombre low sky without a single adornment, without a single variation from its melancholy flatness. Near at hand the wires between the telegraph poles vibrated with a faint humming under the multitudinous fingering of the myriad of falling drops, striking among them and dripping off steadily from one to another. The poles themselves were dark and swollen and glistening with wet, while the little cones of glass ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... child," she said, fingering the bow of her bonnet-strings, "I think we ought to see about our cabins. Keep close to me, ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... Hans von Buelow's edition of this piece is very near the solution suggested by Mendelssohn. At any rate, I advise using the Buelow edition, particularly as the figures are written out in full and the fingering is carefully marked—a very important consideration in one or ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... Thus: "Your fingering there is not correct, Miss Krieff," he would say in a low tone. "You must put the second finger on G. I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... fingering with apparent satisfaction a pile of MSS. that lay on the table. It had grown vastly since Archie saw it the last time, and must be fifteen or ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... would free the white almond from the green husk So would I strip your trappings off, Beloved. And fingering the smooth and polished kernel I should see that in my hands glittered a gem ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... as new," said he cheerfully, fingering the inner pocket of his coat. "She writes to me right along. Here's a picture-card that followed me here, mailed from the home that the man who gave his tough old hide to mend her found for her when she was well. She lives in Oklahoma now, and her sweet fortitude ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... so mutinous that there was evidently no use in trying to get anything more out of her, and after standing there a few minutes fingering her blossoms and smiling to herself, she danced off to dress ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... on the eighth floor, he saw at a glance that everything was as it should be; there was but one detail in his mental picture that the place did not realize, so he rang for the bell boy and sent him down for flowers. He moved about nervously until the boy returned, putting away his new linen and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When the flowers came, he put them hastily into water, and then tumbled into a hot bath. Presently he came out of his white bath-room, resplendent in his new silk underwear, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... opens wide Under the pallid moonlight's fingering, I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide My eyes ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... instant they surged around him cursing and shouting; but he stood up straight and terribly silent; only his keen grey eyes glanced down to the barrel of his pistol and he stood nervously fingering the small blue hammer with his thumb and measuring the distance between himself and the nearest ruffian who stood on the outskirts of the mob shaking a pistol in Conway's face and shouting: "Come on, men, we'll lynch ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea that suddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man's letter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain like a flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe I meant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once more outside the door ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... corners. There was Christmas in the very air and Christmas in the storekeeper's till. It had been a very busy day. He thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a moment breathing the brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering the coupon the girl had paid for the shawl. A thin voice at his elbow said: "Merry Christmas, Mr. Stein! Here's ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... in his chair; now and then he had seemed on the point of interrupting counsel or witnesses: it was evident that things were not at all to his liking. And now as Meeking sat down the Coroner turned to Mrs. Bunning, who stood, looking wonderingly about her, and still fingering the apron in which she had been found ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... better than that the servants should know that there was a quarrel. But every servant in the house had known all about it for the last three hours. When the door was closed and he was alone, he sat fingering the note, thinking deeply how he should answer it, or whether he would answer it at all. No; he would not answer it;—not in writing. He would give his wife no written record of his humiliation. He had not acted wrongly. He had said nothing more than now, upon mature consideration, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... not said anything. He was thinking, fingering the brass bosses on the corners of the divine Augustine, and tracing the pattern ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Yonder Kingdom looked upward quickly, curiously, still fingering the earth, and saw the ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... said he, fingering a corner of the lilac-tinted goods she held up. "I shouldn't know it from gingham. I didn't know what gingham was till the other day. But I can recognize it now on sight, and am no end proud ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... he led much after the careless, slap-bang style in which overtures that nobody listened to were performed in his day. It is a very great mistake to let learners play with violin accompaniment until they have thoroughly mastered the piano-forte without it. Fingering, the first of fundamental acquirements, is almost sure to be overlooked by the master, whose attention is not on the hands of his pupil but on his own bow; and the pupil, anxious to keep up with the violin, slurs over ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... keys worked on the same strings and produced the same pitch. Room was also made for five extra bass keys at the lower end of the upper manual. However, since short octave tuning was employed and it was desirable to be able to use the same fingering in the bass on both manuals, the tails of the C/E, D/F and E/G keys of the upper manual had to be bent to the left in order to work on the strings played by the F, G, and A keys respectively of the lower manual. The vacant space to the left of the upper manual C/E was filled ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... in her chair, fingering her apron. "Well, now, I don't know! You've come so sudden-like—if I'd only had a little notice! There's no place fit for a lady like you; but there are two rooms we never use—the northeast parlor and the parlor-chamber off it. You could have one of them—after I got ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... . . The other alternative?" murmured Rooke. Roger laughed roughly, fingering something he held concealed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... is very much like your accurate fingering of the piano," she observed irrelevantly, surveying his work with her lips pursed. "A pair of calipers would prove every piece exactly, the same width; and even when you play a Meditation? I'm sure the metronome would waggle in perfect unison with your tempo. I wonder—" She glanced up at him ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... took up his opponent's dice box, and rattled it, and appeared inspecting and fingering the tali.[105] "You have won your throws fairly," he said, handing it back. "Now let us invoke the decision of Fortune once more. A libation to the Genius of Good Luck!" And instead of spilling out a few ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... say," said Prosper, lightly fingering his massive gold chain and somewhat vaguely recalling the language of advertisement, "that she kin have the comforts of a home and no questions asked, and fifty dollars ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... last shred of her dignity, to come and stand before him, nervously fingering her apron. "For the dear saints' sake, let no one hear you say that, good Fridtjof! Alas, how you have got it twisted! He is an Englishman who bent his head for food in the evil days. And now they that bought ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... of wheels on the gravel would have aroused her, for Hugh scarcely ever drove. And it was not until she glanced through the open doors into the library that she knew that a visitor had come to Highlawns. He stood beside the rack for the magazines and reviews, somewhat nervously fingering a heavy watch charm, his large silk hat bottom upward on the chair behind him. It was Mr. Israel Simpson. She could see him plainly, and she was by no means hidden from him by the leaves, and yet she did not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... very gladly have said nothing further. But Dr. Knott's expression was curiously intent and compelling, as he sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass. All the ideality of Julius's nature rose in protest against the half-sneering rationalism he seemed to read in that expression. Mrs. Ormiston, who had an hereditary racial appreciation of anything approaching ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... send-price-of-subscription-with-answer refuses to solve; as oyster cocktails to swallow; but here was one as cold, glittering, serene, impossible as a four-carat diamond in a window to a lover outside fingering damply in his ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis fingering ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... laughed Alan Hawke. "I will sweeten' upon Miss Justine; those thin lips indicate the auri sacra fames. These miserly Swiss sisters may aid me to approach the veiled Rose Bird." His delight at fingering the crisp proceeds of Anstruther's check sent him to the Ouchy steamer in the very happiest of moods, and, his cup was running over when the birdlike Miss Genie Forbes descended upon him to announce a meeting on the morrow ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... him still fingering the book, but looking into the fire and far beyond. Behind him through the open window one sees how cold and clear ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... was standing in the parting of the curtains, his hand raised warningly. In another moment he was over to the door where, after taking his pistols from his overcoat pockets, he stood in a cool, determined attitude, fingering ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... as, rubbing his heavy eyes with one hand, he stooped and raised with the other something from the deck against which he had kicked, in his advance to take the helm; "why, I'm blest if it arn't the apron off old Sally here. Have you been fingering Sall's ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the officer was saying, fingering his diminutive mustache and viewing the scene with a somewhat contemptuous smile. "You said if I would bring you in for a moment you wouldn't ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... time when, fresh from the wilds of Connemara, he made his way to the examination-hall, an outside student in a borrowed cap and gown. Now, when for the first time he entered into the actual life of the college, could look up at windows of rooms that were his own, and reckon on his privilege of fingering tomes from the shelves of the huge library, the spirit of the place awed him anew. He neither analyzed nor attempted an expression of what he felt, but his first night within the walls was restless because of the inspiration which ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... countenance, would have supposed that he was looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... and stood fingering one of the tall vases. "It's a pity you didn't stop by Uplands," he observed. "You'd have found Virginia more blooming ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... "Just give me a chance to offer my sister's discovery to the world, and I shall be satisfied!" He touched the package of leaflets. "These are not written as clearly as they should be; but if I cannot hold them back, then these"—fingering the papers—"these go to the friends down below!" He moved closer to the window, but his eyes were on ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... John," he said, fingering his watch-chain with his fat hands. "To business. The place—er—yes." A moment's thought whilst the rancher waited with impatience. "Ah, I know. That implement shed on your fifty-acre pasture. Excellent. There is a living room in it. You used to keep a man there. It is ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... The Spider sidled across to the reception-room and sat nervously fingering the arm of his chair. Nurses passed and repassed the doorway, going quietly through the hall. From somewhere came the faint animal-like wail of a newly born babe. The Spider had gripped the arm of his chair. A well-gowned ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... paced up and down there, playing long and low. Oh, music, how he loved it; it seemed to set everything straight all at once in his head. With bow in hand and violin at rest, he surpassed himself that evening in ingenuity of fingering. He trembled to think of his own cleverness and skill. What a miracle of device! What a triumph of cunning! Not an element was overlooked. It was safe as houses. He could go to bed now, and drop off like a child; having arranged before he went to make ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... the foreman, "I know your kind. You sign your name with bullets. You pay your way with lead. You bully a crowd by fingering a gun-butt. Well, son, that sort of thing don't go in the Valley of the Eagles. Lay a hand on that gun and I'll have the boys tie you in knots and roll you in a barrel of tar we got handy. Perris, get that hoss ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... at the door had turned round when Stephen Brant spoke to him, and had pushed his way out of the crowd of men and stood alone fingering his neck. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... strands of her yellow hair shone with unusual lustre; her step was so buoyant she scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all; she was all shy smiles; and as she came, with her slender white right hand she played with the new ring she wore on her left, fingering it nervously. But anyone more ecstatically happy than she seemed it is impossible to imagine. Menteith could not take his eyes off her. He seemed to gloat over every item ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... fingering the peak of his cap as he met Miss Onslow's gaze. He hesitated a few seconds, considering, and ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... no one really "learns" how to perform a task until he can perform it almost automatically. The pupil who in the early stages of piano playing finds it most difficult to control and manage his fingers, after a time is able to forget all about his fingering and devote his entire attention to the pages of his music, and after this he is able to apparently let his fingers play the entire piece of music by themselves without a thought on his part. The best performers ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... the violin. "Love, as we instinctively feel, is the most melodious of harmonies. Woman is a delicious instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its quivering strings, study the pose of it, its timid keyboard, the changing and capricious fingering. How many orangs—men, I mean, marry without knowing what a woman is!... Nearly all men marry in the most profound ignorance of women and of love" (Balzac, Physiologie ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... head and stared into the fire, fingering his moustache the while. From the far side of the bivouac the voice of Corbet-Nolan, senior subaltern of B Company, uplifted itself in an ancient and much appreciated song of sentiment, the men ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... to another he went, fingering the waxy leaves, studying the brilliant flower faces. Finally turning a corner and crossing the wild garden, to which he paid slight attention, he started down the other side of the house. Here an almost overpowering odor greeted his nostrils, ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... is far better that we should finish him now than allow him to go on and report our movements," said the man, fingering his ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... of a crowd, is n't there?" The druggist was fishing in his pocket for money. Fairchild, dallying with his drink now, glanced sharply toward the door and went back to his refreshment. She was standing directly in the entrance, fingering the ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... its terms are known only to you and me; hence when the time comes, I shall repeat them, and my son will recognise his father." Signed: "Your Unknown Benefactor." (He hums it over twice and replaces it. Then, fingering the gold.) Gold! The yellow enchantress, happiness ready-made and laughing in my face! Gold: what is gold? The world; the term of ills; the empery of all; the multitudinous babble of the 'Change, the sailing from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it?" asked Ben, fingering the bill with a nervous thrill all through his wiry limbs, just as he used to feel it when his father caught him up ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... a reception of officers high in military command, his revolver, inlaid with gold and ivory, which had lain on a table by his side, disappeared, and the empress missed two watches, which had gone astray under the dexterous fingering of her maids-of-honor. General Lopez, who was then commandant of the palace, wishing to give the emperor a proof of the accomplishments of his subjects in matters of this kind, offered to steal off his writing-table, within two hours, and without being noticed, any object agreed upon. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... service was over and the people were going out, the organ began to play. The sexton took them upstairs to see his brother John handle it. Robert was surprised to see him using his feet as well as his hands, fingering two sets of keys, pushing in and pulling out what Tom said were "stops." When through with the piece, the organist explained the mechanism of the instrument, playing softly and ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... his spirit warmed to the subject,—as his trusting heart looking to the bottom of that which vexed him, would see its clear way out,—he would rise to a higher melody, sweep the unseen strings with a bolder hand, and swiftly fingering the cords from his neck, down along his waistcoat, and up again to his very ear, create an ecstatic strain of perfect music, audible to himself and to St Cecilia, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Clara sat in silence with her old friend, who lit his after-luncheon pipe and sat cross-legged, blinking and ruminant. She stared into the shop, and still it seemed that the remarkable figure was standing there fingering the books, pondering, deciding. Her emotions thrilled through her, uplifted her, and she had a sensation of being deliciously intimate with all things animate and inanimate. She touched the desk by her side, and it seemed to her that life tingled through her fingers ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... still uneasily fingering the roll of bills. Just how far Natalie's methods threatened to undermine his character was revealed when, at a sound in Clayton's room, he stuck the ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... They also were flashily dressed with "horsey" neckties and conspicuous scarf-pins. As I glanced at the pair, they were talking together in a low voice, with an open newspaper held up between them; but the man who had helped me in against their will sat silent, staring out of the window and uneasily fingering his collar. Not one of the trio was, apparently, paying the slightest attention to me, now that I was seated; nevertheless I thought of the large, long letter-case which I carried in an inner breast pocket ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... restless apprehension she sat down at the piano, but after the first bar or two her hands dropped idly on the keys. Then she got up and looked aimlessly about. "I'd better finish that landscape," she said, and went over to her drawing-board. She stood there for a minute, fingering a lead pencil; her nerves were tense, and yet, as she reminded herself, it was foolish to be frightened. His mother loved Blair; she would do anything in the world for him—Nannie thought of the lace; yes, anything! Blair ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the sleeves of the unfortunate white linen, picked up the other sword, and practiced his fingering on the silver hilt, while the blade answered as delicately as the bow to a violinist. At last he came forward, with thin lips and hard, thoughtful eyes, like a man bent upon dispatch. Both men saluted formally, and sprang ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... 'e back, Miss, any hour you like to name," Proud called after her, standing up and fingering the shillings with one hand while with the other he steered the boat's side away from ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... launch cast loose from the moving yacht and headed back to the shore—her occupants greedily fingering the bills Barr had given them for their work—Barr, from his station on the bridge, gave a ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... with his wine before him and heard how had fared the Cygnet and the Marigold, then listened to Baldry's curt recital of the Star's ill destinies. The story ended, he gave his meed of grave sympathy to the man whose whole estate had been that sunken ship. Baldry sat silent, fingering, as was his continual trick, the hilt of his great Andrew Ferrara. But when the Admiral, with his slow, deliberate courtesy, went on to propose that for this adventure Captain Baldry cast his lot with the Mere Honour, he ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... was lying across his immovable cot fingering the boards low down in the right rear corner when he felt something give beneath his thumb. A flash of hope almost stifled him, and he lay quiet for a moment to regain command of himself. Then he put his thumb again in ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... rose, and sank, And dipt again, with the young couple's weight,— Peona guiding, through the water straight, Towards a bowery island opposite; Which gaining presently, she steered light Into a shady, fresh, and ripply cove, 430 Where nested was an arbour, overwove By many a summer's silent fingering; To whose cool bosom she was used to bring Her playmates, with their needle broidery, And minstrel memories of times ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... fingering the brown-paper parcel. "If it's the corpse of a murdered editor, I think it's only fair to let you know that I have a prejudice against having my rooms used as a cemetery. Go and throw him ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... moment fingering each piece of his scanty clothing, recalling every piece of labor or battle which had added pouch, belt, strip of fabric to his equipment. Yet—there was still that odd sense of strangeness, as if none of this ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... colour drain out of the soft cheeks under the berry stain and the girl from Grand Portage stand fingering the bright hatchet in her hand. Her eyes went to McElroy's face and then to that of the cavalier leaning forward between his swinging curls, and both men saw the shine that was like light behind black marble, so mystic was it and thrilling, ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... other hand over Carol's, which was restlessly fingering the crease in his sleeve. He did not speak. Her girlish, impulsive words touched him ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... almost inclined to take the bicycle out of my charge altogether, in their excessive impatience and inordinate inquisitiveness to examine everything about it. One of them, thinking the cyclometer to be a watch, puts his ear down to see if he can hear it tick, and then persists in fingering it about, to the imminent danger of the tally-pin. After telling him several times not to meddle with it, and receiving overbearing gestures in reply, I deliberately throw him backward into an irrigating ditch. A gleam of intelligence overspreads the stolid ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... rivers, skirted by primeval trees And flowers hummed over by the desert bees, Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show Fantastic outcrops of the rock below; The slow result of patient Nature's pains, And plastic fingering of her sun and rains; Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine; Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind A fancy, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a photo of the stones at any rate," said Hereward, fingering his camera. "Hurry up and finish, you girls, or the light will ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... are always being persecuted, and harassed, and picked at. Whereas the pork-fed man, it seems to me, sort of hankers to be picked at. It gives him a good chance to slap somebody slonchways. He feels better after he has seen his persecutors go away with a cut lip, and fingering of their teeth to see if they're ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... long chase, mayhap," said Pembroke, reflectively. Yet each of the men at that little table in the gaming room of the Green Lion coffee-house ceased in his fingering the cards, and gazed upon this product of ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... family, summoning up the courage that comes with the light of day, resolved that, "ghost, if ghost it were," they should at all risks have a peep at it, and cautiously descended to the door of the apartment, which was slightly ajar. The musician was fingering the instrument with the greatest industry and energy, and apparently at his own entire satisfaction. Well, after much demurring, in they peeped; and most assuredly, through the dim dusk of the morning, a gray ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... shelves had to be re-papered, a strenuous week devoted to the garret. Less exhaustively, but with much of the old exultation in her house, this was done for the last time, and then there was the bringing out of her own clothes, and the spreading of them upon the bed and the pleased fingering of them, and the consultations about which should be left behind. Ah, beautiful dream! I clung to it every morning; I would not look when my sister shook her head at it, but long before each day was done I ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... she sat quite silent there in the shadows, and motionless except for fingering something white that lay in her lap, he waited uneasily. Was she angry again, he wondered, or ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... while he stood jauntily fingering the diamond in his tie, as if it were some talisman which imparted fresh confidence. Oh, it was useless to try to put a man like that in his place—for his place seemed ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... "And we know Mead did it!" another one yelled. Murmurs of "Lynch him! Lynch him!" quickly followed. Tuttle and Ellhorn were white with suppressed rage, and their eyes were wide and blazing. Tuttle was nervously fingering his trigger guard. "Then bring your evidence into a court of law and let unprejudiced men judge its value," Judge Harlin roared back. "Accusers who have the right on their side are not afraid to face ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... once. There was, certainly, no such deed among the papers which her father slowly turned over, and which he slowly proceeded to tie up again with the old tape. "I am sure I saw it the other day," he said, fingering among the loose papers while Nina looked on with anxious eyes. Then at last he found the letter from Karil Zamenoy, and having read it himself, gave it her to read. It was dated seven or eight years back, at a time when Balatka was only on his way to ruin—not absolutely ruined, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... muddy water, too, The long-billed gentleman fishes; Our pious gentlemen we view Fingering ...
— Faust • Goethe
... said, "this is a bad mistake of Urquhart's? It's an incredible charge. From all I've seen of him, the lad would never be guilty ..." I paused, expecting his assent. To my surprise he did not give it, but stood fingering ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... red-tongued, Brandish the javelin which by others thrown Clove Sambo's heart to quiver in your own! Confess no more that when his blood was shed, And you so sympathetically bled, The bow that spanned the mutual cascade Was but the promise of a roaring trade In offices. Your fingering now the trigger Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger! Ad hominem this argumentum runs: Peace!—let us ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... of the house?' she repeated, fingering the bodies, 'yes, that's my little girl, she's grown a bit; whoever heard of a child being frozen to death?... she was meant to come to a bad end. As God loves me, yes, that's my girl, my little girl—they've murdered her; look at her!' ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... me a grand pianoforte, which has filled me with a fanatical desire to perform some flights on it, even if I had still to learn fingering. So then I began to "Tannhauser" and to "Lohengrin" on the Boulevard des Italiens as if you were with us. The poor devils could not understand why I was beside myself. However, it went better than at Madame Kalergy's, although you were present ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... minutes he was staring at De Launay with amazement that was almost stupefaction, fingering documents as though he must awake from sleep and find he had been dreaming. De Launay talked on, his voice slightly thick, his eyes heavy, but ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... When Maryanka joined the group he raised his cap with a firm deliberate movement, moved out of her way and then stepped in front of her with one foot a little forward and with his thumbs in his belt, fingering his dagger. Maryanka answered his greeting with a leisurely bow of her head, settled down on the earth-bank, and took some seeds out of the bosom of her smock. Lukashka, keeping his eyes fixed on Maryanka, slowly ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... and paced the length of the room, frowning. Her hesitation puzzled him; he failed to trace its origin and fretted against a barrier that he felt but could not see. She sat silent, looking at him in a distressed fashion and restlessly fingering Lady Richard's invitation. She was no less troubled than he and almost as puzzled; for the feeling that held her back even while she wanted to go forward was vague, formless, empty of anything definite enough to lay hold of and ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... the lobby of the Astor House. Good day," concluded Ling Foo, fingering the buttons on ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... listened attentively, fingering her manuscript as though literature were a tactile substance; then, with a confidential twist of his revolving chair, he emitted the verdict: "We ought to have had this ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... play at all amiss if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
