"Fumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jem," continued she, "he'll be disappointed; he made sure of being glorious to-night, and I made sure to sleep by his side—now he'll be quite sober—and I'll be food for fishes; it's a cold bed that I shall turn into before morning, that's certain. Hand me the cakes, boy, if you can fumble them out; the more we fill ourselves, the less room for salt water. Well, then, wind and waves are great bullies; they fly slap back in a fright when they bang against a great ship; but when they get hold of a ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... shook his head pityingly. "It's already too late. I'm sorry." He bent his head guiltily and began to fumble with the papers ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... At first she seemed not to see the anxious countenances bent over her. Then a look of recognition crept into her face, and a wan little smile parted the lips. She lifted one hand and began to fumble feebly in the bosom ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... cage. Even an ordinarily hit ball must have stung the hands, and the way a hard grounder cracked was enough to excite sympathy among those scornful spectators, if nothing more. But they yelled in delight at every fumble, at everything that happened. Ken kept whispering to himself: "I can't see the fun in it. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... it seemed to me that this person was quite white, and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite blankly upon a place, a kind of mist in which reason could not live; and it was the fear of this that made them fumble nervously at the lock of that rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was not so ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... to the girl, keeping his eyes on the Easterners, and his weapon steady. He had hung the wire coil over his shoulder, leaving his left hand free to fumble for and untie the cords around Naomi's wrists. He ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... mother with her ponies Underneath Sir Toby's beeches, Pulling up to share with cronies News of grapes and plums and peaches: Many a gaffer stops to fumble At his forelock as she passes, While the children cease to tumble Frocks and blouses in ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of kings, drew all the kingdoms after it—the fall of force, the defeat ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... rising. "Ye see," he said, apologetically, "we got to talking o' Roger and ole times, and I got a little out o' my course. It's a matter of—" he began to fumble in his pockets, and finally produced a small memorandum-book, which he glanced ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... and at any time outdistance the most brilliant high-school graduate, for skill is her education, and she handles, and fingers, and computes sometimes many thousands of delicate threads, or intricate bits of metal, the slightest fumble of which might throw out of gear a powerful machine. This is applied mathematics, is it not? She uses no pencil nor paper, but counts by allowing one line to overlap another at every five hundred cards, done in some fine print work, and when ten five hundred cards ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... his basic problems on the planet of his origin than he began to fumble into space. Barely a century had elapsed in the exploration of the Solar System than he began to grope ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... from head to foot, slowly and aimlessly looked about him, got up, hurriedly buttoned up his undergraduate's uniform, and edged up to the examiner's table. 'Take a paper, please,' the professor would say to him pleasantly. Voinitsin would stretch out his hand, and with trembling fingers fumble at the pile of papers. 'No selecting, if you please,' observed, in a jarring voice, an assistant-examiner, an irritable old gentleman, a professor in some other faculty, conceiving a sudden hatred for the unlucky bearded one. Voinitsin resigned himself to his fate, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... to fumble awkwardly with the tea-pot, and she felt sure that he had heard what had been said of her. But what was there that Rosedale did ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... paper, and the first streamed through for a dozen yards. And so it went until the second found itself only a few yards from its goal line. There, with the backs pressed close against the forwards, the second held and secured the ball on downs, only to lose it again by a fumble on the part of Post. Then a delayed pass gained two yards for the first and a mass at left tackle found another. But the next play resulted disastrously, for when the ball was passed back there was no one to take it, and the quarter was borne back several yards before his own astounded ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... are generally reached in cricket matches. Baldwin and Crane were both on their mettle and the fielding being of the sharpest kind safe hits were few and far between. Up to the ninth inning Chicago led by two runs, but here Earle's three-bagger, Hanlon's base on balls, Burns' fumble of Brown's hit and Carroll's double settled our chances, the All-Americas winning by a score ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... a touchdown in their favor, Colby thought to remain in the lead, they soon had this hope shattered. The Columbus Academy eleven played a fast and snappy second quarter, and, as a result, before it was half over they took the ball on a fumble and circled the ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... caught like a silly struggling fish in the net of his own theories! No, that must never be. He flung himself at his work. He was revising the catalogue of his miniatures and in a minute he began to fumble and ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... bobbing cavalier would lose his balance and tug at the reins; then the horse, which had a soft mouth, would turn sideways or stand still; the rider would then smack his lips, and if this had no effect he would fumble for the whip. The horse, guessing what was required, would start again, shaking him up and down until he looked like a rag doll badly ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... you can get much closer to your audience. In a sense, they appreciate the task you have before you and send out their sympathy. Extemporize, and you will not have to stop and fumble around amidst your notes—you can keep your eye afire with your message and hold your audience with your very glance. You yourself will feel their response as you read the effects of your warm, spontaneous ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... tactility; feeling; palpation, palpability; contrectation[obs3]; manipulation; massage. [Organ of touch] hand, finger, forefinger, thumb, paw, feeler, antenna; palpus[obs3]. V. touch, feel, handle, finger, thumb, paw, fumble, grope, grabble; twiddle, tweedle; pass the fingers over, run the fingers over; manipulate, wield; throw out a feeler. Adj. tactual, tactile; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... striped pattern. Behind the britchka stood a second, but an empty, turn-out, drawn by four long-coated steeds in ragged collars and rope harnesses. The flaxen-haired man lost no time in ascending the staircase, while his darker friend remained below to fumble at something in the britchka, talking, as he did so, to the driver of the vehicle which stood hitched behind. Somehow, the dark-haired man's voice struck Chichikov as familiar; and as he was taking another look at him the flaxen-haired gentleman entered the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... One would think you had never seen a corset before. Don't fumble! If you fumble, I shall pack you off to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Again the sickening stench was about them as gaping jaws gleamed fiery beneath the hateful eyes and tore at the flimsy structure. Thorpe jammed more cartridges into the gun and fired again and again, then dropped the weapon to fumble for the rockets that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the socket, And saints whose eyes are always in their pocket, Are much alike: such candles make us fumble; And at such saints, good men ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a moment, and apparently found it needful to fumble at the fastenings of the furs, while there was a curious expression in his eyes when ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save, Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... very great personage with too great a consciousness of his own greatness were expressing his approval of the conduct of a little boy. Disraeli stopped dead short in his speech and one of the finest bits of comedy I can remember to have seen ensued. He closed his eyes and began very deliberately to fumble about the breast of his frock-coat within and without in search of something which he was evidently not over anxious to find. Alighting at last on the object of this perfunctory search he produced an eyeglass and, still with closed ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... I had done what the man wished and expected from me. But if I stopped the poor man, and sympathetically questioned him about his former and his present life, I felt that it was no longer possible to give three or twenty kopeks, and I began to fumble in my purse for money, in doubt as to how much I ought to give, and I always gave more; and I always noticed that the poor man left me dissatisfied. But if I entered into still closer intercourse with the poor man, then my doubts as to how much to give increased ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... and mentally. He had been roughly used by two of the Roxley players, and had made a fumble at a critical moment. And all during that heartrending first half Dora had not noticed him ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... paradise, boy; a paradise that turns to dust and ashes." Sir Beverley's voice quivered suddenly. He withdrew his hand to fumble in an inner pocket. In a moment he stretched it forth again with a key ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... said. "Come with me. Show me my way—I will pay—I will pay anything in reason." Actually I saw her fumble at her purse, and the hot blood flew ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... him sitting there with his back to her, crying, she was puzzled and disturbed. As she watched, she saw him fumble for something under the quilt, then lift a shining pistol, and place the muzzle to his thin, bald temple. With a cry of terror, she dashed forward and knocked the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... curio in the form of a Phoenix, I dare say the Board—' said the nice gentleman, as Robert began to fumble with his buttons. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... empty—and Jimmie Dale was standing against the door on the outside. His position was perfectly natural—a hundred passers-by would have noted nothing but a most commonplace occurrence—a man in the act of entering a store. And, if he appeared to fumble and have trouble with the latch, what of it! Jimmie Dale, however, was not fumbling—hidden by his back that was turned to the street, those wonderful fingers of his, in whose tips seemed embodied and concentrated every one ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... calmly feeding upon some of the trees and bushes in the neighbourhood when he got them. That they felt the pangs of thirst there can be no doubt—and what animal can suffer thirst like a camel?—as whenever they were brought to the camp they endeavoured to fumble about the empty water-bags, tin pannikins, and any other vessel that ever had ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... clamour of clapping reminded him that he had better be getting to his seat, and he found that the steward to whom he had given his ticket, a sallow young woman with projecting teeth, was holding it close to her eyes with one hand and using the other to fumble in a leather bag for some glasses which manifestly were not there. He felt sorry for her because she was not beautiful like Ellen Melville. Did she grieve at it, he wondered; or had she, like most plain women, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... crashing overhead and just in front of the parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his head raised some laughter and a ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... first baseman the pitcher should cover the base, and if the hit is slow or if the baseman fumbles it he may still have time to toss the ball to the pitcher. The pitcher should not wait until he sees the fumble before starting, but the instant the hit is made go for the base; he will then be there and ready to receive the ball and not be forced to take it on the run. So, too, the occasion may arise when he should cover second ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... He would glance at Bart, start to speak, lower his eyes, and, turning pale as he seemed to remember, and turning red as he seemed to realize, would fumble at his watch fob, run his fingers through his hair and act ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a series of extraordinary contortions. After a few moments, he extracted from apparently no particular place a child's apron, which he laid upon ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... now but fumble in a pocket of his oily dungarees and produce a slab of his favorite brand, Perk thrusting it into his mouth and savagely rolling it between his teeth, really believed this helped his brain to ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... is. He p'omised to git me a job up hyeah, an' I got yo' lettah—" here Silas, who had set his bundle on the floor in coming into the Presence, began to fumble in his pockets for the letter. He searched long in vain, because his hands trembled, and he was nervous under the eyes of this great personage who stood unmoved and looked ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... about him, he crossed to the open coffin and began to fumble amongst the putrefying mass of bones and webbing which lay therein. Out from this he presently drew ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... boat in the time Loftus takes to fetch one," he said to himself, and he looked round him. No sign of Doll. He was alone in the world. The cold was gaining on him slowly, surely. Why had he on such heavy gloves, which made him fumble so clumsily. He looked at his bare cut hands, and realized that their grip was leaving them. He felt that he was in measurable distance of ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... when I had posted my letter to Jukie, and sat alone in my room, smoking and thinking, at last with leisure to open my mind to all the impressions and implications of the day (I haven't time for this in the laboratory), I began to fumble for and find a new clue to Arthur's recent oddness. For twenty-four hours I had believed that he had perhaps killed Oliver Hobart. Now, suddenly I didn't. But I was clear that there was something about Oliver Hobart's death which concerned him, touched him nearly, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... to a halt outside the building, and we all climbed down. I lighted a cigarette, and I noticed two of the other men fumble for matches for the same purpose. We wanted something to steady our nerves. There was never a moment when shell fire was not bursting in that square. Shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The Germans were making a target of the Town Hall and dropping ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... twelve now; a pale, plain child, with sharp, intelligent eyes, and a busy little mind, that did a good deal more thinking than anybody imagined. She was just at the unattractive, fidgety age when no one knew what to do with her, and so let her fumble her way up as she could, finding pleasure in odd things, and living much alone, for she did not go to school, because her shoulders were growing round, and Mrs. Shaw would not "allow her figure to be spoiled." That suited Maud excellently; and whenever her father spoke of sending her ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... rolled through the homely scenes of the outskirts, that black fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city, Choulette took from his pocket an old book which he began to fumble. The writer, hidden under the vagabond, revealed himself. Choulette, without wishing to appear to be careful of his papers, was very orderly about them. He assured himself that he had not lost the pieces of paper on which he noted ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... greater part of a ship's biscuit, which, as I was quitting the cabin, I had mechanically thrust into it. I almost shouted for joy as I found the prize—though it was not much to be divided among four men. The discovery made the rest fumble in their pockets. McTavish had a tobacco-box, which he had only just filled, and Jack found a huge lump of grease, which, though not very savoury, was not to be despised. How it had come there he could not recollect. These treasures, however, we determined not to begin to consume till the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... imagination; and, as compared with instinct, it is a power which acts in clearly denned, isolated, intermittent movements, each one of which has a definite beginning and a definite end. As compared with imagination, intuition is passive and receptive; as compared with instinct it does not fumble and grope forward, steadily and tenaciously, among the roots of things; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface of the unfathomable waters, and suspended there reflects in swift sudden glimpses the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... enough to get into a few minutes of scrimmage with the second, Clint usually finished up at right or left tackle. But he couldn't help thinking that were he not there his absence would go unremarked. Even on the to him memorable occasion when he broke through the second's line on a fumble and, seizing the ball, romped almost unchallenged over the last four white lines for a touchdown the incident went apparently unnoticed. One or two of his team-mates patted him approvingly on the back, but that was all. Clint was ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was as rude a surprise as the lunch. He watched the woman fumble over lighting the fire in the stove until he could stand ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... across the floor wavered suddenly, the door opened, was locked again, and with a quick, catlike step a man moved along the side of the wall where the shadows lay thickest near the door, dropped on his knees, and began to fumble hurriedly with the base-board of the wall, pausing at every alternate second ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... that bath, and then she filled a sponge with cold water and trickled it on him, until he threatened to jump out and give her a cold douche. Then, panting with her exertions and dry now, she collapsed on the chair and began to fumble with her hair and its solitary rose. It was exactly Julie who sat there unashamed in her nakedness, Peter thought. She had kept the soul of a child through everything, and it could burst through the outer covering of the woman who had tasted of the tree of knowledge ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble at ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... of five, ten, and twenty-dollar bills lay snugly inserted between the leaves of the Bible. The tramp who lay on the floor, as yet too surprised to attempt to rise, rolled over and seized the book as a football player seizes the pigskin after a fumble, covering it with his body, his arms, and sticking out his elbows as a further protection to ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... walk up to the barrier deep in conversation. I should then get in front, and the examiner would pull me up for my ticket. I should fumble before producing my season. Meantime you would have passed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... men,—an interval of a year between each,—and there had also been a kiss in an alcove designed by her dearest friend, Ella Linton, for the undoing of mankind, a place of softened lights and shadowy palms. It was her recollection of these incidents that had caused her to fumble with the blind cord when her father had been suggesting to her the disadvantages of inexperience in matters of the heart. But the incidents had led to nothing, except, perhaps, a week or two of remorse. But she could not help ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... within a couple of inches from the desk-chair, and which consisted of a trap-door, the width of a board in the flooring and the length of a man's fore-arm and no longer; a trap-door that falls back like the lid of a box; a trap-door through which I can see a hand come and dexterously fumble at the pocket of ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... handsome dress packed up— White satin here, to set off my black hair; 105 In I shall march—for you may watch your life out Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you; More than one man spoils everything. March straight— Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for. Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 110 Through guards and guards—I have rehearsed it all Inside the turret here a hundred times Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe! But ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... account of that "personal element" which is everything in the south, of the ruffled tempers of those gorgeous but inert creatures who, disturbed in their siestas or mandolin-strummings, may keep you waiting half a day while they fumble ominously over some dirty-looking scrap of paper. For on such occasions they are liable to provoking fits of conscientiousness. This is all very well, my dear sir, but—Ha! Where, where is that certificate of origin, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... Then the door was opened, and he saw, plain against the light, a man's figure, his father's. No doubt the old man was watching and listening. Perhaps the sound of the wheels reached him through the evening air, for in a few minutes he came out and walked down the drive. Hyacinth saw him fumble with the fastening of the rickety gate, and at last open it slowly and with difficulty. The car reached a gap in the loose stone wall, a familiar gap, for across it lay a short cut up a steeper part of the hill, which the road went round. Hyacinth jumped down and ran up the path. In another ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... minds, high and low, wise and foolish, cultivated and rude. This Teacher does not only impart wisdom by words as from without, though He does that too, but He comes into men's spirits, and communicates Himself, and so makes them wise. Other teachers fumble at the outside, but 'in the hidden parts He makes me to know wisdom.' So it is safe to take this Teacher absolutely, and to say, 'Thou art my Master, Thy word is truth, and the opening of Thy lips ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... together, and said in a hoarse but steady voice: "Your waistcoat, Charolais.... Go and open the door ... not too quickly ... fumble the bolts.... Bernard, shut the book-case. Victoire, get out of sight, do you want to ruin us all? Be smart now, all of ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... mine full and square. For a moment he lay without motion, then (his face a-twitch with the effort) he came slowly to his elbow, gazed about him and so back to me again. Then I saw his hand creep down to the dagger at his hip, to fumble weakly there—howbeit, at the third essay he drew the blade and began to creep towards me. Very slowly and painfully he dragged himself along, and once I heard him groan, but he stayed not till he was ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... color mounted to the lad's forehead. He had not anticipated such close inspection and instinctively he began to fumble with the corner of his sweater and look nervously down at his hands. They must be very dirty from making the fires. And he had been actually greeting Mr. and Mrs. Crowninshield with paws like those! The horror ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... hee's not in Hell: hee's in Arthurs Bosome, if euer man went to Arthurs Bosome: a made a finer end, and went away and it had beene any Christome Childe: a parted eu'n iust betweene Twelue and One, eu'n at the turning o'th' Tyde: for after I saw him fumble with the Sheets, and play with Flowers, and smile vpon his fingers end, I knew there was but one way: for his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields. How now Sir Iohn (quoth I?) what man? be a good cheare: so a cryed out, God, God, God, three or ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... youthful vanity, however, can be forgiven to those who are generous and faithful. Besides, Margaret Fuller was splendidly domestic. She advocated women's rights to a certain extent; but she was no forerunner to the modern brood of platform women who fumble their night-keys while they discourse on the duties of wives and mothers. She carried a helping hand into the families that she entered, as well as stirring all the inmates to an unwonted mental activity. She would knit socks while she talked ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... a very different thing. Doesn't it all pour from him as natural as if it had come to him that minute? He doesn't fumble over a book like a schoolboy. His beautiful eyes, I warrant you, ain't looking down all the time, as if he was ashamed to hold 'em up. Isn't it a privilege to see his blessed eyes rolling all sorts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... did not do so, but ignored his subjective first principles in the development of his system; and it was not until adopted by Kant, or rather by Fichte, that the transcendental method showed its true colours. Even today philosophers fumble with it, patching soliloquy with physics and physics with soliloquy. Moreover, Locke's misunderstandings of Descartes were partly justified by the latter's verbal concessions to tradition and authority. A man who has a clear head, and like Descartes is rendered by his aristocratic ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... they hae room to grumble! Hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle, [drone] Wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, [fuss] 'Twad been nae plea; [grievance] But he was gleg as ony wumble, [lively, auger] That's owre ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... is the matter with this horse; he goes very fumble-footed. I am sometimes afraid he ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... the centrepiece to the whole of this battle. As soon as we had won it I telegraphed to the Morning Post that now at last success was a distinct possibility. With this important feature in our possession it was certain that we held the key to Ladysmith, and though we might fumble a little with the lock, sooner or later, barring the accidents of war, we should ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... feeling could not strike out a poetical thought, and afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense know better than so to waste their time; and those who sincerely love poetry, know the touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this, all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woful ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to fumble with the pad-lock, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "I—I do not know; unless some one has stolen my key." She put a hand down to fumble in the pocket ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... fumble in her pocket. "The principle is the same whether it is Gale or Dale or Tompkins. I never expected to learn of my niece's engagement from the public press. I am confident the notice said 'Gale.' Ah! I thought so. Plain as the nose on your ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... in the baby blue pajamas was cursing in a high-pitched, nasal, querulous voice. Cleggett noticed with astonishment that a single-barreled eyeglass was screwed into one of his eyes. Occasionally it dropped to the ground, and he would stop and fumble for it and wipe it on his wet sleeve and replace it. Had it not been for these stops he would have overtaken ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... plays. Meet the ball; don't wait for it to get to you. That applies to you backs," and he nodded at Tom and his two mates. "Quarter, don't fumble when you pass the ball back. Be accurate. Don't make ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... madame! only think!" said Rosina, turning her wrinkled face toward me, and actually shaking all over with the recollection of her terror. "I thought I should have sank into the earth! I stood for a moment aghast, and then I began to fumble in my pocket. 'Where can the key be?' said I, pretending to search for it; but my countenance betrayed me, and my voice shook so, that he read me like a book. I am sure he knew the truth from that moment. He looked hard at me, while his face became quite ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... when the robbers reached their cave. The bundles were laid in a great circle on the floor, and, at a given signal, they were opened. For a moment each robber gazed blankly at the contents of his bundle, and then they all began to fumble and search among the piles of articles upon the cloths; but after a few minutes, they arose, looking blanker ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... to admit, even to himself, but that answer sounded a lot more probable. Machine technicians weren't exactly picked off the streets at random; they were highly trained for their work, and the idea of a whole crew of them starting to fumble at once, in a big way, was a little ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... each other on the table rock, and, feeling like another Sindbad the Sailor, I watched my new friend fumble in his bag and lay out at his side all sorts of odds and ends of string, fish-hooks, chewing-gum, material for making a fire, and so on, until at last he came to a package (done up, I noted with delight, in a broad, green leaf which had certainly been ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... if a Shadow, wading in the torrent Of high excitement, snatch me from the riot— (Fool that he is)—and fumble with his warrant, And hail a hearse, and beg me ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... yell went up as Burton recovered a first team fumble and started on his way toward the goal with a clear field ahead of him. Rudolph was ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... insisted 'pon your choosin' brandy," said Nicky-Nan, beginning to fumble in his left trouser-pocket. "You can make it beer if you wish, but I said 'brandy.' If you have no—" He ended on a sharp outcry, as of ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... me, or for Holdsworth (he was not particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that he got rid of them somehow, and could set off homewards), he would say he thought that he had, for such was his invariable safe form of answer; and would fumble in breast-pockets, waistcoat-pockets, breeches-pockets, and, as a last resource, in coat-tail pockets; and at length try to comfort me, if I looked disappointed, by telling me, 'Hoo had missed this toime, but was sure to write to-morrow;' 'Hoo' representing ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Inneraora. A most curious, dour, and moody man, with a mind roving from key to key. Every now and then he would stop and think a little without a word, then on, and run his fingers through his hair or fumble nervously at his leathern buttons, paying small heed to the Splendid and I, who convoyed him, so we got into a crack about ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... grateful to a relative on whom she had no urgent claim beyond the fact that she was now her only one. Aunt Emily's clear vision might, indeed, be said to have found the way through a tangle of poignant conditions in which her own poor heart had been able to do nothing but fumble helplessly. ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... sender's chair, not even while the door was under attack. Only a carrier beam connected the Sword with the Altair. She continued doggedly to fumble with dials and switches, trying to modulate it ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... of that dry humour which was in them hereditary, had welcomed the two apparitors (if that be the proper name for them) and led them kindly down the valley, and told them then to serve their writ. Misliking the look of things, these poor men began to fumble among their clothes; upon which the Doones cried, "off with them! Let us see if your message he on your skins." And with no more manners than that, they stripped, and lashed them out of the valley; only bidding them come to us, if they wanted Lorna Doone; ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... couple of blankets in the locker there," and the captain turned around, and began to fumble with his hands for the latch of the little door. "Ye'd better strip ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... It was audacious. A pretty kind of a fool he'd feel if he had started them off on a false scent! They would not thank him. He had fumbled the affair from the beginning, and doubtless was continuing to fumble it. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... himself in the use of his limbs and his weapons and become a perfect master at boxing and cudgel-play, he has had a troublesome life of it ever since. He cannot hear of a quarrel between the most distant of his neighbors but he begins incontinently to fumble with the head of his cudgel, and consider whether his interest or honor does not require that he should meddle in the broil. Indeed, he has extended his relations of pride and policy so completely over the whole country that no event can take place without infringing some of his ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... without perceptible pause, without added haste or deliberation, he continued to withdraw the hand he had thrust into his right coat pocket. Beside me I heard Brutus draw a sharp breath. I saw Mr. Sims fumble under his cloak and take a quick step backwards. There was a tense, pregnant silence, broken by Mr. Sims in fervent expletive. My father had withdrawn his hand. He was holding in it his silver snuff box, which he tossed carelessly on ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... to his wall ladder, push it along that narrow hallway, moving boxes aside as he went, and stop somewhere along the wall. Then he'd scramble up the ladder, pull out a bin, fumble around in it, and come out with the article in question. He'd blow the dust off it, polish it with a rag, scramble down the ladder, and say: "Here 'tis. Thought I had one. Let's go back in the back and give ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... fought. The Italian then had to walk twenty miles to find a surgeon, being in great need of his services. When he presented himself to the surgeon his face was heavily bandaged with blood-soaked cloths. He began to fumble in his pockets, and his face betrayed deep anxiety when he failed ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... this the lady who had charmed him the other day? Who had spoken of England and conjured up the memories of his own home in the Midlands? With a playful gesture, she sent her hat careering across the street and began to fumble at her breast, unlacing or unbuttoning something. It was ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... let's wave a white flag to keep them from mowing us down like wheat!" exclaimed Tubby, commencing to fumble in his pocket. ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... workroom. He locked the door; tried it, and shook the handle. After satisfying himself of its security, he pulled down the window-shades carefully, and, lighting a gas drop-lamp upon his desk, began to fumble with various documents, which he took from a small safe near by. But his hands were not steady; he dropped the papers, scattering them over the floor, and had great difficulty in picking them up. He perspired heavily: whatever he touched became damp, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... while the visitor is there. "Twenty francs cartage," says the one of us who brings in the package. (Twenty francs, or some times thirty, according to the victim's appearance.) Every one at once begins to fumble in his pocket. "Twenty francs cartage! I haven't it."—"Nor I—What luck!" Some one runs to the counting-room.—Closed! They look for the cashier. Gone out. And the hoarse voice of the drayman waxing impatient in the ante-room: "Come, come, make haste." (I am generally selected ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... staying at home. There was only one hindrance—that I seemed not to know any of the people this brilliant couple had known. I think he wondered extremely, during the term of our intercourse, whom the deuce I DID know. He hadn't a stray sixpence of an idea to fumble for, so we didn't spin it very fine; we confined ourselves to questions of leather and even of liquor- saddlers and breeches-makers and how to get excellent claret cheap- -and matters like "good trains" and the habits of small game. His lore on these last subjects was astonishing—he ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... says, until the 20th; but that's William again. He doesn't waste time when he has anything to attend to, and I know exactly what he said to his mother. He will make every arrangement and fix everything for them and then tell them good-by. He isn't much with words, Billy isn't. He acts. There's no fumble in him, and even his mother, who thinks his mold was broken when he was born and that the Lord never made but one like him, has to admit he is a high-handed person when occasion requires. I don't agree with his mother in a good ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... not fumble for your seals, Nor listen where your tick-tick lies,— Nor dare to call in anger down The heavy lashes ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... with both hands extended: "I wish you luck," he said, softly. "I cared for you a mighty lot, Miss Alice, but I'm a good loser. I reckon, maybe it's better things worked out the way they did." Endicott pressed the outstretched hand with a mighty grip and turned swiftly away to fumble at his latigo strap. And there were tears in the girl's eyes as her fingers lingered for a moment in the Texan's grasp: ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... BELL: Well, fumble-fingers? What's kept you this half-year? I could have burgled The Bank of England in the time. What's up? Have ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... did fizz upward in a moment very loud and plentiful, and did boil overward to the earth from out of the cup, and wet upon my hand. And surely this thought did come very keen to my Reason, as I did fumble, each time of mine eating, there in the everlasting night and lonesomeness ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... next player to the bat knocked a liner between first and second and got to second on a fumble by the first baseman. Then the next player, after having two strikes called on him, sent a low one ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... Arthur's bosom,[18] if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end,[19] and went away, an it had been any christom child;[20] 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide:[21] for after I saw him fumble with the sheets,[22] and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John! quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... Brown should sign the paper, and finally began to fumble in his pistol pocket, whereupon it passed through Mr. Brown's mind "that the little wretch might be meaning to shoot me." As he got the pistol out, Mr. Brown seized his wrist and turned his hand downward. After one shot had been fired, the struggle ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! above our heads. Three Hun aeroplanes right on top of us; Eric drives headlong in a spiral curve at full speed, smoke trailing out behind. The gun! I fumble. Can't get round to ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... leaving his breakfast half finished, and began to wander up and down the room, reflectively tugging at his ear. Then he began to fumble in the pockets of his dressing-gown and finally produced the inevitable pipe, dilapidated pouch, and box of safety matches. He began to load the ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... and ate an apple, and was having a beautiful time, and thinking how lucky I was to have got board in such a place with such nice folks, when I heard a queer little sound at my door. It was such a little hesitating sort of sound that it sounded more like a fumble than a knock, as if some one very timid, with very little hands, was feeling along the door, not quite daring to knock. For a minute I thought it was a mouse. But I waited and it came again, and then I made up my mind it was a knock, but a very ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... along the sill. They fumble on the wall. They stretch to reach the gun which stands beside the clock. Another inch and they will grasp it and Red Joe will be saved. The arm rubs against the pendulum of the clock. It swings and the clock starts to tick. And still no one has seen the terrible ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... him, peradventure, whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty; considering him something in the light of a culprit at the bar; when they were brought to a pause by seeing him lay down his pipe and begin to fumble with his walking-staff. For a moment those present would not have given half a crown for both the crowns of the commissioners; but Peter Stuyvesant repressed his mighty wrath and stayed his hand; he scanned ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... fumble with nerveless fingers, at his tightly buttoned cut-away coat. It resisted his efforts. Suddenly, with a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the lapel, tearing the button outright from the cloth. "Look what I have done," he said, staring stupidly for a moment ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... boy it seemed as if the deacon must have been waiting for ten minutes at the least, and in a great flurry he began to fumble for his handkerchief. What had he done with it? Oh, there it was at last, way down in the depths of his ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... could fumble in his pockets with much discretion, and could always find his latch-key, for its shape was odd, but with that latch-key he could not find the keyhole in the door. There came a clamor always at the end. When finally he entered, Mrs. Grampus was as alive ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... parchment, with a broad ribbon and large seal attached. After the mayor had fulfilled his office so well, General Grant said: "Mr. Mayor, as I knew that this ceremony was to occur, and as I am not used to speaking, I have written something in reply." He then began to fumble in his pockets, first his breast-coat pocket, then his pants, vest; etc., and after considerable delay he pulled out a crumpled piece of common yellow cartridge-paper, which he handed to the mayor. His whole manner was awkward in the extreme, yet perfectly characteristic, and in ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... I am on top of the boulder, but I have lost touch with the cliff and the full force of the wind is pulling the stretcher upwards. I get one arm over it and fumble underneath for the control of the antigrav; I must give it weight and put it down on this boulder and wait for the ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... constant stream of visitors has only one chair in his office, and he sits in it. Another never allows a visitor to enter his office, but goes to the outer reception room and stands while he talks. One man stands up as a signal that the interview is at an end. Another begins to fumble with the papers on his desk, and the salesman does not live who is not familiar with the man who must hurry out to lunch or who has only five minutes to catch a train. One man has his secretary or his office ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... recited by heart the whole of King Lear to me, having me hold a copy of the play, to prove that he did not fumble a single line or miss a single word ... which he ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... onto the field and took up a position near one of the players' benches, where he watched the Oakdale nine at practice. At times he smiled with a supercilious air of amusement, and especially was this noticeable when Eliot complimented the players or some one made some sort of a fumble or fluke. ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... drinkings, Miss Todd might have been taken as an example by all the ladies of Littlebath. Sir Lionel's personal appearance has been already described. Considering his age, he was very well preserved. He was still straight; did not fumble much in his walk; and had that decent look of military decorum which, since the days of Caesar and the duke, has been always held to accompany a hook-nose. He had considered much about his toilet; indeed, he did that habitually; but ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope |
