"Left-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which indeed sat rather heavily upon him: "I don't know why you should want to shoot at my scarfpin—or at me. I don't know why you should suddenly lay a pistol between us. I don't, in short, know why we should sit here paying each other left-handed compliments, when it was merely my intention to ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... Dickinson, who always accompanied her singing, declared it emphatically to be "great." The wife of the Bishop, Mrs. Mabberley, pronounced the verdict, "She sings with her soul rather than with her voice," without intention of paying a left-handed compliment. The Cathedral Choir boys affirmed that "our altos are a couple of squeaks beside her." Even Mrs. Dickinson, "the cold douche," as she was named in the Precincts, had long ago "come round" about Mrs. Dion Leith, and had ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... excitedly. "No, thankye, sir. It's bad enough like this. I suppose I must grin and bear it. Here, I've tried straightforward striddling like one would on a donkey, but this beast don't seem to have no shape in him. Then I've tried like a lady, sitting left-handed with my legs, and then after I've got tired that way for a bit, and it don't work comfortable, I've tried right-handed with my legs. But it's no good. Bit ago I saw one of these niggers shut his legs up like a pocket foot-rule, and I says to myself, 'That's the way, then;' so I began ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Why Hebrew is written left-handed; And what Venus did with her arms; What the Conqueror said when he landed; The acres ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... am satisfied that only a particular friend would have been admitted to the bank by George that night; second, the blow was struck from behind, on the left side, showing that the murderer was probably left-handed. Mr. Drysdale satisfies both of these conditions; I visited him to-day and saw him write an address in my note-book with his left hand. Third, I have here a note for $927.78, signed 'Alexander P. Drysdale;' the signature, you say, is genuine, and further, you told me yesterday that you had ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... have been found which require the analyzer to be turned from left to right to obtain the same succession of colours. Crystals of the first class are therefore called right-handed, and of the second class, left-handed crystals. ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... favoured the former theory insisting that he had killed himself accidentally when he only meant to wound himself and so excite sympathy. Some of the doctors declared, however, that that was quite impossible, for the wound was meant to kill, and could only have been self-inflicted by a left-handed person of great strength, for it had pierced through a padded coat. A large reward (1,200l.) was offered for the capture of the assassin, but in vain; and the spot of the murder was marked by ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... scorn. "Then I'll fight left-handed. I'm a right-handed man, Cartwright, and I'll take you with my gun in my left hand. That ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Years Born 1808 Mary Peterkin The brilliant red poppies Left-handed Patrick's birthday Vocal performance A wonderful escape Events of the war The French prisoners Entry of the 42d into Edinburgh Bleaching "claes" on the Calton The Greenside workshops The chimes of St. Giles' The Edinburgh Market The caddies The fishwives The "floore" Traditional ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... except La Fontaine, but L. F. takes a long time; these are brief as the books of our childhood, and full of wit and literary colour; and O, Colvin, what a tongue it would be to write, if one only knew it - and there were only readers. Its curse in common use is an incredible left-handed wordiness; but in the hands of a man like Pratt it is succinct as Latin, compact of long rolling polysyllables and little and often pithy particles, and for beauty of sound a dream. Listen, I quote from Pratt - this is good Samoan, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had a painful wound to nurse, and as he was a left-handed Bear,—that is, when he wished to turn a rock over he stood on the right paw and turned with the left,—one result of this disablement was to rob him for a time of all those dainty foods that are found under rocks ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... to meet the cutting edge at the tip. A very peculiar feature of the blade is that it is slightly hollowed on the inner surface (I.E. the thumb side or left side in the case of the PARANG, of a right-handed man, the right side in case of one made for a left-handed man), and is convex in transverse section to a corresponding degree on the other surface. This peculiar shape of the blade is said to render the PARANG, more efficient in sinking into or through either limbs or wood, and is more ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... needn't be afraid! It's not your sort! Here—if you can't see, take hold and feel it. Left-handed, you'll notice—French sling-stuff. And that Belcher woman has no more sense of caution than to tie up her roses with it! Now see here, my son"—and his voice became a snarl—"it may do for her to play tricks. All the country knows her, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... only chance now is that Romany can't fight after all. If you'd waited a minute I'd have been at him.' We were a bit behind the rest, and Jack started giving me points about lefts and rights, and 'half-arms', and that sort of thing. 'He's left-handed, and that's the worst of it,' said Jack. 'You must only make as good a show as you can, and one of us will ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... easy—ce n'est que le premier pas! My father taught me; you must always sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your hands clasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left, unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment cease thinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep and get there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what you were when awake. You must join the dream on ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... opportunity of denying that he believed in him; which showed, as I used to say, that his mind was often thinking of it. He was a merry knave, and as firm a hand for a boar-spear as ever I met with, and I have met many. We used to call him, before the accident, Left-handed Hans, but they call him now, sir, the Child-Hunter. Oh! it is a very awful tale, and I would sooner tell it in blazing hall than in free forest. You did not hear any sound ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... compliments should miss their aim, I was always ready to cover my retreat with some agreeable pleasantry, which would often earn me the name of an 'oddity' or a 'droll fellow.' In this way, although I was so left-handed a toy-maker, I made out to be rather a successful merchant; and found means to procure many little delicacies and alleviations, such as ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... looking very pale and rather untidy. In the excitement of her mind and her general perturbation she had come out with two left-handed gloves, and during the whole of her visit endeavoured to force a left hand into a right-hand glove. It was maddening ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... sir, you are as cunning as a dead pig; but you forgot one thing. My friend is a left-handed gunner, though never a bit the worse for that; so you see there is no odds as far as the choice of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... on either side of it. From the one nearest him on the left came a low murmur of voices. It was this room which he had been directed to enter. But what held his glance fascinated was a small recess immediately on his right, half concealed by a torn velvet curtain. It was directly opposite the left-handed door and, owing to its angle, it also commanded a good view of the upper part of the staircase. As a hiding-place for one or, at a pinch, two men, it was ideal, being about two feet deep and three feet wide. It attracted Tommy mightily. He thought things over in his usual slow and steady ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... bore. It must be two inches in length and one and a quarter inch in diameter, made of elastic brass or composition wire two-tenths of an inch in diameter, and tapering at the points, so as to preserve its elasticity and firmness. It is to be left-handed, in order to act when turned to the right, or with ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... left-handed; and your left eye is on the same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you can find the left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has been. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... down her eyes, half smiled, and shrank back, thinking she had never felt anything like the left-handed grasp, so full of warmth and thankfulness. It gave her confidence to venture on the one question on which she was bent. Her father was in the hall, showing Norman his Greek nymph; and lifting her ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... left-handed and threw a rope splendidly; and as we circled around the horses on opposite sides, on a signal from him we whirled our lariats and made casts simultaneously. The wrangler fastened to the brown I wanted, and my loop settled around the neck of his unridden horse. As the ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... throwing all the vigour and skill into his next efforts, he paid no heed whatever to the blows given him by one of the lads, but pressed the other heavily, following him up, and at last, when he felt nearly done, aiming a tremendous left-handed ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... captain would think that was but a left-handed compliment, and look more angry than pleased, but no ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... armies by the inspiration of their own nobler instincts, an equal choice of renown is offered to his successor in applying the same loyalty to conscience in the establishment of peace. We could not live together half slave and half free; shall we succeed better in trying a second left-handed marriage between democracy and another form of aristocracy, less gross, but not less uncongenial? They who before misled the country into a policy false and deadly to the very truth which was its life and strength, by the fear of ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... unflinchingly held his right hand in a burning brazier till it was consumed, as a mark of his contempt for the sentence. Porsena, moved by his courage, both pardoned him, and on hearing that 300 as defiant had sworn his death, made peace with Rome and departed. The name Scaevola (i. e. left-handed) was given him from the loss of his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to play. I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Knock the balls around a little and let me see how you can shoot.' So I knocked them around, and thought I was doing pretty well, when he said, 'That's all right; I'll play you left-handed.' It hurt my pride, but I played him. We banked for the shot and he won it. Then he commenced to play, and I commenced to chalk my cue to get ready to play, and he went on playing, and I went on chalking my cue; and he played and I chalked all through that game. When he ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... through his upper right arm, one through the right forearm, a finger blown away, a bullet through the left thigh, two bullets through the helmet, a "snick" in the neck, while his sword and scabbard were literally shot to pieces. He has by now lost his right arm, but, happily, being left-handed, it is hoped he may remain in the profession he is so ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... innermost feeling, now, is that The Return is a left-handed production. Looking through that story lately I had the material impression of sitting under a large and expensive umbrella in the loud drumming of a furious rain-shower. It was very distracting. In the general uproar one could hear every individual drop strike on the stout and distended silk. ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... champion. Shake!" and the two shook hands vigorously, in mutual congratulation. "Tell you what—I'll give you some pointers on diving, and you can show me how to make a golf ball behave. Next to Norman Brandon, I've got the most vicious hook in captivity—and Norm can't help himself. He's left-handed, you know, and, being a southpaw, he's naturally wild. He slices all his woods and hooks all his irons. I'm consistent, anyway—I hook ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... that it's Jenko?" Jimmy chipped in. "You don't tell me it's our long left and left-handed Jenko, that has bowled me at the nets a ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Having changed his tobacco from the right to the left side of his mouth, he strangles badly. It takes him just five minutes to get a free breath. This is always a good sign. Thereupon the darkest of negro lads, with six fingers, a lick, left-handed and cross-eyed, enters the barroom ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... superior skill. He had expected that Veronica would make a few conventional passes and parries, and grow tired of the sport in a few minutes. To his astonishment, he saw in a moment that she could really fence fairly well, while the fact of being left-handed gave her a great advantage, even against an otherwise superior adversary. He had of course intended and expected only to defend himself without ever really attacking, as men generally do when they fence ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... the "general regard paid to genius and learning" in France as one of the points in which it most differs from England. Ten years later, he cannot even thank Gibbon for his History without the left-handed compliment, that he should never have expected such an excellent work from the pen of an Englishman. Early in 1765, Hume ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... and his generous nature chafed at the innuendo. Looney Biddle—so-called by an affectionately admiring public as the result of certain marked eccentricities—was beyond dispute the greatest left-handed pitcher New York had possessed in the last decade. But there was one blot on Mr. Biddle's otherwise stainless scutcheon. Five weeks before, on the occasion of the Giants' invasion of Pittsburg, he had gone mysteriously to pieces. Few native-born ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... He bounced out of the room, He bounced out of the house—and page, footman, and groom Bounced after their master; for scarce had they heard Of this left-handed grace the last finishing word, Ere the horn at the gate of the Barbican tower Was blown with a loud ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... well covered, you lean devil," growled John to Enos, "or I'll shoot you without warning!" Working left-handed, he dropped the thumb-tack. With a curse between his teeth he stooped and picked it up, but could not press it firmly into place. He leaned his rifle against the door-post, drew the revolver and used its butt as a hammer. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... dispose you to engage him? I fancy not. But this is just how some of these gents recommends the Scriptures in their lectures and their books. It's my honest conviction, doctor, they're not loyal believers in God's truth themselves, or they'd never defend it in this left-handed way." ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... with his left hand. He cannot throw with his right hand, he is perplexed at meal-times between knife and fork, and his ideas of the rule of the road—he is a cyclist—are still a dangerous confusion. And there is not a scrap of evidence to show that before these occurrences Gottfried was at all left-handed. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... horse and ride as fast as you can," he ordered. "I'll trot along after you. Don't bother about me. I can shoot well enough left-handed to hold off the beggars ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... in her dress a small piece of iron to which was attached a coloured streamer bearing certain words. She threw, with a strong movement of the left arm, because she was left-handed. She had practised throwing; throwing was one of her several specialties. The bit of iron, trailing its motto like a comet its tail, flew across space and plumped into the window with a pleasing crash and disappeared, having triumphed over uncounted police on ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the correction with great composure. "You come to me to help you, because, though you claim all the discredit for your left-handed activities, I furnish a good half of the brains. And I blabbed—as you so elegantly phrased it—because I am far too intelligent to bite a bulldog for a bone. Our friends in the Gavilan pride themselves on their nerve. They are fighting men, ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Arthurs could scarcely be heard. Watching from the line Ken saw Weir come to bat and stand aggressively and hit the ball hard. It scattered the flock of fielders. Then Raymond came along, and, batting left-handed, did likewise. Arthurs stepped forward and said something to both. After Ken's turn at bat the coach said to him: "Get out of here. Go run round the track. Do it every day. Don't come ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... playing on the piano; here certain positive difficulties of execution have to be conquered, and incompetence inevitably breaks down. Every art which has its absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery. And so we have again and again the old story of La Fontaine's ass, who ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... extraordinary interest," said he. "Nothing has more individuality save, perhaps, watches and boot-laces. The indications here, however, are neither very marked nor very important. The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with an excellent set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... On its summit an outlaw, known in Munster as the "Shon" or Hawk, after many sleepless nights, footsore and weary, slept here with a prayer, "Thank God, at last I am above all my enemies." The peasantry pronounce the name "Carntwohill," which translated means, the left-handed or inverted sickle. The expansiveness of the Lower Lake appears at first to minimise its beauty, when compared with its smaller companions. But the more its loveliness is explored, the greater the revelation of the harmony and luxuriance of the landscape. No less than thirty-five islands, like ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... State of War, and am forc'd to keep as constant watch in my Seat, as a Governour would do that commanded a Town on the Frontier of an Enemy's Country. I have indeed pretty well secur'd my Park, having for this purpose provided my self of four Keepers, who are Left-handed, and handle a Quarter-Staff beyond any other Fellow in the Country. And for the Guard of my House, besides a Band of Pensioner-Matrons and an old Maiden Relation, whom I keep on constant Duty, I have Blunderbusses always charged, and Fox-Gins planted in private ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... if so, there is no evidence that such malpractices were widespread. The appendices to the Lotus[307] show that the worship of a many-named goddess, invoked as a defender of the faith, was beginning to be a recognized feature of Buddhism. But they contain no indications of left-handed Tantrism and the best proof that it did not become prevalent until much later is afforded by the narratives of the three Chinese pilgrims who all describe the condition of religion in India and notice anything which they thought singular ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... She was so sure of herself, so happy in her single-heartedness that she terrified me. My type of man is not meant for marriage, for women must be in the centre of life, and we must always be standing aside and looking on. It is a damnable thing to be left-handed.' ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... stronger in proportion to the number of yarns than cable or water-laid rope, which is more tightly twisted, each strand being a small rope. This latter is more impervious to water, and therefore good for cables, hawsers, &c.; it is laid left-handed, or against ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... crabbed uncle of mine; one of those uneasy spirits that cannot rest quietly in their beds in the morning, but must be up early, to bother the household. He was only a kind of half-uncle, after all, for he had married my father's sister; yet be assumed great authority on the strength of this left-handed relationship, and was a universal intermeddler and family pest. This prying little busybody soon ferreted out the truth of the story, and discovered, by hook and by crook, that I was at the bottom of the affair, and had locked up the donkey in the smoke-house. He stopped to inquire no further, for ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... a more thoughtful or high-minded woman, she would have gone straight to her husband, and quietly and lovingly asked him to tell her all: but, in her left-handed Irish fashion, she kept the secret to herself, and thought it a very good joke to have him in her power, and to be able to torment him about that letter when he got out of temper. It never occurred, however, to her that his present name was the feigned one. She fancied that he had, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... up that we don't look for," concluded John Massingbird, smoking on as serenely as though he had come into an estate, instead of having lost one. "There'll be bonfires all over the place to-night, Lionel—left-handed compliment to me. Here comes Luke Roy. I told him to be here this morning. What nuts this will be for old Roy to crack! He has been fit to stick me, ever since I refused him ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... committee hanging about a governor, and bandileers dangling about a furred alderman, have an anagram resemblance. There is no syntax between a cap of maintenance and a helmet. Who ever knew an enemy routed by a grand jury and a Billa vera? It is a left-handed garrison where their authority perches; but the more preposterous the more in fashion, the right hand fights while the left rules the reins. The truth is, the soldier and the gentleman are like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, one fights at ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... In this left-handed war against Catholic Spain many of the adventurers were, no doubt, stirred and incited by a grim, Calvinistic, puritanical zeal for Protestantism. But equally beyond doubt the gold and silver and plate of the "Scarlet Woman" had much to do with the persistent energy ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... school at fourteen, and by that time his mind was in much the same state that you would be in, dear reader, if you were operated upon for appendicitis by a well-meaning, boldly enterprising, but rather over-worked and under-paid butcher boy, who was superseded towards the climax of the operation by a left-handed clerk of high principles but intemperate habits,—that is to say, it was in a thorough mess. The nice little curiosities and willingnesses of a child were in a jumbled and thwarted condition, hacked and cut about—the operators had left, so ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... de Remusat, II., 77, 169.—Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures, which was his way of censuring morals."—"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon," 322 by le Comte Chaptal: "At a fete, in the Hotel de Ville, he exclaimed to Madame——, who had just ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... your note (as an afterthought). And it's a very creditable production for a left-handed man; I thought at first glance it ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... eleven-year-old daughter of old Abe Summers, who kept the store in Dodgeville, Vermont, years ago—that is to say, when Paul Quincy Adams was twelve, an orchard-robbing hooligan, whose chief worry in life was that, though he could thrash his eldest brother left-handed, he was condemned by the law of entail to wear his ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... at the locket—no matter which—but it flew away. My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-handed, as a bastard should be. From my left hand he took his death, and I threw the pistol after him: such love had ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... serious cricket, came from this parish. He was born in 1718, or thereabouts, and in 1745 he made 88 for England against Kent. He was left-handed, and the finest bat ever seen in those days. He taught Richard Nyren, of Hambledon, all the skill and judgment that that noble general possessed; Nyren communicated his knowledge to the Hambledon eleven, and the game was made. An interest in historical veracity compels me to add ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... eighteenth tee went kerplunk into the mud, and buried itself like a startled woodchuck. He said nothing, but took a left-handed club from his bag—for he began the game left-handed, and had switched over the year before, upon hearing our professional say that no left-handed player could ever become a great golfer. With this fresh implement, he began to dig. He finished the hole left-handed, with three ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... paralyze the Chancellery; stem etiquette and usage required another form: the applicant was not privileged to ask for a vacation, he must send in his resignation. The chancellor would know that the applicant was not really trying to resign, and didn't want to resign, but was merely trying in this left-handed ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... lame. Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp, was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, it was something incomparably worse. Not for a moment throughout the day did he leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... conventions and the human emotions. Casey cooked supper for Babe and the Little Woman, and washed the dishes, and wrung out cloths from hot vinegar and salt so that the Little Woman could bathe her knee—she had to do it left-handed, at that—and unbuttoned Babe's clothes and helped her on with her pyjamas and let her kneel on his lap while she said her prayers. Because, as Babe painstakingly explained, she always kneeled on a lap so ants couldn't run over her toes and tickle her and make her laugh, which would make God ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... were the beaded moccasins that incased his shapely feet. A tomahawk and knife were in his girdle, while he held a finely ornamented rifle in his right hand, the manner in which he manipulated the weapon showing that he was left-handed. ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... metal, and the result fits its socket truly. So he was given welcome, paid twenty-five cents an hour, and made full member of exactly such a gang as he had known at Plato, after he had laughed away the straw boss who tried to make him go ask for a left-handed monkey-wrench. He roomed at a machinists' boarding-house, and enjoyed the furious discussions over religion and the question of air versus water cooling far more than he had ever enjoyed the polite ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... a mere mass of Bedouin villages during the reign of Mohammed Gragne, the "left-handed" Attila of Adel. [13] Supplied with Arab mercenaries from Mocha, and by the Turks of Yemen with a body of Janissaries and a train of artillery, he burst into Efat and Fatigar. In A.D. 1528 he took possession of Shoa, overran Amhara, burned the churches and carried ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... that the homosexual tendency is stronger and more organic than the heterosexual tendency. Bisexuality would thus in a large number of cases be comparable to ambidexterity, which Biervliet has found to occur most usually in people who are organically left-handed.[136] While therefore the division into heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual is a useful superficial division, it is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... will ever see these pages, I find it pleasant to recall for my own satisfaction the fact that I am really a very remarkable man. I am, or rather I was, very good-looking, five feet eleven, with a lot of curly red hair, and blue eyes. I am left-handed, which is another unusual thing. My hands have often been noticed. I get them from my mother, who was a Fishbourne, and a lady. As for my father, he was rather common. He was a little man, red and round like an apple, but very strong, for a ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... 1), if A E represents a quarter-staff eight feet long, divided into four equal two-foot lengths at the points B, C, and D, the idea would be to grasp it with the right hand at D and with the left hand at C; or, if the player happened to be left-handed, to grasp it with the left hand at B and with the right ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... yon former times were not guided so thoroughly by the hand of a disinterested integrity as in these latter years. On the contrary, it seemed to be the use and wont of men in public trusts, to think they were free to indemnify themselves in a left-handed way for the time and trouble they bestowed in the same. But the thing was not so far wrong in principle as in the hugger-muggering way in which it was done, and which gave to it a guilty colour, that, by the judicious stratagem of a right system, it would ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... trader. In 1821 they were noted for their desperate forays, and for many years later a fierce conflict raged between them and the Blackfeet; under the leadership of a chief still famous in Indian story—Tehatka, or the "Left-handed;" they for a long time more than held their own against these redoubtable warriors. Tehatka was a medicine-man of the first order, and by the exercise of his superior cunning and dream power he was implicitly ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... court so different from the practice in which he has for so many years been thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he had any connexions truly of that kind, which I rather doubt, may well tremble for his sake. His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices in robbery and plunder, will, now the piratical business is blown, in all probability turn the king's evidences, and then the devil's bagpiper will touch him ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... love of justice, and hatred of oppression—an inflexible adherence to that which appears to him to be right—a man too wise to be cunning. Armed with the 'mens conscia recti,' he marches straightforward to his object, nor turns into the devious path of crooked policy, and left-handed wisdom. To these qualities are added indefatigable industry, and a patience not to be exhausted. This is the man, who, as a public magistrate in high station, I offer for your acceptance. Of his private worth, I dare not say all that I feel. He is present. You ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... fought again as a gladiator. The form of fighting which he practiced and the armor which he used was that pertaining to the so-called secutor: in his right hand he held the shield and in his left the wooden sword. He prided himself very greatly upon being left-handed. His antagonist would be some professional athlete, or, perhaps, gladiator, with a cane; this was sometimes a man that the emperor himself challenged and sometimes one that the people chose. In this and other matters he acted the same way as the other gladiators, except that they ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... flew into the group, but only just grazed the left-handed boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the boy standing the other side ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... 'It's the foinest Lung balm in the land ye shall taste,' an' the littlest feller he starts a-coughin', oh, a turrible cough—it fair scairt me, like a hoopin' croup—an' the other seemed just mad, and the littlest wan made fun av him. Oi seen the mean wan wuz left-handed or let on he wuz, but when he reached out fur the bottle he had on'y three fingers on his right, an' they both av them had the biggest, blackest, awfulest lukin' bairds—I'd know them two bairds agin ony place—an' the littlest ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... blows that were aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs now determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might—once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had proved the accuracy of her groom's statement by again "going up as straight as a ribbon" when the hounds crossed the road, and the bay had not been backward in emulating her efforts. Bill Kirby had had luck; the fox had run left-handed under the wall, and the leading hounds met the Master, with the body of the pack, at the verge of the wood on its farther side. A bank, pitted with rabbit-holes, a space of stony lane with a pole at its farther end, and Nad Wood was a thing ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... his enforced absence from the firing line. The superintendent's desk was hospitably unlocked, and for a busy half-hour Ford filled blank after blank, steadying himself against the pounding swing of the heavily ballasted car with a left-handed grip on the desk end. When there remained no one else to remind, he wrote out a message to Adair, forecasting the threatened disaster, and urging the necessity of rallying the reconstructionists on the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... you insist on playing tennis left-handed the other day, though you know very well how it ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... Don Quixote, "how scurvy doth it look in a governor to be unable to read or write! Indeed, Sancho, I must needs tell thee that when a man has not been taught to read, or is left-handed, it argues that his parentage was very low, or that, in early life, he was so indocile and perverse that his teachers could beat nothing good into him. Truly this is a great defect in thee, and therefore I would have thee learn to write, even if it ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... glance, "he was standing in front of the fireplace, winding the clock. Then the murderer stole up behind him—the noise of the turning key must have covered his movements—and stabbed him. And you see, from the position of the dagger on the left side of the back, that the murderer must have been left-handed. That is all clear enough. What is not clear is how he got in, and how ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... when Kaspar was stabbed, but there were no footmarks near the well, and elsewhere, only one man's track was in the Hofgarten. Was that track Kaspar's? We are not told. No knife was found. Kaspar was left-handed, and Dr. Horlacher declared that the blow must have been dealt by a left-handed man. Lord Stanhope suggested that Kaspar himself had inflicted the wound by pressure, and that, after he had squeezed the point of the knife through his wadded coat, it ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... his fortune. You'd hardly remember him; he reminds me of his uncle, old Nicholas Treffry; the same slow way of speaking, with a hesitation, and a trick of repeating your name with everything he says; left-handed too, and the same slow twinkle in his eyes. He has a dark, short beard, and red-brown cheeks; is a little bald on the temples, and a bit grey, but hard as iron. He rides over nearly every day, attended by a black spaniel with a wonderful nose and a horror of petticoats. He has told me lots ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the Attitudes, represented a Left-handed Figure, because by looking thro' the Paper on the blank Side, they will appear reversed, and ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... to be a left-handed shake on the part of Vic, a thing of which he often thought in the days that followed, but now he sent his ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... swift, she could only move slowly. A strong spirit in him woke him and made him lift his face and twist to look at her. Her arm was raised, the hand clasping the ball of lapis lazuli. It was her left hand, he realised again with horror that she was left-handed. Hurriedly, with a burrowing motion, he covered his head under the thick volume of Thucydides, and the blow came down, almost breaking his ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... bone like ourselves; and they all had their names, for I heard them name them when they were tossing me, and one was called Pedro Martinez, and another Tenorio Hernandez, and the innkeeper, I heard, was called Juan Palomeque the Left-handed; so that, senor, your not being able to leap over the wall of the yard or dismount from your horse came of something else besides enchantments; and what I make out clearly from all this is, that these adventures we go seeking will in the end lead us into such misadventures that ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... shortages. Then I started picking my way through it, my portable audiovisual camera slung over my shoulder and a flashlight in my hand. My left hand, of course; it's never smart to carry a light in your right, unless you're left-handed. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... these sons of Uar with a spell to quit Ireland." And Dubh rose up, and he said: "Go out through the strength of this spell and this charm, you three enemies of the Fianna, one-eyed, lame-thighed, left-handed, of the bad race. And go out on the deep bitter sea," he said, "and let each one of you strike a blow of his sword on the head of his brothers. For it is long enough you are doing harm and destruction on the King of the Fianna, Finn, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... "Sorter left-handed—yep; a Cheyenne woman. Little thing like that did n't faze Gene none, if he did have a white wife—a blamed good-looker she was too. She was out here onc't, three years ago, 'bout a week maybe. Course she did n't know nothin' 'bout the squaw, an' the Injuns was all huntin' down in the Wichitas. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... reached the laboratory he emerged solemnly and with state from his retreat, and stalked quietly through the knot of his outspoken critics, who were instantly besieged by a variety of emotions. He closed the laboratory door after him, and, when he saw the key outside, the temptation to repay the left-handed compliments of Poulett and Co. in their own coin was too strong. Gus gently turned the key, and was halfway down the corridor before the band arrived at the ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... bent his back, As if to plant a heavy thwack: Vile Jem, with neat left-handed stopper, Straight threatened Tommy with a topper; 'Tis all my eye! no claret flows, No facers sound—no smashing blows— Five minutes pass, yet not a hit, How can it end, pals?—vait a bit. Ri, tol, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... A player from each team takes a position behind this starting line and in turn, with his left foot on the starting line and with his shoulders at right angles to it, slings the sack with his right arm straight at the elbow, over his head as far as possible. A left-handed player may reverse this position. The spot where the sack hits the ground is marked. The player from the opposing team stands in the same position at the starting line, as did the first player, and makes his throw in the same direction, and his throw is marked. These two ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the consciousness of love, for example, be associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we love, that the motion is in one direction, and, when we hate, that the motion is in the other; but the WHY?' would remain ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... real estate, or imported hats, or somebody's home-made candy? Or maybe you mean startin' one of them Blue Goose novelty shops down in Greenwich Village. I'll tell you. Why not manufacture left-handed collar buttons for the south-paw trade? ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... should fall on the paper from the left side, thus enabling a writer to clearly see the ruled lines, and render the labor of writing easier and more rapid. If one writes left-handed, of course He will sit so as to get his light from the right side, or over the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... a little more personal experience. No Englishman says "in guard" for "on guard." "Colpo del Tancredi" is not"Tancred's lunge" but "the thrust of the (master) Tancredi:" it is quite permissible and to say that it loses half its dangers against a left-handed man is to state what cannot be the fact as long as the heart is more easily reached from the left ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... to tell everybody something. It's a wonder they ain't sent you in to the Chink to borrow his meat auger, or out to the blacksmith shop for a left-handed monkey wrench, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... background of pine trees in the forest behind. As time advanced little ledges on the rock slopes were left dry by the water, and it was possible to slide down to them on all fours and fish the run with the rocks behind us, necessitating left-handed casting, but giving perfect command of about 60 yards of stream, which was for a while sure holding ground, since it was deepest at the foot of ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Golly! it nearly knocked a passage through me. Just where that fellow hit you, sir, he hit me. It was just at the end of the round, and I went back to my corner. Jim Blake was seconding me. 'What's this, Jim?' I says, 'is the man mad, or what?' 'Why,' he says, 'he's left-handed, that's what's the matter. Get on top of him.' 'Get on top of him? I says. 'My Golly, I'll get on top of the roof if he's going to hit me another of those.' But I kept on, and got close to him, and he couldn't get in another ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... the voice of the sovereign chief, "the Left-handed," was heard across the river, announcing that the council lodge was preparing and inviting the white men to come over. The river was half a mile in width, yet every word uttered by the chieftain was heard; this may be partly attributed to the distinct manner in which every syllable of the compound ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... starched bosom, called, in the expressive language of the day, a "biled shirt," completed the restoration of the man to decency. Now, also, the soldier with painful care threaded his needle with huge thread, and with a sort of left-handed awkwardness sewed on the long-absent button, or, with even greater trepidation, attempted a patch. At such a time the soldier pondered on the peculiar fact that war separates men from women. A man cannot thread a needle ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... warrant yet for you, Mrs. Pennold," observed Morrow, imperturbably. "I admit that it's more than seven years since every department-store detective was on the look-out for Left-handed Mame. I believe you specialized in furs and ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... the son of Earl Alexander by a daughter of this Gille-Padruig ('Celtic Scotland,' Vol. III. p. 298) while Gregory suggests that the words naturalis and carnalis used by Hugh's father and brother in the charters already quoted "were used to designate the issue of those handfast or left-handed marriages which appear to have been so common in the Highlands and Isles." ['Western Highlands and Isles,' p.41] Whether the Sleat district of Skye was or was not carried for the first time to the Macdonald Earls ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... great courage; but the water, strange to say, remained abundant, and it was only after still further increasing the size of the pumps that it was at last got rid of. Then the secret came out: no one had told Lambert that the sluice valve had a left-handed screw, and that, therefore, to close it he would have to turn it in the opposite direction to the usual one. So all his heroic labour was expended on opening the valve to its fullest extent, and thwarting the purpose for which he had undertaken ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... to tell 'e to-day. Mother is willing and I'm awnly tu glad. A man's a poor left-handed thing 'bout a house. I'd do more ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of "young Massa Davy," the Colonel married his present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed connection with Madam P——, and consenting that the "bond-woman" should remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided, during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... roast our opponents. But is it Christ-like to do it? Do we forget how long it took us to come to the position that now seems so clear to us? Some one has said that, in dealing with children, "we should remember that they are left-handed," and this is certainly true of people in their relation to truth. The slowness with which people take up new ideas is a merit as well as a fault. We could have no stability and progress anywhere if it were not for this inertia in convictions. "The Athenians and strangers ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... surface of bandage against the part to be bandaged, holding the roll in the right hand, unless you are left-handed, unrolling it as a roll of carpet unrolls to show you a ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... failed to see the matter in that wholesome light, and smiled a grim and unkind smile as he read Caryl Carne's report of those "left-handed and uncouth manoeuvres." "One of your Majesty's feeblest regiments would send the whole of those louts to the devil; and I am bound to impress once more, with all deference to your infallible judgment, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... agents in Paris, Lord Sempil, writes to him on July 5, 1745, with warnings against the Prince's counsellors, especially Sir Thomas Sheridan (Charles's governor, and left-handed cousin) and Kelly. They, with Lally Tollendal and others, arranged the descent on Scotland without the knowledge of James or Sempil, whom Charles and his party bitterly distrusted, as they also distrusted Lord Lismore (O'Brien), James's other agent. While the Prince was in Scotland ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... his book—was not answered until we had passed Verviers, Chaudfontaine and Liege. I was aroused from a sulky slumber in the station at Brussels by Hohenfels, who said, in his musical scolding way, like the busy wheeze of a clicking music-box, "You may say what you like, with your left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you may praise Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are sorry at this moment not to be at Epernay to see the destroyer of your peace married: you had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... opened by its rightful owner, the property is gone, and there is found the print of the thumb of one of these two men. That thumb-print was not there when the safe was closed. The man whose thumb-print is found is a left-handed man; the print is the print of a left thumb. It would seem, gentlemen, as if the conclusion were so obvious that no sane person could be found to contest it; and I submit that the conclusion which any sane person would arrive at—the only possible conclusion—is, that the person whose thumb-print ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... the city treasury, came to him just the same. He ceased working, and pottered. Still he received pay. He ceased pottering. He joined a saloon. And he became the right-hand man of a right-hand man of a right-hand man who was a right-hand man of a very important man who was—left-handed. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... absolutely on him each time. He can throw it up and catch it behind him, and if he has two others (or stones will do) he can strive for the juggler's accomplishment of keeping three things in the air at once. Every boy should practice throwing with his left hand (or, if he is already left-handed, with his right): a very useful accomplishment. If it is a solid india-rubber ball and there is a blank wall, he can make it rebound at different angles, one good way being, in throwing it, to let it first hit the ground close to the wall's foot. He may ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Ehud the Left-handed concealed under his garments a keen dagger, and joined himself to the Benjamite deputies who were to carry their dues to the Moabite sovereign. The money having been paid, the deputies turned homewards, but when they reached the cromlech of Gilgal,* and were safe beyond the reach of the enemy, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... side shows a seated lady in a green dress, playing a lute left-handed. This most unusual position is probably not really intentional, but the drawing has accidentally been reversed. She is surrounded, like her companion with the hawk, by flower sprays, a thistle, cornflower, strawberries, ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... woman accused of witchcraft reveal the more bizarre medical practices of the time. Goodwife Wright expected to serve as the midwife but the expectant mother refused to employ her upon learning that Wright was left-handed. Soon after affronting Wright in such a manner, the mother complained that her breast "grew dangerouslie sore" and her husband and child both fell sick within a few weeks. With circumstantial evidence ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... she said with a sniff. "What does he know about raids? And you'd think to hear you talk, Lizzie, that pulling Germans out of a trench was as easy as letting a dog out after a neighbor's cat. It's like Pershing and all the rest of them," she added bitterly, "to take a left-handed newspaper man, who can't shut his right eye to shoot with the left, and start him off alone to take the whole ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... difficult to cite a stronger and more determined materialist as authority on the point we are considering. He says: "If love were known to be associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and hate with the left-handed, we should remain as ignorant as before, as to the cause of motion." But there is no proof that the molecules of the brain manifest any other motions than those necessary for keeping up the normal condition of health and vital activity in the brain itself. No ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... patted the heavy shoulder of his top assistant. "The punk did us a left-handed favor in bringing things to a head." He told of how Charon had discovered the Red plot, ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... being permitted to speak too plainly. He was foreman of Bacon's good pens and one of his "left-hands"; as any visitor to Westminster Abbey may learn, the attendants there being careful to point out that the sculptor has "accidentally" clothed Jonson's Bust in a left-handed coat. (With respect to the meaning of this the reader is referred to Plate 33, page 131.) Thus far was written and in print when the writer's attention was called to the Rev. George O Neill's little brochure, ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... the first Philippine Commission had a sort of left-handed interest in the first municipal governments established in ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... LEFT-HANDED WIFE. A concubine; an allusion to an ancient German custom, according to which, when a man married his concubine, or a woman greatly his inferior, he gave ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... hand; but mounted he turns to the left. The foot passenger's prerogative of turning to the right was one of the priceless heritages wrested from King John by the barons at Runnymede; but when William the Conqueror rode into the Battle of Hastings he rode a left-handed horse—and so, very naturally and very properly, everything on hoof or wheel in England has consistently turned to the left ever since. I took some pains to look up the original precedents for these facts ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... the field of love? Harris at least was not. His bearing was quite undramatic, simple, dignified. His greeting was almost too simple. "I can't give you my right hand, Miss Archer," said he, smiling gravely, "and I won't give a left-handed felicitation. It's my first opportunity," he continued, as he stood quietly before her, looking straight into her blushing face, "and I'm sorry it has to be in such shabby fashion." Then just as ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... similarity in this regard, between Jackson, Clay, and Crawford was wonderful. They were equally passionate, equally impetuous, and equally impatient—all being natural men of great powers and limited education. To say they were self-made, would be paying the Almighty a left-handed compliment. But to say they assiduously cultivated His great gifts without much aid from the schoolmaster, would only be doing them ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... played the center field, was an active and effective man in that position. He was also a fairly good left-handed pitcher, and a rattling good batsman, who excelled in fair-foul hitting. McMullen was an all-around good fellow, and when he died in 1881 he left a host of friends ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... to have eyes in their heads, didn't see half that really took place, and saw a-plenty that did not. Most of 'em would have hung the man who snatched my hat. Only one, I remember, noticed that I was shot by a left-handed man. Then the little girl told us what really had occurred, every detail, just as though she had planned it instead ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... scrapers, nets of olona fibre, a junk of ie-ie baskets, and fish- hooks of every bone and spoon of shell. Musical instruments of the forgotten days—ukukes and nose flutes, and kiokios which are likewise played with one unstoppered nostril. Taboo poi bowls and finger bowls, left-handed adzes of the canoe gods, lava-cup lamps, stone mortars and pestles and poi-pounders. And adzes again, a myriad of them, beautiful ones, from an ounce in weight for the finer carving of idols to fifteen pounds for the ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... said Dick, walking off in another direction with Aspinall, "how Raggles and Culver play tennis at all; any fool could lick them left-handed." ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... probably the Gentile name of Davis cannot boast of its pure source, and no doubt where Gentile pedigree loses trace, Jewish descent commences, either by a left-handed Jew connexion with a Gentile fair ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... his gasped warning when Ruth again hurled herself forward upon Dixon with tapering fingers curved like talons as they sought his throat. Dixon swept her clutching hands aside with a desperate left-handed parry, then snatched wildly at the gleaming head-piece with ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... rather inclined to be left-handed; it comes in usefully now," said Peter, who generally hurried over any reference to his misfortune. "Well, this morning, whilst we were playing, I asked Sarah, for the third time, to—to marry me. The third's the lucky ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... there can be no fitter occasion than the present to pronounce a left-handed blessing upon the man who invented the American saddle. There is no seat to speak of about it—one might as well sit in a shovel —and the stirrups are nothing but an ornamental nuisance. If I were to write down here all the abuse I expended on those ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rightful Landgrave, whilst yet a young man, had been assassinated in the forest when hunting. A year or two before this catastrophe he had contracted what, from the circumstances, was presumed, at the time, to be a morganatic or left-handed marriage, with a lady of high birth, nearly connected with the imperial house. The effect of such a marriage went to incapacitate the children who might be born under it, male or female, from succeeding. On that account, as well as because current report ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey |
