"Dexterously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... management of the public revenue, he is in the highest esteem who, while he has that office, saves the Republic most money? In regard to the war, it is he who gains most victories over the enemies. If we are to enter into a treaty with other States, it is he who can dexterously win over to the party of the Republic those who before opposed its interests. If we are to have regard to what passes in the assemblies of the people, it is he who breaks the cabals, who appeases the seditious, who maintains concord and unity ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... see you, sir," observed Malachi, dropping his clasp knife dexterously into the waste-paper basket. "Wouldn't give his name. Seems in a mighty hurry by the way he has been walking all over the shop," he continued, sotto voce, as he dipped his pen into the ink again. "I wonder what the governor would say if he had heard him whistling like a penny steamer ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... that the darkness lasted, however, for tall Tom Daly stood by the replaced switch, looking down at them in quiet joy. Immediately with the turning on of the light Biff scrambled to his feet like a cat and waited for Ripley to rise. It was Ripley who made the first lunge, which Biff dexterously ducked, and immediately after Biff's right arm shot out, catching his antagonist a glancing blow upon the side of the cheek; a blow which drew blood. Infuriated, again Ripley rushed, but was blocked, and for nearly ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the rushing water, which was up to his shoulders, and through a bit of swampy jungle, and up a steep bank, to the great fatigue both of body and mind, hardly mitigated by the enjoyment of the ludicrous in riding a savage through these Yezo waters. They dexterously carried the kuruma through, on the shoulders of four, and showed extreme anxiety that neither it nor I should get wet. After this we crossed two deep, still rivers in scows, and far above the grey level and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... he wrote The Braggart, The Irresolute, The Ungrateful, The Backbiter, The Spendthrift, etc. Sometimes he took pains to be a trifle more original, as in The False Agnes, The Married Philosopher; sometimes he borrowed a subject from a foreign literature and adapted it fairly dexterously for the Gallic stage, as in The Impertinent Inquisitive, taken from Don Quixote and The Night Drum, borrowed from an English author. His versification was dexterous and ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... even the secular newspapers give the rein to their rhetoric and imagination, and indulge in much fervid eloquence on the birth or the crucifixion of the Nazarene. Time-honored platitudes are brought out from their resting-places and dexterously moved to a well-known tune; and fallacies which have been refuted ad nauseam are paraded afresh as though their logical purity were still beyond suspicion. Papers that differ on all other occasions and on all other subjects concur then, and "when they do ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... this negro was living under his paternal roof in Africa. He was the son of a chief of a small tribe, the pride of his parents, and the delight of his countrymen; none could more dexterously throw the dart; none more skilfully guide the fragile canoe over the bosom of the deep. He was not far from twenty years of age, when, on a fair summer's morn, he went in his little canoe to spend the day in fishing. About noon he paddled his bark to the shore, and, under the shade of a ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... they took hold of large scorpions, and let them run over their hands. I also saw several battles between large serpents and ichneumons. These little animals, rather larger than a weasel, live, as is known, upon serpents and the eggs of crocodiles. They seize the former so dexterously by the neck that they always master them; ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... close sooner than Colin expected. Dexterously, Major Dare reeled in his line during a moment's pause while the fish sulked, bringing him to the surface, and his boatman, quick as a flash of light, leaned over the side and slipped the long, slender hook, or gaff, into the gills. But ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... rest of the way as easily as if he had been a child. The noise brought Amy out of the dressing-room, much frightened, though she did not speak till Charles was deposited on the sofa, and assured them he was not in the least hurt, but he would hardly thank his cousin for having so dexterously saved him; and Philip, relieved from the fear of his being injured, viewed the adventure as a mere ebullition of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... midst of them. He was never abashed, but had a resource and an apt one in every emergency. He was absolutely intrepid before the thrusts of our sharpest examiners and as I have said could bluff it boldly and dexterously where his knowledge failed; then the odd cynicism with which he turned down great pretentions and sometimes matters of serious import, had a Napoleonic cast. In '61 he enlisted as a private but rose swiftly through the grades to the command of a regiment. At Antietam he had part of a brigade and ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... a table, as occasion required. The soldiers roused themselves at the gurgling sound of the wine, as it was decanted into cups made of the large end of an ox's horn, scraped thin, and capable of containing a pint or more. Isabella dexterously poured the contents of the phial into a cup, which was filled with wine, and Morton, taking it in his hand, approached the corporal with a nod of invitation. After holding it to his lips for some time, as if taking a deep draught, he passed it to the corporal; that officer, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... truth," replied the servant, catching dexterously the silver piece tossed him. "Even now, together with Mistress Vaux, he is within ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... on speaking. Some of these people speak with great fluency, and collect crowds round them in the public streets. When an Improvisatore sees the attention of his audience fixed, and when he comes to some very interesting part of his narrative, he dexterously drops his hat upon the ground, and pauses till his auditors have paid tribute to his eloquence. When he thinks the hat sufficiently full, he takes it up again, and proceeds with his story. The hat was dropped just as Francisco and his two friends came under the piazza. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... entered, and removed their veils out of respect to the saint to whom the building was dedicated. One of the nuns dropped her rosary beside the statue, and, as she stooped to pick it up, she dexterously removed the letter and placed it in her bosom. As she did so, the light ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... but not to Gay. Two of the pompous coloured men collided just as they were passing Miss Chilton's table. One tray dropped to the floor with a tremendous crash of breaking dishes. The other was caught dexterously in mid-air, but not before its contents had turned a somersault and wrought ruin all around it. A bowl of tomato soup splashed over Lloyd's immaculate shirt-waist and ran in two long red streaks across the shoulders of her duck jacket, which ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... exclaimed Lydyard. "Here is a pretty termination to the affair. But if this is really the case, you must not see her. It is one thing to be run through the arm,—which you must own I managed as dexterously as the best master of fence could have done,—and lose a few drops of blood for a mistress, but it is another to brave ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of a villager, but, rather, feet arched of instep, and at one time accustomed to the wearing of boots. Or, as the woman sits engaged in embroidering a blue bodice with a pattern of white peas, one will perceive that she has long been accustomed to plying the needle so dexterously; swiftly do the small, sunburnt hands fly in and out under the tumbled material, eagerly though the wind may strive to wrest it from her. Again, as she sits bending over her work, one will descry through ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... joined their ally in support of Albania. Russia, at the same time not wishing to give any greater impetus to the Bulgarian campaign, dexterously manipulated Rumania, which raised at that time her first claims on Dobrudja. France, who for the last twenty-five years has subjected her Near Eastern policy to the exigencies of the Petrograd statesmen, agreed to the Albanian proposals of the four powers, and finally ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... I saw his drift: but he really had managed his point so dexterously—not forgetting the De profundis—that I gave him tenpence in silver: he pocketed it with great alacrity, and was at the prayer in a twinkling, which he did offer up in prime,style—five paters, five ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... that?" asked the young cacique carelessly, as he tossed the golden balls in air and caught them dexterously. ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... very much," concluded Mangles, dexterously shifting his cigar by a movement of the tongue from the port to the starboard side of his mouth. Cartoner did not seem to be very much interested in Miss Netty Cahere. He was a man having that air of detachment from personal ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... parrots' cages to drink the water as it trickled along the deck, regardless of the occasional gripe he received; of taking the dried herbs out of the tin mugs in which the men were making tea of them; of dexterously picking out the pieces of biscuit which were toasting between the bars of the grate; of stealing the carpenter's tools; in short, of teasing every thing and every body: but he was also a first-rate equestrian. Whenever the pigs were let out to take a run on deck, he took his station behind ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... As I was coming down to the dock in New York, to go aboard the Mercy G., a small boy was walloping a boy still smaller; so I made peace, and walloped them both. And then they both began heaving rocks at me—one of which I caught dexterously in the dexter hand. Yesterday, as I was pacing the deck with the professor, I put my hand in my pocket and found this stone. So I asked the professor ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... simpleton, harmless enough, would he keep to himself, but not wholly unobnoxious as an intruder—they made no scruple to jostle him aside; while one, less kind than the rest, or more of a wag, by an unobserved stroke, dexterously flattened down his fleecy hat upon his head. Without readjusting it, the stranger quietly turned, and writing anew upon the slate, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... looked upon Rosalie intently and he said: (he was perhaps dexterously giving her time that she might weld herself) he said, "Ye'll need be strong. Ye look sensible. Ye'll need be sensible." He said, "There's been before me here another—There's been a creature here before me. There's ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... that the Biche was to be the agent in the affair, and that my offer to Museau was accepted. The poor Fawn performed her part very faithfully and dexterously. I had not need of a word more with Museau; the matter was understood between us. The Fawn had long been allowed free communication with me. She had tended me during my wound and in my illnesses, helped to do the work of my little chamber, my cooking, and so forth. She ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for amusement, and were spun with fine white cord, to unadorned, massive, vicious-looking warriors with sharpened projecting points, which were intended for the battlefield, and were spun with rough, strong twine, and which, dexterously used, would split another top from head to foot as when you slice butter with a knife. Her stock of kites in the season was something to see, and although she did not venture upon cricket-bats, which were sold by the hair-dresser, nor cricket-balls, she had every other kind of ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... concluded, a tall man strayed in, and watched the bargaining with slight interest. Paul would have been not a little surprised had he known that this man was one of the burglars against whom he was contriving measures of defense. It was, indeed, Marlowe, who, having dexterously picked the pocket of a passenger on the Third avenue cars an hour before, found himself thirty dollars richer by the operation, and being himself out at elbows, had entered this shop on ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... on discovering that his real pearl had been exchanged for an artificial one, so very like as not to be detected but by the most critical examination. The daily visits of these people, it seems, were for no other purpose than to enable them to forge an accurate imitation, which they had dexterously substituted for the real one, when they proposed the cunning expedient of sealing the box in which it was inclosed. The Armenians, however, were determined not to be outdone by the Chinese. A noted ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... that, sir," answered Mr. Brimberly, dexterously performing on the syphon, "I should answer you, drink 'e may, gamble 'e do, hetceteras I won't answer for, 'im being the very hacme of respectability though 'e is a ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... like two people. One self, silent, alert, experienced, fearless, knew that she had allowed herself to be deluded, in spite of being warned; knew that her feelings had been played upon, made use of, not even dexterously made use of; knew that she had disobeyed her husband, broken her solemn oath to him, plunged him with herself into disgrace if the money were stolen. And in the eyes of that self it was already stolen. It was still under the ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... was spread. They drifted slowly toward the land, which rose in gray, hazy masses, on a background of sky illumined by the rising sun. The reef was dexterously avoided and doubled, but with the fitful breeze the raft could not get near the shore. What toil and pain to reach a coast so full of danger ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... soldier with a horse-clipping machine. An officer stood beside him and closely scanned the heads of the passing men. Whenever he spied a soldier whose hair was a fraction of an inch too long, that soldier was called out of the ranks, the clipper was run over his head as quickly and dexterously as an expert shearer fleeces sheep, and then the man, his hair once more too short to harbour dirt, ran to rejoin his company. They must have cut the hair of a hundred men an hour. It was a fascinating performance. Men on bicycles, with coils of insulated wire slung ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... called in pelting one another vigorously with acorns, which fly about in all directions. The small prepostors dash in every now and then, and generally chastise some quiet, timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes, while the principal performers get dexterously out of the way. And so calling-over rolls on somehow, much like the big world, punishments lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer, cross-grained way, but the end coming ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of the finest things that the skill of man has ever produced under the inspiration of the wilderness. It is a frail shell, so light that a guide can carry it on his shoulders with ease, but so dexterously fashioned that it rides the heaviest waves like a duck, and slips through the water as if by magic. You can travel in it along the shallowest rivers and across the broadest lakes, and make forty or fifty miles a day, if you ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... precautions; his speed was guided by order and discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and the rivers were diligently explored by the flying squadrons, who marked his road and preceded his standard. Firm in his plan of fighting in the heart of the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their camp, dexterously inclined to the left, occupied Caesarea, traversed the salt desert and the river Halys, and invested Angora; while the Sultan, immovable and ignorant in his post, compared the Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail. He returned on the wings of indignation to the relief ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... daubed, and when that was taken away the table remained clean. So, after I had helped each of them for the first time, I desired them to help themselves where they liked best; and, to say the truth, they did so more dexterously ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... has been applied to this bird on account of its curious habit of dexterously inserting its bill beneath stones and pebbles along the shore in quest of food, overturning them in search of the insects or prey of any kind which may be lurking beneath. It is found on smooth, sandy beaches, though more commonly about the base of rocky cliffs and cones. The eggs of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... other end of the cord, and as soon as the darkness and confusion came, he drove the hook into poor old Mole's wig, while he rubbed it dexterously with phosphorus, and then with a jerk he hauled it up to the ceiling, where he set it dancing about, to the ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Katie, and threw an imploring look at "His Majesty." It was almost the first time that he had fairly caught her eye, so dexterously had she always ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... quickly aside, and dexterously threw his foot before the other, who—his blow not meeting the expected resistance—was unable to recover himself, and fell headlong to the floor. The Colonel turned on his heel, and was walking quietly away, when the sharp report of a pistol ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... of fulfilling it! I have remarked that the manners of high society induce a habit of idleness which absorbs half of the life of a woman without permitting her to feel that she is alive. For my part, I have formed the project of dexterously leading my wife along, up to her fortieth year, without letting her think of adultery, just as poor Musson used to amuse himself in leading some simple fellow from the Rue Saint-Denis to Pierrefitte without letting ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... looked on you from the outset as an innocent man," he said placidly. "But, just to show how circumstantial evidence may be twisted into plausible error, let me point out that nearly all the known facts conspire against you. Have you considered how dexterously a prosecuting counsel would treat your admission that Mrs. Lester was the one person in England who knew of your connection with the revolutionary party in China? And how would you set about convincing a stolid British jury that ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... could send her away, but it might be managed dexterously. Maggie might stay till the end of the present term and then go, knowing herself that she would never return, whereas the girls would know nothing about it until the beginning of the next term, when they would no longer see her familiar face ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... illustrated by Walter Crane, make an attractive volume with a good deal of solid reading within its covers. The stories are told with the verve and skill of a genuine story-teller, old themes are reset, and new material dexterously worked in, with characters drawn from fairy- and dream-land, and, set off by Mr. Crane's delightful drawings, the whole book ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... than the common house-fly, and is nearly of the same brown color as the common honey-bee; the after part of the body has three or four yellow bars across it; the wings project beyond this part considerably, and it is remarkably alert, avoiding most dexterously all attempts to capture it with the hand at common temperatures; in the cool of the mornings and evenings it is less agile. Its peculiar buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the traveler whose means of locomotion are domestic animals; for it ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... trick gave more universal pleasure than all the rest; for, observing the manner in which I had disposed my books on the table before me, he very dexterously displaced one of them, and put an obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However, I took no notice of all that this mischievous group of little beings could do, but went on, perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt would excite ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... companions were twirling at the other. For so habituated were the dancers to their fascinating exercise, that they were always ready to go at the word, like trained horses. And certainly the dancing was beautiful. He had never seen gentlemen move so gracefully and dexterously in a crowded room as these young Americans did. Le Roi and Roewenberg, who, by virtue of their respective nationalities, were bound to be good dancers, looked positively awkward alongside of the natives. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he had quite certainly committed the crime of speaking lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a little envious animal," some seven years ago; and it was for this grave indiscretion that Pope was dexterously goading the man into insanity, and eventually drove him to suicide. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the grace of a humming bird at our feet, the girls dexterously balancing so that it came to rest swiftly, without the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... bishop and Jenkins were doing the same. Dexterously steering clear of the pillars, they emerged in the wide, open body of the cathedral, and bent their steps across it to the spot where hung the ropes of ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... great deal of her of late years," Mrs. Harrowby continued, angling dexterously. "She and the girls are fast friends, especially she and Josephine, though there is certainly some slight difference of age between them. But Adelaide prefers their society to that of any one about the neighborhood. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... that about the middle of the eighteenth century or earlier one Staples laid out a curious pleasure-garden here, with quaint designs, which attracted much attention. It was the landlord of the Spaniards Inn who in the time of the Gordon Riots dexterously detained the rioters from proceeding to Caenwood House until the troops arrived to protect it. The tea-gardens at the back still survive; in these was the old bowling-green. Close by was another pleasure-garden, ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... dexterously turned to profit by the rhetorical skill of Xenophon, was eminently beneficial in raising the army out of the depression which weighed them down, and in disposing them to listen to his animating appeal. Repeating ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... of speech, than by the mechanical use of a musical instrument; and if by making use of the proper means, and with a moderate degree of diligence and perseverance, every man can be trained to play dexterously on the violin, or the organ, and at the same moment maintain a perfect command over the operations of his mind,—we may reasonably conclude, from analogy, that with an equal, or even a smaller degree of diligence, when the means have been equally ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... lengthy a nature to allow its further prolongation. Compromising councils prevailed; and it was agreed that the present proposition should be withdrawn and a separate bill brought in. This bill was, however, at the next session dexterously postponed "until the next session ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... reasonings, even so is his eloquence. One character pervades his whole being. Words on words, finely arranged, and so dexterously consequent, that the whole bears the semblance of argument, and still keeps awake a sense of surprise; but when all is done, nothing rememberable has been said; no one philosophical remark, no one image, not even a pointed aphorism. Not a sentence of Mr. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... water in lanes and patches; sometimes a field of jagged ice, whereupon the merry-hearted voyageurs jumped out and dragged the canoe across to water again, singing some French song the while. What perilous collisions of floes they dexterously avoided! What intricate navigation of narrow channels they wound through within half a boat's length of crushing destruction! Notwithstanding all their ability, the passengers were thankful to touch land again ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar: it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek], dexterous men; and [Greek], men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... had held court, moving his little throne about with sudden jerks. When things did not go entirely his way, he could always withdraw—expertly, swiftly, cleverly. Doorsills were nothing to him. He skimmed them dexterously, as a regiment might storm a hill. Fortunately, he suffered no pain, though sometimes, in a frenzy, he affected a twinge in his body, and caused a helpless look to sweep over his countenance. As a rule, this trick worked beautifully; ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his hat and retire. Discerning his opportunity at last, Vendale determined to do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer dexterously, with Obenreizer's ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... "A woman, sitting down, takes a handful of corn, holding it by the stalks in her left hand, and then sets fire to the ears, which are presently in a flame. She has a stick in her right hand, which she manages very dexterously, beating off the grains at the very instant when the husk is quite burnt.... The corn may be thus dressed, winnowed, ground, and baked, within ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... spinach. It was on the return journey. He had seen that spinach before it came to table. He gives several reasons why he objected to it, and they are excellent reasons. But notwithstanding his injunction the spinach was served, and thereupon the irate Englishman took up the dish and, dexterously reversing it, spinach and all, made therewith a hat for the serving-maid's head. From the ensuing hubbub and the aubergiste's wrath Thicknesse was delivered by the advent of a French gentleman who chivalrously declared (we are ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... theologian proper, as the moralist and divine, that we love her most. She arrives at this peak at last. As a rule, she chooses the tritest topics, but she gives them a novelty and grace of her own. Even Thackeray's old "Vanity of Vanities" wakes into new life as she dexterously couples it with the dances of the last season. We nod our applause from the grass as she denounces the worthlessness and frivolity of the life we lead. If the weather were cool enough we should at once vow, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... grammarian, to refrain from fault-finding, and not in a reproachful way to chide those who uttered any barbarous or solecistic or strange-sounding expression; but dexterously to introduce the very expression which ought to have been used, and in the way of answer or giving confirmation, or joining in an inquiry about the thing itself, not about the word, or by some other ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... letter was given, there was a sudden movement. The center had flashed the ball to Allen, who started furiously around the outside of the Clifford line. West was running diagonally, and passed him. Many did not notice that as they crossed Frank dexterously passed the ball to Ralph, but kept on running and dodging as though ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... never laud the merits of any absent person, without dexterously contriving that their praises shall reflect upon somebody who is present, so they never depreciate anything or anybody, without turning their depreciation to the same account. Their friend, Mr. Slummery, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... ate with their bodies bent over the food, throwing it up and catching it in their mouths so dexterously that not a grain of rice was lost, not a drop of the various liquids spilt. Zealous to show his consideration for his host, the colonel tried to imitate all these movements. He contrived to bend over his food almost horizontally, but, alas! he could not remain long in this position. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... fine target ye must have made with yer six feet and one inch. How could the poor soldiers help hittin' ye? Answer me that?" and the jovial doctor laughed again as he dexterously wound ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... uncomfortable at this moment than he had been at any one time during the eventful morning, but he evaded the point dexterously by saying, "There ain't no harm, as I can see, in our makin' the grand entry in the biggest style we can. I'll take the whip out, set up straight, an' drive fast; you hold your bo'quet in your lap, an' open your little red parasol, an' we'll ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... disorder, but before I left him a more unpleasant suspicion was gradually forced upon me. I cannot help thinking that there is more than a touch of insanity in my old friend. I tried from time to time to bring him down to personal topics, but he eluded them dexterously, and it was only for a moment or so that I could keep him away from the all absorbing subject of the Catholic Church, which seems in some of its more sombre aspects to exercise an extraordinary fascination over him. I asked him ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... looked along his cigarette and pinched it affectionately. It was one of his own, which he had dexterously substituted for those which his host had placed at ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... navigating the shipping of the South Sea. Their native barks or piraguas are formed of from three to five planks, sewed together, and caulked with a species of moss which grows on a particular shrub. There are vast numbers of these barks all through the archipelago, which they manage very dexterously both with sails and oars, and the natives often venture as far as Conception in these frail vessels. They are much addicted to fishing, and procure vast quantities and many kinds of excellent fish on the sea around their shores. Of these they dry large quantities, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... was the great staple of Lady Firebrace's correspondence with Mr Tadpole. "Woman's mission" took the shape to her intelligence of getting over his grace to the conservatives. She was much assisted in these endeavours by the information which she so dexterously acquired from the innocent and ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... generosity of the public, procures for himself the honors of a more numerous audience, and the merit of distributing at his pleasure a bounty which costs him nothing, and for which he receives grateful thanks dexterously ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... The Brat stands on the top of a step-ladder, dexterously posing the last wintry garland; and all we others are resting a moment—we and our coadjutors. For we have two coadjutors. Mr. Musgrave, of course. Now, at this moment, through the gray light, and across the candles, I can see him leaning against the font, while Barbara kneels ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... slowly; in the winter, if the cream is too cold, add a little warm water to bring it to the proper temperature. When the butter has "come", rinse the sides of the churn down with cold water and take the butter up with a perforated dasher or a wooden ladle, turning it dexterously just below the surface of the buttermilk to catch every stray bit; have ready some very cold water in a deep wooden tray; and into this plunge the dasher when you draw it from the churn; the butter will float off, ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... considerate, so entirely devoted to pleasing the critical trout, and so successful in his efforts,—surely his heart was upon his hook, and it was a tender, unctuous heart, too, as that of every angler is. How nicely he would measure the distance! how dexterously he would avoid an overhanging limb or bush and drop the line exactly in the right spot! Of course there was a pulse of feeling and sympathy to the extremity of that line. If your heart is a stone, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... forgotten that a convention in its youth is often positively healthy, and a convention in the prime of its life a very tolerable thing. It is the old conventions which, as Mahomet rashly acknowledged about something else (saving himself, however, most dexterously afterwards), cannot be tolerated in Paradise. Moreover, besides creating of necessity a sort of fresh dialect in which it had to be told, and producing a set of personages entirely unhackneyed, it did an immense service by introducing a sort of etiquette, quite different ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... as if let down from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard. One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the candle she is guarding so tenderly with her little hand; other people at the windows, fishing for candles with lines and hooks, or letting down long willow-wands with handkerchiefs at the end, and flapping them out, dexterously, when the bearer is at the height of his triumph, others, biding their time in corners, with immense extinguishers like halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious torches; others, gathered round one coach, and sticking to it; others, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... said plants therein, covering them with sand till such time as the little seeds have stricken root, which, it is said, would be perfectly effected within twenty days at furthest. After this, disinterring the plants, these impostors, with a sharp cutting knife, so dexterously carve, pare, and slip the little filaments of the seeds as to make them resemble the hair which grows upon the various parts of ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... very dexterously contrived to conceal from their readers the real nature of this transaction. By making concessions apparently candid and ample, they elude the great accusation. They allow that the measure was weak and even frantic, an absurd caprice of Lord Digby, absurdly adopted by the King. And thus they ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... about the paper, and produced his halfpenny. The paper was put into his hand, but he paid no attention to it. He was still watching the motionless figure on the pavement. About three minutes passed. Then the young man suddenly and dexterously folded the paper, folded it again and slipped it into his pocket. Then he set off walking and a moment later had vanished round the corner into ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Dinah Shadd dexterously whipped the bottle away, saying at the same time, "'Tis nothing to be proud av," and thus captured by ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... Barold dropped his eyeglass dexterously, and at once lapsed into his normal condition—which was a condition by no means favorable ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... streaming with oil, the Bornouese belle was fully equipped for conquest. Thus adorned, the wife or daughter of a rich Shouaa might be seen entering the market in full style, bestriding an ox, which she managed dexterously, by a leathern thong passed through the nose, and whose unwieldy bulk she even contrived to torture into something like capering and curvetting. Angornou is the chief market, and the crowd there is sometimes immense, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... charge on her would only involve her in trouble and odium. Even at the breakfast, spread as usual in the centre of the peristyle, she entreated that we should present ourselves separately. Eunane appeared to have performed very dexterously the novel duty assigned to her. The ambau had obeyed her orders with well-trained promptitude, and the carvee, in bringing fruit, leaves, and roots from the outer garden, had more than verified all that on a former occasion Eveena had told me of their ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... engage her, if only to keep her quiet; but Mrs. Bilton's spirited description of life as she saw it and of the way it affected something she called her psyche, was without punctuation and without even the tiny gap of a comma in it through which one might have dexterously slipped a definite offer. She had to be interrupted at last, in spite of the discomfort this gave to the Twinkler and Twist politeness, because a cook was coming to be interviewed directly after lunch, and they ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... 1843, H. M. S. Samarang, being completely equipped, went out of Portsmouth harbour and anchored at Spithead. The crew were paid advanced wages; and, five minutes after the money had been put into their hats at the pay-table, it was all most dexterously transferred to the pockets of their wives, whose regard and affection for their husbands at this peculiar time was most exemplary. On the following day, the crew of the Samarang made sail with ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... The widow especially was full of bright sayings, and Captain Fitzgerald made the most devoted lover. Not too elated by his good-fortune, and yet thoroughly happy and tender. He continually told himself that fate had been uncommonly kind to mix business and pleasure so dexterously, for if the widow had not possessed a cent, he still would have been ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... protected by inner walls, or mounds. These openings could be occupied by warriors while the interior would not be exposed to the enemy. Within the enclosure are disposed twenty-four reservoirs, which could be dexterously connected with springs, so that in time of siege, they would be comparatively independent. The strength of this fortress does not depend on the walls alone, which range in height from five to twenty feet, but upon its isolated position and steep sides. Near ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth
... little child. She might take her up in her arms and carry her bodily back to her own door. Well, and what then? Why, simply, she would get the credit of abusing the little girl. There seemed no way out of it. She stalked on grimly, and when she came to Reid's lot she promptly and dexterously climbed its fence and continued her way in silence. But the fence proved an insurmountable obstacle to Ruth. She stood outside and wailed dismally. The sound smote Nan, and ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... bow, and its helpless passengers launched into the deep, had not a most providential wave suddenly struck and lifted up the stern, so as to enable the seamen to disengage the tackle. The boat being thus dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen after a while from the poop, battling with the billows,—now raised, in its progress to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several seconds, as if engulfed "in the ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard's grown-up daughter. While life's middle summer had set its hardening mark on the mother's face, her former spring-like specialities were transferred so dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her mother's knowledge from the girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... attempted to close, when her greatly prepondering force of men would have told with fearful effect on our decks; but each time the attempt was made it was dexterously avoided by our captain. We had, however, begun to suffer considerably in spars and rigging, and the number of our killed and wounded was increasing. Our second lieutenant had been severely injured by the fall of the foretop-gallant-mast. A midshipman, a young lad who had just come ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... of wit readily at first sight, and sometimes better than with practice. He is excellent at voluntary and prelude, but has no skill in composition. He will run divisions upon any ground very dexterously, but now and then mistakes a flat for a sharp. He has a great deal of wit, but it is not at his own disposing, nor can he command it when he pleases unless it be in the humour. His fancy is counterchanged ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... The negro's big, yellow-palmed hands worked dexterously among the instruments to his right; then, amidships, grew a shrill whine which keened upward in pitch. A few sparks raced by the Star Devil's after ports, quickly to disappear after they left the almost invisible envelope of ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... best or only mode of redressing it. Such a policy would have resembled the last desperate resource of an unprincipled gambler, who, on seeing his final game at chess, and the accumulated stakes depending upon it, all on the brink of irretrievable sacrifice, dexterously upsets the chess-board, or extinguishes the lights. But Julius, the one sole patriot of Rome, could find no advantage to his plans in darkness or in confusion. Honestly supported, he would have crushed the oligarchies of Rome by crushing in ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... agree with you. I still think it was the Prince, and I think besides this, that he dexterously managed to throw suspicion on the Lieutenant. Have they ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... appearance of energy which momentarily satisfies a public demand that something shall be done. It also afforded Canning the peg on which to hang a grievance, and dexterously to prolong discussion until the matter became stale in public interest. By the irrelevancy of the punishment to the crime, and by the intrusion of secondary matters into the complaint, the "Chesapeake" ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... was S. Cohn in his religious rigidity, and he could never understand that pietistic exercises in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was discovered reading 'The Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book, the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. Simon's breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would accept for the gabbling of these empty Oriental sounds, he had ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... at him with great fury; he hesitated a moment, then took out his sling, retreated back about a hundred yards, stooped for a couple of pebbles, of which there were plenty under his feet, and slung them both so dexterously at the animal, that each stone put out an eye, and lodged in the cavities which their removal had occasioned. He now got upon his back, and drove him into the sea; for the moment he lost his sight he lost also ferocity, and became as tame as possible: the sling was placed as a bridle in his ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... could move, Vic Burleigh leaped out from behind the cedars, and, picking up a sharp-edged bit of limestone, tipped his hand dexterously and sent it clean as a knife cut across the space. It struck the snake just below the head, half severing it from the body. Another leap and Burleigh had kicked the whole writhing mass—it would have measured five feet—off the stone ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the sugar. They were not quite so good a substitute as might have been desired, for they had a fashion of slipping dangerously over the plates, and then the hot sugar slipped and spread on the ice and had to be dexterously coaxed to settle down in one place and melt out a cool bed for itself, as it does easily enough in snow. But all this only added to the interest of the occasion. One sophomore cousin lost her cake of ice on the floor, and she showed more animation than she had in all the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... saw that by a little judicious holding back Falloden had dexterously isolated her both from his own group and hers. Mrs. Manson and Lady Laura were far ahead in the wide, moving crowd that filled the new-made walk across the Christ Church meadow; so were the Hoopers and the slender figure and dark head of ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... composed only of various species of fine moss. The colour of these mosses, resembling that of the bark of the tree on which the nest is built, proves that the bird intended it should not be easily discovered. In some nests, hair, wool, and rushes are dexterously interwoven. In some, all the parts are firmly fastened by a thread, which the bird makes of hemp, wool, hair, or more commonly of spiders' webs. Other birds, as for instance the blackbird and the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... coils of clay are thus added, the potter takes a small "spat," generally a piece of dried gourd skin, dips it into water, and proceeds to smooth out and make thin the clay coils. As quickly and dexterously as can be, her hands and the spat manipulate the vessel, until it has the desired shape. More coils of clay are then added, and the shaping continues until the vessel is complete. Now it is put out into the sun to dry, and when reasonably solid, it is ready for the painting ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... the desk received Henri's tray. Miss Fink regarded it with a cold and business-like stare. Henri whipped his napkin from under his left arm and began to remove covers, dexterously. Off came the first ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... prompt and efficient assistance in saving the floating wreckage. They were also supplied with their kind of raft, made of bundles of rushes tied together with willow twigs (see cut on page 30), which they handled dexterously. Such rafts were and are in use all the way from here to the gulf. By night the expedition was safe on the western bank, the mules having swum over, and the flock of sheep, being ferried in the boat. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... afternoon. Howat Penny consumed a long time dressing for the evening; and, in the end, irritably summoned Rudolph. "I can't get these damned studs in," he complained; "whatever do you suppose women use for starch now?" Rudolph dexterously fixed the emeralds, then held the black silk waistcoat. "And coats won't hang for a bawbee," he went on. "Gentlemen like Gary Dilkes used to go regularly to London, spring and fall, for their things. No doubt then about a man of breeding. You didn't ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as if in excess of amazement and indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor's grasp, growled forth a volley of horrid oaths, and retired into the house. Before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed into the parlour, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... that unaccommodating highmindedness, which, in more than one collision with Royalty, has proved him but an unfit adjunct to a Court. The reply to his refusal was, "Then I must get Sheridan to say something;"—and hence, it seems, was the origin of those few dexterously unmeaning compliments, with which the latter, when the motion of Alderman Newenham was withdrawn, endeavored, without in the least degree weakening the declaration of Mr. Fox, to restore that equilibrium of temper and self-esteem, which such a sacrifice of gallantry to expediency had ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... climbed up and easily got his lean little body through the opening. He dexterously caught the hen by the nape of the neck, as he had seen Aunt Cindy do, while Jimmy ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... that there," said the Captain, "you must make him a soldier, before you can tell which is lightest, head or heels. Howsomever, I'd lay ten pounds to a shilling, I could whisk him so dexterously over into the pool, that he should light plump upon his foretop and turn ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... from behind by the wall which he had so warily gained, he contented himself with parrying the blows hastily aimed at him, without attempting to retaliate. Few of the Romans, however accustomed to such desultory warfare, were then well and dexterously practised in the use of arms; and the science Adrian had acquired in the schools of the martial north, befriended him now, even against such odds. It is true, indeed, that the followers of Orsini did not share the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... enter by nomination after passing an examination designed to show that they are not 'crammed,' but the perversity of the examiners has always thwarted this excellent intention. That is like the admirable purpose of Cabinet Ministers, bent on reforming their different departments, but dexterously 'blocked' ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... its height by throwing the reflection of it far down in the nearer water. All the great composers have this same feeling about sustaining their vertical masses: you will constantly find Prout using the artifice most dexterously (see, for instance, the figure with the wheelbarrow under the great tower, in the sketch of St. Nicolas, at Prague, and the white group of figures under the tower in the sketch of Augsburg[256]); and Veronese, Titian, and Tintoret continually put their principal figures ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... struck her: to write a confidential letter to Mrs Kirkpatrick, giving her her version of Cynthia's 'unfortunate entanglement' and 'delicate sense of honour,' and hints of her entire indifference to all the masculine portion of the world, Mr Henderson being dexterously excluded from the category. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Meanwhile Chairman had dexterously put and run through supplementary vote for Excess of Expenditure; friends near him had got the catapultic Major down again, in time to hear Chairman declare "the Ayes have it!" Major up again. "Order! order!" shouted the Chairman. "Question: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... at last, and Mrs. Schofield dexterously elevated the handle of the spoon so that the brown liquor was deposited within ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... so much venom, that he seemed born with a scalping knife in his hand to commit murder as long as he lived! To him, censure was sweeter than praise; and the more elevated the rank, and respectable the character of his antagonist, the more dexterously he aimed his blows, and the more frequently he renewed his attacks. In consequence, scarcely one beautiful period, one passionate sentiment of the higher order, one elevated thought, or philosophical deduction, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... baseness and perfidy of the invaders. Not until his words were drowned by the loud crash of fiercely disrupturing timbers, and the sullen splash of the dark river, did his enemies hurl their showers of arrows and javelins. Then, dexterously warding off the missiles with his shield, he plunged into the Tiber. Although stabbed in the hip by a Tuscan spear which lamed him for life, he swam in safety ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... were they to stare at the marvels of that wondrous garment of sheeny satin, and soft, creamy gauze, sprinkled over with absolute works of art in the shape of wreaths of many-hued embroidered birds and flowers, with which the whole dress was cunningly and dexterously adorned. It was a masterpiece of the great Worth; rich without being gaudy, intricate without losing its general effect of colour, and, above all, utterly and absolutely inimitable by the hands of ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... enabled him to deal with authorities as he dealt with facts; if unprepared for an argument, he could find its links in the chaos of an index, and make an imposing show of learning out of a page of Harrison; and with the aid of the interruptions of the bench, which he could as dexterously provoke as parry, could find the right clue and conduct a luminous train of reasoning to a triumphant close. His most elaborate arguments, though not comparable in essence with those of his chief ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... says he will get you a seal cut better in Italy? he means a throat—that is the only thing they do dexterously. The Arts—all but Canova's, and Morghen's, and Ovid's (I don't mean poetry),—are as low as need be: look at the seal which I gave to William Bankes, and own it. How came George Bankes to quote 'English ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... surprised, considering the fierce struggle in the forecastle, at the superficiality of his hurts, and I pride myself that I dressed them dexterously. With the exception of several bad wounds, the rest were merely severe bruises and lacerations. The blow which he had received before going overboard had laid his scalp open several inches. This, under his direction, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a sweet smile in her soft, dark, shady eyes, and on her full lips, held the cup to his lips far more daintily and dexterously than either of his boy companions could have done; then when he moaned and said his head and eye pained him, the white-bearded elder came and bathed his brow with the soft sponge. It seemed all to pass before him like a dream, and it was not much otherwise with ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which have been wholly or partially "obliterated.....with a penknife or the employment of chymical agency" "are almost as numerous as those suffered to remain"; that, of the corrections allowed to stand, many have been "tampered with, touched up, or painted over, a modern character being dexterously altered, by touches of the pen, into a more antique form"; and that the margins are "covered with an infinite number of faint pencil-marks, in obedience to which the supposed old corrector has made his emendations"; and that these pencilled memorandums ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... was asked to tell of the old German customs at Christmas time, which he did in an interesting way. He told of the toymakers of Nuremberg and other cities, and how easily and dexterously they did their work. Then there were many humorous incidents of his own boyhood, which he remembered and told with such success, that he had the entire party roaring with laughter before ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... law established." The Bill was forced through the Lords by the bishops and the Cavalier party, and its passage through the Commons was only averted by a quarrel on privilege between the two Houses which Shaftesbury dexterously ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... active, and wears a string of red corals round her neck. The place is not frequented by plutocratic tourists, and so her tips are meagre. In spite of her long days and her slim perquisites, the girl is affable, smiling, and gay. She trips out and in, sylph-like, can carve fowls most dexterously by the light of nature, never spills the soup, and has a laughing and appropriate word for all. Mary, I hope, will get some decent fellow for husband, and be a stay and comfort to him all the days of his life. Meanwhile, however ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... repeated the baggage-master, spinning a trunk dexterously into rank with its fellows. "Say, one of Mr. Ferrall's men was here just now—there he is, over there ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... burnt sienna and indigo"—"for very dark foliage, ivory black and gamboge"—"for flesh-colour," etc. etc. John James went through her poor little course, but not so brilliantly as she expected. She was forced to own that several of her pupils' "pieces" were executed much more dexterously than Johnny Ridley's. Honeyman looked at the boy's drawings from time to time, and said, "Hm, ha!—very clever—a great deal of fancy, really." But Honeyman knew no more of the subject than a deaf and dumb man knows of music. He could talk the art cant ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and retained easily, because the exercise of his talents had always been quite in harmony with the natural flexion of his mind. In the conduct of public affairs, Philip never had a minister who more dexterously conformed reasons and actions of policy to the will, or prejudices, or passions of the sovereign. All the extravagance, and even towards so terrible an enemy as Alva, all the insolence of Perez, could ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... more nearly concerned them to humble our merchants than to succour our allies, and therefore admitted the Spaniards into Italy; by which prudent conduct they dexterously at once gratified the house of Bourbon, embarrassed the queen of Hungary, and endangered the effects of the British merchants, lying at Leghorn; effects which were lately valued at six hundred thousand pounds, but which, by the seasonable arrival of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... the large green bag in his hand, that a—well, though it did not seem to contain such goods, was supposed, for the nonce, to contain his books and papers; documents he was likely to have use for at the caucus! Rhapsody got through—it was a tight shave; he dexterously declined accompanying the ladies home—they were rather queerly attired themselves, it occurred to Rhapsody; they made some excuse for their appearance, and so the maskers quit, even. Time passed on—Alice and Rhapsody had almost climaxed the preparatory negotiations ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... troops, marching across the Plains, have been scattered and routed by an accidental charge of some such wild-eyed regiment. At certain intervals, la hierra, the branding, takes place; when drove after drove are dexterously compelled within the walls of the corral, and there marked with the initials or cipher of the proprietor. This is the great festival of the hatero, and he invites to it all his neighbors for scores of leagues around. The bellowing ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... rare fellow, 'of the driest humour and the nicest tact, of infinite sleights and evasions, of a picked phraseology, and the very soul of mimicry.' He had the mind of a harlequin; his wit was acrobatic, and threw somersaults. He took in a character at a glance, and threw a pun at you as dexterously as a fly-fisher casts his fly over a trout's nose. 'How finely,' says Hazlitt, in his best and heartiest mood; 'how finely, how truly, how gaily he took off the company at the "Southampton!" Poor and faint are my sketches compared to his! It was like looking into a camera-obscura—you ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... meditated another blow, which he aimed at that part of the breast where the heart is lodged; Joseph did not catch it as before, yet so prevented its aim that it fell directly on his nose, but with abated force. Joseph then, moving both fist and foot forwards at the same time, threw his head so dexterously into the stomach of the ravisher that he fell a lifeless lump on the field, where he lay many minutes ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Kick their shins. . . . Oh, Lord," groaned Johnny, dexterously whirling her about, "there's another coming. . . . Here's where we go. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... a shopping excursion down the river, our "hansom" being a long narrow sort of canoe, propelled and dexterously steered by four or five paddlers, whose mode of digging along by means of their heart-shaped blades reminded me not a little of the Kroo boys paddling a fish-canoe off Elmina ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... strange feats, those "mustard pots" walked down the steps of the primitive pier, lifted their feet over the boat's side most dexterously—as a lady in fine shoes might daintily cross some muddy road—and stood head and tail ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... aloft, and dancing a jig with a vigor that made it look as if his legs were shot out, and back and forth, by some high pressure engine. Now and then he flung his cap aloft, and, as it came down, ducked his head under and dexterously caught it. His mouth was puckered up most of the time, while he whistled with might and main, though the energy of his general movements shut out all resemblance to a tune. Occasionally he stopped whistling and broke into snatches of song which, from the same cause, ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... words had left her lips Hilary whisked herself dexterously out of the room, and slammed the door after her. Margaret heard her locking the door of the bedroom as she passed it on her way downstairs. Margaret's mixture of feelings at this treatment was so curious that at first she could neither laugh ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... in the nature of a solemn lecture by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to the President of the United States upon his faulty discharge of his official duties. Having eased his mind on this head, Marshall went on, very dexterously indeed, but also very palpably, to elude the consequences of his temerity. He continued: The right of property being established, and the violation of that right clear, it is plain that a wrong has been committed, and it only remains to determine whether that wrong can be redressed under this form ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... directly to the office of the coroner, and informing him of the sad affair, had proceeded to the drug-store in the village, with the view of having the wounds upon his face dressed. They were found to be of a very slight character, and a few pieces of court-plaster dexterously applied were all that seemed ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... round the western side, where they met, and rose in a burst of spray to a considerable height. Watching, however, for what the sailors termed a smooth, and catching a favourable opportunity, they rowed between the two seas dexterously, and made a successful landing ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... was but little frozen, and the snow made the roads more slippery than ever. But the rough-shod roan handled his feet dexterously and with a playful and somewhat self-righteous air, as though he said: "Didn't I do it handsomely that time?" Down slippery hills, through deep mud-holes covered with a slender film of ice he trod with perfect assurance. And then ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... When Mac had dexterously backed his machine out of its close quarters, and was threading his way with reckless skill through the crowded streets, he said softly, ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... women open their vanity bags and duck down for stealthy dabs at their noses. Others, more reverent, suffer the agony of augmenting shines. One, a trickster, has concealed powder in her pocket handkerchief, and applies it dexterously while pretending to blow ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... Ernest could be cool and sagacious in repairing what his imprudence or blindness had left to occur: that he must have enlightened his daughter as to her actual position, and was most dexterously and devilishly flattering her worldly good sense by letting it struggle and grow, instead of opposing her. His appreciation of her intellect was an idolatry; he really confided in it, I knew; and this reacted upon her. Did it? My hesitations ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
