"Finishing touch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... everybody knew the finishing touch was to be put to the business, and a strained silence ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... of birch-bark and fashioned carefully a horn. Disdaining all civilized materials as "bad medicine," I stitched the edge with a spruce root or wattap, and soldered it neatly with pine gum flowed and smoothed with a blazing brand. And then I added the finishing touch, a touch which made the Indian and the halfbreed shake their heads ominously; I drew two "hoodoo Moose"—that is, men with Moose heads ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... silk gown, with short sleeves. By much rolling up and pinning, she made the skirt the right length. Then she pulled out an old green silk calash and set it on her head. This she felt was a finishing touch, so she softly crept down the stairs and past the old ladies, who had entirely forgotten her, and out on the lawn; then she walked down the circular driveway and out into the road, where presently the clergyman, striding along to where his pony ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... finishing touch was put to the course I took with the Adler Tenement-House Commission, when, toward the end of a three days' session in Chickering Hall of ministers of every sect who were concerned about the losing fight the Church was waging among the masses, a man stood ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... finishing touch on this anarchy, a sect which likewise derived from Christianity—Manicheeism—began to have numerous adepts in Africa. Watched with suspicion by the Government, it concealed part of its doctrine, the most scandalous and subversive. But the very mystery which enveloped it, helped ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... give the finishing touch to the picture that lies beyond us as we look from the sheltered corner of the camp, and strangely enough, though old Opie is not of the direct line and has never lived in this part of New England before, he goes about with a sort of half-reminiscent ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... time warm friendship, based on the maintenance of the established order, has existed between the two empires. Austria gave up all hope of regaining her position in Germany; Germany disclaimed all intention of acquiring the German provinces of Austria. Beust's retirement in 1871 put the finishing touch on the new relations. His successor, Count Andrassy, a Hungarian, established a good understanding with Bismarck; and in 1872 the visit of the emperor Francis Joseph, accompanied by his minister, to Berlin, was the final sign of the reconciliation with his uncle. The tsar was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... he had been warned not to meddle with water. But it was too late now to do anything but wish vainly that he had stayed on shore, and to grow heartily weary of the boat and the sea and everything connected with it. These two things, however, he did most thoroughly. To put the finishing touch to his misfortunes he presently found himself becalmed in mid-ocean, a state of affairs which would be considered trying by the most patient of men, so you may imagine how it affected Prince Vivien! He even came to wishing himself back at the Castle of the Black Bird, for there ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... and black Bokhara runner fitted the porch-room as if it had been bought for it. The smaller rugs were quickly disposed here and there, a lovely little rose-colored silk prayer rug being forced upon Julia Cloud for her bedroom as just the finishing touch it needed, and Leslie took possession of two or three smaller blue rugs for her room. Then they turned their attention to pictures, bits of jade and bronze, a few rare pieces of furniture, a wonderful old bronze lamp with a great dragon on a sea of wonderful blue ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... bridal-day, Richie was particularly attentive in doing all a valet-de-chambre could, so as to set off to advantage the very handsome figure of his master; and when he had arranged his dress to the utmost exactness, and put to his long curled locks what he called "the finishing touch of the redding-kaim," he gravely kneeled down, kissed his hand, and bade him farewell, saying that he humbly craved leave to discharge himself ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... but from the ceiling hang numbers of beautifully-wrought lamps of metal and coloured glass. We can imagine how rich a scene such a room would form when illuminated for the reception of guests whose gorgeous Oriental costumes accord so well with its handsome interior, while the finishing touch is given by the performance of the musicians and singing girls with which the guests are entertained, leading one instinctively to call to mind many similar scenes so wonderfully described in the "Arabian Nights." Many of the adventures of its heroes and heroines are suggested by the secret ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... sorting the goods amidst a final scramble, there was, as usual, a little friendly dejeuner, to which a few guests had been invited, in the private rooms on the first floor. However, a scarcely expected incident had given a finishing touch to the general excitement of the house: that very morning Sagnier had resumed his campaign of denunciation in the matter of the African Railway Lines. In a virulent article in the "Voix du Peuple," he had inquired if it were the intention of the authorities to beguile the public much longer with ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... it from the corner of his eye. This glance, swift as it was, came near to being his undoing. Harrigan caught him with a terrible right on the jaw. It was a glancing blow, otherwise the fight would have ended then and there. Instantly he lurched forward and clenched before the other could add the finishing touch. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... and to make the skins of the creatures I took in hand look sleek and glossy like those of moles. I have said that I derived valuable hints from the old man, and, indeed, became a very tolerable groom, but there was a certain finishing touch which I could never learn from him, though he possessed it himself, and which I could never attain to by my own endeavours; though my want of success certainly did not proceed from want of application, for I have rubbed the horses down, purring and buzzing all the time, after the genuine ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... back in reply: it put the finishing touch—his last doubts vanished. She did not attempt to defend herself; her only desire was to see him; she besought him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... something—just behind one can only be experienced in all its force by a sentry on an inky night at camp. And the thought that, of all the hundreds there, he and two others are the only ones awake, puts a sort of finishing touch to the unpleasantness of ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... wrote with any freedom. Her book, De la Litterature, in 1800, was taken as a covert attack on the Napoleonic regime; her father shortly after republished another on finance and politics, which was disliked; and the success of Delphine, in 1803, put the finishing touch to the petty hatred of any kind of rival superiority which distinguished the Corsican more than any other man of equal genius. Madame de Stael was ordered not to approach within forty leagues of Paris, and this exile, with little softening ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... dollars and went his way. When they met again in an hour and a half, they burst into smiles of delight. Burlingham had transformed himself into a jaunty, fashionable young middle-aged man, with an air of success achieved and prosperity assured. He had put the fine finishing touch to his transformation by getting a haircut and a shave. Mabel looked like a showy chorus girl, in a striped blue and white linen suit, a big beflowered hat, and a fluffy blouse of white chiffon. Susan had resisted Mabel's ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Coffee House. He scowled as he struggled morosely with an obstinate tie. One cannot disguise the fact—Ginger was warming up. And it was just at this moment that Fate, as though it had been waiting for the psychological instant, applied the finishing touch. There was a knock at the door, and a waiter came in with ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... variations, were had with Sarah Osburn and Tituba. The confession of the last-named, the immediate relief thereafter of the afflicted children, and the dreadful torments which Tituba herself experienced, on the spot, from the unseen hand of the Devil wreaking vengeance upon her, put the finishing touch to the delusion. The excitement was kept up, and spread far and wide, by the officers and magistrates riding in cavalcade, day after day, to and from the town and village; and by the constables, with their assistants, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... a bull. The result was a collision that put the man out of business and knocked all the fight out of him. He lay on the floor and rolled about in an agony of pain, and the negro stood over him, apparently waiting for a fitting opportunity to put in the finishing touch, but his hard head had done the work for the ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat, which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... imagination, when there are so many thrilling incidents in the pathway of human life, calculated to awaken the most refined emotions, and stir the deepest currents of the human soul? Would the painter, as he raised his brush to give the last finishing touch to his picture, draw his colors from fancy? Would he not rather imitate the color of the natural rose, copy the forest green, the azure of the sky, or the brilliant hues of the rainbow, as it spans the heavens with its bow ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... and enter into explanations with bulls when they look "horstile." A swift get-away is the thing to do. It took me some time to learn this; but the finishing touch was put upon me by a bull in New York City. Ever since that time it has been an automatic process with me to make a run for it when I see a bull reaching for me. This automatic process has become a mainspring of conduct in me, wound up and ready for instant release. I shall never ...
— The Road • Jack London
... That put the finishing touch to Jane's day. She stormed and raved, she called her husband names, she threatened all sorts of things, but as Jim observed, hard words would not draw blood out of a stone, and he sat there stolidly ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... with the finishing touch twelve years ago to the other Transcontinental line. The whole world heard of what was then done. All the bells in all the great cities of the United States rang out jubilant peals as the last stroke sent home the last spike on the last rail of the new highway of travel. ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... Mr. Waters has just favored us with for my especial benefit. Gad! Waters, you'd do the heavy fathers finely on the stage. I'll write to Davidge for you, that last speech of yours was capital; couldn't you favor us with a finishing touch, we are all attention.' The agent placed his papers on the table, and wheeling his chair round, sat in imitation of his master as if in expectation of ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... look!" cried one of them, excitedly. "Peacocks on the terraces! It's the finishing touch to the picture. We'll feel like Lady Clare walking down those marble steps. There surely must be a milk-white doe somewhere in ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the parlour window to his little den along the passage, to put the finishing touch to his toilet—the green cutaway and buff waistcoat, which he further set off with a black satin stock—'Well,' said he, 'needs must when a certain ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... motion suggests that of a gondola, A catamaran scoots about the harbor among the islands; tiny steamers, sailing craft of all kinds, are seen; and sometimes United States training ships sail majestically into the bay and drop anchor, giving a finishing touch to the picture. ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... described, having forced their way in hundreds through my thin clothing, causing an annoying and painful irritation; to which, the bites of clouds of mosquitoes in a mangrove swamp which I had entered in chase of some bowerbirds, added a finishing touch, as if to test the powers of human endurance. Having expended my stock of dust shot, I tried fine sand—which I had somewhere read of as a substitute, but, although used under the most favourable conditions, the experiment proved a complete failure. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... finishing touch," added Lady Engleton, below her breath. "I should like to paint you and the curtains and Claude Moreton's gavotte ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... intended to kill Violet with a small revolver which I had bought in a second-hand place at London last winter, but Nepcote's carelessness in leaving his own revolver in the gun-room gave the last finishing touch to my plan. I could scarcely believe my luck when I found it. It seemed as though he himself were playing into my hands. I hid it away, expecting that there would be inquiries, but there were none. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... that all the members of the establishment have regularly returned to their various duties, and that all the departments of the household are in proper working order, will have many important matters claiming her attention. She will, possibly, have to give the finishing touch to some article of confectionary, or be occupied with some of the more elaborate processes of the still-room. There may also be the dessert to arrange, ice-creams to make; and all these employments call for no ordinary degree of ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a work-room, where she made four francs a day, and so paid all her expenses. At the end of the second month he took the money which he otherwise would have required for board, and bought her a watch and chain at the Palais Royale. At the same time he put the finishing touch to his picture, and when hung upon his wall, between their photographs, Suzette danced before it, and took half the credit ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... well at the cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I believe, as because she happened not ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the edges of the top cover. Remember the details given in an earlier chapter. The neck of the balloon ends in a wide crater, which is closed by a ceiling dug out cup-wise. The material is as stout in this part as in any other; but, as the lid was the finishing touch to the work, we expect to find an incomplete soldering, which would ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... there remained only time to get away. Cases of preserves were quickly opened. All our bread and biscuits were used, and some bowls of boiling tea comforted our guests. But leaving the harbor, the sea grew heavier and torrents of spray put the finishing touch to the inextricable disorder that prevailed aboard ship. The storm stayed with us until we made Brindisi, where we arrived at seven o'clock on the morning of the twenty-second. When Italy was sighted, the ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... is a mistake to serve at the close of a sale only a re-hash of favorable points; so is it bad salesmanship to rely on a dessert of "logic and reason" for the finishing touch. Logic and reason provoke antagonism. They are ineffective in bringing about either a favorable conclusion of mind or ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... had, at the appearance of the wagon, rushed home to give a finishing touch to her toilet, was seen crossing the little interval between the two houses with an elaborate air of unconsciousness of observation, and carrying a large white handkerchief by its ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... a government spy, and engages to use his immense power against his former comrades and in defense of the society he has hitherto warred upon. The artistic propriety of this transformation may be questioned, but not the power and interest of the novel of which it is the finishing touch. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... neither Flint nor I could have hoped to possess found their way to us through him. Scientific periodicals and the better magazines came regularly to John Flint's address. That was Eustis's way. This friendship put the finishing touch upon the Butterfly Man's repute. He was my associate, and my mother was devoted to him. Miss Sally Ruth, whose pet pear-tree he had saved and whose pigeons he had cured, approved of him, too, and said so with her usual openness. Westmoreland was known to be his firm friend; nobody could ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... way. "No, sir. To see you would be the finishing touch. She can't hear your name without a shiver going through her from head to foot. We've tried it on her. Between the two of you—your brother and you—it's you she's most afraid of." There was silence ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the inventor, "and I 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 ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... sweeps over the stone, and pressed against the latter by little more than its own weight, and the grinding must be regular. The edge may be inspected under a microscope, and it must be perfectly smooth and even before it will cut sections. A finishing touch may be given on a leather strap, but it must be done skilfully, otherwise it is ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... on June 1, Dr. Le Plongeon had the great satisfaction of discovering a monument, a splendid work of art in all its pristine beauty, fresh as when the artist put the finishing touch to it, without blemish, unharmed by time, and not even looked upon by man since it was concealed, ages ago, where Dr. Le Plongeon discovered it through his interpretations of certain inscriptions. It was probably hidden to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... tacked against the whitewashed walls, the apartment was transformed into a delightful atelier. An open fire-place, with a brace of antiquated iron-dogs straddling the red brick hearth, gave the finishing touch. The occupant was in easy communication with the yard, from which the busy din of clinking chisels came u musically to his ear, and was still beyond the reach of unnecessary interruption. Richard saw clearly all the advantages of this transfer, but he was far form ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Kuching, for taking the law into their own hands, and seizing a runaway prisoner, as well as the captain of the boat in which she absconded, although he was not guilty of hiding her. This seems to have put the finishing touch to the factious state of feeling at Bau. The Rajah and the Bishop had determined to take a trip together on the 15th, in the life-boat, to Sadong, and from thence to Linga and Sakarran. The Rajah ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... two or three score of goats, a group of sheep, four or five camels looking down with a superior air on the donkeys, as well as pedestrians of many complexions and of varied dress—Arabs, Bedouins, Soudanese, and Egyptians,—their queerly shaped turbans and brilliant colors lending the finishing touch to the scene. Nowhere else in the Orient does such a view present itself, and its setting is ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... little lavender, not so much because the owner of a well-filled linen closet perfumed her spotless hoard with its fragrant flowers, but because of more tender remembrances. Would any country wedding chest be complete without its little silk bags filled with dried lavender buds and blooms to add the finishing touch of romance to the dainty trousseau of linen and lace? What can recall the bridal year so surely as this same ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... red-hot poker, what he was pleased to term a "design from the antique," which consisted of a spirited outline of that riddle-loving female the Sphinx, as she appeared when dressed in top-boots and a wide-awake, and regaling herself with a choice cigar! He was giving the finishing touch to a large pair of moustaches, with which he had embellished her countenance, and which he declared was the only thing wanting to complete the likeness to an old aunt of Dr. Mildman's, whom the pupils usually designated ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... all possibilities, without deciding on any one, the fine phrases, the sweetness of it all. They were all self-taught men who had pieced themselves together with everything they could lay their hands on, but had had neither means nor leisure to put the finishing touch to their work, and they were prone to exaggerate their natural coarseness and their rather bitter tone fitting to rough contadini. They wished to provoke active hostility. Anything rather than indifference. In order to rouse the energy of their race they would gladly have consented ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... on the other hand, wear many a pot hat, pompously added to the long national robe, and giving thereby a finishing touch to their cheerful ugliness, resembling nothing so much as dancing monkeys. They carry boughs in their hands, whole shrubs, even, amidst the foliage of which dangle all sorts of curious lanterns in the shape of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... "Oh! that's the finishing touch. He was a bright, taking little chap, as you know, and the Fathers took very special pains in his bringing up. Davidson expected in his heart to have some comfort out of him. In his placid way he's a man who needs ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Mr. Elliott?' cried the boys, as they raced up to the place where the rival leaders were laughing at each other's failure in bringing off the finishing touch. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... prevailed. Several regiments became inextricably mingled, and whole companies were swept away and compelled to cross whether they would or no, while others, crowded off to the side of the road, had to stand there and mark time; and by way of putting the finishing touch to the muddle; a squadron of cavalry insisted on passing, pressing back into the adjoining fields the stragglers that the infantry had scattered along the roadside. At the end of an hour's march the column had entirely lost ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the bark bottom from being injured by the cargo. The ends of the canoe are reinforced inside by the Indian equivalent for a collision bulkhead. This bulkhead sometimes rises well above the gunwale and is carved like a figurehead, which accounts for its voyageur name of le p'ti' bonhomme. A third finishing touch, {23} very common in earlier days, is the decoration of the outsides of both ends, which used to rise with a sharp sheer, and sometimes actually curved back. The usual decorations here were totem signs, generally made of porcupine quills, dyed in many colours, and serving the original ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... edge was giving way under his hands, under his body. No time for terror. His jerk gave the finishing touch.... ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... As a finishing touch, Bertha and Algernon, official hosts, walked around the table laying typewritten catalog ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... I,—not that I felt any ill-will towards Fourier, but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to Hollingsworth's image, "bellowing for the least drop of his beloved ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The finishing touch is given to the work by a soft rag loosely rolled up and just a few drops of spirit dropped upon it, applied quickly the way of the grain. This will remove every defect, and leave it clear and brilliant. If, in a short ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... arms—namely, in addition to the two already mentioned, those of the Ghiachinotti, Popoleschi, Marabottini, and Cardinali. And afterwards, when Domenico painted the altar-panel, he caused to be placed in the gilt ornament, under an arch, as a finishing touch to that panel, a very beautiful Tabernacle of the Sacrament, on the frontal of which he made a little shield a quarter of a braccio in length, containing the arms of the said owners—that is, the Ricci. And a fine jest it was at the opening of the chapel, for these Ricci looked for their arms ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat, which suited him better with the coat, sent for the hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling-iron, for he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his eagerness to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... the house, and a prolonged clamor—a sort of witches' chorus, with wailing and shrieking without. Once a heavy branch was torn from one of the great elms, and came thundering down on the roof. This proved the finishing touch for poor Virginia. She went into violent hysterics, and was carried off to bed by Miss Way land and Old ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... finishing touch to her despised "best" dress, Beryl brought forth her green beads. Robin exclaimed over them, taking them out of Beryl's hand to ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... excesses a second time before speaking of them, so that I could give an exact and genuine account of actual facts. Courage failed me to see all, but what I have seen can be summed up in one phrase. In the environs of Shabatz the vanquished put the finishing touch to their acts of fearful savagery by butchering their Servian prisoners, whose corpses were found heaped ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... exertion to the player, withstanding atmospheric changes, and preserving its purity and truthfulness of tone. He resolved that each piano should be an improvement upon the one which preceded it; perfection was his aim. To the end of his life he gave the finishing touch to each of his instruments, and would trust it to no one else. He permitted no irregularity in workmanship or sales, and was characterized by ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... thought to the office, took up a position near her, and called Mathieu and compelled him likewise to lean over and look down. A well-appointed victoria was waiting below with a superb-looking coachman motionless on the box-seat. This sight put a finishing touch to the excitement of the Moranges. When Seraphine had installed the little girl beside ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... time, I often had to work far into the night, and on one occasion when I was thus secretly engaged in my studio upon these large pictures until the small hours, I remember a catastrophe very nearly happened which would have put a finishing touch of a very different kind to that which I intended, not only to the picture, but to the artist himself. It happened thus. About three o'clock in the morning, long after the household had retired to rest, I became conscious of a smell of burning. I made a minute search round the studio, but could ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... stock of cigars thus made up, from the first sowing to the last finishing touch, the good squire (being Yankee-like, a sort of Jack-of-all-trades,) would have them put up in gorgeously labeled boxes, carry them to town, and sell them to retail dealers; not disdaining himself, twice or thrice a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... French-Canadian. What the coast needs is not coddling and charity but conservation and protection against depredators from outside. The best way to begin is to protect the seabirds. And the best body to do this is the Commission of Conservation. The Province of Quebec has just put the finishing touch to a great work by establishing an animal sanctuary in the heart of the Laurentides National Park. It is also doing good work by making the game laws more effective elsewhere. But, being dependently human, it can hardly pass over ...
— Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... begged the War Office to change the method by which I sent copies of my Proemial cables to Maxwell was that I found he (animated, of course, by the best intentions) was improving the successes and minimising the failures. The finishing touch was given when, one day, he inserted the phrase 'The enemy is demoralized and has to submit by day and by night to our taking his trenches.' Obviously, even the most stupid fellaheen after reading such a sentence must, in the course ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... satisfaction, for Bridget was a general favourite among her companions and they were all pleased to hear her praised. Every one was pleased; Miss Tasker, who was fond of Bridget, beamed behind her spectacles, and carried home the good news to Mrs Watson, whose pleasure put a finishing touch to Bridget's exultation. Indeed, for some minutes she was more like a windmill than ever, through excess of joy, but it was holiday time, and even ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... performance, execution; despatch, dispatch; consummation, culmination; finish, conclusion; close &c (end) 67; terminus &c (arrival) 292; winding up; finale, denouement, catastrophe, issue, upshot, result; final touch, last touch, crowning touch, finishing touch, finishing stroke; last finish, coup de grace; crowning of the edifice; coping-stone, keystone; missing link &c 53; superstructure, ne plus ultra [Lat.], work done, fait accompli [Fr.]. elaboration; finality; completeness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Duke of Lester, all amiability and interest, gave the finishing touch to Lord Chandos' fate. When he had once spoken of the matter, there was no receding from it without a scandal that would have horrified all England. The duke's first words settled the whole matter; he held out his hand in frankest, kindliest ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... "Now for the finishing touch!" cries George; "bring the turf; Fred—I'm ready!" The water of the burn is rushing violently through the narrow outlet in the "dike." A heavy stone is dropped into the gap, and turf ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... of glasses, and broke into open, shaking, hysterical laughter. Paul surveyed her grimly. Her excitement had flushed her cheeks and darkened her eyes, and her sudden, apparently light-hearted, mirth put the finishing touch to a picture that could seem to her husband nothing but a care-free, not to say childish, attitude toward a situation of grave concern to him and his prospects and ambitions in the world. His inborn and highly cultivated ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... on the counter, and while the florist selected and bound the blossoms into a bunch, she arrested his finishing touch. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... spent two summers there as a cure for nervous prostration, fascinated Edna without meaning to and made a new woman of her in the process. There is the story for you. A year ago Mrs. Dale took her to Europe as a sort of finishing touch, I suppose. I understand Westford thinks her affliction has developed her wonderfully, and finds her immensely improved; which must mean that she has triumphed over her grief, but has not forgotten, for Westford would never pardon a ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... to meet me, blushing sweetly. She had put a finishing touch to the magenta costume by a large pink moss rosebud. She ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... and arms. A gentleman with a wooden leg and a three-cornered hat held a candle high in the air. There was something weird about the emergence of this new figure; if it stood for nothing more than a finishing touch to the horror of that night of murder, it fulfilled its aim to perfection. The wooden-legged man uplifting the candle was like an impious spirit from the nether world, and it was not necessary to dwell upon the narrow chin, the sneering mouth, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... the little drama; and only wondered sometimes that Nesta seemed to care so little for the organ now, and was so often occupied in walking or driving with the major. This, perhaps, made her enjoy her visits to Mr. Russell's studio the more; and when one day he put the finishing touch to the bit of sculpture, she looked rather wistfully ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... yourself too much," M. Linders would reply calmly, putting the finishing touch to Madelon as a bergere standing in the midst of a flock of sheep, and a green landscape—like the enlarged top of a bonbonniere. "You are too ambitious, mon cher—you are little, and want to be great—hence your discomfort; whilst I, who am little, and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... several years—for it is a long time now since the foolish adventure of the flower-pot first showed me that she took a tenderer interest in me than merely that of a cousin—and I now determined to give my second chapter the finishing touch, and consult her on the farther ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... put the finishing touch on this job while both of us are here to do it. What do you say? Shall we haul ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Thus was the finishing touch put to Billy Bright's education at that time, and we have described the incident in order that the reader may fully understand the condition of the boy's mind as he stood gazing round the library of the ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Esther, as she gave a finishing touch to the disposal of the blue and white hangings about the high-post bedstead, "I wonder if that will be to the taste of the little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... and various educational reformers to education of any description. There are people who would abolish our spelling, our clothing, our food and, most emphatically, our drink. Mr. H. G. Wells adds the finishing touch to this volume of denials, by blandly suggesting in an appendix to his Modern Utopia, headed "Scepticism of the Instrument," that our senses are so liable to err, that we can never be really sure ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... add that the Constitution of the United States set aside all temporal power of the Pope in this country, and that if any doubts remain, the finishing touch is given by the following oath of naturalization, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... the finishing touch to Mrs. Roy's discomfiture. Nothing could be made of her for a few minutes. Presently, her agitation somewhat subsided; she lifted her head, and spoke as with a ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the tone—the finishing touch!" he murmured in caressing accents; while to himself he muttered—"It shall not be! It shall never be!" Then with a swift movement his hand snatched at the thing he always carried concealed near his ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... maid approached her with a hare's-foot and a saucer, to put a finishing touch on her face, to which she submitted with indifference, listening all the time to the music that came to her through the open door. There was time yet, but she was not impatient any more; the opera had begun and she was a part of it already, before she had set her foot upon the stage, before ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... the finishing touch to Molly's righteous anger. Brandishing a hairbrush threateningly, she marched over to her sister and looked down upon the slender figure, in its clinging white dress, with ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... stemmed pink roses that exactly matched the buds in her paper, and she had begged an old Japanese fan from her Mother. This was decorated with a remarkably healthy pink sunset on a gray green ground, and she tacked it up as a finishing touch above the bed lounge, which was destined to be a bone of contention among the three little girls for the remainder of the summer. At first, not one of the three was willing to be cast upon this ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... brought to them of a fearful spectre that had made its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... had been fixed as the hour at which the business of the academy was to begin. Always punctual, wherever his professional engagements were concerned, Valentine put the finishing touch to his preparations as the clock struck; and perching himself gaily on a corner of Mrs. Blyth's couch, surveyed his drawing-boards, his lamps, and the plaster cast set up for his pupils to draw from, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... pays a price, and a large one, for the prosperity he achieves. To be conspicuously successful commonly involves a degree of selfishness that is almost surely damaging. Often injustice and unfairness are added to the train of factors, and dishonesty and absence of decency give the finishing touch. Every dollar tinged with doubt is a moral liability. If it has been wrested from its rightful owner through fraud or force of opportunity, it would better be at the bottom of ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... is there is only too much danger that the local complaints against the government may be exactly like the official explanations of the government; that is, mere strings of long words with very little meaning involved. In short, if people are to learn to talk English it will be a refreshing finishing touch to their culture if they learn to talk plain English. Of this it would be hard to find a better working model than what may be called scriptural English. It would be a very good thing for everybody concerned ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... vigorous four days' growth. As for Victor Hugo, he wore a gray hat of a very dubious shade, a faded blue coat with gilt buttons resembling a casserole in colour and shape, a much frayed black cravat, and, as a finishing touch, a pair of green spectacles that would have delighted the heart of the head clerk of a county sheriff, enemy of ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... Mr. Polly from the irksome duty of issuing invitations, and as the moments of assembly drew near she sent him and Mr. Johnson out into the narrow long strip of garden at the back of the house, to be free to put a finishing touch or so to her preparations. She sent them out together because she had a queer little persuasion at the back of her mind that Mr. Polly wanted to bolt from his sacred duties, and there was no way out of the garden except ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... boarding-house. The subject of work gave me my opportunity, and I asked her if she knew of a job. She shook her head. She was a skirt-hand; she had worked in a Broadway sweat-shop, and didn't know anything about any other sort of work. As we talked she finished her toilet, putting on as the finishing touch a great picture-hat and a scanty black Eton. Ready for the street, you would have little dreamed that she had slept in a ten-cent lodging-house. After going through a sort of inspection by the old woman at the entrance, during which it was ascertained we had not pilfered anything, we were ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... umbrella, the foreign gentleman called at the studio the next day to get it. Whistler was out, but the visitor was much moved to find the "finishing touch" had been ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... in her cheeks, a dewy look in her baby-blue eyes. Rosalind's toilet was all but finished; she stood before her glass now and hesitated. Should she go to the Elliot-Smiths' as she was or should she give the last finishing touch to render herself perfect? Should she wear her ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the election of Mr. Polk, and its champions hurried up their work, and pushed it by methods in open disregard of the Constitution and of our treaty obligations with Mexico. In the last hours of the administration of John Tyler the atrocious plot received its finishing touch and the Executive approval, and, in the apt words of the ablest and fairest historian of the transaction, "the bridal dress in which Calhoun had led the beloved of the slaveocracy to the Union was the torn and tattered Constitution of the United States." War with Mexico, as prophesied by the Whigs, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... wonder. I believe he would like to put me in a cage and carry me about with him in Paris on exhibition. But he is reluctantly prepared to part with me, and has consented to my return in a few days' time, to England, by the North German Lloyd steamer. He has ordered the sea voyage as a finishing touch to my cure. Good, deluded man, he thinks that it is his fortuitous science that has dragged me out of the Valley of the Shadow and set me in the Garden of Life. Good, deluded man! He does not realise that he has been merely the tool of the Arch-Jester. He has no notion of the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the stove was a pot half filled with a mixture of boiled rice and prunes. In the oven was some soggy bread, and on the hearth some cold bacon. A can half filled with pale brown coffee added the finishing touch to a layout perfectly familiar to me. I thanked the cook and proceeded to dish out some of the rice whose grayish color aroused Zulime's distrust. She refused to even taste it. "It looks as if it were filled ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... polished floors, cleaned windows, and arranged the rooms as best he could inside the cabin; then he gave a finishing touch to everything outside. He could not have told why he did it, but he thought it was because there was hope that now the Girl would come to Onabasha. If he found opportunity to bring her to the city, he hoped that possibly he might drive home with her and show Medicine Woods, so everything ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... a gentle reminder of the extraordinary care he has bestowed upon us, in little things as well as in bigger, during our brief acquaintance with him, he dusts them off. That last attentive flick of his coat-tail is the finishing touch of an elaborate retrospective panorama we are expected to conjure up of the valuable services he has rendered us, and for which he is now justly entitled ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... proposal had been recommended by the Government of India, and although, during that period, four successive Viceroys, each backed up by a unanimous Council, had declared themselves strongly in favour of the change, that the finishing touch was given to the new organization, by the abolition of the offices of Commanders-in-Chief of Madras and Bombay, and the creation of four Army Corps, namely, the Punjab, the Bengal, the Madras, and the Bombay, each commanded by ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... were undeniably heretics. It served his purpose very well to play them off against the emperor and even Francis I., but it was not his will to be bound irrevocably by any contract. When Cromwell thought to put the finishing touch to his triumphant scheme, he only effected his own doom. He boasted to the Lutherans that he would soon bring England over to their forms of faith, and on this promise the match between Henry and Anne ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... of such a good commander of the old English tongue that is of some importance. But the wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of Ingersoll can only be adequately understood when you also have the finishing touch of his facile voice.] ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... apples, currants, sugar, and a sprinkling of cocoa put in "to see what it would taste like." But the boy's attention was not given wholly to the work, his mind was partly occupied with something else. He wandered over and stood at the opposite end of the table, watching Queen Mab as she put the finishing touch to her pie-crust, twisting up the edge ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... 'Nan's last;' and if you happened to meet him anywhere between the United Service Club and Spring Gardens, completely self-absorbed, his face brimming over with laughter, you might be sure he was just putting on a finishing touch. Rather than abandon one of these self-invented stories of his, I think he would have parted with any half-dozen of his crosses and medals; but indeed this last would not have been difficult, for he had served in every part of the world where a ship would float, and honours ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... all the other drawbacks which I counted and treasured as proofs of my desperate condition, if I were to go. It needed little to decide me, and I think K—'s arrival from Switzerland, offensively sunburnt, was the finishing touch. His greeting was 'Hullo, Carruthers, you here? Thought you had got away long ago. Lucky devil, though, to be going now, just in time for the best driving and the early pheasants. The heat's been shocking out there. Carter, bring me a Bradshaw'—(an ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... porch. There were six of them, and the gorgeous sheen of their feathers as they spread their tails in the sunshine was a sight worth remembering. In fact, as Miss Russell often remarked, they gave a finishing touch to the whole scene, and made the Manor look more than ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... one step further, which is so often fatal to great enterprises, they had sought to add a finishing touch of realism to their impersonation by the inclusion of a little feminine interest; and to that end Dilly had been added to the cast—or more likely had added herself—in the role of a young person of humble station bringing ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... last of all. Although he tried hard not to show it, he, too, could scarcely refrain from enthusiastic comment. The sight of an opal-globed chandelier over the dining-room table was the finishing touch. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... the most finished piece of work he had ever done, and he had worked on it a design of the village in which they lived. Mary's idea now was to fill this basket with flowers, and to offer it to the young Countess as her birthday present. Her father readily fell in with the plan, and added a finishing touch to it by weaving Amelia's name in on one side of the basket and the ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... improved; so much so, that Winnie had gained from her the promise to fill her station for a part of the evening. The brilliant lights already streamed from every window in the mansion, and the finishing touch, (if such a thing can be said of a lady's toilet,) had been made by Winnie's attendant, much to the satisfaction of all concerned; for although the beauty was willing to submit to all the tortures of hair-dressing, etc., etc., yet before ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... the duchess, and all in the garden were listening to the conversation of the two heroes, and were beyond measure amused by it; and now, desirous of putting a finishing touch to this rare and well-contrived adventure, they applied a light to Clavileno's tail with some tow, and the horse, being full of squibs and crackers, immediately blew up with a prodigious noise, and brought Don ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... shift with the contents of the cook's work-basket, which he poured in—reels, pin-cushions, wax, and all. He had tried to put the kitchen cat in too, but she scratched his hands and could not be induced to form the finishing touch ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... absolute devotion, such as that of Said to Mahomet, put the finishing touch to the horrible achievement of Lucien's ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac |
