"Dexterity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will not hold above 3 of 4 of them at most; they are made out of one piece of wood, and the natives stand up in them, paddling them on by means of long oars; their arms are arrows, bows, assagays and callaways, which they use with great dexterity and skill; broken iron, parangs and knives are in special demand with them. The lands which we have up to now skirted and touched at, not only are barren and inhabited by savages, but also the sea in these parts yields no other fish than ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... economic interests this liberty meant freedom for each person to make his living in the way he might see fit, and without any external restriction. Adam Smith says: "The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... that influence to the electors: on the contrary, it renders it much more necessary to them, if they seek to have a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that influence, and redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in the application. The whole effect of the bill is, therefore, the removing the application of some part of the influence from the elected to the electors, and further to strengthen and extend a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs: here to fix their magazines and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... witnessed, a tree came into my cell, with an instrument resembling a lancet in his hand. He stripped one of my arms, and made a puncture in the median vein. When he had taken from me as much blood as he deemed sufficient, he bound up the wound with great dexterity. He then examined my blood with much attention, and departed silently, with ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... performance, too, far exceeds Coleridge's in amount, if not in value. But like Coleridge, he was a seminal mind, a mind rich in original suggestions, which inspired and influenced younger men to carry out its ideas, often with a fluency of utterance and a technical dexterity both in art and letters which the master himself did not possess. Holman Hunt, Millais, and Burne-Jones among painters, Morris and Swinburne among poets, were disciples of Rossetti who in some ways outdid ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the corner circle whence it had started, and where the two met, point by point perpetually, in the center circle, they as it were intersected, men and women wriggling, sliding, and darting with incredible dexterity through each other's ranks; and the pattern was a cross, a tricolor. Then they wheeled round the circle that was and was not their goal, and did it all over again; but instead of intersecting at the center circle they struck off there at a tangent, and the pattern, blue by blue ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... through the ages. Macaulay had an intimate acquaintance both with the imaginative literature and the history of Greece and Rome, with the literature and the history of modern Italy, of France, and of England. Whatever his special subject, he contrives to pour into it with singular dexterity a stream of rich, graphic, and telling illustrations from all these widely diversified sources. Figures from history, ancient and modern, sacred and secular; characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... magnificence of its architecture, the fragile character of its theatrical structures, and their limited and hazardous means of exit,—despite falling walls and the necessity of police guardianship at the crossings, the reckless driving of butcher-boys and the dexterity of pickpockets,—despite the slippery pavement, and the chronic cry for "relief,"—Broadway is a spectacle and an experience worth patient study, and wonderfully prolific of life-pictures. With a fountain at one end, like a French town, and a chime of bells at the other, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... subtle atmosphere. His duty of copying precedents must have initiated him in many of the astute wiles and twisted lines of reasoning that lead to what is termed sharp practice, and so may have confirmed and aided his propensities to artifice; while the mere manual operation tutored his fingers to dexterity at quaint penmanship. He had much leisure too; for it is recorded that his master's business seldom occupied him more than two hours a-day. He was left to devote the rest of his time unquestioned to all the devices of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... opportunity of recommending Addison as the fittest man for the duty; stipulating, we are told, that the service should not be unrewarded, and doubtless satisfying the minister that his protege possessed other qualifications for office besides dexterity in framing heroic verse. The Campaign (December 1704), the poem thus written to order, was received with extraordinary applause; and it is probably as good as any that ever was prompted by no more worthy inspiration. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... incurred by evading the law. A dozen of eggs, or a leg of mutton, are now conveyed from house to house with as much mystery, as a case of fire-arms, or a treasonable correspondence; the whole republic is in a sort of training like the Spartan youth; and we are obliged to have recourse to dexterity and intrigue to procure us ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... landlord shuffled forward, and Mr. Foster begged Cynthia to allow him with the fellow's aid to see to the gentleman's wound. Between them they laid Crispin on a couch, and the town spark went to work with a dexterity little to have been expected from his flippant exterior. He dressed the wound, which was in the shoulder and not in itself of a dangerous character, the loss of blood it being that had brought some gravity to the knight's condition. They propped his head upon a pillow, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... with its high-tangled hedge-rows on either side than she began to show symptoms of behaving very badly indeed. She bucked and pranced, and stood on her hind legs; she whipped suddenly round, pirouetted upon her own axis with the dexterity of a circus performer, and demonstrated very plainly that, if she only dared, she would like to take to her heels in the reverse direction to that which her driver desired her ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... listened without speaking, industriously stringing her black grapes with the precocious dexterity and taste she had acquired in Desiree's neighborhood. So that in the evening, when M. Chebe came to fetch his daughter, they praised ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... hesitatingly around him; he had neither cup nor flask, but he filled the pail and held it with great dexterity to her lips. She drank a little, extracted a lace handkerchief from some hidden pocket, dipped its point in the water, and wiped her face delicately, after a certain feline fashion. Then, catching sight of some small object in the fork of a bush above ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... air from some unseen source, slightly opened the door of communication with the kitchen, that Phillis must have left unfastened; and I saw part of her figure as she sate by the dresser, peeling apples with quick dexterity of finger, but with repeated turnings of her head towards some book lying on the dresser by her. I softly rose, and as softly went into the kitchen, and looked over her shoulder; before she was aware of my neighbourhood, I had seen that the book was ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a strayed traveller, who wished to inquire his way; and as I had no means of making myself heard to you, I was forced to adopt the method I did to draw your attention. I hope that on reflection you will do justice to my dexterity in taking care that none of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... passed in mechanical occupations in the workshop of my third brother, Paul, the foreman of the department in which the minor articles of the works were made, steam-gauges, models of inventions, etc., and as I had my share of the family manual dexterity, I found interest enough in the workshop. As my brothers always observed the Sabbath rigidly, they attracted around them a few of the New England mechanics who were "Sabbath-keepers" and mostly related to us, and so we ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... us, that in one of Robin's peregrinations, he, attended by his trusty mate, John, went to dine at Whitby Abbey, with the abbot, Richard, who having heard them often famed for their great dexterity in shooting with the long bow, begged them after dinner to show him a specimen. They went up top of the abbey, and each of them shot an arrow that fell not far from Whitby-laths. The abbot placed a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... called Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller. The first might be a German and the last an Englishman for anything he could tell you to the contrary. And as for Science, the only idea the word would suggest to his mind would be dexterity ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... five-and-twenty, and could hardly look on anything requiring agility or dexterity without attempting it, so I consented, with a renewal of the sensations I remembered when, as a child, I had danced with grown-up men, only with alarm at the responsibility of what Dermot called "the steerage of ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Farallone, in that exposed position where she lay, was an affair of some dexterity. The less precious goods were hoisted roughly in; the chronometer, after repeated failures, was passed gently and successfully from hand to hand; and there remained only the more difficult business of embarking Huish. Even that piece of dead weight (shipped A.B. at eighteen dollars, and described ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... heart. The two women screamed. The old man laughed. He turned the thrust with his staff. The colonel, throwing caution to the four winds, surrendered to his rage. He struck again. The saber rang against the oak. This dexterity with the staff carried no warning to the enraged officer. He struck again and again. Then the old man struck back. The pain in the colonel's arm was excruciating. His saber rattled to the stone flooring. Before he could recover the weapon the victor had put his foot upon it. He was still smiling, ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... that highest sense of oratory which implies something of inspiration, of genius, of passionate and poetic rapture; but he was a public speaker of extraordinary merit. He had while still a youth what Coleridge aptly termed "a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words," and this developed into "a power of pouring forth with endless facility perfectly modulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed the reach of a normal intellect ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Meantime the ingenuity of the Jurisconsults effects, in the Common-Law Will or Mancipatory Testament, the very improvements which the Praetor may have concurrently carried out in Equity. These last ameliorations depend, however, on mere legal dexterity, and we see accordingly that the Testamentary Law of the day of Gaius or Ulpian is only transitional. What changes next ensued we know not; but at length, just before the reconstruction of the jurisprudence by Justinian, we find the subjects of the Eastern ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... artificial manufactures, and England of its machinery; but we find that our own newspapers are filled with admiration at the inventions of Brother Jonathan. We shall only slightly touch upon the sensation produced by the splendid performance of the American yacht, and the dexterity displayed in the lock-picking, which was previously deemed impracticable. But it may be said that these are trifling matters in a national point of view; still, facts have been elicited by these apparent trifling incidents, for we find that the superior build of the little American ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... ship, showed such good fight that he killed three of his assailants, and the others stood off, not daring to approach him. Then the pirate captain, Akagoshi Kuroyemon, who had been watching the fighting from the stern, seeing that his men stood no chance against Jiuyemon's dexterity, and that he was only losing them to no purpose, thought to shoot him with a matchlock. Even Jiuyemon, brave as he was, lost heart when he saw the captain's gun pointed at him, and tried to jump into the sea; but one of the pirates made a dash at him with a boat-hook, and caught him by the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... adjustments requiring accurate quantitative measurement and conscious reference to exact standards. In such industries as those of watchmaking the factory worker, though upon the average his work requires less manual dexterity than the handworker in the older method, may get more intellectual exercise in the course of his work. But though economists have paid much attention to this industry, in considering the character of machine-tending it is not an average example for a comparison of machine labour and ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... have any), generally help to extend the membrane of the wing; and the breast-bone is so formed as to support the powerful muscles which aid their locomotive peculiarities. They climb and crawl with great dexterity, and some will run when on the ground; but it is difficult for most of them to move on a smooth, horizontal surface, and they drag themselves along by their thumbs. A portion of the Cheiroptera feeds on insects, and another ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... a rare sensation. The man who has not chased the wild pony in the hills with the lasso on his arm, riding, as they say in the West, "Hell for leather," down the steep hillside, over the rock and the rough land, balancing on his broncho with the dexterity of a bird or a baboon, has failed to find one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... observed that a very, very fine turkey had been placed before me, told me to carve it, and I immediately went to work. I was not a skilful carver, and Madame F——, laughing at my want of dexterity, told me that, if I had not been certain of performing my task with credit to myself, I ought not to have undertaken it. Full of confusion, and unable to answer her as my anger prompted, I sat down, with my heart overflowing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Anne's ears—swinging her parasol to and fro, and looking as if the merest gossip was dropping from her lips—with the dexterity which rarely fails a woman when she is called on to assist a deception in which her own interests are concerned. Cleverly as it had been done, however, Geoffrey's inveterate distrust was stirred into action by it. Blanche had got to her last sentence before he was able to turn his ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... and said unto her, Let thy seed possess the gates of those which hate them." (Gen. xxiv. ver. 60.) "Rebecca," who was in the guise of a woman, always made her marches by night; and her conduct of the campaign exhibited much dexterity and address. Herself and band were mounted on horseback; and a sudden blowing of horns, and firing of guns, announced the arrival of the assailants at the turnpike selected for attack. The work of demolition was soon effected: gate, posts, and tollhouse were razed to the ground; and the work was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... flushed slightly beneath his admiring look, and Mrs. Hawley graciously echoed her appreciation of his dexterity. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... is a little taste and dexterity, for of course you must try to avoid making your frames look stiff. Begin at the top of the frame, and make it higher and more imposing than the sides; put first a fir-cone, and then a couple of ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... there has been an evolution in tools, in laws and in institutions, so has there been an evolution of the intellectual element in conscience. Thucydides tells us that the time was in Sparta when stealing was right. In that far-off time a boy was praised for exhibiting skill and dexterity in pilfering. Stealing was disgraceful and wrong only when it was found out, and, if the theft was large and skillfully done, it won honor—a condition of things that ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... confirm whatever one pleases is not intelligence but only ingenuity, to be found in the worst of men. Some show the greatest dexterity in confirmation, who know no truth and yet can confirm both truth and falsity. Some of them remark, "What is truth? Is there such a thing? Is not that true which I make true?" In the world they are believed to be intelligent, ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of the resources of the Colony, the number of men capable of bearing arms, the munitions and material of war in the magazines, and the relative strength of each district of the Province. He manipulated his figures with the dexterity of an Indian juggler throwing balls; and at the end brought out a totality of force in the Colony capable unaided of prolonging the war for two years, against all the powers of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... resources, he established a newspaper, which he called The Upper Canada Guardian, or Freeman's Journal. He spoke with considerable freedom of the governor. He attacked the ministerial party. He exhibited abuses with wonderful dexterity and skill. The ex-sheriff, Joseph Wilcocks, was rapidly rising into note. It was time to restrain him. A Captain Cowan was induced to be his persecutor. The truth rapidly becoming dangerous to those whose business consists in concealing the truth, cannot always ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... they had been taken prisoners—of the conversation which passed between himself and Father Le Vieux, and of the means resorted to, in order to remove Arundel from the Indian village. The lady listened with a pleased ear to the recital, and, at its conclusion, expressed her gratification at the dexterity with which the business had been managed, and the success which ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... bear being seen on a piece of ice, near which we were passing on the 10th, a boat was despatched in pursuit, and our people succeeded in killing and towing it on board. As these animals sink immediately on being mortally wounded, some dexterity is requisite to secure them, by first throwing a rope over the neck, at which many of the Greenland seamen are remarkably expert. It is customary for the boats of the whalers to have two or three lines coiled in them, which not only gives them great stability, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Governor anticipated needs and dangers in his singular life, or whether he was merely a favorite of the gods of good luck, Archie had never determined, but either way the man who called himself Saulsbury seemed able to contrive and direct incidents with the dexterity of an expert stage hand. The purchase of the Arthur B. Grover had seemed the most fantastic extravagance, but the tug had already proved to be of crucial importance in the prosecution of their business. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... hath this gracious confidence in all the Estates here now assembled, that when they shall consider with what dexterity, pains, and travail her Majesty for ten years hath managed the affairs of this kingdom, and with such good fortune that all the counsels and intentions of her Majesty have been followed with such happy success, that the State, with great honour and reputation, hath escaped ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... She had the fire going and the VP iron heating by the time he had stabled and fed his horse, and had driven the calves into the smaller pen. He drove a big, line-backed heifer into a corner, roped and tied her down with surprising dexterity, and ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... word, I want to. We expect two or three friends in—one you'll be glad to see. No, I won't tell you who it is. It's a surprise." And she flew at Edith's head, pulled out the hairpins, and went to work with a dexterity and rapidity that did credit to her training. In a little while she had crowned Edith with nature's most ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the maintenance of the quasi-monarchical relation in which he now stands towards the community over which he presides, be discovered and agreed upon, he must be content to tread along a path which is somewhat narrow and slippery, and to find that incessant watchfulness and some dexterity are requisite to prevent him from falling, on the one side into the neant of mock sovereignty, or on the other into the dirt and confusion of ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... generalization, should Zola be treated as though he were a monster? Though Diggle, the billiards champion, care little or nothing for poetry, he may have an excellent heart, as well as a hand far surpassing in dexterity that of our most accomplished portrait-painters. No one ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... brandished the sword, which flashed like lightning, and cut off his head, while his body, impelled by the speed of the run, fell to the ground ten paces farther on. This blow was so unexpected, and had been performed with such dexterity, that it was received not with mere clapping but with wild enthusiasm and frantic outcry. Caesar, apparently remembering nothing else in his hour of triumph but the scream that had been caused by his former danger, picked up the bull's head, and, giving it to one of his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of humility. Nor are these passions confined to the mind but extend their view to the body likewise. A man may be proud of his beauty, strength, agility, good mein, address in dancing, riding, and of his dexterity in any manual business or manufacture. But this is not all. The passions looking farther, comprehend whatever objects are in the least allyed or related to us. Our country, family, children, relations, riches, houses, gardens, horses, dogs, cloaths; any of these ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... away, as for a long separation, and begged to endorse what had been so very aptly and gracefully, and, might he add, truly said by the previous speaker. This was only the prelude to the real burden of his message; with the dexterity that comes of practice he managed, in a couple of hurried sentences, to divert the course of his remarks to his own personality and career, and to inform his listeners that he was an actor of some note and experience, and had had the honour of ...
— When William Came • Saki
... shown unmistakable symptoms of disgust at the endless gallop he had been called upon to maintain, shied sharply away from the sound, stumbled from leg-weariness, and fell heavily; for the second time that night I had need to show my dexterity—but, in this case, with Perry Potter's stirrups swinging somewhere in the vicinity of my knees, the danger of getting caught was not so great. I stood there in the dark loneliness of the silent hills and the howling ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... and adventures of Pierre and his people I came, as I think, to a certain command of my material, without losing real sympathy with the simple nature of things. Dexterity has its dangers, and one of its dangers is artificiality. It is very difficult to be skilful and to ring true. If I have not wholly succeeded in A Romany of the Snows, I think I have not wholly failed, as the continued appeal of a few of the stories ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... who performs with great dexterity the honors of the tea-table, is, if complimented at all, said to be "an excellent bitch."—Gradus ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... favor from the slaveholders, and the result of the abominable and absurd prosecution only brought on the authors and advocates of the law fresh obloquy. When men obtain some rich and splendid prize, by their wrong-doing, many admire their boldness and dexterity, but foolish, profitless wickedness ensures only contempt. The northern Whigs, in doing obeisance to the slave power, sinned against their oft-repeated and solemn professions and pledges. They sinned in the expectation of thereby ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... her more than once, and had marveled at the dexterity with which, these leaders thrown out, she was able to avoid ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hear of "M. Fredersdorf," Head Valet at this time? Fredersdorf will become, as it were, Privy-Purse, House-Friend, and domestic Factotum, and play a great part in coming years. "A tall handsome man;" much "silent sense, civility, dexterity;" something "magnificently clever in him," thinks Bielfeld (now, or else twenty years afterwards); whom we can believe. [Ib. p. 49.] He was a gift from General Schwerin, this Fredersdorf; once a Private in Schwerin's regiment, at Frankfurt-on-Oder,—excellent on the flute, for one quality. Schwerin, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... universal hatred, dally with the curses of Europe, and then regain a lost character at pleasure, by the parliamentary perspirations of the Foreign Secretary, or the solemn asseverations of the pecuniary Rose? Believe me, Abraham, it is not under such ministers as these that the dexterity of honest Englishmen will ever equal the dexterity of French knaves; it is not in their presence that the serpent of Moses will ever swallow up the serpents ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... and righteous way. The Englishman grows up into a world of barriers and locked doors, the American into an unorganized, struggling crowd. There is an enormous premium in the American's world upon force and dexterity, and force in the case of common men too often degenerates into brutality, and dexterity into downright trickery and cheating. He has got to be forcible and dexterous within his self-respect if he can. There is an enormous ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... a young horse that bucking entailed punishment, the revenque descended smartly two or three times, and a revenque hurts. The puzzled youngster did not like it, and thought that he would try rolling for a change. The Joven slipped off with the dexterity of an acrobat, and dancing about on his toes, chose his moment, and was again on the horse's back as he rose. Then came a real contest and trial of skill between the four-legged and two-legged youngsters, as the horse ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... however, heeded them not one atom. His great jaws opened and closed with a snap—but not on the crunch of human flesh, not on the crackle of human bones. The wretched little native, with incredible dexterity, had swerved and dived, just eluding the hungry jaws by no more than a hair's breadth. But ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... wants of the large party assembled in the drawing-room. With his wonted alacrity he had withdrawn from their obscure retreat against the wall, sundry little tables, destined for the players at whist, or "spoil five"—the popular game of the establishment. With a dexterity that savoured much of a stage education, he had arranged the candles, the cards, the counters; he had poked the fire, settled the stool for Miss Riley's august feet, and was busily engaged in changing five shillings into ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... her, were expended, in making snares and sewing her clothing, she had nothing to supply their place but the sinews of the rabbits' legs and feet. These she twisted together for that purpose with great dexterity and success. The animals which she caught in those snares, not only furnished her with a comfortable subsistence, but of the skins she made a suit of neat and warm clothing for the winter. It is scarcely possible to ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... had much more prudence and dexterity of management than I: he was also thinking of his periodical the Horen, about this time, and of course rather wished to attract than repel me. Accordingly he answered me like an accomplished Kantite; and as my stiff necked Realism gave occasion to many contradictions, much battling took ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... hoisting themselves up to almost inaccessible plateaux, and leaping over broad, deep crevasses. They had no ropes, but arms linked in arms supplied the lack, and shoulders served for ladders. The strength of Mulrady and the dexterity of Wilson were taxed heavily now. These two brave Scots multiplied themselves, so to speak. Many a time, but for their devotion and courage the small band could not have gone on. Glenarvan never lost sight of young Robert, for his age and vivacity made him imprudent. Paganel ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... education, but he was no match for the father of Jonesville, who wielded a cue with a dexterity born of years of devotion to the game. In consequence, Blaze's enjoyment was in a fair way to languish when the proprietor of the Elite Billiard Parlor returned from supper ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... but more difficult way was to insert surreptitiously a lump of metal into the mixture, using an ordinary crucible. This required great dexterity, but was facilitated by the use of many mysterious ceremonies on the part of the operator while performing, just as the modern vaudeville performer diverts the attention of the audience to his right hand while his left is engaged in the trick. Such ceremonies were not questioned, for ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... is a possession to be parted with for something else; indeed, it forms a large part of the capital with which we trade. We give it and labor, and in exchange get education, money, dexterity, and almost all other things of value. To be watchful of time, then, is wise economy. A person who had astonished many by his achievements was once asked how he had contrived to do ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... why the British throne was lighted with such careful reference to the Princess's complexion. Lord Skye immolated himself in the usual effort of British and American Ministers, to keep the two great powers apart. He and the Grand-Duke and Lord Dunbeg acted as buffers with watchful diligence, dexterity, and success. As one resource, Lord Skye had bethought himself of Mrs. Lee, and he told the Princess the story of Mrs. Lee's relations with the President's wife, a story which was no secret in Washington, for, apart from Madeleine's ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... there is no doubt it would be enough to reduce them to utter despair, and to thoughts of attempting my life; which would render me miserable or listless, living constantly in suspicion of being poisoned or assassinated, for these gentry have communications and correspondence everywhere, and great dexterity in disposing men's minds as it seems good to them. It were better for me to be dead, being therein of Caesar's opinion that the pleasantest death is that which is least foreseen and apprehended." The king then called to remembrance the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... crowd parted a little, and through the opening they could see him distinctly, doing a great business and showing wonderful dexterity ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... others. But an attentive examination of the events of his life, even as recorded by himself, will not warrant so favourable an interpretation. His systematic and successful attention to his own interest—his dexterity in keeping on 'the windy side of the law'—his perfect political pliability—and his presence of mind and fertility of resources when entangled in difficulties—indicate an accomplished impostor, not a crazy enthusiast. It is very possible and probable, that, at the ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... rest of the party. As they mounted their horses, Emily was struck with the exulting joy, expressed on the visage of Verezzi, while Cavigni was gay, yet with a shade of thought on his countenance; and, as he managed his horse with dexterity, his graceful and commanding figure, which exhibited the majesty of a hero, had never appeared to more advantage. Emily, as she observed him, thought he somewhat resembled Valancourt, in the spirit and dignity of his person; but she looked in vain for the noble, benevolent countenance—the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... American, of course, but he was as intensely an American as any man who has lived on this continent before or since. A man of the people, he was American by the character of his genius, by his versatility, the vivacity of his intellect, and his mental dexterity. In his abilities, his virtues, and his defects he was an American, and so plainly one as to be beyond the reach of doubt or question. There were others of that period, too, who were as genuine Americans as Franklin or Lincoln. Such were Jonathan Edwards, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... patience have been expended on the reparation of ancient art work in which materials of various degrees of hardness and texture have been employed, and which require the attention of a restorer of extended knowledge and mechanical dexterity. There is in connection with all of this a kind of law keeping pace with the necessities of the hour. If the works of art of a perishable nature become recognised as more and more valuable during the ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... precipice, that she might not overbalance herself, and be dragged down in her endeavours to recover her kid. She then threw down the noose at the other end of the line, and after one or two attempts succeeded with great dexterity in getting it round the body of the kid, which she gradually hauled up to the rock where she stood. Her movements were most graceful, and her address and dexterity truly astonishing. As soon as her success was complete she fondled and embraced the kid as though it had been a favourite sister ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... the twinkling of an eye, we have no occasion for carriages or horses; not but the king has his stables and his stud of sea horses; but they are seldom used, except upon public feasts or rejoicing days. Some, after they have trained them, take delight in riding and shewing their skill and dexterity in races; others put them to chariots of mother of pearl, adorned with an infinite number of shells of all sorts, of the liveliest colours. These chariots are open; and in the middle is a throne on which the king sits, and shows himself to the public view of his subjects. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... a treasure as this' (displaying a little black smoked book about the size of a primer)—'to enjoy their surprise and envy, shrouding meanwhile, under a veil of mysterious consciousness, our own superior knowledge and dexterity;—these, my young friend, these are the white moments of life, that repay the toil and pains and sedulous attention which our profession, above all others, so ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel. "Permit me," said the Judge,—and he took the knife and struck a sharp slanting stroke which sliced off a piece just of the right size, and offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... weapons, and strove with each other with equal boldness, their swords flashing like rays of light as now this one now that one hurled a lightning thrust at his adversary, which was with similar speed and dexterity turned aside. Firmly they pressed the left foot, as if rooted in the ground, while the right advanced to the bold onset and then again they quickly retired to the safer attitude of defence. From the self-possession and the quiet unremitting anger ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... will serve as a specimen, and a comparison with fig. 9 will show how the softer rounded forms and jewelled festoons of Hindu-Greek taste enervated the grand primitive force of the earlier age, and that neither the added delicacy of texture and substance nor the vastly increased dexterity of workmanship can compensate for the vanished majesty. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... least hesitation on his part brings the merciless whip about his ears. The lash is about fifteen feet in length, the handle eighteen inches; continual practice enables the Esquimaux to wield this instrument of torture with great dexterity. The sledges are about five feet in length and two in breadth; the runners generally shod with whalebone or ivory, and coated over with a plaster of earth and water, which becomes very smooth, and is renewed as often as ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... Caffres, and a bow and arrows. The latter, which are his principal weapons both for war and the chase, are small in size and formed of slight materials; but, owing to the deadly poison with which the arrows are imbued, and the dexterity with which they are launched, they are missiles truly formidable. One of these arrows, formed merely of a piece of slender reed tipped with bone or iron, is sufficient to destroy the most powerful animal. But, although the colonists very much dread the effects ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... dash of the Spanish in him; and many a Gay Bout over the choicest of Wines have I had with him at his Inn, as their College-halls are sometimes called. He could drink like a Fish, and fight like a Paladin. He was a good Practical Sailor and Master of Navigation; Rode with ease and dexterity; and was a Proficient in that most difficult trick of the Manege, that of riding a horse en Biais, as the French term it, and of which our Newcastle has learnedly treated; was an admirable Performer on the Guitar and Viol di Gamba; Sung very sweetly; ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... turning madly to finish off its insignificant but torturing opponent, A-ya came leaping back to the rescue, with a blazing and sparkling faggot in each hand, and the old men, some with fire-brands, some with spears, clamoring resolutely behind her. With fearless dexterity, she thrust the fire straight into the monster's eyeballs, totally blinding him. As he wheeled to strike her down, she slipped aside with a mocking laugh, and threw one of the brands between his jaws, where he crunched upon it ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... organization, and consequently of the distribution of the work in such a manner as to avoid wasting the time of highly qualified experts on trivial jobs. The individualism of private practice leads to an appalling waste of time on trifles. Men whose dexterity as operators or almost divinatory skill in diagnosis are constantly needed for difficult cases, are poulticing whitlows, vaccinating, changing unimportant dressings, prescribing ether drams for ladies with timid leanings towards ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... attributes of Law was the imperturbable assurance and self-possession with which he replied to every objection, and found a solution for every problem. He had the dexterity of a juggler in evading difficulties; and what was peculiar, made figures themselves, which are the very elements of exact demonstration, the means to ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... their great confusion, retired to one of the castles remaining, and thence fired incessantly at the pirates: but these were not in the least negligent either to assault him, or defend themselves, so that amidst the horror of the assault, they made very few shots in vain; for aiming with great dexterity at the mouths of the guns, the Spaniards were certain to lose one or two men every time they charged ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... and, undoubtedly, Mr. Disraeli displayed a great deal of a certain kind of power. He was witty, pungent, caustic, full of telling hits which repeatedly convulsed the House with laughter, and he showed singular dexterity in discovering and assailing the weak points in his adversary's argument. Still, it was a painful exhibition, bad in temper, tone, and manner. It was too plainly the attempt of an unscrupulous partisan to damage a personal enemy, rather than the effort of a statesman to enlighten and convince ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... answered Irgalac, "but Iriel good at arms, great-kneed son of Conall Cernac. He is a Conall for havoc, a Cuculain for dexterity of feats. He is a Catbad, a right-wonderful Druid, for intelligence and counsel, he is a Senca son of Ailill for peace and for good speech, he is a Celtcair son of Utecar for valor, he is a Concobar son of Factna Fatac ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... dead. Quintus of Smyrna, who was of the fourth century, perhaps later, wrote a Sequel to Homer, without much imagination, but with skill and dexterity; Nonnus wrote the Dionysiaca, a poetic history of the expedition of Bacchus to India, declamatory, copious, and powerful, full alike of faults and talent; Musaeus (date absolutely unknown) has remained justly celebrated for his delicious little poem Hero and ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... produced no stupefying effect on my remarkable guest. It appeared to strengthen and exhilarate her—nothing more. She always spoke in the same low tone, and always, turn the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to the subject of the Englishman in the next room. In any other woman this persistency would have offended me. My lovely guest was irresistible; I answered her questions with the docility of a child. She possessed all the amusing eccentricity of her nation. When I ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Thucydides, the son of Melesias, stands on record, spoken by him by way of pleasantry upon Pericles's dexterity. Thucydides was one of the noble and distinguished citizens, and had been his greatest opponent; and, when Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, asked him whether he or Pericles were the better wrestler, he made this answer: "When I," said he, "have thrown him ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Gaston de Latour, an enemy of all Gothic darkness or heaviness, returning to his home full of a later taste, changed all that. A thicket of airy spires rose above the sanctuary; the blind triforium broke into one continuous window; the heavy masses of stone were pared down with wonderful dexterity of hand, till not a hand's-breadth remained uncovered by delicate tracery, as from the fair white roof, touched sparingly with gold, down to the subterranean chapel of Saint Taurin, where the peasants of La Beauce came to pray for rain, not a space was left unsearched by cheerful ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... thus among his books and his valuables, amiably anxious to make his visitor comfortable, and moving about with something of the dexterity and grace of a Persian cat, Denham relaxed his critical attitude, and felt more at home with Rodney than he would have done with many men better known to him. Rodney's room was the room of a person who cherishes a great ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... exhausted her budget, had not Johnny, the unfortunate proprietor of the chilblain above alluded to, seen fit to precipitate himself, head-foremost, into a washing-tub 267 of nearly scalding water, whence his mamma, with great presence of mind and much professional dexterity, extricated him, wrung him out, and set him on the mangle to dry, where he remained sobbing, from a vague sense of humid misery, till a ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... middle height, and his back was bent from bearing heavy burdens, his legs bowed by the pressure of the enormous masses which he daily carried, he was yet possessed of extraordinary strength and dexterity. He could throw over the Loulle gate a 48-pound cannon ball as easily as a child could throw its ball. He could fling a stone from one bank of the Rhone to the other where it was two hundred yards wide. And lastly, he could throw a knife backwards while running at ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... works. His diplomacy made use of all that. The first thing to do was not to liberate you but to get you into his keeping. He is a very great man here and let me tell you that your safety depends on his dexterity in the use of his prestige rather than on his power which he cannot use. If you would let him talk to you I am sure he would tell you as much as it is possible for ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... below his elbows, his trouser hems flick his calves; he wears, inveterate tradition of the circus clown, a ridiculously little hard felt hat on the top of his shock of carroty hair. He paints his nose red and extends his grin from ear to ear. He racks his brain to invent novelties in manual dexterity. For hours a day in his modest chambre garnie in the Faubourg Saint Denis he practises his tricks. On the dissolution of the Cirque Rocambeau, where as "Auguste" he had been practically anonymous, he had unimaginatively ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... channels surrounding small bushy islands and rendering navigation very difficult. The wheelman, who was an old river pilot, was thoroughly acquainted with what he called the "Yukon flats," and managed to elude the sandbars and sunken islands with considerable dexterity. ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... and Fortunio echoed her imprecations. The Seneschal gasped, his fears lost in amazement at so much valour and dexterity. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... then," said Sir Purcell; "you cannot wait in a better place. And I must entreat you to be careful." He half alluded to the adjustment of her shawl, and to anything else, as far as she might choose to apprehend him. Her dexterity in tossing him the letter, unseen by Madame Marini, might have frightened him and given him a dread, that albeit woman, there was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to drink at a stream close to some high reeds, when a leopard pounced upon him without the slightest warning. A native who was close to the spot rushed up to the rescue, and threw his spear with such dexterity that he struck the leopard through the neck while it had the boy in its mouth, killing it upon the spot. The boy was immediately brought to me, but the lungs were lacerated, and he died during ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... duped. It is a science which bids defiance to the powers of reason. To understand it, a man must not only be on the spot, and be perfectly possessed of all the circumstances relative to every species of these papers, but he must have that dexterity which the habit of buying and selling them alone gives. The brokers of these certificates are few in number, and any other person venturing to deal with them, engages in a very ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... chef could have done it, and a pleased smile took the place of the grim determination on Georgina's face. Elated by her success she broke another egg, then another and another. It was as easy as breathing or winking. She broke another for the pure joy of putting her dexterity to the test once more. Then she stopped, appalled by the pile of empty shells confronting her accusingly. She counted them. She had broken eight— three-fourths of a setting. What would Uncle Darcy say to such a wicked ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... carpet. But of this I was unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta, who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady caught the fleurette upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly, and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, have long since discovered, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... could fight, hand to hand, round their carroccio or banner, without much discipline being required; but when it came to fortifying towns against cannon, to drilling bodies of heavily armed cavalry, acting by the mere dexterity of their movements; when war became a science and an art, then the citizen had necessarily to be left out, and adventurers and poor nobles had to form armies of mercenaries, making warfare their sole profession. This system of mercenary troops, so bitterly inveighed against by Machiavelli (who, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... for pleasure in everything he comes across, even in the gravest matters. If he has to do with intelligent and educated men, he takes pleasure in their brilliance; if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their folly. He is not put out by perfect fools, and suits himself with marvellous dexterity to all men's feelings. For women generally, even for his wife, he has nothing but jests and merriment. You could say he was a second Democritus, or better, that Pythagorean philosopher who saunters through the market-place with a tranquil ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. But she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to boil. Her childish dexterity returned, unimpaired by disuse. When Debby awoke, she awoke to a cup of tea ready for her to drink in bed—an unprecedented luxury, which she received with infinite ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... wonderful to watch Polly making short shrift of the remains of his own awkward preparations, to see her skillful manipulation of the gas burners and her marvelous dexterity with the egg beater. And this slim, eager, shy Polly, with her crinkled brown hair and her freckled nose, this was really Eleanor Brighton. Oliver sat down limply upon one of the kitchen chairs to contemplate the wonder ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... only the buckets are represented by flat pieces of wood, the whole is turned on an axle by the tread of men; the water is carried upon an inclined narrow plane; the machine answers its purpose very well, and the natives work it with great dexterity. At 5 P.M., we came on a stream 100 yards wide, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... cart is to be seen. The trade they ostensibly drive is tinkering, repairing old kettles, and making little pots and pans of tin. The one, however, on which they principally depend, is not tinkering, but one far more lucrative, and requiring more cleverness and dexterity; they make false rings, like the Gypsy smiths, the fashiono vangustengre of old, and whilst speaking Celtic to one whom they deem their countryman, have no hesitation in acknowledging themselves to be "Cairdean droich oir," workers of false gold. The ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... lines interlacing each other and with stars at the extremities tatued on the shoulder signified that the man had taken several heads; two lines meeting each other at an acute angle behind the finger nails signified dexterity in wood-carving; a star on the temple was a sign of happiness in love. We have no reason to consider this information inaccurate, but we do consider it lamentable that more details concerning the most interesting forms of tatu in Borneo were not obtained, for it is only too probable that ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall |
