And all my wandering and mountain-climbing: a necessity was it merely, and a makeshift of the
unhandy one:--to FLY only, wanteth mine entire will, to fly into THEE!
In all
unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles.
And although they are dexterous enough upon a piece of paper, in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and
unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics and music.
"Ye can apollygise to riff-raff of the streets for settin' yer
unhandy feet on the tails of their frocks, but ye'd walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothes-line without so much as a 'Kiss me fut,' and I'm sure it's that long from rubberin' out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as there's money to buy after drinkin' up yer wages at Gallegher's every Saturday evenin', and the gas man here twice to-day for his."
I am an extremely
unhandy man(my schooling was over before the days of Slojd); but most of the requirements of a raft I met at last in some clumsy, circuitous way or other, and this time I took care of the strength.
For an hour the
unhandy pen toiled over the paper, and where sentiment rose to more than normal tide-level, Bobby Wick stuck out his tongue and breathed heavily.
I came into a kind of league with these two by the help of my governess, and they carried me out into three or four adventures, where I rather saw them commit some coarse and
unhandy robberies, in which nothing but a great stock of impudence on their side, and gross negligence on the people's side who were robbed, could have made them successful.
As to the carpenters, I scarce need mention how useful they were; for they took to pieces all my clumsy,
unhandy things, and made clever convenient tables, stools, bedsteads, cupboards, lockers, shelves, and everything they wanted of that kind.
Pollan, humorously dubbed by his wife "the Jewish fix-it man," admits at first: "Like my father--who only very briefly owned a toolbox, and who regarded the ethic of the do-it-yourself as about as alien as Zen--I am a radically
unhandy man" (2008, 4).
If you're as
unhandy as I am and you happen to acquire a Patriot without instructions, make sure you take a close look before you take apart the bolt.
A rural Minnesota man wasn't happy with the fit of his suspenders, or with the metal clips that seemed to always unclip at the most
unhandy times.