"Deftness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... next to Pelle sat a silent family, a man and wife and three children, who breathed politely through their raw little noses. The parents were little people, and there was a kind of inward deftness about them, as though they were continually striving to make themselves yet smaller. Pelle knew them a little, and entered into conversation with them. The man was a clay-worker, and they lived in one of the miserable huts near the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... eyes from care By some determined deftness; put forth joys Dear as excess without the core that cloys, And charm Life's ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... and other pieces of metal, each of which must be separately handled between thumb and finger twice—once put into the case and once taken out of it—each issue of the paper. No one inexperienced in this delicate work has the slightest conception of the intensity of attention, fixity of eye, deftness of touch, readiness of intelligence, exhaustion of vitality, and destruction of brain and nerve which enters into the daily newspaper ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... American Artists, in New York, was much admired. At the 1904 exhibition of the Philadelphia Academy Mrs. Chase exhibited a portrait of children, Constance and Gordon Worcester, of which Arthur Hoeber writes: "She has painted them easily, with deftness and feeling, and apparently caught their character and ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... promptly, though not with any special deftness. And first she stooped and picked up the last match her father had dropped upon the strip of carpet that ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... eyes were fixed on her husband's hands with a singular intensity. Her eyes followed his, and the beauty of her husband's hands came to her again with new force. They were perfectly shaped, supple, warm-colored, and strong. Their color and deftness stood out in vivid contrast to the heavy, brown, cracked, and calloused, paw-like hands ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... head very slightly. "Everything's been fine, Major Quillan," he said. "Thank you." He turned and went out of the place. Trigger glanced after him. Virod awed her a little—he was really huge. Moving about among them, he had seemed like a softly padding elephant. And there was an elephant's steady deftness in the way he held out the ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... home. After a little hesitation I told her all, and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart just the counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving consolation. She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in the very way she said the words. I used ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... of a gale to a man at sea in an open boat. Mackenzie heard Dad leaving the wagon in cautious haste, and opened his eyes to see. Rabbit was beside him with a bowl of savory-smelling broth, which she administered to him with such gentle deftness that Mackenzie could not help believing Dad had libeled her in his story of the accident that had left its mark ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... of the nineteenth century looked on no more characteristic farmhouse than that where dwelt Diarmid Garland and his brood, on the bank above the swift-running water-race which turned the corn-mill with such deftness that people came from as far ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... sat a slight, feminine figure, whom he recognized as the teacher of the past season's local school. She had a pallid face, which she rarely raised, compressed lips, and hands which attracted Gordon by reason of their white deftness, the precise charm of their pointed fingers. During a seemingly interminable grace, pronounced in a rapid sing-song by the circuit rider, Gordon saw her flash her gaze about the table, the room; and ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... he had no friends who knew, a mere common servant must educate him, if he did not wish to see him derided and looked down upon and actually "cut" by gentlemen that WERE gentlemen? All this to say nothing of Pearson's own well- earned reputation for knowledge of custom, intelligence, and deftness in turning out the objects of his care in such form as to be a reference in themselves when a new place was wanted. Of course sometimes there were even real gentlemen who were most careless and indifferent to appearance, and who, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was manufacturing the gold thread (called kalabatoon) for these curious loom embroideries. The kalabatoon consists of gold wire wound about a silk thread; and nothing could better illustrate the deftness of the Hindu fingers than the motions of the workman whom we saw. Over a polished steel hook hung from the ceiling the end of a reel of slightly twisted silk thread was passed. This end was tied ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... particular girl, however, takes the other way, and, running her chromatic neatly up from about middle C, pauses for a breath, and then astonishes her audience by striking off two perfectly attuned notes several degrees higher up, hitting her mark with the ease and deftness of a prima donna. So odd and surprising a laugh is sure to be quickly infectious, and its owner is never at a loss for company in her merriment, while a cheerful temper, unclouded by a shade of envy or suspicion, is not in the least disturbed by the knowledge ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... welter of surface foam. To dive from the beach into this, to fly into the air off racing feet, turn in mid- flight so that heels are up and head is down, and, so to enter the water head-first, requires wisdom of waves, timing of waves, and a trained deftness in entering such unstable depths of water with pretty, unapprehensive, head-first cleavage, while at the same time making ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... times. "Les Romanesques"—"The Romancers"—was performed for the first time in Paris, at the Comedie Francaise, in 1894, and achieved considerable success. Its delicacy and charm revealed the true poet, and the deftness with which the plot was handled left little doubt as to the author's ability to construct an interesting and moving drama. But not until the production of "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1897 did Rostand become known to the world at large. "L'Aiglon" ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... by the sheer body of work the women have brought in, by the deftness, energy, and enthusiasm they throw into the simpler but quite indispensable processes, thereby setting the unskilled man free for the Army, and the skilled man for work which women cannot do, Great Britain has become possessed of new and vast resources of ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of march was directed obliquely, and in the opposite direction to the current. Also, I, as the rearmost of the party, found it pleasant to note how the wary little Ossip of the silvery head went looping over the ice with the deftness of a hare, and practically no raising of the feet, while behind him there trailed, in wild-goose fashion, and as though tied to a single invisible string, six dark and undulating figures the shadows of which kept making themselves visible on the ice, from those figures' feet to points ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... in the glass sadly, and sadly went through the practised, mechanical motions of her dressing; smoothing the back of her irreproachable coat, arranging her delicate laces with a deftness no indifference could impair. Yesterday she had had delight in that new garment and in her own appearance. She knew that Majendie admired her for her distinction and refinement. Now she wondered what he could have seen in her—after ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... musical structure of "Hansel und Gretel" in the Wagnerian manner, but has done it with so much fluency and deftness that a musical layman might listen to it from beginning to end without suspecting the fact, save from the occasional employment of what may be called Wagnerian idioms. The little work is replete with melodies which, though original, bear a strong ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... wine as prettily as he if I can, and win your favour." So the king bade the butler hand him the bowl, and Cyrus took it and mixed the wine just as he had seen Sacas do, and then, showing the utmost gravity and the greatest deftness and grace, he brought the goblet to his grandfather and offered it with such an air that his mother and Astyages, too, laughed outright, and then Cyrus burst out laughing also, and flung his arms round his grandfather ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... went stooping to look, the can now standing on the low shelf; and as he said "I shall report this", Hogarth, stooping, with quick deftness had the vials picked from ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... shoved back into the place prepared for it by Mr. Adams, but the glimpses still to be seen of its blue surface through the hole made in the wall of the antechamber formed anything but an attractive feature in the scene, and Mr. Gryce, with something of the instinct and much of the deftness of a housewife, proceeded to pull up a couple of rugs from the parlor floor and string them over these openings. Then he consulted his watch, and finding that it was within an hour of nine o'clock, took up his stand behind the curtains of the parlor window. Soon, for the person expected was as ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... Strange had advanced. "I think, if you will allow me the privilege, madam, that I can shift you into a much more comfortable position." And with a deftness and ease certainly not to be expected from one of her slight physique, Violet raised the helpless invalid a ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... how old the craft might be. The boy was expected to draw with such rapidity that the person who was throwing the water along the deck should not have to wait. It was considered quite an art to throw the water properly, and also to supply it, and it taxed both the strength and the deftness of the youngster; many a wigging he would get in the process of training ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... her mother and hesitated. Then, apparently reading her mother's face, she said, "In a minute, da," and seizing the broom, which was much taller than herself, she began to brush up the crumbs about the table with amazing deftness. This task completed, and the crumbs being thrown into the pig's barrel which stood in the woodshed just outside the door, Jessac set her broom in the corner, hung up the dust-pan on its proper nail behind ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... modified hands; being able to grasp things only in a cumbersome way. The squirrel handles a nut with agility, the beaver builds his dam, and likewise do many other animals accomplish much with certain deftness. But the grace, suppleness, and precision, so characteristic of the human hand, are lacking. Only in man does the organ attain perfection. He alone enjoys the distinction of being able to manipulate thumb and forefinger in ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... town had vanished from sight and hearing. It had become already indeed almost incredible, in the glow of the May afternoon, and amid the hawthorn white of the hedges, the chattering birds that fled before them, the marvellous green of the fields. Helena drove with the deftness of a practised hand, avoiding ruts, ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Fable for Critics and the Biglow Papers, he had burst forth as a most effective and slashing satirist. His culture was closely and perfectly fitted, but when scratched, revealing in full proportions the "Whang-doodle" Yankee. The whang, however, handling with all the deftness in the world the broadest and subtlest themes, and the doodle standing for a patriotism of the noblest. Those who came into close connection with him say that he grew morbidly fastidious, shrinking from coarse ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... who had certainly been induced to chatter by Grannie herself, made no response, but rose and set about his work as kitchen-maid and cook with much deftness. He stirred the oatmeal into the pot of boiling water, made the porridge, set the huge smoking dish on the center of the table, put the children's mugs round, laid a trencher of brown bread and a tiny morsel of butter on the board, ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... impressionist. His best painting betrays something of that almost modern sensitiveness to pleasurable juxtapositions of delicate colour which we admire in Orchardson, in Linton (sic!), and in Albert Moore; it betrays, sometimes, as in a portrait of Miss Alexander, a deftness of brushwork in the wave of a feather, in the curve of a hat ... and of high art qualities ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... low hut formed in the cocoa-nut grove by utilising six growing trees as corners and centre-posts, and binding to these thin horizontal poles, freshly cut down for eaves and ridge. Others formed gables, being fixed by the sailors with their customary deftness, thin rattans being used as binding cords. Then other poles had been bound together for the roof, and over these an abundant thatching of palm leaves had been laid and laced on with rattan till there was ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... the wigwam. His bow was flung over his back, and, being perfectly familiar with the interior, he extended his hand and caught up the weapon nearest him, standing erect and facing all the occupants as did Arorara a short time before. This movement and the entrance itself were made with such deftness that no one observed his presence, with the exception of Otto Relstaub, who by accident happened to look toward him just ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... did, protest notwithstanding, so that Jeff, returning from his work in the middle of the day, was surprised to find her flushed and animated in the kitchen, clad in one of Granny Grimshaw's aprons, rolling out pastry with the ready deftness ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... pitiless, No little waist or coat or checkered dress But knew her needle's deftness; and no skill Matched hers in shaping pleat or flounce or frill; Or fashioning, in complicate design, All rich embroideries of leaf and vine, With tiniest twining tendril,—bud and bloom And fruit, so like, one's fancy caught perfume And dainty touch and taste of them, to see Their semblance ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... have done the same! Only the other day, an actress was saying that what she was most proud of in her art—next, of course, to having appeared in some provincial pantomime at the age of three—was the deftness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a rapid succession of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge from the palm of her right hand or powder from the palm of her left. Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... one of the cushions was slipping to one side. She replaced it with a deftness of touch natural to her, yet seemingly incongruous with her harum-scarum ways. Then she settled herself with her back against a tree, facing ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... an inhuman, devilish deftness in the rhymes. The mighty mechanism of English verse had been employed to proclaim my ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... a handful of snow with which he began to rub the woman's face. Afterwards he removed her gloves to manipulate her cold hands. He worked swiftly, with the deftness of practice, but the results were slow, and presently he took the rug from the pack he carried and covered her while he felt in Frederic's pockets for the flask he had neglected to return. "Likely there wasn't a drop left when she came to need it, you brute. And I'd like to leave ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... not being able to understand a single move, soon found it insufferably stupid. But Mary became more and more interested in watching a tall, athletic figure in outing flannels and white shoes, who swung his racket with the deftness of an expert, and who flashed an amused smile at her over the net occasionally, as if he understood the situation and was ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... course to Bill, then went into the cabin. In a minute or less he had searched and obtained clean rags, torn strips from them, found a nearly exhausted bottle of vaseline, coated the rag with it and, with a deftness almost worthy of a surgeon, washed the wound with a quick sopping of gasoline. Then as more blood was flowing, he bound up the shoulder and arm so that the flow stopped and by its coagulation germs were excluded. ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... linen yarn in one day, an extraordinary amount. This was enough to weave twelve linen handkerchiefs. At this time when there were about five or six skeins to a pound of flax, the pay for spinning was sixpence a skein. The Abbe Robin wondered at the deftness ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... deceptive age. It was never fully determined whether One-Ear or Red-Spot could throw a stone ax with the greater accuracy, although certainly he could hurl one with greater force than could his wife. But the deftness of each in eluding such dangerous missiles was about the same, and no great harm had at any time resulted from the effects of momentary ebullitions of anger, followed by action on the part of either. There had not been at any time a scandal in the family. The pair were faithful to each other. Society ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... sat late, making her aunt a cap. The one sign of originality in her was the character of her millinery, of which kind of creation she was fond, displaying therein both invention as to form, and perception as to effect, combined with lightness and deftness of execution. She was desirous of completing it before the next morning, which was that of her aunt's birthday. They had had friends to dine with them who had stayed rather late, and it was now getting towards one o'clock. But Helen was not ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... good his words. He understood the putting up of tents, his experience in the army being not yet remote. Young Hiram gazed with growing admiration at Yates' deftness and evident knowledge of what he was about, while his contempt for the professor's futile struggle with a spade entangled in tree roots ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... and activity of the mental powers, cultivates a correct taste and fosters industry and ingenuity among those who seek to procure for them the material and designs for dress. Among the middle classes it encourages diligence, contrivance, planning and deftness of handiwork, and among the poorer classes it promotes industry and economy. A fondness for dress, when it does not degenerate into vain show, has an elevating and refining ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... heavy yellow masses with both hands, twisted them up with astonishing speed and deftness, and let her arms fall upon ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... Pelliter's sleeve before his comrade could find words to object. Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face was shot with pain. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his forearm, but had fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of the wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it tightly with his own and Pelliter's handkerchiefs. Then he ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... revolve the little cylinder with its dotted spiral indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus of the reproducing diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack of turning the crank steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk into the machine; and there was some deftness required also in fastening down the tinfoil on the cylinder where it was held by a pin running in a longitudinal slot. Paraffined paper appears also to have been experimented with as an impressible material. It is said that Carman, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... up a long fragment of a fallen bough, and he ran toward the horseman, springing from the shelter of one tree trunk to that of another with all the deftness of a primitive Wyandot. He was almost upon the rider before the man turned ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... no doubt—had said that his style somewhat resembled Junius's; but of course, you know—well, what he could say was that in the last campaign his articles were widely sought for. He did not know but he had a copy of one. Here his hand dived into the breast-pocket of his coat, with a certain deftness that indicated long habit, and, after depositing on his lap a bundle of well-worn documents, every one of which was glaringly suggestive of certificates and signatures, he concluded he had left it ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... it was, when she appeared. Her hair blew in the wind with changes of colour; her garments moulded her with the accuracy of sculpture; the ends of her shawl fluttered about her ear and were caught in again with an inimitable deftness. You have seen a pool on a gusty day, how it suddenly sparkles and flashes like a thing alive? So this lady's face had become animated and coloured; and as I saw her standing, somewhat inclined, her lips parted, a divine trouble in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against himself. We think that Cicero of all men may be left to do so—Cicero, who so well understood the use of words, and could use them in his own defence so deftly. I maintain that it has been that very deftness which has done him all the harm. Not one of those letters of the last years would have been written as it is now had Cicero thought, when writing it, that from it would his conduct have been judged after two thousand years. "No," will say my readers, "that is ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... ingenuity, cleverness, technic, dexterity, proficiency, expertness, facility, deftness, knack. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... likeness of which had fired his heart for many a day. With the patience of the Oriental he stood in the shadow and waited. Sooner or later they would leave the room, and sooner or later, with the deftness of his breed, he would enter. The leopard he had heard about was nowhere ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... was small, and had a weazened face devoid of hair except for a pair of bushy, iron-gray eyebrows, beneath which his eyes gleamed as cunningly bright as those of a fox. He answered to the name of Grimshaw; and as he counted bills with the deftness and rapidity of a bank cashier, he also paid a certain amount of attention to the remarks of his ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... letter was its composition took some little time. The deftness which characterized Persis in most of her work, did not extend to her epistolary efforts. She was still puckering her forehead over the page when Thomas Hardin knocked. The door was ajar and glancing over her shoulder, she ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... folks were young like you, we did not have the regular, scraggly bits of iron and dainty rubber ball. We played with pieces of stones. I suspect more deftness was needed in handling them than in using the new fashioned pieces. Certainly, in trials than I can remember, I never played the game through without a break; but then I was never half so handy as you are at such things: that, ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... and arms, moreover, still pained considerably, for they had been very cruelly bruised with the ropes, which the barbarians had drawn tight with a force that bespoke both skill and deftness. His need of some occupation forced him to assure himself, a dozen times over, that both revolvers were completely filled. Fortunately, the captors had not known enough to rob either Beatrice or him ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... field; but ever the ground lay an unrelieved black beneath the bright sun, and they would go reluctantly home again, today there was much work to be done, and Zora labored steadily and eagerly, never pausing, and gaining in deftness and care. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... me do things to her hair. Usually she wore a stiff and ugly coiffure that could only be described as a chignon. I do not recollect ever having seen a chignon, but I know that it must look like that. I was thankful for my Irish deftness of fingers as I stepped back to view the result of my labors. The new arrangement of the hair gave her features ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... with a little game of poker?" asked Sheeley, lightly running a deck of cards up the length of his arm and reversing them with a deftness ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... eager, we ran over to the dining-tent, and there, close beside it, found the little kitchen, its ovens smoking hot, and a man outside, aproned and capped, cutting up chops and steaks, with careless deftness, and laying them in the great ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... ripple of admiration on his passage to this room, now approached. His motions were exact and incredibly swift. It was his duty to remove full spools and replace them by empty ones, and he did this duty for sixteen spinning frames. Seeing the "new hand's" astonishment at his deftness he became reckless and, intending an unusually dexterous movement, miscalculated his reach, and the result was a momentary ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... broad flight of granite steps under its overhanging portico as a carriage dashed up on the other side. The high doors above were flung open and a roll of red cloth dropped from step to step down to the pavement, a couple of footmen placing it with the quick deftness of use until ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... again in requisition. Each comes armed with a coorpee,—this is a small metal spatula, broad-pointed, with which they dig out the weeds with amazing deftness. Sometimes they may inadvertently take out a single stem of indigo with the weeds: the eye of the mate or Tokedar espies this at once, and the careless coolie is treated to a volley of Hindoo Billingsgate, in which all his relations are ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... I responded, gladly relinquishing my place. With a deftness and ease that could only be explained by the fact that the duck was ready and willing to be carved, she removed the legs and then ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... and Morris reached their loft a good hour ahead of the letter-carrier, and when he entered they both made a grab for the mail which he handed them. Morris won out, and as he shuffled the letters with the deftness of long pinochle ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... O' CORMAC, AN' TALES OF OTHER MEN'S SONS, by Aldis Dunbar (E.P. Dutton & Company). This collection of fifteen Irish fairy and hero tales, told by a gardener to a little boy, show considerable deftness of fancy, and although the idiom Mr. Dunbar uses is borrowed and not quite convincing, his book seems to me almost as good as those of Seumas ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was on her knees, though I strove half rudely to prevent her, and was binding up my shoulder with a wonderful deftness of her ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... and chic. His footwork was infallible. The intricate and imbecilic steps of the day he performed in flawless sequence. Under his masterly guidance the feet of the least rhythmic were suddenly endowed with deftness and grace. One swayed with him as naturally as with an elemental force. He danced politely and almost wordlessly unless first addressed, according to the code of his kind. His touch was firm, yet remote. The dance ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... an unusually bad humor, and he scowled. With exceeding deftness he separated one of the coins from the others, using his fingers like the teeth of a rake, and dropped the rest back jingling into his pocket. The coin that remained he put into his mouth, and bit on it—hard. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... of his predecessor on the throne. But such flaws are external, not essential. On the whole, I can only say that the work of translation has made me feel even more strongly than before the extraordinary grip and reality of the dialogue, the deftness of the construction, and, except perhaps for a slight drop in the Creon scene, the unbroken crescendo of tragedy from the opening ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... profitable; their gang, consisting of forty men, had taken on the work, thanks to the great rush, not by the day but by the amount of work done, by the waggon load. Zavorotny, the head—an enormous, mighty Poltavian—had succeeded with extreme deftness in getting around the owner; a young man, and, to boot, in all probability not very experienced as yet. The owner, it is true, came to his senses later and wanted to change the stipulations; but experienced melon ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... passed; now William took the bellows, marveling at his youthful master's deftness, and now the Lad blew, groaning at his pupil's clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... preferred hearing that story about Ducharme to charging old P. F. Wort with electricity. He went through the treatment with his accustomed deftness, however. As he was leaving the room, Dr. Lindsay asked ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the cards out with a snap of the wrist, the fingers working rapidly over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to the crowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his skill. He was showing it now, not so much by the deftness of his cheating as by the openness with which he exposed ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... which gave it its name of "Elbow," far down among the warehouses and wharves crowding the approach to the bridge. As she walked, she still asked questions and found that all the dwellers in the Lane were better known by their employments than their real names, how that Glory's deftness with a needle had made her "Take-a-Stitch," and anybody might guess why Jane was called "Posy" or Captain Beck had become the "Singer." Besides, she discovered that this ragged newsboy was as fond and proud of his ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... already been replaced over the broken window by the runaway tinker, she turned the knob of the Yale lock on the front door and put one foot over the threshold. It was back again in an instant, however; and this time it was no lawful Patsy that flew back through the hall to the mantel-shelf. With the deftness and celerity of a true housebreaker she de-framed the tinker and stuffed the photograph in the pocket ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... to whom its secret has been once revealed. But the reader with a developed consciousness of method finds an interest evermore renewed in returning again and again to Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue." After his first surprise has been abated, he can enjoy more fully the deftness of the author's art. After he has viewed the play from a stall in the orchestra, he may derive another and a different interest by watching it from the wings. To use a familiar form of words, Jane Austen is the novelist's novelist, Stevenson the writer's writer, Poe ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... years previous, hence his nickname, "Ninepins." He now had charge of a number of girls whom he treated rudely, shouting and swearing at them. The working of these machines needed as much attention of the eye as deftness of hand in lifting up the full spools and replacing them with empty ones, and fastening the broken thread. He was convinced that if he did not shout and swear at them incessantly, emphasizing each curse with a stout bang of his wooden leg on the floor, he would see his machines ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... went into his kitchen and cooked his supper with all a woman's deftness. His kitchen was always clean, though, to the end of keeping it so, he had discarded one thing or another, not imperatively needed. One day he had made a collection of articles only used in a less primitive housekeeping, from nutmeg-grater to fluting-iron, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... order, and that there is no more reason why his sister should follow him up, replacing what he has disarranged, than that he should perform the same office for her. Inculcate in him habits of neatness. In acquiring an "eye" for the disorder he has caused, and deftness in rectifying it, he is taking lessons in tender consideration and growing in intelligent sympathy for mother, sister and ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... please trust me? This contains a neurohypnotic. It won't put you under. It will leave you as wide awake as you are now, but it will disconnect your running gear and keep you from blowing a fuse." Then with swift deftness that amazed me, the doctor slid the needle into my arm and let me have the ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... magnificent crest, The mountain-cock, shrilling In quick time, his note; And the clans of the grot With melody's note, Their numbers are trilling. No foot can compare, In the dance of the green, With the roebuck's young heir; And here he is seen With his deftness of speed, And his sureness of tread, And his bend of the head, And his freedom of spring! Over corrie careers he, The wood-cover clears he, And merrily steers he With bound, and with fling,— As he spurns from his stern ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... paper. In this way, although the natural vigor of the woodcut suffered, an effect of space and distance was achieved. Because of the small scale this technique was difficult, especially when cross-hatching was added, and special knives as well as a phenomenal deftness were needed to work out these bits of jewelry on the plank grain of pear, ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... OF MIXING PROCESSES.—In applying the various mixing processes, it is well to bear in mind that good results depend considerably on the order of mixing, as well as on the deftness and thoroughness with which each process is performed. This fact is clearly demonstrated in a cake in which the butter and sugar have not been actually creamed, for such a cake will not have the same texture ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... no sacrifice of logic to the rules of harmony. Indeed, the work is characterized by a certain uncompromisingness and sharpness in its harmonies. The instrumental coloring is prismatic, all the registers of the strings being utilized with great deftness. Exclusive of the theme of the scherzo, which recalls a little overmuch the Teutonic banalities of Mahler's symphonies, the quality of the music is, on the whole, grave and poignant and uplifted. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Arthur Symons sometimes suggests the Cavalier poets. He has often squandered his powers in acting on his theory that it is one of the provinces of verse to record any momentary mood, irrespective of its value. His deftness of touch and acute poetic sensibility are evident in such short poems as Rain on the Down, Credo, A Roundel of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Woodville there was jealousy. Sylvia, discreet as she was—no sparkling, teasing coquette—had yet all the irresistible magnetism of a woman who is obviously made for tenderness. But she showed as much deftness in keeping back her admirers as most girls do in attracting them. She had curious deep delicacies; she disliked nothing so much as to feel or show her power as a woman. Pride or vanity was equally out of the question in her love; it was unselfish and yet it was not exacting, ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... friend, bestowing a practical shake there, a pluck here, completely retying one bow and restoring an engaging fullness to another, yet critically examining, with her head on one side, the fascinating result. Then Susy performed the same function for Mary with equal deliberation and deftness. Suddenly Mary started ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... a single thought of pity for the creature; they went back to work pleased, excited, amused. It was a good story to tell for a week, and the man who had struck the last blows became a little hero for his deftness. The old savage instinct for prey had swept fiercely up from the bottom of these rough hearts—hearts capable, too, of tenderness and grief, of compassion for suffering, gentle with women and children. ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... triolet, which have been used so abundantly as to become quite a feature in our lighter literature. These are not, or are but rarely, fitted to bear the burden of high emotion; but their precision, and the deftness which their use demands fit them exceedingly well for the more distinguished kind of persiflage. No one has kept these delicate butterflies in flight with the agile movement of his fan so admirably as Mr. Austin Dobson, that neatest ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... a discreet knock, Peterby entered, and, having bowed to the scowling Viscount, proceeded to invest Barnabas with polished boots, waistcoat and scarlet coat, and to tie his voluminous cravat, all with that deftness, that swift and silent dexterity which helped to make ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... wife, Alice, who arranged the wounded man's pillows with a gentleness and deftness as only she could, and who gave quiet orders to the old cook in a way that made Richard Travis feel that things were all right, though he could not speak, nor even open his eyes long enough to ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... his crowded canvases, to imagine the doughty Fleming back in our midst, and taking his place as Jupiter upon his painted Olympus, reawakened to life. Yet, when he in turn approaches this natal subject, his pagan brush touches the canvas lightly, and all its deftness is given to the praise of Our Lady and Our Lord. With him, as with the painters of all and differing nationalities, both Mother and Child bear the strong impress of the painter's surroundings. It is as though the miraculous birth had, by some mysterious ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... particular care. No description can give quite fully the sense of extreme orderliness and careful deliberation of their work. Everything is placed where it will be most convenient for use, and this orderliness is preserved throughout the day's work. Their shapely tools and vessels are handled with a deftness that shames our clumsy ways, and everything that they use is kept quite clean. This skilful orderliness is essential to fine craftmanship, and is ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... of the music—will see that Mendelssohn's object was to give a broad, general picture of the fairy world and to intensify, by his music, the fancy and humor found in the play. The introductory sustained chords, pianissimo, are a happy illustration of his deftness in tone-painting; for, assigned to the ethereal flutes and clarinets, they constitute, as Niecks ingeniously expresses it, a "magic formula" which ushers us into the moonlit realm of fairyland. The first theme in E minor (Allegro di molto: throughout pp and staccato), announced by the strings, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... could mould and bend the prison discipline and rules it was his practice not to use a razor for stone-chipping or a cold-chisel for shaving. He therefore put Vivie to tasks co-ordinated with her ability and the deftness of her hands—such as book-binding. She had of course to wear prison dress—a thing of no importance in her eyes—and her cell was like all the cells in that and other British prisons previous to the newest reforms—dark, rather damp, cruelly ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... deftness, and strength that to Mildred seemed wonderful, she bought the lime, made the wash, and soon dark stains and smoky patches of wall and ceiling grew white under her strong, sweeping strokes. It ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe |
