"Deftness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... interwoven with unfaltering skill. 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 and the criss-cross of the influence of the different ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... a man moved. Most of them had been stunned by the rapidity of Harlan's action—by the deftness with which he had brought his left hand into use. They had received the practical demonstration for which they all had longed, and each man's manner plainly revealed his decision to take no part in ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... which has all the literary charm and deftness of character drawing that distinguish his novels, Dr. Ebers has told the story of his growth from childhood to maturity, when the loss of his health forced the turbulent student to lead a quieter life, and inclination led him to begin his Egyptian studies, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... could she not tear out this maddening heart of hers and fling it to the sea? Why could she not turn it toward the man who loved her? Why, why? Why should God make her so unhappy? Why such injustice? Why this twisted interlacing of lives? And yet, amid all these futile seekings, with subconscious deftness her hands went on with their appointed work. Never again would the splendor of her beauty burn as it ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... technological breakthroughs. What is relatively new or different is the extent to which brilliance and competence in using force, in understanding where an adversary's weak points lie and in executing military operations with deftness, are vital. While this recognition is not new, emphasis is crucial on exploiting brilliance and therefore on the presumption that brilliance may be taught or institutionalized and is not a function only of ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... Caxton still watched Eleanor, whose eyes did not readily meet hers. What about her? Her manner was as usual, one would have said, yet it was not; nor was she. A little delicate undefined difference made itself felt; and that Mrs. Caxton was studying. A little added grace; a little added deftness and alacrity; Mrs. Caxton had seen it in that order taken of the fire before breakfast; she saw it and read it then. And in Eleanor's face correspondingly there was the same difference; impossible to tell where it lay, it was equally impossible not to perceive ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... 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 ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... has a daredevil way with the women, as have all men whose calling is a hazardous one. Chet was a crack workman. He could shinny up a pole, strap his emergency belt, open his tool kit, wield his pliers with expert deftness, and climb down again in record time. It was his pleasure—and seemingly the pleasure and privilege of all lineman's gangs the world over—to whistle blithely and to call impudently to any passing ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... his task he often received a sound scolding for his unskilful and bungling style of work. But he in part made up by main strength what he lacked in skill, and after two or three days he acquired considerable deftness in his unwonted labors, and felt the better for them. They counteracted the effects of his literary efforts, or, more correctly, his means of inspiration ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... on Foy's head as he spoke. "Now the bandages, Anastacio. We'll have the blood stopped in a jiffy. Funny he hasn't come to. It's been a long while. It ain't the head ails him. This isn't such a deep cut; it oughtn't to put him out. Just happened to strike a vein." He bound up the cut with the deftness of experience. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... 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 ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... some possible mischance. They are friends, and will in a moment swerve, and boom back to the shafts they have excavated in sand as depositaries for their eggs, and into which they will pack living caterpillars as fresh food for their young. They dig with such deftness and vigour that the sand is expelled in a continuous jet. When the mouth of the shaft, round to exactness, is lumbered with soil, the insect emerges backward and shovels away dog-like with its forelegs. Then it disappears again, until the sand-jet ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... 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 ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... Where rejoices to rest His magnificent crest, The mountain-cock, shrilling In quick time, his note; And the clans of the grot With melody's note, Their numbers are trilling. No foot can compare, In the dance of the green, With the roebuck's young heir; And here he is seen With his deftness of speed, And his sureness of tread, And his bend of the head, And his freedom of spring! Over corrie careers he, The wood-cover clears he, And merrily steers he With bound, and with fling,— As he spurns from his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... 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. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... 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 their faith chiefly to the virtue ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Cuchulainn; 'I shall not be alive therefrom. Two of equal age we, two of equal deftness, two equal when we meet. O Lugaid, greet him for me; tell him that it is not true valour to come against me; tell him to come to meet me to-night, ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... dragging them from the bed and flinging them on to the couch at the other end of the studio. And afterwards he took a clean pair from the wardrobe and began to make the bed with all the deftness of a bachelor accustomed to that kind of thing. He carefully tucked in the clothes on the side near the wall, shook the pillows, and turned back a corner of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... 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
... 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, having seen that Grannie's teapot held an extra ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the northern seas. Proud of such weapons, he wondered if he could not build a warship longer than the "Serpent" and swifter than the "Crane," and he consulted his best shipbuilder, Thorberg Haarklover, i.e. the "Hair-splitter," so named from his deftness with the sharp adze, the shipwright's characteristic tool in the days of wooden walls. Thorberg was given a free hand, and promised to build a ship that would be famous for centuries. This was the "Lang Ormen," or "Long Serpent," a "Dreadnought" of those old Viking days. She was ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... Tom's wife, 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
... 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 nutmeg-grater to fluting-iron, and tossed them out ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... sitting in the library. I was helping the common cause with the evening paper and the map, and Helen and Rosie were knitting away like mad at khaki mufflers for Lady FRENCH. Click-click went the needles; the youthful fingers moved with incredible deftness and celerity, and line after line was added by each executant to her already enormous pile. There had been a long silence, and the time for breaking it seemed to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... have spied. And standing so I saw the men, and they saw me; and quickened to the act by the sudden danger, I swung over the first half of the trap which shut the chimney in, and made ready to close the second with all the deftness ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... balanced himself in the rolling boat with the deftness of a man who has been trained upon the sea, for he was born and bred in the Cinque Ports. Carefully he nocked his arrow, strongly he drew it, steadily he loosed it, but the boat swooped at the instant, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the front door and put one foot over the threshold. It was back again in an instant, however; and this time it was no lawful Patsy that flew back through the hall to the mantel-shelf. With the deftness and celerity of a true housebreaker she de-framed the tinker and stuffed the photograph in the pocket ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Woodville there was jealousy. Sylvia, discreet as she was—no sparkling, teasing coquette—had yet all the irresistible magnetism of a woman who is obviously made for tenderness. But she showed as much deftness in keeping back her admirers as most girls do in attracting them. She had curious deep delicacies; she disliked nothing so much as to feel or show her power as a woman. Pride or vanity was equally out of ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... skeins one knot linen yarn in one day, an extraordinary amount. This was enough to weave twelve linen handkerchiefs. At this time when there were about five or six skeins to a pound of flax, the pay for spinning was sixpence a skein. The Abbe Robin wondered at the deftness of New ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... 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 who had once been young, and who had gone like ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... used in skinning their prey. Both bodies were cut to fragments. The third man seized an axe as the murderers crowded round him and beat them back; he then sought safety in flight. There was a hiss of hurtling spears thrown after him with terrible deftness. With his back pierced in a dozen places, drenched in his own blood, the Cossack almost tumbled over the prostrate body of a sentinel who had been on guard at a house down by the ship, and had been wounded ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... common servant must educate him, if he did not wish to see him derided and looked down upon and actually "cut" by gentlemen that WERE gentlemen? All this to say nothing of Pearson's own well- earned reputation for knowledge of custom, intelligence, and deftness in turning out the objects of his care in such form as to be a reference in themselves when a new place was wanted. Of course sometimes there were even real gentlemen who were most careless and indifferent to appearance, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his 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 ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... admiration on his passage to this room, now approached. His motions were exact and incredibly swift. It was his duty to remove full spools and replace them by empty ones, and he did this duty for sixteen spinning frames. Seeing the "new hand's" astonishment at his deftness he became reckless and, intending an unusually dexterous movement, miscalculated his reach, and the result was a momentary tangle among ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... that one of the cushions was slipping to one side. She replaced it with a deftness of touch natural to her, yet seemingly incongruous with her harum-scarum ways. Then she settled herself with her back against a tree, facing her ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... so involved that the mind's eye cannot follow it, and becomes bewildered and fatigued. A classical example of both faults may be found in Congreve's so-called comedy The Double-Dealer. This is, in fact, a powerful drama, somewhat in the Sardou manner; but Congreve had none of Sardou's deftness in manipulating an intrigue. Maskwell is not only a double-dealer, but a triple—or quadruple-dealer; so that the brain soon grows dizzy in the vortex of his villainies. The play, it may ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the North inoculated with the Renaissance, and thus began the second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish tapestries. It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the wondrous textile art. The weavers were already perfect in their work, no change of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... side of the canyon with the deftness of the expert. At the first available crevice she thrust in her Alpine stick, and bracing herself, gained a footing. Then she turned and by use of her fingers and toes worked her way back to the plan, she had passed. She was familiar with many members of she family, but such ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... asking Maura to tell them the name of a mountain peak with a white cap. The party came up to dinner, which was as genial and easy as the host and Lord Rotherwood could make it, and as stiff and grand as the hostess could accomplish, aided by the deftness and grace of her Italian servants. In the evening Theodore came up to assist in the singing of glees, and Clement's voice was a delightful and welcome sound in his sister's ears. Ivinghoe stood among the circle at the piano, and enjoyed. ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... influence readers. All this does not mean that the paragraph should end lamely. It cannot conclude with the emphasis of the beginning, it is true, but it may be well rounded at the end and its lack of emphasis in details may be compensated with vigor and deftness of expression. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... 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
... 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 ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... spoke the monster made a sudden downward swoop at Edna, and, with a deftness that was quite extraordinary, hooked one of its steely claws in her girdle and soared rapidly aloft with her. It was fortunate that the belt, which was of stout jewel-studded leather, was able to sustain ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... high, precise courtliness which contrasted oddly with his boyish face (I guessed his age at nineteen or twenty), and still more oddly with his clothes, which were threadbare and patched in many places, yet with a deftness which told of a woman's care. We introduced ourselves by name, and thanked him, with some expressions of regret at inconveniencing (as I put it, at hazard) the family ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... his room, one of the four into which the Mess was divided. Like the doctor's quarters, it was at one end of the building, the centre apartment being the officers' anteroom and dining-room. Frank found that his "boy," with the ready deftness of Indian servants, had unpacked his trunks, hung up his clothes and stowed his various belongings about the scantily-furnished room. He had stood Violet's photo on the one rickety table and laid out his Master's white mess uniform on the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... 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 the ...
— 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, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the 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 the length of wagering ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... slight pause at Glogau here; but will directly be abreast again. On Tuesday, 27th, Schwerin is within wind of Liegnitz; on Wednesday morning, while the fires are hardly lighted, or the smoke of Liegnitz risen among the Hills, Schwerin has done his feat with the usual deftness: Prussian grenadiers came softly on the sentry, softly as a dream; but with sudden levelling of bayonets, sudden beckoning, "To your Guard-house!"—and there, turn the key upon his poor company and him. Whereupon the whole ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... into the death of his predecessor on the throne. But such flaws are external, not essential. On the whole, I can only say that the work of translation has made me feel even more strongly than before the extraordinary grip and reality of the dialogue, the deftness of the construction, and, except perhaps for a slight drop in the Creon scene, the unbroken crescendo of tragedy from ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... at home. After a little hesitation I told her all, and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart just the counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving consolation. She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in the very way she said the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... contortion of the manacled hands, which seemed suddenly to have become endowed with the crafty deftness of the hands of a pickpocket, he found his working capital in a pocket of the short-sleeved coat. It had been diminished only by the hundred dollars put into John Gavitt's hands, and the twenty he had given the negro. He wished he might have had ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... amazed 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
... Chattering and eager, we ran over to the dining-tent, and there, close beside it, found the little kitchen, its ovens smoking hot, and a man outside, aproned and capped, cutting up chops and steaks, with careless deftness, and laying them in the great iron pans, preparatory ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... a minute, 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 the ham, eggs, coffee, and other materials for supper. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... 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 ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... 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 ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... that competent functionary, Deputy Sheriff Breck Quarles, sat at ease in his shirt sleeves, engaged, with the smaller blade of his pocketknife, in performing upon his finger nails an operation that combined the fine deftness of the manicure with the less delicate art of the farrier. At the sight of the Judge in the open doorway he hastily withdrew from a tabletop, where they rested, a pair of long ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... unhurried deftness of an experienced pilgrim, she set about making the place cooler, and more habitable; drew up all the window-shutters; opened her bedding roll; and taking possession of Lenox, established him, with tender ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... 