"Finesse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... qu'il ne connoit pas, & qu'il met tantot dans les choses, tantot dans les Paroles, sans jamais attraper le Point d'Unite, qui concilie les Paroles avec les choses, en quoi consiste tout le Secret, & la Finesse ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... not, Mumsy! I'm going to use finesse about both things. You just see how tactful I am. Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm so excited! Just look at the streamers and flags and all the funny funeral wreaths, and only listen to the music! I'm about sure there are wings on my golden slippers. Really and truly, ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... difference between the two men and the operations of their minds was made clear in the campaign. No one would wish to minimize the unusual abilities of Mr. Hughes, but they are the abilities of an adroit lawyer. He makes "points." He pleases those minds which like cleverness and finesse. He deals with international affairs like an astute lawyer drawing a brief. But has he ever quickened the nation's pulse or stirred its heart by a single utterance? Did he ever make any one feel that behind the formalities of law, civil or international, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... business, or, if the occasion offers, a little amateur detection. In tracking a criminal, following a particular horse along a beaten highway, and drawing inductions from a hair or a footprint, one of these somnolent, grinning Hodges will suddenly display activity of body and finesse of mind. By their names ye may know them, the women figuring as Loveina, Larsenia, Serena, Leanna, Orreana; the men answering to Alvin, Alva, or Orion, pronounced Orrion, with the accent on the first. Whether they are indeed a race, or whether this is the form of degeneracy common to all backwoodsmen, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Shu[u]zen with the task." His laugh was so cold and purposeful, his look so derisive and comprehending, that the old fellows in some confusion sought comfort in each other. This Aoyama Shu[u]zen was a very devil of a fellow. He had a perspicacity in finesse that the plain, keen, and honest bluntness of former days could not deceive. Aoyama was not one to charge with effeminacy in any form. He had a wife—whom he neglected. He had a page, whom he favoured. He had all the harsh vices and capabilities of the warrior age. Turning to Endo[u] Saburo[u]zaemon—"Endo[u] ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... by the learned among them in this manner: embroidery was sheer wit, gold fringe was agreeable conversation, gold lace was repartee, a huge long periwig was humour, and a coat full of powder was very good raillery. All which required abundance of finesse and delicatesse to manage with advantage, as well as a strict observance ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... espionage here," he remarked, "is painfully primitive. It lacks finesse and judgment. The fact that I have taken expensive rooms on the Campania, and that I have sent many packages there, that my own belongings are still in my rooms untouched, seems to our friends conclusive evidence that I am going to ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in 'finesse.' I let him go on in his own way, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on a Christmas card; but in spite of the engaging innocence of her look, she was prodigiously experienced in the beguiling arts of her sex. Almost from the cradle she had had "a way" with men; and her "way" was as far superior in finesse to the simple coquetry of Cousin Pussy as the worldliness of Broadway was superior to the worldliness of Hill Street. From her yellow hair, which she wore very low over her forehead and ears, to her silk stockings of the gray called "London smoke," which showed ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... grateful. Like the india-rubber trees of Asia, these ceibas have at least one half of their anaconda-like roots exposed upon the surface of the ground, dividing the lower portion of the stem into supporting buttresses, a curious piece of finesse on the part of nature to overcome the disadvantage of insufficient soil. The tree bears annually a large seed-pod, packed with cotton of a soft, silky texture, and hence its name. It is, however, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... sprightliness of the fight was on the part of the lizard, who lashed its foe with its pliant tail, and endeavoured so to swerve as to bite. Both were light weights. One was all dash and sportive agileness; the other played a dull waiting game with admirable finesse. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the most extravagant compliments; her senseless chatting I described as unrestraint tempered by finesse, her pretentious exaggerations as a natural desire to please; was it her fault that she was poor? At least, she thought of nothing but pleasure and confessed it freely; she did not preach sermons herself, nor did she listen to them from others; I went so far as to tell Brigitte that she ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... of irony, it wasn't so good as Moliere. The acting was capital—broad, free and natural; the play of talk easier even than life itself; but, like all the Italian acting I have seen, it was wanting in finesse, that shade of the shade by which, and by which alone, one really knows art. I contrasted the affair with the evening in December last that I walked over (also in the rain) to the Odeon and saw the "Plaideurs" and the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... features caught the generous flame, And bid defiance to all sense of shame. Tutor'd by her all rivals to surpass, 'Mongst Drury's sons he comes, and shines in Brass. Lo, Yates[27]! Without the least finesse of art He gets applause—I wish he'd get his part. When hot Impatience is in full career, How vilely 'Hark ye! hark ye!' grates the ear; When active fancy from the brain is sent, And stands on tip-toe for some wish'd event, 350 I hate those careless blunders, which recall Suspended ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... had failed signally for years—had they sent him this, whatever it was, as some grim token that they had run Larry the Bat to earth? He shook his head. No; gangland struck more swiftly, with less finesse than that—the "cat-and-mouse" act was never one it favoured, for the mouse had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... and, also, this here ranch you're on now is one of your going concerns." She chuckled at this and repeated it in a subterranean rumble: "A going concern—my sakes, yes! It moved so fast you could see it go, and now it's went." Noisily she relished this bit of verbal finesse; then permitted her fancy again to trifle with it. "Yes, sir; this here going ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... finesse a good deal. I can manage with Mrs. Fenwick. But—I wish I felt equally secure with Miss Sally." He feels very insecure indeed in that quarter, if the truth is told. And he is afflicted with a double embarrassment here, as he has never ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... not believe in a man who expects to go through a long tournament, going "all out" for every match. Conserve your strength and your finesse for the times you need them, and win your other matches decisively, but not destructively. Why should a great star discourage and dishearten a player several classes below him by crushing him, as he no doubt could? A few games a set, ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... my heart to dampen the new-lighted hope which this turn of the affair seems to give that poor, wretched wife and mother. But, to my mind, all this makes it doubly certain that the Elwoods have met with foul play. It looks exactly like one of Gaut's devilish schemes of finesse, to cause this canoe to be sent down the rapids, and be so found as to lead folks to suppose the owners were drowned, and to put the public on a false scent. Yes, friends, you may depend there has been foul play,—I dare not guess how foul. I have felt it the last fortnight, as if same unseen ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... back. I have never talked seriously to you before; I may never do it again. The essence, the distinctive finesse, of breeding, lies in a trained gaiety and an implied sincerity. But what I must say to you is this: Even in this leveling age there are a few of us who look with terror upon an incipient socialism; who believe ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... not promise you my help? Oh, I am quite enlisted now; although after such a faux pas as I made last night I cannot boast of my finesse. I quite excited Monsieur Voisin by ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and thus settle once for all the entire question between the North and the South, no strategy could have been more effectual than that of sacrificing Sumter exactly as it was sacrificed. The whole affair could not have been arranged with greater shrewdness and finesse. Anderson and his officers—without an exception, gallant and competent—were made to appear as heroes and, in a sense, they were; the North was completely unified, and the same can be said of the South. The lines were now distinctly and definitely drawn, and every man from Maine to ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... Mrs. Thornburgh sat studying her with small attentive eyes and curls slowly waving from side to side. But for once in her life the vicar's wife was not communicative in return. That the situation should have driven even Mrs. Thornburgh to finesse was a surprising testimony to its gravity. What between her sudden taciturnity and Catherine's pale silence, the girls' sense of expectancy was roused to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... two pounds more or less are as naught to him; J. is so hopelessly involved that to win four pounds cannot benefit his creditors, or alter his condition; but they play for that stake: they put forward their best energies: they ruff, finesse (what are the technical words, and how do I know?) It is but a sixpenny game if you like; but they want to win it. So as regards my friend yonder with the hat. He stakes his money: he wishes to win the game, not ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spake many years ago, and which themselves do yet use in pleading in court: for so may it be understood sufficiently what is said, and men's desires be satisfied: and that it is a fondness now in the latter end to trouble the world with a new kind of speaking, and to call again the old finesse and eloquence that Cicero and Caesar used in their days in the Latin tongue. So much are these men beholden to the folly and darkness of the former times. "Many things," as one writeth, "are had in estimation oftentimes, because they have been once dedicate to the temples of the ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... your notice that if you walk into a post-office and demand to see the counterfoil of another man's message there may be some disinclination on the part of the officials to oblige you. There is so much red tape in these matters! However, I have no doubt that with a little delicacy and finesse the end may be attained. Meanwhile, I should like in your presence, Mr. Overton, to go through these papers which have ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not pleased at this question being put to her. She would have preferred to leave that to Griffith. And, as she was a singular mixture of frankness and finesse, I believe she had retired to her own room partly to test Griffith's heart. If he was as sincere as she was, he would not be content with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... her possession would refute me if I did. But what if she has? You can never wish to see so lovely a being brought to shame for withholding information which she evidently considers it her duty to keep back, when by a little patient finesse we may succeed in our purposes ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... in a canoe with mats, roots, and the berries of the sacacommis. These people proceed with a dexterity and finesse in their bargains which, if they have not learned it from their foreign visitors, may show how nearly allied is the cunning of savages to the little arts of traffic. They begin by asking double or treble the value of what they have to sell, and lower ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... and, in some cases, less than mediocre. It was a subtle perfume, springing from the smallest trifles. A graceful courtesy, a gentleness of manners that could be charming and affectionate, and at the same time malicious and consciously superior, an elegant finesse in the use of the eyes, the smile, the alert, nonchalant, skeptical, diverse, and easy intelligence. There was nothing either stiff or familiar. Nothing literary. Here there was no fear of meeting the psychologues of a Parisian drawing-room, ensconced behind their eyeglasses, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... not skilful," said Raymonde thoughtfully. "They don't do the thing artistically. There's a finesse required for this kind of work that their stupid young heads don't possess. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be philanthropic ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... arch-criminal back of this, I'm afraid. Walter, I am sore and disgusted. What I should have done was to accept Burke's offer - surround the house with a posse if necessary, last night, and catch the counterfeiters by sheer force. I was too confident. I thought I could do it with finesse, and I have failed. I'd give anything to know what safe deposit vault they kept the ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... all. He had ever in mind, however, the kind of education desired by his brother for Amerigo, which was to be commercial, and grounded him well in mathematics, languages, cosmography, and astronomy. His curriculum even embraced, it is said, statesmanship and the finesse of diplomacy, for the merchants of Vespucci's days were, like the Venetian consuls, "very important factors in developing friendly ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... exultant shout, he clambered on to a rock still clasping his rod—"A Bite, a Bite!" he cried in tones strangely alien from those he customarily employed when addressing a civic conference. "A Bite at last!" Playing his submarine quarry with extraordinary finesse, he eventually, amid laudatory shouts and frantic cheering, landed an exquisitely striped bass, which lay at his feet gasping, apparently quite exhausted by its struggles to evade captivity. Now comes the point of the story, Snurge surveyed his catch quietly for a few moments—those ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... Eric the rival of Steen Sture, was sent when young to Rome (where it is supposed he learned the art of political finesse), and was there consecrated Archbishop of Upsal by Leo the Tenth. On his return to Sweden, he treated with great haughtiness Steen Sture, who came to congratulate him on his elevation. He joined in Christiern's attempts on Sweden, and, being convicted ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... said "limb" for leg with the rather conscious air of escaping from an awkward situation only by the subtlest finesse. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... throat, Dove gazed at the sinner before him. He began to see that his errand was not going to be an easy one; where no hint was taken, it was difficult to insert even the thinnest edge of the wedge. He resolved to use finesse; and, for several of the precious moments at his disposal, he talked, as if at random, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... skilled and determined than Westmoreland he must have gone out. But Westmoreland, with his jaw set, followed his code and fenced with death for this apparently worthless and forfeited life, using all his skill and finesse to outwit the great Enemy; in spite of which, so attenuated was the man's chance that we were astonished when he turned the corner—very, very feebly—and we didn't have to place another pine box in the potter's field, alongside other unmarked ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... fled from criminal law, steers equally clear of the civil code? What curious paradoxes, what subtleties of finesse lurk in those fine meshes of jurisprudence, ingeniously spread to succor wary guilt, to tangle and trip the careless feet of innocence! All the world knows that the dearest wish that warmed General Darrington's heart was to disinherit and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Meryl she did not worry greatly about. She might be expected to be swept off her feet and go with the tide, by the very suddenness of it all. The two men presented the obstacles. Carew would have to be inveigled with the greatest finesse into an interview with Meryl, without ever letting him perceive a woman was leading him. In her heart Diana was a little afraid of the steady, unbending face. He was not likely to prove pliable; he might even refuse to come. Nothing she could ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... art I have mentioned that lies beyond avenues of trees, with an occasional tuft of shrubbery. The abundance of the latter, that forms the wilderness of sweets, the masses of flowers that spot the surface of Europe, the beauty of curved lines, and the whole finesse of surprises, reliefs, back-grounds and vistas, are things so little known among us as to be almost "arisdogratic," as my uncle ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... him gravely he is incapable of such finesse. He is a thug first, a thief afterwards. He would have killed me out of hand if it had been he who had me at his mercy, down here, in the dark. Nor would he have been able to open the safe without using ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... in the west of Ireland would have made hospitality a more spontaneous and less formal affair in any case. In Devon, as Gabrielle soon discovered, calling was a ritual complicated by innumerable shades of social finesse. Lady Halberton had already coached her in the list of people whom she must know, people she could safely know at a distance, and people whom it was her duty to discourage. As soon as she was settled in at Lapton the county descended on her and ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... Peter had no finesse. He escorted Mrs. Boyer across the yard and through the gate with hardly a word. With the gate closed behind them he turned and ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... against a spirit of such a temper as his rival. Had he desired, after Luther's manner, to deal in caricature, he would certainly have failed. Sallies, play upon words, and conceits did not suit a mind like his, whose forte was finesse. By nature sober, he could not, like the Saxon monk, fertilize his brain in enormous pots of beer; moreover, beer was not as yet ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Fabrice, of Seraphine and Giboyer, of Olympe and the Marquis d'Auberive, there were analogies between the genius of Labiche and the genius of Teniers. 'C'est au premier abord,' says he, 'le meme aspect de caricature; c'est, en y regardant de plus pres, la meme finesse de tons, la meme justesse d'expression, la meme vivacite de mouvement.' For myself, I like to think of Labiche as in some sort akin to Honore Daumier. Earnestness and accomplishment apart, he has much in common ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Rome he began etching, and in fifteen months finished a series of masterpieces. His line, surprisingly agile and sinuous, has the finesse of Goya—whom he resembled at certain points. He used aquatint with full knowledge of effects to be produced, and at times he recalls Rembrandt in the depth of his shadows. His friend the painter Henri Regnault despaired in the presence of such versatility, such ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... inherent taste and touch. The subject matters little; the French perception and execution are there. Where other canvases offer—say a beautiful glow—the French picture "vibrates." If other works are finished, these have finesse. There is similar spirit in the Italian galleries, with a variation due to national characteristics rather than to difference of opinion or method. The Italian pictures fully occupy the mind and eye; the French often ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... must be kept secret between themselves. She did not make even a tactical display of unwillingness. She too greatly desired the end to endanger (though it should be to confirm) her aim by any further display of finesse. It was enough. She was hot in her glimpse of the triumph she had secured. She would be able to stay. The rest of their evening was now unimportant, because they had need only to speak of details, and of matters unconnected ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... or unbecoming in this, for I do not; it was an enthusiasm, pure and simple, a beautiful and unselfish abandon; and I am sure men ought to be sorry that they are not worthier to be favored by it. Ladies have often to lament in the midst of their finesse that, really, no man is deserving the fate they devote themselves to prepare for him, or, in other words, that ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Wharton looked forward as to the crisis of his parliamentary fortunes. All his chances, financial or social, must now be calculated with reference to it. Every power, whether of combat or finesse, that he commanded must be brought to bear upon ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not alarm yourself," I said, coolly. "I have not the slightest intention of killing you! I am no vulgar murderer, yielding to mere brute instincts. You forget: a Neapolitan has hot passions, but he also has finesse, especially in matters of vengeance. I brought you here to tell you of my existence, and to confront you with the proofs of it. Rise, I beg of you, we have plenty of time to talk; with a little patience I shall make things clear ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... perfectly patent that every practical playwright must cater to his public, the audience is an essential feature in our discussion. The audience of Plautus was not of a high class. Terence, even in later times, when education had materially progressed, often failed to reach them by over-finesse. Plautus with his bold brush pleased them. Surely a turbulent and motley throng they were, with the native violence of the sun-warmed Italic temperament and the abundant animal spirits of a crude civilization, tumbling into ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... Mohammedan world, to revive the spirit of Islam, and to unite it in opposition to all European and Christian influences. Utterly unable to resist Europe by force of arms, he has sought to outwit her by diplomacy and finesse. I know of nothing more remarkable in the history of Turkey than the skill with which he made a tool of Sir Henry Layard. Sir Henry could not be bought; but he could be flattered and blinded by such attentions as no Ottoman Sultan ever bestowed ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... All women are shrewd, I am told, and some are wise and some are not; and many women there be who consider finesse an improvement on frankness. At the end of a month, Milton's wife contrived to have her parents send for her to return home on a visit that was to last only until come Michaelmas. But Michaelmas arrived and the young bride refused to return, sending back saucy ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... since our fleet would go there, and the whole war would be settled by one "stand-up fight." But wars are not so conducted and never have been. From the oldest times till now, and even among savage tribes, finesse has always been employed, in addition to actual force—more perhaps by the weaker than by the stronger side, but very considerably also by the stronger. A coming enemy would endeavor to keep his objective a close secret, and even to mislead us; so that our fleet would have to take a position ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... was most profoundly annoyed, and he cursed Anstruther from the depths of his heart. But he could see a way out. The more desperate the emergency the more need to display finesse. Above all, he must avoid ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... and from Taipa himself. When Feenou returned, which was immediately after I had made the last of these presents, he pretended to be angry with Taipa for suffering me to give away so much; but I looked upon this as a mere finesse; being confident that he acted in concert with the others. He now took his seat again, and ordered Earoupa to sit by him, and to harangue the people as Taipa had done, and to the same purpose; dictating, as before, the heads of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... and faults, is portrayed with such delicacy, that to condense would ruin. The peculiar reserve, the habit of duty, the beauty of a character which cannot look forward, and need not look back, are given with distinguished finesse. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... immensely that his part in politics did not cease here. The state of the country and of his own finances, and also, I fear, a certain love that he had imbibed for political manipulation, prevented him from standing aside. How useless was all the finesse he displayed in the long-drawn question of Catholic Emancipation! How lamentable his terror of Lord Wellesley's rude dragooning! And is there not something pitiable in the thought of the Regent at a time of ministerial complications lying prone on his bed with a sprained ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible. Were they sure she had not just left? They were sure. But she was not in; at my request they made equally sure of that. She had probably gone ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... water; and it is not to-day we shall get across the Rhine!—Not to-day; nor any other day, on that errand, strong as our resolutions are! For new light, in a few hours afterwards, pours in upon the project; and human finesse, or ulterior schemes, avail nothing henceforth. "The Crown-Prince's meditated Flight" has tried itself, and failed. Here and so that long meditation ENDS; this at Steinfurth was all the over-act it could ever come to. In few hours ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... to hear the news. Velasquez told Cortes in what manner he had executed his commission and distributed the presents among the officers of Narvaez. Then our merry Father Olmedo gave an account by what finesse he had persuaded Narvaez to read our letter; how he had made the foolish braggart Salvatierra believe they were cousins, and of the ridiculous bravadoes he uttered, as how he would kill Cortes and all of us in revenge for the loss ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... acquirement, attainment; art, science; technicality, technology; practical knowledge, technical knowledge. knowledge of the world, world wisdom, savoir faire [Fr.]; tact; mother wit &c (sagacity) 498; discretion &c (caution) 864; finesse; craftiness &c (cunning) 702; management &c (conduct) 692; self-help. cleverness, talent, ability, ingenuity, capacity, parts, talents, faculty, endowment, forte, turn, gift, genius; intelligence &c 498; sharpness, readiness &c (activity) 682; invention &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... were inclined to be a little curious as to the ladies' bonnets and dresses, nor were they quite satisfied without using some familiarity about the gentlemen's attire; but they seemed to be of a soft and pliant mould, easily managed by exercising a little finesse. It was curious to observe how entirely opposite to our own methods were many of theirs. At the post stations the horses were placed and tied in their stalls with their heads to the passage-way, and their tails where we place their heads. Thus ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... confess herself very partial to the profession"; and something like a sigh escaped her as she said it. Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the cause of that gentle emotion—but she was not experienced enough in the finesse of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery was properly called for, or when a ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... colouring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... finesse, that when, late on a day, a message summoning Christian to a distance was transmitted by Sweyn, no doubt of its genuineness occurred. When, his errand proved useless, he set out to return, mistake or misapprehension was all that he surmised. Not till he sighted the homestead, ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... instructor, with all the native politeness of his race, called on those only who caught his eye and appeared willing and anxious to recite. This made the matter comparatively simple, but still required considerable finesse. Patty dropped her pen, spilled the pages from her note-book, tied her shoe-string, and even sneezed opportunely in order not to catch his eye at inconvenient moments. The rest of the class, who were not artists, contented themselves with merely lowering their eyes as he looked along the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... to open it. As regards the play of the cards in a suit, it is not the object to make tricks early, but to make all possible tricks. Deep finesses should be made when there is no other way of stealing a trick. Tricks may be given away, if by so doing a favourable opening can be made for a finesse. When, however, it is doubtful with which hand the finesse should be made, it is better to leave it as late as possible, since the card to be finessed against may fall, or an adversary may fail, thus disclosing the suit. It is in general unsound ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... now a burly figure came rolling in; they drew back and silenced each other.—"The Doctor!" This was the remarkable person they called Jack Doubleface. Nature had stuck a philosophic head, with finely-cut features, and a mouth brimful of finesse, on to a corpulent and ungraceful body, that yawed from side to side ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... such a proof of sagacity in the twelfth year of his age, what might not be expected from his finesse in the maturity of his faculties and experience? Thus secured in the good graces of the whole family, he saw the days of his puerility glide along in the most agreeable elapse of caresses and amusement. He never fairly plunged into the stream of school-education, but, by floating on ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... guess something: whenever my Lord Lyttelton comes to my lady, she orders the porter to let in nobody else, and then they call for a pen and ink, and say they are going to Write history." Is not this finesse so like him? 'Do you know that I am persuaded, now he is parted, that he will forget- he is married, and propose himself in form to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... political game ascribed to Mac-Ivor was in reality played by several Highland chiefs, the celebrated Lord Lovat in particular, who used that kind of finesse to the uttermost. The Laird of Mac—-was also captain of an independent company, but valued the sweets of present pay too well to incur the risk of losing them in the Jacobite cause. His martial consort raised ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the Barcarolle—such a page!—but Sir Charles Halle said that it was "clever but not Chopinesque." Yet Halle heard Chopin at his last Paris concert, February, 1848, play the two forte passages in the Barcarolle "pianissimo and with all sorts of dynamic finesse." This is precisely what Rubinstein did, and his pianissimo was a whisper. Von Bulow was too much of a martinet to reveal the poetic quality, though he appreciated Chopin on the intellectual side; his touch was not beautiful enough. The Slavic and Magyar races are your ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... emergency, and she prepared to go. Her friends declared that she could not survive it; but replying that she could not die in a cause more sacred, she started out alone. A hospital was to be created, and this required all the tact, finesse and diplomacy of which a woman is capable. Official prejudice and professional pride was to be met and overcome. A new policy was to be introduced, and it was to be done without seeming to interfere. Her doctrine and practice always were instant, silent, and cheerful obedience ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Deringham. Both, producing nothing and living upon the toil of their fellows, played the same game, but, while the stakes and counters are very similar, one played it in Vancouver and the other in London, where a more subtle finesse is demanded from ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... by a question of real life, just as difficult for me as any that can perplex you. I can't treat this question any more as I have done. I don't see my way at all. Now I am going to be as direct and straightforward as a man, and not beat around the bush with any womanish finesse. There is a gentleman in this city who, if he knew I was in town to-night, would call, and I might not be able to prevent him from making a formal proposal. He is a man whom I respect and like very much, and ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... "anything that took place in that private dining-room at Gastron's would be just as likely to incriminate Langhorne and some of his crowd as not. It is a difference in degree of graft—that is all. They don't want an open fight. It was just a piece of finesse on Langhorne's part. You may be sure of that. No, neither of them wants a fight. That's the last thing. They're both afraid. What Langhorne wanted was a line on Dorgan. And we should never have known anything about this ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... the Gerad, accompanied by two men, who brought my servants' arms, and the revolver which I had sent to the prince. This was a contretemps. It was clearly impossible to take back the present, besides which, I suspected some finesse to discover my feelings towards him: the other course would ensure delay. I told the Gerad that the weapon was intended especially to preserve the Amir's life, and for further effect, snapped caps in rapid succession to the infinite terror of the august ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... it is, then!" exclaimed du Portail, impatiently; "you go round and round the pot as if I were a man it would do you some good to finesse with." ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... allude to June. She might take alarm, he did not know what she might think; he hastened, therefore, to banish from his manner all traces of absorption, but in this he was about as successful as his father would have been, for he had inherited all old Jolyon's transparency in matters of domestic finesse; and young Mrs. Jolyon, busying herself over the affairs of the house, went about with tightened lips, stealing at him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... give a flavor to what I used to suppose must be insipid. You are pretty well satisfied with each other, or you wouldn't pretend to quarrel so. What I saw of you before did something toward reconciling me to human nature at large, and your quaint efforts at shrewdness and finesse set off your real character. You might take in outsiders, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... do to stop Lord Raygan from wanting to come—and from saying anything about me to the others?" she wondered. She could not guess. Yet she grew more and more confident of Ena's finesse as the ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... presence you would not tolerate by your fireside—incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as functionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes; the snatching at the slices and offal of office, the intemperance and the violence, the finesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory; these are indeed but too closely identified with that political agitation which circles around the Ballot-Box. But, after all, they are not essential to it. They are only the masks ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... character; but if the truth were told she had no great opinion of Waitstill's ability to feel righteous wrath, nor of her power to avenge herself in the face of rank injustice. It was the conviction of her own superior finesse and audacity that had sustained patty all through her late escapade. She felt herself a lucky girl, indeed, to achieve liberty and happiness for herself, but doubly lucky if she had chanced to open a way of escape for her ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... existence. Almost no author except Shakespeare is so often quoted. His extreme vanity and sensitiveness to criticism made him often vindictive, unjust, and venomous. They led him also into frequent quarrels, and lost him many friends, including Lady M. Wortley Montagu, and along with a strong tendency to finesse and stratagem, of which the circumstances attending the publication of his literary correspondence is the chief instance, make his character on the whole an unamiable one. On the other hand, he was often generous; he retained the friendship ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... please one person, the eulogized, but will disgust every one else; this is particularly so with the monstrous exaggerations which are in fashion; the authors are so intent on the patron-hunt that they cannot relinquish it without a full exhibition of servility; they have no idea of finesse, never mask their flattery, but blurt out their unconvincing bald ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... sent to Westminster to hold the balance between English parties. They cannot leave their every-day work; were they willing to forsake their own business, they are not the men to conduct with success the parliamentary game of brag, obstruction, and finesse. Keep, in short, the Irish members at Westminster, and you ensure the supremacy in Ireland of professional politicians. By a curious fatality the Gladstonian policy which weakens England ruins Ireland. Let no one fancy that this is the delusion of an English Unionist. Sir Gavan ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... toiled over his papers he was amazed at the imagination of his mistress which had first discerned the possibility of making the cause of Italian liberty serve her brother's ambitious imperialism, and the marvellous finesse with which she had vanquished Murat's gascon envy and resentment and made him once more a tool in the hand of the Emperor. Still more he admired Napoleon's acumen and resource as he saw order coming out of chaos and all things working together for the success of his stupendous undertaking. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... should her interests demand it. The civil broils were ended; trade had revived; wealth had been accumulating. Henry had not sought military glory, but he had played the game of diplomacy with acuteness and finesse. When he ascended the throne, the princes of Europe had regarded England as a Power that might safely be neglected unless she could be used as a cat's-paw; but before he died they had learned that they could no longer negotiate with him except on equal terms. In a sense, perhaps, it is ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... himself as he listened to the ordinary words that if she had been a perfect stranger to him he would have known her voice for the voice of a woman who was in love. Was she really lacking, he asked himself in amusement, in the quality which he called for want of a better phrase—"the finesse of sentiment?" or was the angelic candour of her emotion only the outward expression of that largeness of nature which inspired him at times with a respect akin to awe? The absence of any coquetry in her attitude impressed him as the final proof of her inherent nobility; and yet there were instants ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... I had been ashamed of myself. I had not room to be that now; I was too full of anger. "I did make rather a mess of it," I equably remarked, "but, you see, Nannie had shown strength in diamonds, and I simply couldn't resist the finesse. So they made every one of their clubs. And I hadn't any business to take the chance of course at that stage, with the ace ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... coming back to her, allowed her to make the efforts to keep up the conversation, and was not without a malicious pleasure in her struggles. They interested him as social exercises which, however abrupt and undexterous now, were destined, with time and practice, to become the finesse of a woman of society, and to be accepted, even while they were still abrupt and undexterous, as touches of character. He had broken up that coldness with which she had met him at first, and now he let her adjust the fragments as she could to the new situation. He wore that air of a gentleman ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Romanticist, as Emma Lazarus herself has styled him; and already in this early volume of hers we have trace of the kinship and affinity that afterwards so plainly declared itself. Foremost among the translations are a number of his songs, rendered with a finesse and a literalness that are rarely combined. Four years later, at the age of twenty-one, she published her second volume, "Admetus and Other Poems," which at once took rank as literature both in America and England, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... out with genuine scholastic finesse and verbosity into a discussion of the questions whether this definition is based upon the essentia or the differentia of fever; whether the heat of fever is natural or unnatural, and other similar subtle speculations, and finally arrives at a classification ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... assistants corded and pegged him to the bench, cunningly; the servant of the law waiting by, who, after one short cut with his knife, would slip the man's leg from his skin, as neatly as if it were a stocking—a finesse in providing the due amount of suffering for wrong-doers only brought to its height in Nero's living bonfires. But then, by making his suffering ridiculous, you enlist against the sufferer, some real, and all would-be manliness, and do much to stifle any false sentiment of compassion. ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... will be common gossip from Damascus to Beersheba. In a week it will be known from end to end of Egypt; then Arabia; then India! Ho! When the Indian Moslems get the news—the Indian troops in Palestine will send it by mail—then what a furor! Then what anger! That was finesse! That was true statesmanship! Never was a shrewder genius than ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... considered him too fine a man to go through life companionless, and did not hesitate to use every art in her power to draw him into an entangling alliance. He saw this, and was often more amused than annoyed by her finesse. ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... in that case the world would not have been deprived of many beautiful and valuable writings. I remember a poem of his written in the style of 'The House that Jack built,' the biting sarcasm of which, the ironical finesse—is beyond anything I have ever read. Many great people still living found their way into these verses. I begged Lady Burton to keep it, but her peasant confessor said 'Destroy it,' so it was burnt ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... qualities of those placed over them in authority. They generally imagine they could do better if they had the same opportunities. Caldew was no exception to that rule. It seemed to him that Merrington lacked finesse, and was out of touch with modern methods of criminal investigation. He had been spoilt by too much success, by too much newspaper flattery, by too many jaunts with Royalty. No man could act as sheep-dog for Royalty and retain skill as a detective. That kind of professional work ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Accordingly, he took it and she said to him, "The measure is meted and the loads equally balanced.[FN451] Eat till thou are over-full; naught shall be thy ruin, O son of Adam, save thy greed. Knowest thou not that I did but tempt thee, that I might finesse thee? See: this is check-mate!" adding, "So doff off thy clothes." Quoth he, "Leave me my bag-trousers, so Allah repay thee;" and he swore by Allah that he would contend with none, so long as Tawaddud abode in the realm of Baghdad. Then he stripped off his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... for his singularly personal touch along with men like Fuller and Ryder. He is not as dramatic as either of these artists, but he has greater finesse in delicate sensibility. He was, I think, actually afraid of repetition, a characteristic very much in vogue in his time, either conscious or unconscious, in artists like Inness, Wyant, and Blakelock, with their so single note. There is exceptional ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... of course," he admitted. "You don't get much idea of it just going through those letters, but the real thing is the biggest kind of a game you ever saw. It's a finesse here and a forcing of the opponent's hand there, but it can never be ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... contrary he was exceedingly patient in his vindictiveness. For the longest time he would ruminate upon his vengeance, most astutely, and he would carry it out at the moment when he believed himself perfectly secure. Oh! His ruses were not of very great finesse and required very little talent; but by dint of considering and reconsidering the case, by dint of waiting patiently for the propitious opportunity to present itself, he finally would play some evil trick upon his comrades. So ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... do justice to its object; he exposes himself, for its sake, to every species of privation; he fights for it; and often dies in its defence. He appoints no fecial messenger to proclaim, by an empty formality, the commencement of war. Whilst the European seeks advantages in the subtle finesse of negociation, the American pursues them according to the instincts of a less refined nature, and the dictates of a less sublimated policy. He seeks his enemy before he expects him, and thus ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... for the letters I had written to him. I wanted to get him out of the room. He must have understood my look, for he at once said he had burnt them, but would make sure. He left the room. As soon as he was gone I played my final card with Goldenburg. I knew that the time had gone by for finesse; I told him that unless he gave up the letters I would suggest to Grell that he should declare them forgeries, and that I ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... part.' Croker's Boswell, p. 742. Diderot, writing of the qualifications of a great actor, says:—'Je lui veux beaucoup de jugement; je le veux spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature humaine; qu'il ait par consequent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle sensibilite, ou, ce qui est la meme chose, l'art de tout imiter, et une egale aptitude a toutes sortes de caracteres et de roles; s'il etait sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... acquaintanceship with the second member of the Mark Twain brotherhood was staged in Paris. This gentleman wished himself on us one afternoon at the Hotel des Invalides. We did not engage him; he engaged us, doing the trick with such finesse and skill that before we realized it we had been retained to accompany him to various points of interest in and round Paris. However, we remained under his control one day only. At nightfall we wrested ourselves free and fled ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... any other time it would have set him to putting his house in order for the final crash, but now it merely enraged him. He redoubled his activity, launching a new campaign of publicity so extravagant and ill-timed as to repel the assistance he needed. He had lost his finesse; his nicely adjusted financial ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Monarch had attacked and despoiled in his earlier wars of aggrandizement, and neither the Spanish court nor the Spanish people could have many patriotic motives for loving him. Yet such was his tact and his finesse that within three years after the treaty of Ryswick he had secured the respect of the feeble Charles II and the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... this old company of heroes, Ulysses is easy superior. Yet the catalogue of his virtues is an easy task. Achilles was a huge body, associated with little brain, and had no symptom of sagacity. In this regard, Ulysses outranks him, and commands our respect. He has diplomacy and finesse. He is not simply a huge frame, wrestling men down because his bulk surpasses theirs. He has a thrifty mind. He is the man for councils of war, fitted to direct with easy mastery of superior acumen. His fellow-warriors called him "crafty," ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... "What finesse!" exclaimed the South American ladies. "These Germans are not so phlegmatic as they seem. It is an attention . . . something very distinguished. . . . And is it possible that some still believe that they and the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not sufficiently diplomatic to bother with finesse of this kind. Other things being equal, a man goes to see the girl he wants to see. It does not often occur to her that he may not want to see her, may be interested in someone else, or that he may have ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... degradation of poverty. "Phanias the Lesbian" (so states the biographer of Solon) "asserts, that to save the state he intrigued with both parties, promising to the poor a division of the lands, to the rich a confirmation of their claims;" an assertion highly agreeable to the finesse and subtlety of his character. Appearing loath to take upon himself the administration of affairs, it was pressed upon him the more eagerly; and at length he was elected to the triple office of archon, arbitrator, and lawgiver; the destinies of Athens were unhesitatingly placed within his ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "I will not lie down," he said. "Seriously, and since you refuse to treat me as a man, and since you finesse with me, I will try and set you at bay, as a hunter ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of a volume that he had done with. They had always been in that position since the work began, yet on this day it seemed new; it was so different now for them to be opposite each other; so different for Tito to take a book from her, as she lifted it from her father's knee. Yet there was no finesse to secure an additional look or touch. Each woman creates in her own likeness the love-tokens that are offered to her; and Romola's deep calm happiness encompassed Tito like the rich but quiet evening light ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... using the telephone, decided against it. It might take some diplomatic finesse to persuade the old scientist to hire himself out to a newspaper. He might feel it degrading and cheapening to ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... pray and speak against it; scarcely any one beyond the mourners' room could hear his voice. It was a hard task that the poor young minister had. He was quite aware of the feeling against Deborah, and it required finesse to avoid jarring that, and yet display the proper amount of Christian sympathy for the afflicted. Then there were other difficulties. The minister had prayed in his closet for a small share of the wisdom ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... How could he, a man of delicacy, prudence and finesse, have committed such an awkward mistake? He had just cruelly wounded this man, who was so well disposed toward him, and he had everything to ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... necessity for informing my companion of everything that happened to me and I performed this piece of duty in an affected passion, swearing I would be his pack-horse no longer, and desiring him to take the management of his affairs into his own hands. This finesse had the desired effect, for, instead of grumbling over my miscarriage, Strap was frightened at the passion I feigned, and begged me, for the love of God, to be appeased; observing that, although we had suffered a great loss, it was not irreparable; and if ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... looked, she had often wisdom enough to gain her ends by means of that shrewd finesse of government which appeals to the reason of others as applied to the furthering ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... an indolent man to be honest: for it requires considerable trouble and finesse, to deceive ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... patient was he about this, and even when he was President and harried constantly we find him stopping to acknowledge for her "an invitation to take some Tea," and at the bottom of the sheet adding a pious bit of finesse, thus: "The President requests me to send his compliments and only regrets that the pressure of affairs compels him to forego the Pleasure ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... go"! What wonder that we hate you all? You look on us to-day As lions look on antelopes,—their heaven-appointed prey; You know you have no lawful right to lands that you possess; You gained them all through violence, or lying and finesse; Your cursed opium alone, despite our prayers and tears, Has ruined millions of our race for more than two score years, And when we rose indignantly to right that bitter wrong, Your heavy guns bombarded us, and you annexed ... Hong Kong! You force ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... broad human interest. It gives glimpses of the heights and depths of character and experience, setting him thinking and wondering even in the midst of amusement. To the most torpid and unobservant it exhibits the humorous in life and the sparkle and finesse of language, which in dull ordinary existence is stupidly shut out of knowledge or omitted from particular notice. To all it uncurtains a world, not that in which they live and yet not other than it—a world in which interest is heightened whilst the conditions of ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... for extracting somehow from the dry-soil of an arid town the money they extracted from him. They knew nothing of the myriad little agonies, the ingenuity, the tireless attention to detail, the exquisite finesse that make success possible in the melee of competition. Their souls were above trade ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... haue my iudgement of hir indeede? To be plaine, I am voyde of al iudgement, if your nine Comoedies, whervnto, in imitation of Herodotus, you giue the names of the nine Muses, (and in one mans fansie not vnworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes comoedies, eyther for the finesse of plausible elocution or the rarenesse of poetical inuention, than that Eluish Queene doth to his Orlando Furioso; which, notwithstanding, you wil needes seeme to emulate, and hope to ouergo, as ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... country round about come in from rural propriete and rustic chalet to exhibit their candidates. The method of procedure is eminently French, of course, and eminently naive, as even the intrigues and machinations of Balzac's bourgeoisie, although intended as marvels of finesse, seem so often naivete itself to our blunter and less-plotting minds. The mothers and daughters, or chaperons and charges, walk slowly arm in arm up and down one side the jetty, facing the counter-current of young men and men not young ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... wanting in discernment, penetration, finesse; in this light they are superior to many of the white girls in the lower classes of society, girls so impenetrably dull, that like that of Balsac's village, they are too stupid to be deceived by a man ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... the contrivance of that turbulent man. I shall only add that I will dispose several whom I know to wish him well to solicit for his establishment in power, that you may seem to yield to their entreaties, and the finesse be less ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... deal with." For several months before his death he had owed me one hundred pounds sterling, and he could not possibly have been more reluctant to part with anything but a larger sum. Even to this day in reviewing the intelligent methods—ranging from delicate finesse to frank effrontery—by which that good man kept me out of mine own I am prostrated with admiration and consumed with envy. Finally by a lucky chance I got him at a disadvantage and seeing my power he sent his manager—a fellow named Chatto, who as a member of the firm of Chatto & Windus afterward ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the ancients appear to have known nothing. The French have practised it with great success, and may have invented it. It appears particularly French in some of its phases,—in the manner that is necessary for its practice, in its wit and finesse. The affair of the Diamond Necklace, with which all the world is familiar, is the most magnificent instance of it on record. A lesser case, involving one of the same names, and playing excellently upon woman's vanity, illustrates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... not precisely know what I told him, I must confess; but I do know what I did not tell him." De Wardes was finesse itself. He perfectly well knew from De Guiche's tone and manner, which was cold and dignified, that the conversation was about assuming a disagreeable turn. He resolved to let it take what course it pleased, and to keep ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... of the Arrowhead Ranch, had butchered, cooked, and served two young roosters for the evening meal with a finesse that cried for tribute. As he replaced the evening lamp on the cleared table in the big living room he listened to my fulsome praise of his artistry as Marshal Foch might hear me say that I considered him a rather good strategist. Lew Wee heard ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... other, betraying what might have proved two very fatal shibboleths, in the ears of those who were practised in the finesse of our very unmusical language, by ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... introduction is a masterstroke, the porter at the door is another, the effect of the wine upon the women, their jealousy lest either's husband should seem more liberal, their appraisal of each other's jewelry, Scintilla's remark anent the finesse of Habinnas' servant in the mere matter of pandering, the blear-eyed and black-toothed slave, teasing a little bitch disgustingly fat, offering her pieces of bread and when, from sheer inability, she refuses to eat, cramming it down her throat, the effect of the alcohol upon Trimalchio, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... here, the king is not. But we should be most ungrateful were we to forget what we owe to the Regent. Let it be acknowledged! By her prudence and valour, by her judicious use of authority and force, of persuasion and finesse, she pacified the insurgents, and, to the astonishment of the world, succeeded, in the course of a few months, in bringing a rebellious people ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... what is it? What have we to show for our day's work? An ephemeral thing, lacking the first breath of life; a thing that is dead before it is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were to put into some other profession the same amount of nerve, and tact, and ingenuity and finesse, and stick-to-it-iveness that he expends in prying a single story out of some unwilling victim, could retire with a fortune in ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... years of the sixteenth century. It is difficult for the unpractised eye to-day to form any idea of its original beauty. Leonardo has here painted this worldly-minded woman—her portrait is much more famous than she herself ever was—with a marvellous charm and suavity, a finesse of expression never reached before and hardly ever equalled since. Contrast the head of the Christ at Milan, Leonardo's conception of divinity expressed in perfect humanity, with the subtle and sphinx-like ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell
... time and which had the most powerful action upon my heart. I expected to find her conversation satirical and full of pleasantries and points. It was not so; it was much better. The conversation of Madam de Luxembourg is not remarkably full of wit; it has no sallies, nor even finesse; it is exquisitely delicate, never striking, but always pleasing. Her flattery is the more intoxicating as it is natural; it seems to escape her involuntarily, and her heart to overflow because it is too full. I thought I perceived, on my first visit, that notwithstanding my awkward manner ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... dash, an ease, that shows long and varied experience. Charley Abbott is a finished ladies' man. It almost discourages me when I contemplate the serried ranks of women that must have contributed to his perfect finesse." ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... foot-ball prospects. Mr. McNally's tastes were cosmopolitan, and now that his method was determined he dismissed M. & T. stock from his mind. He knew Tillman City, and more to the point, he knew Michael Blaney, Chairman of the Council Finance Committee. Finesse would not be needed, subtlety would be lost, with Blaney, and so Mr. McNally was prepared to talk bluntly. And on occasion Mr. McNally ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... after the first words exchanged: that was, that he had to deal with a man of high distinction. He could not be an assassin, and it was repugnant to Monk to believe him to be a spy, but there was sufficient finesse and at the same time firmness in Athos to lead Monk to fancy he was a conspirator. When they had quitted table, "You still believe in your treasure, then, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
