"Deftness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... built up the musical structure of "Hansel und Gretel" in the Wagnerian manner, but has done it with so much fluency and deftness that a musical layman might listen to it from beginning to end without suspecting the fact, save from the occasional employment of what may be called Wagnerian idioms. The little work is replete ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... were pitiless, No little waist or coat or checkered dress But knew her needle's deftness; and no skill Matched hers in shaping pleat or flounce or frill; Or fashioning, in complicate design, All rich embroideries of leaf and vine, With tiniest twining tendril,—bud and bloom And fruit, so like, one's ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... particular care. No description can give quite fully the sense of extreme orderliness and careful deliberation of their work. Everything is placed where it will be most convenient for use, and this orderliness is preserved throughout the day's work. Their shapely tools and vessels are handled with a deftness that shames our clumsy ways, and everything that they use is kept quite clean. This skilful orderliness is essential to fine craftmanship, and ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... are again in requisition. Each comes armed with a coorpee,—this is a small metal spatula, broad-pointed, with which they dig out the weeds with amazing deftness. Sometimes they may inadvertently take out a single stem of indigo with the weeds: the eye of the mate or Tokedar espies this at once, and the careless coolie is treated to a volley of Hindoo Billingsgate, in which all ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded. Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... closely allied to the human species in many respects, are noticeably deficient in the use of their modified hands; being able to grasp things only in a cumbersome way. The squirrel handles a nut with agility, the beaver builds his dam, and likewise do many other animals accomplish much with certain deftness. But the grace, suppleness, and precision, so characteristic of the human hand, are lacking. Only in man does the organ attain perfection. He alone enjoys the distinction of being able to manipulate thumb and forefinger in combination, enabling him to attain a high degree ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... interior, he extended his hand and caught up the weapon nearest him, standing erect and facing all the occupants as did Arorara a short time before. This movement and the entrance itself were made with such deftness that no one observed his presence, with the exception of Otto Relstaub, who by accident happened to look toward ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... ripping up Pelliter's sleeve before his comrade could find words to object. Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face was shot with pain. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his forearm, but had fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of the wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it tightly with his own and Pelliter's handkerchiefs. Then he thrust ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... Alice, who arranged the wounded man's pillows with a gentleness and deftness as only she could, and who gave quiet orders to the old cook in a way that made Richard Travis feel that things were all right, though he could not speak, nor even open his eyes long enough ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... her arms. Neither of the children had watched a game before, and Girlie, not being able to understand a single move, soon found it insufferably stupid. But Mary became more and more interested in watching a tall, athletic figure in outing flannels and white shoes, who swung his racket with the deftness of an expert, and who flashed an amused smile at her over the net occasionally, as if he understood the situation and was enjoying it ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... smoothly from beginning to end. Whether or not he was a particularly good coroner—and Creighton felt some doubt of that—Merton was certainly expert in the technique of his job. He handled his witnesses capably, with deftness and dispatch, extracting facts from them with the easy grace of a headwaiter pulling corks, and each time a fact popped out he ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... darling wishes. Picotee wanted looking to badly enough. Sol and Dan required no material help; they had quickly obtained good places of work under a Pimlico builder; for though the brothers scarcely showed as yet the light-fingered deftness of London artizans, the want was in a measure compensated by their painstaking, and employers are far from despising country hands who bring with them strength, industry, and a desire to please. But their sister had other lines laid down for them than those of level progress; to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of fear, came from Jerry—only choking growls of ferociousness, intermingled with snarls of anger, and a belligerent up-clawing of hind-legs. But a dog, clutched by the neck from the back, can never be a match for two men, gifted with the intelligence and deftness of men, each of them two-handed with four fingers and an ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... native land. Yonder was the girl of the photograph, the likeness of which had fired his heart for many a day. With the patience of the Oriental he stood in the shadow and waited. Sooner or later they would leave the room, and sooner or later, with the deftness of his breed, he would enter. The leopard he had heard about was nowhere ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... apartment where a nakad was manufacturing the gold thread (called kalabatoon) for these curious loom embroideries. The kalabatoon consists of gold wire wound about a silk thread; and nothing could better illustrate the deftness of the Hindu fingers than the motions of the workman whom we saw. Over a polished steel hook hung from the ceiling the end of a reel of slightly twisted silk thread was passed. This end was tied to a spindle with a long ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... and wondered indeed at the deftness and abundance of beauty of the work of men who had at last learned to accept life itself as a pleasure, and the satisfaction of the common needs of mankind and the preparation for them, as work fit for the best of the race. I ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... Men hesitate to speak of love—except to women. He had already shown a frankness that was surprising, but then with a certain deftness he had placed me in the position of the sentimental one with a problem to solve. He was seeking for himself a solution of that problem, and was appealing to me ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... appeared. Her hair blew in the wind with changes of colour; her garments moulded her with the accuracy of sculpture; the ends of her shawl fluttered about her ear and were caught in again with an inimitable deftness. You have seen a pool on a gusty day, how it suddenly sparkles and flashes like a thing alive? So this lady's face had become animated and coloured; and as I saw her standing, somewhat inclined, her lips parted, a divine trouble in her eyes, I could have clapped my hands in applause, and ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dicky came home from his "impromptu studio party." His mother, whose deftness, efficiency and unexpected tenderness surprised me, arranged a bed for him on the couch in the living room, and I did not hear him come in ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... a rocky ridge. This party, it was evident, had had better sport. Several men carried hats filled with sea-birds' eggs. Another explorer had under his arm a fat little bear cub that he had picked up somewhere. Rolf's deftness at stone-throwing had secured him a bushy yellow fox-tail ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... horror of the case, took no note of the passage of time. Everything that the doctor suggested she carried out with a deftness, a tenderness, a power of mind, which keenly affected his professional sense. Once, the poor mother, left unguarded for an instant, struck out with a wild right hand. The blow caught Marcella on the cheek, and she drew back with ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was extremely light and slender in figure and his movements were like quicksilver. His hair was black and straight and long, especially over the ears, and he had long, slender, delicate hands, which one noticed at once for their uncommon flexibility and deftness. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... wit and deftness of the crab would be quite uncomplimentary in default of special notice of the plug of sand with which it stops its burrow. As a rule it is about an inch thick, and in content far more than a crab could carry in a single load. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... he was left alone for the first time in his life with Von Holzen, who was clearing the table and making his preparations with a silent deftness of touch acquired by the handling of delicate instruments, the mixing of ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... confounded the doctors, how she, a simple wench, was so subtle in doctrine, which might not be but by inspiration. Others, again, were moved by her mirth and good-fellowship, for she would strike a man-at- arms on the shoulder like a comrade, and her horsemanship and deftness with sword and lance bewitched others, she seeming as valiant and fair as these lady crusaders of whom old romances tell. And others, again, she gained by bourdes and jests; others by her manners, the fairest and most ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... justice to his client and to his own genius by showing, with due exordium and argument and peroration, that Pompilia is all that her worst adversaries allege, and yet can be established innocent, or not so very guilty, by her rhetorician's learning and legal deftness in ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... please," said Holcroft, "and I'll light the lamp and a candle." This he did with the deftness of a man accustomed to help himself, then led the way to the upper room which was to be her sleeping apartment. Placing the candle on the bureau, he forestalled Mrs. Mumpson by saying, "I'll freshen up the fire in the kitchen and lay out ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... Main Street we passed some famous homes, among them Thoreau's earlier home, where he made lead-pencils with the deftness which characterized all his handiwork; turning to the left on Thoreau Street we crossed the tracks and took the Sudbury road through all the Sudburys,—four in number; the roads were good and the country all the more ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... as he watched the deftness with which her hands made a pretty ceremony of pouring tea, he inquired: "Have I seen that ring before—the opal ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... waves, whirling it round the base of perpendicular rocks set like adamant in the hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal down some glassy plane stilled, as it were, into a concentrated wrath of movement. The men sprang from side to side, from bow to stern, staving the craft with a miraculous deftness from a projecting boulder, forcing her into a new course, steadying her as she reeled in the shock and strain of the conflict, while their long poles bent continually like willow wands against her battered sides. The steersman stood silent, except ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... thief and a vagabond who wrote in the 'grand style' by daring to be sincere to himself, to the aspect under which human things came to him, to the precise names of precise things. He had a sensitiveness in his soul which perhaps matched the deftness of his fingers, in their adroit, forbidden trade: his soul bent easily from his mother praying in the cloister to the fat Margot drinking in the tavern; he could dream exquisitely over the dead ladies ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Here a red-headed Irish corporal damned the awkwardness of a young Boston swell, fresh from Harvard, who had been detailed as cook in a company kitchen; while, close at hand, a New-Yorker of the bluest blood was washing dishes with the deftness gained from long experience on a New ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... handful of snow with which he began to rub the woman's face. Afterwards he removed her gloves to manipulate her cold hands. He worked swiftly, with the deftness of practice, but the results were slow, and presently he took the rug from the pack he carried and covered her while he felt in Frederic's pockets for the flask he had neglected to return. "Likely there wasn't ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... been induced to chatter by Grannie herself, made no response, but rose and set about his work as kitchen-maid and cook with much deftness. He stirred the oatmeal into the pot of boiling water, made the porridge, set the huge smoking dish on the center of the table, put the children's mugs round, laid a trencher of brown bread and a tiny morsel of butter on the board, and then, ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... own reflection in the glass sadly, and sadly went through the practised, mechanical motions of her dressing; smoothing the back of her irreproachable coat, arranging her delicate laces with a deftness no indifference could impair. Yesterday she had had delight in that new garment and in her own appearance. She knew that Majendie admired her for her distinction and refinement. Now she wondered what he could have ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... at the deftness with which the young scout prepared the repast; and he lay upon the grass, with his eyes rivetted upon the nimble, noiseless, graceful lad. It puzzled him that the mysterious youth should persistently keep his head averted, and he was the more strongly decided to discover ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... a pluck here, completely retying one bow and restoring an engaging fullness to another, yet critically examining, with her head on one side, the fascinating result. Then Susy performed the same function for Mary with equal deliberation and deftness. Suddenly Mary started and ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... slight uneven surfaces as he could feel, Bucks moved to the right after Dancing, who gripped his extended right hand and led him foot by foot down the perilous way. Not a word was spoken, hardly a breath drawn, as the lineman felt for his slippery foothold with the deftness of a gorilla, and, pressing Bucks's hand as the signal to take a follow step, he made a slow ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... the foot of the broad flight of granite steps under its overhanging portico as a carriage dashed up on the other side. The high doors above were flung open and a roll of red cloth dropped from step to step down to the pavement, a couple of footmen placing it with the quick deftness of use until it ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... his kitchen and cooked his supper with all a woman's deftness. His kitchen was always clean, though, to the end of keeping it so, he had discarded one thing or another, not imperatively needed. One day he had made a collection of articles only used in a less primitive housekeeping, from ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... a glimpse of the benevolent young barbarians who had so strangely come among them and at so opportune a moment. Those who were favourably enough placed actually to see what was going on were filled with amazement and—despite their unreasoning hatred of strangers—admiration at the deftness with which Dick first stanched the flow of blood and then proceeded to dress the injury; for, strangely enough, this people, highly civilised though they were in some respects, possessed but the most rudimentary knowledge of medicine and surgery, pinning ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... incredible, but it must soon be printed and sent, and though Wickham Place need not compete with Oniton, it must feed its guests properly, and provide them with sufficient chairs. Her wedding would either be ramshackly or bourgeois—she hoped the latter. Such an affair as the present, staged with a deftness that was almost beautiful, lay beyond her powers ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... to lift his eyes from his task while the hag was watching. But now he stole a swift glance toward the back of the lodge, where the maid, Brown Mink, was reclining, and his dull eyes, like the fuel at his knees, leaped into sudden flame. But, with the deftness of a woman, he kept on putting bits of ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... companionably back and forth. His own father was supposed to smoke but once a week, on Sunday, and then a cigar such as even a male Bunker might reputably burn. But a pipe, and between the lips of Grammer! She managed it with deftness and exhaled clouds of smoke into the still air of evening with a relish most painful to her amazed descendant. Yet she inspired ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... years of the nineteenth century looked on no more characteristic farmhouse than that where dwelt Diarmid Garland and his brood, on the bank above the swift-running water-race which turned the corn-mill with such deftness that people came from as far ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... this juncture, with a discreet knock, Peterby entered, and, having bowed to the scowling Viscount, proceeded to invest Barnabas with polished boots, waistcoat and scarlet coat, and to tie his voluminous cravat, all with that deftness, that swift and silent dexterity which helped to make him ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... deftness he had extracted a single bill from his pocket and thrust it into the hand of ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... suddenly in charge of a house, and he will soon demonstrate his helplessness. The woman's deftness comes from ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... examination, made with the deftness practise gives, showed him that no bones were broken. Squatting beside the unconscious woman, he next played slowly with his long-nailed fingers upon her pulse. Its beat reassured him. He lighted a lamp and held it above her. The scarlet ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... still pained considerably, for they had been very cruelly bruised with the ropes, which the barbarians had drawn tight with a force that bespoke both skill and deftness. His need of some occupation forced him to assure himself, a dozen times over, that both revolvers were completely filled. Fortunately, the captors had not known enough to rob either Beatrice or him of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... its accustomed momentum. This much-heralded educational expert was far from terrifying. Indeed, to Mrs. Rodney's hawklike gaze, that devoured every visible item of Mary's extremely modest travelling-dress, there was nothing so very wonderful about "the gov'ment from the East." With a deftness compatible only with long practice, Mrs. Rodney now put a foot on the round of an adjoining chair and shoved it towards Mary Carmichael in hospitable pantomime, never once relaxing her continual rocking the meantime. Mary took the chair, and Mrs. Rodney, after ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... as literature by the Committee, it seemed to one or two members to present a character study rather than a story. Certainly, in no other work of the period have relations between a given mother and daughter been psychologized with greater deftness and skill. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... With a deftness which had made the Wolverine famous in the navy for the niceties of seamanship, the great cruiser let down her tackle as she drew skilfully alongside, and made fast, preparatory to lifting the dory gently to her broad deck. But before the order came to hoist away, one of the ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... from care By some determined deftness; put forth joys Dear as excess without the core that cloys, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... great, comfortable kitchen, generally at some distance from each other, Phoebe and the squire of the new Red House would sit. She, now suspecting, was shy and uneasy; he, his wits quickened by love, displayed a tact and deftness of words not to have been anticipated from him. At first Phoebe took fire when Grimbal criticised Will in anything but a spirit of utmost friendliness; but it was vital to his own hopes that he should cloud the picture painted on her heart if he could; so, by degrees ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... one of the best educators of practical character. It evokes and disciplines obedience, self-control, attention, application, and perseverance; giving a man deftness and skill in his special calling, and aptitude and dexterity in dealing with ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... flipping the cards out with a snap of the wrist, the fingers working rapidly over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to the crowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his skill. He was showing it now, not so much by the deftness of his cheating as by the openness with which he ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... such a wife and no pioneer could have been better blessed. She was not only a handsome woman, but one of remarkable force of character as well as kindness of heart. She was particularly noted for a rare skill in the treatment of illness, and her deftness in handling the surgeon's knife and extracting a poisoned bullet or arrow from a wound had restored to health many a settler when all ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... With a deftness that was worthy of a theatrical costumier, the detectives converted themselves and the two young men into ship's firemen. No more effective or simpler disguise could have been devised on the spur of the moment, nor one that might be assumed more readily. Boots offered the main difficulty, ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... on the principles established by Morgan, issued a series of brilliant monographs, in which, equipped with the key furnished by Morgan and which Engels' extensive economic and sociologic knowledge enabled him to wield with deftness, he explained interesting social phenomena among the ancients, and thereby greatly enriched the literature ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... we older folks were young like you, we did not have the regular, scraggly bits of iron and dainty rubber ball. We played with pieces of stones. I suspect more deftness was needed in handling them than in using the new fashioned pieces. Certainly, in trials than I can remember, I never played the game through without a break; but then I was never half so handy as you are at such things: that, no doubt, accounts ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... made a bed in the cradle from some folded covers, he lifted the baby with strange deftness and placed ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... mother, too, for the likeness between them. How often you remind me of her when you laugh or sing, and when you're funny in French; those droll, quick gestures and quaint intonations, that ease and freedom and deftness as you move! And then you become English in a moment, and your big, burly, fair-haired father has come back with his high voice, and his high spirits, and his frank blue eyes, like yours, so kind and brave ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... killed or wounded by hostile fire. Here, as in the German batteries, the war work in progress went on with a machinelike regularity and absence of spectacular features more characteristic of a rolling mill than a battle. The men at the guns went through their work with the deftness and absence of confusion of high-class mechanics. The heavy shells were rolled to the guns, hoisted by a chain winch to the breech opening, and discharged in uninteresting succession, a short pause coming after each shot, until the telephonic report from the observation stand ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... hearthrug with his massy jowl and his determined stomach, and grunt, and rattle the money in his pockets, and grunt again; and if then there could come in the new parlour maid of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, with her tallness and her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence of air, and all the five and sixty gazing upon her as haughty but envious patricians gazing upon a slave, and when she had gone swishing out if Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, could tell all the ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... expected to tell the truth of himself; at any rate, to tell no untruth against himself. We think that Cicero of all men may be left to do so—Cicero, who so well understood the use of words, and could use them in his own defence so deftly. I maintain that it has been that very deftness which has done him all the harm. Not one of those letters of the last years would have been written as it is now had Cicero thought, when writing it, that from it would his conduct have been judged after two thousand ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... of the spot's location in the great forest was far more accurate than he had given Mason reason to hope. And with a deftness that matched that with which he had eluded the screens of the Thrayxite fleet hurtling to protect its breeder planetoid, he brought the ship to rest at Mason's direction, little more than a quarter-mile from where the Book of the Saints ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... a kind, careful, obedient maid, who is capable enough to be taught to wash your hair and manicure you with deftness, and who would serve you for respect as well as hire. I think it would be a fine arrangement for you and good ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... tearing a leaf out of his memorandum book, looked up at him while he wrote rapidly. Without any comment whatever he gave her the paper, went up to where the hired horse stood, and coaxed it down through the Slide. Quickly, with the deftness that told of lifelong intimacy with horses and saddles, he set her own saddle on the hired horse, while Mary Hope read the terse bill of sale that set forth the legal "Ten dollars and other valuable considerations," and was signed ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... acts are enumerated as showing the genius of true love. We notice the swift, cool-headed deftness of the man, his having at hand the appliances needed, the business-like way in which he goes about his kindness, his readiness to expend his wine and oil, his willingness to do the surgeon's work, his cheerful giving up of his 'own beast,' while he plodded along on foot, steadying the wounded ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... saw at once where his unaccountable visitor had made his bed. A big cane davenport had been dragged into the bay window, its velvet cushions neatly stacked on the piano bench, and the composer's coat, rolled with his deftness of experience, had served him for a pillow. Not a bad bed for such a night as this that John himself had sweltered through so unsuccessfully. Probably the coolest place in the house, right by those open south windows. But ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the Greeks in making plain masks for their mummers to play in, and dunces we not to have done the same! Only the other day, an actress was saying that what she was most proud of in her art—next, of course, to having appeared in some provincial pantomime at the age of three—was the deftness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a rapid succession of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge from the palm of her right hand or powder from the palm of her left. Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the stage? ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... regretfully when the guest of honor, Mrs. Rhinehart, spoke of the deftness and pleasant appearance ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... on her knees, though I strove half rudely to prevent her, and was binding up my shoulder with a wonderful deftness of her ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... sally, which seemed true, if not true wit, these hard-featured mothers in Israel set about their tasks with the deftness ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... does not leer. There is nothing clownish and furtive about it. It is the gay and frank expression of artists whose humour is too broad for the general; but, as a rule, there is no doubt about the fine quality of their drawings and the deftness of their wit. That is what makes the French print so liked by ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... such as the ballad, the rondel, the triolet, which have been used so abundantly as to become quite a feature in our lighter literature. These are not, or are but rarely, fitted to bear the burden of high emotion; but their precision, and the deftness which their use demands fit them exceedingly well for the more distinguished kind of persiflage. No one has kept these delicate butterflies in flight with the agile movement of his fan so admirably as Mr. Austin ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... merge imperceptibly into the white paper. In this way, although the natural vigor of the woodcut suffered, an effect of space and distance was achieved. Because of the small scale this technique was difficult, especially when cross-hatching was added, and special knives as well as a phenomenal deftness were needed to work out these bits of jewelry on the plank grain of pear, cherry, box, ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... | The Lady's Maid's Bell | | A Venetian Night's Entertainment | | | | "It is, of course, the extraordinary directness with which | | Mrs. Wharton's probe goes to the spot under inspection, the | | deftness with which she is able to bring to the light of day | | what we had hidden even from ourselves, that account for the | | admiration with which we regard her short stories."—London | | Academy. | | ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, who successively occupied the same professional place formerly illustrated by De Beriot, and the latter of whom recently died. De Beriot's playing was noted for accuracy of intonation, remarkable deftness and facility in bowing, grace, elegance, and piquancy, though he never succeeded in creating the unbounded enthusiasm ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... said. Her heart stilled, and she began to dress the child, with her mother's deftness. "He comes a little early to fodder, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... lesson in surgery that day of which he found the benefit more than once before the war was over. He was soon able to apply one of Katharine's lint bandages or dress a wound with a deftness that elicited the commendation not only of the subject of his ministration, but even of the knight of the scalpel himself. Neville, too, evinced no little skill in the ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... photoplay. It follows, among other things, that in Egypt, as in China and Japan, literary style and mere penmanship and brushwork are to be conceived as inseparable. No doubt the Egyptian scholar was the man who could not only compose a poem, but write it down with a brush. Talent for poetry, deftness in inscribing, and skill in mural painting were probably gifts of the same person. The photoplay goes back to ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... now resident in Edinburgh, who, though labouring under the great disability of being deaf and dumb, has for some years back been an enthusiastic art student, has succeeded in procuring admission for three oil paintings, each of which gives good indication of his deftness and skill in the delineation of nature, and the ardour with which he has followed up his studies. "Hide and Seek" represents some children playing at that game in a hay field. "Largo, the Beach at Low Water" gives us a pretty coast scene, with figures on the beach. "Baiting the Line" ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... northern lights. Nay, accident of birth had not rendered her less the woman, nor had it limited her woman's understanding of men. They knew she played with them, but they did not know the wisdom of her play, its deepness and its deftness. They failed to see more than the exposed card, so that to the very last Forty Mile was in a state of pleasant obfuscation, and it was not until she cast her final trump that it came to reckon up ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and the deftness with which he worked impressed Mrs. Yorke so much that when he was through she said: "Doctor, I have been wondering how a man like you could be content to settle down in this mountain wilderness. I know many fashionable physicians ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... have taken us a long distance from the ranch and its Orientals. The Japanese contingent were mainly occupied with the fruit, possessing a peculiar deftness in pruning and caring for the prunes and apricots. The Chinese had to do with irrigation and with the vegetables. Their broad, woven-straw hats and light denim clothes lent the particular landscape they happened for the moment to adorn a peculiarly ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... is no sacrifice of logic to the rules of harmony. Indeed, the work is characterized by a certain uncompromisingness and sharpness in its harmonies. The instrumental coloring is prismatic, all the registers of the strings being utilized with great deftness. Exclusive of the theme of the scherzo, which recalls a little overmuch the Teutonic banalities of Mahler's symphonies, the quality of the music is, on the whole, grave and poignant and uplifted. It has a scholarly dignity, a magistral richness, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... it with incredible deftness from under the closed eyes of the Shawanoe, that same individual (for it must be he) had displayed hardly less cleverness in snatching ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... manufacture of household furniture out of egg-boxes. Why egg-boxes I have never been able to understand, but egg-boxes, according to the prescription of The Amateur, formed the foundation of household existence. With a sufficient supply of egg-boxes, and what The Amateur termed a "natural deftness," no young couple need hesitate to face the furnishing problem. Three egg-boxes made a writing-table; on another egg-box you sat to write; your books were ranged in egg-boxes around you—and ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, marveling at his youthful master's deftness, and now the Lad blew, groaning at his pupil's clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... pocket of his doublet the old soldier produced a case containing some of the most essential requisites of surgery, and with a deftness and delicacy of touch, surprising to one who had not seen him beside a sick-bed, he soon had ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... sheer body of work the women have brought in, by the deftness, energy, and enthusiasm they throw into the simpler but quite indispensable processes, thereby setting the unskilled man free for the Army, and the skilled man for work which women cannot do, Great Britain has become possessed of new and vast resources of ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brilliant dramatic poets of modern times. "Les Romanesques"—"The Romancers"—was performed for the first time in Paris, at the Comedie Francaise, in 1894, and achieved considerable success. Its delicacy and charm revealed the true poet, and the deftness with which the plot was handled left little doubt as to the author's ability to construct an interesting and moving drama. But not until the production of "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1897 did Rostand become known to the world at large. "L'Aiglon" (1900) was something of a ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... chromatic neatly up from about middle C, pauses for a breath, and then astonishes her audience by striking off two perfectly attuned notes several degrees higher up, hitting her mark with the ease and deftness of a prima donna. So odd and surprising a laugh is sure to be quickly infectious, and its owner is never at a loss for company in her merriment, while a cheerful temper, unclouded by a shade of envy or suspicion, is not in the least disturbed by the knowledge that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... New York Herald: "A story which lays a spell upon you. The animation is unceasing, and so, therefore, is the interest.... Mr. Hope has not lost his old deftness in dialogue.... The scene between the two men [Sapt and James] after the murder ... ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... good his words. He understood the putting up of tents, his experience in the army being not yet remote. Young Hiram gazed with growing admiration at Yates' deftness and evident knowledge of what he was about, while his contempt for the professor's futile struggle with a spade entangled in ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... Sachs comes on the whole crowd presses to greet him with a setting of his own song to Martin Luther. The transition from the jollity of the dancing to the solemnity, nay, sublimity, of this chorus is managed with perfect deftness: there is no incongruity. It is this song that passed through Sachs' brain when we found him absorbed in meditation at the beginning of the act. The poem—written by the historical Sachs—is itself beautiful, and ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... little cylinder with its dotted spiral indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus of the reproducing diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack of turning the crank steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk into the machine; and there was some deftness required also in fastening down the tinfoil on the cylinder where it was held by a pin running in a longitudinal slot. Paraffined paper appears also to have been experimented with as an impressible material. It is said that Carman, the foreman of the machine shop, had gone ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... before midnight. The Rose Room was crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of disappointment caused by the fear that their party would be unable to gain admittance. But young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness on that score at rest, and a place was evolved with deftness and despatch. The novelty of the situation to Claire was nothing compared with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She was neither self-conscious nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly including her in even their trivial ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... who assumed rather more confidence than he actually felt. Beverley Byrd, who did not always hunt in pairs, had taken an unwonted dislike to him at sight. He did not consider him a suitable person to be calling on Sharlee, and he had been doing his best, with considerable deftness and success, to deter him from feeling too much ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... her woolly locks, she wore two small antelope horns joining in a half-moon; as if these black warriors had preserved among themselves the tradition of Diana the white huntress! And what an eye she had, what deftness of hand! Why, she could cut off the head of an Ashantee at a single blow. But, however terrible Kerika might have been on the battlefield, to her nephew Madou she was always very gentle, bestowing on him gifts of all kinds: necklaces of coral and of amber, and all the shells he desired,—shells ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Against the white parapet a small, round table and a cane armchair had been placed. A subdued patter of feet in slippers came up the stairway, and an Arab servant appeared with a tea-tray. He put it down on the table with the precise deftness which Domini had already observed in the Arabs at Robertville, and swiftly vanished. She sat down in the chair and poured out the tea, leaning her left arm ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... helpful citizens according to Anglo-Saxon ideals, and that, as far as those qualities are concerned which have made the greatness of the United States, the contribution from the Irish element has been inconsiderable. The deftness of the Irishman in political organisation and his lack of desire for individual independence, as a result of which he turns either to the organising of a governing machine or to some form of personal service (in either case merging his own individuality) ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... possible to wear gloves at this work: the fingers need all their deftness to take up the restless Bee delicately and to overpower her without rough pressure. It is easily seen that, though the job may yield no other profit, you are at least sure of being stung. The sting ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... pieces of metal, each of which must be separately handled between thumb and finger twice—once put into the case and once taken out of it—each issue of the paper. No one inexperienced in this delicate work has the slightest conception of the intensity of attention, fixity of eye, deftness of touch, readiness of intelligence, exhaustion of vitality, and destruction of brain and nerve which enters into the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... with the utmost composure, and when she stopped proceeded to divest her of her furs with the deftness of movement ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... hearing that story about Ducharme to charging old P. F. Wort with electricity. He went through the treatment with his accustomed deftness, however. As he was leaving the room, Dr. Lindsay asked ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... about, for the forge saw a good deal of company in those long empty days before the potato-digging could begin. They all drew together into a small crowd, and closed in step by step to watch the first meeting between these two notable persons, much admiring the deftness with which old O'Beirne secured it by pronouncing one of the pony's shoes in need of tightening, and the felicitous opening he made by assuring his Reverence that "divil a bit need he be mindin' the delay, because Mr. Polymathers ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... duties promptly, though not with any special deftness. And first she stooped and picked up the last match her father had dropped upon the strip of ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... painting betrays something of that almost modern sensitiveness to pleasurable juxtapositions of delicate colour which we admire in Orchardson, in Linton (sic!), and in Albert Moore; it betrays, sometimes, as in a portrait of Miss Alexander, a deftness of brushwork in the wave of a feather, in the curve of a hat ... and of high art qualities it betrays ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... much admired. At the 1904 exhibition of the Philadelphia Academy Mrs. Chase exhibited a portrait of children, Constance and Gordon Worcester, of which Arthur Hoeber writes: "She has painted them easily, with deftness and feeling, and apparently caught their character and the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... utility, to save rather than display. In short, let us subordinate mere knowledge to the work of invigorating the will, energizing productive effort and clarifying moral vision. Let us make safe men rather than vociferous mountebanks; let us put deftness in daily labor above sleight-of-hand tricks, and common sense, well trained, above classical smatterings, which awe the multitude ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... grasped the limb and held it as it was placed, while the doctor took one of the rolls, and, dipping it in the water, unrolled it round and round the leg, with a rapidity and deftness which had, to Constance, a quality of fascination in it. A second wet bandage was wound over the first, then a dry one, and the leg was gently laid back on the litter. "Take his temperature," ordered the doctor, as he began to apply strips ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... All the most complex and baffling shades of the mental life, which in the hands of many latter-day novelists build up characters far too thin and too unconvincing, in the hands of Turgenev are used with deftness and certainty to bring to light that great kingdom which is always lying hidden beneath the surface, beneath the common-place of daily life. In the difficult art of literary perspective, in the effective grouping of contrasts in character ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... swore that he would hack Maynard's soul from his body, but his opponent was too fine an adept with the sword to be easily disposed of. It was a fearful duel, a trial of the robber's immense strength against the officer's deftness. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Cosma for his deafness, And that you promised, French, a definite cure; But you can't bring it off for all your deftness: He'll hear ill ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole |
