"Feeler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... evidently put forth as a feeler, to find out what Valentine had been talking about. Dr. Levillier was habitually truthful, although he could be very reserved if occasion seemed to require it. At present he preferred ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... course was right. Brask, as usual, was the first to question whether Lubeck would consent. On the 9th of December, 1526, he wrote: "I advocate the treaty, but I doubt much whether Lubeck will not raise objections, for she has wished to have the Baltic to herself." A few days later Gustavus put out a feeler to his Cabinet in the south of Sweden. "So far as we know," he wrote with caution, "our relations with Lubeck and the Vend Cities do not forbid this treaty." By the spring of 1527 he had grown more confident of his position, and wrote as follows: "The provisional ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... head-thorax and abdomen being merged in a single mass. There are four pairs of legs, and the mouth parts consist, as seen in the adjoining figure of a young tick (Fig. 142, young Ixodes albipictus), of a pair of maxillae (c), which in the adult terminates in a two or three-jointed palpus, or feeler; a pair of mandibles (b), often covered with several rows of fine teeth, and ending in three or four larger hooks and a serrated labium (a). These parts form a beak which the mite or tick insinuates into the flesh of its host, upon the blood of which it subsists. While many of the ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... preposterousness of such an unaesthetic personage as Immanuel Kant enthroned in its centre! Think of german books on religions-philosophie, with the heart's battles translated into conceptual jargon and made dialectic. The most persistent setter of questions, feeler of objections, insister on satisfactions, is the religious life. Yet all its troubles can be treated with absurdly little technicality. The wonder is that, with their way of working philosophy, individual Germans should preserve any spontaneity of mind at all. That they still ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... current number of the same review Mr. Mivart has another theological article on "Happiness in Hell." He says he took advice before writing it, so he speaks with permission, if not with authority. Such an article, being a kind of feeler, was better as the work of a layman. If it did not answer, the Church was not committed; if it did answer, the Church's professional penmen could follow it ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... T. Carver, of Vinal Haven, had in his possession a female lobster, about 11 inches long, of a bright-red color all over, except the forward half of the right side of the carapace and the feeler on this side, which were of ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... to me a feeler, and I ignored it, and inquired how Lieutenant Helm had got that furlough. (Furlough was our slang for a light wound.) "Oh, he got it mighty fair! Did you see that Yankee lieutenant with the big sabre-cut on his shoulder? Well, your friend yonder gave him that—and got the Yankee's pistol-shot ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... seemed to be in great good-humor, and cracked jokes at each other's expense in the midst of boisterous shouts of laughter. The writer sat next to one of the liveliest talkers in the party; and, after listening and laughing awhile, told the "Tar Baby" story by way of a feeler, the excuse being that some one in the crowd mentioned "Ole Molly Har'." The story was told in a low tone, as if to avoid attracting attention; but the comments of the negro, who was a little past middle age, were loud and frequent. "Dar now!" he would exclaim, or, "He's a honey, mon!" ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... at once. Skill in hunting, next to success on the war-path, constitutes the great merit of an Indian; and it is ever his delight to show that he possesses it. No sooner did le Bourdon throw out his feeler, therefore, than a general exclamation proclaimed the readiness of all the young men, in particular, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... her you have passed the last hour that you hint has been devoted to bores," returns Dora quietly. This is a mere feeler, but she throws it out with such an air of certainty that Sir Adrian is completely deceived, and believes her acquainted with his tete-a-tete with Florence in the ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled cordially, after buttoning up the notes; "credit 'd soon give up the ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say. This is only a feeler on Mr. Samuels' part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa! he sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with gentlemen, in most cases. Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels' pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... keep back thoughts of certain persons at home who were not enjoying this fine frolic as much as they were. Misgivings came; they grew troubled and unhappy; a sigh or two escaped, unawares. By and by Joe timidly ventured upon a roundabout "feeler" as to how the others might look upon a return to civilization—not right ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to parties several times. I rather think this note is a feeler. He doesn't know whether he ought to come here—now—" and Phil ended, with the doubt she attributed to Charles Holton manifest ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Sensation (1) Touch % 379. [Sensation of pressure] Touch. — N. touch; tact, taction[obs3], tactility; feeling; palpation, palpability; contrectation[obs3]; manipulation; massage. [Organ of touch] hand, finger, forefinger, thumb, paw, feeler, antenna; palpus[obs3]. V. touch, feel, handle, finger, thumb, paw, fumble, grope, grabble; twiddle, tweedle; pass the fingers over, run the fingers over; manipulate, wield; throw out a feeler. Adj. tactual, tactile; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Love for her was to engage them in Conversation and find out what kind of Girls they liked. Then her Play was to be that Kind. She had no Difficulty whatever in inducing her Men Friends to talk about the Opposite Sex. They were all keyed up on the Subject and full of Information. Just as a Feeler one Evening she asked an eligible Charley if he didn't think that the Woman of ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... methods would in many cases be necessary were it not for the inquiry-bringing letter. The inquiry letter is a "feeler"—the advance agent of the selling campaign. It goes broadcast to find and put its finger on the man who is interested or who can be interested, and his reply labels him as the man whom it is worth while for your salesman ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... if he would buy the Russian China papers. I told him at the same time that a Russian ship was going at the charge of the Russian Government to India, Swan River, and China as a commercial feeler. ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... working slowly down through an address which she had designed to break the thing gently and by degrees, when the parrot, extending a feeler on its own hook, said "K-r-r-a-a!" ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... work-basket, and commenced sewing, while her husband continued to hold the newspaper before his face. After some ten minutes of silence, the latter made a remark, as a kind of feeler. This was replied to with what sounded more like a ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... lead to excessive complications in the foreign policy which dealt with the frontiers of the north. Such a colony would become the centre of an active trade with the surrounding tribes; though professedly founded in the people's interest, it would rapidly become a mere feeler for extending the operations of the great mercantile class; the growth of Roman trade-interests would necessarily involve a policy of defence and probably of expansion, which would tell heavily on the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... to the queen, but half-way met Congow, who informed me he had just escorted her majesty from his house, where she was visiting, to her palace. By way of a joke and feeler, I took it in my head to try, by taking a harmless rise out of Congow, whether the Nile is understood by the natives to be navigable near its exit from the N'yanza. I told him he had been appointed by the king to escort us down the river to Gani. He took the affair very seriously, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... full-front, close-up view of the "thing what set." He saw a wicked nose with a feeler about twice as high as he was. He saw great, terrible, outspread wings and a long slim body. It looked poised, ready to come at him and snatch him with one frightful swoop, as he had seen prairie hawks snatch little birds ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower |
