"Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... methods to be followed scrupulously by the sick. Cure the stomachache by catching a beetle in both hands and throwing it over the left shoulder with both hands without looking backward. Have you intestinal trouble? Eat mulberries picked with the thumb and ring finger of your left hand. Do you grow old before your time? Drink water drawn silently DOWN STREAM from a brook before daylight. Beware of drawing it upstream; your days will be brief. It reminds one of the practice of the modern herb doctor in peeling ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... half an hour a day at the piano from each of the little girls, and faithfully sat beside them saying: "One, two, three, four, don't droop your wrists, Lynn; one, two, three, four, count, Pauline; one, two, three, four, thumb ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Fairlegh? how are you? That stupid fool has made 'em too tight for anybody but Tom Thumb, and be hanged to him. Ever read fairy tales, Fairlegh? I did when I was a little shaver, and wore cock-tailed petticoats—all bare legs and bustle—'a Highland lad my love was born'; that style of thing, rather, you know; never believed 'em, though: wasn't to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... mine! Take holy water, cross your dark skin white; Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks; Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch your robe: Unmake yourself—doff all the eagle plumes And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips Upon a Spaniard's thumb, at will of his That you should prattle o'er his ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... too, that among that very nation whose language had afforded the motto, to "turn up the thumb" (pollicem vertere) was a symbol significant of death. I touched the under surface of my tongue with the tip of my thumb. The aged man was appeased. I passed on, and ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... eight drops of essence of lemon, stirred in at the last. Spread it evenly with a broad knife, over the top of each queen-cake, ornamenting them, (while the icing is quite wet) with red and green nonpareils, or fine sugar-sand, dropped on, carefully, with the thumb and finger. ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... warm pressure on his hand tightened. His heart was making the maddest gladdest leaps, and timidly, with a feeling of historic daring, he ventured to explore with his thumb-tip the fine lines of the side of her hand.... It actually was he, sitting here with a princess, and he actually did feel the softness of her hand, he ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... work at that pitch, and the Company has powers. There are stages of unpleasantness in the work—stoppage of food—and a man or woman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking system in the Company's offices all over the world. Besides, who can leave the city poor? To go to Paris costs two Lions. And for insubordination there are the prisons—dark and miserable—out of sight below. There are prisons now for ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... though I could not for the life of me remember when the last one occurred. However, dreary as the weather may be, one cannot be dull when doing one's morning round of shopping in Pettybaw or Strathdee. I have only to give you thumb-nail sketches of our favourite tradespeople to convince ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unchallenged. But a vague desire for the emphasis and glamour of literature having brought in the word "mother," has yet failed to set the sluggish imagination to work, and a word so glowing with picture and vivid with sentiment is damped and dulled by the thumb-mark of besotted usage to mean no more than "cause" or "occasion." Only for the poet, perhaps, are words live winged things, flashing with colour and laden with scent; yet one poor spark of imagination might save them from this sad descent to ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; "as a matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil of a Jack Rutter. There's a fellow who does things by halves; he's only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him and us! He's under the thumb of a villainous money-lender; we are solvent citizens. He's taken to drink; we're as sober as we are solvent. His pals are beginning to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from the door. Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his thumb on you." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... and body, another the skirt and legs, while the third painted the bow. The head of this goddess was to the north, the bow extending over the structure. The colors used were made from ground pigments sprinkled on with the thumb and forefinger. Whenever a pinch of the dry paint was taken from the pieces of bark which served as paint cups, the artist breathed upon the hand before sprinkling the paint. This, however, had no religious significance, but was merely to clear the finger and thumb of any superfluous sand. The ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... wil frown as I passe by, & let the[m] take it as they list Sam. Nay, as they dare. I wil bite my Thumb at them, which is a disgrace to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or maybe said, "I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, "I will recant." Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: "Stop, I will admit anything ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... trust the chaps, would thee?" said Ben, speaking in the Hampshire dialect. "No, no; don't be doin' that. Measter Jackson may have spoken fair enough, but he knows that he's got his thumb on thee, an' can come down on thee when he loiks. Now, just listen to what I have got to say. I was going to look for thee. The Nancy is expected in before many days are over, an' she'll be sailing ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... see how much people will believe," she said, putting out her candle and snuffing it with her thumb and forefinger. Then she began to arrange the boxes she had brought, setting them in order upon the shelves. Still neither of the men answered her. But she was not the woman to be ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... owe thanks to you," he said, looking down meditatively at the carpet and twirling his watch-key between his finger and thumb. ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms, as in plate the first, where the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... yourself a man. He is fast asleep, but his noise must be stopped. I will stop his mouth, but at the very moment that I do so you must throw open the pan of his musket, and then he cannot fire it." "I will, O'Brien; don't fear me." We crept cautiously up to him, and O'Brien motioning to me to put my thumb upon the pan, I did so, and the moment that O'Brien put his hand upon the soldier's mouth, I threw open the pan. The fellow struggled, and snapped his lock as a signal, but of course without discharging his musket, and in a minute he was not only gagged but ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... triangular cabin under the cock-loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney- piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... read, that never hit 415 On him in Muses' deathless writ. He had a weapon keen and fierce, That through a bull-hide shield wou'd pierce, And cut it in a thousand pieces, 420 Tho' tougher than the Knight of Greece his, With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor Was comrade in the ten years war: For when the restless Greeks sat down So many years before Troy town, 425 And were renown'd, as HOMER writes, For well-soal'd boots no less than fights, They ow'd that glory ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... nothing about it, of course. They never think of lighting a candle and examining the walls. But if they had done so, they would have found on the white plaster a faint red spot, quite distinct, however, to trace in it the imprint of your thumb which you had pressed against the wall while it was wet with blood. Now, as you are well aware, under the Bertillon system, thumb-marks are one of the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... started on a hot-bed, in thumb-pots, or on inverted turf, or sods, cut in convenient pieces; and about the last of May, if the weather is warm and pleasant, transplanted to ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... modesty and timidity, and her gait must also be bashful and maidenly. Her long robe falls to her feet in simple folds, while Peitho holds hers up saucily, between her forefinger and thumb, as if stealthily dancing with triumph over her recent victory. Indeed the figure of Peitho would become ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... been sipping his wine. As Emily suddenly looked up and addressed him, he twirled the glass carelessly between his thumb and finger, remarking, as if this were the only feature of the story that at all impressed him, "A mole, did you say? ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever they get a chance, and store up the ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... main plateau before us is named Darwin Plateau, after the learned evolutionist. Take this plateau as a rude and misshapen hand, imagine the thumb and little finger gone, and it will be seen that the other three fingers radiate from Darwin Plateau in the shape of three irregularly contoured, but fairly level plateaus, Huethawali resting like a great wart upon the base of ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... schoolmate, holding a sovereign between his thumb and finger as fondly as though he had lived in Scotland all his life; "well," said he, "I ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... is willing to hear all that is to be said ere he commits himself by making an answer. To the further astonishment of all who were present, he forbore from his usual abrupt and violent gesticulations, remaining with the nail of his thumb pressed against his teeth, which was his favourite attitude when giving attention, and keeping his eyes bent on the ground, as if unwilling to betray the passion which ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... to make a friend out of the worst enemy your own brother's got; do you?" the bully sneered. "Well, why shouldn't I leave him here to suck his thumb all ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... baby, ordered the butler, on pain of instant dismissal, to bring a bottle of the strongest wine in the cellar, and affirming that he should have been well long ago if he had been let to have his own way, but she wanted to keep him weak in order that she might have him under her thumb—but, by the Lord Harry, he would have no more humbug—seized a glass in one hand and the bottle in the other, and never rested till he had drunk it dry. Alarming symptoms were the immediate result of this 'imprudence,' as she mildly termed it—symptoms which ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... out on misery, vacuity, waste Sands of Oleron and the ever-moaning brine. Ragged, sordid, hungry; wasted to shadows: eating their unclean ration on deck, circularly, in parties of a dozen, with finger and thumb; beating their scandalous clothes between two stones; choked in horrible miasmata, closed under hatches, seventy of them in a berth, through night; so that the 'aged Priest is found lying dead in the morning, in the attitude of prayer!' (Relation de ce qu'ont souffert pour la Religion ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... servant, bound to account for every blade of grass and every ear of corn, as I am, but free and independent mistress of the place, with the chance of being left a widow by and by, and having it all under your own thumb; what do you say ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... lumber-room after a set of old library steps, which I wanted to get repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... slashed up in the woods back of the Weston farm. It was only slightly injured; must have kicked the whatzit and got away, but the whatzit wasn't too badly hurt, because a few hours later, it hit that turkey-flock on the Rhymer farm. And last night, it did that." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Strawmyer farm. "See, following the ridges, working toward the southeast, avoiding open ground, killing only at night. Could be a bobcat, ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... in a dry, reticent, ultra-professional manner. "But I will go so far as to say that I do not think it is a case of shell-shock. If it is what I suspect, that first attack was the precursor of another, possibly a worse attack. Ha! it is commencing. Look at his thumb—that is ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... thing, is an added pleasure which I could not afford to spare. Oh, for the silence of marble courts, for the shadow of great pillars, for gold, for reticulated canopies of lilies; to see the great gladiators pass, to hear them cry the famous "Ave Caesar," to hold the thumb down, to see the blood flow, to fill the languid hours with the agonies of poisoned slaves! Oh, for excess, for crime! I would give many lives to save one sonnet by Baudelaire; for the hymn, "A la tres-chere, a la tres-belle, qui remplit ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... sixty. Hair dark, though not black. Eyes grayish green. Chief distinguishing marks are the green eyes, a broken nose—caused by being struck in the face by a baseball—and a patch of snow-white hair the size of a thumb ball, two inches above the left ear. Accustomed to having his own way, not at all considerate of others. Yet not a bad fellow as men go—merely a man spoiled by too much mothering in boyhood and by the fact that he never had ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... his brawny arm forth, with the fist clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, sometimes let the stopper slip through his fingers, and was sometimes ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... their information in the end amounted to"—the chief constable came to stand immediately in front of Tatham, lowering his voice—"was that the only person with a really serious motive for destroying Melrose, was"—he jerked his thumb in the direction of Faversham's sitting-room—"our friend! They claim—both of them—to have been spectators of the growing friction between the two men. Nash says that Melrose had spoken to him once or twice of revoking, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that Alston would approve anything that he did not believe was for her happiness," Father Orin went on after a brief silence. "But there may have been other inducements. With the judge's nephew under his thumb, he need not have much fear of the law or the court. That was the reason most generally assigned for his patronage of William Pressley in the first place, before there was any engagement between the young man and Ruth. But that will, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... his head to look at her, but he felt a dumb comfort in her presence. It was as if her position there beside him on the pillory made his humiliation less acute. He shifted the water pitcher, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder: ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... upon as of a dull and careless disposition, and to have little or no sense of virtue and honor; besides this, they were to give a good reason for what they said, and in as few words and as comprehensive as might be; he that failed of this, or answered not to the purpose, had his thumb bit by his master. Sometimes the Iren did this in the presence of the old men and magistrates, that they might see whether he punished them justly and in due measure or not; and when he did amiss, they would not reprove him before the boys, but, when they ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the Chinaman's presence. They found him sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth holding the thumb of his right hand. A brief examination revealed that a bullet had clipped off the end of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... from that away," answered the boy, pointing with his thumb toward Indian Head. "The doctor said you would know it was all right by this here," he added, unbuttoning his coat and taking out the doctor's well remembered cane. "An' he don't want none of the ladies ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... find that out myself," said the Colonel; "and I think I shall. When I get the first inch of the thread fast between my finger and thumb, it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little by little, tracing it this way and that, and up and down, and round about, until the whole clue is wound up on my thumb, and the end, and its secret, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... suicide of the steward's daughter was a pure romance. Who would have believed that the silent, dreamy lad had so much presence of mind, and such cunning powers of invention? The praetor's handsome face was radiant with satisfaction as he made these reflections, for now he had the Bithynian under his thumb, and now he knew how to accomplish all he wished. Antinous himself had indicated the right course when he had hastened to the Emperor with a gush of tenderness, in which the warmth was certainly not affected, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... might do, for lustier fighter and mightier dwarf never was. Thus, but for thy witch-like witcheries, the which, Witch, witch do prove thee, but for this and the power and potency of thy spells, now might he crack out thy life 'twixt finger and thumb—" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... become a large business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with catskins and other ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the boy's hand, his thumb pressing back of the second knuckle, his fingers on the palm. He twisted backward and upward gently. "There 's one that's better, though, and easier. See? Not that way," as the boy seized his hand. "Press here. That's right. Now you ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a character ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... jes what all occurred Next ten seconds—Nary word, But my heart jes drapt, stobbed thue, And whirlt over and come to.— Wrenched a big quart bottle from That fool-boy!—and cut my thumb On his little fiste-teeth—helt Him snug in one arm, and felt That-air little heart o' his Churn the blood o' Wigginses Into that old bead 'at spun Roun' her, spilt at Lexington! His k'niptions, like enough, He'pped ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... say an inch and a half high, in pencil. This small sketch should determine, first, the general balance of the page; second, the inter-relations and spacings of the various lines and words and their relative importance and sizes. From this thumb-nail sketch the design should be drawn out at full size in pencil, and much more carefully. In this redrawing the separate letter shapes and their harmonious relations to each other should be determined, and such deviations made from the smaller sketch as seem to benefit ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... degree that he might administer correction to his children. An early decision of one of our state courts interpreted this to mean that a man might whip his wife with a switch as large as his finger, but not larger than his thumb, without ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... window," said Heywood; and then to the white-haired doctor: "Your question's answered, padre. Strange, to come so quick." He jerked his thumb back toward the river. "And that's ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... office-boy returned, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the extreme end of the building, an extension, roofed with glass and separated by a glass screen from the space where the clerks ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... hand rest on the north pole of a magnet and the forefinger be extended in the direction of the lines of force, then the outstretched thumb will indicate the direction in which the wire or conductor moves and the bent middle finger the direction of the current. These three digits, as will be noticed, are all at right angles to each other, ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... worse to him—of effort misdirected, and of constant struggling against a system for which he was not fitted. In fact, Millet was an original genius, whereas the teachers at the School of Fine Arts were careful and methodical rule-of-thumb martinets. They wished to train Millet into the ordinary pattern, which he could not follow; and in the end, he left the school, and attached himself to the studio of Paul Delaroche, then the greatest ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... Emmy Lou failed to see was this: the little boy, in passing, deftly lifted a cherished curl between finger and thumb ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... a wheelbarrow from the gardener who cut their grass when it was cut, and when the tree was trimmed he and Phyllis carried it downstairs. The top branch with the star on it got banged against the banisters, and the side branch got into Guy's eye, and Phyllis's thumb got jammed between the pot and the banister rail. But what are trifles like these ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... have been working, and Mr. Forrest here pulled off one of the cleverest hits that's ever been made. He plastered a silo that stands out like a sore thumb on the landscape, and which every farmer within ten or twenty miles about will go ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... husband, as she called it. It did not follow because he was a butcher that he was to have butchering ideas for ever, or that he was to know nothing of 'literature,' as she termed it—that is, novels. Mr. Mumbles had read 'Puss in Boots,' 'Jack the Giant Killer,' 'Tom Thumb,' 'Jack and the Bean Stalk,' 'Whittington and his Cat,' and 'Mother Goose' in his childhood. In his boyhood he had gone through 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and 'The Seven Champions of Christendom,' and therefore ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... leads you down Petticoat Lane, there, on a Sabbath, to gather, for the week, from the dull rags of ages wherewith to bedeck yourselves? that, beneath your travestied awkwardness, we have trouble to find your own dainty selves? Oh, fie! Is the world, then, exhausted? and must we go back because the thumb of the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... him but his head and his hands and feet. And she sat him up on her knees, so as to fasten his things behind. And then it might have been observed that he was no longer breathing hard, but giving vent to a sound between a laugh and a cry, while sucking his thumb and gazing round ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... to me, means, Send my bonny brown hair, and send my beautiful complexion, and send my figure—and, O Lord! O Lord! what an old tigress that is! What an old Hector! How she do twist Milliken round her thumb! He's born to be bullied by women: and I remember him henpecked—let's see, ever since—ever since the time of that little gloveress at Woodstock, whose picter poor Mrs. M. made such a noise about when she found it in the lumber-room. ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on page 5 shows the best method of cracking walnuts to extract the kernel in halves without breaking. Grasp the nut between the thumb and forefinger at the seam, place on a hard surface of stone or iron and strike sharply with a light hammer only sufficient to crack the shell without crushing ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... him. He was looking at the terraced gardens in the rear of the Baroness's hotel, and whilst he looked Gertrude herself floated into sight. Some trifle of a lace mantilla was thrown over her head, and in her right hand she balanced a parasol daintily between thumb and finger. Her companion was a man apparently of middle age, frock-coated, silk-hatted, booted and gloved as if for Rotten Row. He bore himself with an air of distinction, and the looker-on saw ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... whom she made this remark, assented to it, at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently appropriated with great refinement of manner,—taking it between her thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get out and ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... is given to gambling, it would seem," the valet went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, and wants ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to chew on something of which more was bitten off than one can. Probably related to gnashing of teeth. See {bagbiter}. A hand gesture commonly accompanies this. To perform it, hold the four fingers together and place the thumb against their tips. Now open and close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much like what Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this pantomime seems to predate that). The gesture alone means 'chomp chomp' (see "{Verb Doubling}" in the "{Jargon Construction}" section ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... have been inherited, or are purchased from neighboring peoples. The men carve beads out of "Job's tears"[19] and make them into necklaces. For this purpose a peculiarly carved and decorated stick is employed (Plate XXVI). This is placed in the palm of the left hand so that the thumb and forefinger can hold the seed which fits into a depression in the top. A knife in the right hand of the artist is worked over the seed thus cutting a line into which dirt is rubbed. Women's combs are ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... behind, thumped in the bung while the foreman made his notes in a book, and in a few minutes a man or a woman came and rolled the barrel away. Those employed in the task wore strong leather gloves with no fingers—only a thumb, and so tarred they were absolutely hard, as also their boots from walking over the tarry ground. And yet all the faces were beautifully clean, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... this thumb broken beating a white man up. No, I'll tell the truth. He was beating me up and I thought he was going to kill me. It was when Benjamin Harrison had been elected President. I was in Sol Joe's saloon and I said, 'Hurrah ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... gathered at the station to see the man who had come back to get his sentence. They were a wild, uncouth-looking crowd from the adjacent farms. I could hear them ask, 'Where is he?' 'In there,' another would answer, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to our compartment. In threes and fours they would shuffle into our car and gaze with dull, stupid curiosity upon the prostrate man, as sheep gaze at a dead member of the flock. Dr. Scholtz, keen-eyed and watchful, stood on guard in the doorway. Platinum ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... proud head has always been above the waves. Old Diogenes, with his mantle upon him, stiff and trembling with age, caught a small animal bred upon people, went into the Pantheon, the temple of the gods, and took the animal upon his thumb nail, and, pressing it with the other, "he sacrificed Diogenes to all the gods." Just as good as anything! In every age some Diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. True genius never cowers, and there is always some Samson feeling for ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... him, sir," the soldier said, jerking his thumb at the sobbing man huddled against Norden. "He said his name was Orkins—Jim Orkins. He works in the warehouse. But you can't tell anything about the rest o' what he says. He just babbles, sir. Something about livin' ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... lightness with which it has to be handled is also much more like the handling of a brush than any other point drawing. When rubbed with the finger, it sheds a soft grey tone over the whole work. With a piece of bread pressed by thumb and finger into a pellet, high lights can be taken out with the precision of white chalk; or rubber can be used. Bread is, perhaps, the best, as it does not smudge the charcoal but lifts it readily off. When rubbed with the finger, the darks, of course, are lightened in tone. It is therefore useful ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... instrument. We never see such a thing now, and if a maker were to send forth his new violins in this manner or trim, he would be looked upon as eccentric. Nevertheless at one time it was universal. Probably the increased number of movements of the hand, and especially the thumb, to meet the requirements of more florid execution and in connection with the growth of the ability among players for performing much music on the higher positions or shifts, showed very soon how the coloured varnish looked patchy under wear. This fashion ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... he tapped his left hand with his right and jerked his head toward the man beside the saw. The twins walked around to where they could get a look at the workman's left hand. Then they understood. There was nothing left of the fingers but the stub of one, and the thumb! ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... through. So with electricity. Resistance, introduced in the electric circuit, controls the amount of current that flows. A wire as fine as a hair will permit only a small quantity to pass, under a given pressure. A wire as big as one's thumb will permit a correspondingly greater quantity to pass, the pressure remaining the same. The unit of electrical resistance is called the ohm—named after a man, as are all ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... waste so valuable a life as Remington's for the sake of a moral convention. Both comments point Mr Wells' expression of what he calls in this book "the essential antagonism ... in all human affairs ... between ideas and the established method—that is to say, between ideas and the rule of thumb." And he adds: "The world I hate is the rule-of-thumb world; the thing I and my kind exist for primarily is battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstruct it." This confession is so lucid and characteristic that I cannot improve upon it, and yet I see that it is a statement ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... embroidered upon a piece of toile ciree. If you work without this, place the material straight over the forefinger of the left hand; the material must never be held slantways. The three other fingers of the left hand hold the work; the thumb remains free to give the right position to each stitch. The work must always, if possible, lie so that the outline of the pattern is turned towards the person who works. For the sake of greater clearness one part of the following illustrations is given in larger size than nature. Preparing ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... robe embroidered in a chessboard pattern, and with a tunic pleated in horizontal rows; his right elbow is supported by the left hand, while the right is raised to a level with his eyes, his fist is clenched, and the thumb inserted between the first and second fingers in the customary ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one of the latter, the one on the right hand, was partly off, leaving the thumb and wrist bare. That hand held a small satchel, which the police opened, with a view to the possible identification of the deceased, but which was found to contain only a little loose silver, some smelling-salts, and a small empty bottle, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... two," said Polly, "but she punched the other in with her thumb; don't, boys," she said, aside, "you'll make her feel bad; do stop laughing. Now, how'll ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... from view as he bowed, one with the thumb tucked in the corner of his trousers pocket, ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... surprise. The moth cleared the opening, and with many wabblings and contortions climbed up the tree. He stared speechless with amazement as the moth crept around a limb and clung to the under side. There was a big pursy body, almost as large as his thumb, and of the very snowiest white that Freckles ever had seen. There was a band of delicate lavender across its forehead, and its feet were of the same colour; there were antlers, like tiny, straw-colored ferns, on its head, and from its shoulders hung the crumpled wet ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... echoed Tony; and his grandfather immediately took him on his knee and kissed him, at the same time, with many nods and winks, slyly pointing at the child's head with his thumb, in order that the housekeeper, otherwise deceived by the admirable manner in which he (Mr. Weller) had sustained his character, might not suppose that any other young gentleman was referred to, and might clearly understand that the boy of the watch-box was but an imaginary ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... clothes" off the line, when the special came puffing slowly into town. To emphasize her disapproval of the whole system of politics, she turned her back square toward it, and laid violent hold of a sheet. There was a smudge of cinders upon its white surface, and it crushed crisply under her thumb with the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... heads aged by many a year-tide, And, as their wont aye was, their hands plied labour unceasing. 310 Each in her left upheld with soft fleece clothed a distaff, Then did the right that drew forth thread with upturn of fingers Gently fashion the yarn which deftly twisted by thumb-ball Speeded the spindle poised by thread-whorl perfect of polish; Thus as the work was wrought, the lengths were trimmed wi' the fore-teeth, 315 While to their thin, dry lips stuck wool-flecks severed by biting, Which at the first outstood ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... turning down the thumb, as was done in the Circus, in sign that the gladiator had received a blow and was to ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... handsome private houses as in any of the worst hospitals, and from the same cause, viz., foul air. Yet nobody learnt the lesson. Nobody learnt anything at all from it. They went on thinking—thinking that the sufferer had scratched his thumb, or that it was singular that "all the servants" had "whitlows," or that something was "much about this year; there is always sickness in our house." This is a favourite mode of thought—leading not to inquire what is the uniform cause of these general "whitlows," but ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... appliances; nobody could travel faster by sea or by land than at any previous time in the world's history, and King George could send a message from London to York no faster than King John might have done. Metals were worked from their ores by immemorial rule of thumb, and the centre of the iron trade of these islands was still among the oak forests of Sussex. The utmost skill of our mechanicians did not get beyond the ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... rose to his feet, holding his right hand on a line with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger, and ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... out of uniform," he began. "You have been taken inside our lines." He pointed his forefinger at my stomach and wiggled his thumb. "And you ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... with the sharp eyes was holding something up between thumb and forefinger. It shone in the last rays of the setting sun, as they came into the cabin through a small window ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... Cy. A first night lets the critics get caught up in the excitement. And even if they go sick and thumb down 'Land' it won't stand against the top power voodoo job the publicity gang is saturating the public with. And bigger than all the critics is Jason Rowe. He's filled six thousand couches in there with the biggest voluntary celebrity turnout ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... had brought for him out of that 'beautiful garden.' On the 14th he received a visit from Duke John Frederick and Count Albert of Mansfeld upon their return from the Diet. The former brought him the signet ring, which, however, was too large even for his thumb; he remarked that lead, not gold, was fitting for him. He only wished he could see his other friends also escaped from Augsburg; and although the Duke was ready to take him away with him, he preferred to remain behind at Coburg, in order, as he wrote to Melancthon, to receive them ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... nightmare, a hopeless, horrid, frozen flight from the pursuit of Mr. Sidney Webb and myself, both of us short, inelegant men indeed, but for all that terribly resolute, indefatigable, incessant, to capture him, to drag him off to a mechanical Utopia and there to take his thumb-mark and his name, number him distinctly in indelible ink, dress him in an unbecoming uniform, and let him loose (under inspection) in a world of neat round lakes of blue lime water and vistas ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... to death, when a Rough Rider came to his assistance. There was only one thing to be done—to stop the bleeding till a surgeon came. A tourniquet could not be applied where the wound was. The Rough Rider put his thumb on the artery and held it there while he waited. The fighting drifted away over the hill. He followed his comrades with longing eyes till the last was lost to sight. His place was there, but if he abandoned ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... my words—I'll put my thumb upon you and yours yet. I say, mark them; for the day will come when you will remember them to ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... proper muscles, nerves, and vessels, is sometimes so perfect, that it escapes detection, unless the fingers are actually counted. Occasionally there are several supernumerary digits; but usually only one, making the total number six. This one may represent either a thumb or finger, being attached to the inner or outer margin of the hand. Generally, through the law of correlation, both hands and feet are similarly affected. I have tabulated the cases recorded in various works or privately communicated {13} to me, of forty-six persons with ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... mole under the child's right ear, shaped like a coffin, which is a bad sign; and a deep line just above the middle of the left thumb, meeting round about in the form of a noose, which is a worse," replied Mrs. Sheppard. "To be sure, it's not surprising the poor little thing should be so marked; for, when I lay in the women-felons' ward in Newgate, where he first saw the light, or at least such light as ever finds entrance into ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "I am sure I did not mean it to sound so. The idea came to me to put it that way when I spoke of the 'commanding officer being held responsible.' I'll tear it up, if you say so, and go and tell him the whole story instead." And she held it up between the thumb and forefinger of both hands as if to suit the act to ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... "spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand hearers"—small audiences, by the way, compared with the intelligent concourse recently assembled in the city of New York, to do honour to the Nuptials of General the Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about this stage of their spiritual education they may take the opportunity of believing in "letters from a distinguished gentleman of New York, in which the frequent appearance of the gentleman's deceased wife and of Dr. Franklin, to him ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... listening to the reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second edition of "The Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper, 'C' Company, Second Regiment K.V." The colonel, with his thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits down again to drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms and his hands are not what they were in the old days when his ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... manifested towards them. Most of them he gave out graciously; some of them grudgingly; a few of them with much reluctance; but all of them with injunctions to care, and special warnings against forcing the backs, crumpling or folding the leaves, and making thumb-marks. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... pride of one who had moved men like pawns across the checker-board of life and death. "The two cases afford no parallel. Ann and Terry have remained in the social stations to which they were born, while I—I stand outside all such ready-made, rule of thumb classifications. By sheer impetus of personality I have lifted myself out of the rut, so that not even you, with all your omniscience, dare prophesy how far I am going or where I ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... she's a gude example. She's a Gordon; and thae Gordon women cried the 'slogan' till their men's heads were a' on Carlisle gate or Temple Bar, and their lands a' under King George's thumb. But is she any wiser for the lesson? Not her. Women are born rebels; the 'powers that be' are always tyrants to ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... afterwards corrected his perspective, stage by stage, from the successively higher view-point of a Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, Financial Commissioner, and finally as Officiating Lieut.-Governor. No one could more appropriately undertake the task of an accurate and well-proportioned thumb-nail sketch of North-West India and, what is equally important to the earnest reader, no author could more obviously ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... was finally closed, Ned Corrigan, whom I had put to flight the preceding night, came up, and repeated the De Profundis, in very strange Latin, over the corpse. When this was finished, he got a jug of holy water, and after dipping his thumb in it, first made the sign of the cross upon his own forehead, and afterwards sprinkled it upon all present, giving my brother and myself an extra compliment, supposing, probably, that we stood most in need, of it. When this was over, he ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... to you that we are coming to be altogether too dependent on the President? That office will be ruined. Every one with a sore thumb has come into the habit of running to the President. This is all wrong, all wrong. He cannot do his job well now. And he is only nominally doing it, and only nominally has been doing it for years. But each month seems to add to his duties as arbiter of everything from ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... so readily. They saw something more beneath it, something much more to their liking. His patience only masked a keen, swift-moving, scheming brain, packed to the uttermost with a wonderful instinct for detection. He worked on no rule-of-thumb method as so many of his comrades did. He was the fortunate possessor of an imagination, and, long since, he had learned its value in his crusade ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... comparison is extent, and the unit of measure is now the division of the circle into three hundred and sixty parts, now the circumference of the terrestrial globe, now the average dimension of the human arm, hand, thumb, or foot. In economic science, we have said after Adam Smith, the point of view from which all values are compared is labor; as for the unit of measure, that adopted in France is the FRANC. It is incredible that so many sensible men should struggle for forty years against ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... of demagogues engaged in this propaganda. I could easily, to quote De Quincey's words, 'bray their fungous heads to powder with a lady's fan, and throttle them between heaven and earth with my finger and thumb.' But we want to know just how far their doctrines, or whatever they call their crack-brained fantasies, have taken root in the minds of the people, and what the minds are like, and what the outcome of it all is to be. If we go to the East End, and I don't see why we shouldn't, as ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... so the flower opened, and she could see that it was a real tulip. Within the flower, upon the green velvet stamens, sat a very delicate and graceful little maiden. She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small. A walnut-shell, elegantly polished, served her for a cradle; her bed was formed of blue violet-leaves, with a rose-leaf for a counterpane. Here she slept at night, but during the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... they were so brave, so loyal, so patient, so hopeful, so true to many of the best traditions of their race. One other feature of their system must be noted—the influence of their priests. Protestants would think them too much under the thumb of the priests. But, however this may have been, it can be said with truth that the church and the native soldiers, with all their faults, were the glory of Canada, while the government was nothing but its shame. The priests stood by their people like men, suffered hardship ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood |
