"Little finger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Turkey-lurky, Ducky-daddles, and Chicken Little!" said Mrs. Linceford, counting up from thumb to little finger. "Dakie Thayne and Miss Craydocke, Marmaduke Wharne and these two,—they just make it out," she continued, counting back again. "Whatever you do, Les, don't make up to Fox Lox at ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... returned with a box of small wax tapers. They were only a couple of inches long, and the size of her little finger. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... most convenient spot, at the widest part of the head, so that it can see around it in every direction. Just behind the eyes are the openings of the ears; but they are very small,—not big enough to put in the tip of your little finger. Just astern of the mouth are the swimming paws; not that the whale makes much use of them, for it works itself on by its flukes, but they serve to balance the body, and assist the female in ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... a good lad, Gerard. Neither want nor harm shall come to her. I care more for her little finger than for all the world; and were she nought to me, even for thy sake would I be a father to her. Go with a stout heart, and God be with thee going and coming." And the rough soldier wrung Gerard's hand, and turned his head away, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... I'll warrant!" he continued. "And you thought I was the mere stone reproduction of one of them. But no. The old order changeth. The little finger of the sham d'Urberville can do more for you than the whole dynasty of the real underneath... Now command me. What ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... they like. Give young people a few pence to rattle in their trousers' pockets, a collar, cuffs, a sixpenny signet ring on the little finger, a nickel-silver mounted cane and a pair of gloves, and there they go, not caring a fillip whether their parents have toiled and struggled to rise to their present position, ignoring the necessity of thrift, a happy-go-lucky generation. And then, at the end of it ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... father's heart, as he marched up and down with an air learned by watching many a parade in barrack-square and drill ground, and though Nicholas did not cry in spite of falling hard, and Dora, who took the part of the Doctor, treading accidentally on his little finger in picking him up, still the Captain and his wife sighed nearly as often as they smiled, and the mother dropped tears as well as pennies into the cap which Tom, as the King of Egypt, brought ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... his right hand, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger, and the other three fingers upright and together, which ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... only between them, and (I quote from the regulations of the English cavalry) "the top of the thumb firmly closed on them—the upper part of the arm hanging straight down from the shoulder—the left elbow lightly touching the hip—the lower part of the arm square to the upper—little finger on a level with the elbow—wrist rounded outwards—the back of the hand to the front—the thumb pointing across the body, and three inches from it." In this position we are taught that "the little finger of the ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... beg your pardon. Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do away with ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... the money, the Law disposes of the chattels, and finally, Jack Ketch, who is the Law's Ancient and most grim functionary, lays claim to the clothes. There was more real justice, friend Will, in the little finger of the Law of Moses, than in the whole right arm and sword of our boasted English trull, and you may throw her scales and blind-man's-buff ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... tender-hearted and compassionate as we may, a pain in our little finger must still come home to us more than another's loss of a limb, at least, if there is no special link between us. Isidore's pity for the half-witted girl was presently lost sight of in what had first been only the inconvenience, but had latterly become the positive suffering inflicted on ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... think," he reflected, "that I should ha' given in to her by this time if I hadn't got more sense in my little finger than—" etc. ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... I'll do nothing of the kind," said Maggie. "That's a charming little chap, and Spot-ear is my rabbit as well as his. Jackdaw shall share two of his rabbits with me. Oh, it is such fun turning people round your little finger!" ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... owd codger," explained the philosopher. "Play up to 'im a bit, an' you'll be able to twist 'im round your little finger. I b'lieve he's goin' dotty, an' you can trust me to see that the marriage ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... without tooths or tongue, If you'll give me a little finger I'll give you a thumb. Thumb'll go ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... soul on his own side that was fit to talk to! It was easy enough for F. E. Robinson to make a name in a crowd like that. And they loathe him, too. He's such a bounder! But they need a fellow to heave mud, so they put up with him. Roger's got more brains in his little finger than that fellow has in his ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... waves, her masts gone by the board and her deck awash, lay the derelict schooner "Valkyrie" of Bergen. She would have been at the bottom of the sea had it not been for her cargo of Norway pine, keeping her painfully afloat against her will. Fate, with its little finger, moved this uncharted peril right in the track of the "Starlight," beating close-reefed through the buffeting waves on the night of May 1st, while Larssen, in his London home, satisfied that his plans had foreseen every human eventuality, ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... the prosperous man of trade—of the man of funds, and houses, and land, acquired by successful projects—what is Life? He will try to call up a philosophic look, and passing his chin through his hand—(there is a brilliant on his little finger worth at least fifty guineas)—he will answer, "Life, sir—Life has its ups and downs; but taken altogether, for my part, I think a man a great sinner, a very great sinner, who doesn't look upon life as a very pretty thing. But don't let's talk of such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... this embellishment, and begin at first with an open string, upon which if you are once able to make a good shake with the first finger, you will with the greater facility acquire one with the second, the third, and the fourth, or little finger, with which you must practise in a particular manner, as more feeble than the rest of its brethren. I shall, at present, propose no other studies to your application: what I have already said is more than sufficient, if your zeal is equal to my wishes for your improvement. I hope you will ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... shall run a-muck against society just now. I am too thoroughly out of my own good books. I have been for years laughing at Young England, and yet its little finger is thicker than my whole body, for it is trying to do something; and I, alas, am doing utterly nothing. I should be really glad to take a lesson of these men and their plans ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... 2 to 3 cupfuls of water. Adjust a new, wet rubber on the jar; fill the jar to 1/4 inch of the top with sirup or with boiling water. Place the cover on the jar, but do not seal it tightly. If a screw top jar is used, screw on the lid by grasping it with the thumb and little finger. If the jar has a bail top, adjust the top bail only,—not the lower bail. Then process the jars and ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... heart, having, I am told, a wife in every port of France and of England the south, a most heinous sin!) will wait for thy answer, or will bring thee hither, which is still better. He is worthy of trust if thou makest him swear by the little finger of St. Peter. By all other swearings he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ever dined with him I was really ashamed to go home with my dinner favor—it was so gorgeous! And there were such big bunches of violets in the finger bowls there wasn't room for your little finger. ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... pausing to watch the curve of her shapely neck as she bent to pour the tea, and to note how her white hand grasped the battered teapot, little finger ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... wife had as much work as she liked among the gentlemen of her acquaintance. A wife like that and a country-house is all one can wish for to embellish one's life. And so Coupeau squinted admiringly at My-Boots. Why, the lucky dog even had a gold ring on his little finger! ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... abruptly, as if the mainspring had snapped. He took off his hat and scratched his head gingerly with the tip of his little finger. He had a round, bald head, with a fringe of smooth, red-brown hair below the baldness that made ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... never so closely approached by the Real as in the person of the pretty Penelope. Her yellowish flaxen hair did not curl naturally, I admit, but its bright crisp ringlets were such smooth, perfect miniature tubes, that you would have longed to pass your little finger through them, and feel their soft elasticity. She wore them in a crop, for in those days, when society was in a healthier state, young ladies wore crops long after they were twenty, and Penelope was not yet nineteen. Like the waxen ideal, she had round blue ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... betrothed girl crouched trembling and shuddering behind the cask, for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by the robbers. One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on the little finger of the murdered girl, and as he could not draw it off easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger; but the finger sprang into the air, and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was hiding there. The robber took a light and began ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... her. So after they had lived together a while, the Lassie was to have a child, and when the child came to be born, the Prince set a strong watch about her; but at the birth one and all fell into a deep sleep, and her Foster-mother came, cut the babe on its little finger, and smeared the queen's mouth ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... art the happiest rogue in a kind keeper! He drank thy health five times, supernaculum,[2] to my son Brain-sick; and dipt my daughter Pleasance's little finger, to make it go down more glibly:[3] And, before George, I grew tory rory, as they say, and strained a brimmer through the lily-white ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... region of central Tibet, where there is no drainage to the ocean, but where the country falls instead into a number of isolated lake basins. Your thumb will represent the Himalayas, the forefinger the Trans-Himalaya, the middle finger the Karakorum, the third finger the Arka-tagh, and the little finger the Kuen-lun. The highest mountain ranges of the world are under your fingers; and also, as the longest finger is the middle of the five, so the Karakorum is the central ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... sacrifice after their victory at Hastinapur, they wanted some, and so messengers were sent down below the earth to the residence of the queen of the serpents, in order to try and obtain it. Basuki, the queen of the serpents, obligingly cut off the top joint of her little finger and gave it to the messengers. This was brought up and sown on the earth, and pan creepers grew out of the joint. For this reason the betel-vine has no blossoms or seeds, but the joints of the creepers are cut off and sown, when they sprout afresh; and the betel-vine ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... to swim at top of the table, where her wry little finger bewrays carving; her neighbours at the latter end know they are welcome, and for that purpose she quencheth her thirst. She travels to and among, and so becomes a woman of good entertainment, for all the folly in the country comes in clean ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... cushion, wrapped in a superb pelisse; on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger encrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... wives, one of whom is childless, the other bears in succession seven sons and a daughter. The childless wife cuts off the little finger of each and takes them one by one into the forest, where they are brought up. An old woman comes one day and tells the daughter that if her brothers love her they will give her a bat. The girl cries ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... myself, then," shouted the Squire; "and as for the boy, he shall swallow his damned pride before he gives my girl an anxious hour. What is he, to say he will or will not, if she lifts her little finger? By the Lord Harry, he ought to go down on his face like a heathen when she ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... statute of heaven (Heb. ix. 27.). Senex quasi seminex, an old man is half dead; yea, now, at fifty years old, we are accounted three parts dead; this lesson we may learn from our fingers' ends, the dimensions whereof demonstrate this to us, beginning at the end of the little finger, representing our childhood, rising up to a little higher at the end of the ring-finger, which betokens our youth; from it to the top of the middle finger, which is the highest point of our elevated hand, and so most aptly represents our middle age, when we come ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... Weller and his friends was strictly confined to the freemasonry of the craft; consisting of a jerking round of the right wrist, and a tossing of the little finger into the air at the same time. We once knew two famous coachmen (they are dead now, poor fellows) who were twins, and between whom an unaffected and devoted attachment existed. They passed each other on the Dover road, every day, for twenty-four years, never exchanging ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... acquaintance: "I have known a Gentleman of another Turn of Humour, who, despising the Name of an Author, never printed his Works, but contracted his Talent, and by the help of a very fine Diamond which he wore on his little Finger, was a considerable Poet upon Glass. He had a very good Epigrammatick Wit; and there was not a Parlour or Tavern Window where he visited or dined ... which did not receive some Sketches or Memorials of it. It was his Misfortune at last to lose his Genius and his Ring to a Sharper at Play; and ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... great dreamer of day dreams. One of my pastimes was to imagine a host of tiny soldiers each the size of my little finger, "but alive and real." These I would drill as I saw officers do their men in front of the barracks some distance from our home. Or else I would take to marching up and down the room with mother's rolling-pin for a rifle, grunting, ferociously, in Russian: "Left one! ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... of Mitya to-day?" inquired Rakitin. "I should have thought you were not timid with him, you'd twist him round your little finger." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Athelstane, "be reasonable. The Lady Rowena cares not for me—she loves the little finger of my kinsman Wilfred's glove better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it—Nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country franklin—and do not laugh neither, Rowena, for grave-clothes and a thin ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... quitter I appear in my own eyes after all you suffered in the trenches, to have reserved this worse suffering for you, when your life has been spared and you had counted on me for happiness. My entire body's not worth your little finger. And yet how good you've always been ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... slightest provocation. If his methods had been followed, "the Party" would have murdered someone every day. Don Andres had a smooth tongue and a seraphic smile that simply wound alcaldes or rebellious electors around his little finger, and his specialty was the art of letting loose a rain of sealed documents over the District that started complicated and ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... it? if so, and the case is given briefly, would you have the great kindness to copy it? I much want to know all particulars. One case has been given me, but with hardly minute enough details, of a supernumerary little finger which has already been twice cut off, and now the operation will soon have to be done for the third time. I am extremely much obliged for the genealogical table; the fact of the two cousins not, as far as yet appears, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... feet; infidel writers were not unfairly compared with such creatures.[2] If such sign-language were really maintained, it must have been extensively supplemented as the library grew in size, for although striking the thumb and little finger together would describe am Antiphonary, or making the sign of the Cross and kissing the finger would indicate a Gradual, yet some additions to the signs for a pagan book and a tract were necessary to signify what particular tract or book was wanted. ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Circumscription of a thing, is nothing else but the Determination, or Defining of its Place; and so both the Terms of the Distinction are the same. And in particular, of the Essence of a Man, which (they say) is his Soule, they affirm it, to be All of it in his little Finger, and All of it in every other Part (how small soever) of his Body; and yet no more Soule in the Whole Body, than in any one of those Parts. Can any man think that God is served with such absurdities? And yet all this is necessary to beleeve, to those that ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... up a stiff fight," observed Billy, as he tied up his little finger from which blood ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... so;—it's far better trusting the Lord with a good strong man about,—like Antonio, for instance. I should like to see the man that would dare be uncivil to his wife. But go your ways,—it's no use toiling away one's life for children, who, after all, won't turn their little finger ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... August and he should have gone to his home, Loring remained at the Point fascinated, for Miss Haight and her musical companion stayed at Cozzens through September. In October they were to go to Lenox, and before the parting Loring's ring was on that little finger. She had promised to be his wife. Home then he hurried in response to the pleading of his sister, but the moment the Lenox visit was over and Miss Haight returned to New York thither went Loring to find his fiancee at the piano, with a middle-aged, somewhat portly ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... them, at a distance of ten feet, bury one more than two feet deep in the flanks of a buffalo. To complete their offensive weapons, they have the lasso, a leather rope fifty feet long, and as thick as a woman's little finger, hanging from the pommel of their saddles; this is a terrible arm, against which there is but little possibility of contending, even if the adversary possess a rifle, for the casting of the lasso is done with the rapidity of thought, and an attempt ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... go, Miss Standish!" he said, in stern command, as if rebuking some fractious child. "Your little finger is worth more than that blackguard's whole body. Besides," he added, grimly, "mocking birds, that sing nearly three weeks ahead of schedule, must be prepared to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... with the "Donkey's Skin"; she worked enthusiastically over the costumes and each day I gave her some task. She was especially skilful in devising hair for the fairies and nymphs; she managed to fix upon their tiny heads, about as big as the end of a little finger, blond wigs made of light silk thread, this thread she twined upon the finest wires and thus she was able to ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... and Napoleon would be sitting thereon in all the pride and pomp of Imperial majesty. That step, as will be hereafter seen, was taken boldly and successfully. France again submitted to the rule of one man, a man whose little finger proved to be thicker than the loins of the monarchs of the house ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... according to modern value], for the head of the Mortimer: and no sooner did the Queen hear thereof, than she offered double—namely, two thousand pounds—for the head of Sir Hugh Le Despenser—a man whose little finger was better worth two thousand than the Mortimer's head was worth one. Two days later, the King fortified the Tower, and appointed the Lord John of Eltham governor thereof; but he being only a child of ten years, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... i' the bill, sir; error i' the bill. I commanded the sleeves should be cut out, and sew'd up again; and that I'll prove upon thee, though thy little finger ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... two, three, four, five, Catching fishes all alive. Why did you let them go? Because they bit my finger so. Which finger did they bite? The little finger on the right. ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... that the divine with a cork-screw, occasionally used as a tobacco-stopper, hanging upon his little finger, was the portrait of parson Ford, Dr. Johnson's uncle; though, upon the authority of Sir John Hawkins, of anecdotish memory, it has been generally supposed to be intended for Orator Henley. As both these worthies were distinguished by that rubicundity of face with which it is marked, the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... good food in silence. Nor till he had licked the last of the sticky sweetstuff from his little finger did Kim note that the Kamboh too was ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... were saying one to another about her marriage to Kid McGarry. Not that it made any difference. There was no welter-weight from London to the Southern Cross that could stand up four hours—no; four rounds—with her bridegroom. And he had been hers for three weeks; and the crook of her little finger could sway him more than the fist of any 142-pounder in ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... him at every turn. He can, you know. He has immense resources. Oh, well, I'm satisfied, Stella, that you're a much wiser girl than I thought when I knew you'd left Jack Fyfe. I'm quite sure now you aren't the sort of woman Monohan could wind around his little finger. But I'm sure he'll try. You'll see, and remember what I tell you. There, I think I'd better run along. You're not angry, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends. Thus every one finds that, whilst comprehended under that consciousness, the little finger is as much a part of himself as what is most so. Upon separation of this little finger, should this consciousness go along with the little finger, and leave the rest of the body, it is evident the little finger would be the person, the same person; and self then would have nothing to do with the ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... Mary-'Gusta was happy because he was. The plan of alternate Sundays was adopted. It was but one instance of the "managing" quality which the girl possessed. Isaiah declared that she wound all hands around her little finger, but even he seemed to ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the backward order in time, is the Miohippus, which corresponds pretty nearly with the Anchitherium of Europe. It presents three complete toes—one large median and two smaller lateral ones: and there is a rudiment of that digit which answers to the little finger ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... romantic age," said her brother. "I am sure that for a long time she has peeped into every field flower to see if it would not suddenly unfurl a hidden banner, and turn into a Joan of Arc. Every little mole that she sees in the fields, she half suspects may wear a seal-ring on his little finger, and be a Gustavus Vasa in disguise, searching amid the mole-hills for ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... under the gas-lights, rich stuffs of kaleidoscopic, tempting hues display their heavy, graceful folds, while the shop-girls, with their hair piled high upon their heads and ribbons around their necks, puff their wares with the little finger in the air, or fill silk bags, into which the bonbons fall ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... The boy saluted—an odd salute, Mr. Cressy noted. It was rendered with the right hand, the three middle fingers held up, the thumb bent over touching the nail of the little finger. The saluter stood very straight as he went through the ceremony and looked very serious about it. "Queer!" thought the onlooker. The messenger boys he knew did not behave like that when you gave them ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... are more injurious than the larger variety, because their diminutive size escapes the gardener's eye. A good way to keep them under is to make small holes, about an inch deep, and about the diameter of the little finger, round the plants which they infest. Into these holes the slugs will retreat during the day, and they may be killed there by dropping in a little salt, quicklime in powder, or by strong ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... he thought. "And what a blazing wonder that she'll look at me. Yet I can twist her round my little finger—on occasions like to-night." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... young lady, but a small blue spot, about the size of the tip of your little finger; and now," he continued, turning to papa, "the question is what is ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hand up—so," explained McKinstry, with heavy deliberation, "and the ball raked off my little finger after it went through my hat. But that ain't what I wanted to say when I stopped ye. I ain't just kam enough yet," he apologized in the calmest manner, "and I clean forgit myself," he added with perfect self-possession. "But ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... loves them?" (Just imagine an infinite God in love with a blue-bottle fly!) Well, the little girl thought that was queer taste, but she was sorry, and said that she would not do it any more. By and by, however, a great lazy fly was too tempting, and her plump little finger began to follow him around slowly on the glass, and she said, "Oh you nice big fly, did dod made you? And does dod love you? And does you love dod?" (Down came the finger.) "Well, ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... maiden began to make her preparations very neatly and quickly. First, with a little knife she made a small gash in the Prince's little finger and dropped three drops of his blood on the wooden stool, near the cauldron. Then she gathered up a lot of rubbish, such as old shoes and rags, and put them in the cauldron with water and pepper and salt. Last of all, she packed a small chest with gold, and gave it to ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... it generally was, if she moved or spoke. She did not therefore join in the conversation as freely as was her wont in the family circle, but sat on the grass by her uncle, watching him with adoring eyes, trying to work the signet ring off his big little finger, which in the memory of man—of Molly, I mean—had never been known to work off, while she gave him the benefit of small pieces of local and personal news in a half whisper from time to time as they ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... wishing to entertain in her turn. "Here 'tis," running up to it, and pointing with her fat little finger. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... probably, as Indians do out of wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myself tried the experiment. They take a flat piece of wood that is pretty soft, and make a small dent in one side of it, then they take another hard round stick, about the bigness of one's little finger, and sharpening it at one end like a pencil, they put the sharp end in the hole or dent of the soft flat piece, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between the palms of their hands, they drill the soft piece till it smokes, ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... that you refuse to speak the thing that alone can save him from life-long wretchedness; I will go and tell him that the girl for whose sake he has brought this load of ruin on himself will not so much as lift it with her little finger! You fair, foul devil, how I hate you!" She drew herself up to her full height, and regarded the wretched girl with such contemptuous scorn that even in her abject ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Mon lightly. "You, and Marcos and I. We may sweat and toil as we will—but believe me, there is more power in Juanita's little finger. It is the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... certain means of attracting one to the place desired. Para is a mystical, three-legged being, constructed in many ways, and which, according to Castren, attains life and action when its possessor, cutting the little finger of his left hand, lets three drops of blood fall upon it, and at the same time pronouncing the proper magic word. The possessor, by whatever means, of this mystic being, is always supplied with abundance of milk and cheese. The Maahiset are the dwarfs of Finnish mythology. Their abode ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... little finger and trade on his good nature shamelessly," said Miss Craven severely, but ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... contradict me on Tuesdays, I can't support it!" she said on one of these occasions, as he seated himself beside her, and watched her raising the grapes to her lips with her little finger cocked well in the air. "Especially when I am in the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... the bottomlands of the river. We, Zachariah, are out here in the fertile prairie land. Our west line extends along the full length of her property. So, you see, the only thing that separates the two farms is an imaginary line no wider than your little finger, drawn by a surveyor and established by law. You will observe, my faithful fellow,—assuming that you are a faithful fellow,—that as we draw farther away from the woods along the river, the road becomes firmer, the soil less soggy, the—If you ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... said I, 'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I fled ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... holding his cigar at arm's-length and flicking at the ash with his little finger, ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... description of my person in the passport, set to work with the zest of an artist upon the depiction of my features. Examining each feature minutely with a candle, he put down the results of his researches, and then finally read off his work to me with this note at the bottom—"The little finger of his ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the green hat, following some three steps behind, suddenly drew a revolver from his pocket and shot the man twice in the back. It was a weapon carrying a lead bullet as large as the tip of one's little finger. The officer fell. The Apache and the ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... been looking desperately serious, let out a small squeak and hurriedly blew her nose. Macgregor regarded her in astonishment, and she withdrew the little finger she had ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... the Mother." He flashed a direct look at Roy; the first since their encounter; fluttered a foppish hand—the little finger lifted to display a square uncut emerald—and went ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... remarked Mildmay. "As to assisting in her recovery, I would not stir so much as my little finger to do it; she has already drowned some five hundred human beings, which is quite enough mischief for ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... grief on the death of some near relative. I once noticed a young girl of sixteen or seventeen with a very bad unhealed wound below one of her breasts, which was self-inflicted. Her father, a chief, had died only a short time previously. They often also cut off the little finger for similar reasons. Like the Samoans, the Fijians often cover their hair with white lime, and the effect of the sun bleaches the hair and changes it from black to a ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... anything about it—or have been able to stop her if he did. Sheila is just as clever as she is pretty and generally gets her own way in everything; since her mother died three years ago she has been able to twist her father around her little finger. Smart girl." ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... higher plane on which we can believe and see. Dante had discovered the incalculable worth of a single idea as compared with the largest heap of facts ever gathered. To a man more interested in the soul of things than in the body of them, the little finger of Plato is thicker than ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... crazy folks; child it wuz pitiful to see 'em. Den dey would handcuff an' beat 'em unmerciful. I don' like to talk 'bout back dar. It brun' a sad feelin' up me. If slaves 'belled, I done seed dem whip 'em wid a strop cal' "cat nine tails." Honey, dis strop wuz 'bout broad as yo' hand, from thum' to little finger, an' 'twas cut in strips up. Yo' done seen dese whips dat they whip horses wid? Well dey was ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... pressed the ash down with his little finger. The operation required the momentary lowering of his eyes ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... age. But that is as far as his sense of harmony goes. He took music-lessons for three quarters, and then his mother gave it up in despair. The instrument was a piano. The Boy could not stretch an octave with his right hand, the little finger of which had been broken by a shinny-stick; and he could not do anything whatever with his left hand. He was constantly dropping his bass-notes, which, he said, were "understood." And even Miss Ferguson—most patient ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... had captivated my father as she had me; and as he entertained the greatest respect for the Freeland women in general, he had no objection whatever to a bourgeoise daughter-in-law. But only on condition that I gave up the 'insane' idea of remaining here. 'The girl has more sense in her little finger than you have in your whole body,' said he; 'she would little relish seeing her lover cast a shattered ducal crown at her feet. It is very fine to be a Freeland woman—but, believe me, it is much finer to be a duchess. Besides, these two very agreeable ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... been quite ashamed then to have her know my cowardice. I looked in at the door as I passed. She was sound asleep, with her baby on her arm. The baby, however, was broad awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth. Her eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me—not startled like another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... dropped in at Headquarters and found the great detective gazing thoughtfully at a string that was tied tightly around his little finger. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... the cap out of his pocket between his finger and thumb, a second quail rose. As cool and self-possessed as it is possible to conceive, Frank cocked the left hand barrel with his little finger, still holding the cap between his forefinger and thumb, and actually contrived to bring up the gun, some how or other, and to kill the bird, pulling the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... gaumless nowt, With neither guts nor gall. He just butts blindly— A woolly-witted ram, bashing his horns, And spattering its silly brains out on a rock: No backbone—any trollop could twiddle him Round her little finger: just the sort a doxy, Or a drop too much, sets dancing, heels in air: He's got the gallows' brand. But none of your sons Has a head for whisky or wenches; and not one Has half my spunk, my relish. I'd not trust Their judgment of a ewe, let alone a woman: But I could size a wench ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... all dat discounted since I come into dis 'stablishment. We all knows as how teachers is de meanest kine of white trash gwine; still, I specs you might'ly. You has been ob de quality; any nigger can see dat wid half an eye open; an' you has got more sense in de end ob yo little finger, ef you is crazy, dan all de res tied up in a bunch ob fedders! Wat I does for you, chile, I does for lub ob yo purliteness" (hesitating here). "You hasn't anoder ob dem gole-pieces anywhar, like dat you gib me befo', has you? I'se bery bad off ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... I had to play. Yet, if I had not reckoned upon the reward, I might very well have informed the honourable company that my false cousin was mad, but, although Catinella was very near thirty, she was very pretty and celebrated for her intrigues; that was enough, and she could turn me round her little finger. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... yourself up with the politics of the place, take to writing; anything, so long as you can absorb yourself. I sent you a photograph of myself (I have nothing better) and a ring which I have worn night and day since I was a child. I think that it will fit your little finger and I hope you will always wear it in memory of me. It was my mother's. And now it is late and I am tired, and what is there more that a woman can say to the man she loves—and whom she must leave for ever? Only ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... on God's hand began to dance and weep. Suddenly shame overcame him. He made a wild rush to jump off the ball of God's little finger, but God stopped him by a dexterous turn of the wrist. Then he made a rush for the gap between hand and thumb, but the thumb closed. And all the while the angel went on reading—reading. The Wicked Man rushed to and fro across God's palm, and then suddenly turned about and fled ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... fairly emphatic stripes and his trouser cut was neat; he liked his frock-coat long and full, although that seemed to shorten him. He displayed a number of valuable rings, and I remember one upon his left little finger with a large red stone bearing Gnostic symbols. "Clever chaps, those Gnostics, George," he told me. "Means a lot. Lucky!" He never had any but a black mohair watch-chair. In the country he affected grey and a large grey cloth top-hat, except ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... being told that a physician had been summoned, sneered at the hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having nothing but themselves to think about, must needs send for a doctor if only so much as their little finger ached. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... hand she had the sceptre, and in the other the imperial orb; and on both sides of her stood the yeomen of the guard in two rows, each being smaller than the one before him, from the biggest giant, who was two miles high, to the very smallest dwarf, just as big as my little finger. And before it stood a number ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... that in the early nineteenth century somebody had come forward with a theory that typhus fever always begins in the top joint of the little finger; and that if this joint be amputated immediately after birth, typhus fever will disappear. Had such a suggestion been adopted, the theory would have been triumphantly confirmed; for as a matter of fact, typhus fever has disappeared. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... drooping over his raddled old face, and only partially concealing his great buckled brown wig. He had the stage jewellery on too, of which he selected the largest and most shiny rings for himself, and allowed his little finger to quiver out of his cloak with a sham diamond ring covering the first joint of the finger and twiddling in the faces of the pit. Bingley made it a favour to the young men of his company to go on in light comedy parts with ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at his moustache. "I don't know!" he replied. "Of course it was no surprise to find that there isn't a Mohammedan who'll lay his little finger on Professor Deeping's safe! There's no doubt in my mind that every lascar at the docks knows Hassan of Aleppo to be in England. Some other arrangement will have to be arrived at, if the thing is ever to be taken to the Antiquarian Museum. Meanwhile we ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... said:—"Lord of the Universe, it is open and well-known unto Thee that with these ten fingers I have labored without ceasing in the law, and never sought after any worldly profit with even so much as my little finger; may it therefore please Thee that there may be peace in my rest!" A voice from heaven immediately responded (Isa. lvii. 2), "He shall enter peace: they shall rest in ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Newton called upon his ladylove and in a fit of abstraction, looking about for a utensil to push the tobacco down in his pipe, chanced upon the lady's little finger, the law of gravitation was abrogated at once, and Newton and his pipe were sent, like nebulae ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... mats. She just wipes her feet on them and passes on into the drawing room looking for the Prince. It seems to me one of the triumphant proofs of Becky as a heroine that she did not marry Captain Dobbin. She might have done it any day by crooking her little finger at ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... little finger, my dear fellow," cheerfully replied Tiffles, who had given the artist similar assurances of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... to some honest cottage mother who had more true feeling in her rough little finger than Sister Cecilia possessed in her whole heart. "These trials are sent to us for our good. The ways of Providence are strange, Mrs. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... was her chosen and solitary retreat? And he could not but reflect that while there were plenty of women who were eager to present him with silver cigarette-cases, blue and white flower-jars, and things of that kind, there was not one of them, as he believed, who would dip her little finger in a bottle of ink for his sake. More than that, which of them would herself have dared ridicule in order to save him from ridicule? And in what light should he regard this suddenly prompted action on ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black |
