"Deft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she asked politely. One of the secrets of her popularity lay in her willingness to feed a story along with deft little interjections of interest. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... herself with the women: if the men admired her it was as much as she asked. When she liked she could be fascinating enough. She bewitched Mrs. Wilkinson, the housekeeper at the Hall, into taking her on whenever his Lordship filled the house with gentlemen and an extra hand was needed. She was deft and clever, and could be insinuating when it served her purpose. But the friendship of the Island women she had never desired, and when her husband was drowned there was not a fisher-wife to go and sit with her in the desolate house. As the years went by her good looks ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... and listened to the song, sweet and simple in itself, but made with deft and almost imperceptible intonation on certain words, clearly for his ear, the stern lines about his mouth ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... of the thirteenth century Edward the First, the English Justinian, brought a select colony of artists from Italy to England and gave them a commission to execute their best coinage for the English Mint. Deft and skilful as those artists were, the work they turned out was but rude and clumsy compared with some of the gold and silver and copper coins of our day. The Florentine artists took a sheet of gold or of silver and divided the sheet up with ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... ripe strawberries, raspberries, plums, damsons. She was plumpish and fresh: very red lips and very bright eyes, reddish-brown, the colour of blackberry leaves in autumn, with hair to match. Her little figure was neat; her small hands, with their square-tipped fingers, deft and quick in their movements; there was something at once rounded and ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... engage a second time, and Penrose's foil is flung across the room to left. Marsh is about to crash the candelabrum on Richard's sword, when Richard, with a deft movement, seizes it and hurls it to the floor, where it falls with a dull clatter. Marsh, discomfited, turns to Penrose, who has picked up his fallen sword, ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... housekeeping demands constant use of the hands. The teacher should be watchful of awkward handling of materials and utensils and be careful to correct it. She should require deft, natural movements ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... more than entered upon the warm welcome that waited at Saint John's-in-the-Wilderness, and was still wondering at the homelike cosiness which the mission house had assumed under the deft hands of the two ladies who occupied it, when there came an Indian with word of a white man he had found starving in the wilderness fifteen miles away. Another native with a dog team and a supply of ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... violently agitated. And laughed a low, almost a silent, little laugh, as with deft fingers she tucked away the errant ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... man who cooked his own food when he did not share his rations with the girl, all in frank and honorable companionship. On the next claim were two school-teachers, busy as magpies, using the saw and hammer with deft accuracy. In the next was a bank-clerk out for his health—and these clean and self-contained people lived in free intercourse without slander and without fear. Only the Alsatians settled in groups, alien and unapproachable. All others met at odd times and places, breathing in the promiseful air ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... first knavish wight took his needle so bright And threaded its eye with a wee ray of light From the Rhine, sunny Rhine; And, in such a deft way, patched a mirror that day That where it was mended no expert could say— Done so fine 't was ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... may be divided for the new beds; but the general practice is to grow new plants. Always beware of buying old, dry roots, as they will sometimes refuse to grow, even if they look green and fresh. With many, in cutting, the practice is to cut clear through at the bottom, string and all, then by a deft movement of the hands the smilax is slipped from the string which, with the addition of a foot or two to tie again, is at once ready for the next, while others bring to market string and all, these being simply matters of ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... a deft cast from Armstrong had sent the rope across the bows within Roger's reach, while the doctor, with the other end lashed round his body, was running at full speed towards the calmer water of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... other did both strike and wound, His arms were surer, and his strength was more; From Tisipheme the blood streamed down around; His shield was deft, his helm was rent and tore. The dame, that saw his blood besmear the ground, His armor broke, limbs weak, wounds deep and sore, And all her guard dead, fled, and overthrown, Thought, now her field lay waste, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the house he could hear the ladies talking, and Evilena's laugh sang out clear as a bird's song. He wondered if they also knew the story of the silent deft-handed bondwoman?—but concluded it was scarcely likely. Mrs. Nesbitt might know something of it, but who could tell Tom Loring's daughter?—and Evilena, of course, was too much of ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the usual course by praying the Court of Chancery for a Commission de Lunatico Inquirendo, is timorous, and rests on prejudice. Plt., if successful, is saddled with his own costs, and sometimes with Deft.'s, and obtains no compensation. It seems clear that a jury sitting at Nisi Prius can deal as well with the main fact as can a jury sitting by the order of the Chancellor; and I need not say the costs will go with their verdict, to say nothing of the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the same moment the fire lighted itself, and the pretty, soft, clever hands took off the Prince's wet, muddy clothes, and presented him with fresh ones made of the richest stuffs, all embroidered with gold and emeralds. He could not help admiring everything he saw, and the deft way in which the hands waited on him, though they sometimes appeared so suddenly that they ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... sweep, His appointment to keep With the doe, at her call. With her following, the roe From the danger of ken Couches inly, and low, In the haunts of the glen; Ever watchful to hear, Ever active to peer, Ever deft to career,— All ear, vision, and limb. And though Cult[121] and Cuchullin, With their horses and following, Should rush to her dwelling, And our prince[122] in his trim, They might vainly aspire Without rifle and fire To ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... mouthpieces of the great American people, who are themselves deft theoreticians, are not to be convinced by mere theoretics. So it remains to demonstrate the existence of the class struggle by a ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... ancient way of the Indian; Rolf had often heard of it as a sort of semi-myth; never before had he seen it, and so far as he could learn from the books, it took an hour or two of hard work, not a few deft touches and a few seconds ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... three pretty wives, sinking with a deft sweep of their flounced crinoline upon the blue-damask sofas and faintly teetering on their perfect springs, "why, my deah la-ady, yo' eight an' a hafe yeahs youngeh!— Ain't she?— She certain'y is! An' that deah Commodo' Co'teney! He's ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... her violet stems and fastened in the leaves with a slender strip of green paper. A drop of gum—and then behold a bunch of delicate fresh verdure which would fascinate any lady. Her fingers were especially deft by nature. No instruction ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Frau Knapf had maintained a Mrs. Harris-like mysteriousness. I had heard rumors of her, and I had partaken of certain crispy dishes of German extraction, reported to have come from her deft hands, but I had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... shrilly, touching the visor of his cap with his whip. Receiving the customary nod, Murphy slid to the ground and attacked the cinch. It was then that Chicken Liver should have stepped forward with his blanket—then that the deft transfer should have taken place, but Chicken Liver, where was he? Murphy's anxious eyes travelled around the wide circle of owners and hostlers, and his smile ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... than two years, since Frank had acquired some reputation as a master of men in the form Room of Remove A.; but he retained a clear recollection of the methods he had employed. He seized Jimmy Kinsella's wrist and with a deft, rapid movement, twisted it round. Jimmy had not enjoyed the advantages of an English public school education. Torture of a refined kind was new to him. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... were built and equipped: and as fast as new enterprises were completed additional robots were ready to man them. In record time the heavy work of girders, members, and plates was well under way; and shortly thereafter light, deft, and multi-fingered mechanical men began the interminable task of building and installing the prodigious amount of precise machinery required for the vast structure. Roger was well content: but one day he was rudely awakened from ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... grew tenderly deft over his wounds. She washed them clean, bound them up with strips torn from her skirt. She pushed back his hair from eyes and brows, and washed him clean of blood and sweat and rage. Her petticoat was her towel; she would have used her hair, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... assurance that the master would return Eumaeus, who had been often deceived by similar words, refused to believe. Feigning himself to be a Cretan, Odysseus saw for himself that the old servant's loyalty was steadfast; a deft touch brings out his care for his ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... of eggs and stirring of the golden filling, the deft mixing of pastry, grew cheerful and entertaining. She forgot to complain of her neighbours, and was surprised into the telling of some of her girlish experiences that actually brought an amused twinkle to her sharp old eyes. Lloyd was vastly entertained. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... timed, and then came the rise and fall of the frisky launch beside the warship, the throwing of a rope, the pull with a hook, the stand off with an oar, the bounding boat clearing from four to ten feet at a jump; the clutch, the quick step, the deft avoidance of a crushed foot or sprained ankle, with a possible broken leg in sight, the triumphant ascent, the safe landing, the sudden sense that Desdemona was right in loving a man for the dangers he had passed, the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... that Boyd, being called upon, instantly contrived some impromptu verses amid general approbation—for his intelligence was as lithe and graceful as his body was agile. And our foppish Ensign, who was no dolt by a long shot either, made a most deft rondeau in flattery of the ladies, turning it so neatly and unexpectedly that we all drew our side-arms and, thrusting them aloft, cheered both him and the fair subjects of his ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... these queries point-blank, he would have denied them definitely and emphatically, and there would have been an end. But she was far too clever for that. She plied him with sly hints and deft insinuation. Then, when he began to scent her purpose, she took another tack. "Did he really admire women of the Sunday Weeks type? Did he honestly think that the unconventional, wilful, whimsical Sunday, while perfectly charming in the unmarried state, ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... he began ravenously to eat his supper he wished to hear all about it. She told him. Part of her experience she kept back, a true part; the other, no less true, she described. With deft fingers she went over the somberly woven web of the hours, and plucking here a bright thread and there a bright thread, rewove these into a smaller picture, on which fell the day's far-separated sunbeams; the rays were condensed now and made a ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... With a deft movement she draws SIR WILLIAM toward the billiard-room, and glances back at BILL before going out, but he has turned to the writing-table. When the door is closed, BILL looks into the drawing-room, them opens the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that the wonderful counterpane began to grow, to the continual astonishment of Giuseppe, to whom it seemed a marvel of skill and patience, and who saw what love and sweet hope Fiammetta was knitting into it with her deft fingers. I declare, as I think of it, the white cotton spread out on her knees, in such contrast to the rich olive of her complexion and her black shiny hair, while she knits away so merrily, glancing up occasionally with those liquid, laughing eyes to Giuseppe, who is watching her as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... can, sweetheart." Then he had another thought, and with strong, deft fingers he explored the muscles of her arms and back. "But those acrobatics in plus gee—and you're trained down as hard and fine as I am, and it's my business to ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... rough-and-tumble fight, in which his adversary was at a disadvantage, being considerably smaller, hampered, too, with his loose, unbuttoned coat and baggy trousers. But, for all that, he did some very efficient work in the way of a deft and telling blow or two upon the nose of his overpowering foe, who sat astride his wriggling body, but wholly unable ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... felt, she imagined, by a witness in a court when the judge rises for his half-hour at luncheon-time. For the close of an interview with Durrance left her continually with the sense that she had just stepped down from a witness-box where she had been subjected to a cross-examination so deft that she could not quite clearly perceive its tendency, although from the beginning she ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... of naked, vulgar-looking dwellings, scattered up and down our country highroads, which only need a little deft and adroit adaptation of the hospitable feature which I have made the subject of this paper, to assume an air of modest grace, in place of the present indecorous exposure of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... even though she and her captain had to fall back on what could be borrowed from the troop kitchen. No, the oven door was open, the precious chickens, brown, basted and done to a turn, were waiting Suey's deft hands to shift them to the platter. (No need to heat it even on a December day.) Mrs. Stannard's quick and comprehensive glance took in every detail. The "stick" was obviously figurative—mere vernacular—yet something serious, for Suey's olive-brown skin was ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... now controls what is called the best society of Madrid. A soiree in this circle is like an evening in the corresponding grade of position in Paris or Petersburg or New York in all external characteristics. The toilets are by Worth; the beauties are coiffed by the deft fingers of Parisian tiring-women; the men wear the penitential garb of Poole; the music is by Gounod and Verdi; Strauss inspires the rushing waltzes, and the married people walk through the quadrilles to the measures of Blue Beard and Fair Helen, so suggestive ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Eppie came running up the path. She was barefooted, as Eppie always was except on Sundays, and wore a coarse, gray wincey dress and a big apron. Poor Eppie's clothes were all much too large for her, for the little girl had no woman's deft hand to dress her. She shyly slipped past the boys and took hold of Elizabeth's hand. Her big, pathetic eyes shone with joy. "Oh, Lizzie, I'll be that glad to see you," she whispered in her old-fashioned way. Perhaps it ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... as throstle's note, Quick in dance as thought was he; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout; Oh! he lies by the willow-tree. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... neither bread nor water to give him; he does not know how to protect himself against the wind, which blows through the door and window like Tulou through his flute, but less agreeably. As soon as I am awake, I ring for Myself, and he makes my bed. He sets to sweeping, and is not very deft in the exercise. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... hyacinth, then the blue china. Between every investigation he stared at Maggie as though he were now seeing her for the first time. At last, however, he was bending over Martin, and his examination was clever and deft; he had been, like his patient, used to better days. Martin ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the throstle's note; Quick in dance as thought can be; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout; O, lie lies by the willow-tree! My ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... and, except for the deft action of brushes, motionless. Only that from below was heard the musical splash of the Barberini Tritons, and that from the windows could be seen the sombre pines of the Ludovisi gardens swaying in solemn rhythmic measure must ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... an elder day Jerry wiped away imaginary moisture from the mahogany with a deft circular movement of a white cloth. Turning to the gleaming pyramid of glassware, he set out the decanter of whiskey, a small empty glass, and a twin glass two-thirds full of water. His motions were ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... which she had been carrying in her hand. I stood watching her deft white fingers flashing amongst the thick silky coils of her hair. The extreme slimness of her figure seemed accentuated by her backward poise. Yet perhaps I had never before properly appreciated ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was watching the deft fingers of the girls who filled the boxes and affixed the labels, his uncle stepped through a door communicating with the office, and soon returned with three ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... middle-class gentlewoman who understands anything about cookery, or who really cares for it as a scientific art or domestic necessity, there are ten thousand who do not; yet our mothers and grandmothers were not ashamed to be known as deft professors, and homes were happier in proportion to the respect paid to the stewpan and the stockpot. And cookery is more interesting now than it was then, because more advanced, more scientific, and with improved ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... round the Oak, And the searchers of the thicket and the dealers with the oar: And the least and the worst of them all was a mighty man of war. But for all their mighty shaping, and the struggle and the strain Of their hands, the deft in labour, they tugged thereat in vain; And still as the shouting and jeers, and the names of men and the laughter Beat backward from gable to gable, and rattled o'er roof-tree and rafter, Moody and still sat Siggeir; for he said: "They have trained me here As a mock for ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... either of Tennyson or of Swinburne, though musically he is nearer to them than to any others of his day. We constantly notice in his verse that dainty effect which the ear loves, and which comes from deft marshalling of consonants and vowels, so that they shall add their suppler and subtler reinforcement to the steady infantry tramp of rhythm. Of this delicate art, which is much more than mere alliteration, which is concerned with dominant accented vowels as well as consonants, with the easy ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... it near the surface, and had drawn it into the stream which ran out of the deep hole, into the shallowest part of which the convict had waded, and as soon as line and current had brought it near enough, he gave one deft scoop with his joined hands and threw it out ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... he wheeled upon the daughter and drew her into the range of a pier glass. "Now close your eyes and keep them closed." Around Allie's hips he flung the scarf, drew it snug and smooth, then knotted it. Next he snatched the length of chiffon and bound it about her head. His touch was deft and certain; a moment and it had been fashioned to suit him. Then he stood back and ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... had an entertaining half-hour with them, but they will be glad we are gone. Here comes Krishna, the deft handed, to pack sketches and all; I must supervise him, and see that he does not pack my cousin's soap, matches, and pieces of string along with his increasing collection of these articles in a ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Sybilla's swift, deft fingers disrobed the moody lady, loosened the elaborate structure of hair, brushed it out, and all the while she sat frowning angrily ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... "person" is capable of many meanings. Hozier felt that its application to himself was distinctly unfavorable. And Iris was quite dignified and self-possessed. She had given a few deft touches to her hair. Her hat was set at the right angle. Her dark gray coat and brown ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... for a moment patting her rebellious hair into order with deft, white fingers, looking up at me meanwhile with a laugh in her eyes that seemed almost a challenge. I took a hasty step toward her, but as I did so the Imp hove into view, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... make her acquaintance. When Mrs. Patterson sent them out "for a whiff of fresh air," she thrust into her sister's hand a workbag with frilly white things to tuck and ruffle. Then she drew out her box of colors. Under her deft touches, now fast, now slow, the baby face grew life-like ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... but gave it up when a maid appeared with a tray, and after a minute of deft arrangement disappeared to return with the added paraphernalia that goes to the making and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... old Sru and the women and children at once set to work to build a "house" to protect us in case it rained during the nights. Very quickly was the house built. The "devil" was sent up the cocos to lop off branches, which, as they fell, were woven into thatch by the deft, eager hands of the women, who were supervised by Sivi, Nalik's handsome wife, amid much chatter and laughter, each one trying to outvie the other in speed, and all anxious to follow Nalik and myself ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... him a grateful glance. He stood for a moment at the far end of the room and watched her roll up the socks she had just darned. How neat and deft she was. After all, there was something in being a lady, as Mrs. Sharp had said. Neither she nor Gertie, both capable women, could do things in quite the same ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... de old guy!" He shifted his cigarette with a deft movement of his tongue from one side of his mouth to the other, and grinned again. "Can youse beat it! Accordin' to him, he had enough coin to annex de whole of Noo Yoik! De moll's his wife. He went out to hell-an'-gone ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... the thread of the pasture you trace, By the river, their milk, for miles, Spotted once with the English tent, In days of the tocsin's alarms, To tower of the tallest of piles, The country's surveyor breast-high. Home of her birth and her love! Home of a diligent race; Thrifty, deft-handed to ply Shuttle or needle, and woo Sun to the roots of the pear Frogging each mud-walled cot. The elders had known her in arms. There plucked we the bluet, her hue Of the deeper forget-me-not; Well wedding her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... far as she was concerned. To catch the boat express they had made an early start, and they breakfasted in the train between London and Dover. It was fun to sit in comfortable padded armchairs, eating fish or ham and eggs, and watching the landscape whirling past; fun to see the deft-handed waiters nipping about with trays or teacups; and fun to observe the occupants of the other tables in the car. There was a fat, good-natured Frenchman who amused Irene, a languid English lady who annoyed her, an elderly gourmand who excited her disgust, and a neighboring ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... shuddered at the thought of the hands that had laboured that the soft cheeks and the untroubled eyes of this one woman might be. Into his mind came the face and figure of a little Canadian nurse who had once cared for him through an illness—her quick, deft fingers and her muscular little arms. "Another such as she," he muttered, "has been at work upon the face and body of this gentlewoman; a hunter has gone into the white silence of the north to bring out the warm furs that adorn her; for her there has been a tragedy—a shot, and ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... companion's attempt at a simpering affectation. Then he watched with admiration while the cowboy sent his horse after the calf and, too quickly for an inexperienced eye to see just how it was done, the deft riata stretched the animal by the heels. With a short "hogging" rope, which he carried looped through a hole cut in the edge of his chaps near the belt, Phil tied the feet of his victim, before the animal had recovered from the shock of the fall; and then, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... the wall—engraved likenesses of the great masters Mozart and Beethoven—had their frames of well-woven willow twigs; and the rack which held the books and sheets of music was ornamented on each side with raised wreaths of flowers wrought by deft hands from the same ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... very much on care and orderliness. It is necessary to keep to a fixed arrangement of the position of everything on the work-table and to have all kept as clean as possible. To see the deft and unhurried work of a Japanese craftsman at printing is a great lesson, and a reproach ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... books and searching nature; that the brain and the hand are in close league. So too, in the lowest school, as far as possible from the university, the kindergarten has won its place and the blocks, and straws, and bands, the chalk, the clay, the scissors, are in use to make young fingers deft. Between the highest and the lowest schools there is a like call for hand-craft. Seeing this need, the authorities in our public schools have begun to project special schools for such training, and are looking for guidance far and near. At this intermediate stage, for boy and girls who are between ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... do her job," said Hoskins, the Engineer. He was mild and deft, middle-aged, with a domed head and wide, light-blue eyes behind old fashioned spectacles. He shared Johnny's belief in the machine, but through understanding rather than through admiration. "But it's always good to ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... wuz in hopes the boys wouldn' hev to go, bein as they wuz a fightin yisdy," quavered old Elnathan Hamlin, as he trotted about, helplessly trying to help, and only hindering Mrs. Hamlin, as with white face, but deft hands, and quick eyes, she was getting her two boys ready, filling their haversacks, sewing a button here, tightening a buckle there, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... scrutiny, she stepped into a soft rose cashmere frock and buttoned up the long, close-fitting bodice, settled the little ruffle at the throat, and adjusted with deft fingers the perky folds of the bustle. "Making-up makes one look so much better that it makes one feel better," she reflected. She took a final look at herself in the dimpled glass that gave back her figure in a series of waves and angles, and suddenly she gave a little half-rueful laugh. She ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... but when Finn laid one paw on the kangaroo-hound's curved back, as he frequently did at different phases of the game, his touch, for all his huge bulk and weight, was one that would not have incommoded a new-born pup. The Wolfhound was deft and agile enough, despite his want of practice in such occupations, but yet, by reason of his great size, and the hard-bitten, fighting look which the last few months had given him, and the extreme wariness of his continuous observation of ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... escape. Nimble, deft, sharp-sighted, he found a weak place in his prison, worked it open, and leaped forth upon the highway a free anthropoid ape. None of the sleepy, weary drivers noticed his escape, and a proper sense of caution caused him to seek security under ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... of the four pairs of murals, the painter indicated to us the happy way in which, by the deft use of the coloring, each blended into the other, and she called my attention to the clearness of the symbolism. So often, she remarked, the mural decorators used compositions that seemed like efforts to hide secrets, a childish way of working, sure ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... Mangles's writing-case, which were spread all over the table in confusion. Then he hurried into the bedroom, closed one or two drawers which he had left open, put the despatch-case where he had found it, and, with a few deft touches, set the apartment in order. A moment later he lounged out at the great doorway, dangling the tradesman's ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... a new idea to me, and I looked into it with some interest. I knew that Jane was deft with her fingers, but I did not know that she had a special wish to cultivate this deftness or to put it ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... got more brains and uses them less than would seem possible," growled Mr. Vandeford, as he with a few deft lines near the close of the second act got the heroine off the stage and out of an impossible situation in which ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Lifeboat Institution had most kindly presented to the Rob Roy one of its best lifeboat compasses. The card of this compass floats in a mixture of spirits, so as to steady its oscillations in a boat, and a deft-like lamp alongside will light it up for use by night. Only a sailor knows the peculiar feeling of regard and mystery with which the compass of his craft becomes invested, the companion in past or unknown future perils, his trusty guide over the wide waste of waters ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... only daughter Kiku, seventeen years old, and as fair as the fairest of Yedo's many fair daughters. No vain doll was Kiku, but, inheriting her mother's beauty, she added to it the inner grace of a meek and dutiful spirit. Besides being deft at household duties, her memory was well stored with the knowledge of Japanese history and the Chinese classics. She had committed to memory the entire books of the Woman's Great Learning, and had read carefully five other works on etiquette ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... dominated thought, and the wits were as bitter partisans as they were clever rhymesters. The poetry of the anti-Jacobin supplied them with the suggestion of form; but there was not the lightness of touch or deft mimicry which characterized those remarkable political skits. As one reads the "Echo," and the "Green-house," and Trumbull's "McFingal," he is constantly reminded of the heaviness of the education which formed ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... replaced by a government which had been bred to virtue by eighteen years of political penury. It entered upon its tasks with vigor, ability and enthusiasm. It had its policies well defined and it set briskly about carrying them out. A deft, shrewd modification of the tariff helped to loosen the stream of commerce which after years of constriction began again to flow freely. There was a courageous and considered increase in expenditures for productive objects. A constructive, vigorously executed immigration policy brought an ever ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... With a deft hand she re-arranged the disordered folds of her dress. There was a faint flush under her eyes and her breath ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... with the best, and was as pious as she was deft, never omitting to throw the Sabbath dough in the fire. Not that her prowess as a cook had much opportunity, for our principal fare was corn-bread, mixed with bran and sour cabbage and red beets, which lay stored on the floor in tubs. Here we all lived together—my grandfather, my ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a fleet of ambulance cars distributed the train's freight of casualties among the various general hospitals. At three of the starry morning I found myself inside a large one-time hotel on the sea front, being introduced to a bed by a deft-handed nurse ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... threaded the great camp, and on its outskirts came upon a woman at work by the light of a fire. With strings of bark stripped from the long roots of creeping vines, she was braiding rope for the Fishing. For some time, without speech, he watched her deft hands bringing law and order out of the unruly mass of curling fibres. She was good to look upon, swaying there to her task, strong-limbed, deep-chested, and with hips made for motherhood. And the bronze of her face was golden ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... pleasure, and he presently saw a gardener moving about at his work. He went in that direction, and he saw that the man, who was old and had a very wise and tender face, was setting out some young trees in a piece of ground. He planted them carefully with deft hands, and he smiled to himself as he worked, as though he was full of joyful thoughts. David wished in his heart to go and speak with him, but something held him back. Presently the gardener went away, and while he was ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cavalier appeared not to know what it was to be at a loss for an answer, and the joint letter from his parents explained that his precocious quickness was one of their causes for sending him home. He was so deft and useful as to be important in the household, and necessarily always living with his father and mother, he took constant part in their conversation, and was far more learned in things than in books. In the place where they were settled, trustworthy boy ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brother. It was such experiences as these that made of the pioneers the sturdy men they were. They acquired habits of heroism. Their sinews became wiry; their nerves turned to steel. Their senses became sharpened. They grew alert, steady, prompt and deft in every emergency. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... free and within easy reach, and with deft fingers Dora drew the key forth and tiptoed her way to the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... was putting soft paper in the sleeves of Gheta's ball dress, and Lavinia, finding an unexpected reluctance to proceed with what she had come to say, watched the servant's deft care. ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... for those born To skins of whiter tint, and hence with grasp Of firmer structure, built by kindly Time, Who fashioned us in more ennobled mold; While power divine to cap the climax grand, With hand so deft, gave it its final touch. These men with vision faint who planned so vain Knew not the knightly thought bred in the south. The north winds chill and stunt the subtle power Which flourishes alone 'neath southern skies, To read unerring from the page of truth That God has fashioned some ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... continued her deft manipulation of a thick strand of hair without any change in her sullen and depressed air. To all seeming, ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... all shot up," Johnny slowly replied. "When I saw you fellers—streak past this windy—I sort of went flat—something seemed to break inside me," he said, faintly and with an effort, and the foreman ordered him not to talk. Deft fingers, schooled by practice in rough and ready surgery, were busy over him and in half an hour he lay on Jackson's ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... getting down the things and setting them on the table. She watched his neat, deft movements. Antony took no notice of her; she might have been part of the settle itself for all the attention he paid her. His preparations made, he returned momentarily to the scullery to fill the teapot. Coming back with it he ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... joiner's art, Or distant ground in every part; Each busied in his several trade, To work machines or ply the spade; Deft workmen skilled to frame the wheel, Or with the ponderous engine deal; Guides of the way, and craftsmen skilled, To sink the well, make bricks, and build; And those whose hands the tree could hew, And work with slips of cut ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... deft and prolific pen of Commander Lovett Cameron.... In the course of a stirring narrative, of the kind in which boys most delight, he succeeds in conveying much real knowledge about Africa, its features, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... who spoke in the strong Yorkshire dialect, which we are obliged to render into intelligible English—"marry, I weet not,—it is some curious puppet-box, or quiet contrivance, that Master Warner, whom they say is a very deft and ingenious personage, is permitted to bring hither ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... observations, and the Letters of Pilgrim in the Congregationalist, the Independent and the Advance, have become as familiar as household words in the pastor's study, and the homes of Congregationalists throughout the land. The thoughtful care and deft fingers of Pilgrim's wife have clipped out these letters and pasted them into suitable blank books until they became almost a library. The topics covered by these letters are as varied as the place in which they were written. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... least appearance of discomposure, had dismounted, and with his long deft Hindu fingers soon released the animal, patched up his gear, replaced him between the shafts and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... considered an interesting caller. It was his ambition to be first with every piece of intelligence, and he enjoyed telling news, even of a harassing description. Mr. Lawrence believed that Miss Abingdon's niece was already engaged to Peter Ogilvie, and he began by a series of deft questions to try to abstract the definite information that he ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... a teacher of a hundred, and Rowley a pupil of ninety, still hammering on the rudiments! The wretched boy, I should say, was quite unspoiled by the inevitable familiarities of the journey. He turned out at each stage the pink of serving-lads, deft, civil, prompt, attentive, touching his hat like an automaton, raising the status of Mr. Ramornie in the eyes of all the inn by his smiling service, and seeming capable of anything in the world but the one thing ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heap of brush and sedge-grass, that only the explicit directions they had received enabled them to find it. It was in good condition, about eighteen feet in length and two paddles lay in the bottom. Tom got in, pushed off from the shore, and with deft strokes brought the slender craft down to where his ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield |
