"Fingered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Amy had tired of the twins, who had fingered her rings and buttons, and stroked her dress and hair, and called her a pretty lady, and asked her on the sly for a nickel. She was getting restless, when Jakey said, "If you'd like to see your mudder's ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the Scrub know it. He too was a contradictory mixture. This mean little human specimen had been newsboy, seller of post cards, opener of cab doors, Jack of any little trade, the companion of pickpockets and other light-fingered gentry, also adored the good manners of bygone vestry days, the polished phrases, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... the discovery that Meeker had been lurking in the passage while I was listening to Captain Riggs and Harris in the storeroom, I leaned against the companionway and fingered the shell crucifix, wondering how near Meeker had come to making an end of me. Of course, the finding of the crucifix down there, and the man who ran up the ladder when surprised by Riggs, meant nothing else but that Meeker had been below either before ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of sorrow darts through the heart. There is the empty chair, the umbrella still standing in the hall, the glass which the maid has not yet washed. In every room there is something lying just as it was left for the last time; the scissors, an odd glove, the fingered book, the numberless other objects, which, insignificant in themselves, become a source of sharp pain because they recall so vividly the loved one who has passed away. And the voice rings in one's ears till it seems almost a reality, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... thing that ever a startled man touched in the dark. It was God's mercy I did not cry out from the sudden nervous fit that seized me. The thing I touched had a round, smooth, creepy feeling of flesh about it, so that I believed I fingered a corpse; until it began to turn slowly under my hand like a huge ball, the loose skin of it twitching yet revealing no human features to my touch. Saint Andrew! but it frightened me! I knew not what species of strange animal it might prove to be, nor whence its grip or sting might come. Yet ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Sioux had gone away. Savage tribes do not linger over a battlefield that is finished; yet as he reached the bottom of the slope his heart began to beat heavily again, and he was loath to leave the protecting shadow of the pines. He fingered his rifle, passing his hand gently over the barrel and the trigger. It was a fine weapon, a beautiful weapon, and just at this moment it was a wonderful weapon. He felt in its full force, for the first time in his life, what the rifle meant to ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... notes, to let his eyes luxuriously rest upon them, but he dared not take them from his pocket lest one or other of the silent-footed women might surprise him by a sudden entrance. He fingered them as they lay in their covert, and the mere feel of them, raised exquisite images in his mind; and at the same time the whole room and every object in the room was transformed into a secret witness which spied upon him, disquieted him, and warned him. But ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... she said, "if you know nothing of me, I know something of you, for Messer Brunetto, your philosopher, is one of my very good friends. I had this trinket of him a week ago." And as she spoke she fingered an enamelled and jewelled pendant against her neck that must have cost the scholar a merry penny. "Well, Messer Dante, you who are young and of high spirit, would you have a queen of beauty married ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... she was attended multitudinously. Ladies-in-waiting bent at her elbow; soft-fingered daughters of nobility habited her in purple-edged robes; flitting apparitions, in a distant chamber, glimpsed through a vista, laid a table of viands for her, to which she was led with many soft flatteries; her every wish was anticipated; all her trepidation ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... her own snug little den, her toy ruby spaniel on a cushion at her feet, her lap full of samples of white, shimmering crepes and satins. She fingered them absent-mindedly, her mind caught in a maze of wedding intricacies and dates, and whirled between an ultimate choice between October and June ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... fields are there, for those who can see them, behind the veil of smoke, and through them a wayfarer may still travel with the Knight who loved freedom and courtesy, the Monk shaking his belled bridle, the Ploughman on his mare, and the dainty fingered Prioress with her eyes as grey as glass, riding to join other pilgrims travelling east to ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... clothes when working; and in tight pants, tight coat, silk shirt, long-visored green cap when at leisure. A rather pallid skin due to the nature of his work. Large deft hands, a good deal like the hands of a surgeon, square, blunt-fingered, spatulate. Indeed, as you saw him at work, a wire-netted electric bulb held in one hand, the other plunged deep into the vitals of the car on which he was engaged, you thought of a surgeon performing a major operation. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... of the unfulfilled, Nor shudder for the revels that are done: The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled, The strings that Nero fingered are ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in full majesty of crimson and gold above the classic hills that overlook Paestum to the east! Leaning at early dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have watched the sky flush at the first caress of "rosy-fingered Eos" and seen the fragment of the waning moon turn to silver at the approach of the burning God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of the capes and mountains ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... gasped for breath in his rage, and again he fingered the great axe. "It is well for you, O Mouth," he said, "that I swore safe conduct to you, else you had not gone hence—else you had been served as I served certain soldiers who in bygone years were sent to search out one Umslopogaas. ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... when she and Aunt Victoria were all alone together—or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline in attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing her mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria best also. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether magical to the little girl that ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... indignantly, as he fingered the pearls and diamonds which he had sent Goldenlocks, and which she had sent back. "I and my jewels are not good enough for the Princess Goldenlocks!" And the King cried and cried, just as if he had not been ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,—the hands of a ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... there was no shadow of a doubt in the honest stationer's mind; it was as clear as daylight. No one else had been in the shop except the curate, who had never been near the tray. Coote had; he had touched and fingered all its contents; he had had this very pencil in his hand, he had quitted the shop abruptly, and started running as soon ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... McGovern of Minnesota would make the first or second All-American, how to do the card-pass, how to do the coin-pass, chameleon ties, how babies were born, and whether Three-fingered Brown was really a ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the little village had met at a quilting party at ten o'clock with Mrs. Martin Waddell. There Sarah had had a seat at the frame and heard all the gossip of the countryside. The nimble fingered Ann Rutledge—a daughter of the tavern folk—had sat beside her. Ann was a slender, good-looking girl of seventeen with blue eyes and a rich crown of auburn hair and a fair skin well browned by the sunlight. She was the most dexterous needle worker ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... in that direction with his gun upon his shoulder looking for game, helped the fallen man to his feet and officiously fingered a bruise rising ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... wits soon caught the idea, and though not quite so nimble-fingered as Delight, she soon showed an inventive originality that devised ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful waistcoat ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... protege had many suitors and was a decided coquette, fidgeted nervously and frequently adjusted her robe or fingered her necklace to ease her mind, for she dreaded lest, in spite of watchfulness, some mishap might have befallen her charge. Her anxiety was apparently shared by several other chaperons who stole occasional suspicious glances in the direction of certain of the young braves. It had been known to happen ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... O'Gorman in the drawing positively avowed that he could feel only three buttons in the bag; while the one before him, with equal confidence, asserted that when he drew, there were but four. Both declared that they could not be mistaken as to the numbers. They had separately "fingered" each button in the hope of being able to detect that which was bloodstained, and so avoid bringing ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities. But still the conviction remains with me that parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods and giants which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with the hundred hands is but a Three-fingered Jack, and I sometimes think that we share our great Jove with the Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back,—and if they will make me a joint lord to-morrow ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... rose and his fists clenched, but he kept his distance and watched the other warily. The innkeeper's face was contorted and his brow grew wet. For one moment something peeped out of his eyes; the next he sat down in his chair again and nervously fingered his chin. ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... beautiful is this young Woman to him; radiant as ox-eyed Juno, as Diana of the silver bow,—such a power in her to gratify the avarices, ambitions, cupidities of an insatiable old fellow: O divine young Empress, Aurora of bright Summer epochs, rosy-fingered daughter of the Sun,—grant me the governing of This, the administering of That: and see what a thing I will make of it (I, an inventive old gentleman), for your Majesty's honor and glory, and my own advantage! [Busching, Magazin fur die neue Historie und Geographie ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hurried on, the wailing now right ahead, a tremulous tumult of gentle grief rising and falling on the night air like the sound of a sea after a storm; and so, presently, in a minute or two, came upon a ruined archway spanning the lonely road, held together by great masses of black-fingered creepers, gaunt and ghostly in the shadows, an extraordinary and unexpected vision; and as I stopped with a jerk under that forbidding gateway and glared at its tumbled masonry and great portals hanging rotten at their hinges, suddenly the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... different from the manner of the troubled man who had faced Phil Acton that night on the Divide. It was as though the spirit of the land was already working its magic within this man, too. He patted the holster at his side, felt the handle of the gun, lovingly fingered the bright cartridges in his shiny belt, leaned sidewise to look admiringly down at his fringed, leather chaps and spur ornamented boot heels, and wished for his riata—not forgetting, meanwhile, to scan the fence for places that ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... his arm bent before him on the table in a way we had, as though it was jointed throughout its length like a lobster's antenna, his plump, short-fingered hand crushing up a walnut shell into smaller and smaller fragments. "Remington," he said, "has given us the data for a movement, a really possible movement. It's not only possible, but necessary—urgently necessary, I think, if the Empire is to ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... when she saw my face. You know, Mag, if there's a thing that's fixed in your memory it's the face of the body you've done up. The respectables have their rogues' gallery, but we, that is, the light-fingered brigade, have got a fools' ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... me give an evidence of the Congo native's astounding quickness to grasp things. I do not refer to his light-fingered propensities, however. When we got to Kinshassa Nelson knew scarcely a word of the local dialect. When we left a week later, he could jabber intelligently with any savage he met. On the four weeks' trip from Elizabethville he had picked up enough French to make himself understood. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... wound had been tightly and deftly bandaged, and the flow of blood checked. A whisper of my strange discovery ran from mouth to mouth, and Flora pressed my arm in silent sympathy. There was a solemn hush, and every eye was on me as I fingered the locket in search of a spring, for I knew it opened that way. I must have touched the spot by accident, for of a sudden the trinket flew open. But the inside was quite empty. I could not repress a little cry ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... Maskull made some convulsive movements, and opened his eyes. He sat up, blinking. All was night-like and silent in the forest. The strange light had gone, the music had ceased, Dreamsinter had vanished. He fingered his beard, clotted with Tydomin's blood, and fell into ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... in the darkness to watch the stars slowly seeming to pass from east to west, and as he said half-aloud those words about being alone he slowly fingered the revolver-holster on one side of his belt and the hunting-knife in its sheath, which done, he pulled at the strap which slung his rifle, and getting it round to the front he rested it upon his knees, and began mechanically to examine the breech as if to make sure that he had ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... canteen too began to yield up its treasures, but we relied upon finding some provisions in the village. At first the natives declared that their hens were mere old maids and all their cows unmarried, but our Tatar swore such a grand sonorous oath, and fingered the hilt of his yataghan with such persuasive touch, that the land soon flowed with milk, and mountains of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... that the thin hands had fingered her wedding-ring; but Caius thought of it, and that brought him back the remembrance of something that had to be said that must be said then, or every moment would become a ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... pockets, policemen on the lookout, quacks (other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is Vanity Fair; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... am going to clothe you, Jerry, from the skin out. That's my privilege. I shall be the framemaker for Roger's magnum opus. And not over my dead body shall you wear after December twelfth a tartan-cravat." (Jerry fingered at the gay bit of ribbon at his neck.) "If you will remember, our friend Ruskin said that the man who wears a tartan-cravat will most surely ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... was examining an arrow, almost twenty inches long and thick, made of cane, with a point of metal very sharp but badly fastened. He fingered the deep blood groove in the scooplike head of the arrow and looked at ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... a band of train-robbers and cattle-rustlers who lived in a cave out in Arizona, and they had for a leader a guy named Three-fingered Pete. Pete could draw a gun quicker with his three fingers than any ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... fool me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o' me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an' fini-fied ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, hotel! Now I'll tell ye what he is—I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's runnin' from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that he's purtendin' ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... took up the two old china candlesticks, and held them, one in each lank-fingered hand, before his face, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... find myself tangled in half-dreams of a devolution by which, when national amity shall have become mentionable besides personal pence, London shall attract to herself all the small vice, as she does already most of the great, from the country, all the thrusters after gain, the vulgar, heavy-fingered intellects, the Progressive spouters, the Bileses, the speculating brigandage, and shall give us back from the foggy world of clubs and cab-ranks and geniuses, the poets and painters, all the nice and witty and pretty people, to make ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... which appeared in October, 1873, and the last in March, 1876, at Moscow (P. Jurgenson), in six volumes, is described on the title-page as "Complete works of Fr. Chopin critically revised after the original French, German, and Polish editions, carefully corrected and minutely fingered for pupils." [FOOTNOTE: This edition has been reprinted by Augener & Co., of London.] The work done by Klindworth is one of the greatest merit, and has received the highest commendations of such men as Liszt and Hans von Bulow. Objections that can ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and nodded at Clay. The patrol car, with the disabled vehicle in tow moved forward and slanted left towards the police lane. Martin noted the mileage marker on the radiodometer and fingered the transmitter. "Chillicothe Control ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... afterward for the christening. At least twenty men expressed a wish to be god-father to the baby and the proud mother accepted all offers. When the christening was over, William Duncan lurched to his feet, his high-bred face full of tenderness, his long-fingered, fine grained hands poised over the ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... so hard! Listen! Not long ago I was going across the street when I met that pock-marked thief, Fritz, whom I had thrown into jail a few years ago because for the third time he had shown himself light-fingered in my house. Formerly the scoundrel never even dared to look at me; now he walked boldly up and offered me his hand. I felt like boxing his ears, but I bethought myself and did not even spit. We have been cousins for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... for the day, and he came chill and stiff-fingered to his task. Summer as it was, there lay a thin coating of ice round the edges of the stream, for they had camped in an altitude of about nine thousand feet. The "King" had wakened in a vile humor. He had a splitting headache, as was natural under the circumstances ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... gentleman!' 'He looks bad, too!' One morning an old woman, in a big black bonnet, said, 'Poor soul!' so close to me, that I looked down, and met her withered eyes, full of tears—for me!—and I said, 'Thank you, mother,' and she fingered the sleeve of my coat with her trembling hand (the veins were standing out on it like ropes), and said, 'I've knowed trouble myself, my dear. The ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... first sight, it looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. For on his legs and arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of seaweed than of an ordinary beard. Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been long tossed about by the waves, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... qualification (by examination) attesting a minimum amount of skill. Not even grammar is necessary for authorship, or even for successful authorship. Besides which, writing is done by innumerable persons in their spare time—Literature is a world of inky-fingered blacklegs. Thus, writing admits neither of the union-fixed minimum wage of the manual labourer, nor of the etiquette-fixed fee of the professional; so that the methods of the trade union are only partially applicable to the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... that showed she trusted either the Lord or us, or thought there was anything between us and heaven that might make us good because we wanted to be. You couldn't keep your eyes from the big gad and ruler on her desk; she often fingered them as she prayed, and you knew from her stiff, little, sawed-out petition that her faith was in implements, and she'd hit you a crack the minute she was the least angry, same as she had me the day before. I didn't feel any too good toward her, but when the blood of the ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Arezzo, but I confess in very much the same uninvestigating fashion—taking in the "general impression," I dare say, at every pore, but rather systematically leaving the dust of the ages unfingered on the stored records: I should doubtless, in the poor time at my command, have fingered it to so little purpose. The seeker for the story of things has moreover, if he be worth his salt, a hundred insidious arts; and in that case indeed—by which I mean when his sensibility has come duly to adjust itself—the story assaults him but from too many sides. He even feels at moments ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... fiddled and fumbled and tried to stop the quern, but however much he twisted and fingered it, the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth reached so high that the man was very near drowning. He then pulled open the parlor door, but it was not long before the quern had filled the parlor also, and it ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... missing from the table whereon he showed his wares. Among the dozen odd persons pressing about the booth his eye singled out a slight, handsome boy in Oriental dress; and since Syrian serving-lads were proverbially light-fingered, the Sicyonian jumped quickly at ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... it does." And pa handed the envelopes to Mr. Miller, and he took 'em and fingered 'em in a nervous way and he says: "What shall we do, ma?—we need the money, but somehow I don't like it, and I won't take Skeet's ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... the lessons began, it might almost be said it was only when a spectator was present that he was not sobbing. For Rosie, who was an awkward, ungraceful young person, proved to be the dullest and most butter-fingered pupil ever invented for the torture of teachers; at least, so Lancelot thought, but then he had never had any other pupils, and was not patient. It must be admitted, though, that Rosie giggled perpetually, apparently finding endless humour in her own mistakes. But the climax of the ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... night, when with labor oppressed, All mortals enjoy the sweet blessing of rest," a phantom stood at Lucy's bedside and fingered her. She awoke with a violent scream, the first note of which pierced the night's dull ear, but the second sounded like a wail from a well, being uttered a long way under the bedclothes. "Hush! don't be a fool," ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... graduation, dear, but she never wore them once after they were made," said the mother softly, as she fingered the dress lovingly. ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... picture," she cried, leading her inside and pushing her into a beribboned wicker rocker. "I was just getting desperate enough to haul in those squaws out there and see if I couldn't teach 'em whist or something." She sat down and fingered her pompadour absently. "And that sure would have been interesting," ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... happened to have with him. He paid as much as a new rifle would have cost, but he did not know that—though he did know that he had scarcely enough money left in his pocket to jingle when the transaction was completed. He carried the rifle across the saddle in front of him and fingered the butt pridefully while his eyes went glancing here and there hopefully, looking for the bear that had crossed the trail that morning. The mere possession of the rifle bent his mood toward adventure rather than concealment. He ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... not roused but merely disconcerted by the spectacle of passion. Mr. Soper said he supposed he could "make a 'armless remark." And still thirsting for companionship he pursued Mrs. Downey to the drawing-room. As he went, he fingered his little box of bon-bons as if it had been a talisman ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... pray you, I must say more, Your son is suspect light-fingered to be: Your daughter hath nice tricks three or four; See to it in time, lest worse ye do see; He that spareth the rod, hateth the child truly. Yet Salomon sober correction doth mean, Not to beat and bounce ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... the laugh which followed Nicholas stood awkwardly, shifting his bare feet. His face was scarlet, and he fingered in desperation the ragged brim ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby—such a tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved it ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... toned down his blank ignorance of the beautiful white hand stretched out so appealingly to him—made the least concession! If he had but held in readiness an open-fingered palm, with intent, there would have been hope. But alas!—no such thing. When, instead, he thrust both hands into the pockets of the blue Mandarin-silk dressing-gown, Gwen felt exactly as if a knife had cut her heart. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... bass with the right hand thumb and in the next bar the upper B in bass the same way. This minimizes the risk of the skip, and it is perfectly legitimate to do this—in public at least. The ending, to be "breathed" away, according to Kullak, is variously fingered. He also prescribes a most trying fingering for the first group, fourth finger on both hands. This is useful for study, but for performance the third finger is surer. Von Bulow advises the player to keep the "upper part of the body ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... collie, and he has been in treaty for one ever so long. Is he not a dear old boy?" cried Dick, rapturously. But he did not tell his friends of the crisp bundle of bank-notes with which Mr. Mayne had enriched his son; only as Dick fingered them lovingly, he wondered what pretty foreign thing he could buy for Nan, and whether her mother would allow ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of human industry, that industry worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these, who are true workmen, will ever tell you, that they have found the law of heaven an unkind one—that in the sweat of their face ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... finally began a big G. Having committed himself, he wrote the rest rapidly. He paused for a moment over the second bill, and fingered it nervously. Then he signed it quickly. "That's done." He shoved them both away much as if they ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... sunny weather blessed Lady Nottingham's rash experiment. Everywhere the spring triumphed; on the chestnut trees below which Jeannie and Lord Lindfield had sat on the afternoon of the thunderstorm last year a million glutinous buds swelled and burst into delicate five-fingered hands of milky green; and on the beech-trunks was spread the soft green powder of minute mosses. The new grass of the year was shooting up between the older spikes, making a soft and short-piled velvet, on which the clumps of yellow crocuses ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... if with one voice from those assembled, the words: "Samory hath spoken! Allah send him blessings abundant!" and as they did so each fingered his amulets, little scraps of parchment whereon verses from the Koran were written in sprawly Arabic. At that moment, too, I noticed, for the first time, that right opposite us was the grinning, evil face of the black giant, Kouaga, the man who had ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... do, consciously, with the doom of the earth, I will always be fingered as the villain, as the ambitious Napoleon or the barbaric Atilla, the arrogant Augustus or the fearful Cyrus. Someone has to bear the burden of shame on the pages of history for the people of his time, and in that sense, maybe I truly can be called ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... and his woe drops out of sight. He's managed to keep hold of a little property that brings him in just enough to scrub along on, and he joins that hungry-eyed, trembly-fingered fringe of margin pikers that hangs around every hotel broker's branch in town, takin' a timid flier now and then, but tappin' the free lunch hard and reg'lar. You know the kind,—seedy hasbeens, with their futures all ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... now opened was an old and much-fingered one, written—as he saw at the first glance—by his aunt to his mother. Why it was sent to him he could not conjecture; and, without attempting to so do, at once plunged ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the floor. In the crook of his elbow rested a little time-fingered canvas bag, one corner of which had broken open in his fall, out of which poured the golden gleanings of his ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... into his chair. Light from the desk lamp framed his expressionless and immobile face, half in light, half in shadow. He fingered the straight-edge on the ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville
... under another exceedingly great obstacle to success: though pretty well educated, he could not speak the English language. But he had a proud spirit and an indomitable will. He sought employment as a printer, choosing this as a means of learning the English language. Though he had never fingered a type in his life, he had that confidence in himself which inspired the conviction that he could overcome any difficulty presenting itself between his ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... he was ordered to wear this decoration. When the special train rolled in, the rangers were lined up beside the track. The gallant old warrior stepped down from his car and walked along the line. His eye rested on that medal. He rushed up and fingered it lovingly "Croix de Guerre! Oui, oui, Croix de Guerre!" he kept repeating, as delighted as a child would be at the sight of a beloved toy. The ranger's face was a study. I believe he expected to be kissed ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... across a grassy plain, there was no need to take food for the horses, or the two cows which would accompany us for the infants; but the elephants had to be provided for. True, the grass was as good for them as for those other animals, but it was short, and with their one-fingered long noses, they could not pick enough for a single meal. We had, therefore, set the whole colony to gather grass and make hay, of which the elephants themselves could carry a quantity sufficient to last them several days, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... breed from it, when Atavism comes, if I may say so, to intersect variation? The two cases of which I have mentioned the history, give a most excellent illustration of what occurs. Gratio Kelleia, the Maltese, married when he was twenty-two years of age, and, as I suppose there were no six-fingered ladies in Malta, he married an ordinary five-fingered person. The result of that marriage was four children; the first, who was christened Salvator, had six fingers and six toes, like his father; the second was George, ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... cloth he stooped and turned over the trinkets. When he straightened himself he had in hand a string of great beads, rose and blue and green. He fingered these, seemed about to put the necklet on, then refrained as too daring. Laying it gently back upon the scarlet he next took up a hawk bell. These bells, as is known, ring very clear and sweet. I was afterwards told that the Portuguese had noted their welcome among the ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... lead his thoughts. Quite carelessly, foolishly, thinking of bucolic lovers carving their initials on forest trees, he broke a spray of laurel and another of redwood. He had to stand in the stirrups to pluck a long- stemmed, five-fingered fern with which to bind the sprays into a cross. When the patteran was fashioned, he tossed it on the trail before him and noted that Selim passed over without treading upon it. Glancing back, Graham watched it to the next turn of the trail. A good omen, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... it was hard when that abrupt Staff-Major Up to the firing-line one evening came (Unknown his motive, probably a wager), And said quite rudely, "You are much to blame; Those beggars yonder you should enfilade." I fingered longingly a nice grenade; I said those beggars were our First Brigade, But might not call him any kind ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... dwell therein their home is not beautiful. The Esquimau would not exchange his blinding waste of snow and dark fields of water for the luxuriance of tropic vegetation. Why should we exchange the glories of the land we live in for the footworn and sight-worn, the thumbed and fingered beauties of other lands? If we desire novelty and adventure, seek it in the unexplored regions of the great Northwest; if we crave grandeur, visit the Yellowstone and the fastnesses of the Rockies; if we ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... emperor looked upon him with awe, half afraid of the mysterious and penetrating shadows that reached forth out of his rayless eyes. Before he left, however, he peered about, touched the sceptre and the throne, fingered this and that, and having, as it were, trimmed the nails and combed the beard of the great spectre, retired with a valet's bow. Observing that Charlemagne had lost most of his nose, he caused it to be replaced in gold very delicately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... judge was lost in the pages of a worn old copy of Tom Moore. He fingered the pages with a tenderness of other days, and lingered over the forgotten lines with a half-quizzical, half-sad smile on his lips. For he had been a lover once, and Sandy's romance stirred dead leaves in his heart that sent up a faint ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... somewhat bashful, but the king desired them to be frolicsome. They sung several songs, and played on certain instruments, one of which resembled our lute, being bellied like it, but longer in the neck, and fretted like ours, but had only four gut strings. They fingered with their left hands, as is done with us, and very nimbly; but they struck the strings with a piece of ivory held in the right hand, as we are in use to play with a quill on the citern. They seemed to delight much in their music, beating time with their hands, and both ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... of the high rooms, chambers of art in themselves, took care, as an influence, of the general manner, and made people bland without making them solemn. They were only people, as Mrs. Stringham had said, staying for the week or two at the inns, people who during the day had fingered their Baedekers, gaped at their frescoes and differed, over fractions of francs, with their gondoliers. But Milly, let loose among them in a wonderful white dress, brought them somehow into relation with something that made them ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... appearance of our faces, with their dark complexions, black streaks at the most unlikely places, and eyes and white teeth shining through the dirt. Any one happening to touch the white wall below with his hand leaves a black five-fingered blot; and the doors have a wealth of such mementos. The seats of the sofas must have their wrong sides turned up, else they would bear lasting marks of another part of the body; and the table-cloth—well, we fortunately do not possess such a thing. In short, coal-shifting is as ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Aeolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... sight of a policeman recalled Derrick Dene to the peril of the situation. He fingered the five-pound note in his pocket and stood at the corner of a street hesitating; then, with a little gesture of determination, he walked on again quickly in the direction of Sloane Square, reached it, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... the priest, "and try the fare of a poor old man. It is plain, very plain, but good." He smacked his lips sincerely and fingered another scone. "Take ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... remark to JESSIE, however, she uttered the repartee that I was the silly noodle; though she is, I am sure, notwithstanding her attachment to gewgaws, not capable of descending personally to such light-fingered tactics. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... work upon his gentler mood. I happen to have in my portfolio the very thing to please him. Fortune serves me well in this special circumstance. Among my boys, there is one who, though a regular dunce at everything else, is a first rate hand with the square, the compass and the drawing pen: a deft-fingered numskull, in short. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the midst of this the door opened quietly and closed again. Melissy finished, fingered her music, and became somehow aware that she was not alone. She turned unhurriedly on the seat and met the smiling ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... morning which shivered gayly upon the Pennine Alps he proceeded to a most leisurely toilet, having first satisfied himself that his winnings of the night before were not the baseless fabric of a dream. He smiled as he fingered the crisp, clean notes, and gazed lovingly upon the dingy-looking but potent check drawn on the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... biologists came to see him, studied, fingered, poked, and examined the records; argued and disbelieved—and saw ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... a little girl inquire recently, as she fingered a scrap of pink gingham of which her mother was making "rompers" for the baby of the family, "why are the threads of this cloth pink when you unravel it one way, and white when you unravel it ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... fond of Aunt Katharine, but she admired Aunt Trevor's appearance immensely, and always gazed at her as though she were a picture hanging on the wall. Dennis did not share in this. He fidgeted about in his chair, fingered the things in his pockets, hoped it would soon be time for luncheon, and wondered whether he and Maisie would be allowed to go ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... because horsemanship requires no brains; driving a "buggy" in good style is respectable, but "shoving along" a four-in-hand the highest exercise of human intellect, as for Milton and Shakspeare, and such inky-fingered old prigs, who never had a good horse in their lives, they despise such low fellows thoroughly. Their chief companions, or rather, their most intimate friends, are the fellows who hang about livery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... able to get Mme. Czerny into my head—Miss Ruth, I say, stood up, and, the colour tumbling into her cheeks like the tide into an empty pool, she stood for all the world as though she were struck dumb and unable to say a word to any man. I, meanwhile, fingered my hat and looked foolish; for it was an odd kind of job to have come twelve thousand miles upon, and what to say to her with the hulking seaman at my elbow, the Lord forgive me ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... in these shacks, homes, you'll find things made of turkey-red calico, cheap, common elsewhere—" He fingered the three-cornered flap. "Its our 'colours.'" He put the parcel back in his pocket. "I bought two yards yesterday after—I got a letter ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... after days when the Scribe thought of Jerusalem, it was not of what he had been told he would think; not of Prophets and Angels and Crusaders—only of the crying of that little six-fingered Jewish child, washed by the great tides of human history on to the black rocks near the foot of the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... heartily at Sam's story and then, the coffee being served, she fingered the handle of the cup and a shrewd look ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... coral beads and her cameo cross. In her absence she had caught the trick of dressing her hair so that it looked even more abundant—but she had not dared to try it so until to-night, when Dwight was gone. Her long wrist was curved high, her thin hand pressed and fingered awkwardly, and at her mistakes her head dipped and strove to make all right. Her foot continuously touched the loud pedal—the blurred sound seemed to accomplish more. So she played "How Can I Leave Thee," and they managed to sing it. So she played "Long, Long Ago," and "Little ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... surprised and relieved at the kindly look in the steel-gray eyes. He took one of her little hands in his strong brown ones. He was ashamed that his instinct told him it was the typical hand of a thief, slim, smooth and deft-fingered. ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... pass out through the circle of the placental vessels above described, and carry with them a minuter circle of those vessels; these five bundles of vessels unite after their exit, and form the footstalk or petiole of the new five-fingered leaf, to be spoken of hereafter. This structure is well seen by cutting off a leaf of the horse-chesnut (Aesculus Hippocastanum) in September before it falls, as the buds of this tree are so large that the flower may be seen in ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... long moment the face stared deep, deep into her brain. Then the full lips smiled and a half-clenched, thin-fingered hand materialized itself from the green darkness and rapped twice on ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... cast down her eyes, and fingered the bunch of trinkets hanging from her gold chain in silence for a few seconds. The ring of sincerity was unquestionable—only where did that land her? Had not she, in point of fact, very really gone too fast? In defeat ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... sat with his head bowed, thinking. Then he rose up and took down his long-barrelled Colt's, fingered it lovingly, and thrust it, scabbard and all, into the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... of smoke, the bark of the gun, the shot skipping over the water across their bows, much as a child scales a flat stone across a mill pond, opened the boys' eyes to the seriousness of the situation. They fingered their revolvers nervously and watched the black bow of the Spaniard anxiously, expecting to see ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... time, an ancient maid, By wishes and by time decayed, To cure the pangs of restless thought, In birds and beasts amusement sought: Dogs, parrots, apes, her hours employed; With these alone she talked and toyed. 60 A huge baboon her fancy took, (Almost a man in size and look,) He fingered everything he found, And mimicked all the servants round. Then, too, his parts and ready wit Showed him for every business fit. With all these talents, 'twas but just That pug should hold a place of trust: So to her fav'rite was assigned The charge of all her feathered kind. 70 'Twas ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville |
