"Fingering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on every side, rifles shimmering in the subdued afternoon haze—wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... stopped. He stopped, and Mark had now a hand on each of his shoulders and held him at arm's-length, held him with a fine idea that was not disconnected from the sight of the small neat weapon he had been fingering in the low luxurious morocco chair—it was of the finest orange colour—and then had laid beside him on the carpet; where, after he had admitted his visitor, his presence of mind coming back to it and ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... decidedly dull. But in some parts of the city, our sovereign lord and master, the Mob, has been graciously pleased to afford us a little interesting excitement by bullying the landlords into giving receipts for their rents, without the usual preliminary ceremony of fingering the cash. 'Base is the slave that pays his rent' is now the motto of the mob, and his mobship chalks it up along with 'liberty, equality, fraternity!' To show, however, that he is really a good fellow at heart, the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... out of the house, and walked to and fro in a state of exaltation. "I'm well paid for my journey; I'm well paid for not fingering that note! Who would not be honest if they knew the sweets? How could he know my name? is he really more than man? Keep it? ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... day, after a reception of officers high in military command, his revolver, inlaid with gold and ivory, which had lain on a table by his side, disappeared, and the empress missed two watches, which had gone astray under the dexterous fingering of her maids-of-honor. General Lopez, who was then commandant of the palace, wishing to give the emperor a proof of the accomplishments of his subjects in matters of this kind, offered to steal off his writing-table, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... think you very much improved in your writing, and in the way to write a very pretty hand. I wish you could practise your fingering oftener. Would not it be a good plan for you to go and live entirely at Mr. Wm. Digweed's? He could not desire any other remuneration than the pleasure of hearing ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... A pale March sunshine was beating down upon the cobbled streets, and passers-by were plentiful. There was no fingering of hilts or talk of skewering on either side. Nor must I show any of the anger that was boiling in me. My face was too well known in Madrid streets, and a Secretary of State does not parade emotions to the rabble. So I walked stiff ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... said John Carver, stopping a foot or two in front of Pierre, his eyes shifting up and down, one long hand fingering ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... There must be some reaction. And so you get, first and foremost, self-consciousness, an intense consciousness in the upper self of the lower self. This is the first disaster. Then you get the upper body exploiting the lower body. You get the hands exploiting the sensual body, in feeling, fingering, and in masturbation. You get a pornographic longing with regard to the self. You get the obscene post cards which most youths possess. You get the absolute lust for dirty stories, which so many men have. And you get ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... fingering the apparatus on the library table connected with that in the music-room. "This is the psychometer for testing mental aberrations," he explained. "The scientists who are using it to-day are working, not with a view to aiding criminal jurisprudence, but with the hope of making such discoveries ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... Oh the mincing step he had with him! and the delicate hand on a horse, fingering the reins as St. Cicely ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... we might spend yet another fortnight in lying to, and then after all have to poke our way blindfold to the coast; at all events it would be soon enough to lie to the next night. Such were the considerations, which—after an anxious consultation with Mr. Wyse in the cabin, and much fingering of the charts,—determined me to ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... apple-blossom opens wide Under the pallid moonlight's fingering, I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide My eyes ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... more had passed. The protection gained was welcome. It had been the most annoying and not the least alarming feature of the day before, that our house was periodically filled with tipsy natives, twenty or thirty at a time, begging drink, fingering our goods, hard to be dislodged, awkward to quarrel with. Queen Victoria's friend (who was soon promoted to be her son) was free from these intrusions. Not only my house, but my neighbourhood as well, was left in peace; even on our walks abroad we were guarded and prepared ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dolly stood still, fingering the locks of her father's thick hair, while her mental thermometer went down and down. She knew by his whole manner that the money was not at hand even were he in London; and where then was it? Mr. Copley had always till now had plenty; what had happened, or what was the cause of the change? And ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... take a familiar one away, beyond reach, at any rate of return before nightfall. In fact, there are few places amid this mortal change to which we may come back after any reasonable interval with more confidence of finding things just as we left them, due allowance being made for the inevitable fingering of Time. We shall find some old people who have aged under it, and some who, as certain philosophers would hold, have grown younger again. The latter may be seen just beginning, perhaps, to sit up stiff on a woman's arm, or ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... not attain dimmed all herself and, with herself, her joy. Her face, already flushed by her walk, burned deeper still with shame. Yet the desire that three weeks of striving had swollen to a passion urged her forward, and, fingering the lovely thing about her waist to gain courage, she broke through the last ring of staring people and stood in front ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... lightly fingering his massive gold chain and somewhat vaguely recalling the language of advertisement, "that she kin have the comforts of a home and no questions asked, and fifty dollars ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... heart was ripe for something better than any of those things, when, as God would have it, Christian and Faithful came to the town. Hopeful was still hanging about the booths of the fair; he was just fingering his last sixpence over a commodity that he knew quite well would be like gall in his belly as soon as he had bought it; when,—what is that hubbub that rolls down the street? Hopeful was always the first to see and to hear every new thing that came ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... snout had been partly torn away. Firing when the game was in full career, and coming directly toward him, Shorty had been assailed by the enraged brute; it was now crunching the breech of the musket, with which he had tried to club it; Shorty holding fast to the barrel, and fingering his waist for a knife. Being in advance of the others, I clapped my gun to the boar's head, and so put an ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... weeping when you saw her. But she could not help it. While you lay on the couch in the haunted chamber, where he carried you, the awful death-ghost was busy in your room, was opening your desk, fingering your papers, and stealing your ring. It is rather ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... do not," said his guest, starting up. "What could a stupid country doctor do for me, with his owl-like examination of my tongue and clammy fingering of my pulse, but drive me mad? I ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Jim lay still a long time, idly fingering some bits of rock which the child had scattered upon his blanket. He felt very cold; and again, in another moment, he seemed to be burning up. He thought of the water in the tank. He was desperately thirsty, ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... walking in company through the early dusk of a December evening in Bentinck Street. It seems desirable to supply a reason why anyone should be walking there, to begin with, anyone, at all events, not a Chinaman, or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand furniture, or an able-bodied seaman luxuriously fingering wages in both trouser pockets, and describing an erratic line of doubtful temper toward the nearest glass of country spirits. Or, to be quite comprehensive, a draggled person with a Bulgarian, a Levantine, or a Japanese smile, who no longer possessed a carriage, to whom the able-bodied seaman ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... here and there or enjoy beach-chairs at a stipulated rental. The elderly French gentleman, a dapper and interesting, specimen rarely paralleled at home, strolls about contentedly on the asphalt promenade back from the beach, smoking a cigar and fingering a light bamboo. Younger men, also well-dressed, pass in couples, or walk with a mother and daughter,—never with the daughter alone. Boatmen and candy-peddlers ramble in and out, a Basque fisherman or two linger about the scene, and dogs, a pony and a captive monkey, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... sisters' health, and they ceased not drinking (the Porter being in the midst of them), and dancing and laughing and reciting verses and singing ballads and ritornellos. All this time the Porter was carrying on with them, kissing, toying, biting, handling, groping, fingering; whilst one thrust a dainty morsel in his mouth, and another slapped him; and this cuffed his cheeks, and that threw sweet flowers at him; and he was in the very paradise of pleasure, as though he were sitting in the seventh sphere among the Houris[FN157] of Heaven. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... they walked. The ranger regained his belt of weapons. With a fine timidity she begged the indulgence of fingering the great .45's, with little "Ohs" and "Ahs" ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... she goes, leaving him still fingering the book, but looking into the fire and far beyond. Behind him through the open window one sees how cold and clear ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... of frosty humour in his eye as he said this, and in the silence which followed I could hear him chuckling to himself, and tasting the words over again as though they were good wine. I sat fingering my pistol and waiting for him to speak again. When he did so, it was with another dry chuckle and a long ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was called, and we see that the whole tonal system was included within two octaves. To each of the notes comprising it was given a name partly derived from its position in the tetrachords, and partly from the fingering employed in lyre playing, as shown in the ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... us. It is far better that we should finish him now than allow him to go on and report our movements," said the man, fingering his trigger lovingly. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... is right?" Lord Henry demanded, scrutinising his image without a trace of recognition, in the long wardrobe mirror of his room, and lightly fingering a tie that St. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... received from Mr. James, which he had been fingering, to show that his informal, epistolary style was identical with that of his recent autobiographical writings, which we had been discussing. "Bennett, of course you should see Arnold Bennett." Great friend of Walpole's. "And Mrs. Belloc Lowndes," said Mr. ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... at his banker's: in that case, what are your expectations worth? Not a brass farthing. No, my dear dad, the risk of failure is too great, outweighing, as it does, the chances of success a thousandfold, for me to have the remotest hope of ever fingering the fifteen hundred pounds. I have, therefore, to appraise my time and services as the hero of a losing cause. I say the hero; for I certainly consider that I am about to play the leading part in the forthcoming drama—that I am the bright particular 'star' round which the lesser lights ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... last time we sat so?" asked the girl, as she came and knelt beside him, placing an arm upon his shoulder; "'twas the night before I left for England; and, oh! it was a most sorry time." Then fingering the ends of her silver girdle and glancing at the old woman, who was still asleep, she began in ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... answered cunningly. "It might not do, my girl. Oh, I know what is to do," he continued, fingering the edge of the axe. "I have been down to the village, and seen the mayor, and he is coming up to fetch him." He nodded towards the partition, and she knew that ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... richly-dressed gentlemen, with the finest of cloth in their coats, the whitest of linen and raffles, the brightest of diamonds in their studs, and the most massive of finger-rings. These last were "sportsmen." They had already fathered around a table in the "smoking-saloon," and were fingering a span new pack of cards—the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... famous "Apology," "From that moment I determined in earnest to clear the Spanish venom from the land." Watch his flushed face; his eyes, like coals taken fresh from an altar of vengeance; his hand, nervously fingering his sword-hilt; his form, dilating as if for the first time he guessed he had come to manhood,—and I miss in reckoning if we are not looking on the person of a patriot. For this William of Orange and Nassau is William the Silent, keeping his dreadful secret; but keeping the secret, too, that the ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... northern continent, when the "Shin Plasters" of banks in the United States and Canada were refused. When, for a short time, in 1865 and 1866, I held the office of shareholders' auditor of the Hudson's Bay Company, I cancelled many of these notes, which had become defaced, mainly owing to the fingering of Indians and others, who left behind on the thick yellow paper coatings of "Pemmican,"—the pounded flesh and fat of the buffalo, done up in skins like sausages—a food eminently nutritious and lasting long, but ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... in the face and edged towards him fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt of his ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... place for beauty's throne most fit, Bears up two globes where love and pleasure sit, Which, headed with two rich, round rubies, show Like wanton rosebuds growing out of snow; And in the milky valley that's between Sits Cupid, kissing of his mother queen, Fingering the paps that feel like sieved silk, And press'd a little they will weep pure milk. Then comes the belly, seated next below, Like a fair mountain in Riphean snow, Where Nature, in a whiteness without spot, Hath in the middle tied a Gordian knot. Now love invites me to survey her thighs, Swelling ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... You ought to have an allowance, if only to teach you how to lay it out, and to gain some acquaintance with everyday business. Henceforward I shall let you have a hundred francs each month. Here is your first quarter's income for this year,' he added, fingering a pile of gold, as if to make sure that the amount was correct. 'Do ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... which he placed on a seat beside him and pointed it towards the path from the house. As Riviere approached, Sylvester's left hand was fingering the silent release of the instantaneous shutter. He had made a practice of working his camera surreptitiously while his eyes held the ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... its natural bed? After all I never wilfully hurt or defied anybody before—that I can remember. But what are "grace" and "nature" more than words? There is a Life,—which our life perpetually touches and guesses at—like a child fingering a closed room in the dark. What ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... may to some extent judge from the delicacy of his present work of the heights he will attain by diligence. Yasha!" A swarthy youth in a blue silk blouse and long glace boots, like a gipsy, came forward with a swagger, fingering the tassels of his belt, and merrily screwing up his big, impudent black ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... lie some way. Then he laughed softly and bitterly to himself. Yes, there was escape—escape through the small blue hole in the forehead, which more than once he had pictured to himself lately with horrid reality when fingering his revolver—escape in the arms of the sea which he still loved, for in his day he had been a mighty swimmer. There were no other means save such as these. Long ago he had wearied of asking himself ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... darlin', I just love naked bread without no butter on it!' says she. My God, Mr. Flint, I bust out a-cryin' in her face. Seemed like I natchelly couldn't stand no mo'!" And smiling vaguely with her poor old down-curved mouth, she went on fingering ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... and Lanty were all standing together at the head of the vessel. The poor Abbe seemed dazed, and kept dreamily fingering his rosary, and murmuring to himself. The other three ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vigorously. The Artist, highly delighted, broke an almost invariable rule to prove that the greatest interest of Mougins was not the corkscrew. He opened his sketch-book. While the old man was fingering the ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... standing up and fingering his hat round and round, "I said I talked no doctrine now; but I must unsay that; and—you will not think me impertinent ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... you," he said, fingering his throat nervously, "by mere chance. I came here in search of employment—something in a newspaper. And I happened to see you in the streets. I asked who you were. Then, this morning, I watched ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... Martin was not immediately crushed, and that the professor replied in the way he did struck her as forbearance for Martin's youth. Professor Caldwell sat for a full minute, silent and fingering ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... and turned into the archway of his house. In the patio littered with straw, a practicante, one of Dr. Monygham's native assistants, sat on the ground with his back against the rim of the fountain, fingering a guitar discreetly, while two girls of the lower class, standing up before him, shuffled their feet a little and waved their arms, humming ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... theoretical positions; and at least the hole below the one giving he sound must be open, to insure perfect venting. Boehm's flute, however, has not remained as he left it. Improvements, applied by Clinton, Pratten, and Carte, have introduced certain modifications in the fingering, while retaining the best features of Boehm's system. But it seems to me that the reedy quality obtained from the adoption of the cylindrical bore which now prevails does away with the sweet and characteristic tone quality of the old conical German flute, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... beautiful, but not quite suitable for the piano. Everything Spohr has written for the piano is very difficult, indeed, sometimes it is impossible to find any fingering ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... at a glance that everything was as it should be; there was but one detail in his mental picture that the place did not realize, so he rang for the bell boy and sent him down for flowers. He moved about nervously until the boy returned, putting away his new linen and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When the flowers came, he put them hastily into water, and then tumbled into a hot bath. Presently he came out of his white bath-room, resplendent in his new silk underwear, and playing with the tassels of his red robe. The snow was whirling so fiercely outside ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... the old man swayed back and forward in his seat as if moved by some inward emotion, still fingering his hat. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... paced up and down there, playing long and low. Oh, music, how he loved it; it seemed to set everything straight all at once in his head. With bow in hand and violin at rest, he surpassed himself that evening in ingenuity of fingering. He trembled to think of his own cleverness and skill. What a miracle of device! What a triumph of cunning! Not an element was overlooked. It was safe as houses. He could go to bed now, and drop off like a child; having arranged before he went to make Guy Waring his cat's paw, and turn this sad stroke ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Fingering the hot rifle with close-pressed hands, Gale watched the sky line along the high point of lava. It remained unbroken. As his passion left him he feared to look back at his companions, and the cold chill returned ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... their breasts, were bunched together, most of them with their right hands inside their bosoms, while a similar group of Radical-Conservative storm troopers, with their black sombreros and little black masks, stood watching them and fingering the white-handled pistols they wore in pairs on their belts. Between the two groups were four city ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... quietly. Barlow started at the touch of his hand and stood frowning and fingering his forelock. "I know what's burning hot in your fancies. Remember they may be paste, after all. And anyway ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... Mr. Fear, fingering his shapeless hat and fixing his eyes upon it with embarrassment,—"first lemme say what I come here to say. I—well—" His embarrassment increased and he paused, rubbing the hat between ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... of a mix-up, Mr. Lidgerwood," he said, fingering the cigar tenderly. "Knowin' what's what, as some of us do, you'd say them two'd never get together, unless it was ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... iron sphere in one hand, the learned professor began fingering it with the other, like Columbus illustrating the rotundity of the globe before the Royal ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... resting after a tiresome march that one of the apes rose suddenly and sniffed the breeze. In a low guttural he cautioned the others to silence and a moment later was swinging quietly up wind into the jungle. La and the priests gathered silently together, the hideous little men fingering their knives and bludgeons, and awaited the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... words which some genius had devised for the fingering practice it gave one on the keyboard, and Joe Harned had written it hundreds of times before, just as thousands of others had done, without giving a thought to its meaning, or the significance that the substitution of a single word would ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... on top of it rigged up like she did and went to meeting as fresh and cool as a rose under dewy leaves! I made up my mind, as I set there and ate all that good stuff, and saw her at the head of the table fingering things in such a dainty way, that I'd have her at the head of my table in a fine, new house, or bust a trace. I'm to come out again next Sunday. In the mean time I'm going to try to think up some way to choke that old pair ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... I would free the white almond from the green husk So would I strip your trappings off, Beloved. And fingering the smooth and polished kernel I should see that in my hands glittered a gem ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... very gladly have said nothing further. But Dr. Knott's expression was curiously intent and compelling, as he sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass. All the ideality of Julius's nature rose in protest against the half-sneering rationalism he seemed to read in that expression. Mrs. Ormiston, who had an hereditary racial appreciation of anything ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... dinner hour is eleven, and this is why the tourist, fingering his guide book, looks in vain for the diners. Sacher's, the Imperial, the Bristol and the Spatenbraeu are deserted in the early evenings. Even after the Opera these restaurants present little of the life ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... wide his hands in sheer inability to find words that would express the hopelessness of retrieving his shattered fortunes. Dale was fidgeting, fingering taps and screws unnecessarily, but Medenham was pondering his former trooper's plight. He refused to admit that the position was quite so bad as it ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... a grand pianoforte, which has filled me with a fanatical desire to perform some flights on it, even if I had still to learn fingering. So then I began to "Tannhauser" and to "Lohengrin" on the Boulevard des Italiens as if you were with us. The poor devils could not understand why I was beside myself. However, it went better than at Madame Kalergy's, although you were ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... a moment, fingering his big eyeglasses nervously. "It may please you to know that she thinks you are an exceedingly ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Service Corps, whose business it is to see that he is never without it. How could he sit so calmly under shell-fire without marmalade? Never! He would get fidgety and forget his lesson, I am sure, like the boy who had the button which he was used to fingering removed before he went ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... down the Dale; while the snow fell relentlessly; softly fingering the windows, blocking the doors, and piling deep against the walls. Inside the house there was a strange quiet; no sound save for hushed voices, and upstairs ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... cover of this mock exclamation of fatigue, it was convenient to launch an oath. A fanciful visitor, seeing the irregularly rising hammers along the line, might have likened the shed to the interior of some vast piano, whose notes an unseen hand was erratically fingering. Rufus Dawes was seated last on the line—his back to the cells, his face to the gaol wall. This was the place nearest the watching constable, and was allotted on that account to the most ill-favoured. Some of his companions ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... The fine, the fingering beams Their young delightful hour do feature down That fleeted else like day-dissolved dreams Or ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... Copeland, standing by the seaward window, had picked up a lute and was fingering the instrument half-idly. Now the Marquess of Hastings stepped from the throng. "Pardon, Highness. But the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... made any attempt to avenge the insult. But his manifold shortcomings were no hindrance to his success. Wherever he went, between London and York, he stopped coaches and levied his tax. A threatening voice, an arched eyebrow, an arrogant method of fingering an unloaded pistol, conspired with the craven, indolent habit of the time to make his every journey a procession of triumph. He was capable of performing all such feats as the age required of him. But you miss the spirit, the bravery, the urbanity, and the wit, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... thought that the carrying out of the arpeggios in Hans von Buelow's edition of this piece is very near the solution suggested by Mendelssohn. At any rate, I advise using the Buelow edition, particularly as the figures are written out in full and the fingering is carefully marked—a very important consideration in one or ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... reminded them how hard he had always been compelled to work, and assured them that equal industry would lead them to success. He gave the thumb its proper place on the keyboard, and materially improved fingering. Tranquillity and poetic beauty being prime essentials of his playing, he preferred to the more brilliant harpsichord, or spinet, the clavichord, whose thrilling, tremulous tone, owing to its construction, was exceedingly sensitive to the player's touch. The early hammer-clavier, ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... so," replied Joan, fingering the thin, worn, ragged habit that had gone to pieces. "The first brush I ride through will tear ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... in the drawing-room, he had lost his calm air and was looking more than a little nervous. He moved about the room uneasily, fingering the bric-a-brac, glancing at the Duke and looking quickly away from him again. Then he came to a standstill on the hearth-rug with his ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... looking on at the improvisation of a really great artist. The illusion would have been all the more natural because the performance of this mad music required immense executive skill to achieve such fingering. Gambara must have worked at ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... the foolish boy had no love to his father to keep him from emigrating. He wanted to be his own master, and to get away into a place where he thought he could sow his wild oats and no news of it ever reach the father's house. He wanted to have the fingering of the money, and to enjoy the sense of possession. And so he went off on his unblessed road to the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Salieri was also fascinated, and instructed him in harmony; and fortunate it was that Liszt began his course under two strict mentors. He soon began to resent Czerny's method—thought he knew better and needed not those dry studies of Clementi and that irksome fingering by rule—he could finger anything in a half-a-dozen different ways. There was a moment when it seemed that master and pupil would have to part, but timely concessions to genius paved the way to dutiful submission, and years afterward the great master dedicated to the rigid disciplinarian of his boyhood ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... past eleven he stopped deliberately and stood for a moment, nervously fingering his tie. He was thinking about the course of action that he had decided upon in that long, unusual vigil of the night before. His uncertainty lasted until the remembrance of his wife's scornful ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... not answer at once, but stood with her head slightly bent, fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, the forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... secret of the iron door and his father's constant fingering of the keys; and this was the plaything of his youth, The Wound, as he had called it. Robert bowed his head upon his hands and tried to recollect where he had thrust it last; but though he thought of a score of hiding-places where it might be, he could not ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the parlour full too, and ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... was made without the slightest thought or suggestion of anything but delighted admiration and parental affection. Nevertheless, Ruth, to whom it was made, started slightly, and, turning, regarded the pair at the piano. Maud was fingering the pages of a book of college songs and looking smilingly up into the face of Charles Phillips, who was looking down into hers. There was, apparently, nothing in the picture—a pretty one, by the way— to cause Mrs. Armstrong to gaze so fixedly or to bring the slight frown to her forehead. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is cracking and breaking For a look, for a touch,—for such slight things; But he's such a very great musician Grimacing and fingering ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... of the winds is universal. The snow bends and trims the upper forests every winter, the lightning strikes a single tree here and there, while avalanches mow down thousands at a swoop as a gardener trims out a bed of flowers. But the winds go to every tree, fingering every leaf and branch and furrowed hole; not one is forgotten: the Mountain Pine towering with outstretched arms on the rugged buttresses of the icy peaks, the lowliest and most retiring tenant of the dells—they seek and find them all, caressing ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... with acquiescence and intelligence that might well have looked like sympathy, as she sat fingering the top of her hand-screen, with her eyelids fallen. She lifted them to say, "I have told you that I will not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have no longer any wish in this matter. I must still remain in the place of Imogene's ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... cotton!" he ejaculated. His father approached. The cotton lay in silken handfuls, clean and shimmering, with threads full two inches long. The idlers, black and white, clustered round, gazing at it, and fingering it with repeated exclamations ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... foremost comes REDMOND O'HANLON, allowed the first thief of the world,[16] That o'er the broad province of Ulster the Rapparee banner unfurled; Och! he was an elegant fellow, as ever you saw in your life, At fingering the blunderbuss trigger, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Young Mary's pride in her new dress. There was a buzz of unintelligible comments from the squaws as they pressed about the girl, fingering the material and ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... into the bare sitting room and sat down, while Mrs. Ducharme leaned against the door-post, fingering her apron in an ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... fingering the keys already and the first strains of Marching Through Georgia began to awake the neighborhood to recognition of the fact that foreigners were present who held no especial brief for German rule. The tent-door darkened. Brown leapt to his ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... but a usurer. These are his words: "Thou art a lump of thy mother's meal, which a money-changer of Nerulum taking from the newest bake-house of Aricia, kneaded into some shape, with his hands all discoloured by the fingering of money." ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... flaring at the corners. There was Christmas in the very air and Christmas in the storekeeper's till. It had been a very busy day. He thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a moment breathing the brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering the coupon the girl had paid for the shawl. A thin voice at his elbow said: "Merry Christmas, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... back-rush of recent passion. "And we know Mead did it!" another one yelled. Murmurs of "Lynch him! Lynch him!" quickly followed. Tuttle and Ellhorn were white with suppressed rage, and their eyes were wide and blazing. Tuttle was nervously fingering his trigger guard. "Then bring your evidence into a court of law and let unprejudiced men judge its value," Judge Harlin roared back. "Accusers who have the right on their side are not afraid ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... were blotted under drifting mists of rain; the eternal monotony of the earth lay open to the sombre low sky without a single adornment, without a single variation from its melancholy flatness. Near at hand the wires between the telegraph poles vibrated with a faint humming under the multitudinous fingering of the myriad of falling drops, striking among them and dripping off steadily from one to another. The poles themselves were dark and swollen and glistening with wet, while the little cones of glass on the transverse ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... for John Bunyan to draw Madame Bubble's portrait: "This woman is a witch. 'I am mistress of the world,' she says, 'and men are made happy by me.' She wears a great purse at her side; and her hand is often in her purse fingering her money. Yea, she has bought off many a man from a pilgrim's life after he had fairly begun it. She is a bold and impudent slut also, for she will talk to any man. If there be one cunning to make money, she will speak well of him from house to house. None can tell of ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... on one side, out of the way of the moving throng of people. Draconmeyer was fingering nervously his tie of somewhat vivid ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Fingering the pistol nervously, he sat before the mirror and placed it against his temple. The cold steel gave him a sudden shock. He wondered if it would hurt, and if there would be instant oblivion. The glare of the electric light in the room disconcerted him. It occurred to him that it would be easier ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Martin deliberated, fingering the while an engraved stone which hung upon his watch-guard. He was at a disadvantage in this conversation. Aware that Buckland regarded the circumstances of Peak's sojourn in the neighbourhood with feelings allied ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the outer room, Ussher and Feemy were not there. The dancing and drinking were going on as fast as ever; Shamuth, the piper, was in the same seat, with probably not the same tumbler of punch beside him, and was fingering away at his pipes as if the feeling of fatigue was unknown to him; and Mary, the bride, was still dancing as though her heart had not been broken all the morning with the work she had had to do. Biddy also, the Ballycloran housemaid, was in the seventh ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... me the money to look at, Tom," he said, fingering the sovereigns on the table; "I ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... passed down the table with a dust covered bottle which he handled with the care of a collector fingering a peachblow vase. The precious fluid had been poured into that gentleman's glass and its contents were now within ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of some of the Regicides have been prepared for the 31st volume of the Family Library. We suspect the editor to be M. D'Israeli, who has been poring over the records and fingering the dust of the Royal "martyr" for many years past. Our honourable friend, Clavering, of the Metropolitan, in his recollections of the British Museum, long since, says, "there sat D'Israeli, daily extracting from the voluminous M.S. letters ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... complexion, and has the most delightful nose in all the world; it is like a little white potato. Bill is a good-humored Cockney, and is eternally involved in argument. He carries a Jew's harp and a mouth-organ, and when not fingering one he is blowing music-hall ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... of cheek and vague of eye, fingering her apron like a cottage child and nibbling at the corner of her envelope, the light from a window on the stairs falling on the jewel-like polish of her hair, when Girlie opened the door of the "parlor" and came out into the hall. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the dish water, wiped the pan and began rinsing her towels and cloths in a small wooden tub bound with tin. The girl moved aimlessly about the room, fingering the worn furniture. ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... entering the room while talking, fingering in his pockets for a match. His voice died in a quick gasp as Trevison struck with the butt of his pistol. The ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... showed signs of interest. With the shop and the first chamber she was already familiar, but this was something new, something to give the spur to her satiated, blase nature. She moved about the place, fingering the rare tapestries, contemplating probably what gorgeous hangings they would ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... place; the hall is full already; as he enters his young heart swells with pride. Other tricks are to come first. The conjuror surpasses himself and does the most surprising things. The child sees none of these; he wriggles, perspires, and hardly breathes; the time is spent in fingering with a trembling hand the bit of bread in his pocket. His turn comes at last; the master announces it to the audience with all ceremony; he goes up looking somewhat shamefaced and takes out his bit of bread. Oh fleeting joys of human life! ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the question was written in my face; for, as I turned again to Smith, who, having struggled upright, was still fingering his injured ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... is, in the end, somewhat more costly than other forms of play might be. Rifle practice is, indeed, a not unhealthy pastime, and a feather on the top of the head is a pleasing appendage; but while learning the stops and fingering of the sweet instrument, does no one ever calculate the cost of an overture? What melody does Tityrus meditate on his tenderly spiral pipe? The leaden seed of it, broadcast, true conical "Dents de ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... purpose, sorting and indexing the Hewish dossier as long as the daylight lasted. Considine worked steadily through them as though he were dealing with a mathematical calculation. To Gabrielle, on the other hand, there was something mysterious in her occupation; fingering these papers that other fingers had touched she communed with the dead—not with her father, who could scarcely write his own name, but with the ancient stately Hewishes who had built Roscarna and grown rich on the Spanish trade. Sitting at the long table with Considine, a pile of papers before ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... was staring at De Launay with amazement that was almost stupefaction, fingering documents as though he must awake from sleep and find he had been dreaming. De Launay talked on, his voice slightly thick, his eyes heavy, but his ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... back as he leaned over the wash basin, staring at his throat, fingering the suddenly murderous blade. But the pain wouldn't last long—a lot less than there would be under shock treatment, and less pain. He'd read enough to ...
— Dead Ringer • Lester del Rey
... give me a chance to offer my sister's discovery to the world, and I shall be satisfied!" He touched the package of leaflets. "These are not written as clearly as they should be; but if I cannot hold them back, then these"—fingering the papers—"these go to the friends down below!" He moved closer to the window, but his eyes ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... eh?" And he nodded the words home. "You—little cur, you—you little misbegotten bottle of bile! What are you and your hypocrisies to me? You don't know me, you don't know me." He laughed, and Garrison felt repulsion fingering his heart. Then the former trainer shot out a clawing, ravenous hand. "I want that money—want it quick!" he spat, taking a step forward. "You want hatred, eh? Well, hatred you'll have, boy. Hatred that I've always given you, you miserable, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... I ain't seen Mrs. Endicott sence that night, it's a year back, when Tex Benton brung you to the hotel in Wolf River an' wanted the room—" Janet McWhorter sat down abruptly in a chair beside the table and became suddenly interested in fingering the rims of the cartridges in her belt. Jennie continued: "An' I jest give him a good blessin', 'cause I don't trust no cowpuncher—or didn't then—ontil he explained how it was. An' then he went away, an' Old Bat come an' tuck you off, an' we heard afterwards how you ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... about the Red Indians and Onomootka, she was equally ungracious to all; she scolded Thekla for crumpling her skirt, and was quite sure that Paula had on the wrong fichu that was meant for her. Each bridesmaid had been presented with a bracelet, like a snake with ruby eyes; but Vera, fingering hers with fidgeting petulance, seemed to have managed to loosen the clasp, and when arranging her dress for the evening thought that her snake ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... much of a crowd, is n't there?" The druggist was fishing in his pocket for money. Fairchild, dallying with his drink now, glanced sharply toward the door and went back to his refreshment. She was standing directly in the entrance, fingering the ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... Aunt Cordelia's tones were final. She had feared this. She stood—fingering the window-curtain—irresolute. In her heart she felt her literary qualifications were not being appreciated in Platonian circles anyway. A dancing club—it sounded alluring. The window was near the bureau with its mirror—she ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... good friends that night—or rather I should say that I turned in, for I left him sucking an empty pipe and aimlessly fingering a volume of Mahan; and once when I woke in the night I felt somehow that his bunk was empty and that he was there ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... it's not," said Comus, fingering a very serviceable-looking cane as lovingly as a pious violinist might handle his Strad. "I gave Greyson some mint-chocolate to let me toss whether I caned or him, and I won. He was rather decent over it and let me ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... Barclay. All his life he remembered the covered wagon in which the Barclays crossed the Mississippi; but it is only a curious memory of seeing the posts of the bed, lying flat beside him in the wagon, and of fingering the palm leaves cut in the wood. He was four years old then, and as a man he remembered only as a tale that is told the fight at Westport Landing, where his father was killed for preaching an abolition sermon ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... rules of modern art, a picturesque description of the said wood should follow; but I am the most incompetent person in the world to write it. And, indeed, the whole scene was so novel to me, that I had no time to analyse; I could only enjoy. I recollect lying on my face and fingering over the delicately cut leaves of the weeds, and wondering whether the people who lived in the country thought them as wonderful and beautiful as I did;—and then I recollected the thousands whom I had left behind, who, like me, had never seen ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... maternity. She wondered if it would ever come to her. She rather thought not. But she was also conscious of a new attitude among the three at the table, her mother's tense watchfulness, her father's slightly squared shoulders, and across from her her grandfather, fingering the stem of his ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the very edge of one of the big arm-chairs, leaning forward, and fingering his still unlighted cigar nervously, as he watched Ford puff out successive rings of smoke before beginning. He was less on his guard to screen the intenseness with which he listened, because Ford spoke at first in a dreamy way, without looking in ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... murmured monsieur Rigaud, fingering the silk enraptured. "The quality is superb! What may they have ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... done the Government from that auspicious moment," concluded the lady, craning her long neck with an air of pardonable pride, and fingering the massive chain that depended from it with a caressing fondness, "I need not speak. Indeed, it speaks for itself. But I may say that the country which he served has not proved ungrateful, but has shown its ability to reward true merit in a substantial manner. I will, however, add that when ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... know?" Anthony set his small eyes on her: "do you want to know, my dear?" He paused, fingering his glass, and went on: "I, Susan, take thee, William John, and you've come of it. Says I to myself, when I hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says I to myself, I ain't a marrying man: and if these two, says I, if any progeny comes to 'em—to bless ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sidled across to the reception-room and sat nervously fingering the arm of his chair. Nurses passed and repassed the doorway, going quietly through the hall. From somewhere came the faint animal-like wail of a newly born babe. The Spider had gripped the arm of his chair. A well-gowned woman stopped ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Pa, and I'll pay it back to you just as soon as I can get a dollar changed," said Obadiah proudly, fingering the shining coins. ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... hand had been once more in his pocket, fingering the bank-notes. He now drew them forth very much in the way in which a man entrapped into a den of robbers might draw a pocket-pistol, and smoothed them out ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... undoing her bonnet-strings. Her son watched her face as it was lifted, and her small, work-hardened hands fingering at the bow under ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... was to destroy the religious sentiment, not simply by disproving this or that historical statement, but by making the whole world prosaic and matter-of-fact. His occasional outbursts against the man of science—the 'fingering slave' who would 'peep and botanise upon his mother's grave'—are one version of his feeling. The whole scientific method tended to materialism and atomism; to a breaking up of the world into disconnected atoms, and losing the life in dissecting the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... Byram sat down, fingering the head of his hammer; the warden, a fat, shiny man, with tiny, greenish eyes and an unshaven jaw, took a seat beside him and began twisting ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... our right—that is, on that side of the fireplace which was farthest from the windows. As I spoke, I turned to go and look at it, and Lucy followed me. Many an hour as a child had I passed in front of it, fingering the seven carved brass handles, or rather buttons, which were ranged down its center. They all slid, twisted, or screwed with the greatest ease, and apparently like many another ingeniously contrived lock; but neither I nor any one else had ever yet succeeded in sliding, twisting, or screwing them ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... man in the velour hat observed, fingering the elk-tooth on his heavy watch-chain, "I'd like to know where they get this stuff about clothes coming down. Now, you take this suit I got on." He pinched his trousers-leg. "Four years ago I paid forty-two fifty for it, and it was real sure-'nough value. Well, here the other day ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... a rare pleasure in making a gift one's self, without being hampered by this "all-together" notion, isn't there?—especially if the gift be a handsome one, and is going where it is very much needed. So as Joy sat fingering the pile of elegant worsteds, twining the brilliant, soft folds of orange, and crimson, and royal purple, and soft, wood-browns about her hands, it cost her a bit of a struggle to say this. It seems rather a small thing to write about? Ah, they are these bits of struggles in which we learn to ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Helms went out of his way this time. And I'd like to know what triggered him into it. I can understand some roughhousing on his part—Stevens, too—providing these boys were on the prod in the beginning. But this book business was too deliberate. Books—" He held up the volume he was still fingering. "Where'd these ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton |
