"Touch on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... controversy which occupies the chief of our attention—the great controversy on Creation or Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries: "I have no idea of there being so much Design in the world as some persons imagine." Nor do you touch on our mighty social question, the Land Laws, save when Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land Reformer, and rails bitterly against the cruelty "of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about." There, madam, in that ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... There is no difficulty in slackening or quickening their speed, and they obey the least touch on the rein," ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... was thy touch on the golden strings That my breast heaves high and my spirit sings! I must out, I must out to the sweet green leas! I die in the Hill-King's fastnesses! He mocks at my woe as he clasps his bride And sails away o'er the waters ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... the Baptist, and his ministry of repentance will always have its value as indicating a discipline by which the human spirit is prepared for comprehending and appreciating Christ. I have already given the reason why I am not at present to touch on the preaching of Christ Himself, although the subject draws one's mind like a magnet. After Christ, the first great Christian preacher was St. Peter; and between him and St. Paul there are many subordinate figures, such as Stephen, Philip the Evangelist and Apollos, beside whom ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... wall. The professor sat down in one of the easy leather-covered chairs, but, instead of taking up a paper, drew a thin book from his pocket, in which he was soon so absorbed that he became entirely unconscious of his strange surroundings. A light touch on the shoulder brought him up from his book into the world again, and he saw, looking down on him, the stern face of a heavily ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... forcing a response, proceeded blithely to touch on her past by way of illustration. The war had come just when she was grown up, and her kin in Maryland were divided on the issue. Her father had taken his family abroad, but her heart was in the keeping of a young officer on the Northern side—now ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... indeed, to avoid some sort of parallel a la Plutarch between Thackeray and Dickens. We do not intend to make out which is the greater, for they may be equally great, though utterly unlike, but merely to touch on a few striking points. Thackeray, in his more elaborate works, always paints character, and Dickens single peculiarities. Thackeray's personages are all men, those of Dickens personified oddities. The one is an ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... roused by a touch on the shoulder, and a request from the man with the keys to follow him into the office. He closed his book hastily; and was at once ushered into the imposing presence of the renowned ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... ye for what feast Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods Do spit upon your craving? Lo, your shape Is all too fitted to your greed; the cave Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines, Nor bring pollution by your touch on all That nears you. Hence! and roam unshepherded— No god there is to tend ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... the Nineteenth Corps) in four brigades formed line of battle in front and to the right of the gorge. In touch on the left was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and resting on Ricketts' left was Getty's Division of the same corps. Getty had 16 regiments in line; Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; Grover, ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... wakened by Molly's touch on her arm. It was late afternoon. Rhoda looked up into the squaw's face and drew a quick hard breath ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... brushed away an unseen tear. This tear did not escape the notice of the socius. He saw in it no doubt, a favorable symptom, for he exchanged a glance of satisfaction with Father d'Aigrigny. The latter was about to touch on a question of great interest, so, notwithstanding his self-command, his voice trembled slightly; but encouraged, or rather pushed on by a look from Rodin, who had become extremely attentive, he said to Gabriel: "Another motive obliges us not to hesitate in releasing you from your vow, my dear ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... alone on deck watching the sun set over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm. I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, and holding two deck stools. She beckoned with a quick uplift of her chin, and said, "We'll sit together here, with no one about us, and I'll tell you of the child." And this ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... touch on his shoulder. He turned round quickly, as a man out of temper does under similar circumstances, and beheld the sweat face of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... studied her daughter eagerly. She began to have hopes. Now, if only she could get the right touch on her appeal. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... needs assistance? Would you advise it? Would it not be a little—a little delicate to touch on such a question, the question whether or no a lady has something ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... be expected, before I close this hasty sketch of the Cornish people, that I should touch on the dark side of the picture—unfinished though it is—which I have endeavoured to draw. But I have nothing to communicate on the subject of offences in Cornwall, beyond a few ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways. And when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now let us today put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete. For none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are regulate, and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangements for the travel. I shall have ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... of interest was genuine, but felt by no means sure. And all the while, he was craving to know what she had to say for herself; yet doubting whether he could stand the lightest touch on his open wound. Lance had begged him not to hurt her. Had it ever occurred to that devout lover how sharply ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... instant I was on Master Toy's collar, and had him down in the dust. Kneeling on his chest, with my sword point at his throat, I had leisure to glance at Billy, who in the dark, seem'd to be sitting on the head of his disabled victim. And then I felt a touch on my shoulder, and a dear face ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... with two or three of her classmates over the afternoon preparation, and had flounced off in a rage by herself. She felt a touch on her arm, and turning round saw Emily Mence, a rather uncouth, clever girl, ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... name of Shenstone does not appear in the Essay on Gardening by Lord Orford: even the supercilious Gray only bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the offices of the landscape designer, adds, that "he will not inquire whether they demand any great powers of mind." Johnson, however, conveys to us his own feelings, when ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... "gullwing" curve. Raise a few feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of an inch and she will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under control again. Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. Cant the whole forward—a touch on the wheel will suffice—and she sweeps at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle and she presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring her up all ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... broke in with many, many questions about past times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to explain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune had retrenched her once abundant gifts. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... deserve to be punished for it,' she continued, with her quaint dignity; 'only I cannot quite make up my mind how to punish you, or, indeed, to do it at all to-day. Look, Walter,' she stopped him on the brow of the hill, with a light touch on his arm which thrilled him as it had never yet done, and sent the blood ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... drove him on. He passed the barred door of his own house, through which he had entered so often. It was unchanged, but seemed deserted. Next, he went to the water-front, where he had left his yacht. Invisibly and sadly he stood upon her upper deck, and gazed at the levers, in response to his touch on which the craft had cleft the waves, reversed, or turned like a thing of life. "'Twas a pretty toy," he mused, "and many hours of joy have I had as I floated through life on board of her." As he moped along he beheld two unkempt Italians having a piano-organ and a violin. The music was not fine, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... When we touch on the third period of her life—which may well be termed that of sorrow, although brightened by many happy events in the domestic life of her children—we reach times that are familiar to every reader. These have been years in which the cares of state have often been exceedingly burdensome. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Michigan, and in possession, too, Of as many rare attractions as our party ever knew:— The fine hotel, the landlord, and the lordly bill of fare, And the dainty-neat completeness of the pretty waiters there; The touch on the piano in the parlor, and the trill Of the exquisite soprano, in our fancy singing still; Our cozy room, its comfort, and our thousand grateful tho'ts, And at our door the gentle face Of H. ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... been in it he would not have come under the lintel! Ugly as he is and strong, I would be able for him and would wrestle with him and drag him asunder and put him down! Before I would let him lay his sharp touch on her I would break and would crush his naked ribs, and would burn them ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... our types of theory, it is necessary to touch on an idea, not unfrequently met with, which would make it vain labour to discuss or propose any theory at all. It is sometimes said that Hamlet's character is not only intricate but unintelligible. Now this statement might mean something quite unobjectionable ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... pictures, and the carpets, in the kinds and positions of the trees and shrubbery, and in the general neatness and cleanliness of the premises. It is not so necessary that people possess much, but it is important that they make much of what they do possess. The exquisite touch on all things is analogous to the flavor of our food—it is as important for appetite and for nourishment as ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... [9] To touch on a very small point I write here "the Book of Genesis," not "the Book Genesis." English literature, if I do not mistake, is as unfamiliar with the latter phrase as it is with ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... of adventure, of struggle and difficulty; of hunting and fishing and fighting; of robbing and murdering, catching and punishing, are distinctly and essentially masculine. They do not touch on human processes, social processes, but on the special field of predatory excitement so long the sole ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he could sit ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... light, of course." But there was just a shade of disappointment in Miss Laura's voice and Jim caught it. "Good-night, dear," she added, with a light touch on the ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... thank you for the suggestion. This machine has so completely engaged my thoughts, that I had quite lost sight of the dear girl's education. I should say, however, that I have been expecting at any moment to put the finishing touch on my invention, the very first profits of which I shall spend in employing a dozen teachers, if need be, for my little Pet. She shall be an educated lady, if money can make her so. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... advanced class a teacher is often worried because there is not enough time in a single forty-minute lesson a week to touch on all of such subjects as chords, cadences, extemporizing, transposition, &c., in addition to sight-singing and dictation. It is certainly quite impossible to do so, and this is one of the reasons for apparently slow progress. But there is, ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... will not accompany him. It was apparently to prepare us for the dramatic fact which followed, and which I suppose he was trying rather to work away from than work up to. It included some facts which he had failed to touch on before, and which led to a discussion very interesting in itself, but of a range too great for the limits I am trying to keep here. It seems that Alford had been stayed from declaring his love not only because he doubted of its nature, but also because he questioned whether a man in his ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... responsible for the second and permanent founding of the city of Buenos Aires. Garay was a far-seeing man, who, having established a number of urban centres inland, saw clearly the importance of a settlement at which vessels from Europe could touch on their first arrival ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... the further development of a few sentences at the end of an article on "Geological Time and the Origin of Species," which appeared in the "Quarterly Review," for April, 1869. I have here ventured to touch on a class of problems which are usually considered to be beyond the boundaries of science, but which, I believe, will one day ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a very good way of making money, better than most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our cure has a grand touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a collection, it is ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... irony of a cynical philosophy of statesmanship suggested by his view of the procedure of a politician, whom he had once admired, whose talents he still recognised, but from whom he now turned away with indignant aversion? However this may have been, his poems which touch on politics do not imply that respect for the people thinking, feeling, and moving, in masses which is a common profession with the liberal leaders of the platform. Browning's liberalism was a form of his individualism; he, like Shakespeare, had a sympathy with the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Viewed superficially, his life consists of fairly conventional incidents, and might easily fall under fairly conventional phrases. It might be the life of any Dublin clerk or Manchester Socialist or London author. If I touch on the man's life before his work, it will seem trivial; yet taken with his work it is most important. In short, one could scarcely know what Shaw's doings meant unless one knew what he meant by them. This difficulty in mere order and construction has puzzled me very much. I am going to overcome ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Your touch on my hand is fire, Your lips on my lips are flowers. My darling, my one desire, Dear crown of my days and hours. Dear crown of each hour and day Since ever my life began. Ah! leave me—ah! go away - We two are ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... nothing was seen, and we were already more than one hundred and eighty miles Tsalal Island. At every point of the compass was the sea, nothing but the vast sea with its desert horizon which the sun's disk had been nearing since the 21st and would touch on the 21st March, prior to during the six months of the austral night. Honestly, was it possible to admit that William Guy and his five panions could have accomplished such a distance on a craft, and was there one chance in a hundred that ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... words—but, at least, for a moment in all his mind, if not in his body, he bowed down and meekly humbled himself to earth. He remembered how, in his childhood, he had always prayed in church until he had felt, as it were, a cool touch on his! brow; that, he used to think then, is the guardian angel receiving me, laying on me the seal of grace. He glanced at Lisa. "You brought me here," he thought, "touch me, touch my soul." She was still praying calmly; her face seemed him to him full of joy, and he was softened anew: he prayed ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... I touch on motives for writing this book, or sketch outlines of heads of matters to follow in detail, I should engage little or no attention, so shall simply refer you who may read this preface, which is only a fraud, to the matter ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... touch on his forehead, her tender, gentle fingers smoothing his hair as they gazed together at the mysterious shadowy depth beyond which flowed the Colorado; that tender touch on his hair and forehead and the desert stars thrilling ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... in the distance are covered with the advancing waves of field-grey forms. Our boys are going up happily shouting and singing to the battle. Sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said about being in touch on the right. The brazen roar of the cannon is mingled with the intermittent rattle of innumerable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... drew it back as though he were a reptile. She was exasperated by this obstinate disregard of her forbearance, this gross attempt to bribe her with office, this flagrant abandonment of even a pretence of public virtue; the mere thought of his touch on her person was more repulsive than a loathsome disease. Bent upon teaching him a lesson he would never forget, she spoke out abruptly, and with evident signs of contempt in her ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... been reading over what I have written, and I am disappointed in it. I am sure I ought to have mentioned a great many things about which I have been silent. But there were so many things, and they all crowded at once before me, so that I had to just touch on the big things and the tall things—like windmills, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... began to take a more personal shape when the speaker, branching off from the main subject of Socialism, began to touch on temperance. There was no particular reason why Mr Waller should have introduced the subject of temperance, except that he happened to be an enthusiast. He linked it on to his remarks on Socialism ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... fierce jerk on the huge curb and a shout of "whoa there!" that stung him into amazed and suffering revolt and drove poor Ray almost distracted. Dandy's mouth was tender as a woman's. Ray rode him with the veriest feather touch on the rein, and to see his pet tortured by such ignorance was more than he could stand. He flew to the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, irresolute, makes him start and say, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... short explanation of the many provisions for the comfort of the users of the rooms. 'Pressure upon this button on the right near the door-post,' demonstrated David, 'lights the electric chandelier; a touch on the button near the bedside-table lights the wall-lamp over the bed. Here the telephone No. 1 is for use within the house and for communication with the nearest watch-room of the Association for Personal Service. A simple ringing—thus—means that some one is to come hither from the watch-room. ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... touch on the piano arrested me, and I turned around to watch his face. I recognized the air—the opening passage from Haydn's Creation. I was soon spellbound, as were all the rest. Mrs. Flaxman laid down her fan; there were no melting passages to bring tears ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... condition of human society would disappear. When, however, we turn to the most advanced scientific writers of the present century, we find that the prejudices which throughout thousands of years have been gathering strength are by no means eradicated. Mr. Darwin, whenever he had occasion to touch on the mental capacities of women, or, more particularly, the relative capacities of the sexes, manifested the same spirit ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... through one of the long passages, but dimly lighted, leading from Mr Stoddart's apartment to the great staircase, I started at a light touch on my arm. It was ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... upon her mother's knee. Mrs. Costello's touch on the soft hair, her tone of gentle reproof, and the thoughts her words called up, brought tears, fast and thick, to her child's eyes. Lucia had shed few tears in her life. Until lately she had known no cause for them; and lately they had not come. With dry eyes and throbbing temples she had gone ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... becomes more convincing if it is supported by something of a more concrete nature; and for such readers I would give a few hints as to the correspondence between the physical and the mental. The subject covers a very wide area, and the limited space at my disposal will only allow me to touch on a few suggestive points, still these may be sufficient to show that the abstract argument has some corresponding facts ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... with some instrument very firmly, or by others, with the back of the fork or other similar instrument, the bed is made firm, but not quite so hard. The object in firming it down after spawning is to make the surface of the bed level, and also to bring the material in the bed very closely in touch on all sides with the spawn with which ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... A touch on the lever had sent the aeroplane soaring aloft at a steep angle, and she cleared by little more than a hair's breadth the edge of ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... later when he became aware that a weight lay upon his chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A soft touch on the cheek woke him. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... their force by one of them standing watch on the other side. The moments passed. It was extremely cold. Agias shivered and wound himself in his mantle. The wine was making him drowsy, and he felt himself sinking into semiconsciousness, when a touch on ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... writing history is really curious. The histories which cover long periods of time are brief; those which have to do with but a few years are long. The works of Thucydides and Tacitus are not like our compendiums of history, which merely touch on great affairs, since want of space precludes any elaboration. Tacitus treats of a comparatively short epoch, Thucydides of a much shorter one: both histories are brief. Thucydides and Macaulay are ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... the soft touch on the door— He heard not the tread on the carpeted floor— So still was her coming, he thought him alone, Till she spake in a sweet and silvery tone: "Thou knowest not yet how much thou shalt win— How fast the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... sudden withdrawal of the cooling touch on his forehead, and then hasty steps that went away from him, and the sound ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... Harpe faced about and went into the hotel. Racey felt a touch on his arm. He turned to find that Marie had almost bumped into him. Her head was still turned away. One of her hands was groping for his arm. Her fingers clutched his wrist, then slid upward to the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... surface to have little probability but which has proved of greatest consequence for clinical work. It was found that only those situations become injurious and become starting points for hysterical symptoms which touch on repressed and artificially inhibited ideas ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... hard it was to get along and to ask him to get work for Uncle William, but I started to cry again. Mr. Peters came over to my chair and took hold of the arm of it and told me not to cry. Somehow his touch on the arm of the chair thrilled all through me and though I knew that it was wrong I let him keep it there and even let him stroke the upholstery and I don't know just what would have happened but at that very minute Uncle William came in. He was most ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... printed, and thus made available for general reference. But meanwhile it is possible, and—as said before—even urged upon a translator of the Sutras to compare the interpretations, given by the two bhashyakaras, of those Sutras, which, more than others, touch on the essential points of the Vedanta system. This will best be done in connexion with a succinct but full review of the topics discussed in the adhikara/n/as of the Vedanta-sutras, according to /S/a@nkara; ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... delightful chatelaine you are!" he murmured, looking down at her as she rested her little gloved hand with scarce a touch on his arm—"And how proud and glad I am to be once more beside you! Ah, Maryllia, you are very cruel to me! If you would only realise how happy we ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... cherished the notion that the charge was too preposterous to be believed, I was abundantly undeceived. To jail I went, and there served out my time to the uttermost limit allowed by the law. But in this connection I must touch on a matter which caused me some annoyance ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... the unhappy Countess. So lost was she in reflection, that she did not remark Lord Roos's return till made aware of it by a slight touch on the shoulder. When she raised her eyes, they fell upon an object that inspired her with the dread and aversion that a noxious reptile might have produced. She had never seen Luke Hatton before; and if she had figured him to her mind at all, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... him with all her strength, and he did as most animals will do when caught wrong-doing, he turned and ran away. Only one was left, a little thing like its mother, but of more pronounced color—gray with black spots, and a white touch on nose, ears, and tail-tip. There can be no question of the mother's grief for a few days; but that wore off, and all her care was for the survivor. That benevolence was as far as possible from the motives of the murderous ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... tell me of seeing Boris bending over you while you lay ill, and feeling his touch on your face, and hearing his voice, of course troubles me. This that you describe must have happened a fortnight after he died. I say to myself that you were dreaming, that it was part of your delirium, but the explanation does not satisfy me, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... wish it had pleased Heaven," continued Miss Clarendon, "that my brother had married a woman who could speak truth! But you need not he afraid; I will not touch on your secrets. On any matter you have in keeping, my honour as well as yours will command my silence—as will also my brother's happiness, which I have somewhat at heart; not that I think it can be preserved by the means ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... did not understand. The touch on the shoulder had made her think suddenly of Uncle James, ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... languidly in through the open church window, stirring the curly lock which Boyd now and then impatiently pushed away from his eyes ... was a delicate fingertip touch on Drew's cheek. A subdued shuffle of feet could be heard as the congregation arose. It was Sunday in Gainesville, and a congregation such as could only have gathered there on this particular May 7, 1865. Rusty gray-brown, patched, and ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... mad, but now have come to be equally unpleasant descriptions. So for drunken the euphemism intemperate came to be used, but is now hardly a more polite description. We would not willingly speak of a person being "fat" in his presence. If it is necessary to touch on the subject, the word "stout" is more favoured. In the absence of the fat person the humorous euphemism may be used by which he or she is said to "have a good ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... performance........ It's a melancholy thing to be in these clothes. I wonder if they were made for some great actor, or whether they were once the real thing? No, that's impossible..... I wish Miss Medford was going to take a part—perhaps she is.... unless that's her touch on the piano. The overture probably..... It's so cold in here, I must walk about..... ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... to the pantry door, whither Bates had led them. His hand was on the knob when Creighton checked him with a touch on his elbow, at which ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... was said, he felt easier. It had merely been the awkwardness of having to touch on the thing that had troubled him. That his news might be a blow to McEachern did not cross his mind. He was a singularly modest youth, and, though he realized vaguely that his title had a certain value in some persons' eyes, he could not understand anyone mourning over the loss of ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... sir, when you touch on my Lord Arlington's name," he said. "You know well that he is not of the Roman faith, but is a convinced adherent of ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... to like the newcomer. Fortunately, however, effort was unnecessary, for Bob won his way quite as uncontestedly with the little inventor as with Celestina. There was no question that his aunt was delighted with him. One could read it in her affectionate touch on his arm; in her soft, nervous laughter; in the tremulous inflection of ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... brief space, was forgotten by the multitude who had passed it so diligently from mouth to mouth. Seldom, indeed, was it recalled, even by his closest former intimates. Nor could it have been otherwise. The man had laid no real touch on any mortal's heart. Being a mere image, an optical delusion, created by the sunshine of prosperity, it was his law to vanish into the shadow of the first intervening cloud. He seemed to leave no vacancy; a phenomenon which, like many others that attended ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... history, to hear was to obey; so I took my way quietly through the bar of the hotel, and had just reached the door when a touch on my sleeve arrested me. It was Mr. Cobbe, the landlord—a portly, red-whiskered Boniface of the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... double armour of this plant betrays it. In a thick tuft, where the leaves disappear, I thrust in my hand, and the bite of the thorns betrays the topmost stem. In the open again, and when I hesitate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine sense and retractile action betrays its identity at once. Yet it has one gift incomparable. Rome had virtue and knowledge; Rome perished. The sensitive plant has indigestible seeds - so they say - and it will ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sharon! O Tower of David! O Star of the Sea! have you no comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least despair!'—and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the borders of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as if to ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... long, brisk, decisive ring at the door. He continued working. After an interval the bell rang again, briefly, as though the light touch on the electric ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... almost touching him now. He felt the fragrance that hung about her envelop him for a moment. Then he felt a touch on the papers; and his ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... a soft touch on her cheek did the girl rebel. Then she started up, and, pushing the maid away, rubbed her cheek with a handkerchief so resolutely that the maid clapped her hands, declaring that it was enough—no roses could be ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... and hour by hour kept her watch at the sick girl's pillow, laying her magic touch on the burning brow, singing the soft songs that seemed more than anything else to soothe the sufferer. So sitting, hour by hour, day after day, the old life seemed to slip away from Grace Wolfe. She felt it going, felt the change ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... takes so long to detail, passed rapidly through his brain, he felt a soft touch on his arm, and, turning his face slowly, encountered the tender, compassionate eyes ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... somewhere (and it is true), that women take less sleep and take it more lightly than men. It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed my eyes before I opened them again at a touch on my shoulder. The night was yet dark around us, save for the glow to the northward, and at first I would hardly believe when the Princess told me that I had been sleeping near upon three hours. Then it occurred to me that for a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... I ended I would just touch on the question of classical education, and I will keep my word. Even if literature is to retain a large place in our education, yet Latin and Greek, say the friends of progress, will certainly have to go. Greek is the grand offender in the eyes of these gentlemen. The attackers of the established ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts, By mere conglomeration each with each Can still beget not anything of new. But if by chance they lose, inside a body, Their own sense and another sense take on, What, then, avails it to assign them that Which is withdrawn thereafter? And besides, To touch on proof that we pronounced before, Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowls To change to living chicks, and swarming worms To bubble forth when from the soaking rains The earth is sodden, sure, sensations all Can ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... the blame of over-medication must, I fear, rest with the profession, for yielding to the tendency to self-delusion, which seems inseparable from the practice of the art of healing. I need only touch on the common modes of misunderstanding or misapplying the evidence ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... on the ramp and looked down at the ridiculously tiny wings and watched the control surfaces move in response to Jerry's gentle touch on the controls within the blockhouse. The drone control was working perfectly. Rick felt a surge of pride. This particular part of ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... feelings implanted in our natures by an all-wise Providence." She assisted me in understanding this by touching her middle finger. "Philip and I owe a duty to each other, and accept a responsibility under those circumstances—the responsibility of getting married." A touch on her third finger, and an indulgent bow, announced that the lesson was ended. "I am not a clever man like you," she modestly acknowledged, "but I ask you to help us, when you next see my father, with some confidence. You ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... went into the hall, and stood at the back, under the gallery. Once more, she was aware of the stir that ran through the audience, as Schilsky walked down the platform. Hardly, however, had he drawn his bow across the strings, when she felt a touch on her arm, and a Russian, who was an intimate friend of his, beckoned her outside. There, he told her that he had been sent to ask her to leave the hall; and they smiled at each other, in understanding of the whim. Afterwards, she learned how, just about to step on to the platform, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... and which made it so detested of old; that the eating of it was (as we read) part of the Punishment for such as had committed the horrid'st Crimes. To be sure, 'tis not for Ladies Palats, nor those who court them, farther than to permit a light touch on the Dish, with a Clove thereof, much better supply'd by the ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... does the dying of Christ become an example for us? This final surrender to the Father of a will that had never been separate from the Father,—what can we derive from all that? There are many lines of approach and application. I can only touch on one or two:— ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... a very stern mood. By the door he felt a touch on the arm, and turning, saw a tall, elderly gentleman cloaked in black. He recognised him at once by his hollow eye-sockets and smouldering, deeply set eyes. "You will remember me, senor caballero, in the shop of Sebastian the goldsmith," ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... no judgement, but rather a string of marginal notes, suggested by a study of the Italian Renaissance extending over some years. The value to be attached to them is all the more qualified as they mostly touch on the life of the upper classes, with respect to which we are far better informed in Italy than in any other country in Europe at that period. But though both fame and infamy sound louder here than elsewhere, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... men generally who were susceptible to touch on the money nerve, and who cared nothing for National honor if it conflicted even temporarily with business prosperity, were against the war. The more fatuous type of philanthropist agreed with them. The ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... On my shoulders lay the burden and the glory. And though I was amazed, perhaps naively, to see what I had done, nevertheless I had done it—I! The entire opera-house, that complicated and various machine, was simply a means to express me. And it was to my touch on their heartstrings that the audience vibrated. With all my humility, how proud I was—coldly and arrogantly proud, as only the artist can be! I wore my humility as I wore my black gown. Even Diaz could not penetrate to the inviolable place in my heart, where the indestructible egoism defied the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... see," the boy said, "but what is the idea of the cup of mercury; could not the pin just as well touch on a metal plate?" ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... volume deal chiefly with a variety of subjects to which every physician must have given more or less thought. Some of them touch on matters concerning the mutual relation of physician and patient, but are meant to interest and instruct the laity rather than the medical attendant. The larger number have from their nature a closer relation to the needs of women than ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... a touch on her arm. She started and looked up. A young man was standing beside her and gazing at her with an impudent leer. She stared at him, full in the face, still quite absentmindedly; then ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... the hills of Vermont. There arose that tasteful home with which, perhaps more than any other spot, memory loves to associate her. There, for ten happy summers, she enjoyed the communion with Nature's "visible forms," and heard her "various language," and felt her healing touch on the wearied brain and overstrung nerves; there, as I think she would have wished, she took leave of earth amid the pomp and flush of the late summer, and gladly ascended to the eternal sunshine of heaven; and there, in the shadow of the giant hills which "brought peace" to her, and the ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... of this crude study we shall have to touch on what is called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty of modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... superiors, by the police, &c., they cry out "Est ce qu'on me prend pour un Allemand?" The Englishman is fond of being represented as a John Bull, but John Bull pushes about him. We, however, are personified by the German Michel, who puts up with a touch on the posterior, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... proud MacCaura, what anguish to touch on The fatal stain of thy princely escutcheon; In thy story's bright garden the one spot of bleakness, Through ages of valour the one hour of weakness! Thou, the heir of a thousand chiefs, sceptred and royal— Thou to kneel to the Norman ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... had a filament attached externally along one side of the midrib and parallel to it, so that the filament would move if the lobes closed. It should be first stated that, although a touch on one of the sensitive hairs of a vigorous leaf causes it to close quickly, often almost instantly, yet when a bit of damp meat or some solution of carbonate of ammonia is placed on the lobes, they close so slowly that generally 24 h. is required for the completion ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin |
