"Adroitness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... phrase ran, by "giving away his case"; by allowing to the opposite side every possible advantage that they could honestly and justly claim. Then he would present his own side of the case, with a clearness, a candor, an adroitness of statement which at once flattered and convinced the jury, and made even the bystanders his partisans. Sometimes he disturbed the court with laughter by his humorous or apt illustrations; sometimes he excited the audience by that florid ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... this she performs a circle on the ground, jumping about half-a-dozen times in the course of it, which bringing her to her original position, the same thing is repeated as often as it can be done without entangling the line. One or two of the women performed this with considerable agility and adroitness, considering the clumsiness of their boots and jackets, and seemed to pride themselves in some degree on the qualification. A second kind of this game consists in two women holding a long rope by its ends and whirling it round in such a manner, over the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... or a brook. He who, of two players, gets his ball into the hole in the smallest number of strokes is the winner of that hole, and the party then play towards the next hole. All sorts of skill are needed—strength and adroitness, and a certain supple "swing" of the body, are wanted to send the ball "sure and far" in the "driving" part of the game. Nothing is so pleasant as a clean "drive." The sensation is like that of hitting a ball to square-leg, fair and full, at ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... England an officer appointed by the sheriff. Bailiff's are either special, and appointed, for their adroitness, to arrest persons; or bailiffs of hundreds, who collect fines, summon juries, attend the assizes, and execute writs and processes, The sheriff in England is the king's ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... development is marked. The desire for clear understanding will keep the mind stored with material to assimilate and communicate. It will induce the mind continually to manipulate this material to secure clarity in presentation. This will result in developing a mental adroitness of inestimable value to the speaker, enabling him to seize the best method instantaneously and apply it to his purposes. At the same time, keeping always in view the use of this material as the basis of communicating information or convincing by making explanations, he will ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... Ellen, mayn't I? This modern comradeship between men and women...." "Och, yes," beamed Ellen, fascinated by the talismanic catchword, and he felt a little ashamed because he had used one of her pure enthusiasms for his own purposes. Sometimes he was conscious of a detestable adroitness in his relations with women; it was not respectful; it was half-brother to the carneying art of the seducer, but he could not take back the insincerity. "As I say, I haven't known you very long. But may I ask ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... arrival, the Intendant speedily surrounded himself by sycophants and knaves who joined him in the reckless pursuit of pleasure, and became ready instruments to further his darker designs. A man of ability, adroitness, and culture, Bigot might have won public favour, but his habits instantly estranged the better people of the colony. The honnetes gens, a party which included the great Montcalm, the brave Bougainville, La Corne de St. Luc, M. de Levis, and M. de Saint-Ours, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... mature beauty; she is Flora, she is Ariadne, she is alike the Earthly Love and the Heavenly Love. Every curve of her body was adoringly and minutely described by Niphus and Firenzuola.[80] She was, moreover, the courtesan whose imperial charm and adroitness enabled her to trample under foot the medieval conception of lust as sin, even in the courts of popes. At the great academic centre of Bologna, finally, she chastely taught learning and science.[81] The people of the Italian Renaissance ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... to the bluntness of the Swiss all the adroitness of a French courtier. His fifty years and gray hairs made him enjoy among women the confidence inspired by mature age, although he had not given up the thought of love affairs. He talked of his native mountains with enthusiasm. He would at any time sing the "Ranz des ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... allowed, that the author has displayed great adroitness in the "denouement" of his tale. In the course of a few pages all the principal characters, male and female, are suddenly produced, safe and unscathed, before the reader. To be sure, this is done by the aid of ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... and raised the light frame until he could put one paw underneath. Then changing, he put his nose under the sash and raised it high enough to slip out, easing down the frame finally on his rump and tail with an adroitness that told of long practice. Then he disappeared into ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Think of the dexterity, coolness and stealth required to manage such a weapon in a jungle so dense and tangled that white sportsmen often find a difficulty in handling their guns there! The silent adroitness needed to approach and spear the wild parrot or wood-pigeon without stirring the branch of a tree would alone require ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... missed nothing. He twisted the talk into other channels with his usual adroitness, but all the while there was bubbling in his mind the news that these two men had met before. The history of Hildegarde von Mitter was known to him. But how much did she know, or this man Cathewe? The woman was a thoroughbred. He, Anatole ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... the States had addressed a letter to the King, which, with sufficient adroitness, they had contrived should arrive precisely at the meeting of Parliament, offering the King restitution of all the places they had gained during the war, and satisfaction with respect to the flag, or "any other matter they had not already ordered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Captain Broome several times before, had smoothed over several unfortunate affairs with the local authorities on behalf of his client and had been liberally rewarded for so doing. Where finesse and criminal adroitness were concerned he was of the greatest use to the captain ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... which I now found myself; and upon the whole I might describe myself as being, according to the modern phrase, "in a false position." I had, for instance, a vast superiority, as was to have been expected, in bookish attainments, and in adroitness of logic; whilst, on the other hand, I was ridiculously short-sighted or blind in all fields of ordinary human experience. It must not be supposed that I regarded my own particular points of superiority, or that I used them, with any ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... sometimes turning a page of history, sometimes mere incidents of official or administrative routine—know that they are all alike distinguished by the high quality of sincerity.[290] But this was an occasion upon which even adroitness of intellect and integrity of purpose might well have sought the shelter of conventional expressions. Lord Milner dispenses with any such protection. "In a rational world," he said, it would have seemed better to everybody ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... a thought to the boy he had been, and then to Anne, who had once taken the walk across lots with him, and who, when he told her how they used to play Moosewood, insisted on crossing, though he had tried to dissuade her, noting her foolish shoes, and aware that she had no adroitness of eye and muscle. But she had a will of steel in these matters, as well as those of the spirit, and would not be prevailed on. Three of the daring leaps she made from one stone to another and at the fourth she slipped and he caught ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... steady look upon the buffalo's movements, and far from liking the loud snorts of mingled rage and pain which he momentarily sent forth as we whirled about him. But the attempts of the enemy to foil our purpose grew gradually weaker, and at length, failing to twist with his former adroitness, I plunged the head of the lance to the shaft in his body, and as I plucked it out, the crimson current of his life poured forth, and falling upon his knees, he rolled over ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... young emigrant, early cast upon the world and his own resources, was an excellent hand at the needle. He would make or mend a shirt with the greatest precision and neatness, and cut out and manufacture his canvas trousers and loose summer-coats with as much adroitness as the most experienced tailor; darn his socks, and mend his boots and shoes, and often volunteered to assist me in knitting the coarse yarn of the country into socks for the children, while he made them moccasins from the dressed deer-skins that ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... mule-yoke, carv'd of the box-tree, Shaped with a prominent boss, and with strong rings skilfully fitted. Then with the bar was unfolded the nine ells' length of the yoke-band; But when the yoke had been placed on the smooth-wrought pole with adroitness, Back at the end of the shaft, and the ring had been turn'd on the holder, Hither and thither the thongs on the boss made three overlappings, Whence, drawn singly ahead, they were tight-knit under the collar. Next they produced at the portal, and high on the vehicle seemly Piled the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... to watch these two great men in their gladiatorial combats across the table of the House: Gladstone wielding the mighty broadsword of his powerful eloquence, and seeming as if at every moment he would annihilate his antagonist; Disraeli, with marvellous skill and exquisite adroitness, bringing the rapier of his wit to bear upon his opponent, and again and again pinking him with some stinging epigram or smart retort that set all the Tory benches roaring with delight. It made one's young blood grow warmer to watch the struggle ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... commending Guido's pithy quip, and thus began:—Sweet my ladies, albeit 'tis my privilege to speak of what likes me most, I purpose not to-day to deviate from that theme whereon you have all discoursed most appositely; but, following in your footsteps, I am minded to shew you with what adroitness and readiness of resource one of the Friars of St. Antony avoided a pickle that two young men had in readiness for him. Nor, if, in order to do the story full justice, I be somewhat prolix of speech, should it be burdensome to you, if ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... difference. Trade was then extremely individualistic; the artificial controlling power called the corporation was in its earliest infantile condition. The heirs of the owner of sixty line of sail might not possess the same astuteness, the same knowledge, adroitness, and cunning—or let us say, unscrupulousness—the same severe application as the founder. Consequently the business would decay or fall into the hands of others shrewder or more fortunate. As to factories the condition was somewhat the same; and, after the organization of labor unions the possibility ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... more characteristic than the turbulent pretensions to meekness and simplicity in this address. Again, the versatility and adroitness of Richard is admirably described in the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... court scene, is very striking indeed. There is the same fullness of face, the large features. Buzfuz was certainly a counsel of power and ability, and I think lawyers will admit he managed Mrs. Bardell's case with much adroitness. His speech, besides being a sort of satirical abstract of the unamiable thundering boisterousness addressed to juries in such cases, is one of much ability. He makes the most of every topic that he thought likely to "tell" on a city jury. We laugh heartily at his would-be solemn ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... few and general Rules that any Person of indifferent Capacity and ordinary Agility of Body may in a very short time attain to not only a sufficient Knowledge of the Theory of this art, but also to a considerable adroitness in practice, either for the Defence of his life upon a just occasion, or preservation of his Reputation and Honour in any Accidental Scuffle or Trifling Quarrel. By Sir William Hope of Balcomie, Baronet, late Deputy-Governor of ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I to be kept waiting forever? You were quicker in obeying my caprices yesterday. Get up, you muddy lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension of adroitness. ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... required all Maggie's adroitness to even partially reconcile Mr. Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke's letter. She accepted without argument that marriage in the present circumstances was out of the question. She even went so far as to cordially assent that a man would ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Umballa, who nodded, having in mind the part of the good Samaritan, with reservations, to be sure. Having trod the paths of the white man, he had acquired a certain adroitness in holding his people. They had at best only the stability of chickens. What at one moment was a terror was at another a feast. For the present, then, he would pretend that he had forgot all about Ramabai's part ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... administration a success, for I believe that he has faced the right way and the only difficulty that he will have will be in securing strong enough support to carry out his own policies. I think he lacks somewhat in adroitness and that his campaign was much less radical than he would voluntarily have made it. I do not know him and shall not go near him unless he sends for me. If he does send for me I shall tell him the truth regarding ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... return afterwards. All this had been discussed over and over again, and there had been many quakings and declarations that the scheme had failed, and that neither girl could have had courage, nor perhaps adroitness, and that the poor prisoner had been re-captured. Gerald had made more than one expedition into the little garden to listen, and had filled the house with cold air before he returned, sat down in ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cannot fairly expect you to commit suicide, however much I may desire it. Moreover, your subjects—for, to be candid, you are a despot—seem to like you. You minister so craftily to their self-esteem, you flatter their vanity with an adroitness so remarkable, that, after a few feeble struggles, they resign themselves, body and soul, to your thrall. Even then you proceed warily. Your first labour is to collect, with patient care, all the little elements of dissatisfaction that are latent in every nature, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... maxims is: "Young women who do not wish to appear coquette, and men of advanced years who do not wish to appear ridiculous, should never speak of love as of a thing in which they might take part." Mrs. Thrale relates an amusing instance of Johnson's adroitness in escaping from the dilemma: "As we had been saying one day that no subject failed of receiving dignity from the manner in which Mr. Johnson treated it, a lady at my house said, she would make him talk about love; and took ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... care." Her hand hovered over the dark hair, touching it with the wonderful, blended awkwardness and adroitness of first caresses. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... respect; but as the former had already fought for some time, it was thought that the odds were rather against him. The contest, however, began with great spirit and eagerness on both sides. The Batavian struck tremendous blows, which were parried by the adroitness of the other. The African was quick and furious, but he could do nothing against the cool and wary defense of ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... I had unslung my rifle and held it in full view resting on my thigh, being minded to look as murderous as possible, but she stole all my thunder by suddenly snatching the rifle away and drawing back its bolt to cock the spring with that almost effortless adroitness that ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... in suspense,—of keen intellect and resolute will standing at bay and making their last battle for life, against the overwhelming odds of heaven's appointed doom. Aram defies Houseman and is denounced by him; but the ready adroitness and iron composure of the suffering wretch still give him supremacy over his foe—till, suddenly, the discovery is announced of the bones of Daniel Clarke in St. Robert's Cave, and the vicar commands Aram and Houseman to join him in their inspection. ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... exclaimed Gringoire. And leaning over the sculptures with the fascinated air of a demonstrator of living phenomena: "Do you not think, for instance, that yon metamorphosis in bas-relief is executed with much adroitness, delicacy and patience? Observe that slender column. Around what capital have you seen foliage more tender and better caressed by the chisel. Here are three raised bosses of Jean Maillevin. They are not the finest works of this great master. Nevertheless, the naivete, the sweetness of the faces, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... been his ruin. For these have thrown him from one country to another; and at last, into the way of life, which would make him a fit husband for Miss Howe's Townsend with her contrabands. He is, thou knowest, admirably qualified for any enterprize that requires adroitness and solemnity. And can there, after all, be a higher piece of justice, than to keep one smuggler in readiness to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... moulding of her body was insolent. "Well, then, for the moment—" She gave him no chance at refusal, but, with the curtness of her hand, the apparent vanishing of all knowledge of his presence, dismissed him before he was aware of it to the adroitness of the maid in the hall putting him ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... fire. The great German cantatrice was now accepted as the legitimate successor of Pasta, Malibran, and Grisi, and numerous comparisons were made between her and the last-named great singer. No artists could be more unlike in some respects. Titiens lacked the adroitness, the fluent melting grace, the suavity, of the other. "But," one critic justly remarks, "in passionate feeling, energy, power of voice, and grandeur of style, a comparison may be established. In certain characters Grisi has left ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... socialists, the Fabians took an active part in immediate politics. "We permeated the party organizations," writes Shaw, "and pulled all the wires we could lay our hands on with our utmost adroitness and energy.... The generalship of this movement was undertaken chiefly by Sidney Webb, who played such bewildering conjuring tricks with the Liberal thimbles and the Fabian peas that to this day both the Liberals and the sectarian Socialists stand aghast at him." Few Americans ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... vicinity who ever drank, or who had good opportunities to observe the effect of drink on others, to appear as a witness against King Alcohol. The trial lasted three evenings, with Increasing crowds. Father's adroitness in drawing facts from witnesses—often against their will—kept the Audience laughing and applauding. I remember hearing people say that he had mistaken his calling; that he ought to have been a ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... a fanciful resemblance between its shape, and that of the aspirate so denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron hand—but he was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some accident, and supplied it with a grappling hook, which he wielded with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the substitute, before I was old enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I remember the astonishment it raised in me. He was a blustering, loud-talking person; and I reconciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... hand, it occurred to her that perhaps she had blundered upon the one way out, the way of escape. Amid the wreckage of his beliefs she knew that Dion still held to one belief, which had been shaken once, but which her cool adroitness had saved and made firm in a critical moment. If she destroyed it now would he let her go? Just how low had he fallen through her? She wished she knew. But she did not know, and she waited, looking ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... followed the night of my misfortune did not come so quickly, I imagine, as Don Fernando wished, for when desire has attained its object, the greatest pleasure is to fly from the scene of pleasure. I say so because Don Fernando made all haste to leave me, and by the adroitness of my maid, who was indeed the one who had admitted him, gained the street before daybreak; but on taking leave of me he told me, though not with as much earnestness and fervour as when he came, that I might rest assured of his ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... agent of the United States Secret Service detailed for the duty by Surgeon-General Hammond at my request, I held a private examination of these two men, and, with some adroitness, succeeded in making them identify the photographs of the Lynden girl, and later, unobserved by her, attempted to make them identify her as she was sitting outside the field hospital. But this they ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... overcome by the surging counterpoint, ceased playing, and with the adroitness of a Raleigh turned to the Prince and said, "Pardon me, your Royal Highness, I fear we have been carried away by the vortex of the melody." The execution of chamber compositions belonging to the higher walks of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... enemies with whom to do battle,—no John Knox thwacking terribly upon all heretical pates, and sweating with his obstinacy, as much as with the vigor of his blows; but the kindly gentleman, giving tone and beauty to the common sentiment of us all, piquing our wonder by his adroitness, kindling our smiles by his arch sallies, winning our admiration by his thousand graces, and our respect by his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... agriculture—like chemistry, for instance. We saw the sophomore class in sheep-shearing shear a dozen sheep. They did it by hand, not with the machine. The sheep was seized and flung down on his side and held there; and the students took off his coat with great celerity and adroitness. Sometimes they clipped off a sample of the sheep, but that is customary with shearers, and they don't mind it; they don't even mind it as much as the sheep. They dab a splotch of sheep-dip on the place and go ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the surer, as most seceding nations have done. O'Connell, when struggling for the secession of Ireland, chose the other, and nothing came of it. The South chose violence, and prepared for it secretly and with great adroitness. If that be not rebellion, there never has been rebellion since history began; and if civil war was ever justified in one portion of a nation by turbulence in another, it has now been justified in the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... forgiveness of our readers, and especially of our lady readers; but though we have found words to describe the first part of the spectacle, we have sought them in vain for the second; suffice it to say that just as there had been prizes for feats of adroitness, others were given now to the dancers who were most ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to prison for a bit. It would certainly do him no harm, and it would be a real opportunity to separate the girl from his company. As for any wrong in his pleading guilty, he defended it (I must say, with some adroitness) by saying that it was universally acknowledged that the plea of "Not Guilty" is merely formal, and in no way commits one to its intrinsic truth (and he is right there, at least according to Moral Theology as well as common sense) and, therefore, that ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... every act of friendship, or even of leniency performed toward Great Britain by the Americans; and Mr. Monroe, an avowed partisan of France, was received, at first with distrust. But with singular adroitness, discretion, and good judgment, Monroe managed to place himself, very speedily, high in the estimation of the government to which he was accredited. We have already noticed, incidentally, his presentation ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... consequence of the esprit du corps which prevails among persons of that class. Bartle Flanagan, although he could not be said to act from any habit previously acquired in service, went to work with all the tact and adroitness of a veteran. The next morning, after having left the barn where he slept, he contrived to throw himself in the way of Biddy Duggan, a girl, who, though vain and simple, was at the same time conscientious and honest. On passing from the barn to the kitchen, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs,—with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum; until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Co-operator, he would have to tell of his meeting with Mr. Obstinate, who will not listen to him, and wants to pull him back. We all get the company of Mr. Pliable, who is persuaded without being convinced, who at the first splash into difficulty crawls out and turns back with a cowardly adroitness. We have all encountered the stupidity of Mr. Ignorance, which nothing can enlighten. We know Mr. Turnaway, who comes from the town of Apostacy, whose face we cannot perfectly see. Others merely gave names, he drew characters, he made the qualities of his men speak; you knew ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Passionately he longed for the old days, when by his physical prowess alone oft a man won his lady. Diplomacy, torrents of words, sly little tricks, subterfuges, adroitness, stolen glances, careless touches of the hand; by these must a maid be won to-day. When she was happy she sang, when she was sad, when she was only mischievous. She was just as likely to sing O terra addio when she was happy as O sole mio when she was sad. So, how was a man to ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... or malice. I need not name them: but the one I like the most, is that of Cupid in search of Venus's doves. No one could insinuate a knavish plot, a tender point, a loose moral, with such unconscious archness, and careless raillery, as if he gained new self-possession and adroitness from the perplexity and confusion into which he throws scrupulous imaginations, and knew how to seize on all the ticklish parts of his subject, from their involuntarily shrinking under his grasp. Some ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Jacobins. Pitt could not resist the torrent. Yet in his extreme necessity he saw his chance for a double stroke: to throw the blame for the war on France, and to consolidate once more his nearly vanished power in parliament. With masterly adroitness France was tempted into a declaration of war against England. Enthusiasm raged in Paris like fire among dry stubble. France, if so it must be, against the world! Liberty and equality her religion! The land a camp! The entire people an army! Three hundred thousand ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... We have already mentioned the intelligent substitution of flour for pollen, and of an artificial cement for propolis. We have seen with what skill the bees are able to adapt to their needs the occasionally disconcerting dwellings into which they are introduced, and the surprising adroitness wherewith they turn combs of foundation-wax to good account. They display extraordinary ingenuity in their manner of handling these marvellous combs, which are so strangely useful, and yet incomplete. In point of fact, they meet man half-way. Let us imagine that we had ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... engravings; such as Justine, ou les malheurs de la vertu, Les quarante manieres, &c. They seldom, I am told, carry the publication about them, for fear of being unexpectedly apprehended, but keep it at some secret repository hard by, whence they fetch it in an instant. It is curious to see with what adroitness these vagrants elude the vigilance of the police, I had scarcely set my foot in this building before a Jew-looking fellow, coming close to me, whispered in my ear: "Monsieur veut-il la vie polissonne ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... of havoc and vengeance, that compassion which is the most endearing of all their charms. Since the beginning of the great civil war, numerous rebels, some of them far more important than Hickes or Nelthorpe, have been protected from the severity of victorious governments by female adroitness and generosity. But no English ruler who has been thus baffled, the savage and implacable James alone excepted, has had the barbarity even to think of putting a lady to a cruel and shameful death for so ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ability to discomfit rivals, frock-coated and moustached though they might be! And what a grand, self-confident straddle of the legs! Who could desire a finer career than to go through life thus gorgeously equipped! Success was his key-note, adroitness his panoply, and the mellow music of laughter his instant reward. Even Coralie's image wavered and receded. I would come back to her in the evening, of course; but I would be a clown all the working hours of ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... was a very brilliant and imposing personage. He was one of those Russian aristocrats who, on the Continent, in their intercourse with the noblest and most exclusive society of Germany and France, acquire that external adroitness and social refinement, that brilliant graceful polish, which so well conceals the innate barbarism and cunning of the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... News-Record to advocate a "job," or steal, or the election of some disreputable who would work in his interest, he told Malcolm precisely what he wanted and left the details of the stultification to his experienced adroitness. When Coulter wished to "poison the fountain of publicity," as Malcolm called the paper's departures from honesty and right, he approached the subject by stealth, trying to convince Malcolm that the wrong was not really wrong, ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... International official was evidently an old hand in this sort of game, but in the hands of these past masters in the art of obstruction he met more than his match. Maitland was amazed at his patience, his self-control, his adroitness, but they were all in vain. At last he was forced to appeal to the Chairman for British fair play. But the Chairman was helplessly futile and his futility was only emphasised by Mr. Wigglesworth's attempts now at ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... equally. Her father, who retained the perfect use of his hands, began a manufacture of mats and baskets, which he constructed with great nicety and adroitness; the eldest boy, a sharp and clever lad, cut for him his rushes and osiers; erected, under his sister's direction, a shed for the cow, and enlarged and cultivated the garden (always with the good leave of her kind patron the lord of the manor) until it became so ample, that the produce not only ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... forfeited my life in my zeal," replied Mr Vanslyperken, with adroitness; "but that is the duty of ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... an orderly retreat to a position of safety. The almost miraculous skill with which he had directed all the operations of a protracted and harassing campaign, avoiding traps and pitfalls at every step, foreseeing and providing against countless crises, frustrating with unfailing adroitness the manoeuvres both of implacable enemies and treacherous "friends," was fully appreciated by his grateful followers, who had for years past regarded him with an intensity of personal devotion seldom given even to the greatest of political ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Blue Flower that Beverly had spared his life beside a poisoned spring in the Cimarron valley, urging him to go back and marry her; life had other interests now to white men who must forget all about Indian girls, he declared, and with Apache adroitness he pressed his claims upon her. But Santan had slain Sister Anita beside the San Christobal Arroyo. A murderer is abhorrent to a Hopi, who never takes life, save in self-defense or in legitimate warfare—if warfare ever is legitimate," he ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... must have been that this uniform of a tail had laid a basis of equality for the hour, otherwise they never would have done so; nor would he have enjoyed the chance of showing them that he could respond to the remotest mystic indications, with a muffled adroitness equal to their own, and so encouraged them to commence a language leading to intimacy with a rapidity that may well appear magical to the uninitiated. In short, the man really had the language of the very elect of polite society. If you are not versed in this alphabet of mute intelligence, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... adroitness on Guion's part, the fact that he was able to meet it to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned, increased his confidence in his own astuteness. True, it required some manipulation, some throwing of dust into people's eyes, some making of explanations to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... stopping to think, rushed up to them and ordered them to desist. One of the ruffians, looking up, cried out, "he is one of the d—d operators." Instantly yells arose, "Smash him," "Kill him," when those nearest seized him. By great adroitness he disarmed their suspicions sufficiently to prevent further violence, though they held him prisoner for an hour. At last, seeing an opportunity when more important objects attracted their attention, he quietly worked ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... he first came to Paris he fell under the influence of an unprincipled young fellow, and was dazzled by his companion's adroitness and experience in the difficulties of a literary life. This juggler completely bewitched Lucien; he dragged him into a life which a man cannot lead and respect himself, and, unluckily for Lucien, love shed its magic over the path. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Congress, and he had resigned his seat to take part in the Rebellion. He was a Brigadier-General in the service, but without distinction. He explained and excused all the transactions at Aberdeen and with emphasis and adroitness he laid the responsibility upon the Republicans. Of certain things there was uncontradicted testimony. 1. That the Democrats placed a cannon near the voting-place and trained it upon the window where the Republicans, mostly negroes, were to vote, and that there was a caisson at the same place. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... endeavored to make it out that the stars are no better than gleaming patches of vapor. We are the exclusive autocrats of all immensity. Whewell has followed up this species of thought with quite remarkable adroitness, force, and brilliance.35 Whether his motive in this undertaking is purely scientific and artistic, or whether he is impelled by a fancied religious animus, having been bitten by some theological fear which has given him the astrophobia, does ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... abashed. He hardly knew how to frame his little request in language sufficiently modest. He had recognised and acknowledged, to himself the necessity of shocking the bishop in the first instance by the temerity of his application, and his difficulty was how best to remedy that by his adroitness and eloquence. 'I doubted myself,' said he, 'whether your lordship would have any one immediately in your eye, and it is on this account that I venture to submit to you an idea that I have been turning over in my own mind. If poor Dr Trefoil must go, I really do not see ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... not the language of party-adroitness or of a low cunning, but the calm utterance of truth by American manhood. There is no indication of the authorship of the petition, but a strong committee was chosen at the meeting which adopted it, consisting of James Otis, Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushing, Richard Dana, Joseph ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... dry for delicate work by rubbing a little club moss (lycopodium), in fine powder, over them. So repellent is this substance of moisture, that if a small quantity of it be sprinkled on the surface of a basin of water, the hand, by a little adroitness, may be plunged to the bottom of ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... the Ottawas, had raised the standard of revolt against English rule. This was an aftermath of the struggle just concluded with France, and began when the Western Indians saw that another race of pale-faces had come upon their lands. With skill and adroitness Pontiac had gathered many tribes into a strong offensive league. He declared that if they followed in his train he would drive the feet of the intruder from the red man's territory. There was a savage rising in May 1763. In a twinkling eight English posts in the interior ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... is the pulling the captured fish off the hooks. And, even in the pleasantest company, we cannot see anything very desirable in sitting in a boat, all the floor of which is covered by unhappy whitings and codlings flapping about in their last agony. Many young ladies row with great vigour and adroitness. And as we walk along the shore in the fading twilight, we often hear, from boats invisible in the gathering shadows, music mellowed by the distance into something very soft and sweet. The lords of the creation have come back by the late boats; and we meet Pater-familias enjoying his evening ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... Delagoa Bay long ago established a reputation for adroitness in extracting revenues whenever and wherever it was possible to find a stranger within their gates, but the war afforded them such excellent opportunities as they had never enjoyed before. Being the gate of the Boer ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... had two cooks remarkable for their cunning and adroitness. To one of these he said, "Repair to the soldier's country, where, through artifice and deceit, contrive to form an intimacy with his wife, and return quickly with a particular account of her. Then we shall see ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Her commercial interests pointed elsewhere, and she still clung to her policy of splendid isolation. But Italy was unattached; and while she was the least formidable of the six great powers, Bismarck saw that he could make good use of her for his own purposes. The adroitness by which he drew her into his net is in direct contrast to the bovine diplomacy by which Kaiser William II. and his subservient Chancellors have succeeded, during the past twenty years, in smashing all their alliances and in alienating the sympathy ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... adroitness which showed a long experience in such matters, after feeling his way to the place, and passing his hand over the bars to discover their exact situation, inserted his crow-bar between the stone-work and the wood, and at the very first application forced ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Reinsberg, as a small nimble figure, of Southern-French aspect; black, uncommonly bright eyes; and a general aspect of adroitness, modesty, sense, sincerity; good prognostics, which on acquaintance with the man ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... Southern Democratic leaders, with great adroitness, proceeded to repeat the process known as "firing the Southern heart." They persuaded their people that there was an attempt to control elections by National authority. They realized that the waning power of their party at the South, many of whose business men saw that the path ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... over the heart that loves her will scarcely have limits. The means of prying into your transactions, of suspecting and sifting your thoughts, which her constant society with you, while sleeping and waking, her zeal and watchfulness for your welfare, and her curiosity, adroitness, and penetration will afford her, are evident. Your danger, therefore, will be imminent. Your fortitude will be obliged to have recourse, not to flight, but to vigilance. Your ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... religious or more elevated from their contact with Christian peoples. Indeed, I rather incline to the opposite opinion; but the European tendencies which prevail are marked clearly enough by the facile adroitness with which the followers of the Prophet contrive to evade the injunctions of the Koran, whether it be in the matter of wines and strong drinks, or the more constitutional difficulty touching loans, debts, and the like. For myself, I rather incline to the view of the old Pacha, who, after listening ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... stealthy stalker. One saw her not, but now and then there was a faint rustle on the stair. David's eyes and ears, trained to keenness, were patient and vigilant, so he was generally chosen as sentinel, and he acquired new caution, adroitness, and a ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... several inquiries as to a record of accidents that had occurred on the road. At first the superintendent showed little interest, but when Jack disclosed the fact that he was a detective, the superintendent became communicative and inquisitive, and Jack was compelled to practice great adroitness in evading ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... dynasties, like infants, have much soiled linen. De Marsay, during his ministry, repaired the mistake of his predecessors, who had ignored the utility of this man. He gave him those secret missions which require a conscience made malleable by the hammer of necessity, an adroitness which recoils before no methods, impudence, and, above all, the self-possession, the coolness, the embracing glance which constitute the hired bravi of thought and statesmanship. Such instruments ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... a sudden new sense of the purely feminine adroitness of women. In those words she had clearly conceded that their relations were utterly changed. Never before had she made even the slightest, most distant reference to the monstrous household actuality, unadmitted ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... reentering France, on your return from the mission which you have discharged with so much glory to yourself and credit to me who recommended you for the task. I make you my compliments on the tact and adroitness you have employed to bring this stubborn Dumouriez into some semblance of sympathy with the Convention. And now, my friend, I have another task for you, which you can discharge on your homeward journey. You will make a slight detour, passing into Artois ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... my desire, M. sometimes read to me chapters from more recent works, or parts of parliamentary debates. I saw that these were generally the very dregs and rinsings of the human intellect; and that any man of sound head, and practised in wielding logic with a scholastic adroitness, might take up the whole academy of modern economists, and throttle them between heaven and earth with his finger and thumb, or bray their fungus-heads to powder with a lady's fan. At length, in 1819, a friend in Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo's book; and ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... come with the army, intending to traffic in the spoils of the Moors, were themselves made objects of traffic. Several of them were driven like cattle before the Moorish viragoes to the market of Malaga, and, in spite of all their adroitness in trade and their attempts to buy themselves off at a cheap ransom, they were unable to purchase their freedom without such draughts upon their money-bags at home as drained ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... chair near the desk, where its occupant would sit facing him. After he sat down he moved the desk lamp, which was the only light in the room, so that its rays fell on the back of the chair and left his own face in shadow—a precaution which he had taken on many other occasions in adroitness of stage management. He drew from the humidor drawer of his desk a box of the long cigars with blunt ends which need no encircling gilt band in praise of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... covered with a hard, tough, useless sort of whinstone, which adds considerably to the expense of building on them. Others are well stocked with granite, which the Chinese masons split very neatly into any shape, by driving innumerable wedges into the blocks. The adroitness with which they do this, is quite surprising. The China pine (or fir) grows all over Hong Kong; but the young trees no sooner attain the height of two or three feet, than they are cut down by the natives, and carried off ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... error, some lapse as yet unknown, on the part of the conspirators. Hitherto Mr Wortley, as lawyer, had persuaded himself that the craft of sedition had prevailed over its zeal. Whatever might be the animus of the parties, hitherto their legal adroitness had kept them on the right side of the fence which parts the merely virulent or wicked language from the indictable. But security, and apparently the indifference of the Government, had tempted them beyond their safeguards. Government, it is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves first, to her ways. "We attain no power over nature till we learn natural laws, and our lordship depends on the adroitness with which we ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... from the year 1795 on had bribed legislatures and Congress to give them bank and other charters. Bribery had proved a signal success. The performance was extended on a much wider scale, with far greater results, and with an adroitness revealing that the capitalist class had learned much by experience, not only in reaching out for powers that the previous generation would not have dared to grant, but in being able to make plastic to its own purposes the electorate ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... unevenly matched; a canvass most close and doubtful; and a question which stirred the souls of men with the passions of crusading days. Douglas added experience and distinction to gallantry in attack, adroitness in defense, readiness in personalities, and natural aptitude for popular oratory. Lincoln frankly admitted his formidable qualifications. But the Republican managers had a shrewd appreciation of both opponents; they ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse |
