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More "Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eight drops of essence of lemon, stirred in at the last. Spread it evenly with a broad knife, over the top of each queen-cake, ornamenting them, (while the icing is quite wet) with red and green nonpareils, or fine sugar-sand, dropped on, carefully, with the thumb and finger. ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... warm pressure on his hand tightened. His heart was making the maddest gladdest leaps, and timidly, with a feeling of historic daring, he ventured to explore with his thumb-tip the fine lines of the side of her hand.... It actually was he, sitting here with a princess, and he actually did feel the softness of her hand, he ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... work at that pitch, and the Company has powers. There are stages of unpleasantness in the work—stoppage of food—and a man or woman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking system in the Company's offices all over the world. Besides, who can leave the city poor? To go to Paris costs two Lions. And for insubordination there are the prisons—dark and miserable—out of sight below. There are prisons now for ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... though I could not for the life of me remember when the last one occurred. However, dreary as the weather may be, one cannot be dull when doing one's morning round of shopping in Pettybaw or Strathdee. I have only to give you thumb-nail sketches of our favourite tradespeople to convince ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unchallenged. But a vague desire for the emphasis and glamour of literature having brought in the word "mother," has yet failed to set the sluggish imagination to work, and a word so glowing with picture and vivid with sentiment is damped and dulled by the thumb-mark of besotted usage to mean no more than "cause" or "occasion." Only for the poet, perhaps, are words live winged things, flashing with colour and laden with scent; yet one poor spark of imagination might save them from this sad descent to ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; "as a matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil of a Jack Rutter. There's a fellow who does things by halves; he's only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him and us! He's under the thumb of a villainous money-lender; we are solvent citizens. He's taken to drink; we're as sober as we are solvent. His pals are beginning to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from the door. Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his thumb on you." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... and body, another the skirt and legs, while the third painted the bow. The head of this goddess was to the north, the bow extending over the structure. The colors used were made from ground pigments sprinkled on with the thumb and forefinger. Whenever a pinch of the dry paint was taken from the pieces of bark which served as paint cups, the artist breathed upon the hand before sprinkling the paint. This, however, had no religious significance, but was merely to clear the finger and thumb of any superfluous sand. The ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... wil frown as I passe by, & let the[m] take it as they list Sam. Nay, as they dare. I wil bite my Thumb at them, which is a disgrace to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or maybe said, "I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, "I will recant." Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: "Stop, I will admit anything ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... trust the chaps, would thee?" said Ben, speaking in the Hampshire dialect. "No, no; don't be doin' that. Measter Jackson may have spoken fair enough, but he knows that he's got his thumb on thee, an' can come down on thee when he loiks. Now, just listen to what I have got to say. I was going to look for thee. The Nancy is expected in before many days are over, an' she'll be sailing ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... see how much people will believe," she said, putting out her candle and snuffing it with her thumb and forefinger. Then she began to arrange the boxes she had brought, setting them in order upon the shelves. Still neither of the men answered her. But she was not the woman to be ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... owe thanks to you," he said, looking down meditatively at the carpet and twirling his watch-key between his finger and thumb. ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms, as in plate the first, where the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... yourself a man. He is fast asleep, but his noise must be stopped. I will stop his mouth, but at the very moment that I do so you must throw open the pan of his musket, and then he cannot fire it." "I will, O'Brien; don't fear me." We crept cautiously up to him, and O'Brien motioning to me to put my thumb upon the pan, I did so, and the moment that O'Brien put his hand upon the soldier's mouth, I threw open the pan. The fellow struggled, and snapped his lock as a signal, but of course without discharging his musket, and in a minute he was not only gagged but ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... triangular cabin under the cock-loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney- piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... read, that never hit 415 On him in Muses' deathless writ. He had a weapon keen and fierce, That through a bull-hide shield wou'd pierce, And cut it in a thousand pieces, 420 Tho' tougher than the Knight of Greece his, With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor Was comrade in the ten years war: For when the restless Greeks sat down So many years before Troy town, 425 And were renown'd, as HOMER writes, For well-soal'd boots no less than fights, They ow'd that glory ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... nothing about it, of course. They never think of lighting a candle and examining the walls. But if they had done so, they would have found on the white plaster a faint red spot, quite distinct, however, to trace in it the imprint of your thumb which you had pressed against the wall while it was wet with blood. Now, as you are well aware, under the Bertillon system, thumb-marks are one of the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... started on a hot-bed, in thumb-pots, or on inverted turf, or sods, cut in convenient pieces; and about the last of May, if the weather is warm and pleasant, transplanted to ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... modesty and timidity, and her gait must also be bashful and maidenly. Her long robe falls to her feet in simple folds, while Peitho holds hers up saucily, between her forefinger and thumb, as if stealthily dancing with triumph over her recent victory. Indeed the figure of Peitho would become ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... been sipping his wine. As Emily suddenly looked up and addressed him, he twirled the glass carelessly between his thumb and finger, remarking, as if this were the only feature of the story that at all impressed him, "A mole, did you say? ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever they get a chance, and store up the ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... main plateau before us is named Darwin Plateau, after the learned evolutionist. Take this plateau as a rude and misshapen hand, imagine the thumb and little finger gone, and it will be seen that the other three fingers radiate from Darwin Plateau in the shape of three irregularly contoured, but fairly level plateaus, Huethawali resting like a great wart upon the base of ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... schoolmate, holding a sovereign between his thumb and finger as fondly as though he had lived in Scotland all his life; "well," said he, "I ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... is willing to hear all that is to be said ere he commits himself by making an answer. To the further astonishment of all who were present, he forbore from his usual abrupt and violent gesticulations, remaining with the nail of his thumb pressed against his teeth, which was his favourite attitude when giving attention, and keeping his eyes bent on the ground, as if unwilling to betray the passion which ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... to make a friend out of the worst enemy your own brother's got; do you?" the bully sneered. "Well, why shouldn't I leave him here to suck his thumb all ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... baby, ordered the butler, on pain of instant dismissal, to bring a bottle of the strongest wine in the cellar, and affirming that he should have been well long ago if he had been let to have his own way, but she wanted to keep him weak in order that she might have him under her thumb—but, by the Lord Harry, he would have no more humbug—seized a glass in one hand and the bottle in the other, and never rested till he had drunk it dry. Alarming symptoms were the immediate result of this 'imprudence,' as she mildly termed it—symptoms which ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... out on misery, vacuity, waste Sands of Oleron and the ever-moaning brine. Ragged, sordid, hungry; wasted to shadows: eating their unclean ration on deck, circularly, in parties of a dozen, with finger and thumb; beating their scandalous clothes between two stones; choked in horrible miasmata, closed under hatches, seventy of them in a berth, through night; so that the 'aged Priest is found lying dead in the morning, in the attitude of prayer!' (Relation de ce qu'ont souffert pour la Religion ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... servant, bound to account for every blade of grass and every ear of corn, as I am, but free and independent mistress of the place, with the chance of being left a widow by and by, and having it all under your own thumb; what do you say ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... lumber-room after a set of old library steps, which I wanted to get repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... slashed up in the woods back of the Weston farm. It was only slightly injured; must have kicked the whatzit and got away, but the whatzit wasn't too badly hurt, because a few hours later, it hit that turkey-flock on the Rhymer farm. And last night, it did that." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Strawmyer farm. "See, following the ridges, working toward the southeast, avoiding open ground, killing only at night. Could be a bobcat, ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... in a dry, reticent, ultra-professional manner. "But I will go so far as to say that I do not think it is a case of shell-shock. If it is what I suspect, that first attack was the precursor of another, possibly a worse attack. Ha! it is commencing. Look at his thumb—that is ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... thing, is an added pleasure which I could not afford to spare. Oh, for the silence of marble courts, for the shadow of great pillars, for gold, for reticulated canopies of lilies; to see the great gladiators pass, to hear them cry the famous "Ave Caesar," to hold the thumb down, to see the blood flow, to fill the languid hours with the agonies of poisoned slaves! Oh, for excess, for crime! I would give many lives to save one sonnet by Baudelaire; for the hymn, "A la tres-chere, a la tres-belle, qui remplit ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... sixty. Hair dark, though not black. Eyes grayish green. Chief distinguishing marks are the green eyes, a broken nose—caused by being struck in the face by a baseball—and a patch of snow-white hair the size of a thumb ball, two inches above the left ear. Accustomed to having his own way, not at all considerate of others. Yet not a bad fellow as men go—merely a man spoiled by too much mothering in boyhood and by the fact that he never had ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... his brawny arm forth, with the fist clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, sometimes let the stopper slip through his fingers, and was sometimes ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... their information in the end amounted to"—the chief constable came to stand immediately in front of Tatham, lowering his voice—"was that the only person with a really serious motive for destroying Melrose, was"—he jerked his thumb in the direction of Faversham's sitting-room—"our friend! They claim—both of them—to have been spectators of the growing friction between the two men. Nash says that Melrose had spoken to him once or twice of revoking, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that Alston would approve anything that he did not believe was for her happiness," Father Orin went on after a brief silence. "But there may have been other inducements. With the judge's nephew under his thumb, he need not have much fear of the law or the court. That was the reason most generally assigned for his patronage of William Pressley in the first place, before there was any engagement between the young man and Ruth. But that will, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... his head to look at her, but he felt a dumb comfort in her presence. It was as if her position there beside him on the pillory made his humiliation less acute. He shifted the water pitcher, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder: ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... upon as of a dull and careless disposition, and to have little or no sense of virtue and honor; besides this, they were to give a good reason for what they said, and in as few words and as comprehensive as might be; he that failed of this, or answered not to the purpose, had his thumb bit by his master. Sometimes the Iren did this in the presence of the old men and magistrates, that they might see whether he punished them justly and in due measure or not; and when he did amiss, they would not reprove him before the boys, but, when they ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the Chinaman's presence. They found him sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth holding the thumb of his right hand. A brief examination revealed that a bullet had clipped off the end of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... from that away," answered the boy, pointing with his thumb toward Indian Head. "The doctor said you would know it was all right by this here," he added, unbuttoning his coat and taking out the doctor's well remembered cane. "An' he don't want none of the ladies ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... find that out myself," said the Colonel; "and I think I shall. When I get the first inch of the thread fast between my finger and thumb, it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little by little, tracing it this way and that, and up and down, and round about, until the whole clue is wound up on my thumb, and the end, and its secret, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... suicide of the steward's daughter was a pure romance. Who would have believed that the silent, dreamy lad had so much presence of mind, and such cunning powers of invention? The praetor's handsome face was radiant with satisfaction as he made these reflections, for now he had the Bithynian under his thumb, and now he knew how to accomplish all he wished. Antinous himself had indicated the right course when he had hastened to the Emperor with a gush of tenderness, in which the warmth was certainly not affected, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... might do, for lustier fighter and mightier dwarf never was. Thus, but for thy witch-like witcheries, the which, Witch, witch do prove thee, but for this and the power and potency of thy spells, now might he crack out thy life 'twixt finger and thumb—" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... become a large business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with catskins and other ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the boy's hand, his thumb pressing back of the second knuckle, his fingers on the palm. He twisted backward and upward gently. "There 's one that's better, though, and easier. See? Not that way," as the boy seized his hand. "Press here. That's right. Now you ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a character ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... jes what all occurred Next ten seconds—Nary word, But my heart jes drapt, stobbed thue, And whirlt over and come to.— Wrenched a big quart bottle from That fool-boy!—and cut my thumb On his little fiste-teeth—helt Him snug in one arm, and felt That-air little heart o' his Churn the blood o' Wigginses Into that old bead 'at spun Roun' her, spilt at Lexington! His k'niptions, like enough, He'pped ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... say an inch and a half high, in pencil. This small sketch should determine, first, the general balance of the page; second, the inter-relations and spacings of the various lines and words and their relative importance and sizes. From this thumb-nail sketch the design should be drawn out at full size in pencil, and much more carefully. In this redrawing the separate letter shapes and their harmonious relations to each other should be determined, and such deviations made from the smaller sketch as seem to benefit ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... degree that he might administer correction to his children. An early decision of one of our state courts interpreted this to mean that a man might whip his wife with a switch as large as his finger, but not larger than his thumb, without ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... window," said Heywood; and then to the white-haired doctor: "Your question's answered, padre. Strange, to come so quick." He jerked his thumb back toward the river. "And that's ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... office-boy returned, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the extreme end of the building, an extension, roofed with glass and separated by a glass screen from the space where the clerks ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... hand rest on the north pole of a magnet and the forefinger be extended in the direction of the lines of force, then the outstretched thumb will indicate the direction in which the wire or conductor moves and the bent middle finger the direction of the current. These three digits, as will be noticed, are all at right angles to each other, ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... worse to him—of effort misdirected, and of constant struggling against a system for which he was not fitted. In fact, Millet was an original genius, whereas the teachers at the School of Fine Arts were careful and methodical rule-of-thumb martinets. They wished to train Millet into the ordinary pattern, which he could not follow; and in the end, he left the school, and attached himself to the studio of Paul Delaroche, then the greatest ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... Emmy Lou failed to see was this: the little boy, in passing, deftly lifted a cherished curl between finger and thumb ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... a wheelbarrow from the gardener who cut their grass when it was cut, and when the tree was trimmed he and Phyllis carried it downstairs. The top branch with the star on it got banged against the banisters, and the side branch got into Guy's eye, and Phyllis's thumb got jammed between the pot and the banister rail. But what are trifles like these ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... have been working, and Mr. Forrest here pulled off one of the cleverest hits that's ever been made. He plastered a silo that stands out like a sore thumb on the landscape, and which every farmer within ten or twenty miles about will go ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... husband, as she called it. It did not follow because he was a butcher that he was to have butchering ideas for ever, or that he was to know nothing of 'literature,' as she termed it—that is, novels. Mr. Mumbles had read 'Puss in Boots,' 'Jack the Giant Killer,' 'Tom Thumb,' 'Jack and the Bean Stalk,' 'Whittington and his Cat,' and 'Mother Goose' in his childhood. In his boyhood he had gone through 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and 'The Seven Champions of Christendom,' and therefore ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... leads you down Petticoat Lane, there, on a Sabbath, to gather, for the week, from the dull rags of ages wherewith to bedeck yourselves? that, beneath your travestied awkwardness, we have trouble to find your own dainty selves? Oh, fie! Is the world, then, exhausted? and must we go back because the thumb of the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... him but his head and his hands and feet. And she sat him up on her knees, so as to fasten his things behind. And then it might have been observed that he was no longer breathing hard, but giving vent to a sound between a laugh and a cry, while sucking his thumb and gazing round ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... to me, means, Send my bonny brown hair, and send my beautiful complexion, and send my figure—and, O Lord! O Lord! what an old tigress that is! What an old Hector! How she do twist Milliken round her thumb! He's born to be bullied by women: and I remember him henpecked—let's see, ever since—ever since the time of that little gloveress at Woodstock, whose picter poor Mrs. M. made such a noise about when she found it in the lumber-room. ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on page 5 shows the best method of cracking walnuts to extract the kernel in halves without breaking. Grasp the nut between the thumb and forefinger at the seam, place on a hard surface of stone or iron and strike sharply with a light hammer only sufficient to crack the shell without crushing ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... him. He was looking at the terraced gardens in the rear of the Baroness's hotel, and whilst he looked Gertrude herself floated into sight. Some trifle of a lace mantilla was thrown over her head, and in her right hand she balanced a parasol daintily between thumb and finger. Her companion was a man apparently of middle age, frock-coated, silk-hatted, booted and gloved as if for Rotten Row. He bore himself with an air of distinction, and the looker-on saw ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... whom she made this remark, assented to it, at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently appropriated with great refinement of manner,—taking it between her thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get out and ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... is given to gambling, it would seem," the valet went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, and wants ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to chew on something of which more was bitten off than one can. Probably related to gnashing of teeth. See {bagbiter}. A hand gesture commonly accompanies this. To perform it, hold the four fingers together and place the thumb against their tips. Now open and close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much like what Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this pantomime seems to predate that). The gesture alone means 'chomp chomp' (see "{Verb Doubling}" in the "{Jargon Construction}" section ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... have been inherited, or are purchased from neighboring peoples. The men carve beads out of "Job's tears"[19] and make them into necklaces. For this purpose a peculiarly carved and decorated stick is employed (Plate XXVI). This is placed in the palm of the left hand so that the thumb and forefinger can hold the seed which fits into a depression in the top. A knife in the right hand of the artist is worked over the seed thus cutting a line into which dirt is rubbed. Women's combs are ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... behind, thumped in the bung while the foreman made his notes in a book, and in a few minutes a man or a woman came and rolled the barrel away. Those employed in the task wore strong leather gloves with no fingers—only a thumb, and so tarred they were absolutely hard, as also their boots from walking over the tarry ground. And yet all the faces were beautifully clean, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... this thumb broken beating a white man up. No, I'll tell the truth. He was beating me up and I thought he was going to kill me. It was when Benjamin Harrison had been elected President. I was in Sol Joe's saloon and I said, 'Hurrah ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... gathered at the station to see the man who had come back to get his sentence. They were a wild, uncouth-looking crowd from the adjacent farms. I could hear them ask, 'Where is he?' 'In there,' another would answer, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to our compartment. In threes and fours they would shuffle into our car and gaze with dull, stupid curiosity upon the prostrate man, as sheep gaze at a dead member of the flock. Dr. Scholtz, keen-eyed and watchful, stood on guard in the doorway. Platinum ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... proud head has always been above the waves. Old Diogenes, with his mantle upon him, stiff and trembling with age, caught a small animal bred upon people, went into the Pantheon, the temple of the gods, and took the animal upon his thumb nail, and, pressing it with the other, "he sacrificed Diogenes to all the gods." Just as good as anything! In every age some Diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. True genius never cowers, and there is always some Samson feeling for ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... him, sir," the soldier said, jerking his thumb at the sobbing man huddled against Norden. "He said his name was Orkins—Jim Orkins. He works in the warehouse. But you can't tell anything about the rest o' what he says. He just babbles, sir. Something about livin' ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... lightness with which it has to be handled is also much more like the handling of a brush than any other point drawing. When rubbed with the finger, it sheds a soft grey tone over the whole work. With a piece of bread pressed by thumb and finger into a pellet, high lights can be taken out with the precision of white chalk; or rubber can be used. Bread is, perhaps, the best, as it does not smudge the charcoal but lifts it readily off. When rubbed with the finger, the darks, of course, are lightened in tone. It is therefore useful ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... instrument. We never see such a thing now, and if a maker were to send forth his new violins in this manner or trim, he would be looked upon as eccentric. Nevertheless at one time it was universal. Probably the increased number of movements of the hand, and especially the thumb, to meet the requirements of more florid execution and in connection with the growth of the ability among players for performing much music on the higher positions or shifts, showed very soon how the coloured varnish looked patchy under wear. This fashion ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... he tapped his left hand with his right and jerked his head toward the man beside the saw. The twins walked around to where they could get a look at the workman's left hand. Then they understood. There was nothing left of the fingers but the stub of one, and the thumb! ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... through. So with electricity. Resistance, introduced in the electric circuit, controls the amount of current that flows. A wire as fine as a hair will permit only a small quantity to pass, under a given pressure. A wire as big as one's thumb will permit a correspondingly greater quantity to pass, the pressure remaining the same. The unit of electrical resistance is called the ohm—named after a man, as are all ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... waste so valuable a life as Remington's for the sake of a moral convention. Both comments point Mr Wells' expression of what he calls in this book "the essential antagonism ... in all human affairs ... between ideas and the established method—that is to say, between ideas and the rule of thumb." And he adds: "The world I hate is the rule-of-thumb world; the thing I and my kind exist for primarily is battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstruct it." This confession is so lucid and characteristic that I cannot improve upon it, and yet I see that it is a statement ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... embroidered upon a piece of toile ciree. If you work without this, place the material straight over the forefinger of the left hand; the material must never be held slantways. The three other fingers of the left hand hold the work; the thumb remains free to give the right position to each stitch. The work must always, if possible, lie so that the outline of the pattern is turned towards the person who works. For the sake of greater clearness one part of the following illustrations is given in larger size than nature. Preparing ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... robe embroidered in a chessboard pattern, and with a tunic pleated in horizontal rows; his right elbow is supported by the left hand, while the right is raised to a level with his eyes, his fist is clenched, and the thumb inserted between the first and second fingers in the customary ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one of the latter, the one on the right hand, was partly off, leaving the thumb and wrist bare. That hand held a small satchel, which the police opened, with a view to the possible identification of the deceased, but which was found to contain only a little loose silver, some smelling-salts, and a small empty bottle, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... two," said Polly, "but she punched the other in with her thumb; don't, boys," she said, aside, "you'll make her feel bad; do stop laughing. Now, how'll ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... from view as he bowed, one with the thumb tucked in the corner of his trousers pocket, ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... surprise. The moth cleared the opening, and with many wabblings and contortions climbed up the tree. He stared speechless with amazement as the moth crept around a limb and clung to the under side. There was a big pursy body, almost as large as his thumb, and of the very snowiest white that Freckles ever had seen. There was a band of delicate lavender across its forehead, and its feet were of the same colour; there were antlers, like tiny, straw-colored ferns, on its head, and from its shoulders hung the crumpled wet ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... echoed Tony; and his grandfather immediately took him on his knee and kissed him, at the same time, with many nods and winks, slyly pointing at the child's head with his thumb, in order that the housekeeper, otherwise deceived by the admirable manner in which he (Mr. Weller) had sustained his character, might not suppose that any other young gentleman was referred to, and might clearly understand that the boy of the watch-box was but an imaginary ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... clothes" off the line, when the special came puffing slowly into town. To emphasize her disapproval of the whole system of politics, she turned her back square toward it, and laid violent hold of a sheet. There was a smudge of cinders upon its white surface, and it crushed crisply under her thumb with the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... heads aged by many a year-tide, And, as their wont aye was, their hands plied labour unceasing. 310 Each in her left upheld with soft fleece clothed a distaff, Then did the right that drew forth thread with upturn of fingers Gently fashion the yarn which deftly twisted by thumb-ball Speeded the spindle poised by thread-whorl perfect of polish; Thus as the work was wrought, the lengths were trimmed wi' the fore-teeth, 315 While to their thin, dry lips stuck wool-flecks severed by biting, Which at the first outstood ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... turning down the thumb, as was done in the Circus, in sign that the gladiator had received a blow and was to ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... handsome private houses as in any of the worst hospitals, and from the same cause, viz., foul air. Yet nobody learnt the lesson. Nobody learnt anything at all from it. They went on thinking—thinking that the sufferer had scratched his thumb, or that it was singular that "all the servants" had "whitlows," or that something was "much about this year; there is always sickness in our house." This is a favourite mode of thought—leading not to inquire what is the uniform cause of these general "whitlows," but ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... appliances; nobody could travel faster by sea or by land than at any previous time in the world's history, and King George could send a message from London to York no faster than King John might have done. Metals were worked from their ores by immemorial rule of thumb, and the centre of the iron trade of these islands was still among the oak forests of Sussex. The utmost skill of our mechanicians did not get beyond the ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... rose to his feet, holding his right hand on a line with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger, and ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... out of uniform," he began. "You have been taken inside our lines." He pointed his forefinger at my stomach and wiggled his thumb. "And you ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... with the sharp eyes was holding something up between thumb and forefinger. It shone in the last rays of the setting sun, as they came into the cabin through a small window ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... Cy. A first night lets the critics get caught up in the excitement. And even if they go sick and thumb down 'Land' it won't stand against the top power voodoo job the publicity gang is saturating the public with. And bigger than all the critics is Jason Rowe. He's filled six thousand couches in there with the biggest voluntary celebrity turnout ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... had brought for him out of that 'beautiful garden.' On the 14th he received a visit from Duke John Frederick and Count Albert of Mansfeld upon their return from the Diet. The former brought him the signet ring, which, however, was too large even for his thumb; he remarked that lead, not gold, was fitting for him. He only wished he could see his other friends also escaped from Augsburg; and although the Duke was ready to take him away with him, he preferred to remain behind at Coburg, in order, as he wrote to Melancthon, to receive them ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... nightmare, a hopeless, horrid, frozen flight from the pursuit of Mr. Sidney Webb and myself, both of us short, inelegant men indeed, but for all that terribly resolute, indefatigable, incessant, to capture him, to drag him off to a mechanical Utopia and there to take his thumb-mark and his name, number him distinctly in indelible ink, dress him in an unbecoming uniform, and let him loose (under inspection) in a world of neat round lakes of blue lime water and vistas ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... to death, when a Rough Rider came to his assistance. There was only one thing to be done—to stop the bleeding till a surgeon came. A tourniquet could not be applied where the wound was. The Rough Rider put his thumb on the artery and held it there while he waited. The fighting drifted away over the hill. He followed his comrades with longing eyes till the last was lost to sight. His place was there, but if he abandoned ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... my words—I'll put my thumb upon you and yours yet. I say, mark them; for the day will come when you will remember them to ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... proper muscles, nerves, and vessels, is sometimes so perfect, that it escapes detection, unless the fingers are actually counted. Occasionally there are several supernumerary digits; but usually only one, making the total number six. This one may represent either a thumb or finger, being attached to the inner or outer margin of the hand. Generally, through the law of correlation, both hands and feet are similarly affected. I have tabulated the cases recorded in various works or privately communicated {13} to me, of forty-six persons with ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... mole under the child's right ear, shaped like a coffin, which is a bad sign; and a deep line just above the middle of the left thumb, meeting round about in the form of a noose, which is a worse," replied Mrs. Sheppard. "To be sure, it's not surprising the poor little thing should be so marked; for, when I lay in the women-felons' ward in Newgate, where he first saw the light, or at least such light as ever finds entrance into ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "I am sure I did not mean it to sound so. The idea came to me to put it that way when I spoke of the 'commanding officer being held responsible.' I'll tear it up, if you say so, and go and tell him the whole story instead." And she held it up between the thumb and forefinger of both hands as if to suit the act to ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... "spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand hearers"—small audiences, by the way, compared with the intelligent concourse recently assembled in the city of New York, to do honour to the Nuptials of General the Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about this stage of their spiritual education they may take the opportunity of believing in "letters from a distinguished gentleman of New York, in which the frequent appearance of the gentleman's deceased wife and of Dr. Franklin, to him ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... listening to the reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second edition of "The Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper, 'C' Company, Second Regiment K.V." The colonel, with his thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits down again to drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms and his hands are not what they were in the old days when his ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... manifested towards them. Most of them he gave out graciously; some of them grudgingly; a few of them with much reluctance; but all of them with injunctions to care, and special warnings against forcing the backs, crumpling or folding the leaves, and making thumb-marks. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... pride of one who had moved men like pawns across the checker-board of life and death. "The two cases afford no parallel. Ann and Terry have remained in the social stations to which they were born, while I—I stand outside all such ready-made, rule of thumb classifications. By sheer impetus of personality I have lifted myself out of the rut, so that not even you, with all your omniscience, dare prophesy how far I am going or where I ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... she's a gude example. She's a Gordon; and thae Gordon women cried the 'slogan' till their men's heads were a' on Carlisle gate or Temple Bar, and their lands a' under King George's thumb. But is she any wiser for the lesson? Not her. Women are born rebels; the 'powers that be' are always tyrants to ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... afterwards corrected his perspective, stage by stage, from the successively higher view-point of a Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, Financial Commissioner, and finally as Officiating Lieut.-Governor. No one could more appropriately undertake the task of an accurate and well-proportioned thumb-nail sketch of North-West India and, what is equally important to the earnest reader, no author could more obviously ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... was finally closed, Ned Corrigan, whom I had put to flight the preceding night, came up, and repeated the De Profundis, in very strange Latin, over the corpse. When this was finished, he got a jug of holy water, and after dipping his thumb in it, first made the sign of the cross upon his own forehead, and afterwards sprinkled it upon all present, giving my brother and myself an extra compliment, supposing, probably, that we stood most in need, of it. When this was over, he ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... to you that we are coming to be altogether too dependent on the President? That office will be ruined. Every one with a sore thumb has come into the habit of running to the President. This is all wrong, all wrong. He cannot do his job well now. And he is only nominally doing it, and only nominally has been doing it for years. But each month seems to add to his duties as arbiter of everything from ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... so readily. They saw something more beneath it, something much more to their liking. His patience only masked a keen, swift-moving, scheming brain, packed to the uttermost with a wonderful instinct for detection. He worked on no rule-of-thumb method as so many of his comrades did. He was the fortunate possessor of an imagination, and, long since, he had learned its value in his crusade ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... comparison is extent, and the unit of measure is now the division of the circle into three hundred and sixty parts, now the circumference of the terrestrial globe, now the average dimension of the human arm, hand, thumb, or foot. In economic science, we have said after Adam Smith, the point of view from which all values are compared is labor; as for the unit of measure, that adopted in France is the FRANC. It is incredible that so many sensible men should struggle for forty years against ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... of demagogues engaged in this propaganda. I could easily, to quote De Quincey's words, 'bray their fungous heads to powder with a lady's fan, and throttle them between heaven and earth with my finger and thumb.' But we want to know just how far their doctrines, or whatever they call their crack-brained fantasies, have taken root in the minds of the people, and what the minds are like, and what the outcome of it all is to be. If we go to the East End, and I don't see why we shouldn't, as ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... so the flower opened, and she could see that it was a real tulip. Within the flower, upon the green velvet stamens, sat a very delicate and graceful little maiden. She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small. A walnut-shell, elegantly polished, served her for a cradle; her bed was formed of blue violet-leaves, with a rose-leaf for a counterpane. Here she slept at night, but during the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... they were so brave, so loyal, so patient, so hopeful, so true to many of the best traditions of their race. One other feature of their system must be noted—the influence of their priests. Protestants would think them too much under the thumb of the priests. But, however this may have been, it can be said with truth that the church and the native soldiers, with all their faults, were the glory of Canada, while the government was nothing but its shame. The priests stood by their people like men, suffered hardship ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... in a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot seem ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... young man gave out a hymn, which the company genially sung. More speaking ensued: but the minister had it all to himself. He said—"Will any brother speak; now is the time; if you have anything to state utter it; lose no time, but say on." Never a brother spoke; eye-squeezing and thumb-turning, and deep introspection followed; and in the end the minister rose, took his text from three or four parts of the Bible, and gave a lengthy discourse, relieved at intervals with genuine outbursts of eloquence, relative to Christian action and general duty. ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... margins of walks can be formed of low-growing plants, such as the White Lobelia, Gypsophila, or Silvered Alyssum, for the front line, followed next by the Tom Thumb Tropaeolum; then as a centre, or third line, Fuchsia Golden Fleece; as a second margined-line on the other side, Silver-leaved Geraniums with scarlet flowers, followed by a line of ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... fellows through long use in grasping limbs and rocks. This is remarkable of the Marquesans; each toe in the old and industrious is often separated a half inch from the others, and I have seen the big toe opposed from the other four like a thumb. My neighbors picked up small things easily with their toes, and bent them back out of sight, like a fist, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... had been vaguely struck by the contemplative attitude of a mother toward her child. The reason why this attitude struck me even in the midst of my absorption in search of notes relative to the thumb, was, first, because this attitude was a contrast to that assumed by most of the nurses under the action of the same feeling; and, in the next place, it seemed to deny the contemplative forms which I had deduced from my first discovery, and which rested upon such motives as the following: ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... use of the pen. The remainder of the space was loaded with parchment upon parchment, deed upon deed, paper upon paper. Some, especially those underneath, had become dark and discoloured by time; the ink had changed to a dull red, and the imprint of many a thumb inferred how many years they had been in existence, and how long they had lain there as sad mementos of the law's delay. Others were fresh and clean, the japanned ink in strong contrast with the glossy parchment,—new cases of litigation, fresh as the hopes of those who had been persuaded ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... foot! is fast asleep! Thumb! thumb! thumb! in spittle we steep: Crosses three we make to ease us, Two for the thieves, and one ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... virtues and beauty of person, and is a sea of accomplishments. He deserveth not to be borne away by my emissaries. Therefore is it that I have come personally." Saying this, Yama by main force pulled out of the body of Satyavan, a person of the measure of the thumb, bound in noose and completely under subjection. And when Satyavan's life had thus been taken out, the body, deprived of breath, and shorn of lustre, and destitute of motion, became unsightly to behold. And binding Satyavan's vital essence, Yama proceeded in a southerly ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Gwendolen. The walls had begun to be an imprisonment, and while there was breath in this man he would have the mastery over her. His words had the power of thumb-screws and the cold touch of the rock. To resist was to act like a stupid animal unable ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... a few odd books which possess more than usually interesting features may be jotted down. Of these, "Little Thumb and the Ogre" (R. Dutton, 1788), with illustrations by William Blake, is easily first in interest, if not in other respects. Others include "The Cries of London" (1775), "Sindbad the Sailor" (Newbery, 1798), "Valentine and Orson" (Mary Rhynd, Clerkenwell, ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... of lead as big as my thumb, and pointed to a rent in his pantaloons, whence the drops rolled down ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the tendon passes through muscle than through interosseous membrane. The palmaris longus is anastomosed with the abductor pollicis longus (extensor ossis metacarpi pollicis), thus securing a fair amount of abduction of the thumb. The flexor carpi ulnaris may also be anastomosed with the common extensor of the fingers. The extensors of the wrist may be shortened, so as to place the hand in the position of dorsal flexion, and thus improve the attitude and grasp of ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... they advanced to Aegos Potami, over against their enemies, who were still stationed about Lampsacus. Amongst other Athenian captains who were now in command was Philocles, he who persuaded the people to pass a decree to cut off the right thumb of the captives in the war, that they should not be able to hold the spear, though they might ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the boss, rubbing his thumb over the certification which blurred at the touch. "He's no painter! Why, ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... sarcastic; only concerned with the terrors of judgment and damnation and the place of torment. That, also, may be a fierce and dark development of the Celtic strain, but I see more of the Norse spirit in it. When my ancient bard in Glen Rushen took down his thumb-marked, greasy, discoloured poems from the "lath" against the open-timbered ceiling, and read them aloud to me in his broad Manx dialect, with a sing-song of voice and a swinging motion of body, while the loud hailstorm pelted the window pane and the wind whistled round the house, ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... waited a moment, and gave her a boost at the elbow as she skipped up the step. I could have bitten myself. I was the person who should have helped her in. I was a lummox, a lunkhead, a lubber, a fool, a saphead—I was everything that was awkward and clumsy and thumb-hand-sided! To let an old married man get ahead of me in that way was a crime. I slouched down into the seat, and the judge drove off, after handing me a revolver. I ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... had been passing, and which had created a twilight atmosphere in the car, had given way to wide open fields, and the long corridor was flooded from end to end with glaring June sunlight. Robert Allison caught his breath with a start and dug his thumb-nail into the palm of his hand to make sure he was awake. For the illusion of a moment ago was not an illusion at all; she was a flesh and blood girl; she had left her shadowy foothold in the far end of the car and was coming down the aisle toward him. Spellbound, he waited as she approached, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... having only one point of contact with the object the fingers follow its contour. Various examples of the delicacy of the information thus obtainable are given. Following two straight lines with the thumb and index respectively, a blind man can acquire by practice a sensibility so complete as to enable him to detect ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth and striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb as he began his sentence; "I think," says he—but to enter rightly into my Uncle Toby's sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter just a little ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... able to get used to them; and there were two in particular that made her wince still as she had winced in the beginning. She had contracted the habit of wincing in response to them. Whenever Jimmy jerked his thumb over his shoulder you saw her blink; and whenever he cracked his knuckles she shrank back. The blink followed the jerk, and the shrinking followed the cracking as the flash follows the ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... indicate that some of the gypsum had remained unchanged. Before use the plaster is ground very fine. This point is of considerable practical importance. The consistency attained should be such that the material may be rubbed between the finger and thumb without any feeling of grittiness. Should there be particles of a size to be characterized as "grit," these will after use appear at the surface of the mould, with the result that the mould will have to be abandoned long before it is really worn out, i.e., before ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... that he sent me with a shilling, as he thought, to pay a hostler for the feeding of his horse; as I rubbed the money between my finger and thumb, I perceived that the white surface came off, and the piece looked yellow: I recollected that my master had the day before been showing some experiments with quicksilver and gold, and that he had covered a guinea with quicksilver: so I immediately took the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the hand bag, and I placed it on my lap and with my thumb slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad guide in the bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother to lock it, and the fact that it is strapped to me has always been sufficient protection. But I can appreciate now what a satisfaction, ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... neck and irons round his arms and legs, which cramped him up in an awful position, in which he was left for hours, until every bone ached as if it were red-hot. The thumbscrew was a little thing, but caused great agony. It was fixed on to anyone's thumb, and then made tighter and tighter, until sometimes the wretched victim fainted away. Another way that people were tortured was by being hung up by their thumbs, so that the whole weight of their bodies rested on the cords. In this position they ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... she leaves this in a few days for Mrs. Bazalgette's house. You tell me you have got a warm invitation there. Then make the play there, and, if you can't win her, say you don't deserve her, twiddle your thumb, and see a bolder lover carry her off. You foolish boy, she is only a woman; she is to be won. If you don't mind, some man will show you it was as easy as you think it is hard. Timid wooers make ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... nor ending, it is regarded as an emblem of eternity, constancy, and integrity. It is placed on the fourth finger of the woman's left hand, and the ancient ceremony of doing so was to place it first on the thumb at the Name of the first Person of the Trinity; on the next finger, at the Name of the Son; on the third at the Name of the Holy Ghost, and then on the fourth finger, and leaving it there at the word ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... not much accustomed to ladies' society," he answered evasively; "he's under his mother's thumb apparently, but he seems to please his sweetheart, ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... is a fat one, pick it up and rub the ball of your thumb across its backbone about an inch behind the base of the wings. If the backbone is felt clearly and distinctly ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... After the undertaker had taken charge of the body he found on the dead man's neck, just to the left of the chin, a dullish, black bruise which might have been caused by the pressing of some blunt instrument, or by a man's thumb. Considering it of much importance, he notified the coroner, who ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... in astonishment. Not a tree bigger than his thumb gave shade. The gate of the cattle corral stood but a few feet from the kitchen door, and rusty beef-bones, bleaching skulls, and scraps of sun-dried hides littered the ground or hung upon the fence. Exteriorly ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... giant alive and in good condition, as the animal men say. I believe we can get one for him, and—Ah, here he is now," and Mr. Damon interrupted himself as a small, dark-complexioned man, with a very black mustache, black eyes, a watch chain as big around as his thumb, a red vest, a large white hat, and a suit of large-sized checked clothes appeared at ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... some highly-coloured and unflattering pictures of the typical booksellers of the period. Tom Nash has limned for us a vivid little portrait in 'Pierce Penilesse' (1592), in which he declares that if he were to paint Sloth, 'I swear that I would draw it like a stationer that I know, with his thumb under his girdle, who, if ever a man come to his stall to ask him for a book, never stirs his head, or looks upon him, but stands stone still, and speaks not a word, only with his little finger points backward to his boy, who must be his ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... giant known as Long Lodin overheard him, and laughed noisily, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the deck where Leif's eagle face showed high above ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... COMMON comforts!...To omit Pipe-panegyric and tobacco-praise, Think what a general joy the snuff-box gives, Europe, and far above Pizarro's name Write Raleigh in thy records of renown! Him let the school-boy bless if he behold His master's box produced, for when he sees The thumb and finger of authority Stuffed up the nostrils: when hat, head, and wig Shake all; when on the waistcoat black, brown dust, From the oft-reiterated pinch profuse Profusely scattered, lodges in its folds, And part on the magistral table ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the arm, I whispered to Tars Tarkas to follow me. Quickly we glided toward a small flier which lay furthest from the battling warriors. Another instant found us huddled on the tiny deck. My hand was on the starting lever. I pressed my thumb upon the button which controls the ray of repulsion, that splendid discovery of the Martians which permits them to navigate the thin atmosphere of their planet in huge ships that dwarf the dreadnoughts of our earthly ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thumb and finger with a sweeping motion. A piece of cloth or paper may be held in the hand if the fingers become tender. Do not make small dents in the wire in attempting to straighten it, as it will be impossible ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... nobody could travel faster by sea or by land than at any previous time in the world's history, and King George could send a message from London to York no faster than King John might have done. Metals were worked from their ores by immemorial rule of thumb, and the centre of the iron trade of these islands was still among the oak forests of Sussex. The utmost skill of our mechanicians did not get beyond the production of ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... accounts it would be easy to reckon them; but seriously, is it true that the lower joint of your right thumb is horny, in consequence of having caught the character of your conscience from ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... from off the inlet.' So I runs one way, and Shattuck the other. The night was dark as pitch, and the storm drivin' like hell. And we was both right, for there was two vessels—a coast-schooner down by Squan, where I goes, and this big ship, the John Minturn, just here," pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the beach ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... animal has been properly secured,—which is done by an assistant's holding the nose with one hand, and one of the horns with the other,—the operator draws the skin tight over the windpipe with the thumb and fingers of his left hand; then, with the scalpel in his right, cuts through the skin, making an incision about three inches long, dissecting up the skin on each side, which brings the trachea, or windpipe, in full view. He then cuts out a piece of the ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... Hallowell is severely wounded in the groin; Adjutant James has a wound from a grape-shot in his ankle, and a flesh-wound in his side from a glancing ball or piece of shell. Captain Pope has had a musket-ball extracted from his shoulder. Captain Appleton is wounded in the thumb, and also has a contusion on his right breast from a hand-grenade. Captain Willard has a wound in the leg, and is doing well. Captain Jones was wounded in the right shoulder. The ball went through and he is doing well. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... however simple it may seem to be. She liked that reserve, most alluring in a Southerner, the straightforwardness of that judgment, entirely free from artistic or worldly formulas and enlivened by a touch of local accent. It was a change for her from the zigzag movement of the thumb, drawing flattery in outline with the gestures of a studio fag, from the congratulations of comrades on the way in which she silenced some poor fellow, and from the affected admiration, the "chawming—veay pretty," with which the young dandies honored ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... way with me, don't you? I'll probably have to marry you one of these days, so I can keep the upper hand," he grinned. "Well, then, Wiley is a weak sister and oughtn't to be. He's completely under his chorus-girl wife's thumb. He lost a good bit in Wall Street and what's left is in her name, so he's got to watch his step until ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... a scrubbing-brush with two good fingers and the stumps of two others even if both joints of the thumb are gone, but it takes considerable practice to ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... or heavily-muscled subjects it may be necessary to use both hands to get sufficient grasp of the muscles. The tibialis anticus and muscles of the outer side of the leg are operated upon by rolling them under the finger-tips and by pressing with the thumb while firmly pushing upward from the ankle to the knee. At brief intervals the manipulator seizes the limb in both hands and lightly runs the grasp upward, so as to favor the flow of the venous blood-currents, and then returns to the kneading of the muscles,—and ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... sheepishly at each other before saying good-night. The parting salutation given, the grieve would still have stood his ground, and Bell would have waited with him. At last, "Will ye hae's, Bell?" would have dropped from his half-reluctant lips; and Bell would have mumbled, "Ay," with her thumb in her mouth. "Guid nicht to ye, Bell," would be the next remark—"Guid nicht to ye, Jeames," the answer; the humble door would close softly, and Bell and her lad would have been engaged. But, as it was, their attachment never got beyond the silhouette stage, from which, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... in a cell at Bow Street to await his appearance before the stipendiary on the following day, but an hour later when the warder went to him he found him dead. Upon the thumb of his left hand ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... swept the strings harshly with his thumb. "The clash will come, Don Andres, whether you like it or not," he said. "This morning I saw one more unasked tenant on your meadow, near the grove of alders. What they call a 'prairie schooner.' A big, red-topped hombre, and his woman—gringos of the class I despise; which includes"—again ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... had served to convict important ecclesiastical and political offenders were abolished. No more irregular financial expedients, such as the imposition of ship-money, were to be adopted, except by the consent of Parliament. As if this were not enough to put the king under the thumb of his Parliament, the royal prerogative of dissolving that body was abrogated, and meetings at least every three years were provided for by a ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... instant she might shift into another equally as happy. Her eyes wandered from one object to another with the absence of concentration of one whose mind is not fixed upon any thing in particular. From the letter between the professor's finger and thumb, they traveled upward to his thoughtful countenance; thence took a leap to the decrepit water-spout which depended weakly from the corner of the balcony-roof, and thence again ascended to a great, solid, white cloud, with turreted outline clear against the blue, which was slowly sliding ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... with a cigar between his fingers, blew the smoke out of the mouth which but a few hours before was uttering a supplication to the Most High to make us all good, punched a thin elder in the ribs with his thumb and said: "Jim, do you remember the time we carried the cow and calf up into the recitation room?" For a moment "Jim" was inclined to stand on his dignity, and he looked pained, until they all began to laugh, when he ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... simple, uncrowded opportunities for these; suppose women would say, "No; I will not blaze at Newport, or run through Europe dropping American eagles or English sovereigns after me like the trail of a comet, or the crumbs that Hop-'o-my-thumb let fall from his pocket that the people at home might track the way he had gone; because if I have money, there is better work to be done with it; and I will not have the money that is made by ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... rogue to it." As more and more evidence came out showing how deeply involved Payne was in the Montgomery Plot, the Scottish Privy Council finally was prevailed upon to put Payne to the torture. On Dec. 10, 1690, he bore the pain of two hours under thumb and leg screws with such fortitude that some of the Councilors were "brangled" and believed that his denials must be the words of an honest man. The Earl of Crawford, one of the witnesses to this, the last occasion in Britain ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... ago the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator. Today democracy is ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... stopped to see what it was. Now, the stamp and the letter could hardly have come together without hands, for they lay a yard apart, and here, also, on the unwritten portion of the page, was the mark of a small green thumb. Jill had been winding wool for a stripe in her new afghan, and the green ball lay on her sofa. These signs suggested and confirmed what Mrs. Minot did not want to believe; so did the voice, attitude, and air of Jill, all very unlike ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... these are no longer than the adjacent incisors or premolars, the whole forming a perfectly even series. In apes the arms are proportionately much longer than in man, while the thighs are much shorter. No ape stands really erect, a posture which is natural in man. The thumb is proportionately larger in man, and more perfectly opposable than in that of any ape. The foot of man differs largely from that of all apes, in the horizontal sole, the projecting heel, the short toes, and the powerful ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... who lethargically jerked a thumb over his shoulder. They elbowed their way across the room, Miss Hitchcock rather ostentatiously drawing up her skirts and threading her way among the pools of the dirty floor. The occupants of the bar-room, however, gave the strangers only slight ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... protecting and nursing them. As the leaves develop, these membranous wrappings curl back, and finally wither and fall. In the plane-tree, or sycamore, this inner wrapping of the bud is a little pelisse of soft yellow or tawny fur. When it is cast off, it is the size of one's thumb nail, and suggests the delicate skin of some golden-haired mole. The young sycamore balls lay aside their fur wrappings early in May. The flower tassels of the European maple, too, come packed in a slightly furry covering. The long and fleshy inner scales that enfold ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... find herself afore the Shirra', and that I was no going to abet any such proceedings. I further informed her, sir, of my candid opinion of Simon Rattar, and I said plainly that he was probably meaning to marry her and get the estate under his thumb, and these were the kind o' tricks rascally lawyers ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... he—" Meighan stopped suddenly. He had been pulling the mattress away from the front of the safe, and now, with a sharp, exultant exclamation, he stooped quickly and picked up a small object from the floor. He held it out, twirling It between thumb and forefinger, for Kenleigh's inspection—a flashy scarf pin, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... hard words break no bones, else two or three gentlemen of literary notoriety would be in a sorry plight after reading the following passage in a recent Magazine. We stand by, and like the fellow in the play, bite our thumb:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... discomfited adventurer at a distance, who, leaving the town, went slowly on, carrying his dilapidated piece of furniture, till coming to an old wall by the roadside, he placed it on the ground, and sat down, seemingly in deep despondency, holding his thumb to his mouth. Going nearly up to him, I stood still, whereupon he looked up, and perceiving I was looking steadfastly at him, he said, in an angry tone, 'Arrah! what for are you staring at me so? By my shoul, I think you are one of the thaives who are after robbing ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... sky, blurred like greasy silver. The wind roamed moaning among the tops of the tall cypresses, set close together to protect the meadows from one of "the three plagues of Provence." And even as the mistral tweaked our noses with a chilly thumb and finger, our eyes caught sight of the second and more dreaded plague: the deceitfully gentle-seeming Durance, which in its rage can come tearing down from the Alps with the roar ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... of my three longest fingers, my thumb and little finger not having been ordained by nature to meet the cordial grasp of men of this stamp, and having repeated his good-bye, he stalked out of the room in conscious ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... of probabilities is applied in the case of the identification of persons "wanted" by the police. For example, the official description of an absconding forger runs as follows:—"He has a habit of rubbing his right thumb against the middle finger as if turning a ring. He frequently strokes his right eyebrow with right forefinger when engaged in writing; when perplexed, he bites his lower lip and clenches and unclenches ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... John Harper Drennen had had his eyes opened. He went to Frayne and Frayne laughed at him. He went higher up and found that the nominal president was under Frayne's thumb. ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... shorter of the two bones of the forearm, and is on the same side as the thumb. Its slender, upper end articulates with the ulna and humerus; its lower end is enlarged and gives attachment in part to the bones of the wrist. This bone radiates or turns on the ulna, carrying ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... true? can I believe it?—first the wife of the best, the most perfect, being that ever breathed, his love and unbounded confidence in me, his immense fortune so honourably acquired by his own industry, all at my command, ... and now the wife of a Duke. You must write my life; the History of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and Goody Two Shoes, will sink compared with my true history written by the Author of Waverley; and that you may do it well I have sent you an inkstand. Pray give it a place on your table in kind remembrance of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... afternoon and picked nearly a peck of blackberries. Berries of various kinds are very abundant. The fox-grape is also found in great plenty, and as big as one's thumb. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... old man, but there was a very different note in his voice from the flabby sympathy of the other men. He put out his pipe with a horny thumb, and gave a rather contemptuous look round the lounging group of longshoremen. "Royal Navy" was written all over him—in his keen eyes, his upright carriage, and his kindly, respectful manner. At the confidence in ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... sledge with him. By the time they had brought its burden into the cabin a fire was roaring in the stove, and Mukoki had hung a lighted lantern over the table. Then Father Roland seized an axe, tested its keen edge with his thumb, and said to David: "Let's go cut our beds before it's too dark." Cut their beds! But the Missioner's broad back was disappearing through the door in a very purposeful way, and David caught up a second ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the ceremonies lasting seven days, recurred to his mind. After ablution and the anointing with oil, the holocaust of victims began. Flesh sputtered on the walls, mingling the black stench of burnt fat with the blue vapour of incense; the Patriarch anointed the right ear and thumb and foot of Aaron and his sons with blood; then, taking up the flesh of the sacrifice, he placed them in the hands of the new-made priests, who rocked first on one foot and then on the other, thus waving the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the Moss-women sit in the middle of those trees upon which the woodcutter has placed a cross, indicating that they are to be hewn, thereby making sure of their safety. Then, again, there is the old legend which tells how Brandan met a man on the sea,[12] who was, "a thumb long, and floated on a leaf, holding a little bowl in his right hand and a pointer in his left; the pointer he kept dipping into the sea and letting water drop from it into the bowl; when the bowl was full, he emptied it out and began filling it again, his doom consisting in measuring the sea until ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... tried one day to have him freed from vermin, and held his head myself, so that the servant who was doing it should not be frightened. Although the dog had learned to trust me thoroughly, he snapped at me once involuntarily and bit me—apparently very slightly—in the upper joint of my right-hand thumb. There was no wound visible, but it was soon evident that the periosteum had become inflamed from the contusion. As the pain increased more and more with the use of the thumb, I was ordered to do no writing ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... put in the cowboy who appeared to know him, and suiting act to word he placed his thumb to his nose and twiddled his finger. "Do that, Pan. That'll shore ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... "Proverbs," 1869, p. 271.] Properly super ungulum, referring to knocking the jack on the thumb-nail, to show that the drinker had drained it. Ben Jonson uses it in his "Case is Altered:" "I confess Cupid's carouse; he plays super nagulum with my liquor of life."—Act ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... carried off by devils to the infernal regions. He had really died of spontaneous combustion, which fact gave rise to such a fabulous story. Her father was a weak-minded man, and her mother, a woman of uncommon energy, had him completely under her thumb. Of his uncles, one had gone melancholy mad; another distinguished himself in mathematics, but he was so eccentric that his curious ways were retailed as amusing anecdotes in Lancia; and another retired to the country, married a ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... retorted Peter, "to make a name for herself and to be able to afford a cab. Don't you bully me!" Peter sniffed self-assertiveness from between his thumb and finger. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... fellow mean? The deuce of it was that he knew all the facts and Wally did not. He talked as if he meant it, but behind those cool eyes there might lie either mockery or irony. One thing alone stood out to Selfridge like a sore thumb. His plans had come tumbling down like a house of cards. Either Big Bill had blundered amazingly, or he had played traitor. In either case Wally could guess pretty shrewdly whose hide Macdonald would tan for ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... running-board of the trolley car and rolled down a six-foot embankment. Fortunately the accident occurred on a curve and the car was running slowly. Still more fortunately, perhaps, Peters was a rotund youth well padded with flesh and he sustained no injuries beyond a sprained thumb. By the time the car had been stopped and hurried back to the rescue Peters was climbing a trifle indignantly up the bank. For the rest of the way he amused himself and others within hearing by estimating the amount of damages he could collect from ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... resumed Dan, stooping to gaze earnestly into the man's face, and placing the thumb of his right hand into the palm of his left, by way of emphasising his remark, "Hookum daddy, saringo spolli-jaker tooraloo be japers bang falairo—och!" he added, turning away with a look of disgust, "he don't understand a ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... a great scold, and fault-finder, and often took me to task about my short-comings; but herein, he was not alone; for every one had a finger, or a thumb, and sometimes both hands, in ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to the car brought up against the scaffolding) Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan's car ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... pounders, coming close to the postilion, and pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. "Who ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... "Not so different, after all." He ripped it open ruthlessly with his thumb. "Here's where I get set back a few dollars starting another domestic plant. Blamed if it's ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... genius of the first order. As it is, he lived on the slope of greatness and could not be steadfast and calm. His life was one long agony of self-assertion. Poor, poor Haydon! See how the world treats those who try too openly for its gratitude! 'Tom Thumb for ever' over the heads ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... from Velazquez, passing by his marvellous portraits of kings and dwarfs, saints and poodles,—among whom there is a dwarf of two centuries ago, who is too like Tom Thumb to serve for his twin brother,—and a portrait of Aesop, which is a flash of intuition, an epitome of all the fables. Before leaving the Spaniards we must look at the most pleasing of all Ribera's works,—the Ladder-Dream of Jacob. The patriarch ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... and recreation of this great man.[l] I was further informed, that there are four such great men in the kingdom of Mangi. It is reckoned a great mark of dignity, among the great men of this country, to have their nails of great length; more especially their thumb nails, which are sometimes of sufficient length to be wrapped round the hand. The beauty, and even the rank of their women is supposed to consist in the smallness of their feet; for which reason, mothers bind up the feet of their daughters when young, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... tell by the trail, how long since persons have passed, the number of the party, as well as the number of animals. An Indian, when he makes a fire, uses half a dozen little sticks as big as your thumb, and very dry, and all the smoke the fire makes, will ascend straight up in one steady column. The white man will use, if he is a novice, the dry to kindle with, and then he will chuck on the wet wood, which will cause ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... my act, I thrust the blunt-sharp end of my squid-stick into the side of the shark, much as one would attract a passing acquaintance with a thumb-nudge in the ribs. And the man-eater turned on me. You know the South Seas, and you know that the tiger shark, like the bald-face grizzly of Alaska, never gives trail. The combat, fathoms deep under the sea, was on—if by combat may be named ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... slowly up to the old chief's shelter and dropping down beside him, lighted a cigarette. Charley, sitting on a rock at a little distance, chin in hand, arm on knee, shivered slightly in the broiling sun. Roger, who had learned much about Indians from Qui-tha, jerked his thumb at Charley. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... him to think to what a companion he had sunk. How happy they would be! Of course the world would censure him if it knew, but the world was stupid and prosaic, and measured all things by its coarse rule of thumb. It was the best thing that could happen to Mary Ann—the best thing in the world. And then the world ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... dry. The blinds and sills were the only things they had touched up on that front, it seems, and nothing on the sides. Now, on the fresh paint of the colonel's slats are the new imprints of masculine thumb and fingers, and on the sill of the hall window is a footprint that I know ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... became more communicative. Horrocks had not come to arrest anybody. "I see," he went on, gazing out across the prairie, "this is not a warrant business, eh? Guess Gautier is back there," with a jerk of a thumb in a vague direction behind him. "He's in his shack. Gautier's just ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the conventional type of men colloquially described as "well groomed." That the restaurant, and its people, were an old story to him, was apparent by the nods he exchanged and the familiar greeting he gave the waiter. After he had decided on the order, he proceeded to give John thumb-nail biographies of some of the most conspicuous ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... this spruce-tea route four times a day, and there are eighty of you to be dosed each time," Smoke informed Laura Sibley. "So we've no time to fool. Will you take it or must I hold your nose?" His thumb and forefinger hovered eloquently above her. "It's vegetable, so you needn't ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... land-measure of Egypt and Syria reduced from acre 1.1 to less than one acre. It is divided into twenty-four Kirats (carats) and consists or consisted of 333 Kasabah (rods), each of these being 22-24 Kabzahs (fists with the thumb erect about 6 1/2 inches). In old Algiers the Faddan was called "Zuijah" ( a pair, i.e. of oxen) according to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the inevitable issue; Marseillese and all France, on this side; granite Swiss on that? The pantomime grows hotter and hotter; Marseillese sabres flourishing by way of action; the Swiss brow also clouding itself, the Swiss thumb bringing its firelock to the cock. And hark! high-thundering above all the din, three Marseillese cannon from the Carrousel, pointed by a gunner of bad aim, come rattling over the roofs! Ye Swiss, therefore: Fire! The Swiss fire; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and balanced it, and squinted along it; he rubbed it with his thumb, he rested one end of it on the floor ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... when, to use her expression, I was fairly caught, would be to me the prelude of intense sufferings, a real way of the Cross and of an illness of which I should never be cured. Then, as she examined my line of life, that which surrounds the thick part of the thumb, the lady in black suddenly grew gloomy, frowned and appeared to hesitate to go on to the end and continue my horoscope, and said ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... about growing trees for a nut crop, but we seem to have something in common in growing trees both for nuts and timber. Just a lot of it is "horse sense", with a few rules of thumb based upon scientific principles. You must give the crop trees space, give them plenty of room to grow. In the woods they start to grow in a dense undergrowth. The young trees soon reach a height where they begin to dominate their neighbors. There you pick the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... put up his hand and stopped him. 'I'm not going to stand this kind of thing,' he said. The old Marquis of Auld Reekie was close at hand, the father of Lord Nidderdale, and therefore the proposed father-in-law of Melmotte's daughter, and he poked his thumb heavily into Lord Alfred's ribs. 'It is generally understood, I believe,' continued Melmotte, 'that the Emperor is to do me the honour of dining at my poor house on Monday. He don't dine there unless I'm made acquainted ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... I said. Whereupon the man chucked it to the ceiling with his thumb, caught it as it fell, and with a well- satisfied air, dropped it into the recesses of his pocket. The air of the Greenes was also well satisfied, for they felt that they had paid me in full for all ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... farm hands laughed and pointed with his thumb to the waiting-room. Uncle Jimpson tiptoed to the window and peered in. All that he could see was the back of a very imposing lady and the top of ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... eye-teeth now," said Gladding. "Holden's as safe as you or me. And, Prime," he added, rising, and, as he took leave, making a peculiar gesture with the thumb of his right hand touching the end of his nose, and his fingers twinkling in the air, "you're too old a fox to need teaching, but it will do no harm to say I advise you to keep as ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... description), it will be tried by its peers next session in Grub Street. Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, * * *, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... United States. The capitalistic system is to be destroyed. The institution of private property is to be abolished. Free competition and private initiative are to be abolished or greatly restricted. All business is to be under the thumb of the government. Personal liberty is to be narrowed down. Some socialists even go so far as to declare war upon the family and the church, but though a number of socialist leaders favor the abolition of the institution of marriage, and are professed ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... a new direction. Going at so swift a pace, and in such a dim light, in a few bounds it enters among some bushes, where it is brought up standing. Before its rider can extricate it, a strong hand has hold of it by the head, with a thumb inserted into its nostrils, while the fingers of another are clutching at his own throat. The hand on the horse's muzzle is that of Caspar the gaucho, the fingers that grope to get a gripe on the rider's neck being those ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... so overcome with the heat, that he had fallen asleep. He awoke with a shivering sensation of cold over his whole body, particularly at his chest, and, half-opening his eyes, he perceived the pilot, Schriften, leaning over him, and holding between his finger and his thumb a portion of the chain which had not been concealed, and to which was attached the sacred relic. Philip closed them again, to ascertain what were the man's intentions: he found that he gradually dragged out ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... disappeared, murmuring something about Anglais, milords, and droles. The precise purport of his reflections could not be distinctly understood by those in the house, for civility made him inarticulate, but when he was safely outside he looked at a piece of crisp paper in his hand, then, with his thumb pointing over his shoulder, he gave an immense shrug, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... darning-needle; "no, but high-minded! There were five brothers, all descendants of the 'Finger' family. They always kept together, although they were of different lengths. The outermost one, little Thumb, was short and stout; he went at the side, a little in front of the ranks: he had, too, but one joint in his back, so that he could only make one bow; but he said, if a man were to cut him off, such a one were no longer fit for military service. Sweet-tooth, the second finger, ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... experiment to represent the way in which a person's neck is broken. Bring the ends of the left thumb and the left second finger together in the form of a ring. Place a piece of a wooden toothpick across it from the middle of the finger to the middle of the thumb. Put the right forefinger of the other hand up through the front part to represent the odontoid process of the axis, and place ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... nor after either. "Rab!" he said roughly, and pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leapt up, and settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, ye'll wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, thundering down-stairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window; there ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... "Now, Henry, you be ready to clap your thumb over the hole, as soon as I take the flower away, or ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes I could tell you all those stories, not to say the names ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... as she called it. It did not follow because he was a butcher that he was to have butchering ideas for ever, or that he was to know nothing of 'literature,' as she termed it—that is, novels. Mr. Mumbles had read 'Puss in Boots,' 'Jack the Giant Killer,' 'Tom Thumb,' 'Jack and the Bean Stalk,' 'Whittington and his Cat,' and 'Mother Goose' in his childhood. In his boyhood he had gone through 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and 'The Seven Champions of Christendom,' ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... he, "Brother, if I were a judge, and you had been brought before me upon any charge which would render necessary such questions as those I have put to you, the reply you have given would oblige me to apply the thumb-screw. It is nothing to me who you are, what is your name, or whither you are going: I only warn you, that if it suits your convenience to lie on this journey, you should lie with more appearance of truth. You say you are going to La Pena de Francia, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... again turned faint, so faint indeed that he did not dare to keep his feet, but sank into a sitting posture, resting his back against the stone of the idol's thumb. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... what your protectors wanted you to be. So they took you by the shoulder, they led you to the door, and cried: "Be off, rascal; never appear more. He would fain have sense, reason, wit, I declare! Off with you; we have all these qualities and to spare!" You went away biting your thumb; it was your infernal tongue, that you ought to have bitten before all this. For not bethinking you of that, here you are in the gutter without a farthing, or a place to lay your head. You were well ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... bones of our bodies, by the seeds of the million years that flow in our veins, material things are spiritually discerned. There is not science enough nor scientific method enough in the schools of all Christendom for a man to listen intelligently to his own breathing with, or to know his own thumb-nail. Is not his own heart thundering the infinite through him—beating the eternal against his sides—even while he speaks? And does he not ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... second speech, almost as miraculous as the first. You remember the astonishment and incredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the Spanish Soldier who was guarding him scratch Dios on his thumb-nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle was possible. If Odin brought Letters among his people, he might ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the tramp, in a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot seem all the blacker ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... the sharp—it was sung so at the Salzburg opera. The Portier snapped his thumb at the Salzburg opera. Things were looking serious; they walked back to the locale in silence. The sentry coughed. Possibly there was something, after all, in the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that he thought he was perhaps not quite wise in his decision, and this he did sotto voce. But even with this precaution it was not safe to say much, and during the little that he did say, the bishop made a very slight, but still a very ominous gesture with his thumb towards the door which opened from his dressing-room to some inner sanctuary. Mr Slope at once took the hint and said no more; but he perceived that there was to be confidence between him and his patron, that the league desired by him was to be made, and that this ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was tested whenever there was doubt.[4] In countries industrially backward, payments are still made in this manner. For some time after the discovery of gold in California, gold dust was roughly measured out on the thumb-nail. In shipments of gold to-day by bankers to settle international balances, metal may be in the form of bars that bear the mark of some well-known banking house. In all of the cases of this kind the gold is money in fact, but not by ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... the chine bone, cut off the thumb, pierce the diaphragm, or to tear off the hair and fracture the skull, was each punished by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... father was dead, and Furibon was now lord of all: disdaining, therefore, any repulse, he raised an army of four hundred thousand men, and put himself at the head of them, appearing like another Tom Thumb upon a war-horse. Now, when the Amazons perceived his mighty host, they gave the princess notice of its who immediately dispatched away her trusty Abricotina to the kingdom of the fairies, to beg her mother's ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... off my defensive measures till the morrow, because I was a wee bit puzzled as to what to do. In fact, the more I thought, the more puzzled I grew. The only "measures of defence" I could recall for the moment were, how to tie "a thumb or overhand knot," and how long it takes to cut down an apple tree of six inches' diameter. Unluckily neither of these useful facts seemed quite to apply. Now, if they had given me a job like fighting the battle of Waterloo, or Sedan, or Bull Run, I knew ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... the part of the speech which was to be taken as a justification of the armament, reminded me of Parson Saunders's demonstration why minus into minus makes plus. After a parcel of shreds of stuff from AEsop's fables and Tom Thumb, he jumps all at once into his ergo, minus multiplied into minus makes phis. Just so the fifteen thousand men enter after the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with care to this weapon. Of course it was already loaded, but, lest the night-dew might have damped the priming, he threw up the pan-cover, with his thumb-nail scraped out the powder, and then poured in a fresh supply from his horn. This he adjusted with his picker, taking care that a portion of it should pass into the touch-hole, and communicate with the charge inside. The steel was then returned to its place, and the flint duly looked to. Its state ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... similar to those arising from heat iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, an more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the other hand, holding his quarter-staff by the middle, and making it flourish round his head after the fashion which the French call "faire le moulinet", exclaimed boastfully, "Come on, churl, an thou darest: thou shalt feel the strength of a miller's thumb!" ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... stood at the window ruminating, with his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his right, with finger and thumb pinching his under lip, after his wont, and the despairing accents of the poor vicar's last sentence still in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... his battledore, which he balanced most curiously upon his forefinger. "Look at him!—now do look at him!" cried Tarlton; "did you ever in your life see anybody look so silly?—Hardy has him quite under his thumb; he's so mortally afraid of Parson Prig, that he dare not, for the soul of him, turn either of his eyes from the tip of his nose; look how ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... busily cleaned and dusted the bottles with my handkerchief as I took them out. Little by little I completely emptied the dressing-case. It was lined with blue velvet. In one corner I noticed a tiny slip of loose blue silk. Taking it between my finger and thumb, and drawing it upward, I discovered that there was a false bottom to the case, forming a secret compartment for letters and papers. In my strange condition—capricious, idle, inquisitive—it was an amusement to me to take out the papers, just ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... ready for this great enterprise: the regent of Spain, Mary Anne of Austria, a feeble creature, under the thumb of one Father Nithard, a Jesuit, had allowed herself to be sent to sleep by the skilful manoeuvres of the Archbishop of Embrun; she had refused to make a treaty of alliance with England and to recognize Portugal, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and he saw the most miserable sight. An old woman lay on the ground by the river's edge; a bundle of filthy water-logged rags crowned by a bruised, vindictive face and grey hair smeared with filth and slime. She lay on her back a shapeless huddle; her right thumb tied to her left toe and so across: there was a rope about her middle, but in their hot haste they had ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... the throat to a point under the left ear. The upper portion of the windpipe was severed, and likewise the jugular vein. The muscular coating of the carotid artery was divided. There was a slight cut, as if in continuation of the wound, on the thumb of the left hand. The hands were clasped underneath the head. There was no blood on the right hand. The wound could not have been self-inflicted. A sharp instrument had been used, such as a razor. The cut might have, ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... little feat set about accomplishing it himself, and when I met him some days afterwards he exhibited his proficiency in the art. But he was a little taken aback when I then took the puzzle from him and, while simply holding the medal between the finger and thumb of one hand, by a series of little shakes and jerks caused the ring, without my even touching it, to fall off upon the floor. The following little poser will probably prove a rather tough nut for a great many readers, simply on account ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... and had been from the day they first foregathered. The converts served as witnesses. Bill stood over the missionary, prompting him when he stumbled. Stockard put the responses in the woman's mouth, and when the time came, for want of better, ringed her finger with thumb and ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... hector me, and do as you like because you had me under your thumb in other days. You're a very good fellow, Thorne, but I ain't sure that you are the best doctor in ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... administered. There were eight vessels, each containing 2 pints of water. Four of these were given for the ordinary, and eight for the extraordinary. The executioner inserted a horn into the patient's mouth, and if he shut his teeth, forced him to open them by pinching his nose with the finger and thumb.] ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the foundation of his fortune lay in the employment of trained chemists, while other men made steel by rule of thumb. Trained chemists made better steel, just a little. They devised ways to make it cheaper, just a little, and they found means to utilize the slag. All this means hundreds of millions of dollars, if done on a ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... question of nationality in Europe bristles with difficulties. It cannot be solved by theory and rule of thumb. What is a nation? Shall it be determined by speech, by blood, by geographical boundary, by historic tradition? The freedom and independence of a country can and ever should be assured when with one voice ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Master, this is so small particle perhaps will not be sufficient for tinging four granes of Lead. He answered; Give it me. I, accordingly gave it him, conceiving, good hope of receiving somewhat a greater particle instead thereof; but he breaking off the one half almost of it with his thumb-nayl, threw it into the fire, and wrapping the other up in blew paper, he gave to me, faying, It is yet sufficient for thee. To which, I with, a sad Countenance and perplexed Mind, answered: Ah ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "If you keep on to the river and that clump of cedars, you will find Termagaunt in ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow first red and then white ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... was inadequate, and because he had nothing to substitute for it, he frankly abandoned any attempt at valid thought on so difficult a question as the relation of the white colonies to the rest of the British Empire. He therefore decided in effect that it ought to be settled by the rule-of-thumb method of 'cutting the painter'; and, since he was the chief official in the Colonial Office at a critical time, his decision, whether it was right ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... had been developed by long struggles and were often cherished when their real justification had disappeared. The Constitution had not been 'made' but had 'grown'; or, in other words, the one rule had been the rule of thumb. That is an excellent rule in its way, and very superior to an abstract rule which neglects or overrides experience. The 'logic of facts,' moreover, may be trusted to produce a certain harmony: and general principles, though not consciously invoked, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... "One moment." He took the ring between his forefinger and thumb, as if he were a conjurer about to perform, glanced triumphantly round the bar-room, held the girl's hand gallantly in his, deliberately replaced the ring on her finger, and said, "With this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee worship; with ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... short frocks, and used to go with John to see the turkeys fed, and be so scared when they gobbled and strutted with rage at her scarlet bombazette;—how they used to pick up frozen apples and thaw them in the dish-kettle; how she pounded her thumb, cracking butternuts with a flat-iron, and John kissed it to make it well,—only it didn't! And then how they slid down-hill before church, and sat a long two hours thereafter in the square pew, smelling of "meetin'-seed," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... pointing to the seven grains between his thumb and four fingers, "our children shall be guided by these when the Sun-father is not near and thy terraces are as darkness itself. Then shall our children be guided by lights." So Sky-father created the stars. Then he said, "And even as these grains gleam up from the ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... knowledge, look upon his approaching end with a courage and an apathetic calm which resemble the smiling fortitude wherewith the ancient gladiators uttered their parting salutations to Nero—when, in expectation, they waited for the fatal thumb to be turned down, in ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the pouch at his side a long black, dirty-looking leaf, which smelt very strong, and also a little bowl about the size of a man's thumb, with a long, slender handle fixed to it. Said he to a boy standing near him, "Run, my pretty fellow, and bring me some fire." Whilst the boy was bringing the fire, he fell to rubbing the black leaf to pieces between the palms of his hands. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a special predilection for digging the huge nail of his thumb into the side of his victim, a peculiarity for which he had been named "the Cossack," his famous thumb being referred to by the boys as his spear. He had a passion for inventing new and complex modes of punishment, his spear figuring in most of them. One ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... seemed he had set out to justify his brother's calumnies; as though he was bent to prove himself a man of a dry nature, immersed in money-getting. Had I been there alone, I would not have troubled my thumb; but all the while, as I listened, I was estimating the effect on the man's wife, and telling myself that he fell lower every day. I was the one person on the surface of the globe that comprehended him, and I was bound there should be yet another. Whether he was to die there and his virtues perish: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mountains of letters asking about sucking the thumb, as introduced by dainty Miss Vanity Vaux in Draw it mild, Daisy. Only the tip of the thumb should be sucked; those of you who put the whole thumb into your mouths must not complain if you see smiles exchanged round you. Where the eyes are large ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... competition. It is an ill look-out for the cycle mechanic who is not prepared to tackle the new problems that will arise. For all this next century this particular body of mechanics will be picking up new recruits and eliminating the incompetent and the rule-of-thumb sage. Can it fail, as the years pass, to develop certain general characters, to become so far homogeneous as to be generally conscious of the need of a scientific education, at any rate in mechanical and chemical matters, and to possess, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers, too. The boss seems to have a lot ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... is a picnic, not a bally Union debate. You can't argue for nuts; and when you start spouting you're the limit. But two can play at that game!" He flourished a half-empty syphon of lemonade, threatening the handle with a very square thumb. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... noble fruit as ever swung To grace a tree so firm and strong. Indeed, it was a great mistake, As this discovery teaches, That I myself did not partake His counsels whom my curate preaches. All things had then in order come; This acorn, for example, Not bigger than my thumb, Had not disgraced a tree so ample. The more I think, the more I wonder To see outraged proportion's laws, And that without the slightest cause; God surely made an awkward blunder.' With such reflections proudly fraught, Our sage grew tired of mighty thought, And threw himself ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Brummell was more. He had some sharpness and some taste. But the former was all brought out in sneers, and the latter in snuff-boxes. His whole mind could have been put into one of these. He had a splendid collection of them, and was famous for the grace with which he opened the lid of his box with the thumb of the hand that carried it, while he delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other. This and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for manners was based on the distinction of his manner. He could not drive in a public conveyance, but ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... a strange scene was going on. Sitting well back in his consulting-chair, his hands spread out, finger to finger, thumb to thumb, Doctor George was gazing sternly in silence at an ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... in this narrow wedge. The distance through the chest and point of the heart from side to side was, in this case, exactly four and one-half inches. A man's hand, as shown in the photograph, can easily grasp the whole lower chest of a deer, placing thumb and forefinger over the heart on opposite sides. (2) The heart of a deer, and indeed of all ruminant animals, lies close against the chest walls and is easily reached and wounded. The chest cartilage, except in an old deer, is soft; the ribs are thin and easily ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... the gun is, like Stephen in the classic rhyme, to "p'int de gun, pull on de trigger." But since the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... individuals do not realize the small amount of force that will prevent the enlargement of the chest. This can be demonstrated by drawing a piece of tape tightly around the lower part of the chest of a vigorous adult, and confining it with the thumb and finger. Then endeavor fully to inflate the lungs, and the movement of the ribs will be ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... Transcendental Philosophy, the leaves flying about and losing themselves, and the thoughts as ill-arranged, for the Hebrew Talmudical manner still clung to his German writing as to his talking, so that the body swayed rhythmically, his thumb worked and his voice chanted the sing-song of piety to ideas that would have paralyzed the Talmud school. It was in like manner that when he lost a game of chess or waxed hot in argument, his old Judean-Polish mother jargon ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... "so" by stamping his foot down over and over again and raising it up, the last time cleverly picking an ordinary pebble from the ground with his toes, and holding it out as easily as if he had used his fingers and thumb. ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... except for Morton's philosophical outpourings to the listening Eleanor, most of the dreary occasion of eating poor food, served by a waiter who put his thumb into things, was given up to the stifled laughter of the girl and boys, and to conversation between the other two guests, who were properly arch because of the occasion, but disappointed in their dinner, and anxious to shake their heads and lift shocked hands as soon as they could get out ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... monopolised the conversation with his Irving talk, and both Carrie and I came to the conclusion one can have even too much imitation of Irving. After supper, Mr. Burwin-Fosselton got a little too boisterous over his Irving imitation, and suddenly seizing Gowing by the collar of his coat, dug his thumb-nail, accidentally of course, into Gowing's neck and took a piece of flesh out. Gowing was rightly annoyed, but that man Padge, who having declined our modest supper in order that he should not lose his comfortable chair, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... flat upon the ground near Lylda, and after a moment she climbed into it, two soldiers lifting her up the side of my thumb as it lay upon the ground. In the hollow of my palm, she lay quite securely, and very carefully I raised her up towards my face. Then, seeing that she was frightened, I set her ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... whom everybody trusted; an apparently steady-going, grinning sort, as we used to call him. Well, he was completely under Miss Annie's thumb, and would fetch and carry for her like a faithful dog. As soon as he saw that I began to care for Annie, and anybody could see that, he transferred some of his allegiance to me and became my faithful servitor also. Never did a man have a more devoted adherent ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... up the country; hunting was threatened; the power and vulgarity of the press were appalling; women had lost their heads; and everybody seemed afraid of having any "breeding." By the time little Gyp was Gyp's age, they would all be under the thumb of Watch Committees, live in Garden Cities, and have to account for every half-crown they spent, and every half-hour of their time; the horse, too, would be an extinct animal, brought out once ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... where Finn was, and bade him to roast it, but he bade him not to eat any of it. And when Finn brought him the salmon after a while he said: "Did you eat any of it at all, boy?" "I did not," said Finn; "but I burned my thumb putting down a blister that rose on the skin, and after doing that, I put my thumb in my mouth." "What is your name, boy?" said Finegas. "Deimne," said he. "It is not, but it is Finn your name is, and it is to you and not to myself the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... a sharp eye to observe the slight pallor of the civilian's face at these words, and the only other manifestation attesting their significance was a voluntary relaxation of the thumb and fingers holding the dishonored paper, which, falling to the road, unheeded, was rolled by a gentle wind and then lay still, with a coating of dust, as in humiliation for the lie that it bore. A moment later the civilian, still looking ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... of the Y.M.C.A. building sauntered the Reporter. Perceiving the Candy Wagon at the curb he paused, scrutinising it jauntily, through a monocle formed by a thumb ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... would continually give way, and there was nothing to be done but rest on one haunch and try to look wise, being continually bothered by the flies. After a while he began to grow stronger and more comely, his ears darkened, and his eyes—put in, as they say, with a dirty thumb—grew larger, taking on that exceeding brightness that made passers-by look and look again. He was also allowed further afield when his turn came. There were walks along the river-banks, in company with half-a-dozen of the others; and before he was six months old he could run a good distance ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... things to start Jacky, so he won't be much trouble or expense; and anyway, he's past the most troublesome age and you won't have to be up nights with him, and he isn't afraid of anybody or anything, as you can see by his just sitting there laughing and sucking his thumb, though he doesn't know what's going to become of him. And he's just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah Ellen in the graveyard, and we thought we ought to give you the refusal of him before he goes to the poor farm, and what do you think about it? Because it's near ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... upright in a wooden cot. A fat-faced atom of brown humanity, bald-headed and big-eyed, he sucked his thumb and stared at the visitor, and from the visitor ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... to shoot and be shot at. He was wounded no less than seven times. The first wound was received by him two minutes after he had fired his first shot, the bullet going through his neck. The second hit him in the left thumb. The third struck near his right hip, passing entirely through the body. The fourth bullet (which was apparently from a Remington and not from a Mauser) went into his neck and lodged against the bone, being afterward cut out. The fifth bullet again hit his left hand. The sixth scraped ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... seat Stefan had indicated with a big thumb, and suddenly a ravenous hunger came upon her. The great pan full of sizzling bacon and fat pork; the steaming and strongly scented coffee; the great pile of thick floury rolls taken out of the oven, appeared to constitute a repast fit for the gods. Stefan and his family joined ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... now with a will. There was but a short moment of suspense, then the sliding panel fell back, the little tin box was pulled out, and Cecile's Russia-leather purse was held up in triumph between Jane's finger and thumb. ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... experience in these matters. But among them was a Gaster who was calmer than the swearer, and more prudent and conciliating than those he swore against. Hearing this objurgation, he went blandly up to the sacred porker, and, lifting the flap of his right ear between forefinger and thumb with all delicacy and gentleness, thus whispered into it: "You do not in your heart believe that any of us are such fools as to sell our gods, at least while we have such a reserve to ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Great Commanders A Hint on Entertaining Look at Your Cup Entertainment Suggestion Have a Peanut What the Eyes Tell Revealed by the Thumb Characters in Finger Nails Beauty's Seven Nurses To Discover a Woman's Age How He May Be Won Dew Drops Birth Stones for Luck Kruger's Unlucky Diamond Strange Wills Laughagraphs The Man Who Can Make Us Laugh Queer ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... organization, explaining their secret signs, says,* "The sign or token of distress is made by placing the right hand on the right side of the face, with the points of the fingers upward, shoving the hand upward until the ear is snug up between the thumb ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... drew back the bolts. Only the spring lock now barred him from her. With thumb and forefinger he turned the key, pushed the door gently open, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... the trunk of the tree you wish to measure and, reaching up to this height, pin a piece of white paper on the tree. Step back a distance equal to three or four times the height of the tree; hold a lead-pencil upright between the thumb and forefinger at arm's-length. Fix it so that the end of the pencil shall be in line with the paper on the trunk; move the thumb down the pencil till it is in line with the ground at the base of the tree; move the arm and pencil upward till the thumb is in line ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... absurdity and self-contradiction. An amusing instance of this may be given from Sesame and Lilies. In the first lecture, which, it will be recalled, was given in aid of a library fund, we find[21] the remark, "We are filthy and foolish enough to thumb one another's books out of circulating libraries." His friends and his enemies, the clergy (who "teach a false gospel for hire") and the scientists, the merchants and the universities, Darwin and Dante, all had their share in the indignant lecturer's indiscriminate ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and scientific anatomy." (53. The Rev. Dr. Haughton, after giving ('Proc. R. Irish Academy,' June 27, 1864, p. 715) a remarkable case of variation in the human flexor pollicis longus, adds, "This remarkable example shews that man may sometimes possess the arrangement of tendons of thumb and fingers characteristic of the macaque; but whether such a case should be regarded as a macaque passing upwards into a man, or a man passing downwards into a macaque, or as a congenital freak of ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... shop-front. Business smartness pays better in the town, and the low intellectual qualities which are contained in it are educated by town life. The knowledge of human nature thus evoked is in no sense science, it is a mere rule-of-thumb affair, a thin mechanical empiricism. The capable business man who is said to understand the "world" and his fellow-men, has commonly no knowledge of human nature in the larger sense, but merely knows from observation how the average man of a certain limited class is ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... soil around it first, and when you have it nearly full, just the same as if you take your son and lay him on your knee and spank the butt good and put the soil around the roots. Then pack it with your thumb and your ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... Squire," said the Clockmaker, "there was pride even in that hovel. It is found in rags as well as King's robes, where butter is spread with the thumb as well as the silver knife, NATUR' IS NATUR' WHEREVER ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the ear of a black cat, boil it in the milk of a black cow, wear it on the thumb, and no one ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... it, and squinted along it; he rubbed it with his thumb, he rested one end of it on the ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... nibbled at it, hungrily. She pulled out a book here, a book there, read a paragraph, skimmed a page. There was no attempt at classification. Lever rubbed elbows with Spinoza; Mark Twain dug a facetious thumb into Haeckel's ribs. Fanny wanted to sit down on the floor, legs crossed, before the open shelves, and read, and read, and read. Fenger, watching the light in her face, seemed himself to take on ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... an artery in his neck, was lying helpless, in danger of bleeding to death, when a Rough Rider came to his assistance. There was only one thing to be done—to stop the bleeding till a surgeon came. A tourniquet could not be applied where the wound was. The Rough Rider put his thumb on the artery and held it there while he waited. The fighting drifted away over the hill. He followed his comrades with longing eyes till the last was lost to sight. His place was there, but if he abandoned the wounded cavalryman it was to let him die. He dropped his gun and ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... I do. Susy's given me five lessons. You have to sit up as straight as a pin, and count your fingers, one, two, three, four. X is your thumb." ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... at yourself, at the shimmering garment that you found waiting for you. With thumb and forefinger ...
— Hall of Mirrors • Fredric Brown
... joint between his finger and thumb for a moment till it was black at the end; then he turned to the saucer at his side, which Hilda herself had placed there, and chose from it, cat-like, with great deliberation and selective care, a particular needle. Hilda's eyes followed his every movement as closely and as fearlessly ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... her eyes are a faded blue, girlish, even childish, but the mouth is that of an old person, with a moist lower lip of a raspberry colour, impotently hanging down. Her husband—Isaiah Savvich—is also small, a grayish, quiet, silent little old man. He is under his wife's thumb; he was doorkeeper in this very house even at the time when Anna Markovna served here as housekeeper. In order to be useful in some way, he has learned, through self-instruction, to play the fiddle, and now at night plays dance tunes, as well as a funeral march for shopmen far gone on ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... we asked. One of the least busy of the throng spared time to point to it with his thumb, as he passed us. In some bewilderment we drew up in front of a large unfinished house, through the many uncased apertures of which we could see only scaffoldings, rough boards, carpenters' benches, and heaps of shavings. Streams of men were passing ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... destiny is to chance. The black star Erlik rushed through interstellar darkness unseen; those born under its violent augury squalled in their cradles, or, thumb in mouth, slumbered the dreamless slumber ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... village. By and bye I discovered that, by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss in the wood, he would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be seen, but high up among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my binocular, I had the wild thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting himself to me, inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as he flirted wings and tail, lifted and lowered his crest, glancing down with bright, wild eyes. What ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... men began to talk about Engelissmen, and they talked and laughed all the way to Amsterdam. Every now and then one of them would jerk his thumb in my direction. It ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... the door. Sandy first hung back, then, in a sudden enthusiasm, ran in, and pointed a thumb pink with much sucking at the still uncleared dinner-table, which David and the child's mother had ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with his back firmly pressed against the wall, relieved the strain on his thumbs. He rested a moment and then, as it were, walked up the edge of the door until his feet reached the top. Swinging one leg over the door, by patient effort he was enabled to release one swollen thumb, then the other. An instant later he dropped down and leaned exhaustedly against ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... now, filling their glasses at a table in the middle of the stage, eating cakes, amusing themselves with the corks, which went pop, like toy guns, and applauding with their thumb-nails. To the Astrarium! And long live jollity! That night, they would one and all risk their skins. They were like soldiers drinking to their sweethearts, in the trenches, before the battle. And ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... the sake of a moral convention. Both comments point Mr Wells' expression of what he calls in this book "the essential antagonism ... in all human affairs ... between ideas and the established method—that is to say, between ideas and the rule of thumb." And he adds: "The world I hate is the rule-of-thumb world; the thing I and my kind exist for primarily is battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstruct it." This confession is so lucid and characteristic that I cannot improve upon ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... screw-top jars, such as the Mason, screw down with the thumb and little finger, not using force but ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... among us, needing crews? Will you have clansmen for your candlesticks, or silver plate? Myrmidons at your tents, ant-born, or only a mob on the Gillies' Hill? Are you resolved that you will never have any but your inferiors to serve you, or shall Enid ever lay your trencher with tender little thumb, and Cinderella sweep your hearth, and be cherished there? It might come to that in time, and plate and hearth be the brighter; but if your servants are to be held your inferiors, at least be sure they are ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... his thumb, his forefinger, and his middle finger, he raised his hand swiftly, as though about to throw the snuff into the air, and, with his ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... acknowledged fact, that the American physique was rapidly deteriorating because of tobacco, and that coroners' verdicts were constantly being thus pronounced on American youths: "Died of excessive smoking." On the other hand, that eminent citizen of our Union, General Thomas Thumb, was about that time professionally examined in London, and his verdict on tobacco was quoted to be, that it was "one of his chief comforts"; also mention was made of a hapless quack who announced himself as coming from Boston, and who, to keep up the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... battery!" she called in her fresh, strong voice. "I make the charge, Girls!" she exclaimed, turning to the others, "that's the man who thrust me into that room, and locked me there. That's the ghost. I recognize him by the scar on his thumb!" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... sitting with its back to the window, staring down at the floor. His clothes hung loosely upon him, and his thin hair was colorless. He slowly raised a wasted face as he looked toward the door. Pelle had already recognized him from his maimed right hand, which had only the thumb and one joint of the forefinger. He no longer hid it away, but let it lie upon his ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... lightning, and the air would have been clear again. But, as it was, he cut the face off the work with a knife, and deliberately trod the pieces under foot as they lay on the ground. He gave me one single blow—with his thumb—which I still feel, it is true, and then he treated me and my parents with such scorn, so coldly and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... has been intimated, is "Christian in its disposition, and well-behaved beyond most of its kind," will readily bite, if it is held in the fingers and anything is put to its jaws. But that is nothing. So would you, most gentle reader, if a great giant pinched you between his thumb and finger, and held your hands and feet and head; and if, too, like our spider, you could not see enough to distinguish friends from foes. Spiders, then, will bite. But to the second part of the inquiry our answer must be less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... well, much wash in cold water, the rice flour make him stick. Water boil all ready very fast. Throw him in, rice can't burn, water shake him too much. Boil 1 1/4 hours or little more, rub one rice in thumb and finger; if all rub away him quite done. Put rice in colander, hot water run away. Pour cup of cold water on him, put back rice in saucepan, keep him covered near the fire, then rice all ready. Eat ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... water which had dripped from his legs lay upon the herbage and soft, dank, moist earth; but there was something else—footprints! Not Leather's, made by broad shoe-soles, but newly impressed marks with wide-spreading toes, the big toe in each case being rather thumb-like in its separation from ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... water from the hand upon the head and breast. In the ball play the ball sticks are dipped into the water at the same time. While the bather is in the water the shaman is going through with his part of the performance on the bank and draws omens from the motion of the beads between his thumb and finger, or of the fishes in the water. Although the old customs are fast dying out this ceremony is never neglected at the ball play, and is also strictly observed by many families on occasion of eating the new corn, at each new moon, and ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... all right!" the former declared. "And that's where old Sam kept his books." He ran his thumb-nail over the significant file-marks on the handle. "Looks like an alligator ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... musket, 1855; the Snider, 1865; the Martini-Henry, 1871; and the Lee-Metford magazine rifle. On the right, between two grotesque figures, called Gin and Beer, from the entrance to the Buttery of the old Palace of Greenwich, is a case containing executioners' swords (foreign), thumb-screws, the Scavenger's Daughter for confining the neck, hands, and feet, bilboes for ship use, and thumb-screws. Observe also the so-called "Collar taken from the Spanish Armada," which however was here in 1547, ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... impatience, amounting almost to pain, which every mother's son of us has experienced upon occasions of greater—or less importance than this. They were again at the very point of starting, when a message was brought to Mrs. Snodgrass that little Master Charles had cut his thumb dreadfully! What was to be done? Mrs. Snodgrass vowed she shouldn't be easy in her mind the whole day unless she knew the extent of the mischief; and as they only lived in Euston Square, and she could be there and back again in twenty minutes, she would herself go see what ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Proclus, stroking his sharp chin with his thumb and forefinger; "but I fear that our beautiful Nike also cared little for this lofty virtue of the judge in the last coronation. However, her immortal model lacks ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... objected, "who makes the money dance; its that charming little woman of his. Ah, she's no bigger than your thumb, but she'd eat the devil, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... known to English Dealers under the name of The Lace Lizard, is peculiar in having the two series of the scales, placed on the upper part of the centre of the tail, raised into a biserrated ridge, and in the outer toe, or rather thumb, of the hinder-foot being long, and reaching to the penultimate distal joint of the first or longest toe; ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... silence we stood around that table at New Scotland Yard and watched, as though we expected it to move, the ghastly "clue" which lay there. It was a shrivelled human hand, and about the thumb and forefinger there still dryly hung a fragment of lint which had bandaged a jagged wound. On one of the shrunken fingers was a ring set with ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... a woodcutter lived with his wife in a small cottage not far from a great forest. They had seven children—all boys; and the youngest was the smallest little fellow ever seen. He was called Tom Thumb. But though he was so small, he was far cleverer than any of his brothers, and he heard a great deal more than ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... ahead of the Indian ponies and brought his rider under the cliff as Carmena reached the foot of the ladder. She called out to him in a tone of joyful greeting and hastened forward to offer her hand. The man ignored her welcome and jerked a thumb up at the window from which ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... had come. Her fingers were splashed as she felt for the artery, which she closed by leaning her whole weight on the thumb. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... forth: Plenty of men!—His mouth was blocked by the reflection, that we count the men on our fingers; often are we, as it were, an episcopal thumb surveying scarce that number of followers! He diverged to censure of the marchings and the street-singing: the impediment to traffic, the annoyance to a finely musical ear. He disapproved altogether of Matilda Pridden's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Katherine docks, and got no relatives and no friends there. I'm off to sea again when I've dispodged o' this here incumbrance. I'm takin' her down to her mother's sister—that way." He indicated the down road with his thumb. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... for years, and the more he learned about it the more there was to learn. He used to cover big sheets of paper with complicated diagrams trying to prove something or other to himself. I'd come into the studio and find him with thumb tacks and strings and stuff all over the place. He'd get big long rulers and draw lines to various points all over the room, and end up with a little drawing of a cube about an inch square that anybody coulda made in a half a minute without all the apparatus. ...
— Vanishing Point • C.C. Beck
... in these annals of childhood was a visit of Tom Thumb to Buckingham Palace on March 23, 1844. Not long afterwards, on June 5th, the little Prince saw his first Review, on the occasion of the Emperor of Russia's visit, and clapped his hands and shouted at the splendid spectacle. On March 24, 1846, he was given that first and greatest pleasure ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... exclamations Cousin Benedict uttered when he had brought this insect, which he held between his index finger and his thumb, as near as possible to his short-sighted eyes, which neither glasses ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... with a saucer or tin cutter of that size cut out a circle. Place a tablespoonful of spinach prepared French style upon one side, wet the edges, fold over the other side and press it around with the fingers and thumb, brush with egg and bake until a light brown. When served pour around it cream or a cream sauce in which is a hard boiled egg chopped fine, ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... the most part sold to Bannerman & Co., of New York. Differences from the ordinary commercial Luger are as follows:—one inch longer barrel, grip of black walnut, U. S. coat of arms stamped on receiver, and thumb-safety is reversed. Curiously enough, this particular pistol was purchased from a gunsmith by W. Fall Gardner, of New York City, while at Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1920, and while with the American Army of Occupation. It is interesting to speculate how the weapon found its way back to the country ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... for a moment, and then drew it, and held it out to the gunner, who went below, and by the time the young officer had had a good inspection of the lugger, Billy came back with his left thumb trying the ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... said Korak to Akut, jerking a thumb in the direction of the girl. "Do not harm her. We ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... empire are indigo and cotton. To produce cotton, they sow seeds, which grow up into bushes like our rose-trees. These produce first a yellow blossom, which falls off, and leaves a pod about the size of a man's thumb, in which the substance at first is moist and yellow. As this ripens, it swells larger, till at length it bursts the covering, the cotton being then as white as snow. It is then gathered. These shrubs continue to bear for three or four years, when they have to be rooted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... the command of the man who held him completely under his thumb, Casey ran forward. Seeing him coming, Jerry fled behind a large screen. Here rested a heavy cane, and he picked it up and brandished ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... designed for belligerent Christians. Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponderous Roman, Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, and in silence Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks thick on the margin, Like the trample of feet proclaimed the battle was hottest. 80 Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling, Busily writing epistles important, to go by the Mayflower,[17] Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing! ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... he replied, with his good nature entirely restored. "You can see that you get me right under your thumb when you talk that way. But we must both be on our guard against your fault, you know, or pretty soon you'll be taking the whole work of the farm off ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... student at Oxford University, as he jerked his thumb in the direction of a slight but well-set-up fellow, a classmate, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... grimy thumb at his companion, "will ye 'ark to this brimstone witch—been clackin' away all along from Sevenoaks, she 'ave! Gimme a tanner an' she's yourn—say thrippence—say a penny!" At this the woman started to berate him ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... up to me with an affected air of chagrin, recounted the adventure; at which I laughed heartily, and then his countenance cleared up. 'My dear soul (said he) when I saw a sort of a wild baist, snarling with open mouth at the Master of the Ceremonies, like the red cow going to devour Tom Thumb, I could do no less than go to the assistance of the little man; but I never dreamt the baist was one of Mrs Bramble's attendants — O! if I had, he might have made his breakfast upon Derrick and welcome — But you know, my dear friend, how natural it is for us Irishmen ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... that? In my business, 'tis true that strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad at figures—a rule o' thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse—I can see that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet you are not for me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young man I thought you were, what's the difference? Can't ye stay just the same? Have you ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... thirsty sandy soil; they are essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... odd: it was an almost fluorescent white and, though it was perfectly opaque, it was thinner than any paper Forrester had ever seen in public. It almost didn't seem to be there when he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... see him," replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb toward the upper story. "That's by his way of it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. Michael. Bribe—me!" she repeated, with inimitable scorn. "That's no' kind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mentioned. All the women were soon acquainted with them from the current descriptions, but nobody could cite the precise source of all this information. There were finger rings, earrings, bracelets, a REVIERE of phenomenal width, a queenly diadem surmounted by a central brilliant the size of one's thumb. In the retirement of those faraway countries she began to gleam forth as mysteriously as a gem-laden idol. People now mentioned her without laughing, for they were full of meditative respect for this fortune ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... six-shooter from his side pocket. A red bandanna handkerchief protected the shiny barrel; he unwrapped this, regarded the weapon doubtfully, and rubbed his fat thumb over ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... certain trade- interests which he was in office to protect. Accusations began to be guardedly thrown out against him in the Senate, which he parried off with the cool and audacious skill of an expert fencer, knowing that for the immediate moment at least, he had a "majority" under his thumb. This majority was composed of persons who had unfortunately become involved in his toils, and were, therefore, naturally afraid of him;— yet it was evident, even to a superficial student of events, that if once the innuendoes against his ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the creatures need almost constant attention. At brief intervals some expert visits each tray to inspect progress, picks up the plumpest feeders, and decides, by gently rolling them between forefinger and thumb, which are ready to spin. These are dropped into covered boxes, where they soon swathe themselves out of sight in white floss. A few only of the best are suffered to emerge from their silky sleep,—the selected breeders. They have beautiful wings, ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught But now and then with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... interrupted M. Radisson, as if the fellow's prattle had cut into his mental plannings; and he bade us heap such a fire as could be seen by Indians for a hundred miles. "If once I can find the Indians," meditated he moodily, "I'll drive out a whole regiment of scoundrels with one snap o' my thumb!" ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... of considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one's thumb to that of one's wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher up they would probably have much thicker branches to contend with. It may be that they can lower ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... cliffs of Esterel with purple shadows in their hollows, to the blue bays opening between their red horns—all to no purpose, she would not look out at the window. He produced a box of jujubes, and offered her one between his thumb and forefinger. She refused it, but thrust her fingers into the box and extracted one for herself. Then she leaned back in the carriage, drew her hat over her face, and exposed to view only a chin and a mole under it, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... engine house that evening, but there was no one in sight. He had never been in such a place before, and stood for a moment or so uncertain how to make his presence known. Presently he saw an electric button on the side of the room, and he put his thumb on it. The effect was electrical in every sense of the word. Through the ceiling, down the stairs and from every other direction firemen came running and falling, the horses rushed out of their stalls, and, in short, all the machinery of a modern ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... to believe others were,—how many, it would be difficult to say. Of our party, only two were wounded. One received a ball in his hand, near the wrist; but it only entered the skin, and he pushed it out with his thumb. Another received a ball in the fleshy part of his thigh, which had to be extracted; but neither of them were sick or crippled by the wounds. When young Gorsuch fired at me in the early part of the battle, both balls passed through my hat, cutting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... The time it takes for each kind of tea to draw is calculated to a second. When the can is emptied it is passed around among the company for each tea-drinker to take up as many leaves as can be held between the thumb and finger; the leaves being ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... attention, and looking up, they saw Jake Laughlin step into view. He raised his hand, as if to command silence, jerking his thumb at the same time significantly toward the wagon and the rest of the settlers. He stepped carefully into the wagon-track, and the ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... at my own very great peril. But truth has an eternal title to our confession, though we are sure to suffer by it." Behold, again, the fairest of poets. Young's Imperium Pelagi was ridiculed in Fielding's Tom Thumb; but let us not forget that it was one of his pieces which the author of the Night Thoughts ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... assimilating it with the ground than that of the older animals, which do not need to be screened from the observation of birds of prey. I observed the Arabs at Aden, when making their camels kneel down, press the thumb on the withers in exactly the same way the antelopes do with their young; probably they have been led to the custom by seeing this plan adopted by the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of her gown Asleep. My fingers creep Carefully over the sweet Thumb-mound, into the ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of his vest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... way of agricultural improvement before 1850. With some few exceptions the methods of cultivation were substantially the same as those of colonial days, and were marked by crudeness, waste and a general adherence to rule-of-thumb principles. The year 1850 roughly marks the beginning of a period of improvement and development. The Irish famine of 1846 and the German political troubles of 1848 were followed by an unprecedented emigration to America of highly desirable European labourers, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that he might read a verse. He could not read a word, however, which a scholar who chanced to be present observing, he stood behind him and prompted him with the verse he was to read; but coming towards the end, the man's thumb happened to cover the remaining words, and so the scholar, in a low voice, said: "Take away thy thumb," which words the man, supposing them to form part of the verse he was reading, repeated aloud, "Take away thy thumb"—whereupon the judge ordered him to be taken away ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... robot handled routine things routinely. If they were not routine, the card was dropped on the manager's desk. It was then the manager's job to fit everything back into the routine. He grasped the card firmly between thumb and forefinger and stalked out of his office. He took an elevator down to the registration desk. His trouble was that he had seized upon the first thing he saw wrong with the card and saw nothing thereafter. To him, "out of the ordinary" meant ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Polter's body shifted as he cautiously moved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently between his thumb and forefinger. He lowered her to the ground, and she stood beside the bread and meat he had ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... have handled is that of "Tom Thumb," whose author was a Pythagorean philosopher. This dark treatise contains the whole scheme of the metempsychosis, deducing the progress of the soul ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef for Tom's eye, which was to be healed off-hand, so that he might show well in the morning. He was not a bit the worse, except a slight difficulty in his vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a cold-water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the babel of voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how Williams would have given in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe), and how on earth the Doctor ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... astonishing force, and are generally ruptured rather than yield. If not ruptured, they close again, as Dr. Canby informs me in a letter, "with quite a loud flap." But if the end of a leaf is held firmly between the thumb and finger, or by a clip, so that the lobes cannot begin to close, they exert, whilst in this ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... opinion I have always had of Katerina Sergyevna. Many a young lady's called clever simply because she can sigh cleverly; but yours can hold her own, and, indeed, she'll hold it so well that she'll have you under her thumb—to be sure, though, that's quite as it ought to be.' He slammed the lid to, and got up from the floor. 'And now, I say again, good-bye, for it's useless to deceive ourselves—we are parting for good, and you know that yourself ... you have acted sensibly; ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... to be here on the table a book on Egypt by Rawlinson that I used to thumb long ago. A footnote says: "The font of hieroglyphic type used in this work contains eight hundred forms. But there are many other forms beside." There is more light on Egypt in later works than in Rawlinson, but the statement quoted will serve ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... men. If the temper of my mind were not obnoxious to all cheerfulness, I could almost have laughed, the bully was so excellently beaten, mortified, and enraged! His head was bound up, his eyes were plaistered, his thumb sprained, his body of all colours, and his mind as hotly fevered as Alexander's itself could have been, had Alexander been vanquished at the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... sat watching Uncle Remus sharpen his shoe-knife. The old man's head moved in sympathy with his hands, and he mumbled fragments of a song. Occasionally he would feel of the edge of the blade with his thumb, and then begin to sharpen it again. The comical appearance of the venerable darkey finally had its effect upon the child, for suddenly he broke into a hearty peal of laughter; whereupon Uncle Remus stopped shaking his head and singing ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam engine. Yet, though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... noise outside: and how they found in the morning that this house was the mitten of a giant, infinitely greater than themselves; and that what they had taken for a separate chamber in the great house was the thumb of his mitten; and that the strange noise was the snoring of this giant Skrymir, who was asleep close by, after having pulled off ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... top-coat lay where he had last thrown it—across the edge of the berth. He shook his head at it, and from his wardrobe took a heavy ulster, scanned it approvingly and put it on. He hauled his steamer trunk out from under his berth, and from a corner of it dragged a thick wallet. He ran his thumb along the edge of the bills within it. Large banknotes they were mostly. He stuck the wallet into his hip pocket. The handle of a magazine pistol peeped up at him. He took it up, laid it flat in the palm of his hand, shook his head, and tossed it back. He took one ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... John ran a close race in their respective ledgers. For in a statement of accounts rendered after the operations of the company had lasted rather more than two years, the debts due were as follows: From the English L607 11s. 9d. and from the Indians L615 7s. 9d. Old and thumb-worn as the account books are, written with ink that had often been frozen and with quill pens that often needed mending, they are extremely interesting as relics of the past, and are deserving of a better fate than that which awaited them when by the merest accident they were rescued ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... back—that's him there, talkin' to the guy with the fur on his jaw," informed the barkeeper, making a gesture with his thumb. "What's your poison?" ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... of that little thumb of yours, my darling, or you will be cracking it instead of ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... tent drapery of chintz; over the washstand hung a crayon done by Arethusa in her infancy—the same representing a lady engaged in the pleasant and useful occupation of spinning wheat with a hand composed of five fingers, and no thumb. In the corner stood a cheval-glass which Jack had seen shrink steadily for years until now it could no longer reflect his shoulders unless he retired back for some two yards or more. There was a delectable closet to the room, ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... was between my first and second finger and the rubber-tipped end lay across my wrist. The other pencil he thrust crosswise so that the pointed end stuck out between the second and third finger and the blunt end between the index finger and thumb. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... laid his hands on their shoulders and heads, while they, on their part, joined their hands and crossed their thumbs, bowing down profoundly before him—I am not sure whether they did not even kneel. He anointed the thumb and fore-finger of each of their hands, and marked a cross on their heads with Chrism. He said also that this would remain with them unto ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... doctor, to him was assigned the thumb. A sailor, the finger next the thumb. A fool, the middle finger. A married or diligent person, the fourth or ring finger. A lover, the last or ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... looked at the Franciscan in amazement, but the latter, with his thumb, made the sign of the cross in a peculiar manner upon his breast. The host replied by making a similar sign on his left shoulder. "Yes, indeed," he said, "we did expect you, but we hoped that you would arrive in a better state of health." And as the peasants were looking at the innkeeper, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lordship read the news at half-past five, he broke into a cold sweat. Then he bit savagely at the nail of his favourite thumb. Considering that, so recently as that morning, he had reluctantly decided that that toothsome entremet must be allowed to go unmolested for at least a week, his action was indicative of an emotion which knew no rules. That he made no mention ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... to Marche-a-Terre the little horn in which Bretons put the finely powdered tobacco which they prepare themselves during the long winter nights. The Chouan raised his thumb and made a hollow in the palm of his hand, after the manner in which an "Invalide" takes his tobacco; then he shook the horn, the small end of which Pille-Miche had unscrewed. A fine powder fell slowly from the little hole ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... practical application is local, transitory, dependent on racial and geographical conditions. There is obviously a great change in our penal methods. We do not mutilate our criminals or scalp them for the preservation of their souls, and we have lost confidence in the rack and the thumb-screw. But we need only transport ourselves to other lands and study other people's views of judicial necessities, and we shall find that the punitive systems of the thirteenth or the eighteenth centuries are still with us. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes. And embedded in it ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... doesn't come"—he paused, and snapped the finger and thumb that hung quiescent at his side—"well and good. I shall have lived. I shall have known what life is meant to be. I shall have been the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... unless it might be a razor. You don't cut ropes with your thumb-nails, do you? Of course it was ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... eldest, "I shall soon have an opportunity to pluck one of them;" and so it happened, for not long after the young man left the room. She instantly went up to the bird and took hold of its wing, but as she did so, the finger and thumb remained and stuck fast. In a short time after the second sister came in with the full expectation of gaining a golden feather, but as she touched her sister to move her from the bird, her hand stuck fast to ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... tell you about was the nicest chap I ever see. He was kind to me, too. When I cut my thumb most off—see the scar?—a-slicin' bread in that boardin' house, the missis put me out 'cause I ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Cap of Darkness. The rug was the famous carpet which carried its owner through the air wherever he wished to go. The sword was the Sword of Sharpness. The ivory glass showed you anyone you wanted to see, however far off. The boots were the Seven-league Boots, which Hop-o'-my-Thumb stole from the Ogre about 1697. There were other valuable objects, but these were the most useful and celebrated. Of course the king did not tell the tradesmen what ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... Mr. Neale," remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown—I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it—it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... him, or, if they did, he suppressed his interest because he knew that his public would otherwise behave as Dr. Johnson did when Fox talked to him of Catiline's conspiracy. 'He withdrew his attention and thought about Tom Thumb.' ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... doth not know what logic lies concealed, Where diving finger meets with diving thumb? Who hath not seen the opponent fly the field, Unhurt by argument, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... with our hands to the Lord in the heavens": and Ex. 17:11: "And when Moses lifted up his hands Israel overcame." That at times he joins his hands, and bows down, praying earnestly and humbly, denotes the humility and obedience of Christ, out of which He suffered. He closes his fingers, i.e. the thumb and first finger, after the consecration, because, with them, he had touched the consecrated body of Christ; so that if any particle cling to the fingers, it may not be scattered: and this belongs to the reverence for ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... pictures of the typical booksellers of the period. Tom Nash has limned for us a vivid little portrait in 'Pierce Penilesse' (1592), in which he declares that if he were to paint Sloth, 'I swear that I would draw it like a stationer that I know, with his thumb under his girdle, who, if ever a man come to his stall to ask him for a book, never stirs his head, or looks upon him, but stands stone still, and speaks not a word, only with his little finger points ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... cloud of dust. Then the umpire, flapping a flippant thumb skyward. Then a berserker roar of rage, a pandemonium of fury beside which Babel was a soundless desert. And from leather-like lungs four inches from Helen's ear, in a voice which could have brought the glad news from Ghent ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... that functionary. "I hope you've forgot nothink? Miss 'Melia's gownds—have you got them—as the lady's maid was to have 'ad? I hope they'll fit you. Shut the door, Jim, you'll get no good out of 'ER," continued John, pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp: "a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr. Sedley's groom drove away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady's maid in question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... back in her chair, at the exact angle permitted by the laws of propriety; rested her left elbow on the palm of her right hand, and lightly supported her cheek with her forefinger and thumb. In this position she waited Mr. Troy's answer—the living picture of human obstinacy in ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... the weight and length of the blade. If you have a light cutlass weighing, say, about one and a half pound, and measuring about thirty-four inches in the blade, you may hold it in the same way as in single-stick play, viz. with the thumb on the back of the hilt, as in the sketch, and you will probably find that in this way the guards are made with greater facility. At the same time, when guarding, say, with the hanging guard (see Fig. 15), the thumb is liable to ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... my word, and though the Duke used all the arguments with her which he could think of, she bound my thumb with silk, and with a needle drew blood, with which she obliged me to sign a promissory note as follows: "I promise to Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon to continue united with the Duke her husband against the Parliament in case M. de Turenne approaches with the army under his command within twenty ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... pointed with his thumb over his left shoulder. 'He is in jail. He is good for twenty years. I did it myself. My name is So-and-so. Good job. Procurator said you were interested—some woman in the case, parishioner of ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the organs of the body. Sully says that in bed we may voluntarily imagine that a leg has a position quite different from that it really has. Let me cite some similar examples from my "Manual for Investigating Judges.'' If we take a pea between the thumb and the index finger, we feel the pea simply, although its tactile image comes to us through two fingers, i. e., double. If now we cross the third finger over the fourth and hold the pea between the ends of these two fingers, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... on a hot-bed, in thumb-pots, or on inverted turf, or sods, cut in convenient pieces; and about the last of May, if the weather is warm and pleasant, transplanted to hills ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... deferentially, and then, half shutting his small gray eyes, replied with an ominous chuckle, as one who enjoys bad news: "Eh, well enough, M. Paul; but I don't like that." And, lifting an unshaven chin, he pointed over his shoulder with a long, grimy thumb to the western sky. ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... way, at the same time taking quiet possession of Elsie's little rosewood rocking-chair—a late present from her papa, and highly prized by the little girl on that account—and beginning to scratch with her thumb nail upon ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... light on the canned goods, if necessary; but get the best reels and lines on the market. Nothing in life hurts so much," he said impressively, "as to get a three-pound bass to the top of the water and have your line break. I've had a big fellow get away like that and chase me a mile with its thumb on its nose." This last, of course, was ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... less congenial engagement of meeting the Board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress of the Sankey viaduct. He had a favourite ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... armory, Tallyho was much gratified with a view of its contents—trophies of the famous victory of Queen Elizabeth over the Spanish armada, among which the most remarkable were the thumb screws, intended to be used in order to extort confession from the English, where their money was hidden. The axe with which the unfortunate Anne Bullen was beheaded by order of Henry VIII.; a representation of Queen Elizabeth ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... or thumb in order to turn over leaves. Many respectable people are addicted to this habit, but it is a vulgar one. Besides, it is entirely useless. The same remarks might be applied to the habit of suffering the corners of the leaves to turn up, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... principal members of this pine family grow. Instead of stretching straight out into the water, it curves toward the lawn, as if the back of your hand and your four fingers composed the lawn, and your thumb, slightly but not far extended, were the Point of the Pines. There are only a few trees, for the Point is small; they're seven in number and they reach beautifully toward the Sound, like running dryads holding out eager arms ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... very deliberately, as if he had prepared the form of words in which he made his strange request, and as he spoke he held out a sheet of paper apparently torn out of a notebook. "I asked that gentleman over there"—he jerked his thumb over his shoulder—"to be my first witness, and he kindly consented. I'd be much obliged if you'd sign your name just here. I'll also ask you to take charge of it—only a small envelope, as you see. It's addressed to my ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... upbraided Alexander Downie with his son-in-law Clerk, the panel, his having killed the said Serjeant: And Downie said, as the deponent heard, what could his son-in-law do, since it was in his own defence: Depones further, That he saw upon Elizabeth Downie, Clerk's wife, her thumb, a yellow ring, which he took to be gold; and this he saw after her marriage, having a little knap upon it like into a seal, having scores or lines round about it, and this he saw frequently upon her hand, which ring the deponent ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... to e'en the doctor's hood, The book of life ye thumb, And reckon o'er, in light and joyous mood, Your ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... you. But take this along with you:—that property is mine; land, house, stock, every thing. All is safe and snug under cover of a mortgage, to which Billy was kind enough to add a bond. One was sued, and the other entered up, a week ago. So that all is safe under my thumb, and the girl may whistle or starve for me. I shall give myself no concern about the strumpet. You thought to get a prize; but, damn me, you've met with your match in me. Phil Haddin's not so easily choused, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... He paused to notice the keen old Scotchman wince under the thrust, "but, in the mean time, I am merely waiting orders here, and I want you to post me about the condition of affairs up there." He vaguely indicated with his thumb the far-distant battlement of the Roof of the World. Hugh Johnstone rang a silver bell, and muttered a few words in Hindostanee to an attendant. "I must know more from Calcutta before I can explain just where I stand," said the renegade ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... coincident with popular emancipation from the mere superstition of drug-administration. The older lists of approved remedies were loaded with items that had no curative properties at all, except by suggestion. They were purely magical—the thumb-nails of executed criminals, the hair of black cats, the ashes of burned toads and so on. Even at this moment your pharmacopoeia contains scores of remedies that are without effect or that do not produce the effects credited to them. I am relying on high therapeutical authority ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... a grape-shot in his ankle, and a flesh-wound in his side from a glancing ball or piece of shell. Captain Pope has had a musket-ball extracted from his shoulder. Captain Appleton is wounded in the thumb, and also has a contusion on his right breast from a hand-grenade. Captain Willard has a wound in the leg, and is doing well. Captain Jones was wounded in the right shoulder. The ball went through and he is doing well. Lieutenant Homans wounded ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... hatched at Delphi with Apollo's blessings on him." Dion pointed with his thumb to the small coop at his feet. "The oracle is simple. You cast before him two piles of corn; if he picks at the one to right we take toad's bone, to left the adder's fat. Heaven will speak ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... aspect a matter of gesture) is unused by whole nations, and so, too, is handshaking. It has been said by a traveller that the vulgar operation described by Barham in the line "Put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out" is a mark of courtesy and esteem in one remote nation; nor is putting out the tongue a sign of contempt everywhere. Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... pints of water. Four of these were given for the ordinary, and eight for the extraordinary. The executioner inserted a horn into the patient's mouth, and if he shut his teeth, forced him to open them by pinching his nose with the finger and thumb.] ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the same room with his brothers, but his bed being the longest and largest, his youngest brother was to sleep at the other end of it—foot to foot. True, by this means he got another pillow, for of course that little Hop-o'-my-thumb could do without one, and so he took his; but in spite of this, he determined that, sooner than submit to such an indignity, he would sit up all night. Accordingly, when all the rest were fast asleep, Melchior, with his boots off and ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... the sunset rays, as he tested its sharpness between thumb and finger. The Arab watched with a smile. "We understand one another," he said. There was no need to finish the description of his plan. With a solemn wave of his hand ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... would first bite out the minister's finger-nails,—a form of torture then in vogue among the northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no further attempt to ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a character ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... right way," said Mr. Winston, as he spoke he placed his thumb on a brass nail and the gauze door rose, instead of opening, and without any noise displayed the contents of ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... keep this," with a jerk of her thumb towards the big, bare room which had been hers since she left Aunt Milly and the little home town. "There's a room at the top of the Kensington I can have, with a light as good as this, and that settles the last problem. I'd hate to have to go outdoors ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... for the hand, covering the thumb in one space and the fingers in another, so that men wearing them can still ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Gussie took their machetes to a grindstone on the hurricane-deck. Our soldiers gathered around to see them sharpen their long knives, but only one could be induced to test the edge of these barbarous instruments with his thumb. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... me the reins, stepped out of the sleigh, went a short distance to a large crack that he had seen while speaking, and returned with a thumb placed on the handle of the whip, as a measure to show that his statement was true. The ice, at that spot, was certainly nearer eighteen than sixteen inches thick. Herman Mordaunt showed the measure to Mrs. Bogart, whose alarm was pacified by this positive ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... with you?" said the marquis, offering the little note, which he had carried all the time between his finger and thumb. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... A small shower of tobacco sifted to the floor: the rice-paper cracked and came away; and with the bland smile and gesture of a professional conjurer, Lanyard exhibited a small cylinder of stiff paper between his thumb ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... asked the senator, "that your hundred signers of this thing are afraid madame will get the cholera?" He took the petition's free end between thumb and finger and softly pulled. But its ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... admit that I'm not much at taking up with second-hand opinions. Now, here's another idea of mine." He held up a walnut between his thumb and finger. "There's a tree in that, ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... when it instantly caught the pup by the under jaw and held on as only it could (they have a powerful jaw), nor would it release its hold until choked near to death, which was done by taking it behind the bony framework of the head, between the thumb and finger, and pressing hard. The pup did considerable howling for half an hour, by which time the jaw was much swollen, remaining so for two or three days, after which it was all right again. By this I could only conclude ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... they demaund or call for any thing so much as for the said Reals of eight. Mercery or haberdashers wares were in no such request as money. Also we much marueiled, how the Iauans should tell vs of more shippes to come, making signes with their foure fingers and thumb, that foure Lyma (which word in their language signifieth ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... of the body evenly distributed between the two feet. Extend one arm to lightly grasp the bar, and carry the other arm straight out from the shoulder, in a slightly relaxed position, as shown in the diagram. The thumb should rest on the tip of the first finger, the middle and ring fingers slightly bent, the little finger extended so that it is slightly separated from the others, the wrist bent slightly downward. The whole attitude should ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... and raw-boned, with a long yellow moustache, an unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with one grimy thumb buried deep in the lukewarm stew, that seemed, from the frequency of its repetition, to constitute the pride of his culinary art, was sufficient to ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the delicately embroidered collar, a thumb and finger on either side. "I guess it won't meet," ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... I was a lark, a lark all lofty in the sky, I do not know what I should do to quench my blazing eye. I'd look me down on Dominic's, and think of the days when I was young, Or would I was an infant meek all sucking of my thumb. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... towards the table, around which the company were seated. His appearance excited the utmost astonishment in the whole group: curiosity was exhibited in every countenance—the magnum remained poised midway in the hand of Palmer—Dr. Small scorched his thumb in the bowl of his pipe; and Mr. Coates was almost choked, by swallowing an inordinate whiff ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Cabul, which is the most important fair in the whole world. And this was the reason why the old Prince of Cashmere had brought his daughter to the fair: he had lost the two most precious objects in his treasury; one was a diamond as big as my thumb, on which, by an art then known to the Indians, but now forgotten, a portrait of his daughter was engraved; the other was a javelin, which of its own accord would strike whatever mark ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... you fleas from the kaross of Sekukuni, till I can come across and crack you between my thumb and finger. Or at the least wait until Macumazahn has time to get his rifle. No, put down those guns of yours; for every shot you fire I swear that I will cut ten Basuto throats when we come to storm your koppies, as we shall do ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... helping hands to you. Well, and women have been trained for hundreds of years to see things in that private and personal way, and to exalt the private and personal virtues. Just as they've been trained to stick to rule of thumb methods that more or less work, rather than to try experiments. So, on the whole, I think their getting the vote will mean that politics will be crookeder and more reactionary than they've been in a good ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... went straight to the store and to a shelf in a far and dusty corner where were all of the purchasable books of the village. A thumb in her mouth, a frown in her eyes, she regarded them ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... We began in a small way as a nation, without much stock-in- trade, and we kept our accounts by rule of thumb. But it seems to me we are doing a pretty large business as a ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... ship, sir," answered Helling. Then he hesitated, and slowly slipped his finger and thumb along the waist-band of his trousers. But he only repeated, "I must find a ship," ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... should be carried with clean hands. God requires it, men require it, and have a right to require it. The mightiest witness for Him is the witness of a pure life, and if we go about the world professing to be His messengers, and carrying His epistle in our dirty fingers, the soiled thumb-mark upon it will prevent men from caring for the message; and the Word will be despised because of the unworthiness of its bearers. 'Be ye clean that bear the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... a show in progress. The wit of the thing seemed to consist chiefly in the wonderful names chosen. The King of the Cannibal Islands was to appear on a white charger. King Chrononhotonthologos was to be led in chains by Tom Thumb. Achilles would drag Hector thrice round the walls of Troy; and Queen Godiva would ride through Coventry, accompanied by Lord Burghley and the ambassador from Japan. It was also signified that in some back part of the premises a theatrical ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... stock, every thing. All is safe and snug under cover of a mortgage, to which Billy was kind enough to add a bond. One was sued, and the other entered up, a week ago. So that all is safe under my thumb, and the girl may whistle or starve for me. I shall give myself no concern about the strumpet. You thought to get a prize; but, damn me, you've met with your match in me. Phil Haddin's not so easily choused, I promise ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... nigh Mart's place last fall an' heerd her screamin',—you could hear the blows landin' on her back, too,—so I jest stepped sort o' spry to'ards his cabin an' ketched him layin' it on with a wilier branch as thick as your thumb, an' her a screechin' like a wild-cat in a trap. Well, what happened inside the next minute made a friend o' her fer life,—an' an enemy o' him. You'd have thought any dootiful an' loyal offspring would o' ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... the way she must cover them; yet, when those covered by her came out of the oven they had not risen at all, they were like rich short paste; while my own, made from the same paste, were toppling over with lightness. I had, without saying anything, pressed my thumb slightly on one spot of one of mine; in that spot the paste had not risen at all, and I think this practical demonstration of what I had tried to explain was more useful than an hour's talk would ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... affected yawn and stretch. In speaking she looked at her mother, and not at the painter to whom she had been sitting for nearly two hours. The young man in question stood embarrassed and silent, his palette on his thumb, brush and mahlstick suspended. His eyes were cast down: a flush had risen in his cheek. Miss Bella's manner was not sweet; she wished evidently to slight somebody, and the painter could not flatter himself that the somebody ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a man to ride the horses back, he could come down the Swan. I will be coming up, and we ought to pinch Imbrie between the two of us. The situation is a serious one, as Imbrie has the whole tribe of Kakisas under his thumb. He will stop at nothing now; may be insane. The position of the women is a ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!" (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage—with a stern triumph. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... always seemed to me strange that even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonentity, 'The Best Authority.' I am inclined to think that were I a human being I should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, "Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... then sprinkled over the meat, it would dissolve entirely, few would suspect that onion was present, and yet there would be no danger that the pie would be tasteless. A little piece of onion the size of a thumb-nail, chopped as small as possible, would be sufficient to flavour two small meat pies four inches in diameter. And a pie this size would be quite large enough for a ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... together. Still, there may have been nothing wrong. She was old Judge Carmody's daughter, you know. Longworth got Carmody under his thumb in money matters and put the screws on. They say he made Carmody's daughter the price of the old man's redemption. The girl herself was a mere child, I shall never forget her face on her wedding day. But she's been plucky since then, I must say. If she has suffered, she hasn't shown ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... She emitted this monosyllable with a falling inflection, and followed it by a full stop. She took his teacup from him. "You know what little Tommy Tucker did." She placed her thumb on one of the upper black notes of the piano and waved her fingers over the remainder of the keyboard. "'Just a song at twilight,'" She ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... wheeled out of sight, Capitola—I am sorry to say—put her thumb to the side of her nose and whirled her fingers into a semicircle, in a gesture ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... immortal George; 'I wish it wasn't; I wish I was any thing but me. But what is the news here? is there any one running? They are all running back there,' (pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.) ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that, sir. The sound of the French tongue, which these blacks of Hayti speak with a better accent than the gamins of Paris, gained over Captain Alphonse; while Madame Boisson declared the whole episode truly charming, her fat husband, who was entirely under her thumb, shrugging his shoulders and giving them ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... his case sentiment can be guided by sentiment. And all for his best good! He mustn't run wild in this folly! I believe there's no one who can approach him with more tact than my daughter Lana." Despeaux found an opportunity to dig his thumb suggestively into Blanchard's side. "They have been extremely good friends, I believe, in boy-and-girl fashion; between us three old townsmen, I'll go as far as to say they were very much interested in each other. But in the case of both of 'em their ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... as the page entered, "what is to do here? It seems that I am not to be master even in this little island of Hop o' my Thumb. They lord it over me even as they did when I was here before, as Prince of ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... bananas of the tropics, the camels of the East, the buffaloes of the West, and the cannibals of the South, are equally at our service. We can hold the mountains, rivers, seas, and human races between our finger and thumb, and thus, as we gently dally with care, we may see the wonders of the world as in a pleasant dream. Thus may we enjoy the perils and hardships of travel at a very small sacrifice of ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... commenced. A little fat man in a ruffled and embroidered shirt, buff waistcoat with crystal buttons, knee breeches and silk stockings of reproachless black, and steel buckled shoes, had come before the curtain, sticking one thumb in his waistband and the other in his vest armhole, to display a huge seal ring and a mammoth diamond hoop, respectively, as well as his idea of ease in company. He announced in a high flute-like voice that in consequence of indisposition, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... when in for his viva voce examination at college; and of experiencing a difficulty when called upon to place the ring on one of the fingers of the white hand held forth to him, and of his probable selection of the thumb for the ring's resting place, had not the bride considerately poked out the proper finger, and assisted him to place the golden circlet in its assigned position. Mr. Verdant Green had also a misty ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... she had come. Her fingers were splashed as she felt for the artery, which she closed by leaning her whole weight on the thumb. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... slips of paper between his fingers, taking care to put the paper of his confederate between the third and little finger; he then takes the folded paper from between his thumb and first finger and rubs it, folded as it is, over his forehead, at each rub mentioning a letter, as H. rub, A. rub, S.T.I.N.G.S., after which he calls out that some lady or gentleman has written "Hastings." "I did," replies ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... a-pluck. Which fear nother giants nor Jupiter's fire-bolt, Nor Belzebub the master-devil, as ragged as a colt? I would thou wouldst come hither once again: I think thou hadst rather alive to be flayn. Come again, and I swear by my mother's womb, I will pull thee in pieces no more than my thumb; And thy brains abroad I will so scatter, That all knaves shall ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... a fair company, God us save; For if any of us three be mayor of London, I-wis, i-wis, I will ride to Rome on my thumb: Alas! ah, see; is not this a great feres? I would they were in a mill-pool above the ears; And then I durst warrant, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... away any too easily, Sam. Things are in a fearful snarl. But I telephoned to Mr. Powell, the lawyer, to look after matters during my absence. I think we've got those brokers under our thumb—at least I hope so. But if we haven't, we stand to lose ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... handkerchief or piece of something tightly above the elbow, and the barber deftly slits a vein immediately below the hollow of the elbow-joint, pressing out the vein he wishes to cut by a pressure of the left thumb. The blood spurts out, the patient looks at the squirting blood, and then surveys the onlookers with a "who-cares?—I-don't" sort of a grin. He then squats down and watches it bleed about a half-pint, occasionally working the elbow-joint to stimulate the flow. Half a pint is considered about ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... to rest and smiled back at him tentatively. They never knew what to expect from Connel. "Well, did you put them through their paces?" he asked as he jerked his thumb ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them who had been examining him very closely rushed towards ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... baby's feeding bottle but not perforated) on the upper end, after cutting or snapping off the sealed point of the capillary portion. If pressure is now exerted upon the elastic bulb by a finger and thumb whilst the capillary end is below the surface of the fluid to be taken up, some of the contained air will be driven out, and subsequent relaxation of that pressure (resulting in the formation of a partial vacuum) will cause the fluid ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... while she was making her way up the bank, and I was helping him to make the boat secure, I said, "Well! the new boat has done bravely!" "Between you and me, my dear fellow," said he, as he laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip, that I think must have left his thumb-mark on the skin, "if the boat had not behaved better than any boat of her class that I ever saw, there would have been a considerable probability of our being dined on by the fishes, instead of dining ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... smack calfskin; to kiss the book in taking the oath. It is held by the St. Giles's casuists, that by kissing one's own thumb instead of smacking calfskin, the guilt of taking a false ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... lady's visit was to discover if the knife had been poisoned. Finding that all question would be useless, she had recourse to an artifice to effect her purpose, suggested by the discovery of a splinter buried in Bertha's thumb. ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... student is remarkably addicted; but in the present case what was to be done? He offered the nearest a pinch of snuff, as a mode of commencing his acquaintance and cultivating his complacency. The student dug his thumb into the box, and, with the additional aid of the forefinger sweeping out half its contents, growled out something like thanks, and then drew up in his seat, as if he had too warmly encouraged the impertinent intrusion of a Philistine to whom he had ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... motion. He comes but a little way after Cody in the chronology of early British experimenters, but Cody, a born inventor, must be regarded as the pioneer of the present century so far as Britain is concerned. He was neither engineer nor trained mathematician, but he was a good rule-of-thumb mechanic and a man of pluck and perseverance; he never strove to fly on an imperfect machine, but made alteration after alteration in order to find out what was improvement and what was not, in consequence of which it was said of him that he was ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... again, looking back and waiting. But still Chad sat irresolute and in a moment, Jack heard something that disturbed him, for he threw his ears toward the top of the hill and, with a growl, trotted back to Chad and sat close to him, looking up the slope. Chad rose then with his thumb on the lock of his gun and over the hill came a tall figure and a short one, about Chad's size and a dog, with white feet and white face, that was bigger than Jack: and behind them, three more figures, one of which was the tallest of the group. All stopped when they saw Chad, who ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the air by means of a wide flattened membrane connecting the whole of the limbs and tail, the thumb of the fore-paws and the hind-feet alone being left free. This membrane, though wonderfully delicate, is furnished with minute blood-vessels. It also possesses a system of nerves of the most exquisite power of sensation, which enables it to fly rapidly among the boughs ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... he had pinned the larger sum of money he had taken from his purse when he had changed from mufti at the inn over in the Bistrick quarter of the town. They had found it? Something crinkled under the pressure of his fingers, and a pin pricked his thumb. It was there—his money. They had not searched for it, thinking of course that the money they had found in the pockets was all that he had possessed. He found the head of the pin and opened the lining, counting the notes—ten of them in ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... Maire," replied Scaufflaire; then, scratching a speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... was surely there in some form, and escaped the slaughter. Then or later it is thought he took to the trees to escape his enemies, as the rats in Jamaica have taken to the trees to escape the mongoose. To his tree-climbing we probably owe our hand, with its opposing thumb. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... a little," said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude, having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and looked at her—not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to the shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St. Peter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the spots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and forefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its mouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St. Peter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... just as it had closed upon the lean throat of Old Jimmie on the day of Larry's return—only now there was nothing playful in the noose of that big hand. He shook Gavegan as he might have shaken a pillow, with a thumb thrusting ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... to wait here for you, master and missy," said the man. "There were some farmers men down that way, round the corner," and he jerked his thumb—for he had by this time come out of his hole—in an imaginary direction, "as said this were a private road, and they'd set dogs on us if we came on. I'm a peaceable fellow, and not fond o' fightin', so I'd just have gone on my way out of ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... to a different part of the building, and joined another crowd, this time surrounding the illustrious Tom Thumb, at that time one of the ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... the white trader. So great is the adulteration, that most of the traders have to cut each ball open. Even the Kinsembo rubber, which is put up in clusters of bits shaped like little thimbles formed by rolling pinches of rubber between the thumb and finger, and which one would think difficult to put anything inside of, has to be cut, because "the simple children of nature" who collect it and bring it to that "swindling white trader" struck upon the ingenious notion that little pieces of wood shaped like the thimbles ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... informed him in answer to that mute question; and as the fellow moistened his thumb to turn back the pages, Mr. Caryll saved him the trouble. "It says, I think, that the man should be on your right hand and the woman on your left. Ye seem to have reversed matters, Mr. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... his hand in his pocket, his thumb on a little plate that was set in the side of the small mechanism that was concealed therein. As he neared the door, the little plate began to vibrate, making a buzz which could only be felt, not heard. Mike sighed ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and described the matter. Afterwards, in a reply to a question of mine, whether he still seemed to feel the hand that had been amputated, he answered that he did always; and, baring the stump, he moved the severed muscles, saying, "There is the thumb, there the forefinger," and so on. Then he talked to me about phrenology, of which he seems a firm believer and skilful practitioner, telling how he had hit upon the true character of many people. There was a great deal of sense ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the hole in your pinafore! You ARE Jane, aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! Crikey! The wish has come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... perfection—so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand—it was well-shaped, save that the thumb turned ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... of freezing amazement. "You will no doubt remember in what capacity I find you employed. Nay, keep your hands still, Saint-Eustache. I don't fight catchpolls, and if you give me trouble my men are yonder." And I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. "And now to business. I am not minded to talk all day. I was saying that I marvel at your temerity, and more particularly at your having laid information against Monsieur de Lavedan, and having come here to arrest him, knowing, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... clean-cut little stenographer. Her correspondence had always been free from erasures, thumb-marks, errors. Her four-room flat was as spotless as her typewritten letters had been. The kitchen shone in its blue and white and nickel. A canary chirped in the tiny dining-room. There were books and magazines on the sitting-room table. The bedroom was brave in its snowy spread and ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... some time, the better to stir up his vital spirits, and appareled himself according to the season; but willingly he would wear a great long gown of thick frieze, lined with fox fur. Afterward he combed his head with the German comb, which is the four fingers and the thumb; for his preceptors said that to comb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat was to lose time in this world. Then to suppress the dew and bad air, he breakfasted on fair fried tripe, fair grilled meats, fair hams, fair hashed capon, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Graves said to Howard, "Jack is rather a masterful young man, I think. He has no sense of respect in his composition. Were you aware of the fact that he had us all under his thumb this evening?" ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thought the eldest, "I shall soon have an opportunity to pluck one of them;" and so it happened, for not long after the young man left the room. She instantly went up to the bird and took hold of its wing, but as she did so, the finger and thumb remained and stuck fast. In a short time after the second sister came in with the full expectation of gaining a golden feather, but as she touched her sister to move her from the bird, her hand stuck fast to her sister's dress, and neither of them could ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, and ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... not say that, my dear," she cried, appalled. "It is not your affair at all, and the Turners are not to blame because the Sheriff is under the thumb of his madam. The Turners have their good points as well as ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... said, as we appeared. He jerked a thumb towards the classroom. 'I've locked dem in. What's doin', Buck?' he asked, indicating ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... use much larger rakes and cover a wider part of the cove. Now and then the men on board the sailboats would haul up the rakes, which were shaped something like a man's hand is when half closed and all the fingers and the thumb are spread out. The clams were dumped on deck, afterward to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope
... off; for he apprehended, as I did not, the difficulty attendant upon running a line in a true and regular curve. But I am not prepared to say that this work could not have been accomplished by mere rule of thumb. My friend Bandelier, in the course of his admirable analysis of the ruins at Mitla, has made clear to me how easy it is to attribute to scientific knowledge work that is the result only of manual skill. As I have pointed out in my discussion of this matter in my Pre-Columbian ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... returned Laurie, with his thumb in his mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that grew just ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... addressed every term of endearment to me, I was too much excited to make any reply. For in a few moments he continued his delicious play, titillating the interior of my Mons Veneris, while he caressed my clitoris with his thumb, sending a lava of delight through my frame. In spite of all my endeavors not to appear too lascivious, I could not help moving my buttocks in response to his soul inspiring touches—I felt the crisis approaching. At that moment I saw him tear open the front of ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... never seen groping about in a helpless and timid way for "a position," and shrinking from the turmoil and dirt of some walks of life, without spreading among the uncultivated a contempt for culture and increasing their confidence in the rule of thumb. The mere "going to college" is recognized as a sign of pecuniary ease, and of a desire for social advancement, but not as preparation for the kind of work which the bulk of the community is doing, and thus makes mental culture seem less desirable, and ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... to get across, Jerry," Spillane said, at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his wife. "Her father's hurt at the Clover Leaf. Powder explosion. Not expected to ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... by the trail, how long since persons have passed, the number of the party, as well as the number of animals. An Indian, when he makes a fire, uses half a dozen little sticks as big as your thumb, and very dry, and all the smoke the fire makes, will ascend straight up in one steady column. The white man will use, if he is a novice, the dry to kindle with, and then he will chuck on the wet wood, which ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... myself that I was young. I turned to speak to my hostess, but she was gone on business of her own. So there I stood for half an hour, biting my thumb. I had as yet seen nothing of the mysterious Ellen, although many a score of eyes, in license of the carnival, had flashed through their masks at me, and many others as their owners passed by in the dance or promenade near where I ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... of a hippopotamus, the hairy lips of which were still sound and not putrified, and the jaw was also firm, out of which we plucked a great many teeth, two of them eight inches long and as big as a man's thumb, small at one end, and a little crooked, the rest not above half so long. The maw was full of jelly, which stank extremely. However, I saved for awhile the teeth and the shark's jaw. The flesh of it was divided among my men, and they took care ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... $5,000 on that new home we're going to buy on the first of the year, and I fell down and broke my promise. I thought I could drag the homestead money away from the Street, so I took a few slices of Amalgamated Copper and burned my thumb. Old Colonel Frenzied Finance didn't do a thing to me. When I yelled for help my pocketbook looked like a last season's autumn leaf in the family Bible. Peaches isn't wise that I've lost my roll, so it's up to me to make good before she ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own? An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so. 160 Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em, 'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum: Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow, By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow; But an M.C. frum here ollers hastens to state he Belongs to the order called invertebraty, Wence some gret filologists ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Philammon's head, which, as there was a head and shoulder's difference between them, might on the whole have been considered, from a theatric point of view, as a failure. Whereon the little man seized the calabash of beer, and filling therewith a cow's horn, his thumb on the small end, raised it high ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Sir G. Vans was a giant, and a bottle-maker. And as all giants who are bottle-makers usually pop out of a little thumb-bottle from behind the door, ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... excitedly, and, forgetting all about the messiness of the great wet shapeless-looking mollusc, he used both finger and thumb. "Here, ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... head;" and another ancient law allowed the use only of "a stick no longer than the husband's arm and no thicker than his middle finger" in the case of the wife; while Blackstone's well-remembered restriction was to "a stick no bigger than his thumb." ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... piece I have handled is that of "Tom Thumb," whose author was a Pythagorean philosopher. This dark treatise contains the whole scheme of the metempsychosis, deducing the progress of the ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... on Mr. Harker, "and when the scoundrel has been unmasked, you need have no fear of any future danger. In my master's chain of villainy there was a single flaw; but that flaw has broken the whole chain. The poor tool, whom he had had so long beneath his thumb, whom he had trodden under his foot remorselessly, suddenly regained his freedom—which he had bartered for the safety ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... things make a great difference to a sailor. When we got on deck, the man at the wheel struck eight bells (four o'clock in the morning), and "All Starbowlines, ahoy!'' brought the other watch up, but there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, "blowing like scissors and thumb-screws''; the captain was on deck; the ship, which was light, rolling and pitching as though she would shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... send such things as that through without cratin'?" says I to a guy behind the chicken wire, jerkin' me thumb at Mr. Sleuth. "What's the ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... maternal grandfather had returned to Stratford. To that place he very frequently resorted in his youth, and there, in the well-stored and well-arranged library he pursued the studies he loved. The tradition is that he conned his Greek lessons lying flat on the floor with his thumb in his mouth, and the fingers of the other hand employed in twisting a lock of the brown, hair on his forehead. He took no pleasure in fishing or in hunting; I doubt whether he ever let off a fowling-piece ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... ones with old folk-lore tales when the family gathered together around the great living-room fire in the winter evening, or asked eagerly for a bedtime story in the long summer twilight. Tales such as "Jack the Giant Killer," "Tom Thumb," the "Children in the Wood," and "Guy of Warwick," were orally current even among the plain people of England, though frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore it is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colonists. In fact, it is known that John Dunton, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... Jerome (Prologue, super Marc.) says that "it is related of the Blessed Mark* that after receiving the faith he cut off his thumb that he might be excluded from the priesthood." [*This prologue was falsely ascribed to St. Jerome, and the passage quoted refers, not to St. Mark the Evangelist, but to a hermit of that name. (Cf. Baronius, Anno ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... with these, working 'em down into the valley, the weather changed. It snowed harder. Just oodles of the most perfectly darling snow. Then distemper broke out among the saddle horses. Then being already shorthanded, what does the fool vaquero boss do but pick a splinter out of his thumb with a pin and get blood poison enough to lay him off? Too much trouble for cussing. I tried that out scientifically. So I had to get out and make a hand. If I heard someone say I did as much as any three of these ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... a grin threw the door open and indicated with his thumb that Swetenham and Dick might advance. He winked at them as they passed him, a fund of malignant impudence in his eyes. The room inside was small and scattered with a profusion of clothes. Fanny, attired in a long silk dressing ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... uproar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... peal of laughter was Gubblum's swift abridgment. The peddler tapped the mouth of his pipe on his thumb-nail, and smiled under ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... smartness pays better in the town, and the low intellectual qualities which are contained in it are educated by town life. The knowledge of human nature thus evoked is in no sense science, it is a mere rule-of-thumb affair, a thin mechanical empiricism. The capable business man who is said to understand the "world" and his fellow-men, has commonly no knowledge of human nature in the larger sense, but merely knows from observation how the average man of a certain limited class is likely to act ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... great artists, he had come to his second manner. In the great world, when he went to the Prince de Wissembourg's, to the Prefecture, to Comte Popinot's, and the like, he held his hat in his hand in an airy manner taught him by Valerie, and he inserted the thumb of the other hand in the armhole of his waistcoat with a knowing air, and a simpering face and expression. This new grace of attitude was due to the satirical inventiveness of Valerie, who, under pretence of rejuvenating her mayor, had given ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and an impetus to his own pursuit of Blanche: if pursuit might be called which had been no pursuit as yet, but mere sport and idle dallying. "She said something to him, did she? perhaps she gave him the fellow flower to this;" and he took out of his coat and twiddled in his thumb and finger a poor little shrivelled crumpled bud that had faded and blackened with the heat and flare of the night—"I wonder to how many more she has given her artless tokens of affection—the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... call my friend Salemina. She doesn't mind it. She knows that I am simply jealous because I came from a vulgarly large tribe that never had any coat-of-arms, and whose ancestors always sealed their letters with their thumb nails. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... what is written which results from the fact that these thoughts and emotions have been those of the author rather than of any other human being. It is the expression of one man's individuality, as sure and as unique as the sound of his voice, the look from his eye, or the imprint of his thumb."[45] Every person who has any call to write has a strong personality—an original manner of looking at life and of treating its problems. He wishes so to influence the world by this personality that it will consent to see through his eyes, or will at least listen patiently ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... rowdy, and gives it to him back, and then they get at it. Your nephew, who is a stout colt, buffets him well for a time, but Forrester, who is a mighty, powerful built fellow, he gets the better in the long run, and both come down together in the road. Then Forrester, being uppermost, sticks his thumb into Master Colleton's eye—the left eye, I think, it was—yes, the left eye it was—and the next moment it would have been out, when your nephew, not liking it, whipped out his dirk, and, 'fore Forrester could say ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... thrusting his brawny arm forth, with the fist clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, sometimes ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... behind, and joining these two by a line convex upward. The superficial appearance of the palm of the hand is described in the article on PALMISTRY; with regard to anatomical landmarks the superficial palmar arterial arch is situated in the line of the abducted thumb, while the deep arch is an inch nearer the wrist. The digital nerves correspond to lines drawn from the clefts of the fingers toward the wrist. On the back of the forearm the olecranon process of the ulna is quite subcutaneous, and during extension of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wedding ring, studded with precious stones, was worn on the forefinger; Christianity moved it to the third finger. Its use was originated in this way: the priest first put it on the thumb, saying 'In the name of the Father'; on the forefinger, adding, 'in the name of the Son;' on the second finger, repeating, 'in the name of the Holy Ghost;' and on the third finger, ending with 'Amen,' and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... and from the streaming tear drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth: one from his thumb, another from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. But ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... them the best way to shoot, not by placing the marble in the hollow of the first finger and shooting it out with the thumb, but on the tip of the first finger and letting ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... of prosperity, when he drove about in a hired carriage resplendent with the d'Entragues coat of arms, which cost him five hundred francs a month; had a majestic coachman in fine livery and a Tom Thumb groom; sported himself in gorgeous garments and strutted about in the Opera foyer, amidst the real or feigned admiration ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... critics were the sole critics of that evidence; and they are the sole light by which we foreigners can become critics. The great Chinese defect in criticism is the failure to work out general principles, and to criticize constructively as well as analytically. Their history is a rule of thumb, hand to mouth, diary sort of arrangement, like a vast museum of genuine but unclassified and unticketed objects. But there is no good reason whatever for our doubting the genuineness of either traditions or documents beyond the point of scepticism to which native Chinese ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the never tiresome recital, how Phronsie fell down the stairs leading from the kitchen to the "provision room" in the little brown house, with the bread-knife in her hand; and how, because she cut her thumb so that it bled dreadfully, mother decided that she could at last have a pair of shoes bought especially for her very own self; and how Deacon Brown's old horse and wagon were procured, and they all set forth, except mother, and how they rode ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... braced, and the body, though perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms, as in plate the first, where the arm in its ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... "u," "y," "g," is formed upon the extreme joint of the little finger. The slight discoverable system that seems to attach to his arrangement of the letters is the placing of the vowels in order upon the points of the fingers successively, beginning with the thumb, intended, as we suppose, to be of mnemonic assistance to the learner. Such assistance is hardly necessary, as a pupil will learn one arrangement about as rapidly as another. If any arrangement has advantage over another, we consider it the one which has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... physics; and for a time he and another boy named Rolfe—now a distinguished man of science—carried on electrical experiments of their own in the cellar of the Rolfe house. Here they had a "Tom Thumb" telegraph, a telephone which they had ventured to improve, and a hopeless tangle of wires. Whenever they could afford to buy more wires and batteries, they went to a near-by store which supplied electrical apparatus to the professors and students of Harvard. This store, with its workshop ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... whispered to her, and the result was that with the cup of milk came a plate of the magnificent raspberries. The doctor opened his grave eyes at Daisy, and stood at the foot of her couch picking up raspberries with his finger and thumb, as he had taken that one ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... had gathered itself for a final rush, and, when it had actually started to charge, he dropped to the ground like a flash. In a fraction of a second his powerful right arm went out, and he gripped the nostrils of the bull, pressing his thumb and forefinger home as far as he could. Then he twisted, ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... captain?' I asked, and a man jerked his thumb over his shoulder. The others wore thick jerseys and knitted caps, but there was one man ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
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