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 opposable ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... 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 there was your ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... packed away about 1833. Of the 132 dolls preserved, thirty-two were dressed by the princess. They range from three to nine inches in height. The sewing and adornment of the rich coloured silks and satins show great deftness of finger. ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... 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 his relations are abused ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Makimmon sat a slight, feminine figure, whom he recognized as the teacher of the past season's local school. She had a pallid face, which she rarely raised, compressed lips, and hands which attracted Gordon by reason of their white deftness, the precise charm of their pointed fingers. During a seemingly interminable grace, pronounced in a rapid sing-song by the circuit rider, Gordon saw her flash her gaze about the table, the room; and ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... 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 not ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... 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 ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... gladly relinquishing my place. With a deftness and ease that could only be explained by the fact that the duck was ready and willing to be carved, she removed the legs and then demolished ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... 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, and ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... 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 ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... the ships lying down to it and scudding. I was thinking what a vile day it was, when she 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, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... feed upon rose-buds and leaves, notwithstanding the thorns, but they regale themselves upon nearly every flower-plant that shows its head; lupines were the chosen dainty of my friend's horse. The animals become expert at getting this unnatural food; it is curious to watch the deftness with which a cow will go through a currant or gooseberry bush, thrusting her head far down among the branches, and carefully picking off the tender leaves, while leaving the stems untouched, and the matter-of-course way ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... 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 chatter that was unmistakable, though hard to ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... shoved back into the place prepared for it by Mr. Adams, but the glimpses still to be seen of its blue surface through the hole made in the wall of the antechamber formed anything but an attractive feature in the scene, and Mr. Gryce, with something of the instinct and much of the deftness of a housewife, proceeded to pull up a couple of rugs from the parlor floor and string them over these openings. Then he consulted his watch, and finding that it was within an hour of nine o'clock, took up his stand behind the curtains of the parlor window. Soon, for the person expected was ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... Grimbal's suit. In the 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 and with all ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... in bandaging him. We found little Charlie Harrison lying close to the side of the wall, gazing at his crushed foot with a look of incredulity and horror pitiful to see. One of the men gave him first aid with all the deftness ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... world he wanted to look at Nell Burton; however, divining that the situation might be embarrassing to her, he refrained from looking up. She began to bathe his injured knuckles. He noted the softness, the deftness of her touch, and then it seemed her fingers were not quite as steady as they might have been. Still, in a moment they appeared to become surer in their work. She had beautiful hands, not too large, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... a trifle. The effect was at the same time stiff and chic. His footwork was infallible. The intricate and imbecilic steps of the day he performed in flawless sequence. Under his masterly guidance the feet of the least rhythmic were suddenly endowed with deftness and grace. One swayed with him as naturally as with an elemental force. He danced politely and almost wordlessly unless first addressed, according to the code of his kind. His touch was firm, yet remote. The dance concluded, he conducted his ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... by 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 interesting because not yet invaded by the penetrating trolley. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... lithe and graceful. She might have been Leah's 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 ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... refinement, every one in the house will know it, will feel it, and you will never mention the subject; they must feel it, then there will be no arguing on the subject. It must be demonstrated by your deftness, your quietness, your cheerfulness, your education, your intelligence, your quick appreciation of other good qualities. We must all of us show the world that it is being nursed by its compeers, that a lady can do even the most revolting ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... an octave or so lower down. This particular girl, however, takes the other way, and, running her 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... OF MIXING PROCESSES.—In applying the various mixing processes, it is well to bear in mind that good results depend considerably on the order of mixing, as well as on the deftness and thoroughness with which each process is performed. This fact is clearly demonstrated in a cake in which the butter and sugar have not been actually creamed, for such a cake will not have the same texture as one in which the creaming has been done properly. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... 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, ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... on her knees, though I strove half rudely to prevent her, and was binding up my shoulder with a wonderful deftness of her long fingers. ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... him in silent admiration of his deftness with the weaving and in disgust at his use of the coffee pot—thinking he would want no more draughts from it himself. All the time his mind grew clearer and he began to form plans for telling Dorothy where he was—though he didn't know ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... 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 ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... deftness, the French maid arrayed Patty in the beautiful evening gown of yellow satin, veiled ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... 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 this primitive union ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Lovers, of Patricia Quin is done with that simplicity, quiet deftness and inoffensive frankness which is the hallmark of Mr. Swinnerton's fiction. And, coming at last to Nocturne, I fall back cheerfully upon the praise accorded that novel by H. G. Wells in his preface to it. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... 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 disappointment ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... Sacas to give me the bowl, and let me pour out the wine as prettily as he if I can, and win your favour." So the king bade the butler hand him the bowl, and Cyrus took it and mixed the wine just as he had seen Sacas do, and then, showing the utmost gravity and the greatest deftness and grace, he brought the goblet to his grandfather and offered it with such an air that his mother and Astyages, too, laughed outright, and then Cyrus burst out laughing also, and flung his arms round his grandfather ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... recently at the exhibition of the Society of American Artists, in New York, was 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 ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... was an under side to all this gold-tissued splendor that was sometimes laid bare to the people, in spite of the deftness with which the Signoria stood tirelessly ready to cover up the flaws; and a recent sad travesty of justice was one of the weird ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... prevailing literary mode is due to two authors, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Of the two famous series—the Tatler and the Spectator—for which they were both responsible, Steele must take the first credit; he began them, and though Addison came in and by the deftness and lightness of his writing took the lion's share of their popularity, both the plan and the characters round whom the bulk of the essays in the Spectator came to revolve was the creation of his collaborator. Steele ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... lot of irrepressible schoolboys out for a holiday. 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 ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... you 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 ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... root. It was made painfully clear to him a moment later when a pair of brawny hands reached out of the darkness behind him and encircled his throat a hand's width below his gleaming cigarette. Another pair used cords with deftness and despatch and he was left by himself to browse upon the gag when all his ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... which he displayed 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 in cities who could not have done for ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... tasks 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 fancy caught perfume And dainty touch and taste of ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... a bitter powder into my mouth, and gave me a drink of water after it—raising me up with a wonderful deftness and gentleness that I might take it, and settling me back again on the pillow in just the way that I wanted to lie. "And now be off again to your friends the Ephesians," he said; "only remember that if you or they—or their dog either, poor beasty—wants anything, ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... and the facts that have been instanced, make it clear that brains must unite with labor and capital. Above all, however, there must be trained, practical skill. Those succeed who learn how; and to add a little deftness to unskilled hands is the object of every succeeding page. At the same time, I frankly admit that nothing can take the place of experience. I once asked an eminent physician if a careful reading of the best medical text-books and thorough knowledge of the materia medica ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... Bottinius can do 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
... look, the girl's hand shot forth and touched his arm, a light touch with the deftness of strength held in abeyance, and McElroy felt his ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... planted squarely 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 of ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... took long—it was the eradication of Larry the Bat's make-up from his face, throat, neck, wrists, and hands. Occasionally his head was turned in a tense, listening attitude; but always the fingers were busy, working with swift deftness. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... folk, was the father of three sons. Fafnir, the eldest, was gifted with a fearless soul and a powerful arm; Otter, the second, with snare and net, and the power of changing his form at will; and Regin, the youngest, with all wisdom and deftness of hand. To please the avaricious Hreidmar, this youngest son fashioned for him a house lined with glittering gold and flashing gems, and this was guarded by Fafnir, whose fierce glances and AEgis helmet ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the nurse 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, ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... a heavy lump of stupid or snobbish photographs. It 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
... streaming below her waist. Upon her head, in 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 being ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... made no unfair difference in her case from any other, but so far as he could mould and bend the prison discipline and rules it was his practice not to use a razor for stone-chipping or a cold-chisel for shaving. He therefore put Vivie to tasks co-ordinated with her ability and the deftness of her hands—such as book-binding. She had of course to wear prison dress—a thing of no importance in her eyes—and her cell was like all the cells in that and other British prisons previous to the newest reforms—dark, rather damp, cruelly cold in winter, and disagreeable in smell; badly ventilated ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... heights where we would open at least the outer courts of knowledge to all, display its treasures to many, and select the few to whom its mystery of Truth is revealed, not wholly by birth or the accidents of the stock market, but at least in part according to deftness and aim, talent and character. This programme, however, we are sorely puzzled in carrying out through that part of the land where the blight of slavery fell hardest, and where we are dealing with two backward ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... among the warehouses and wharves crowding the approach to the bridge. As she walked, she still asked questions and found that all the dwellers in the Lane were better known by their employments than their real names, how that Glory's deftness with a needle had made her "Take-a-Stitch," and anybody might guess why Jane was called "Posy" or Captain Beck had become the "Singer." Besides, she discovered that this ragged newsboy was as fond and proud of his "Lane" as she was of her avenue, and that if she had any pity to ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... 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 Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... produced a string fit for the Sultan's kitchen,—of all the number, Mrs. Laudersdale adding by far the majority,—possibly because her shining prey found destination in the same basket with Mr. Raleigh's,—possibly because, as Helen had intimated, a sudden deftness had bewitched her fingers, so that neither dropping rod nor tangling reel ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... 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 but butter ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... take them up and try again. Neither man had a tenth the deftness that is common to adults on the earth. In size and strength alone they were men; otherwise—it cannot too often be repeated—they were mere children. All told, it was over two hours before the ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... again he recounted her words, lingering especially upon the sweetness of her voice and the searching quality of that last look she had given him. He unsaddled his horse mechanically, and went about his cabin duties with listless deftness. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... down. She passionately wanted to know more, but was immeasurably grateful for so much! Favorable! Then Stillwell had been successful. Her heart leaped. Suddenly she became weak and her hands failed of their accustomed morning deftness. It took her what seemed a thousand years to dress. Breakfast meant nothing to her except that it helped her to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... tenderness of her thankful father, nor the interest of all the campers. The signal shots had brought them all back to the camp, and there the two lads went immediately to work to cook for the girl the most wonderful of suppers. Monty had caught some of Melvin's deftness at the task and was most ambitious to show Molly his newly acquired skill. Also, at the first opportunity, when the Judge had for a moment released his darling's hand to rise and greet Farmer Grimm coming through the woods, the boy proudly pulled from his pocket a few small ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... opportunity that Long Sin wanted. He started across the rope, which he had stretched from this apartment house to the building across the court, with all the deftness of ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... of work here is no greater than the range of qualities which may be happily and usefully employed in arts and crafts. All branches of the work, however, are alike in demanding a certain degree of artistic sense and deftness of manual touch. An accurate, observant eye is an absolute essential, and, for all but the lowest and most mechanical lines of work, imagination, originality, and an inventive habit of mind make the foundation of success. In some lines a fine sense of color values must underlie ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but he had the swift deftness of long practice. ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... 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
... red man wheeled his pony in the opposite direction, doubling on his own course. This compelled him to swing over to the other side in order to continue his use of the animal as a shield. He executed the movement with wonderful deftness, but a singular ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... consisting of forty men, had taken on the work, thanks to the great rush, not by the day but by the amount of work done, by the waggon load. Zavorotny, the head—an enormous, mighty Poltavian—had succeeded with extreme deftness in getting around the owner; a young man, and, to boot, in all probability not very experienced as yet. The owner, it is true, came to his senses later and wanted to change the stipulations; but experienced melon growers dissuaded him from it in time: "Drop it. They'll kill you," they told him ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin |
