"Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vaccination in infancy, and inoculation with the variolous matter thereafter, which last I resorted to by way of making assurance double sure. The medical gentleman who attended him is of opinion that he has had the real small-pox, but it shall never be averred by me—for the catastrophe of Tom Thumb is enough to deter any thinking person from entering into a feud with the cows. Walter is quite well again, which was the principal matter I was interested in. We had very nearly been in a bad scrape, for I had fixed the Monday on which he sickened, to take him with me for the Christmas ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... said Triplett, jerking his thumb at the chief, "that we orter git the Tree-with-Wings in out'er the wet. The question ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... Mr. Chauncy held his ticket between his thumb and finger, and looked at the number. Neither he nor Hilbert suspected for a moment that there was any mistake in reading it; for, not having paid any attention to the scheme, as it is called, of the lottery, they did not know how high ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... table to interpose between them. But the mother had caught hold of her; the handkerchief had fallen from her neck; and the youth saw five blue bruises on her lovely throat—the marks of the four fingers and the thumb of a left hand. With a cry of horror he darted from the house, but as he reached the door he turned. His hostess was lying motionless on the floor, and a huge gray wolf ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... to him. He took it, turned it over, looked at the policeman half frightened, and pointed with his fat thumb at Mackaye. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... shelf in the wall above the stove, and took a pipe, which he filled with tobacco, and then he drew some coals out on the stove hearth. But before he dropped one of them on his pipe with his horny thumb and finger, he asked politely, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... nipped the last 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 ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... 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
... fore-limb presents no difficulty—bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, are found to be arranged precisely as in Man, or with such minute differences as are found as varieties in Man. The Gorilla's hand is clumsier, heavier, and has a thumb somewhat shorter in proportion than that of Man; but no one has ever doubted ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... new-fangled sort of British gun-boat, bent upon interfering with his little game; and he wants to disable us. He is one of those pestilently persistent fellows who won't take a hint and sheer off; he is as full of obstinacy as was the mammoth that chased me over yonder,"—with a jerk of his thumb toward the north—"on our first trip, and must be treated as we treated that mammoth. For if we don't kill him, he will kill us—if he can. You see? Here comes ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... quite a charming person? The women like him, and if poor mama died he could get another quick as a wink. But at the best, my dear girls, matrimony—in Germany, at least—is an unmitigated bore. And in a garrison town! Literally, there is no liberty, even with one's husband under the thumb. We live by rote. Every afternoon I have to take coffee at some house or other, when all those tiresome women are not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about—but invariably? Love!" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and scandal; ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... there is too heavy for you to lift, while you can carry a bullet between your thumb and finger. The log is many hundred times heavier than a bullet, but the log will float while the ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... sported round 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 mollycoddles up here I'd just simper in ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... brain is made of finer stuff than that stolid sponge inside your pia mater, that can take in quantum sufficit of beer, fog, and tobacco-smoke, unharmed. He can't stand it, and he's too rare and delicate a machine to go cranky thus soon. You've got the child under your thumb,—bring him out o' that. Make him take a dose of Verulam, get him back into the world again, and order him four hours ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... coat, with his palette on his thumb, advanced to meet us cordially. His face wore a slight flush, which I attributed solely to pleasure, and nothing to any awkwardness in receiving us in such a poor place as he occupied. I cast my eyes round the room. Any romantic notions Wynnie might have indulged ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... is a sweltering day, the air breathless, the glare intense—one loses sight of the fact that the temperature is low (-22 deg.)—one's mind seeks comparison in hot sunlit streets and scorching pavements, yet six hours ago my thumb was frostbitten. All the inconveniences of frozen footwear and damp clothes ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from system to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft mire by the side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Saturday to the Grange? No, a thousand times no; still I came. I can twist mother round this finger. She appeals to me; I counsel her; she asks my advice; she is obliged to take it whether she likes or not. Mother is completely under my thumb. So it was with the professor who taught me; so it was with the students who worked with me; so it will be in the future with Hester, if I still wish it; and with Sir John Thornton, if I ordain it. They think very little of Antonia now; but wait until they feel my power; ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... prodigious 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 ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... you can 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
... growled Brown. "But Garrison has too many of the fellows under his thumb. Oh, I don't care—they can go to grass with their old football games!" And then Slugger Brown stalked off by himself to nurse his wrath as best he could. He was very ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... other. So long as there is embarrassment, or the mistake made by the young lady above mentioned who would not answer a civil question; so long as these mistakes and others are made, and the result be stupidity and gloom, and a party silent and thumb-twisting, instead of gayly conversing, as it should be; so long as people do not come together easily—it is manifestly proper that the hostess should put her finger on the social pendulum, and give it a swing to start the conversational clock. All well-bred people recognize the propriety ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... you can use any natural leaf, forming the creases in wax with thumb nail or needle. To put the flowers together, or the leaves on the stem, hold in the hand until warm enough to stick. If the sheeted wax is to be used in summer, put in a little Balsam of Fir to make it hard. If for ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... and powerful thumb foretells an opportunity in which you prove yourself superior to those who hitherto somewhat ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... chap, yon," began one, indicating the departed delegate by a jerk of his thumb towards the door. "He's getten the gift of the ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... "Monkeys may be taught a few simple operations with tools, such as cracking nuts with a stone, but usually they merely mimic a man."[1] Man's uniqueness as the exclusive maker and user of tools is made possible by two things. The first is his hand, which with its four fingers and a thumb, as contrasted with the monkey's five fingers, enables him to pick up objects. The second is his capacity for reflection, presently to be discussed, which enables him to foresee the consequences ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... of the Presidents have not hesitated to throw their political opponents into prison at the time of an election, and I heard of one well-authenticated instance where an elector was placed, uncovered, in the middle of one of the plazas, with his arms stretched out to their full extent and each thumb thrust down into the barrel of an upright musket, and kept a few hours in the blazing sun until he agreed to vote according to the wish of the party in power. A change of rulers can only be effected by a so-called revolution; with all the machinery of a republic, the will of the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... geese are plump, with light, semi-transparent fat, soft breast-bone, tender flesh, leg joints which will break by the weight of the bird, fresh colored and brittle beaks, and windpipes that break when pressed between the thumb and fore-finger. They are ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... embarrass me. I opened boxes, purses, pocketbooks, etc., with great ease, and unnoticed, while appearing to be engaged on something quite different. Were a sealed parcel offered me, I cut a small slit in the paper with the nail of my left thumb, which I always purposely kept very long and sharp, and thus discovered what it contained. One essential condition was excellent sight, and that I possessed to perfection. I owed it originally to my old trade, and practice ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... back blankly into the Doctor's smiling eyes for a moment, then looked long at the penknife on the floor, and finally stooped and cautiously took it between his forefinger and thumb, eyeing it doubtfully the while. Then he suddenly sat down, pulled out his pocket handkerchief, and mopped off the perspiration that ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... they now skinned and cooked. I say cooked, but perhaps I should say warmed. Dexterously stripping off the skins they slit open the abdomen, removed the entrails, and, after squeezing out the contents by drawing between thumb and fingers, they replaced the interminable string in the cavity, closing the aperture with the ears, and stowed the carcass in the hot ashes for a few minutes. Then they ate the whole thing with complete satisfaction. We preferred to fry ours, without the entrails, in a pan with bacon ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... British Nation. I remember, when I was a young Man, and used to frequent Westminster-Hall, there was a Counsellor who never pleaded without a Piece of Pack-thread in his Hand, which he used to twist about a Thumb, or a Finger, all the while he was speaking: The Waggs of those Days used to call it the Thread of his Discourse, for he was not able to utter a Word without it. One of his Clients, who was more merry than wise, stole it from him one Day in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... thick, and so tough that a sharp knife could scarce cut it, in which we found the head and bones 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 ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... him. They smiled at one another and tapped the forehead with one finger, as he turned away with his question answered by a shake of the head. It became their habit. They would jerk a thumb over a ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... white cats, gray cats, yellow, spotted and brindle cats, and at least a dozen of them fell sprawling into the clock. Among them, to Davy's dismay, was Solomon, with the other mitten drawn over his head and the thumb sticking straight up like a horn. This gave him a very extraordinary appearance, and the other cats evidently regarded him with the gravest distrust as they clustered together at Davy's end of the clock, leaving Solomon standing quite alone, and complaining in a muffled voice as he ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... for you to attain perfection in these. An English master might give you a single rein to be passed outside the little finger, and between the forefinger and the middle finger, the loop coming between the forefinger and thumb, and being held in place by the thumb. Then he would expect you to keep your right shoulder back very firmly, but a French master will tell you that it is better to learn to keep the shoulder back a little while holding a rein in the right hand, and an American master will usually ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... middle-finger on the black line marking the Rhine. "Now put your little-finger down here, between Mannheim and Kehl; there stands the army of Bohemia under Prince Schwartzenberg; and up here, where I hold my thumb, in Holland, is Bulow, with his corps. See, on this side, we have therefore completely hemmed in France; and, on the other side, where the Atlantic Ocean is—or is it no longer there on your ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... 