"Finger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prefigured those to come. A heavy cannonade was in progress. Even while the council was deliberating, a cannon-ball crashed through the room among them, as if to enjoin haste in bringing the proceedings to a close. The council listened to what was already but too well known. Already the finger of fate pointed undeviatingly to the inevitable result. A general lassitude had fallen upon the spirits of the soldiers. The situation was ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... ruin all!" cried Gyda. "Do they expect Swend Ulfsson, who never moved a finger yet, unless he saw that it would pay him within the hour, to spend blood and treasure in putting that puppet boy upon the throne ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... that is required. Under their use the swelling passes off by degrees and after a short interval the animal is fit for work again, but not uncommonly instead a swelling develops, puffy, not painful, and perhaps giving a sensation of crepitation when pressure is applied with the finger. It is soft, evidently contains a liquid, and when freely opened with a good-sized incision discharges a certain quantity of blood, partly liquid and partly coagulated, and perhaps a little hemorrhage will follow. The cavity should then ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... out 'pon a san'bar 'bout two hund'ed yards up de creek." The black finger that pointed was ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... eye upon Eleanor, and even ventured to lay a plump detaining finger on her cool, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... out, here's our situation! I ask MacDonald here, who is the richest sheepman west of the Mississippi, what's he willing to do for the party. Far as I can see without a telescope or microscope, he doesn't raise a finger—won't even take out papers so he can vote! I ask Parson Williams here what he is willing to do for the party; and he objects to his copper-gentry taking a free-for-all forty cents on the dollar. Then, you both come asking me to pass fifteen-thousand sheep ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... one does in the presence of death. "But if somebody is bleeding and falls off a horse slow, and catches hold of things and tries like hell to hang on——" He lifted the small flap that covered the cinch ring and revealed a reddish, flaked stain. Phlegmatically he wetted his finger tip on his tongue, rubbed the stain and held up his finger for Lone to see. "That's a damn funny place for blood, when a man is dragging on the ground," he commented dryly. "And something else is damn ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... them a fine dance; many a time they thought they had got it, but it always managed to fly off just as the extended thumb and finger were about to close upon it. Philip and Pepitia were tired, though by no means inclined to give up the chase, when the butterfly burrowed itself deep into a convolvulus flower that grew on the top of a not very ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... about nine or ten miles without seeing anything in the way of game except some deer tracks, we ascended a high bluff that had been on our right since leaving camp, when, to my infinite delight, I saw a large river, which "Alex," tracing the course with his finger, indicated as emptying into a large bay near our camp, opposite Depot Island. Its course was nearly straight for about three miles below and seven miles north of where we stood; then, as my guide indicated with a wave of his hand, flowed to the east and again to the south. It extended ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... the rolls their characteristic names. Dough prepared with rich milk or part cream makes the best rolls. It may be divided into small, irregular portions, about one inch in thickness, and shaped by taking each piece separately in the left hand, then with the thumb and first finger of the right hand, slightly stretch one of the points of the piece and draw it over the left thumb toward the center of the roll, holding it there with the left thumb. Turn the dough and repeat the operation until you have been all around the dough, and each point ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... Bear," said Cowboy Jack to Mr. Bunker. "But maybe he's got it right. I was brought up pretty nice—silverware and finger-bowls, and all that sort of do-dads; but part of my life I've lived pretty rough. Black Bear has set himself a certain standard of living, and he's not going to slip back. Afraid of being a 'blanket Indian,' ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... not a bit of it. I wouldn't snap my finger for a sure thing. There is no fun, excitement or satisfaction in a sure thing, and worse still, no money ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... glass. And then I'd make a fine, pointed heap of it like the charcoal-burner, Mathew, makes in the woods; and when father comes home, how pleased he'll be! But you must not tell him who did it!" the boy concluded, raising a warning finger at his sister. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... from the covering and draw his sword, they rushed upon him. Cumbered as he was, they might not easily overcome him, but in the end they bore him down and held him fast, so that he could not stir so much as a finger. Then ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... among Tim and the parcels. That was hard to bear, but of all kinds of weather, and he knew them all pretty well now, he thought the very worst was a fog. It was not only that it penetrated everywhere, and laid its cold damp finger on everything; but it spread such a thick veil of dreadful mystery over well-known objects. Nothing looked the same. The houses in the streets towered up like giant castles, and if Tim had read fairy tales he might well have fancied them inhabited by ogres. But he had not. He only felt a dim ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... to one of his officers, who presently laid a map of Ireland on the table, and placed his finger on the spot where Dunluce ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... there been a surrender so complete and unconditional. There were no banners to celebrate the triumph (for which Pee-wee took all the credit) but as old Trimmer started up the river Pee-wee turned the sign so that the word GO faced the departing voyager like a commanding finger to order the vanquished ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... little finger, Mrs Nickleby was carrying the account over to the other hand, when a loud 'Hem!' which appeared to come from the very foundation of the garden-wall, gave both herself and her ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... fine proud smile—that she had not the faintest claim to a share in Mr. Touchett's relics. "There was never anything in the world between us," she would have said. "There was never that, poor man!"—with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I hasten to add, moreover, that if she couldn't at the present moment keep from quite perversely yearning she was careful not to betray herself. She had after all as much sympathy for Mrs. Touchett's gains as ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... Felton! It is 20 years since I told you of the delight my first knowledge of him gave me, and it is as strongly upon me to this hour. I wish our ways had crossed a little oftener, but that would not have made it better for us now. Alas! alas! all ways have the same finger-post at the head of them, and at ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... four-finger "nip" which he swallowed without a wink, the Hospital Orderly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained, and very disgusted pony as it shambled to the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... snapped; "though he's been through enough to make him crazy—and so have I. If you're so anxious to do your duty, officer," she added, bitterly, "why don't you arrest that horrid, hulking man over there?" She pointed a neatly gloved, accusing finger at the motionless Zeke, who was staring fixedly at the point where he hoped ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... colors of his racing-stables in enamel. We had a delightful luncheon, and got back to London in time for dinner at Lady Sherbourne's. On hearing it was my birthday, she took a diamond-ring from her finger and gave ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... made it impossible for his emotional temperament longer to hide its agitation. Every one of them gave or loaned her a talisman—Tempest, a bit of rabbit's foot; Anstruther, a ring that had twice saved her from drowning (at least, it had been on her finger each time); Connemora, a hunchback's tooth on a faded velvet string; Pat, a penny which happened to be of the date of her birth year (the presence of the penny was regarded by all as a most encouraging ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... fastened at the throat with a cotton handkerchief of vivid corn color, was surmounted by an old nankeen coat, upon whose gaping elbows a careful wife had sewn patches of green cloth; his hands were encased in white cotton gloves three sizes too large, whose finger tips waved in the wind as their wearer flourished his palm-leaf ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... a hideous grin; the lonely woman paused in her work, and as she looked up enquiringly the old woman gave her a rose. Sirona took the flower, blew away the road-side dust that had clung to it, rearranged the tumbled delicate petals with her finger-tips, and said, while she seemed to give the best part of her attention to this occupation, "For the future let roses be when you find them. You know Phoebicius, and if any one sees it, it will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... do beg and pray all you Blues that, whatever you do, you never move a finger to reduce the salaries of other women!" cried Tom fervently. "If you don't need the money, give it away to Governesses' Institutions—Convalescent Homes—whatever you like; but, for pity's sake, don't ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... whom Socrates had in mind, suspecting that he spoke upon his account, took some bread, but continued still to eat a great deal of flesh with it. Socrates perceived him, and showing him with his finger to those that sat next to him, said to them, "Take notice of jour neighbour, and see whether it be the meat that makes him eat his bread, or the bread that ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... reverence enjoined each to be to the other "comme un epoux fidele et de lui tenir fidelite en toutes choses."—The ring was presented to the minister by one of the acolytes, upon a gold plate; and, before he directed the bridegroom to place it upon the finger of the lady, he desired him to observe that it was a symbol of marriage.—During the whole of the service two other acolytes were stationed in front of the bride and bridegroom, each holding in his hands a lighted taper; and near ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... people is very different. We found their pronunciation difficult to be imitated; more so, indeed, than our language was to them. Several English words they pronounced perfectly; whilst of such where an f or an s entered they could make but little: Finger, was pronounced bing-gah, ship, yip; and of King George they make Ken Jag-ger. In the difficulty of pronouncing the f and s they resemble the Port Jackson natives; and the word used by them in calling to a distance, cau-wah! (come here) is nearly similar ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... soiled English journal, and, running a crooked finger across it, read out the headings, with extracts, at some of which, remembering Aline's presence, I frowned. It was only a plain record of what happens in the crowded cities of the older land—a murder, two suicides, and the inevitable destitution and drunkenness, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... our lives through without meeting his equal. But his powerful mind, in its colossal egotism and with its gigantic ambitions, is an easy prey to the one thing he despised most of all—sentiment; and his rugged body goes to the grave through a chance scratch on the finger. Thus the irony of this book—and I know of no novel in the world that displays such irony—is not the irony of intentional partisan burlesque. There is no attempt in the destruction of this proud character to prove ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... a peasant in his country used to weep bitterly, whenever a certain Capuchin mounted the pulpit to hold forth to the people. The good father took notice of this man, and believed he was touched by the finger of the Lord. He exhorted him to encourage these accessions of grace, and at the same time to be of good comfort, as having received such marks of the divine favour. The man still continued to weep, as before, every time the monk preached; and at last the Capuchin ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... I regret to say. With one finger. But my brother, who is a very obliging fellow, and not unlike me personally, is acquainted with three chords, with which he manages to accompany most of the comic ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... Lady Augusta, at least; and, though skirmishing with Lady Augusta is not without its mild excitement, it is not necessary to one's happiness, and may be dispensed with. I wonder what Miss MacDowlas would say if she knew why I wear this modest ring on my third finger. When I explained to her casually that we were old friends, she succinctly remarked that you were a reprobate, and, feeling it prudent not to proceed with further disclosures, I bent my head demurely over my embroidery, and subsided into silence. I cannot discover why she disapproves of you unless ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... satisfaction of well deserving it, for I am sure the plan of attacking them with fire ships would never have occurred to any one else, and if it had not been for that, we should have had the mortification of seeing them sail off without being able to move a finger ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... as soon as I got into the passage, I could have transported Mr. Fairlie and Sir Percival Glyde to the uttermost ends of the earth by lifting one of my fingers, that finger would have been raised without an instant's hesitation. For once my unhappy temper now stood my friend. I should have broken down altogether and burst into a violent fit of crying, if my tears had not been all burnt up in the heat of my anger. As it was, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... whenever he showed a disposition to become colloquial. He felt that he must do something pretty soon or sink under his burden of responsibility, which seemed to grow heavier the longer he walked; consequently, when George stopped all of a sudden and silently pointed his finger at a dense wall of trees that ran across their path, his delight knew no bounds. The ravine in which the Indians were encamped was close in front of them. The murmuring of the waterfall which came up from its wooded depths was ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... thoughtful Englishmen who have watched, in the policy of the United States during the last twenty years, the foreshadowing of a democratic tyranny compared with which the most corrupt despotisms of the Old World appear realms of idyllic happiness and peace, have gratefully recognized the finger of Providence in the strife by which they have been so frightfully ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... shall be hauled up before a Dean or somebody for this to-morrow and fined or gated. Wish they'd let me in—chilly out here. Is there a night-porter? If not—awkward. Carillon again from Cathedral tower. Ghost has managed to recollect a whole tune at last, picking it out with one finger. Seem to have heard it before—what the Dickens is it? Recognise it as the "Mandolinata in E." Remember the VOKES Family dancing to it long ago in the Drury Lane Pantomime. Not exactly the tune one would expect to meet in a Cathedral.... Unbolting behind doors. Nervous feeling. Half ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... was now begun in earnest, and B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly every cave on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger, waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles into the darkness, charged in, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... taken at Mahomet's fort, and several pieces of rich gold cloth. Many of the men came off richly laden with spoils which they had taken from the enemy, such as rajah's scarfs, gold and silver chunam boxes, chains, ear rings and finger rings, anklets and bracelets, and a variety of shawls, krisses richly hilted and with gold scabbards, and a variety of other ornaments. Money to a considerable amount was brought off. That nothing should be left undone to have an indelible impression on the minds of these people, of the power of ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... he is proved guilty, and surely a society that stands for all that the Christian Endeavour does would not fall below the common law in its sense of justice. I'm surprised that its members should be so quick to whisper suspicion and point the accusing finger." ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... shades departed, And followed in the footsteps of my Guide, When from behind, pointing his finger ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... when Andrew went away. Fortunately old Hugh did not come to the door with him. As Andrew untied his horse Ursula threw the ball with such good aim that it struck him, as she had meant it to do, squarely on the head. Andrew looked up at her window. She leaned out, put her finger warningly on her lips, pointed to the ball, and nodded. Andrew, looking somewhat puzzled, picked up the ball, sprang to his saddle, ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... John's foot on her knee, instantly began to work away with as much skill as the most experienced surgeon. We all stood by watching her. After a little time she produced between her finger and thumb a creature considerably smaller than an ordinary flea, which she had taken out alive and uninjured. Giving it a squeeze, she threw it to the ground with an expression of anger at its having dared to molest her young master; ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his favourite servant. But the casements and the door of the belvidere were open; and where they sat, both wife and daughter could see the padrone leaning against the wall, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the floor; while Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking to him with visible earnestness. And the daughter from the window and the wife from her work directed tender, anxious eyes towards the still, thoughtful form so dear to both. For the last day or two, Riccabocca had been peculiarly abstracted, even to gloom. Each ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Collins, seizing and vigorously twisting the wartless finger naively offered for ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... arranged to suit Mr. Murch. If there were a pie in Mr. Murch's vicinity which Mr. Murch's finger was not in, it was, if not proof positive, strong circumstantial evidence that the pie was of a most inferior order of succulence; and Mr. Murch was a fairly good judge, being himself chairman of the finance committee of the United States Pie Company. He was ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... became largely a question of the two men, and which the people liked best. Adams, coldly virtuous, would not turn his finger to make himself better liked; even if he had attempted the arts of popularity, he was, of all the eminent men of our history, the least endowed with charm of manner, speech, and bearing. He sternly refused to appoint any man to office for ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... Rome does admit, after all, that works in themselves do not justify unless they issue from a sincere heart. Why do our opponents not profess the same truth in spiritual matters? There, above all, faith must precede everything. The heart must be purified by faith before a person can lift a finger to please God. ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... they threw them down alive, the majority of those they chucked down here would not have died. At most they would have dislocated an arm, a leg, or a finger-joint. Unless ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... wrong-doing of this fine gentleman, for whom she was willing to lay down her life. He looked at her with wistful eyes, longing to hold closer, swifter communication with her than could be held by their slow finger-speech. How could he ever make her know all the love and pride pent up in his voiceless heart? Phebe, in her girlish, blind preoccupation, saw nothing of his eager, wistful gaze, did not even notice the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... woman who tried to hide from him. There was a mother-in-law with her, and a little son, eight years of age. But in war-time one has to make haste to seize one's victim or one's loot. Death is waiting round the corner. Under the cover of his rifle—he had a restless finger on the trigger—the Uhlan bade the woman strip herself before him. She had not the pride or the courage of the other woman. She did not want to die, because of that small boy who stared with horror in his eyes. The mother-in-law clasped the child close and hid those wide ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... when we shall go forth from this life to the heavenly fatherland, to appear with joyful and undaunted mind and with a pure conscience before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ." (15.) "Therefore we also have determined not to depart even a finger's breadth either from the subjects themselves or from the phrases which are found in them (vel a rebus ipsis vel a phrasibus, quae in illa habentur, discedere), but, the Spirit of the Lord aiding ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... if somebody had taken the back of his finger," Laura added, "and run it all the way down the keyboard from the top note of the treble to the last note ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... She pointed with her finger. A man took a taper, and, accompanied by two others, entered the place, to return presently with their arms full of all the apparel they could find. Indeed, they even brought her missal and the silver crucifix which hung above her bed and with it ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... he gained. Cleave crashed into the belt of sycamores. Before him was the Potomac, cold, wide, mist-veiled. He heard Marchmont break into the wood and turned. The aide's arm was raised, and a shaft of red sunlight struck the barrel of his pistol. Before his finger could move Cleave fired. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... physically beautiful, save the statues in the Vatican, in all my life. If he's not an aristocrat to the finger tips, I'll give up all my work, turn Catholic, and go into a nunnery—which will distress you exceedingly. And then"—she waved a plump hand—"and then, as I've mentioned before, he reads the Religio Medici. The commonplace, vulgar young man of to-day no more reads Sir Thomas Browne than he reads ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... satisfactory months. Never had she accomplished so much; never did life promise more, as the result of her own efforts. She had earned comforts which had apparently deposed forever her old nervous enemies. Victorious living seemed at her finger-tips. Then she sold her ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... parrots, as I said. I don't offer you anything big, because I don't suppose you could keep it at school; but I have got some of the amusingest little monkeys you ever see, and a parrot as can talk—when he likes, mind you," continued the man, laying a fat finger against his nose, "and that ain't always. But when he is in the temper for it he can say anything, and you wouldn't know but what it was ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... see Mr. Brent," insisted the new-comer, as he pushed past the butler. "Mr. Brent!" he cried, advancing with a wild light in his eyes. "I'm tired of excuses. I want justice regarding that water-motor of mine." He paused, then added, shaking his finger threateningly, "Put it on the market—or I will call in ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... retreat from Luneville, he was put on a chain of outposts linked up with the main French lines. It was at night, and as he stood leaning on his rifle he saw black figures moving towards him. He raised his rifle, and his finger trembled on the trigger. At the first shot he would arouse the battalion nearest to him. They were sleeping, but as men sleep who may be suddenly attacked. They would fire without further question, and probably he would be the first to die from ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... goes by clockwork, a machine made by the devil's geometry, which he winds and nicks to go as he pleases. He is the devil's finger-watch, that never goes true, but too fast or too slow as he sets him. His religion goes with wires, and he serves the devil for an idol to seduce the simple to worship and believe in him. He puts down the true saint with his copper-lace devotion, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... spider-webs swing a million sparkling webs strung with diamonds, when every blade of grass is a singing string of pearls, hymning to God on High for the birth of a golden day, I can feel my heart swell, and I'm so abundantly, so inexpressibly alive, alive to every finger-tip! Such space, such light, such distances! And being Saul is so much ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... could now assume the virtue of those who are summoned to quell an open rebellion. Dalziel was put in command of the insurgent districts, and his little finger was indeed found thicker than Turner's loins. Twenty men were hanged on one gibbet in Edinburgh and many others in various parts of the country: crowds were shipped off to the plantations: torture was freely applied, and the ingenious devices of the boot and the thumbkin ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... too minutely subdivided, and many faculties are practically lost for want of use. "The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.... Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things.... The priest becomes a form; the attorney a statute book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... her finger, and saw a small rabbit running before the blast. He was going at a rate that caused his pop eyes to pop worse than ever. As he skimmed along, he made the mistake of trying to turn. In a second he was being rushed along sidewise, hopping ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... Brady gave him a peculiar look, shook his finger at the Frenchman and replied in ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... her, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder. "Reveal the truth to me, and I will protect you and shield you from them. At present, though the police are in possession of your finger-prints, as being those of a person who had entered the flat on that night, they have no knowledge of your identity, therefore, dear, have ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... also interspersed amongst the houses, which had commodious shades adjoining, and were in the same manner as ours, the insides being neatly plastered and whitewashed. Here I also saw and tasted for the first time sugar-cane. Their money consisted of little white shells, the size of the finger nail. I was sold here for one hundred and seventy-two of them by a merchant who lived and brought me there. I had been about two or three days at his house, when a wealthy widow, a neighbour of his, came there one evening, and brought with her an only son, a young gentleman about my own ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... the sandbar, and here"—he put his finger down—"the Venture. Or she was, yesterday. Now sir, the sandbar being just below and ahead of the Venture, once the Mirabelle has slipped by, wouldn't it be too bad if something happened to make the Venture drift with the ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... say, "Here's another, Marian," when Marian very quietly produced her sticking-plaster, as if it was quite an ordinary matter; nay, would not follow up the suggestion that he should not have so sharp a knife, saying that it was much better to cut one's finger with a sharp knife than a blunt one. He had cut about twenty bits of wood to waste, to say nothing of hands, but he persevered with amusing energy, and before the end of the visit had achieved a capital old man's head for the top of a walking stick, which he presented to Edmund. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his first published drama is 1601; that of his last published work, a "General History of Women," is 1657. As early as 1633 he represents himself as having had an "entire hand, or at least a main finger," in two hundred and twenty plays, of which only twenty-three were printed. "True it is," he says, "that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of Works, as others: one reason is, that many of them, by shifting and change of companies, have been negligently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... that. But I found out at last that she, Gladys, had followed him. Nobody knew where. He had given up his agency and started on a tour for some patent tyre company. And she, at the lifting of his finger, had ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... Palla, her finger-tips resting lightly on his arm, said laughingly: "Our youthful and tawny enchantress seemed unusually busy with you this evening. Has she turned you into anything ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... cloud and mountain, the features and gestures of friends, are to him as if they were not. They are there, solid and real, but not to him; he is still further "Dead." Next, let it be conceived, the subtle finger of cerebral disease lays hold of him. His whole brain is affected, and the sensory nerves, the medium of communication with the environment, cease altogether to acquaint him with what is doing in the outside world. The outside world is still there, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... three pund off in a week's trainin'," said the horse-breaker. "He said right when he said that he was in condition. Well, it's fine stuff all there is of it, but I'm none so sure as there is enough." He kept poking his finger into Montgomery as if he were one of his horses. "I hear that the Master will scale a hundred and sixty odd ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with not an inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar! And now, my friends - my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma - my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... finger traced the way to where Ware's Wigwam would have been on the map if it had been a spot large enough to mark. There Phil had come into their life again, almost like one of the family. Her real acquaintance with the Princess Winsome of her dreams began there too, when Lloyd ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the part of the government to protect its judges in discharging their duty from the violence of disappointed litigants, and this obligation was a law which it was the duty of the President to see executed. The President, therefore, has the right through his Attorney-General, who is the finger of his hand, to direct an officer of the United States to protect to the uttermost a justice while on judicial duty, even if it necessitates killing ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... from an adjoining apartment, and the woman stopped to listen, raising her finger ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... laid her finger on her lips. It irritated him, to discover that, as he talked, speaking the things that came from the very depths of his soul, she had been giving him only part of her attention, had been listening for a step on the stairs. He was hearing the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... flocking after her. The yellow hen was already on her eggs, and she ruffled her feathers in a hostile fashion at the approach of her new owner. Peggy placed her offering conveniently near the nest, raised a warning finger to the chattering girls, as if there had been a baby asleep in the soap-box the yellow hen was occupying, and then tiptoed off, with an ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... much as was needful, and shown him the notes. He read with increasing eagerness, and presently they saw his face light up, and with his finger on the passage they had expected, he said, "This is just what I wanted. Why did I not think of it before?" and asked permission ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... service, and he somehow realized now as he had not realized at the time, how much all those careful preparations meant, to her and to himself. He remembered how, late Saturday night, she had sat mending a new rip in his best coat, and that when she pricked her finger, and a little bead of red blood had to be disposed of before she could go on with the work, he had wondered why women were always pricking their fingers when there was no need. It was not until the very ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... delicate pink, and should be made of some frail, beautiful material which would float about her like gossamer when she moved, and shimmer like the light of dawn upon the dew. You know the sort of gown I mean: one of those gowns upon which a man is afraid to lay his finger-tips lest the material melt away beneath them; a gown which, he feels, was never touched by seamstress of the human species, but was made by fairies out of woven moonlight, star dust, afterglow, and the fragrance of flowers. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... same moment his own thoughts were of a most conflicting nature. One of the men was covered by his rifle, and his finger was on its ready trigger, but he hesitated to pull it. They had killed his horse and sought to take his life. Even now they would shoot him down without mercy, and as a pastime, if the opportunity offered. Knowing this, and realizing his danger if those men should discover him, the young American ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... powerless, and you are all cowards! Your hearts are filled up with morality and noble intentions, but they are as soft and warm as feather beds; the spirit of creativeness sleeps within them a profound and calm sleep, and your hearts do not throb, they merely rock slowly, like cradles.' Dipping my finger in the blood of my heart, I would smear upon their brows the brands of my reproaches, and they, paupers in spirit, miserable in their self-contentment, they would suffer. Oh, how they would suffer! My scourge is sharp, my hand is firm! And I love too deeply to have compassion! ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... A small drum, beat by the finger or thumb, was used by the priests of Cybele in their lascivious rites and in other orgies of a similar description, These drums were made of inflated skin, circular in shape, so that they had some resemblance to the orb which, in the statues of the emperor, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... quivering finger, "one dead and one sore hurt—Saint Giles save us, what have ye done? These be Sir Pertolepe's ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... curious, whoever held his finger in the smoke of the kitchen-pot, immediately smelt all the dishes that were cooking on every hearth in the city—this, you see, was something quite ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Doctor. I'll try my best to take care. Why, of course I will,—for John's sake." She looked up into his face from the tassel she was twisting around her finger, touching the floor with her slippers' toe and ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... first day of October the bank in which young Wheeler worked closed its doors. There had been a defalcation. A large sum of money was missing, and the long finger of suspicion pointed to ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... rushed towards the young journalist.... Fandor showed them a little red mark, clear cut on the white surface of the collar; it was a finger-print so characteristic, that the two bankers cried ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... rulers wanted to kill Jesus. That was all they talked about. But they did not know how it was to be done. For whenever Jesus came to Jerusalem, great crowds gathered around him. None of the priests dared to lay a finger on him in the open. The crowds would never let them. It seemed to the people as if the Messiah ...
— The King Nobody Wanted • Norman F. Langford
... the queen, "a few years ago I had around me ushers, treasures, armies; and by the lifting of a finger all these were busied in my service. To-day, look around you, and it may astonish you, that in order to accomplish a plan which is dearer to me than life I have only Lord de Winter, the friend of twenty years, and you, gentlemen, whom I see ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... used to come and watch them now and then as the work progressed. She had a way of walking round and round the house, looking up at it and poking at plaster and paint with her umbrella or finger tip. One day she brought with her a man with a spade. He spaded up a neat square of ground at the side of the cottage and a long ridge near the fence that separated her yard from that of the Very Young Couple next door. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... the most tender interest. Mrs. Browning was very fond of "Hatty," as she called her, and in a letter to her Isa she described a pretty scene when Lady Marian Alford, the daughter of the Duke of Northampton, knelt before the girl sculptor and placed on her finger a ring of diamonds surrounding a ruby. Browning's early friend, M. de Ripert-Monclar, to whom he had dedicated his "Paracelsus," and Lockhart, were also in Rome; and Leighton was completing his great canvas of Cimabue's ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... applied to the tip of the tongue. The distance at which the two points could be distinguished from one point, on the tip of the tongue, was called "one line." Using this "line" as a standard, it was found that the palmar surface of the third finger registered 2 lines; the surface of the lips 4 lines, and the skin of the back, and on the middle of the arm or thigh, as high as 60 lines The degree of sensitiveness to Touch varies greatly with different individuals, some having a very fine sense of touch in their fingers, while ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... candle flame. In five minutes Sugar was selling at 221, and the frantic shorts were grabbing for it as though there never was to be another share put on sale, while Barry Conant and his lieutenants were most industriously pushing it just beyond their reaching finger-tips, either by buying it as fast as it was offered by genuine sellers or by taking what their own pals ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... his head and looked round the great room as though in search of inspiration. He found it. His wandering glance finally came to rest on Jerry Dooley's alert countenance. Jerry crooked a finger at him and Matt strolled over to ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... for all their craft and force, One moment will not linger, But spite of hell shall have its course, 'Tis written by His finger. And though they take our life, Goods, honor, children, wife, Yet is their profit small; These things shall vanish all, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... your condition, you will not deny your generous support to the great principle of non-interference, in the next struggle which Hungary will make for freedom and independence, which even now is felt in the air, and is pointed out by the finger of God himself. My second earnest wish and hope is, that the people will see that their commerce with other people, whether in revolution or not, shall be secured. It is not so much my interest as it is your right; and I hope the militia of the United States ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... narrative used ever after to speak well of the Spaniards, as a generous people, destined ultimately to rise. He was at one time so reduced by scurvy, in a vessel half of whose crew had been carried off by the disease, that, though still able to do duty on the tops, the pressure of his finger left for several seconds a dent in his thigh, as if the muscular flesh had become of the consistency of dough. At another time, when overtaken in a small vessel by a protracted tempest, in which "for many days neither sun nor moon ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... considered, while he rubbed his chin with thumb and finger in a thoughtful way he ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... the desire of children for intellectual sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can—"Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming—"Mamma, see what a curious thing," "Mamma, look at this," "Mamma, look at that:" a habit which they ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... holding out the thin part on the tip of a finger, "that is a slice of sapphire; and there!" holding out the rest of the seeming ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... you have leisure to praise me, what I say is naught. In truth he spoke in such wise, that each of us who sat there, though that some one had accused him to Rufus:—so surely did he lay his finger on the very deeds we did: so surely display the faults of each ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... passing near two fishing-boats moored to a cluster of piles, a single deck-light shining clear and steady, reflected in the water like a long yellow finger. The men had deserted the boats and were swimming somewhere out of sight in the darkness, their voices sounding curiously near and distinct ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... death was told, we said,— Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. Physician of the iron age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear; And struck his finger on the place, And said: Thou ailest here, and here! He looked on Europe's dying hour Of fitful dream and feverish power; His eye plunged down the weltering strife, The turmoil of expiring life—He said, The end is everywhere, Art still has truth, take refuge ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... it must be added that this intensity of feeling renders the artifice employed sublimely natural. Here we lay our finger on the crucial point at issue in any estimate of literary mannerism. What is the force of thought, the fervor of emotion, the acute perception of truth in nature and in man, which lies behind that manneristic screen? If, as in the case of Shakespeare, sufficiency or superabundance of these ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... men—real men—men who are passionate, men who are positive, men who are tender, do not love the society woman of to-day, since she is incapable of love. My dear fellow, look around you. You see intrigues—everyone sees them; but can you lay your finger upon a single real love affair—a love that is disinterested, such a love as there used to be—inspired by a single woman of our acquaintance? Don't I speak the truth? It flatters a man to have a mistress—it ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... that was to speak. He appeared to be of a middle age, and taller than any of the other three who attended him; whereof one was a page, that held up his train, and seemed to be somewhat longer than my middle finger; the other two stood one on each side to support him. He acted every part of an orator; and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... be inherited and passed along. It is said that the rabbits in Australia have developed a longer and stronger nail on the first toe of each front foot, which aids them in climbing over the wire fences. The aye-aye has a specially adapted finger for extracting insects from their hiding-places. Undoubtedly such things are inherited. The snowshoes of the partridge and rabbit are inherited. The needs of the organism influence structure. The spines in the quills ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... been jerked off and there they were. Two of them, the way Red said. They were small, and sort of disgusting-looking. The animals moved quickly as the canvas lifted and were on the side toward the youngsters. Red poked a cautious finger at them. ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... land have lost all trust in the virtues of the shipowner; the professions look askance upon the retail traders and have even started their co-operative stores to ruin them; and from out the smoke-wreaths of Birmingham a finger has begun to write upon the wall the condemnation of the landlord. Thus, piece by piece, do we condemn each other, and yet not perceive the conclusion, that our whole estate is somewhat damnable. Thus, piece by piece, each acting against his neighbour, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and battery—nay, cries of treason—were all employed to hinder the coming out of the 'Dunciad.' On the other side, the booksellers and hawkers made as great efforts to procure it. What could a few poor authors do against so great a majority as the public? There was no stopping a torrent with a finger, so ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... of Henry IV and Haroun-al-Raschid, Ludwig of Bavaria was a man of contradictions. At one moment he was lavishly generous; at another, incredibly mean. He could be an autocrat to his finger tips, and insist on the observance of the most minute points of etiquette; and he could also be as democratic as anybody who ever waved a red flag. Thus, he would often walk through the streets as a private citizen, and without an escort. Yet, when he did so, he insisted on being ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... after hearing Mobray through his lines in "The Deuce is in Him," "I'd give a finger ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... "If you placed your finger on my shoulder, it would be like a stream of fire in your veins. The possession of the least part of my body will fill you with a joy more vehement than the conquest of an empire. Bring your lips near! My kisses have the taste of fruit which would melt in your ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... immense conceit; he is an old bachelor, and very rich; and he only spends a quarter of a comfortable income. If you are as clever as I suppose, you can go to Paris at his expense. There, run along, my little doe; go and twist him round your finger. Only, mind this: be as supple as silk; at every word take a double turn round him and make a knot. He is a man to fear scandal, and if he has given you a chance to put him in the pillory—in short, understand; threaten him with the ladies of the Maternity ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... report, when he asked to have the lump removed, thinking it was a stone. It was cut down upon and removed, and proved to be the spinous process of the vertebra of a hare. The bone was living and healthy and had formed a sort of arthrodial joint on the base of the phalanx of the little finger and had remained in this position ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... course to a magnificent pew, which was unoccupied, which she opened and entered, followed closely by Tawno Chikno, Mr. Petulengro, and myself. The sexton did not appear by any means to approve of the arrangement, and as I stood next the door laid his finger on my arm, as if to intimate that myself and companions must quit our aristocratical location. I said nothing, but directed my eyes to the clergyman, who uttered a short and expressive cough; the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... placed his hand in contact with the nates of the little girl who sat next to him in school, and experienced so great a pleasure in this contact that he frequently repeated it; when he was 10 a nursery governess, to gratify her own desires, placed his finger in her vagina; in adult life ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... any reason why they should; quite the contrary, as a thousand philosophers attested. They would not in her case, at least! Of course, if a decision had to be taken between the two, she would never hesitate—never! As she phrased this conviction to herself, she turned a ring on her white slim finger and had a throb of pleasure in the color of the gem. What harmless, impersonal pleasures they were! How little they hurt any one! And as to this business of morbidly probing into healthy flesh, of insisting on going back of everything, farther than any ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... fall had put a dent into its side. And what would Georgina's great-great aunt have said could she have known what was going to happen to her handsome dish, poor lady! Surely she never would have left it to such a naughty namesake! Then, to stop her sobbing, Mrs. Triplett took one tiny finger-tip in her large ones, and traced the name which was engraved around the rim in tall, slim-looped letters: the name which had passed down through many christenings to its present ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the funeral obsequies had been completed, there came a day, soon after, when Atirupa was sitting in his palace, with some of his attendants round him, gazing at his own image, that was reflected in a tiny mirror set on his finger in a ring. And he was plunged in the contemplation of himself, shadowed by a melancholy that arose, not from grief at the loss of his parents, but dejection caused by the gloom of the period of mourning: and as he sat, he said within himself: I am losing time, and growing old, and letting the opportunity ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... miner had a bath, the first real one in a long time. (Never again would it be possible for ladies to say in Hal Warner's presence that the poor might at least keep clean!) He had a shave; he trimmed his finger-nails, and brushed his hair, and dressed himself as a gentleman. In spite of himself he found his cheerfulness partly restored. A strange and wonderful sensation—to be dressed once more as a gentleman. He thought of the saying of the old negro, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... which looked like two saucers. "Mornin', sir," she replied. "What are you going to do with your baby?" inquired the Colonel. "I'm gwine to feed it, sir; its mammy is ded, an' I hab to feed it myself." "What do you give it to eat?" "I char 'tater, spit it out on my finger an' wipe 'cross de chile's mouf, arter dat I make a sugar rag, put some sweet flag in it, put de rag in de chile's mouf and lay it down; it goes to sleep, an' wen it wakes up ef it cries I gin it some more 'tater." "But," queried the Colonel, "suppose it is sick?" "I kin always ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... the middle of winter, when the snowflakes fell from the sky like feathers, a queen sat at a window netting. Her netting-needle was of black ebony, and as she worked, and the snow glittered, she pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell into the snow. The red spots looked so beautiful in the white snow that the queen thought to herself: "Oh, if I only had a little child, I should like it to be as fair as snow, as rosy as the red blood, and with hair and ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... but for the sake of one single passing hint—one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow, which, as he swept magnificently past on the stream of his calm eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences, save those unseen, he delivered unheeded, as with his finger-tip, to the very heart of an initiated hearer, never to be withdrawn again. I do not blame him for that. It is one of the highest triumphs of oratoric power, and may be employed honestly and fairly by any person who has the skill to do it honestly ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... expressing possession of parts of the body, wearing apparel, etc., by the use of the definite article instead of the possessive adjective his, her, etc., the dative pronoun also being often added to indicate the possessor, as: Yo me corte el dedo, I cut my finger. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... rode his donkey without a saddle, slipped off and stood beside the little beast on the road. His finger absently traced the ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and sword grass which "Captin" was detailed to grub out whenever no duty more pressing awaited him. And sword grass is a fearsome vegetable, clinging of root and so tough of stem that, if handled unwarily, it can cut a finger almost to the bone; wherefore the unfortunate "Captin" hated it with a mighty hatred, and preferred any other branch of his education. There were stones to pick up and pile in cairns; red stones, half buried in grass and tussocks, and weighing anything from a pound to ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... nothing to fear from the two steamers that are chasing her," added Christy. "We are to have a finger ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... reiterated. Then, shaking a podgy little finger, he added: "Same boat, ah? English idiomatic expression? Ver' well, it is so; but if you make escape, do not let me ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... was forced by old Fate to come near her and bend with her over the book. The tip of her exquisite finger ran along the lines that have figured in the woman question for ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... know what time it was when you came in last night?" she says, shaking a finger at him, whereat John laughingly declares his ignorance, having failed ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the Fox; "if you had been as honest with your finger as you were with your tongue, I shouldn't have gone ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... I am rather disposed to smile at your proposal. Go to Italy! for what?—Oh! to quit—do you know, I think that as idle a thought as the other. Pray stay where you are, and do some good to your country, or retire when you cannot—but don't put your finger in your eye and cry after the holidays and sugar-plums of Park-place. You have engaged and must go through or be hindered. Could you tell the world the reason? Would not all men say you had found yourself incapable of what ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... overcast, and the clouds threaten rain or snow. Why does he stop at the little village of Capellen? Because, right above him on the high cliff, the glorious ruin of Stolzenfels is looking at him with itshollow eyes, and beckoning to him with its gigantic finger, as if to say; "Come up hither, and I will tell thee an old tale." Therefore he alights, and goes up the narrow village lane, and up the stone steps, and up the steep pathway, and throws himself into the arms of that ancient ruin, and holds his breath, to hear the quick footsteps ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... descend over the deserted waters, as the laboring steamer battled against the current. It was a still, black night, and the Adventurer made extremely slow progress, a leadsman at the bow calling off the depth of water, and a huge light, rather ingeniously arranged, casting a finger of radiance along the ghostly shore line. With no marks of guidance on either bank, the wheelsman felt his uncertain passage upward, advancing so cautiously progress was scarcely noticeable, and I could frequently distinguish the voice of the anxious captain ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... expected her to pass him without recognition, and marched on kicking up the dust. But suddenly, as he grew nearer the spry little figure, he was aware of a pair of gray eyes, before which waved protectingly a hand clad in a black silk glove with dangling finger-tips, because it was too long, and it dawned swiftly upon him that Aunt Janet was trying to shield her face from the moving column of brown motes. He stopped kicking, but it was too late. Aunt Janet had him by the collar and was vigorously shaking ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing book, which contained one of his favourites; and, leaning over her with my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing, I said something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had lately been enjoying, lest it might not last. For a moment she met my earnest look, and coloured violently; and then fixing her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... with keeping my guide in eye, I took stock of the thing with idle fingers; in the blackness my finger-tips were all the eyes I had for so small a thing. It was about the size of a five-pound butter box, I should say; it seemed as it lay in my hand a sort of an old and polished casket, a thing done with an exotic artistry, broad, lacquered surfaces and curves and bits of intricate carving. And ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... This is all that is required. Let any one square the circle, and persuade his friends, if he and they please: let him print, and let all read who choose. But let him abstain from intruding himself upon those who have been satisfied by existing demonstration, until he is prepared {214} to lay his finger on the point in which existing demonstration is wrong. Let him also say what this mysterious 3.14159... really is, which comes in at every door and window, and down every chimney, calling itself the circumference to a unit of diameter. This most impudent and successful impostor ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... seen a number [372] on the forehead of Sextus. Look in this book for the place which it indicates. Theodorus looked for it, and found there the history of Sextus in a form more ample than the outline he had seen. Put your finger on any line you please, Pallas said to him, and you will see represented actually in all its detail that which the line broadly indicates. He obeyed, and he saw coming into view all the characteristics of a portion of the life of that Sextus. They passed into another hall, and lo! another world, ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... tense, every muscle alert, the expression on his face that of a cat watching a bird. At her second dip downward, he suddenly jumped into the air, jumped so high that his clutching fingers grazed her finger-tips. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... contrast to the blue is a great finger of emerald thrust out from a nearby point, as if in warning not to dare pass ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... first, to treat lightly the ire of her aged parent, playfully patting with her finger her mother's fearfully protruding lip. Mr. Kennedy endeavoured to ascertain, through Dicky, the downward course of the river, and she seemed to express, and to point also, that the river passed southerly into the Balonne, which river she named, and even the Culgoa: she seemed to say ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... the doctor, grasping Martine's hand, then slipping a finger on his pulse. "You fought on foot ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... girl shouted in her turn. "Here are your presents." With both hands she flung the jewels-pins and rings and earrings and bracelets—among the breakfast-dishes, from which some of them sprang to the floor. She stood a moment to pull the intaglio ring from the finger where Beaton put it a year ago, and dashed that at her father's plate. Then she whirled out of the room, and they heard ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Infamous ape! How dare you claim that you have left my hand? Take a look and see whether or not 'The Great Saint Who Is Heaven's Equal,' is written on my middle finger!" ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... her night-dress, was lying on the floor in the midst of the greatest disorder. Tables and chairs had been overthrown, showing that there had been a violent struggle. Mademoiselle had certainly been dragged from her bed. She was covered with blood and had terrible marks of finger-nails on her throat,—the flesh of her neck having been almost torn by the nails. From a wound on the right temple a stream of blood had run down and made a little pool on the floor. When Monsieur Stangerson saw his daughter in that state, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... parts of a Sparrow are bare; they never have any feathers; and the skin on them is hard and horny, as different from soft thin skin as finger-nails. Now look at the beak, and think how many things a Sparrow has to do with it. He has no hands or paws, and so he must pick up everything he eats with his beak. He has no teeth, and so he must bite ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... Christ, provided he submits his mind with an implicit faith (as they call it) to the judgment of the Church. Nor are they much affected, if the glory of God happens to be violated with open blasphemies, provided no one lift a finger against the primacy of the Apostolic See, and the authority of their holy Mother Church. Why, therefore, do they contend with such extreme bitterness and cruelty for the mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and similar trifles, and ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... find his cousin in the sitting-room; so he went to the kitchen, and opened the door. There she stood; but before he could enter, she raised her finger, saying, "Sch! sch! Do not open and shut the doors, and make a noise, as if there were four of you. Go into the other room, and keep still. Your father is lying in the bedroom up there. They brought him home in a ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... to her waist, "and these," and she touched her rich, red lips with her taper finger-points. "Would you like to practise a little, my innocent English knight, before we go out? You look as though you might seem awkward ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Lord James. To divert her attention, he drew her to him and slipped a ring on her slender finger. "Ha! Caught you napping! It's on—fast!" She gave him an adorable look. "If it's ever taken off, ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... let the life principle, the heart principle, the love principle be one and the same or not, it is he who says of men: "By their fruits shall ye KNOW them;" not doubtfully, but surely. The life record of every man, written not with pen and ink on paper, but with the finger of God on the tablet of his memory, will be the basis of his adjudgment to hell or his acquittal to heaven. For "a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things; likewise ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... washee shirtee—Melican man Poker Flat. Me plentee washee shirt Alexandlee Molton. Always litee, litee on shirt allee time. (Pointing to tail of his blouse, and imitating writing with finger.) Alexandlee Molton. Melican man tellee me—shirt ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... about all the time. Chuck em out those stinking meat. Ha! First time I feel something—one pearl! Beeg, but no all the same like nother one. One more time chuck stinking meat. Ha! one more pearl! White, long like small finger here. My heart easy now. I think my good luck come. I say my prayer to Allah! I work hard. I finish that boat. Chuck gem out stinking meat, wash her down. My three pearls inside ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... unshaven flushed face contrasting with the pallid and puffy flesh of neck and arms, he gave an impression of sensuality emphasized by undress. The head was massive and well formed, and beneath the bloat of fever and dissipation there showed traces of refinement. The soft hands and neat finger-nails, the carefully trimmed hair, were sufficient indications of a kind of luxury. The animalism of the man, however, had developed so early in life that it had obliterated all strong markings of character. The flaccid, rather fleshy features were those of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... used as a bath; for the washing of the body is an indulgence forbidden to cloistered virgins; and our Abbess, who was famed for her austerities, boasted that, like holy Sylvia the nun, she never touched water save to bathe her finger-tips before receiving the Sacrament. With such an example before them, the nuns were obliged to conform to the same pious rule, and many, having been bred in the convent from infancy, regarded all ablutions with horror, and felt no temptation ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... was, that when one held one's finger in the steam of the pot, then at once one could smell what dinner was ready in any fire-place in the town. That was indeed something quite different from ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang |
