"Invention" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kingdom of China was not so inaccessible as the Portuguese had represented it. Then I wrote to your Majesty the aforesaid letter, asserting that the ill-report concerning the mandarins of China was rather an invention of the Portuguese than a true report. Later on, my belief in this truth was confirmed by certain persons, both religious and laymen, who have gone to China from these islands. When these persons arrived there the Chinese arrested ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... Ta-Ke was a cylinder of polished brass, along which her victims were forced to walk over a bed of fire below, she laughing in great glee if they slipped and fell into the flames. In fact, Chinese invention exhausts itself in describing the crimes and immoral doings of this abominable pair, which, fortunately, we are not ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Mr. Howe was engaged in perfecting his invention of what is known as the Howe truss bridge. After securing his patent Mr. Howe contracted to build the superstructure of the bridge across the Connecticut river, at Springfield, for the Western Railroad ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... roof are not of baked earth; but Pentelican marble, to imitate tiles. They say such roofs are the invention of a man of Naxos called Byzes, who made statues at Naxos with the inscription: "Euergus of Naxos made me, the son of Byzes, and descended from Leto, the first who ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... of his boyhood. You will notice that I have said nothing about his being a marvel of goodness or of wisdom—nothing, for instance, about a cherry tree. That fable, and a hundred others like it, were the invention of a man who wrote a life of Washington half a century after his death, and who managed so to enwrap him with disguises, that it is only recently we have been able to strip them all away and see the man as he really was. Washington's boyhood was much like any other. He was a strong, vigorous, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... subjects were resumed. She talked of the 'gentlemen' whose acquaintance, in a greater or less degree, she had made at the seaside; described their manoeuvres to obtain private interviews with her, repeated jokes of their invention, specified her favourites, all at headlong speed of disjointed narrative. Emily sat beneath the infliction, feeling that to go through this on alternate days for some weeks would be beyond her power. She would not rise and depart, for a gathering warmth within encouraged her to await a moment when ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... "Glory Anna"—being the work of her father, who also named it, was simply a cylindrical roll of canvas wagon-covering, girt so as to define a neck and waist, with a rudely inked face—altogether a weak, pitiable, manlike invention; and "Johnny Dear," alleged to be the representative of John Doremus, a young storekeeper who occasionally supplied Mary with gratuitous sweets. Mary never admitted this, and as we were all gentlemen along that road, we were blind to the suggestion. "Johnny Dear" ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... America: If therefore we are voluntarily silent while the single duty on tea is continued, or do any act, however innocent, simply considered, which may be construed by the tools of administration, (some of whom appear to be fruitful in invention) as an acquiescence in the measure, we are in extreme hazard; if ever we are so distracted as to consent to ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... as if I had myself been an eye- witness of the scene, I do not hesitate to declare that all that has been said about assaults and poniards is pure invention. I rely on what was told me, on the very night, by persons well worthy of credit, and who were ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of heaven, the inhabitants a disordered and depraved multitude of philosophers, crusaders, monks, and friars, blown like leaves into the air by the winds that sweep those desert tracts. Unlike the Paradise that was lost, this paradise is wholly of Milton's invention, and is the best extant monument to that spirit of mockery and savage triumph which is all ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... but it is the Witchcraft of Passion and Meaning. Who is there that will not despise the false, empty Pomp of the Poets, when he observes in this little, unpretending, mild Triumph of Nature, the whole Force of Invention and Genius, creating new Powers of Emotion, and transplanting Ideas of Pleasure into that unweeded low Garden the Heart, from the dry and sharp ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... once from Frankfort, leaving the MS. of one of his metaphysical poems in Wechel's hands to print, and found himself at the end of 1591 a guest of his unknown patron. I have already described what Mocenigo hoped to gain from Bruno—the arts of memory and invention, together with glimpses into occult science.[105] We know how little Bruno was able to satisfy an in satiable curiosity in such matters. One of his main weaknesses was a habit of boasting and exaggerating ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... fiction, and stamped with the unforgeable seal of truth and nature, spoke to every heart and mind; and the few murmurs of pedantic criticism were lost in the voice of general delight which never fails to welcome the invention that introduces to the sympathy of the imagination a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... always nervous"—which indeed was the purest invention, for Elinor Dennistoun had not known what nerves meant. "I mean I was always startled by any sudden entrance—in this way," she cried, and very gravely asked him to be seated, with a curious assumption of dignity. Her demeanour ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... interest Hugh to such an extent that the other promised to go off with him during the few days of grace granted by the school authorities around "turkey-eating time" in late November, so as to give his new invention ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... time the discovery of the art of embalming gave a new lease of life to the souls of the dead by preserving their bodies for an indefinite time from corruption, the deities were permitted to share the benefit of an invention which held out to gods as well as to men a reasonable hope of immortality. Every province then had the tomb and mummy of its dead god. The mummy of Osiris was to be seen at Mendes; Thinis boasted of the mummy of Anhouri; and Heliopolis rejoiced in the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... unobtrusive, almost secret aid which she rendered to the Gentile families of the village. Though Jane Withersteen never admitted so to herself, it amounted to no less than a system of charity. But for her invention of numberless kinds of employment, for which there was no actual need, these families of Gentiles, who had failed in a Mormon community, would ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... black indeed. He had staked his all and lost, and he was resolved to abandon all further efforts to press his invention on an unfeeling and a thankless world. He must pick up his brush again; he must again woo the fickle goddess of art, who had deserted him before, and who would, in all probability, be chary of her favors now. In that dark hour ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in the hurry, any good reason for firin' off my piece. But they say necessity's the mother of invention; so, just as I was givin' it up and clinchin' my teeth to bide the worst o't, and take what should come, a sudden thought came into my head. I stepped out before the rest, seemin' to be awful anxious to be at the savages, tripped ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic communication without wires, ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... changes are: the introduction of the queen, the clown, and the whole human paraphernalia of a court; the curse pronounced on Urvashi for her carelessness in the heavenly drama, and its modification; the invention of the gem of reunion; and the final removal of the curse, even as modified. It is true that the Indian theatre permits no tragedy, and we may well believe that no successor of Kalidasa could hope to present a tragedy on the stage. But ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... quality more and more in the pictures as the history moves on. After the invention of gunpowder, when the combatants didn't have to be locked together, but could be separated by fields, and little groves and quaint farm-houses, the battle seems to get quite lost in the scenery. It spreads ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... him in convict clothes, and put him in this horrible place without any reason only because he himself had been injured. And yet the thought that this seemingly true story, told with such a good-natured expression on the face, might be an invention and a lie was still more dreadful. This was the story: The village public-house keeper had enticed the young fellow's wife. He tried to get justice by all sorts of means. But everywhere the public-house ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Graves and Richard Dehan. Richard Dehan, novelist, steadily employs the material furnished in valuable abundance by Clotilde Graves's life. At the same time the personality of Richard Dehan is so unusual, so gifted, so lavish in its invention and so much at home in surprising backgrounds, that something approaching a psychic explanation of ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... another, and it was necessary to make combs, before we could try our skill in making hemp. Upon this trying occasion we were again sensible of the danger to which we were exposed by the want of a forge: Necessity, however, the fruitful mother of invention, suggested an expedient. The armourer was set to work to file nails down to a smooth point, with which we produced a tolerable succedaneum for a comb; and one of the quarter-masters was found sufficiently skilled in the use of this instrument ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... sport, of which I was able to show him a good deal of a humble kind. He had brought with him, amongst other weapons, what in those days was considered a very beautiful hair-triggered small-bore rifle fitted with a nipple for percussion caps, then quite a new invention. It was by a maker of the name of J. Purdey, of London, and had cost quite a large sum because of the perfection of its workmanship. When the Honourable V. Smyth—of whom I have never heard since—took his leave of us on ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... as glib as you run over the ivory, ma'am; but it was Old Hundred, and no mistake. And we played Yankee Doodle, first rate. We called our instrument the Harmolinks; and we enjoyed it all the more because it was our own invention. I tell you what, ma'am, there's music hid away in everything, only we don't know how to bring ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... matter entirely out of his mind and centered all his energies upon the new variety of mill, the gull which was to flap its wings when the wind blew. Barbara was, of course, much interested in the working out of this invention, and her questions were many. Occasionally Mrs. Armstrong came into the shop. She and ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... conclusion of all intelligent men who have thought upon the subject. The kind of scriptures or science which one always studies gives him the kind of knowledge which it is capable of giving. Such Knowledge verily becomes agreeable to him. Ignorance leads to barrenness of invention in respect of means. Contrivance of means, again, through the aid of knowledge, becomes the source of great felicity. Without entertaining any scruples and any malice,[390] listen to these instructions. Through the decrease of the treasury, the king's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the advance that has been made both in invention of implements and methods and in the organization of workers, there is now a marked difference in the value of the product of a day's work. A study of this situation shows the supreme need of action ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... Obed tenderly drew out his revolver from his breast-pocket, and exhibited it in a loving way to the astounded Gualtier. "I saw," he continued, "that it would be a most unscientific waste of lead. The very first shot you fired showed that you were utterly unacquainted with our American invention, and the next was as bad. Why, out of the whole six only one hit ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... one suppose that this primitive people invented all this? And if they did, how comes it that their invention agreed so exactly with the traditions of all the rest of mankind; and with the revelations of science as to the relations between the trap rocks and the gravel, ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... question as one which could not be answered with complete frankness. I don't enjoy lying. Not that my moral sense revolts, but because I am lazy. Lying calls for deliberate efforts of invention. ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... troughs in which they pounded their corn, the marks of their tomahawks upon felled trees. When he first came, he found the body of an Indian woman, in a canoe, elevated on high poles, with all her ornaments on. This island is a spot, where Nature seems to have exhausted her invention in crowding it with all kinds of growths, from the richest trees down to the most delicate plants. It divides the river which there sweeps along in clear and glittering current, between noble parks, richest green lawns, pictured rocks crowned with old hemlocks, or ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... century B.C.,[415] the oil-lamp became universal in houses, baths, etc. Even in the small old baths of Pompeii there were found about a thousand lamps, obviously used for illumination after dark.[416] But in spite of this and of the invention of candelabra for extending the use of candles, it was never possible for the Roman to turn night into day as we do in our modern town-life. We must look on the lighting of the streets as quite an exceptional event. This ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, that his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be produced by hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's and author's fortune (we trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own). Twelve admirable plates, ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... those secrets of divine majesty which it is impossible to approach; for it dwells 'in the light which no man can approach unto,' as Paul testifies, 1 Tim. 6, 16." (E. 227; St. L. 1801.) This statement, that God's majesty must not be investigated, says Luther, "is not our invention, but an injunction confirmed by Holy Scripture. For Paul says Rom. 9, 19-21: 'Why doth God yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?... Hath not the potter power,' etc.? And before him Isaiah, chapter 58, 2: 'Yet they seek Me daily, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... shouted, near enough to hear; and the delightful story ran up and down the lines by a telephone process that was much swifter than Edison's electric invention. A roar of gratulatory triumph broke—a roar so loud and inspiring that for a moment the densely packed masses did not distinguish an ear-splitting outburst just in front of them. But on the instant piercing shrieks ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... It is the moment, doubtless, when Linnaeus, according to the legend, saw a gorse-covered English common for the first time and fell on his knees to thank God for the sight. (I say "legend," for I find on consulting Fries that the story must be a praiseworthy English invention, since it was in August that ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... live after you are gone. They are the footprints. Some one has said that we each day are here building the house we are going to occupy in eternity. If this be true, nothing should concern us so much as how to live. Some men are devoting their time and the power of their intellects to invention; some are studying statesmanship; some are studying the arts, others the sciences; but we have come to learn a little more about how to live. Many are thinking much about how they wish to die, but let us learn how to live. If we live ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... Valdes or even the Countess Pardo-Bazan; but he belongs to their realistic order of imagination, and he is easily the first of living European novelists outside of Spain, with the advantage of superior youth, freshness of invention and force of characterization. The Russians have ceased to be actively the masters, and there is no Frenchman, Englishman, or Scandinavian who counts with Ibanez, and of course no Italian, American, and, ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... industry, let us see what uses are made of the advantages derivable from it. It is clear that man would have continued uncivilized but for the accumulations of savings made by his forefathers,—the savings of skill, of art, of invention, and of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Australian bird of the crane family. It is of a pretty grey colour, with red bill and red legs. The brolga has a taste for dancing; flocks of this bird may be seen solemnly going through quadrilles and lancers—of their own invention—on ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... have no invention should be hanged,'" quoted Peggy, unperturbed. "Give me a packet of pins, and I'll soon show you what I am going to do. Dear, dear, dear, I don't know what you would do without me! You are ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... her lips compressed into a thin line of scarlet, the anger in her eyes unabated, began to walk back and forth, and there was something tigerish in the light step and the quick turn. The others, knowing her to be a woman of fertile invention, patiently and in silence ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... relieved from further invention, Prosper was, nevertheless, somewhat concerned at this shattering of the ideal mother in the very camp that had sung her praises. But he could only trust to her recognizing the situation with her usual sagacity, of which he ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... F.]The divisions into dismes, cents, and mills is now so well understood, that it would be easy of introduction into the kindred branches of weights and measures. I use, when I travel, an Odometer of Clarke's invention, which divides the mile into cents, and I find every one comprehends a distance readily, when stated to him in miles and cents; so he would in feet and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a valve tapped into the base of the steam dome with a line running under the boiler jacket to the smokestack. When the valve is opened a jet of steam goes up the stack, creating a draft useful for starting the fire or enlivening it as necessary. This device was the invention of Alba F. Smith in 1852, according to the eminent 19th-century technical writer and engineer ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... recent; legislatures making statutes are recent everywhere; legislatures themselves are fairly recent; that is, they date only from the end of the Dark Ages, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries. Representative government itself is supposed, by most scholars, to be the one invention that is peculiar to the ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the service of Solomon had made what was then esteemed long voyages, and a famous Carthaginian captain had sailed round Africa: the Portuguese also were great adventurers by sea, and their discoveries in Africa served to animate men of courage and enterprise to bolder undertakings: but the invention of the compass proved the mariner's best guide, and facilitated the improvements in navigation. Furnished with this new and excellent instructor, the seaman forsook the dangerous shore and launched out into the immense ocean in search of new regions, which, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... pantomime; and this was Chopin's invention. He sat at the piano and extemporized, whilst the young people acted scenes in dumb show and danced comic ballets. These charming improvisations turned the children's heads and made their legs nimble. He led them just as he chose, making them pass, according to his fancy, from the amusing to the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... last train had good-naturedly appropriated it to his own use and service. It was that admirable macintosh that has already adorned these pages, with the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet patented, the loss ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... present study we do not need to consider risks, inasmuch as the greater part of them arise from dynamic causes; that is, from the changes and disturbances to which the business world is subject. An invention promises greatly to cheapen the production of some article and, for a time, to insure large returns for the men who first utilize it. A capitalist may be willing to take a risk for the sake of sharing this gain; but in time both the risk and the gain will vanish. The capacity ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... England are the staple of their teachings, which the credulous peasantry imbibe like mother's milk. The peripatetic patriots who invade the rural communities seem to be easy, extemporaneous liars, having a natural gift for tergiversation, an undeniable gift for mendacity, an inexhaustible fertility of invention. Such liars, like poets, are born, not made, though doubtless their natural gifts have been improved and developed by constant practice. Like Parolles, they "lie with such volubility that you would think Truth were a fool." The seed has been industriously ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... increasing demand for iron gave an impetus to coal-mining, which in its turn stimulated inventors in their improvement of the power of the steam-engine; for the coal could not be worked quickly and advantageously unless the pits could be kept clear of water. Thus one invention stimulates another; and when the steam-engine had been perfected by Watt, and enabled powerful-blowing apparatus to be worked by its agency, we shall find that the production of iron by means of pit-coal being rendered cheap and expeditious, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... to me, you have had two years, and I never before let a bond go over so long; but this marriage is a glorious invention and— ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... set all my doubts at rest, and restored peace to my mind. It was written by my mother, and she, I felt assured, would never deceive me. How could I for one moment imagine that this epistle was an invention of my enemies, who imitated the hand-writing and affectionate style of my mother? Some persons will say, you might have suspected it. * * * I reply, that in the uprightness of my heart, I could not conceive such atrocious wickedness; it appeared utterly irreconcilable with the sanctity of the ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... become of the two hundred crowns paid for Ditte for once and for all? Ay, where had they gone? The two old people had bought nothing new at that time, and Soeren had firmly refused to invest in a new kind of fishing-net—an invention tried in other places and said to be a great success. Indeed, there were cases where the net had paid for itself in a single night. However, Soeren would not, and as so much money never came twice to ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is English Heroic Verse without Rime as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... is wont to cast, extravagance, avarice and inequality of every kind, may readily grow longer and darker in consequence of the introduction of money.(699) But may not the knife which, in the hands of the surgeon, does so much for life, become an instrument of danger in the hands of a child? The invention of money has been rightly compared to the invention of writing with letters.(700) We may, however, call the introduction of money as the universal medium of exchange (money-economy),(701) in which goods intended ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... was then comparatively unknown; the stone steps of the old hall had been carpeted with this new material; observing this, as he walked up the steps, the Prince turned to Mr. Aitken and said, "Capital invention this; the only material I know of that wears better in a damp ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... passed lightly, while exaggerating others. Some things, again, were entirely of his own invention; and if from the depths of her tomb the Duchess could have heard all that M. de Meaux said about her, she never would have borne me such malice, nor would her grief at leaving life and fortune have troubled her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was leader of a church orchestra in Bologna, and afterwards accepted the post of leader of the band of the Markgraf of Brandenburg-Anspach, at Anspach, in Germany. To him is generally ascribed the invention of the "Concerto." ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... catches its maker. By a singular coincidence another lord of Noisy, Cardinal Balue, underwent a long detention in an iron-barred cage—one of those famous cages, so much favored by Louis XI., of which the cardinal, as we learn from the records of the time, had the patent-right for invention, or at least improvement. Once firmly engaged in his own torture—while his friend Haraucourt, bishop of Verdun, experienced alike penalty in a similar box, and the foxy old king paced his narrow oratory in the Bastile tower overhead—we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... difference between electric and magnetic attraction to be recognized. The first to give a proper description of this was Queen Elizabeth's doctor, Gilbert. His discovery was soon followed by the construction of the first electrical machine by the German Guericke (also known through his invention of the air pump) which opened the way for the discovery that electricity could be transmitted ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... scarcely without a parallel, and he is generally regarded as the greatest mathematical intellect that England has produced. To him the world is indebted for the binomial theorem, discovered at the age of twenty-two; for the invention of fluxions; for the demonstration of the law of gravitation; and for the discovery of the different refrangibility of rays of light. His treatise on Optics and his Principia, in which he brought to light the new ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... we shall obtain, what a Frenchman calls, a vue feerique du Cherbourg. We shall look down upon the magnificent harbour with its breakwater and surrounding forts, and see a fleet of iron-clads at anchor, surrounded by smaller vessels of all nations; gun-boats, turret-ships and every modern invention in the art of maritime war, but scarcely any ships of commerce. The whole energy and interest of a busy population seem concentrated at Cherbourg, either in constructing works of defence or engines ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... remembering from the astonished faces of Keene and Markham that the secret was not known to them, while they, impressed with the belief that the story was a sudden invention of Brimmer's, with difficulty preserved their composure. But the women were quick to notice their confusion, and promptly disbelieved ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... one exception, old Weir's story, for the introduction of which my reader cannot yet see the artistic reason. For whether a story be real in fact, or only real in meaning, there must always be an idea, or artistic model in the brain, after which it is fashioned: in the latter case one of invention, in the former ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... of the Sisterhoods with which she was acquainted, wore a dress of her own device, and with Sister Mena, a young cousin of her own, meant to make St. Kenelm's a nucleus for a Sisterhood of her own invention. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of wine, I have found myself capable of thinking out surprising combinations, and have felt that if Napoleon had intrusted me with an army corps, things might have gone differently with him. But however that may be, there is no doubt that in the small stratagems of war, and in that quickness of invention which is so necessary for an officer of light cavalry, I could hold my own against anyone. It was now that I had need of it, and I felt sure that it would not ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had its Hotel des Tiraz, which rivalled the Hotel des Tiraz at Bagdad, tiraz being the generic name for ornamental tissues and costumes made with them. Spangles (those pretty little discs of gold, silver, or polished steel, used in certain embroidery for dainty glinting effects) were a Saracenic invention; and Arabic letters often took the place of letters in the Roman characters for use in inscriptions upon embroidered robes and Middle Age tapestries, their decorative value being so much greater. The book of crafts by Etienne Boileau, provost of the merchants ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... make a tidy summer resort if there was any custom for it. Summer resort—another invention of hers—just words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask her, she has such ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... primitive non-Marcan document embodied in the first and third gospels, begins, not with the birth and childhood of Jesus, but with his baptism; and this order of accretion of gospel matter is faithfully reflected in the time order of the invention of feasts. The great church adopted Christmas much later than Epiphany; and before the 5th century there was no general consensus of opinion as to when it should come in the calendar, whether on the 6th of January, or the 25th of March, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... retail their family affairs to some chosen friend, from a love of confidential mysteries; the pleasure of being a martyr leads not only to the communication of moving details of home life, but frequently to their invention. A friend of mine adopted a niece, who afterwards married and wrote from India asking her aunt to look through and burn her old letters. My friend found touching pictures of home tyranny in the letters from school friends and answers to similar complaints, which the niece ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... patent to Mr Stead, as though it had been regularly filed within the prescribed period. A second patent was afterwards obtained, but that related more particularly to the form of blocks. The first patent, which had been infringed, was for an invention consisting of a mode of paving with blocks of similar sizes and dimensions, of either a sexagonal, triangular, or square form, so as to make a ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... nodded and smiled, as if she knew all about it, but her eyes were again scrutinising Mr. Feist's face. Her neighbour, whose hobby was applied science, at once launched upon a long account of the invention. From time to time the beauty nodded and said that she quite understood, which was ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... closer than before. The fatal moment approached when water must fail, and we were already afflicted with the idea that our tree must perish with drought. At length necessity, the parent of industry, suggested an invention, by which we might save our tree from death, and ourselves from despair; it was to make a furrow underground, which would privately conduct a part of the water from the walnut tree to our willow. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill him. Those were the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby cylinderical stat-wind in his tunic pocket. That was the weapon he had chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the environment he had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded, the metropolis Dulaq had ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... the cable was attached to the American shore-end, which had been laid by another vessel. Some of you will remember the rejoicings in the United States over the event. It surpassed all other achievements of the age, and equaled the invention of the telegraph itself. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... species of worship existed for some time peacefully side by side; and even when, through the exertions of the Latin priesthood, the Slavic liturgy was gradually superseded by the occidental rites, the former was at least tolerated; and after the invention of printing, the Polish city of Cracow was the first place where books in the Old Slavic dialect, and portions of the Old ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... "that's one great beauty of Jabezeses invention, it is perfectly noiseless, not a murmur or gurgle from one year's end to the other, and so easy to tend. Jest twice a year, he sez, to put a pail of water in the upper tank, two pails of water a year to insure summer warmth, no dirt, no noise, not much like luggin' in wood from mornin' ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... this country and in Europe during that year, and telephone companies were established to bring it into general use. Edison's carbon "loud-speaking" telephone was brought out in 1878. It is not worth while to go into details of the suits on the subject of priority of invention. The examiner of patents at Washington, July 21, 1883, decided that Professor Bell was the first inventor, because he was the first to complete his invention and secure a full patent. Since 1878 there have been many improvements in the different parts ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... The allusion is to the Anticato of Caesar (Life of Caesar, c. 54). How the matter really was, no one can tell; but such a story is not likely to be a pure invention.] ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... them. It is the same in the advancement of piano technic and interpretation. The composers conceive new and often radically different musical ideas. These in turn demand a new manner of interpretation. This kind of evolution has been going on continually since the invention of the instrument and is going on to-day, only it is more difficult for us to see it in the present than it is to review it ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... pump, which took the place of the old well in many dooryards, was considered a great invention. We all looked with huge respect upon Sanford Adams of Concord, who invented it, and was known all ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... peace and in the enjoyment of all those out-of-door sports which were always so congenial to me. But events "over which I had no control" soon defeated that scheme. That, like all the other plans of my own invention, came to naught. The ranch was sold, and I got out of it, as I always tried to do, about as much as I ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... this," he said at last, giving it up with a rather crestfallen air. "It seems to me that this diabolical invention has got out of order somehow; I can't make it work ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... years ago that we donned earphones in a doubtful hope of being able to hear something over the radio. It is the less surprising that it was only in the last few years of his life that Gilbert became first interested in the invention and presently one of the broadcasters most in request by the B.B.C. He felt about the radio as he did about most modern inventions: that they were splendid opportunities that were not being taken—or else were being taken to the harm of humanity by the wrong people. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... indeed, observed but one set of men, upon whom all my arguments have been thrown away; whom neither flattery can draw to compliance, nor threats reduce to submission; and who have, notwithstanding all expedients that either invention or experience could suggest, continued to exert their abilities in a vigorous and constant opposition of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... formed the basis of a child's mental and religious training. Later, during and after the Crusades, the stories of war and the mysteries of the East increased the stock in trade for the homes of Europe; but still the horizon remained a narrow one. Even the invention of printing did not bring to the young as many direct advantages as would naturally be expected. To-day, when Christian missionaries set up a printing press in some distant island of the sea, the first books which they print in the ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... long been extinct in Mizora. This was one cause of the weird silence that so impressed me on my first view of their capital city. Invention had superceded the usefulness of animals in all departments: in the field and the chemistry of food. Artificial power was ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... will reply, that I bought this carriage because I had the opportunity; it is a chef-d'oeuvre. There never was a handsomer carriage made in London. It was invented—and you will soon see what a splendid invention it is—for an immensely rich English lady who is always travelling, and who is greatly distressed at having to sell it, but she believes herself pursued by an audacious young lover whom she wishes to get rid of, and as he has always recognised her by ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... Avalon fisherman and tackle-maker, had made me a double split-bamboo rod, and I had brought the much-talked-of B-Ocean reel. This is Boschen's invention—one he was years in perfecting. It held fifteen hundred feet of No. 24 line. And I will say now that it is a grand reel, the best on the market. But I did not know that then, and had to go through the trip with it, till we were both tried out. Lastly, and most important, I had worked ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... encouragement I wanted to drive me on. It is only just, however, to add to the record of this first day's attempt, that the literary labor which it involved was by no means of the most trying kind. The great strain on the intellect—the strain of invention—was spared me by my having real characters and events ready to my hand. If I had been called on to create, I should, in all probability, have suffered severely by contrast with the very worst of those unfortunate novelists ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Red-breasts, till a foolish rich uncle pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... myselfe went to Hammersmith, to visite Sir Sam Morland, who was entirely blind, a very mortifying sight. He showed us his invention of writing, which was very ingenious; also his wooden Kalendar, which instructed him all by feeling, and other pretty and useful inventions of mills, ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the conversation between two or more persons, reported in writing, a form of literature invented by the Greeks for purposes of rhetorical entertainment and instruction, and scarcely modified since the days of its invention. A dialogue is in reality a little drama without a theatre, and with scarcely any change of scene. It should be illuminated with those qualities which La Fontaine applauded in the dialogue of Plato, namely vivacity, fidelity of tone, and accuracy in the opposition of opinions. It ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... every limb the reliefs are converted into a hollow, and likewise every hollow of the innermost bends becomes a convexity when the limb is straightened to the utmost. And in this very great mistakes are often made by those who have insufficient knowledge and trust to their own invention and do not have recourse to the imitation of nature; and these variations occur more in the middle of the sides than in front, and more at the back than ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... advent of humbler merit, treated "Merry-Mount" with the distinction implied in a review of nearly twenty pages. This was a great contrast to the brief and slighting notice of "Morton's Hope." The reviewer thinks the author's descriptive power wholly exceeds his conception of character and invention of circumstances. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "This is pure invention!" cried Sir Francis. "There is no such name on the paper—no name at all, in short—nor could there be any, for reasons I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... narrative not only surprised the widow, which was not unnatural, seeing that it was entirely an invention of the old soldier's, but it appealed to her weakest point. The father of the deceased Scully had been of plebeian origin, so that the discovery in the family of a real major-general—albeit he was ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was beyond the power of his belief. He stood still in his place, with folded arms, debating what he should do to save her. One thing alone was clear. She loved him to distraction. Possibly, he thought, her story was but an invention to excuse her cruelty and to win his commiseration. It failed to do either at first, but yet he would not leave ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... was another of those heroes of the tongue, who pretend to know everything, and never fail in a story for want of a little invention. By his own crew, who looked up to him and esteemed him for his sterling qualities, he was considered a first-rate politician. The two officers were tolerably good friends in general; but a very slight thing would make them fall out, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at the present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient heroes whose origin and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... farm it brought with it no warning nor sign of battle. We began to believe that the British army was an invention of the enemy's. So we cooked bacon and fed the doves, and smoked on the veranda, moving our chairs around it with the sun, and argued as to whether we should stay where we were or go on to the bridge. At noon it was evident there would be no fight at the drift that day, so ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... "One of my own invention," said the professor, smiling proudly. "You, Frank, haven't I always lain down beside you every night when all ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... he planned and completed at the age of thirty a clock which stands as one of the wonders of his day.[157] "It is probable," says one, "that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him."[158] He completed this clock with no other tools than a pocket knife, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... these monologues would apologize for the frequent reappearances of Mr. Dooley, if he felt the old gentleman would appreciate an apology in his behalf. But Mr. Dooley has none of the modesty that has been described as "an invention for protection against envy," because unlike that one of his distinguished predecessors who discovered this theory to excuse his own imperfect but boastful egotism, he recognizes no such human failing as envy. Most of the papers in the present collection ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... the small, is made with ease, rapidity, and certainty. This employment of gas is indigenous to Ireland, and the Board of Trade has exercised a wise liberality in allowing every facility to Mr. Wigham for the development of his invention. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... very proud of her Berchthold Schwartz, and in her pride has made a proverb declaring that his invention was the proof of supreme wisdom. When they describe a fool, they say there that he did not discover gunpowder. But 'the first handful of gunpowder' did not, as Carlyle claims, drive Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling. Long before Schwartz, lived Bacon; and a century or so before Bacon, there ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Clara hurried away to attend to some little mystery of their own invention for the surprise and delight of the doctor and Traverse. For the more secret accomplishment of their purpose, they had dismissed all attendance, and were at work alone in Mrs. Rocke's room. And here Clara's sweet, frank and humble ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the least happy of my life, during which (to use the eloquent language of Mr. Coleridge) "my individual recollections have been suspended, and lulled to sleep amid the music of nobler thoughts;" nor that study as misapplied, which has familiarized me with one of the sublimest efforts of the human invention. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... of Schoenbrunn was the rendezvous of all the illustrious savants of Germany; and no new work, no curious invention, appeared, but the Emperor immediately gave orders to have the author presented to him. It was thus that M. Maelzel, the famous inventor of metronomy, was allowed the honor of exhibiting before his Majesty several ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and mathematics, as between medicine and natural history. John of Seville was a notable mathematician, the compiler of a practical arithmetic, the first to make mention of decimal fractions, which possibly may have been his invention, and in the Zohar, the text-book of mediaeval Jewish mysticism, which appeared centuries before Copernicus's time, the cause of the succession of day and night is stated to be the earth's revolution ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... think the more useful invention—the telephone or the art of writing? Who invented this art? Find Egypt on the map. How ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... records and compare them with those of countries ages and ages older than we are, which never discovered the beauties of a Dover egg-beater or a washing machine or a churn or a railroad or a steamboat or a bridge. We are head and shoulders above other nations in invention, and just as fast as possible, we are falling behind in the birth rate. The red man and the yellow man and the brown man and the black man can look at our egg-beaters and washing machines and bridges and big guns, and go home ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... something special among yourselves to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing?" said Hilda suddenly, glancing from Edwin to Big James. And Big James and Edwin glanced at one another. Neither had ever heard of the four-hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing. In a couple of seconds Big James's downcast eye had made it clear that he regarded this portion ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Bellwood, "has explained that he came here to these wilds to continue his study of electricity alone and undisturbed. He took means to keep other people from bothering him. This canoe, which contains a lower compartment and a hidden propeller, driven by electricity, was his invention. He has arrangements whereby he can use a powerful search-light ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes, such as the introduction or failure of certain manufactures, a greater or less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise, years of plenty, or years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor laws, the invention of processes for shortening labour without the proportional extension of the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference between the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Petersburg had sent to the Paris committee of the society a recipe for a formidable explosive of his invention. A quantity of this dangerous substance was manufactured in France and secretly conveyed to St. Petersburg, where bombs to contain it had been prepared. The plans of the conspirators were now very carefully ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... he said, prodding him amiably in the waistcoat with the ferrule of the umbrella. 'How's the boy? Fine! So'm I. So you got my message? Wonderful invention, the telephone.' ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... The adaptability, invention and resource of the men of the Discovery when they set to work after the failures of the autumn to prepare for the successes of the two following summers showed that they could rise to their difficulties. Scott admitted that "food, clothing, everything was wrong, the whole system was bad."[17] ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... you down and fight you. How? Why, how do I know? You had ought to tell me that—you and the rest, that lost me my schooner, with your interference, burn you! But not you, you can't; you ain't got the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak, and shall, George Merry, you may ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and had gone about the village of the Sarians exhibiting it to every one who would listen to him, and explaining what its purpose was and what terrific havoc it would work, until finally the natives became so terrified at the stuff that they wouldn't come within a rod of Perry and his invention. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... know a weary hour; you would almost smile to see how I have roused myself from my habitual silence, and to find me—me, the scheming and worldly actor of real life—plunged back into the early romance of my boyhood, and charming the childish delight of Gertrude with the invention of fables and the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consulted how to dispose of the corpse that night. The doctor racked his brain in vain, he could not think of any stratagem to relieve his embarrassment; but his wife, who was more fertile in invention, said, "A thought is just come into my head; let us carry the corpse to the terrace of our house, and throw it down the chimney of our ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... their business with the Governor's wife, the ladies' party descended upon the male section, with a view to influencing it to their own side by asserting that the dead souls were an invention used solely for the purpose of diverting suspicion and successfully affecting the abduction. And, indeed, more than one man was converted, and joined the feminine camp, in spite of the fact that thereby such seceders incurred strong names from their late comrades—names such as "old women," ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... we find a better example of the restless, practical, resourceful side of the American character than is offered in Captain John Smith; even in his boastfulness we must claim kinship with him. His sterling manhood, his indomitable energy, his fertile invention, his ability as a leader and as a negotiator, all ally him with the traditional Yankee, who carries on in so matter-of-fact a way the solution of the problems of the new democracy. Both these men, each in his ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... There was nothing of presumption or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the other had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner; and in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get every body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter to write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea; for as the others were all going to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... fact, sir, about yourself?' he asked quickly. 'The truth as I see it by means of my wonderful invention? If it is the truth, will you believe in me? Will you put money into my invention? Will you share in ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... him no doubt that the French field-artillery with its anti-recoil construction had gained a great advantage over all other armies; an advantage which could only be prejudiced if the utility of the invention were proved on the field of battle to be less than was expected. Up to the present time the French gun-carriage had only been tested on a small scale in peace man[oe]uvres, and it had not been absolutely demonstrated ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... favorite topics; it is all priest-craft; and an invention contrived and carried on by priests of all religions, for their own power and profit; from this absurd and false principle flow the commonplace, insipid jokes, and insults upon the clergy. With these people, every priest, of every ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... have been amicable, for Fergus was crazy to go in and see Clement's little pump, which he declared 'would do it'- —an enigmatical phrase supposed to refer to the great peg-top- perpetual-motion invention. He was dragged away with difficulty on the plea of its being too late by Aunt Jane, who could not quite turn two unexpected children in on Mrs. Varley, and had to effect a cruel severance of Val and Kitty in ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went forward. They were past the first German barbed wire now, but the way was still not completely open, for more opposing strands were found farther on. However, this was not unexpected, for often three or more lines of this American invention were to be found opposing the ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... land-ship, and set about finding out what was being done; he had previously been in communication with Colonel E. D. Swinton over at the front. Only in the latter part of 1919, when the question of claims in connection with the invention and the development of Tanks had been investigated by a Royal Commission, did I learn to my astonishment that this matter had been brought by Swinton before the War Office so early as the beginning of January 1915, and that his projects had ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... of distempers: I am going to tell you a thing that I am sure will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal and so general among us, is here entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... battery from Richmond. As there were no caissons for these four guns, farm-wagons were used, into which boxes of ammunition, together with chests containing rations for the men, were loaded. In addition to friction-primers of modern invention at that time for firing cannon, the old-time "slow matches" and "port-fires" were in stock. So that, in preparing for battle with General Patterson's army at Hainesville on July 2, 1861, the ammunition-boxes, provision-chests, etc., being loaded indiscriminately into the same wagon, were all taken ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... Mayerne may be considered one of the earliest reformers of the practice of physic. He left some papers written in elegant Latin, in the Ashmolean Collection, which contain many curious particulars relative to the first invention of several medicines, and the state of physic at that period. Petitot, the celebrated enameller, owed his success in colouring to some chemical secrets communicated to him by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... effects; but he does not always reason without error. In reasoning, therefore, from appearances which are particular, care must be taken how we generalise; we should be cautious not to attribute to nature, laws which may perhaps be only of our own invention. ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... harmonic language, his originality does not consist, as some of his foolish admirers have said, in the invention of new chords, but in the new use he makes of them. A man is not a great artist because he makes use of unresolved sevenths and ninths, consecutive major thirds and ninths, and harmonic progressions based on a scale of whole tones; one is only an artist when one makes them say something. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... crude. Then they were made more definite and specific as regards the rules, the prescribed acts, and the apparatus to be employed. This produced a structure and the institution was complete. Enacted institutions are products of rational invention and intention. They belong to high civilization. Banks are institutions of credit founded on usages which can be traced back to barbarism. There came a time when, guided by rational reflection on experience, men systematized and regulated the usages ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... attempting, as he said, to worship his gods according to the dictates of his conscience, his landlady having objected to his sacrificing a bull to Jupiter in her parlour. The company laughed at this story as a good invention, but Dizzy assured them it was literally true, and gave his father as his authority. Meanwhile Moore 'went glittering on' with criticisms upon Grisi and the Opera, and the subject of music being thus introduced, he was led, with great difficulty, to the piano. Willis describes his ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... world is getting worse and worse, and the follies and peevishness of men will soon bring us all to some damnable perdition, we are consoled by contemplating the steadfast virtue of commuters. The planet grows harder and harder to live on, it is true; every new invention makes things more complicated and perplexing. These new automatic telephones, which are said to make the business of getting a number so easy, will mean (we suppose) that we will be called up fifty times a day—instead of (as now) a mere twenty or thirty, while we are ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... stress on; this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety, (viz.) that every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without straitening any body; since there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and by shew more at large. Sec. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... well-known brilliancy in conversation made him a great favorite in society. For many years he was virtually the laureate of Boston and Cambridge, and produced a great number of odes and hymns for public occasions. He of all men seemed to have the invention, the dash, and the native grace which give to occasional verse its natural and spontaneous air. This facility is surely not a cause for reproach. Such verse may seem easy, but it is easy only for a genius. In the lightest of his odes there is stuff and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... over to the little door of a compartment in the wall. Behind this door was some of the delicate mechanism—invention of David Pollard—by means of which the compressed air supply was better regulated than on any other type ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... whether that was a frame-up!" he exclaimed, pulling a little cylinder off the instrument into which he had inserted the telephone receiver. "I thought it might be and I have preserved the voice. This is what is known as the telescribe—a recent invention of Edison which records on a specially prepared phonograph cylinder all that is said—both ways—over ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... to indulge in my faculty of invention and amplification, and you may possibly have an idea that I have done so in the account I have given you of my female parent's early adventures. Ho! ho! ho!" and he heaved back, and indulged in a long, low, hoarse laugh, such as a facetious hippopotamus might be supposed to produce on hearing ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... ends by a special tool into the tube-plates of the fire-box and boiler front. George Stephenson and his predecessors experienced great difficulty in rendering the tube-end joints quite water-tight, but the invention of the "expander" ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... sailor-men save what he has taught me); and in the incident, so curiously and deliberately detailed, of his finding the quinine bottles filled with a worthless substitute, and letting them "each in turn" slip to ground, I had again the most unusual shock of being unable to accept the credibility of his invention. This is so rare an experience that it only throws into relief for me the fine craft of this most brilliant of our impressionists, who tells so much with such delicate strokes, so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... of his oaths; "it was no invention of his. Tom Claypool of Norfolk saw 'em both at Ranelagh; and Jack Morris came out of White's, where he heard the story from Harry Warrington's own lips. Curse him, I'm glad of it!" roars Will, slapping the table. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blaze was gleaming upward, and when the bees returned, as most of them soon did, they found this new enemy intrenched, as it might be, behind walls of flame. Thousands of the little creatures perished by means of this new invention of man, and the rest soon after were led away by their chiefs to seek some new deposit for ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... aunt Rogron, in Provins, to whom they wrote. These Rogrons were dead. The letter might, therefore, have easily been lost; but if anything here below can take the place of Providence, it is the post. Postal spirit, incomparably above public spirit, exceeds in brilliancy of resource and invention the ablest romance-writers. When the post gets hold of a letter, worth, to it, from three to ten sous, and does not immediately know where to find the person to whom that letter is addressed, it displays a financial anxiety only to be met with in very pertinacious creditors. ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... comprehension; when we regard every production of Nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing-up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical invention is the summing-up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting—I speak from experience—does the study of natural history become!" (Origin, ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... if this dress is any color! Well, I think it really is, but it isn't any of the regular shades. It is my own invention, but I've never named it. We couldn't think of anything appropriate. Carol suggested 'Prudence Shade,' but I couldn't bring myself to accept that. Of course, Mrs. Adams, you understand how parsonage people do with clothes,—handing ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... related of him referred to the printer John Faust, or Fust,—who had, indeed, been confounded with him before, although he lived nearly a century earlier. And when we think of the superstitious fear and monkish prejudice with which the great invention of printing was at first regarded, such a confusion of two persons of similar name, and both, in the eyes of a dark age, servants of Satan, cannot surprise us. Our John Faustus was also sometimes confounded with two younger contemporaries, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... most extravagant of Rider Haggard's romances, but better fiction and better literature in every way.... The book is well worth the reading, not only for the strangeness of the story, but for the fancy and poetic sentiment that pervade it, for the brilliancy of the invention that has been brought to bear upon it, and for the immense vividness and animation of the ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... Invention at that time was little advanced over what it had been three hundred years before. The same type of slow-sailing vessels carried all the commerce. Wind and water were the only powers employed in running the few factories. ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... welcome these people; and yet they must eat to live, and the majority of them must work, or they will have nothing to eat. I think the most of them labor cheerfully, and my experience is that idleness is the worst foe of man. But, on the other hand, every year invention so protects and fortifies capital, that one must do a larger business or employ fewer men. In five years the condition of labor has greatly changed at Hope Mills, and in five years more it will change again. This ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... the invention of J.E. Thomas, of Carlinville, Ill., shown in the annexed figure, consists of a wheel with an iron rim inclosed within a casing or jacket from which nothing protrudes except the axle which carries the driving pulley, and the grooved distributing disk. Within this jacket, which need not necessarily ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the mother of invention. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief and his knife, and in a few minutes the cotton square was cut up, a piece rammed in as a wad, and a measure of ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... antagonistic Being, and anxiously casting about him for the means of securing an equilibrium of power, called around him a small company, consisting of those of his Infernal subjects whom he had previously noted for their excellence, in subtility and devilish invention, and, after fully explaining his wants and wishes to his keenly appreciating auditory, made proclamation among them, that the Demon who should invent a new vice, which, under the name and guise of Pastime, should be best calculated to seduce men from the paths of virtue, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... phrase "Invention of the Cross" means the finding of it; the word invention in English does not ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... manner, the principle of this machine, I felt that the Sicilian geometrician must have possessed a genius superior to anything we usually conceive to belong to our nature. For Gallus assured us that that other solid and compact globe was a very ancient invention, and that the first model had been originally made by Thales of Miletus. That afterward Eudoxus of Cnidus, a disciple of Plato, had traced on its surface the stars that appear in the sky, and that many years subsequently, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... state of incandescence, and there was our fire, which gave out a tremendous heat for the size of the grate. As an aid to this stove, and an economiser of fuel, we purchased also a most extraordinary invention, which was named the "Norwegian ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... that I recognized the young friend from New York. Also my wits were at a branching of the road and I didn't know just what to do or say as Jacob waited with easy courtesy for my decision. And again I was too much perturbed for invention and had to speak ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to the law of nature. It is a designed piece of wickedness, and therefore a double sin. A man cannot do this great wickedness on a sudden, and through a violent assault of Satan. He that will commit this sin, must have time to deliberate, that by invention he may make it formidable, and that with lies and high dissimulations. He that commits this wickedness, must first hatch it upon his bed, beat his head about it, and lay his plot strong. So that to the completing of such a wickedness, there must be adjoined many sins, and they too must ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