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 ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which are characteristic of both authors. Between Fielding and Thackeray the resemblance is closer. The peculiar irony of 'Jonathan Wild' has its closest English parallel in 'Barry Lyndon.' The burlesque in 'Tom Thumb' of the Lee and Dryden school of tragedy may remind us of Thackeray's burlesques of Scott and Dumas. The characters of the two authors belong to the same family. 'Vanity Fair' has grown more decent ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... absence of any protuberant nose gives it often a curiously infantile aspect, monkeys, and especially apes, resemble us most closely in the hand and arm. The hand has well-formed fingers, with nails, and the skin of the palm is lined and furrowed like our own. The thumb is, however, smaller and weaker than ours, and is not so much used in taking hold of anything. The monkey's hand is, therefore, not so well adapted as that of man for a variety of purposes, and cannot be applied with such precision in holding small objects, while ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... girdle; but she's a yauld, poutherie Girran for a' that, and has a stomack like Willie Stalker's meere that wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ring-banes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl'd, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa or three wooks ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... jerking his thumb back toward the corrugated iron hut. "Climbed my roof to mend a leak. Fell. My face hit every bump. Then I landed on a pile of coconuts. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... eh?" The Bald-faced Kid drew out the leather-backed volume which was his constant companion, and began to thumb the leaves rapidly. "You're always heaving your friend Solomon at me. I'll give you a quotation I got out of the Fourth Reader at school—something about judging the future by the past. Look here: 'Jeremiah bled and was pulled up.' ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... Hazlitt's "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 ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... however, to insure as a result a perfectly uniform and marketable article, the Professor uses various chemicals at the several stages of the process. These, however, are not administered haphazard, or by rule of thumb, as has been the case in some processes bearing in the same direction, and which have consequently failed, in the sense that they have not yet taken their places as commercial successes. The Professor, therefore, carefully examines the article which he has to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... open mouth of the case is covered with a hemispherical cap having a hole in the centre, and the adjustments are such that when the slide is pushed forward as far as it can go, the needle projects no more than one-tenth of an inch. If I then press it upon a piece of paper, held against the ball of my thumb, the paper is indelibly perforated with a fine hole, and the thumb is not wounded. The perforations will not be found to run into one another unless they are very numerous, and if they happen to do so now and then, it is ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... is so dangerous as the railway since the telegraph was established. One can fly quickly, it's true; but on entering a railway carriage a man shuts himself in, and until he gets out of it he remains under the thumb of the police. Tremorel knows all this as well as we do. We will put all the large towns, including Lyons and Marseilles, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... should be washed and the covers tested by fitting them on without the rubbers. If a glass cover rocks, it does not fit correctly; and if a screw cover will not screw down tight, it should be discarded. Without the rubber, there should be just enough space between the cover and the jar to permit the thumb nail to be inserted as is shown in Fig. 3. The edge of each jar and each glass cover should be carefully examined every time it is used, so that none with pieces chipped off will be used, as these will admit air. This examination is made ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... are like that cared once for one woman, and when that was over—But, pshaw! I will not talk. You are no thinker, Shon McGann. You blunder through the world. And you'll tremble as much to a woman's thumb in fifty ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... holding it with a big thumb over the right-hand corner, so that she recognized Miss Mason's hand before she saw the ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... said Mr. Hackit, sticking one thumb between the buttons of his capacious waistcoat, and retaining a pinch of snuff with the other—for he was but moderately given to 'the cups that cheer but not inebriate', and had already finished his tea; 'they began to sing ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... which is of later date than the first rage for ribbon-borders, had to draw its supplies very largely from "herbaceous stuff" myosotis, viola, aubretia, iberis, &c., and may have paved the way for the return of hardy perennials into favor), and with Tom Thumb Geranium, Blue Lobelia, and Yellow Calceolaria for the summer and autumn. These latter are most charming plants. They are very gay and persistent whilst they last, and it is not their fault that they cannot ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the tail of any horse, (we would recommend that it be a good tempered horse), take one of the hairs and double it in the middle, hold the double between the thumb and fore-finger of the left hand, letting the two ends hang from the under side of the thumb, and keeping the hairs between the thumb and finger, about a third of an inch apart. Now proceed to twist the two hairs toward the end of the finger, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... distraction, rushed into a Christian church, and fell before an image which attracted his attention, at the base of which was the real arm of a saint. The sacristan handed the holy relic to Pithyrian, who kissed it, and then restored it to the sacristan; but the servitor did not observe that a thumb was missing. Off ran Pithyrian with the thumb, and joined his daughter. On came the dragon, with tail erect, wings extended, and mouth wide open, when Pithyrian threw into the gaping jaws the "sacred thumb." Down fell the tail, the wings drooped, the jaws were locked, and up rose ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... even the "singleness" of the marble is relative to us; but extremely simple experiments will show that such is veritably the case, and that our two most trustworthy senses may be made to contradict one another on this very point. Hold the marble between the finger and thumb, and look at it in the ordinary way. Sight and touch agree that it is single. Now squint, and sight tells you that there are two marbles, while touch asserts that there is only one. Next, return the eyes to ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... had shut him up with the Queen, and rendered him inaccessible, not only to his Court but to his grand officers, his ministers, even his valets, so that he was served by only three or four attendants, all French, and entirely under her thumb. At the death of the Queen this solitude continued. Under the pretext that his grief demanded privacy, she persuaded the King to leave his palace and to instal himself in a quiet retreat, the Palace of Medina-Celi, near the Buen-Retiro, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... you no," Nichols was saying in a fluent, abominable, literal translation into Spanish. "Take the knife so... thumb upwards. Stab down in the soft between the neck and the shoulder-blade. You get right into the lungs with the point. I've tried it: ten times. Never stick the back. The chances are he moves, and you hit a bone. There are no bones there. It's ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... sugar shortage lately Had proved itself abnormally acute; In short, I felt that, though unkindly treated, A happier time to me would surely come, When my request (impassioned) would be greeted With no down-pointing thumb. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... invited all persons who had been robbed by him to repair to Newgate and to see whether they could identify him. To identify him should have been easy; for he had a wound in the face, and had lost a thumb. [340] He, however, in the hope of perplexing the witnesses for the Crown, expended a hundred pounds in procuring a sumptuous embroidered suit against the day of trial. This ingenious device was frustrated by his hardhearted keepers. He ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the steel." This partly answers Mr. Thacher's criticism of the ninth point. In the next paragraph, Mr. McCullough mentions some very nice formulas for T-beams by a certain authority. Of course it would be better to use these nice formulas than to pay attention to such "rule-of-thumb" methods as would require more width in the stem of the T than enough to squeeze the ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... strongest side: Ill has he 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 only to His ancestor, that made them so. Fast friend he was to REFORMATION, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... intellect; but in all such cases there was the letter of the law. He could hunt in the reports to find out what really thinking men had decided. Besides, lawyers everywhere are so subtle. They put the rules of law, favorable or unfavorable, under the judge's thumb and nose. "Your honor, in the thirty-second volume of the Revised Reports of Massachusetts, page so and so, line so and so, in Arundel versus Bannerman, you will find, etc." How often have you heard that in a court of law? The reasoning that is left to do ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... the small-pox," she said with a jerk of her thumb towards the inside of her cart, "some say it's the plague! If it is, I sha'n't be allowed to come into Paris to-morrow." At the first mention of the word small-pox, Bibot had stepped hastily backwards, and when the ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... time goes on, ye find ye wouldn't part With anything they ever used—they've grown into yer heart: The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore Ye hoard; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumb-marks on ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... employed to give a soft black effect is to moisten the lobe of the thumb lightly with ink and press it upon the paper. The series of lines of the skin make an impression that can be reproduced by the ordinary line processes. As in the case of spatter work, superfluous ink must be looked after before making the impression so as ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... hickory and oak—worlds of it. We got sassafras and pawpaw and hazel brush. We get all the hickory nuts and pecans we like any fall. The wild plums is better'n any in Kentucky; and as for grapes, they're big as your thumb, and thousands, on the river. Wait till you see the plum and grape jell I could ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... jerking 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 again and he ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... other, 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 danger signal!" ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Charging in the Front; being wary that you sink not the Spear of your Pike, rest it between the Thumb and Fore-finger, keeping your Elbow close to ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... blind-man's-buff— only it is all in the dark, and the blind man stands in the middle of the room and the rest clap hands and then dodge, and he fires his revolver at the point the sound seems to come from, and the object is not to get shot. You may have noticed Sasha Basmanoff has no left thumb? He lost it last year on ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... I for Mistress May'ress; She's little as the Queen of Fairies: Her little Body like my Thumb, Is thicker far than other some; Her Conscience yet would stretch so wide; } Either on this, or t'other Side, } That none could tell when they did ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... and the ace, gentlemen. There they are. I have faced them up. Now I gather them slowly—you can't miss them. Observe closely. The jack on top, between thumb and forefinger. The ace next—ace in the middle. The other jack bottommost." He turned his hand, with the three cards in a tier, so that all might see. "The ace is the winning card. You are to locate the ace. Observe closely again. It's ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... extent of about half as much as the outside. The handle of the tool should be grasped in the left hand, while its blade rests on a block of wood, or on the oilstone. Hold the slip between the fingers and thumb, slanting a little over the inner edge; and work it in a series of short downward strokes, beginning the stroke at one corner of the gouge and leaving off at the other (see Fig. 10). Strop the outside of the ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... 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 ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... of death, from you who never will die? Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let lie Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... long. If any one of them does not care to look at a map, he may take my figure which called Chesapeake Bay the palm of the hand,—to which the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac Rivers are the four fingers. Lay down on the page your right hand, upon its back, with the fingers slightly apart. The thumb is a meridian which points north. The forefinger is the Potomac as far as Washington. The middle finger is the Rappahannock,—with Fredericksburg about the first joint. The ring-finger is York River, with Williamsburg and Yorktown just above and below the knuckle line. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... expected, defended himself with great gallantry. He was, however, speared twice through the thigh, once through the leg, and received a bad wound in the right hand. The spear entered at the side of the hand, rather on the back part of it, came out in the palm, entered again under the ball of the thumb, and came out on the back of the hand, near the tendon of the forefinger. The very little inflammation that attended these ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... decision had been made, he felt easier. There was an intercom on the desk in front of him and he leaned with a heavy thumb on the button ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... then with the right hand makes the sign of recognition, as given in the illustration, and the other responds by repeating the motion, and bringing the fore-finger and thumb together, the whole representing the hammer of a gun as it ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous
... Wherry, pulling Ambrose's sleeve, "our yard is much nearer, and the old Moor, Master Michael, is safe to know what to do for him. That sort of cattle always are leeches. He wiled the pain from my thumb when 'twas crushed in our printing press. Mayhap if he put some salve to him, he might get home ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... behind us appears almost perpendicular, those green platforms which separate their summits are so many stages by means of which you may reach, through some difficult paths, that cone of hanging and inaccessible rocks, called the Thumb. At the foot of that cone is a stretching slope of ground, covered with lofty trees, and which is so high and steep that it appears like a forest in air, surrounded by tremendous precipices. The clouds, which are attracted round the summit of those rocks, supply innumerable ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... to what did Conde aspire? To constitute himself the head of the nobility against the Court? The nobles thought it harsh to be so treated. To commence another Fronde? To do that, it was necessary to have the parliaments under his thumb; and he had already been compelled to threaten the deputies of that of Aix with the bastinado. Did he look forward to an independent principality, as he later on desired to obtain from the Spaniards? Or rather did he think of snatching from ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... ten very slowly,' he replied pensively, 'and if by the time I have finished you are not seated on the back of that chair, your feet crossed so as to overlap, your right thumb in the corner of your mouth, a pleasant smile on your countenance, and the Gainsborough hat on your head, you will need no more hats ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Garlands being swallowed up by some "hungry book-fish!" I saw them, a few days after, in the well-furnished library of ATTICUS: who exhibited them to me in triumph—grasping the whole of them between his finger and thumb! They are marvellous well-looking little volumes—clean, bright, and "rejoicing to the eye!"—many of them, moreover, are first editions! The severest winter cannot tarnish the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... foot and was resting his slim ankle on the other knee; he clasped his ankle in his hand familiarly—his long, fine forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it—and gazed a while before him. "This kind of thing doesn't find me unprepared. It's what I educated her for. It was all for this—that when such a case should come up she should do ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... specialization and perfection of the hands and feet of man seems difficult to account for. Throughout the whole of the quadrumana the foot is prehensile; and a very rigid selection must therefore have been needed to bring about that arrangement of the bones and muscles, which has converted the thumb into a great toe, so completely, that the power of opposability is totally lost in every race, whatever some travellers may vaguely assert to the contrary. It is difficult to see why the prehensile power should have been taken away. It must certainly have been useful in climbing, and ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... finger: but the greater number use the latter alone for this purpose, passing the off or right rein over it, and bringing the near or left rein up beneath it. The reins are carried flat upon each other up through the hand, near the middle joint of the fore-finger, and the thumb is placed upon them so that their ends fall down in front of the knuckles. The elbow should neither be squeezed close to the side, nor thrust out into an awkward and unnatural position; but be carried easily ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... these he conceals in the palm of the hand by which he lifts the cup. The handle of the cup can be grasped between the outstretched fingers—(first and second)—and the ball is securely held by the muscle at the ball of the thumb. By bending the first and second fingers that hold the cup, its lip is brought in close proximity to the secreted ball. By a sharp or jerky movement forward to place the cup on the ground, and at the same ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... peach kernels, spread through the whole room. In the same motion almost he recorked the little bottle, stowed it out of sight, and with a quick, wrenching thrust that bent the small blade of his penknife in its socket he split the peach seed in two lengthwise and with his thumb-nail bruised the small brown kernel lying snugly within. He dropped the knife and the halved seed and began sipping at the undoctored glass of champagne, not forgetting even then to wave his fingers above it to keep the winged ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... in three lives. Certainly Mrs. Butt possessed a wondrous instinct for theatrical effect. Helen, on the contrary, seemed to possess none. She had advanced nonchalantly towards the kidney, and delicately picked it up between finger and thumb, and turned it over, and then put ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... was still wilful, though character was beginning to show there. He was, in fact, a grand mistake in upbringing. With all the instincts of a lover of beauty he had been raised by a couple of dull parents to a rule-of-thumb existence that started in a business office late one morning and ended in ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... the ghost, and to morning parties to eat syllabubs and dance on the grass. She had brought a shower of gold into the lap of the miserly freeholder, and had husband and wife completely under her thumb. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... that he had admired her in the night before; her waist was confined by the same black band; but the chestnut hair seemed more beautiful beneath the black silk sunshade, leaned so gracefully, the black handle held between thumb and forefinger. And the little black figure seemed a part of the beautiful English park, now so green and fragrant in all the flower and sunlight of June, and decorated with a blue summer sky, and white clouds moving ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... will," said Vas Kor, feeling the point of his blade with his left thumb. "In the name of Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar!" he cried, and ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I say," was the rejoinder. "When I went back to the room I found my brother-in-law sitting on the edge of the lounge, or what you call it, all dressed but his coat, rubbing his chin between his finger and thumb, and gazing with despairing perplexity at his feet. It seems that my sister had got past all the other dilemmas, but in a moment of inadvertence had left the shoe question to him, with the result that he had put on one russet shoe and one ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... has an upper lip which many a cornet of the Lifeguards might envy. Her poor dear husband was a big man, and she could beat him easily; and did too. Mrs. Grimsby indeed! Why, my dear Mr. Titmarsh, it is Glumdalca walking with Tom Thumb." ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... point of 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 ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... night I stopped to watch some Indian boys playing marbles. When Tom plays the game, he places the marble between his thumb and forefinger and shoots it out ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... such impropriety, aghast at the consequences, Mooty—doctor alike of laws, of science, and of medicine, and a man of imperative mood—sharpened his tomahawk at the Chinaman's grindstone, theatrically testing its edge with distorted thumb. Tom Goat disappeared as silently as last night's dew, for Mooty does not hesitate to summarily administer his own judgment when his professions are scorned, his family bewitched, his ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... gun halfway to his shoulder before he realized. He lowered it and drew his hunting-knife from its beaded sheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... 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 navies into ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and bit him again, and again, till he could stand it no longer, but made a thorough search for it, and at last succeeded in catching it. Holding it between his finger and thumb, he said—or rather shouted, so angry was he—"Who are you, pray, you wretched little creature, that you make so free with my person?" The Flea, terrified, whimpered in a weak little voice, "Oh, sir! pray let me go; don't kill me! I am such a little thing ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... you want anything of them, you had better turn back at once. The mistress would give you something, but she has no authority to, and the farmer, he's tight—he's got a board on his neck, and a stiff thumb into the bargain." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... of height and his staglike agility, he could hardly fail to be formidable. But he was a scientific sparrer as well, though he had, I have been told, a curious sprawling fashion of his own. And how his heart was in it—how he loved the fighting men! You remember his thumb-nail sketches of his heroes. If you don't I must quote one, and if you do you will be glad to ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... down the tray and flicked the fair head admonishingly, with his thumb, still frowning. "Come! Be a sport!" ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... day and commented upon their accuracy with much freedom, finding fault often, and cautioning him to be more careful in the future. This somewhat perplexed the mate, as he always made his reckoning by rule of thumb, and could no more change his method than work out a problem in trigonometry. The third mate, on the other hand, was quite shy. I noticed what I had failed to note before, and that was the peculiar feminine tone of his voice and manner. ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... so. The thumb is gone, as you saw, but I think I can save the rest of the hand. I will watch him carefully, but these men of Ahmed's are in such excellent condition that I do not think there will be ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... of the Kittlewake," thought Curlie. "You take care of her," he shouted in Joe's ear, at the same time jerking his thumb at Gladys. The next second he disappeared ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... to him and saw, as one sees things, above his head the picture he had hung when raven was his hair and radiant his face, and had hit his thumb, and jumped, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and had laughed and wrung his hands, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and laughed again. She came to him and saw him wilt and crumple in his chair, and could have sworn she saw the iron ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... put His hand in on that most sacred thing, that holiest of all, that you guard most jealously—that box. It has heavy hinges, and double padlocks, and the keys are held hard under the thumb of your will. Of course there may really not be much in it; and again there may be very much. But much or little, it is securely kept under that thick broad thumb ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... say, because it is a matter the French should set at rest, that worse is continually hinted. I heard that one man was kept six days with his arms bound backward round a barrel; and it is the universal report that every gendarme in the South Seas is equipped with something in the nature of a thumb-screw. I do not know this. I never had the face to ask any of the gendarmes—pleasant, intelligent, and kindly fellows—with whom I have been intimate, and whose hospitality I have enjoyed; and perhaps the tale ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at the table, the red bulb of the pneumatic shutter between his finger and thumb; he pressed the bulb, and there was a loud metallic snap inside the camera; he released the pressure, and the shutter snapped like a shutter and nothing else. Phillida came forward with a cry. Pocket had taken the top off the camera; it was like a box without the lid, ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... to the bone, decided that it was hopeless. Wrington hailed the other boats, and the detectives returned to the barge. A light thrown into the tiny cabin disclosed amid the disorder an open kit-bag full of linen. Green pulled out the top shirt and felt its texture between thumb and finger. Then he pointed to the name of a West-end ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... man of the season, and the best dancer. He took honors at Goettingen. He has any quantity of money." Sally ticked off the points on the tips of her gray glove. "And most of all," she tapped her thumb conclusively, "he is very much in love with Miss Beatrix Dane, and I want him ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... anything in the navy when I was a youngster, except a little rule-of-thumb mathematics. One picked up a sort of smattering of a language or two knocking about the world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft all his life. He hasn't got any regular ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... like the earth-worm, but smooth and glossy, dappled with darker spots, especially on one side, which may be the upper one. Put round its mouth twelve little arms, on each a hand with four ragged fingers, and on the back of the hand a stump of a thumb, and you have Synapta Digitata (Plates IV. and V., from my drawings of the live animal). These hands it puts down to its mouth, generally in alternate pairs, but how it obtains its food by them is yet a mystery, for its intestines are ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... accustomed to her. Her faculties had been sharpened, too; she felt a certain shyness in her husband, noticed his weaknesses, and was deeply hurt when, on the second evening after her return, he went to the inn, "so that people should not say he was under her thumb." Then, Hansei, coaxed by the shrewd innkeeper, had set his heart upon acquiring the inn, now that they had "wealth," and upon thus becoming the most important man in the village. But with much tact and cleverness Walpurga made him give up the plan, thereby arousing the innkeeper's hostility, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... it he took a letter-knife, a pencil sharpener, a glass globe paperweight, a box of thumb tacks, a stapler, some clips, a plastic ashtray, and some things Thacher could not identify. He placed the objects in a row in front of him on the table top. Then he closed the ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... be deficient in stopping power, due to their small calibre, and were for 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 ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... We started for the battle ground. Babe had never been whipped; he always chose younger opponents. He was a good gouger, and had marked up most of the boys on the "flats" as we called the lowlands where the poorer working people lived. A gouger is one who stabs with his thumb. When he gets his sharp thumb-nail into the victim's eye, the fight is over. Biting and kicking were his ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... in which he was planting potatoes was wonderful, every potato was placed at exactly the right distance apart, and a hole made for it in the general trench; before it was set it was looked at and turned over, and the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it was sound, and when finally put in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to keep it in its right position till the whole row was buried. He carried the potatoes in ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... of the term, (viz. the term 'lord' applied to it) the (person) measured (by a thumb) ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... of the Highland pipes is practically that given above. The chaunter consists of a conical wooden tube terminating in a bell and measuring from 14 to 16 in. including the reed. There are seven holes in front and one at the back for the thumb of the left hand, which fingers the upper holes while the right thumb merely supports the instrument. The holes are stopped by the under part of the joints of the fingers. There is in addition a double hole near ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... doing pretty well. He pointed out to me—and I wasn't very long in seeing his point—that I was not so much changed but what I should easily be recognised by those who had known me during those wild days when I'd been under his thumb in San Francisco, and the authorities there would still be very glad to hear of me. He didn't happen to want anything of me just then, but he allowed me to understand that it was to my interest to keep sweet ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... another of falsehood, the ordeal by fisticuffs was instantly resorted to. Weapons were rarely employed in these chivalrous encounters, being kept for more serious use with Indians and wild beasts; nevertheless fists, teeth, and the gouging thumb were often employed with fatal effect. Yet among this rude and uncouth people there was a genuine and remarkable respect for law. They seemed to recognize it as an absolute necessity of their existence. In the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... dressing-room. Wellington shut the door and said, "Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me.... I have ordered the army to concentrate at Quatre Bras; but we shall not stop him there, and if so I must fight him there" (passing his thumb-nail over the position of Waterloo). The conversation was repeated to me by the Duke of Richmond ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... middle of sixty or seventy others just like it.' 'Oh, nothing in the world is easier,' said I. 'Nothing can be easier,' said they: so I went on my way. Now this Sir G. Vans was a giant, and bottlemaker. And as all giants, who are bottlemakers, usually pop out of a little thumb bottle from behind the door, so did Sir G. Vans. 'How d'ye do?' says he. 'Very well, thank you,' says I. 'Have some breakfast with me?' 'With all my heart,' says I. So he gave me a slice of beer, and a cup of cold veal; and there was a little dog under the table that picked up ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 48, Saturday, September 28, 1850 • Various
... dropped it countless times, forgot its pelisse on wet days, muffled it up when it was hot, gave it the most astounding things to eat, and yet it was the if healthiest; prettiest, and most sunshiny baby that ever sucked a wee fat thumb. ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... Mona. Surely this girl was more than reckless in her talk. Kitty was not to be put down. "If you don't mind plain speaking, he was always with you, but you weren't always with him in those days. This letter showed that." She tapped it on her thumb-nail. "It was only when he had gone and you saw what you had lost, that you came back to him—in heart, I mean. Well, if you didn't go away with him when he went, and you wouldn't have gone unless he had ordered you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his book of "Hop o' my Thumb" (Forster noticed it in the last Examiner), and the most simple and popular version of "Cinderella" you can get me. I shall not be able to do it until after finishing "Bleak House," but I shall do it the more easily for having the books by me. So send them, if ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... and their bracelets and their thumb-rings and their golden treasures were fetched to them, and their apparel, both purple and blue and black and green, yellow, vari-coloured and ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... pitiless and hollow, The boding bat flits by on sullen wing, And I sit desolate, like that "one swallow" Who found (with horror) that he'd not brought spring: Lonely as he who erst with venturous thumb Drew from its pie-y ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... Frenchy fellers come over from Knob Licks. They're in it," and he pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the proclamation, "and thar's one young American among 'em who's a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung, Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue; But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands, And for myself there's not a thumb or little ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... he named Lac du Saint-Sacrament, because he reached it on the eve of Corpus Christi. The Frenchmen were carried from village to village of the Iroquois, and {138} tortured with all the cruel ingenuity usual in such cases. Goupil's thumb was cut off with a clam shell, as one way of prolonging pain. At night the prisoners were stretched on their backs with their ankles and wrists bound to stakes. Couture was adopted into the tribe, and was found useful in later years as an intermediary between the French and Mohawks. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... recognised the South; and he said that, when the inevitable smash came—and that separation was an accomplished fact—the State of Maine would probably try to join Canada, as most of the intelligent people in that state have a horror of being "under the thumb of Massachusetts." He added, that Maine was inhabited by a hardy, thrifty, seafaring population, with different ideas to the people in the other New ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... in company of the other gentlemen, to examine the papers and other articles taken from the assassin. The pistol with which he had done the deed was lying upon the floor; a naked poniard, which he would probably have used also, had his thumb not been blown off by the discharge of the pistol, was found in his trunk hose. In his pockets were an Agnus Dei, a taper of green wax, two bits of hareskin, two dried toads—which were supposed to be sorcerer's charms—a, crucifix, a Jesuit ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
