"Finger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ejaculated, "how sharp they are!" For a little silvery fish, which in company with a shoal had darted at his finger, fell with a pat on the wounded man's breast, and lay quivering and leaping till it disappeared through the grating at ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... question should be submitted to the other ten sisters. All were on the side of the eldest. Then the youngest sister declared that if they laid a finger on the little garden boy, she would herself go and tell their father the secret of the holes in ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... therefore, visibly rising over the grave of the republic—one step more, and Napoleon would be sitting thereon in all the pride and pomp of Imperial majesty. That step, as will be hereafter seen, was taken boldly and successfully. France again submitted to the rule of one man, a man whose little finger proved to be thicker than the loins of the monarchs of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... him that that wasn't my line, unless he'd try Eley's greens at forty yards; and then I was his man: but if he laid a finger on me, I'd give him as sound a horsewhipping, old as I am, as ever man had in his life. And so I would." And Mark looked complacently at his own broad shoulders. "And since then, my lord and I have had ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Emerson? Could it be—any one else? Was it? No, it might have been, years ago; but not now; not now!—And yet; he was always so different from other people; and once, in church, he had handed her the hymn-book with his finger pointing ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... They demanded money, and were as grasping and cunning in their dealings as the most civilized Europeans. I offered one of them a small bronze ring; he took it, smelt it, shook his head, and gave me to understand that it was not gold. He remarked another ring on my finger, and seizing hold of my hand, smelt this second ring as well, then twisted his face into a friendly smile, and made signs for me to give him the ornament in question. I afterwards had frequent opportunities ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... bunch of green leaves—such as we have seen many times, yet how wonderful they were to him, and he examined the leaves with the greatest curiosity, and also a little caterpillar that he found walking over one of them. He coaxed it to take a walk over his finger. It amused him for a long time; and when a sudden gust of wind blew it overboard, leaves and ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... at their leisure moments. A few days ago I paid a visit to a charming literary man, who writes articles full of life and wit for the newspapers. I opened the door so suddenly, he blushed as he threw a pair of pantaloons into the corner. He had a thimble on his finger. Ah! wretched cits, who refuse to give your daughters in marriage to literary men, you would be full of admiration for them, could you see them mending their clothes! Smoking-tobacco absorbed more than one-third of our money; we received too many friends, and then there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... at work upon the drawings. My artist showed his friend the plants I had collected, then the plants he collected himself from the earth, and then he called his daughter, a young lady, and took a drop of blood from her finger. The first specimen contained several of the Gemiasmas. The demonstration, coming after the previous demonstrations, carried a conviction that it otherwise would not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... continuously. Yet it was never a soliloquy: he always included the listeners. He used to look round at them, explore their faces, catch an eye and smile, indicate the particular person addressed by a darted-out finger; and he had many little free gestures with his hands as he talked. He would trace little hieroglyphics with his finger, as if he were writing a word, sweep an argument aside, bring his hands together as though he were shaping something. This ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... excitant. It is relegated to the position of a proximate cause with regard to the vibration of the nerve, as the striking of a key on the piano is the proximate cause of the vibration of a string, which always gives the same degree of sound whether struck by the forefinger or third finger, or by a pencil or any other body. It will be seen at once that this comparison is inexact. The specific property of our nerves does not prevent our knowing the form of the excitant, and our nerves are only comparable to piano strings if we grant to these the property of vibrating differently ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... is good, not in itself, but through the good it does, and especially to those who possess or acquire it. If, simply by raising his finger, a man could enable every French man or woman to read Virgil readily and demonstrate Newton's binomial theory, this man would be dangerous and ought to have his hands tied; for, should he inadvertently raise his finger, manual labor would be repugnant and, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hitherto been regarded, hence the new name. The corolla strikingly resembles the head of an elephant, the beak of the galea forming the trunk, the lateral lobes of the lips the ears, and the stigma the finger-like appendage of ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... on the bedside-table save a silver cigarette box. T. X. drew on a pair of gloves and examined the bright surface for finger-prints, but a superficial view revealed no ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... wild shout for the king's deposition and the election of a chief to succeed him. A candidate was instantly found and installed; but no sooner had he been chosen, than Fana-Toro,—daring the new prince to prove a power of endurance equal to his own,—plunged his finger in a bowl of boiling oil, and held it over the fire, without moving a muscle, till the flesh was crisped ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of the tiny ears betwixt the finger and thumb of each hand, and pulled. The body of the horse came asunder, divided down the back, and showed inside of it a piece of paper. Cosmo took it out. It was crushed, rather than folded, round something soft. He handed it ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... eagerly snatched the pole from my hands and examined it carefully. At length he said, "This hyer is the end used for the handle; one can see by the finger marks, an' this crook is used to scrape stone with, one kin see, with half an eye, by the way the end is sandpapered off. Over tha' air some marks on the stone which look almighty like as if they'd been made by the end of this yer hook slipping down ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... his way, the King called Edmund aside. Taking a gold ring from his finger, he put it on Edmund's hand, and told him that if it were God's will this might some day mean great things for him. Then he said good-bye, and rode away ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... my finger between (or some other mark), I shut the volume, and with a calmed countenance, made it known to Alypius. And what was wrought in him, which I know not, he thus shewed me. He asked to see what I had read; I shewed him, and he looked even farther than ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion, wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water. An Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,—huge, golden pumpkins scattered among the hills of corn,—a noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down, the sky was deeply dyed ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... out a small file,'there's a friend for you, and you know the road to the sea by the stairs.' Hatteraick shook his chains in ecstasy, as if he were already at liberty, and strove to extend his fettered hand towards his protector. Glossin laid his finger upon his lips with a cautious glance at the door, and then proceeded in his instructions. 'When you escape, you had better go ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... grey head. When the latter rose, he kissed the cardinal's ring, trembling a little, for it had all been very unexpected. The cardinal embraced him in the ecclesiastical fashion, and then, to his further amazement, drew off his episcopal ring and slipped it upon Don Matteo's finger, took his own bishop's cross and chain from his neck and hung it ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... is born, wrap a fold of towel around his ankles to prevent slipping and hold him up by the heels with one hand, taking care that the cord is slack. To get a good safe grip, insert one finger between the baby's ankles. Do not swing or spank the baby. Hold him over the bed so that he cannot fall far if he should slip from your grasp. The baby's body will be very slippery. Place your other hand under the baby's forehead and bend its head back slightly ...
— Emergency Childbirth - A Reference Guide for Students of the Medical Self-help - Training Course, Lesson No. 11 • U. S. Department of Defense
... were gathered in their sitting-room, one of them was leaning on the bank. He held up a quarter of a dollar between his thumb and finger, and, looking at his companions, said, "You know Simpson, the pawnbroker?" "Yes." "He is a friend in need, but here is a friend indeed!" and the bright silver dropped, jingling, into ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... endlessly repeating Voi, Voi, which seems to be as useful in Finnish as so in German, helped by a good deal of polite smiling, when a door opened and mamma returned, followed by a boy of seventeen, who was introduced as "our son." We got up and shook hands. He seized our finger, and bowed his head with a little jerk over it—that was not all, however, for, as if desirous of dislocating his neck, he repeated the performance with a second handshake. This was extra politeness on his part—two handshakes, two jerky bows; ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... toes being dilated to enable them to cling to the surfaces of leaves. The most exceptional species of the whole group are the two tongueless toads, the Pipa of South America and the Daclytethra of Africa, the last-named kind being the lowest of all known animals provided with finger nails. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Carena is mentioned it is so done as to defy verification. Inartistic references are not, in this instance, a token of inadequate study. But a book designed only for readers who know at a glance where to lay their finger on S. Francis. Collat. Monasticae, Collat. 20, or Post constt. IV. XIX. Cod. I. v. will be slow ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... APPLICATION OF THE LAW TO THE FACT. Here is the question: "Ought the men who have done this deed against the form of Law to be punished thereby?" The government attorney and the judge are of the opinion that the law should be thus applied to this case, but they cannot lay their finger on him until the jury, specially sworn "well and truly to try and true deliverance make," have unanimously come to that opinion, and say, "Take him and apply ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... this trait of local patriotism so common then in the beautiful province by the Rhine; then he thought that pantomime might be necessary, so he pointed with his finger first at one road, then ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... principles and feelings of a sect from the professions which it makes in a time of feebleness and suffering. If we would know what the Puritan spirit really is, we must observe the Puritan when he is dominant. He was dominant here in the last generation; and his little finger was thicker than the loins of the prelates. He drove hundreds of quiet students from their cloisters, and thousands of respectable divines from their parsonages, for the crime of refusing to sign his Covenant. No tenderness was shown to learning, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hold of me like that. But it's all of a match with the rest of your doings, you great stupid owl. You've lost me more'n a dozen prime sheep by not mixing your dip proper—after having lost me the best of my ewes and lambs with your ignorant notions—and now you go and put finger marks over my new alpaca body, all because you won't think, or keep yourself clean. You can take a ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... rigid finger of steel projected itself beneath the partially raised window. The rifle cracked almost against the faces of the two. He screamed hideously as his companion dropped without a sound, twitching, twitching—he screamed again and began dragging himself away toward the sheltering forest. Intently and ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... up. Of course he knew where, Not so far either. His arm swept three-fourths of the horizon. He should just think he did know where. He pressed his finger-tips to his forehead and then pushed them towards her, as if oozing ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... that hill over there?" he begins. I look where he is pointing and see three. "No, not that one," and he comes behind me and points over my shoulder. "Follow my finger," he says, and I follow it and see a perfectly flat field. But he has to be humoured, and anyhow there is lunch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... apiece, and we have now for the fifth time met face to face in debate, and up to this day I have not found either Judge Douglas or any friend of his taking hold of the Republican platform, or laying his finger upon anything in it that is wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge Douglas turns away from the platform of principles to the fact that he can find people somewhere who will not allow us to announce those principles. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... persons mounting the stairs. As the three individuals who had appointed a meeting at D'Harmental's were all assembled, Brigaud, who, with his ear always on the qui-vive had heard the sound first, put his finger to his mouth, to impose silence on the disputants. They could plainly hear the steps approaching; then a low whispering, as of two people questioning; finally, the door opened, and gave entrance to a soldier of the French guard, and a ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... South. Each winter resort brings home to us the power of the British doctor. It is he who rears pleasant towns at the foot of the Pyrenees, and lines the sunny coasts of the Riviera with villas that gleam white among the olive groves. It is his finger that stirs the camels of Algeria, the donkeys of Palestine, the Nile boats of Egypt. At the first frosts of November the doctor marshals his wild geese for their winter flitting, and the long train streams off, grumbling but obedient, to the little ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... metropolis of India; within a circle of twenty miles of the present locality, one city after another has established its capital, ruled in splendor, and passed away. One monument, which we find in the environs, has thus far defied the destructive finger of time,—the Katub-Minar, which stands alone amid hoary ruins, the loftiest single column in the world, but of which there is no satisfactory record. It is not inappropriately considered one of the greatest architectural marvels of India, and whoever erected ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... disappeared. The object for which I had ordered the baths having now been accomplished, I treated the affected muscles with the faradic current. A short course of this treatment sufficed to remove the paralysis from all but one finger (it was either the middle or ring finger), the extensors of which had ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... was such a toy as froggy for a wet day," said Aunt Emma. "I have tried him on all sorts of boys and girls, and he never fails. He's as good a cure for a cross face as a poultice is for a sore finger. But, Milly, listen! I declare there's something else going on in my bag. I really think, my dear bag, you might be quiet now that you have got rid of froggy! What can all this chattering be about? Sh! sh!" and Aunt ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the shore. At last, with great exertions, we reached the bay where we were to put in for the reindeer. The bear was there before us. It had not seen the boat hitherto; but now it got scent of us, and came nearer. It was a tempting shot. I had my finger on the trigger several times, but did not draw it. After all, we had no use for the animal; it was quite as much as we could do to stow away what we had already. It made a beautiful target of itself by getting up on ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... ended. And August the Strong—what shall we say of August? History must admit that he attains the maximum in several things. Maximum of physical strength; can break horse-shoes, nay half-crowns with finger and thumb. Maximum of sumptuosity; really a polite creature; no man of his means so regardless of expense. Maximum of Bastards, three hundred and fifty-four of them; probably no mortal ever exceeded that quantity. Lastly, he has baked the biggest Bannock on record; Cake with 5,000 ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... Bourbon, collections of antiques, pictures, bronzes, statues, the treasures of the Vatican and of palaces, jewels, even the pastoral ring of the Pope, which the Directorial commissary himself wrests from the Pope's finger, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Mr. Stirn was not present at the Parson's Discourse—but that valuable functionary was far otherwise engaged—indeed, during the summer months he was rarely seen at the afternoon service. Not that he cared for being preached at—not he: Mr. Stirn would have snapped his finger at the thunders of the Vatican. But the fact was, that Mr. Stirn chose to do a great deal of gratuitous business upon the day of rest. The Squire allowed all persons, who chose, to walk about the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... said as I rubbed it reverently between my finger and thumb, just to show that he wasn't the only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... failures. Nothing is more amusing than his daughter's story of the great novelist, slipping out of the house one night, when he had asked several celebrities to meet Charlotte Bronte. The party was a terrible fiasco, and so he escaped, putting his finger to his lips as he opened the front door to warn his daughter that she must not reveal his flight. Charlotte's correspondence with her publisher is also full of pathos. It shows how keenly she felt her aloofness from the world, which she could ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... which at first I had overlooked—a modest, brief despatch tucked away in a corner, and unremarkable, except for its strange date-line. It was headed, "The Revolt in Honduras." I pointed to it with my finger, and Beatrice leaned forward with her head close to mine, and we read it together. "Tegucigalpa, June 17th," it read. "The revolution here has assumed serious proportions. President Alvarez has proclaimed martial law over all provinces, and leaves tomorrow for ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... the way to the hospital while Miss Brown kept a finger on her pulse. The girl's body acted mechanically, but the brain ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... the politics of Socialism, has so far learned nothing in her own defence? As vigorous as the aggressor, she also carries a rapier, which is even more formidable and more painful in its results—at all events, when my finger is the victim! For centuries and centuries Philanthus has stored her cellars with the corpses of bees, yet the innocent victim submits, and the annual decimation of her race has not taught her how to deliver herself from the scourge by a well-directed thrust. I am afraid ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... left hand—it was emaciated and disfigured by disease. A cheap-looking metal ring, set with a false stone, glistened upon the fourth finger. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... to come between them sometimes—that terrible uncertainty. The grey shadow of distrust which had divided them in the past still followed them from afar—a vague, intangible menace. Would it some day swing forward, like the dark, remorseless finger of an hour-dial, and lie once more impassably ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it with him. She moved her head in thanks, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... a sting. [4006]An ass overwhelmed a thistlewarp's nest, the little bird pecked his galled back in revenge; and the humble-bee in the fable flung down the eagle's eggs out of Jupiter's lap. Bracides, in Plutarch, put his hand into a mouse's nest and hurt her young ones, she bit him by the finger: [4007]I see now (saith he) there is no creature so contemptible, that will not be revenged. 'Tis lex talionis, and the nature of all things so to do: if thou wilt live quietly thyself, [4008]do no wrong to others; if any be done thee, put it up, with patience endure it, for [4009]"this is ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... drooped from the balconies, as if to attract attention from the passers- by. Madame Strahlberg, with her ostentatious and undulating walk, which caused men to turn and notice her as she went by, went swiftly up the stairs to the second story. She put one finger on the electric bell, which caused two or three little dogs inside to begin barking, and pushed Jacqueline in before her, crying: "Colette! Mamma! See whom I have brought back to you!" Meantime doors were hurriedly opened, quick steps resounded in the antechamber, and the newcomer ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... and seals and engraved stones, so very common in Mycenaean and later times, should have vanished wholly in the Homeric time. The poet never mentions them, just as Shakespeare never mentions a thing so familiar to him as tobacco. How often are finger rings mentioned in the whole mass of Attic tragic poetry? We remember no example, and instances are certainly rare: Liddell and Scott give none. Yet the tragedians were, of course, familiar with rings ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... say if you think she loves you, and tell me," she said, drawing herself erect and back from him, as in the twilight of the old library at Pinewood, while her thin finger was pointed upward—"tell me, as you will be judged hereafter—me, to whom her mother gave her as she died, knowing that ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... just abhorrence of those cruelties so frequently inflicted on the innocent and unoffending, as well as upon those who were really obnoxious to savage enmity. Such indeed were the acts of beneficence which characterized him, and so great his partiality for the English, that the finger of his brethren would point to his cabin as the residence of Logan, "the friend of white men." "In the course of the French war, he remained at home, idle and inactive;" opposed to the interference of his nation, "an advocate for peace." When his family fell before the fury of exasperated men, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... such as bloody temples, their heads deprived of most of the hair, and, which was worse, almost all of them with the loss of some of their fingers. Several fine boys, not above six years of age, had lost both their little fingers; and some of the men had parted with the middle finger of the ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... on his haunches, so solemn and wise, The Frog from a corner looked up to the skies; And the Sparrow, well pleased such diversions to see, Mounted high overhead, and looked down from a tree. Then out came the Spider, with finger so fine, To show his dexterity on the tight line. From one branch to another his cobwebs he slung, Then quick as an arrow he darted along. But just in the middle, oh, shocking to tell! From his rope in an instant poor ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... clothe myself in wreck—wear gems Sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned; Feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts Clutching my necklace: trick my maiden breast With orphans' heritage. Let your ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... annoyed him most of all, the iron spikes were rusty and the varnish had all gone rotten and white and streaky on the palings. He spoke to the bailiff about this, and hauled him out to look at it. The bailiff rubbed the varnish with his finger, smelt it, and said that it had perished. He also said there was no such thing as good varnish nowadays, and he added there wasn't any varnish, not the very best, but wouldn't go like that with rain and all. Mr. Hermann-Postlethwaite grumbled a good deal, but he supposed the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... it. At another, she was to stop, toss her head, and look pertly at the audience—she did it. When she took out the paper to read the list of the presents she had received, could she give it a tap with her finger (Yes)? And lead off with a little laugh (Yes—after twice trying)? Could she read the different items with a sly look at the end of each sentence, straight at the pit (Yes, straight at the pit, and as sly as you please)? The manager's cheerful face beamed with approval. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the difference in the world, if one has any manliness or chivalry in him. I had not the remotest idea—living apart from women as I have done for so many years—that merely taking a woman to church and putting a ring upon her finger could by any possibility involve one in such a daily, continuous tragedy as that now ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a word upon the air with her finger, and made a flourish under the word. So flowery was the flourish that it span her round, right round upon her toes, and she faced her watchers again. The committee jumped, for the blind ran up, and outside the window, at ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... all sour looks, are turn'd to sweet smiles, and she that used to thrust you from her, pulls you now every foot to her. Yea, those snow-white breasts, which before you durst scarce touch with your little finger; you may now, without asking leave, grasp by whole handfuls. Certainly, they that at full view, consider all this rightly; who can doubt but that you are the happiest man in the World? O ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... so reckless and foolhardy, Hansie?" her mother would exclaim. "We know that the men may come in any night, and we know that the house and grounds are being watched, and yet you want me to let our friends run right into the trap, without lifting a finger to save them! It would be an unpardonable thing, and I do believe you are only longing to have the excitement of ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... no tone like this which made the old Hall rock! Not if he got through twelve jury trials, and forty habeas corpus acts, and constitutions built high as yonder monument, would he permit so much as the shadow of a little finger of the slave claimant to touch the slave! At least so he was understood. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the Harmonica, and the prospect of your succeeding in the application of keys to it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the musical world this century, not excepting the Piano-forte. If its tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as the harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. I have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here, by the celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten feet long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... the ten thousand), than Friedrich Wilhelm's orders were out, "Be in readiness!" Friedrich Wilhelm, by the time of the Reich's actual assent, or Declaration of War on the Kaiser's behalf, has but to lift his finger: squadrons and battalions, out of Pommern, out of Magdeburg, out of Preussen, to the due amount, will get on march whitherward you bid, and be with you there at the day you indicate, almost at the hour. Captains, not of an imaginary ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... A vessel of stone or metal placed at the entrance of a temple that those who entered might wash their hands in it, or perhaps merely dip in a finger.] ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... quite as fast as an ordinarily active man is apt to walk. Her motion was nearly unobservable to all on board, and might rather be termed gliding than sailing, the ripple under her cut-water not much exceeding that which is made by the finger as it is moved swiftly through the element; still the slightest variation of the helm changed her course, and this so easily and gracefully as to render her deviations and inclinations like those of the duck. In her present ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Psmith, waving aside the interruption and tapping the head of the department rhythmically in the region of the second waistcoat-button with a long finger, 'I tell you, Comrade Rossiter, that you have got hold of a good man. You and I together, not forgetting Comrade Jackson, the pet of the Smart Set, will toil early and late till we boost up this Postage Department into a shining model of what a Postage Department should be. What that ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... consents with great reluctance, for she is busy carrying on a war with a neighboring king. Sigurd then passes three nights at her side, placing, however, his sword Gram between them, as a bar of separation. At parting he draws from her finger the ring, with which he had originally pledged his troth to her, and replaces it with another, taken from Fafnir's hoard. Soon after this the marriage of Gunnar and Brynhild is celebrated with great splendor, ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... reach the land, Weary indeed, and with incrusted brine 280 All rough, but oh, how glad to climb the coast! So welcome in her eyes Ulysses seem'd, Around whose neck winding her snowy arms, She clung as she would loose him never more. Thus had they wept till rosy-finger'd morn Had found them weeping, but Minerva check'd Night's almost finish'd course, and held, meantime, The golden dawn close pris'ner in the Deep, Forbidding her to lead her coursers forth, Lampus and Phaeton that furnish light 290 To all the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... the folded fan held up like a monitory finger. "Mr. Gantry may be back any minute, and I can give you only the tiniest hint. You must go to Mr. Evan Blount and appeal to him frankly, as ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... post, but facing toward the hospital when she came again down the steps, and this time handed him some cake and told him he was a good soldier not to drink even wine, and asked him what were the lights away across the Platte, and he couldn't see any, and was following her pointing finger and staring, and then all of a sudden he saw a million lights, dancing, and stars and bombs and that was all he knew till they began talking to him here in hospital. Something had hit him from behind, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... inquired. "Twenty marks" ($5.00), he asked in turn. "Phew!" I said aloud: "Mozart comes high, but we must have him." So I fetched out my lean purse, fished up a gold piece, put it down, and then an inspiration overtook me—I kept one finger on the money. "Is it Don Giovanni or Magic Flute this afternoon?" I demanded. The man stared at me angrily. "What you talk about? It is Tristan und Isolde. This is the new Wagner theater!" I must have yelled loudly, for when I recovered the big beadle was slapping my back ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... I'd meant to tell you," said Mr. Abrahams, absently chasing a piece of bread round his plate with a stout finger. "You remember that girl I told you about some time back—girl working at the Garden—girl called Nicholas, who came into a bit of money ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... general wisdom of his statesmanship will perhaps appear greater and its not infrequent errors less the more fully the circumstances are appreciated. As to the man, perhaps the sense will grow upon us that this balanced and calculating person, with his finger on the pulse of the electorate while he cracked his uncensored jests with all comers, did of set purpose drink and refill and drink again as full and fiery a cup of sacrifice as ever was pressed to the lips of hero or ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... finger on his lips to enjoin silence, and peered cautiously over the edge of the dike. Perhaps he was glad that this diversion had occurred to postpone even for a short time the announcement of a decision it had cost him so much to make. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... found his senses, he was lying among cushions and rugs in the waiting-room at Tunbridge Wells Station. He awoke with a faint shiver, and tried to raise himself, but found to his astonishment that he could not so much as lift a finger. As a matter of fact, he was among those whom the busy surgeons had given up as a desperate case; and, after doing all in their power to ease him, abandoned in favour of more hopeful subjects; but this ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... tell them the truth," she said, sternly. "That man," she cried, pointing her finger at the King, "that man whom they call a King—that man who would have sacrificed the only friend who serves him unselfishly—is the man who sold your secret to the enemy. It was he who made me do it. He sent me to Messina, and while ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... and cruelly unjust. It was not a pleasant thing for me to do, and I hated myself in the stooping to do it, but there was no other way for it, since he dared not come in the daylight, and I dared not go to him. Now I wish to God I had never troubled myself and never lifted my little finger to accomplish this thing for the cause, since spies have been going and coming between Dudhope and the north. What I did, I did for you and King James, and if I had succeeded ye would have praised me and said that a woman's wiles ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... leady traced the ruined span with his metal finger, a tiny spider-web, almost invisible. "You have no doubt seen photographs of this many times, and of the ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... "has lost his soul, and this is the way it happened. He was playing among the stones down on the beach when he saw a crawfish in the water, and made fun of it, pointing his finger at it and saying, 'Oh, you crooked legs! Oh, you crooked legs! You can't walk straight; you go sidewise,' which made the crab so angry that he reached out his long nippers, seized the lad's soul, pulled it out of him and ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... to put James to the sword, and ultimately imprison Peter for the same horrid purpose: but he who "sitteth in the heavens" held the presumptuous criminal in "utter derision," despatched an angel to break off the chains by which his servant was bound, and laid his finger upon the royal rebel to extinguish his glory and his pride for ever; "he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost." Ah! the immortality of the soul elevates it above mortal power, and the utmost that a persecutor can do is, by a painful stroke, to put a ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... time ago; but she was a woman now,—and, look here! A chance ray of sunlight slanted in, falling barely on the dust, the hot heaps of wool, waking a stronger smell of copperas; the chicken saw it, and began to chirp a weak, dismal joy, more sorrowful than tears. She went to the cage, and put her finger in for it to peck at. Standing there, if the vacant life coming rose up before her in that hard blare of sunlight, she looked at it with the same still, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... grow very brawny and corpulent, resembling their own horses in size, and presenting, one would suppose, perfect pictures of physical comfort and well-being. But the least bruise, or even the hurt of a finger, is liable to turn to gangrene ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... after the sacred ceremony was over, Miss Milner—(with all the fears, the tremors, the superstition of her sex)—felt an excruciating shock; when, looking on the ring Lord Elmwood had put upon her finger, in haste, when he married her, she ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... and chaffer with me! You would dictate your terms, you scum! You with your head in a noose, a spy that has failed in his mission, a miserable wretch that I can send to his death with a flip of my little finger! You impudent hound! Well, you'll get your deserts this time, Captain Desmond Okewood ... but I'll have ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... them "to the Lord." Her faith discerned an invisible hand, and rejoiced in an omniscient superintendance. Whatever confusion appears to the eye of sense to prevail in the world, religion has access behind the scenes, observes the finger that touches the prime spring of this vast machine of providence, and sees nothing but harmonious movements, concurrent designs, merciful and intelligible plans, perfect and universal order. The perspective of human affairs ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... one he had neither occasion nor desire to hear. As to his friends, those who had known him the longest minded his dumbness the least. But the moment the defect was understood to be irreparable, Mrs. Sclater very wisely proceeded to learn the finger-speech; and as she learned it, she taught it ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... therefore dreading what he would see, the attendant took the newspaper held outstretched to him and followed the pointing finger to a featured column. ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... responsible for all cosmic phenomena. Thus thunder to these American children was God groaning or kicking or rolling barrels about, or turning a big handle, or grinding snow, or breaking something, or rattling a big hammer; while the lightning is due to God putting his finger out, or turning the gas on quick, or striking matches, or setting paper on fire. According to Boston children, God is a big, perhaps a blue, man, to be seen in the sky, on the clouds, in church, or even in the streets. They declare that God comes to see them sometimes, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... the murky hollows of the soul! Good Heaven! How glorious this morning hour, Nature's new birth-time! All her mighty frame, In lowly vale, on lofty mountain-top, And wide savannah, stirs, with sprightful life, Life irrepressible, whose eager thrill Shoots to her very finger-tips, and makes Each little flower through all her delicate threads Each fibrous plant, each blade of corn or grass, And each tall tree, through all its limbs and leaves, Quiver and tremble. The ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... marked effect upon the other." If a man lost his touch with Christ it was noticed that he was careless in his work; but as long as his heart was right with God his eye was clear and his hand steady and firm. At the head of the whole concern stood Spangenberg, a business man to the finger tips. If genius is a capacity for taking pains, then Spangenberg was a genius of the finest order. He drew up regulations dealing with every detail of the business, and at his office he kept a strict account of every penny expended, every yard of linen woven, every pound of butter made, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... bruises around me somewhere—but no bones broke. You see," she added, as though imparting a great secret, "the Sandersons' bones jest never was made to break. Now, there was our cousins—the Petersons—they was different. One o' that family wouldn't dare waggle his finger too hard for fear it would bust on him. You see, they was just naturally made that way. My son, Willie," here the brave voice lowered a trifle and tears rose to the bright old eyes, "he used to call them in fun—always jokin', ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... cleared by a sweep of Big Medicine's arm, and the Happy Family crowded close to stare down at the checker-board picture of their own familiar bench land. They did not doubt, now—nor did they Hang back reluctantly. Instead they followed eagerly the trail Chip's cigarette-yellowed finger took across the map, and they listened intently to what he ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... next to the glass," said Adam, as he put his finger against the lower left-hand corner of the peep window, and there I directed my torch. One of the great white pearls had a series of little holes around one end of it, and while I gazed a sharp little beak was thrust suddenly from within it. The shell fell apart, and out ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess |
