"Mechanic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which may be included in the category of trade memorials, though its subject was not a mechanic. Mr. John Cade was a schoolmaster at Beckenham, and appears to have been well liked by his pupils, who, when he prematurely died, placed a complimentary epitaph over his grave. The means by which he had imparted knowledge are displayed upon the stone, and below are the ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... taken up her basket; she had not risen from her chair, however, but held it on her knees with a dreary look in her eyes, as if the words of the young mechanic had awakened in her mind strange thoughts of ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... shrinking. There is a cowardice in modern art. As the Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge's friend made the prophetic guess at Rome, from the beard and horns of the Moses of Michael Angelo collected no inferences beyond that of a He Goat and a Cornuto; so from this subject, of mere mechanic promise, it would instinctively turn away, as from one incapable of investiture with any grandeur. The dock-yards at Woolwich would object derogatory associations. The depot at Chatham would be the mote and the beam in its intellectual eye. But not to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the Marble Arch. You put down the flag and then jumped off the box to wind up the starter. It failed, and after several attempts you had to examine the machinery. I suppose that six minutes were occupied in this way, whether because you are a bad mechanic or a careless fellow or because the engine is defective, I cannot say; all I know is that I was in a hurry and that the flag was down, but we were not moving. If you had not put the flag down I should have got out and taken another ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... mechanic, with sleeves rolled up, began to expatiate on "ours." "We haven't got but one—it was made in Savannah by Dr. Langon Cheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It's like Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silk dresses for it. Here'll be a strip of purple ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... will already have told you, Richard Morris knew Hume. The latter was a frequent visitor to a shop which the inventor maintained in the outskirts, as was the mute Locke. I have talked with an old mechanic who worked for Morris at the time; he told me that the inventor had made a stubborn fight against the drink habit and seemed likely to conquer it up to the time that he became acquainted with Hume. After this, however, ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... of letters must in some way reconcile himself to the paradox that he is at once the acolyte and the rival of the ancients. Young is optimistic enough to believe that it is possible to surpass them. In the mechanic arts, he complains, men are always attempting to go beyond their predecessors; in the liberal arts, they merely try to follow them. The analogy between the continuous advance of science and a possible continuous advance in literature is perhaps, a misleading one. Professor ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... not readily be believed. The Archbishop of Aix, when I first showed him the same plate, was so struck with horror, that he could scarcely speak: and when Mirabeau first saw it, he was so impressed by it, that he ordered a mechanic to make a model of it in wood, at a considerable expense. This model he kept afterwards in his dining-room. It was a ship in miniature, about a yard long, and little wooden men and women, which were painted black to represent the slaves, were seen ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... out, bare-headed, to enrich Dale. He could trust his man absolutely, and was quite sure that the Mercury would then be in the drying stage after a thorough cleaning. Thus far he was justified, but he had not counted on the pride of the born mechanic. Though the car was housed for the night, when he entered the garage the hood was off, and Dale was annoying two brothers of the craft by explaining the superiority of his engine to ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... prejudice, and has been propagated for these sixteen hundred years, that arts and sciences cannot flourish under an absolute government; and that genius must necessarily be cramped where freedom is restrained. This sounds plausible, but is false in fact. Mechanic arts, as agriculture, etc., will indeed be discouraged where the profits and property are, from the nature of the government, insecure. But why the despotism of a government should cramp the genius of a mathematician, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... waters disappeared. A green Very star cleaved the night. Intense silence followed. One second, two seconds, elapsed and then from the practice boat out in the harbor a red star reared. Armitage turned to the master mechanic at ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... and now he alone employs 150! M. Charriere in fact possesses one quality which generally ensures success, a passion for his art; he is not to be regarded simply as a vender of cutlery, but as one possessing a scientific knowledge of his profession, and as a mechanic of considerable talent. To recapitulate all his inventions, with their respective merits, and the approbatory letters that he has received from different academical institutions, would half fill my little volume; suffice it to say that he is the only person ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... slept! Darkling we slept! Our busy schemes, Our cold mechanic world awhile was still; But O, their eyes are blinded even in dreams Who from the heavenlier Powers withdraw their will: Here did the dawn with purer light fulfil Thy happier eyes than ours, here didst thou see The quivering wonder-light ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... replied the boy, quickly. "I hope the poor fellow didn't go so far as to break his neck. But let me go after a machine for you, chief. I've got an errand at the garage anyhow, as my dad wants a mechanic sent up to potter at his little runabout, out of commission as usual. He's ordered a better car, you know, and is only waiting for it to be ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... striking at the Master through them. It is easy to conceive what an affront the pretensions of Jesus must have been felt to be by Paul. Jesus had been a man of about his own age—a young man; he had sprung from the lowest of the people, being a villager and mechanic; he had never sat in the schools of learning; the men of ability and authority had had no hesitation in condemning Him. That such a one should be esteemed the Messiah of the Jews and worshipped as if He were Divine, raised a storm of indignation in ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... the proud and indolent relatives, it brought many changes in the eventful life of the young artizan and his wife. Two sweet little babes nestled in the mother's arms, and a new and splendid invention of the poor mechanic was reaping the wonder and admiration of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... prepared for two meetings of mechanics, one of them consisting of apprentices, the other of adults. For want of strength they were delivered only to the former, though, in preparing them, I had kept the latter also in view. "The Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association," at whose request the lectures are published, is an institution of much promise, not only furnishing a considerable means of intellectual improvement, but increasing the self-respect and conducing to the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... his birth, with the almost oppressive population of some seven hundred thousand which the city at present contains; who contrasts the cheap and humble dwellings of that earlier date, with the costly and magnificent edifices which now beautify the metropolis; who studies the sluggish state of the mechanic arts at the dawn of the Republic, and the mighty demonstrations of skill which our Fulton, and our Stevens, our Douglas, our Hoe, and our Morse, have produced; who remembers the few and humble water-craft conveyances of days past, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... "I desire that thou shalt enter as one of my clerks; but first it is my will that, as the great and good proprietary decreed, thou shouldst acquire some mechanic trade; I care ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... hardware; and a man may be as pure-minded and holy a Christian at the Board of Brokers as in a prayer-meeting. The broker is, in the sight of God, as much entitled to his commissions as any hard-working mechanic is entitled to his day's wages. Any man has as much right to make money by the going up of stocks as by the going up of sugar, rice, or tea. The inevitable board-book that the operator carries in his hand may be as pure as the clothing merchant's ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... for books finally determined his career. His older brother James was a printer, and in those days a printer was a literary man as well as a mechanic. The editor of a newspaper was always a printer and often composed his articles as he set them in type; so "composing" came to mean typesetting, and one who sets type is a compositor. Now James needed an apprentice. It happened then that young Benjamin, at ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... house-front a vine-tree straggled, but its foliage was too thin to afford a speck of shade as they sat there in the eye of the westering sun. The man (aged about one-and-twenty) wore the uncomfortable Sunday-best of a mechanic, with a shrivelled, but still enormous, bunch of Sweet-William in his buttonhole. The girl was dressed in a bright green gown and a white bonnet. Both were flushed and perspiring, and I still think they must have ordered hot cocoa in haste, and were repenting it at leisure. They lifted ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... And this was what fate had in store for thee! To hide thy noble birth under the humble roof of a mechanic; to seek a refuge from insult and contempt far from thy childhood's home; to work without relaxation; to fight against privation and want, and to sink at last into shame and poverty, heart-broken by despair! Misery, doubtless, has cast a yellow tinge upon thy ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... all at work ginning cotton, and the new mechanic Nero, whom we found at the White place, was putting the engine in order. This engine serves as a moral stimulus to keep the people at work at their hand-gins, for they want to gin all the cotton by hand, and I tell them if they don't get it done by the middle of January I shall gin it by ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... candles, in order to pursue their daily labours for the use of those who are born to enjoy these blessings. The sturdy hind now attends the levee of his fellow-labourer the ox; the cunning artificer, the diligent mechanic, spring from their hard mattress; and now the bonny housemaid begins to repair the disordered drum-room, while the riotous authors of that disorder, in broken interrupted slumbers, tumble and toss, as if the hardness of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... specialists have experimented, and have given the various appliances in common use in these cases most thorough and practical tests, and have found them very defective, being generally constructed upon wrong principles. The physician who sends to a mechanic for an appliance, such as are now made in the shops of most instrument makers, and uses the same, is doing himself an injustice, and barbarously torturing his patient by forcing him to wear an apparatus ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... like that in which a very destitute mechanic might be living, and as I mounted the steps to Walt's room on the second story my resentment increased. Not a line of beauty or distinction or grace rewarded my glance. It was all of the same unesthetic barrenness, and ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... to the passion by partaking of some general quality, that naturally operates on the mind; is itself the object of an original principle, which till then lay concealed in the soul, and is only by accident at last brought to light. Thus the first mechanic, that invented a fine scritoire, produced pride in him, who became possest of it, by principles different from those, which made him proud of handsome chairs and tables. As this appears evidently ridiculous, we must conclude, that each cause of ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... bigger than his fist, and as infantile as Saint George in the picture, endeavoured to curb the ardour of the flying, steel-tipped pinions with which they thundered along the ground. Alas! there was nothing now but motor-cars driven each by a moustached mechanic, with a tall footman towering by his side. I wished to hold before my bodily eyes, that I might know whether they were indeed as charming as they appeared to the eyes of memory, little hats, so low-crowned as to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... moralist, to be one of those novels which one may read, not only with pleasure, but also with profit. It breathes throughout a spirit of piety and benevolence; it sets in a very striking light the importance of the mechanic arts, which they, who know not what it is to be without them, are so apt to undervalue; it fixes in the mind a lively idea of the horrors of solitude, and, consequently, of the sweets of social life, and of the blessings ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... a mechanic, too, I've heard them say, as any of the engineers," agreed Mr Fosset, with equal feeling. "But, sir, I'm losing time talking like this! I only came up for assistance for the poor fellows and the others who are wounded. ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... further declare freely, that I have not exactly kept to the three mechanic rules of unity. I knew them, and had them in my eye, but followed them only at a distance; for the genius of the English cannot bear too regular a play: we are given to variety, even to a debauchery of pleasure. My scenes are therefore ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... perriwig, would put under it the knowledge of the human frame, of the virtues and effects of his medicines, of the signs and nature of diseases, with the most approved and experienced forms of cure; that the mechanic, when he puts on his leather or woollen apron, put on diligence, frugality, temperance, modesty, and good nature; and that kings themselves, when the crown, which is adorned with pearls and many precious stones, is put on their heads, would put on at the same time the more inestimable gems of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... mechanic and the negro to patch the shattered door sufficiently to serve its purpose until it was replaced by another in the morning, the clerk escorted the representatives of the law downstairs. Of course, their ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... "automobile craze." Some one invents a bicycle. People who for hundreds of thousands of years have moved slowly and painfully from one place to another go "crazy" over the prospect of rolling rapidly and easily over hill and dale. Then a clever mechanic makes the first automobile. No longer is it necessary to pedal and pedal and pedal. You just sit and let little drops of gasoline do the work for you. Then everybody wants an automobile. Everybody talks about Rolls-Royces and Flivvers and carburetors and mileage and oil. ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... think men who come with a task to do are like that. It's part of them. They don't feel the weight of what they know, because it's all through them—not localized. You might be with Spenski an hour or a week and never know that he was more than just a mechanic—if you ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... long fingers as he caught a new hold, finally the white flame of exultation that came into his face. For himself, Ben instantly knew that this was his own sphere. He suddenly found himself an absolute master of his craft: at the touch of the paddle controlling it as a master mechanic controls ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... reminiscences to contribute. One can only speak of that singular geniality of his, that temper of goodness and natural tolerance and affection, which, as Scotsmen best know, is not universal among the Scots. Our race does not need to pray, like the mechanic in the story, that Providence will give us "a good conceit of ourselves." But we must acknowledge that the Scotch temper is critical if not captious, argumentative, inclined to look at the seamy side of men and of their performances, and to dwell on imperfections rather than ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... painted a painting, composed any poetry, worth calling poetry, produced a minister worthy of much note—at least, I can only hear of one or two. They have fine voices as a rule, and except some half-dozen Gipsies no first-rate musicians have sprung from their midst. No engineer, no mechanic—in fact, no nothing. The highest state of their manufacturing skill has been to make a few slippers for the feet, as some of them are doing at Lynn; skewers to stick into meat, for which they have done nothing towards feeding; pegs ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... great kindness. Instead of running in debt, as in New York, she was able to save the greater part of her wages, and in two years had enough ahead to take time to learn the dressmakers' trade thoroughly, for which she had a taste. But a sensible young mechanic, who had long been attentive, at last persuaded her to make ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Fowler, A. M. Second Edition. This pamphlet finds favor, * * * *. While we have the kindliest feelings towards those who chew this disgusting substance, we hold its use, in every form, in the most unqualified contempt. We care not to whom the remark may apply, whether he be farmer, mechanic, lawyer, doctor, minister, judge or president; but if in the light which Mr. Fowler has shed on the subject, any man should continue to smoke or chew tobacco, or take snuff, public opinion ought to frown him out of ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... Cappella Paolina, so ruined at this day that we can hardly value them, the mechanic manner of the fourth stage seems to reach its climax. Ghosts of their former selves, they still reveal the poverty of creative and spontaneous inspiration which presided ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Creek, about half a mile below the mill, about half a dozen of the Kiowas had their lodges, that of their chief being among them. At ten o'clock one Monday in June, 1876, Mr. Haworth, the agent, came in haste to the shops, called the master mechanic, Mr. Wykes, out, told him to jump into the carriage quickly; that ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... way to Virginia's lodgings, re-entered the station, and journeyed townwards. It was an odd incident, by Monica unperceived, that when she was taking her ticket there stood close by her a man, seemingly a mechanic, who had also stood within hearing when she booked at Herne Hill. This same man, though he had not travelled in the compartment with her, followed her when she alighted at Bayswater. She ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities. And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the state of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or ruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic. ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... look down with supreme disdain upon those who are working their way up. They are ashamed of their origin, and you cannot offend one of them more than to hint that you knew him a few years ago as a mechanic or ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a large balcony surrounded by his principal friends, among whom it was delightful to see earls, lords John, baronets, dignitaries of the church, tradesmen of influence in the borough, and even a mechanic or two, all squeezed together in the agreeable amalgamation of political affinity. Here then, thought I, is an example of the heavenly charities I The candidate himself, the son and heir of a peer, feels that he ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... gaze curiously at them from the row of hangars. The mechanic, starting back on foot, the four people getting out of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... and the old, the learned doctor and the practical mechanic, for the defense of Freedom—a magnet that drew both Pomeroy and Warren to that since-famous redoubt on the summit of Breed's Hill. They offered their services to Colonel Prescott, and he gladly accepted them, demurring as to Warren, and ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... belie yourself. There lives not a man on earth—out of a lunatic asylum—who has not in him the power to do good. What can writers, haranguers, or speculators do more than that? Have you ever entered a cottage, ever travelled in a coach, ever talked with a peasant in the field, or loitered with a mechanic at the loom, and not found that each of those men had a talent you had not, knew some things you knew not? The most useless creature that ever yawned at a club, or counted the vermin on his rags under the suns of Calabria, has no excuse ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so sensitive that one cannot go near them without throwing them discernibly out of shape. It were easy to show that there is no solid earth nor immovable mountains. I came away saying to my friend, "I am glad God lets you into so much of his finest thinking." He is a mechanic, not a theologian. This foremost man in the world in his fine department was lately but a "greasy mechanic," an engineer in a ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... putting the unlucky tricycle in order. Jeffreys was not a mechanic. All he could do was to put the parts together in a makeshift way, and by straightening some of the bent parts and greasing some of the stiff parts restore the iron horse into a gloomy semblance of his ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... is to afford to the student, the artisan, the mechanic, and in fact all who are interested in science, whether young or advanced in years, a ready means of acquiring a general knowledge of physics ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... dear father, a genuine republican at heart (for all his fancied loyalty to the white lily of the Bourbons), a would-be scientist, who in reality was far more impressed by a clever and industrious French mechanic than by a prince (and would, I think, have preferred the former's friendship and society), yet took both a pleasure and a pride in his quaint old parchments and obscure quarterings. So would I, perhaps, if things had gone differently ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... thinks modestly enough of his own endowment. When afterwards he comes to unfold it in propitious circumstance, it seems the only talent; he is delighted with his success, and accounts himself already the fellow of the great. But he goes into a mob, into a banking house, into a mechanic's shop, into a mill, into a laboratory, into a ship, into a camp, and in each new place he is no better than an idiot; other talents take place, and rule the hour. The rotation which whirls every leaf and pebble to the meridian, reaches to every gift of man, and we all take ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... concluded, "could not have been so far off the mark. The man with whom he was spending the evening in that cafe was a mechanic ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... performance of "the classes." It must surely be a pleasant thing to sing to princes, warriors, and statesmen—all that the country holds most in honour, love, and reverence. The impulse thus given is felt throughout the land. Classes are formed in every town, almost in every village; the labourer, the mechanic, young men and maidens, old men and children, may be seen, after their daily toil is done, busy with the do, re, mi, fa, &c., of the class-book. Although the system may not prove all that might be desired, yet much is taught and learned, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... inventor could be really illiterate. He may have been forced to work and only attended night schools. But if he were a mechanic, capable of making a successful improvement on one of the most delicate and important parts of an automobile, he must have studied the ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... the laying of the keel. As the Russians then had no harbor in the Baltic, this ship was sent to Archangel, on the shores of the White Sea. Peter also engaged a large number of French refugees, and Swiss and German artists, to enter his service and sent them to Moscow. Whenever he found a mechanic whose work testified to superior skill, he would secure him at almost any price and send him to Moscow. To geography he devoted great attention, and even then devised the plan of uniting the Caspian and the Black Sea ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... which exist and are revealed to us reach us by the testimony of the consciousness, and are, consequently, facts of consciousness. If I look at a locomotive, and analyse its machinery, I act like a mechanic; if I study under the microscope the structure of infusoria, I practise biology; and yet the sight of the locomotive, the perception of the infusoria, are just facts of consciousness, and should belong to psychology, if one takes literally the above definition, which is so ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... is it some burglarious Devil that has broken into your bosom and stolen your soul, who is engaged in plastering over this infernal fester with smooth euphemisms? Are You verily the mechanic who is engaged in veneering these out-houses of hell with rosewood? Is it your very and proper Self that stands there sprinkling eau-de-Cologne on the accursed reek of that pit of putrescence, so to disguise and commend it to the nostrils ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... which rivals the volumes of our old friends Weld, Ashe, Fearon, &c. It is entitled "A Visit to North America and the English Settlements in Illinois, with a winter residence in Philadelphia; solely to ascertain the actual prosperity of the Emigrating Agriculturist, Mechanic, and Commercial Speculator"—by Adlard Welby, Esquire, of South Rauceby, Lincolnshire. This esquire has said enough, should he be believed, to settle ultimately the point of the truth or falsehood of Godwin's notable doctrine, that we owe ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... any one man to ruin the work of a session is revived in sober, solid England. So it is that all has gone to wreck; and an assembly once the noblest on earth is treated with unhidden contempt by the labourer in his field and the mechanic at his bench. And all this has arisen ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... turning out Government officials. On the contrary, I want to see the average graduate prepared to do his work in some capacity in civil life, without any regard to any aid whatever received from or any salary drawn from the Government. If a man is a good engineer, a good mechanic, a good agriculturist, if he is trained so that he becomes a really good merchant, he is, in his place, the best type of citizen. It is a misfortune in any country, American, European, or African, to have the idea grow that the ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... ran. "Double reefed her and she took it nicely. Seems a seaworthy, quick ship. Further search for log. No result. Have ordered one of crew who is a bit of a mechanic to work at the brass-bound chest till he gets it open. He reports marks on the lock as if somebody had been trying to pick it ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... perfectly true that our Henries and Edwards contrived to beat their enemies unassisted by these inventions. Books, likewise, which were a luxury scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little library: while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a farm-house as a mangle or a frying-pan; and there are actually more copies printed of "Cherry ripe," than of Tull's husbandry. Is not a silver fork, moreover, an acknowledged necessary in every decent establishment? ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... Astra had been turned over to Maintenance. Maintenance asked no questions. It was that department's job to take the ship apart, fix what needed fixing, and put it. Ten minutes later Jacobs saw Armando Gomez was the mechanic detailed ...
— Daughters of Doom • Herbert B. Livingston
... wife's ignorance either about the present or the past. If you have no more than a half-hour every day to yourself you may fill your mind with entertaining and useful knowledge. Let the merchant's wife read up on all mercantile questions, and the mechanic's wife on all that pertains to his style of work, and the professional man's wife on all the legal, or medical, or theological, or political discussions of the day. It is very stupid for a man, after having been amid ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... mechanic: he cranked the engine and it got off to a fine start and before throwing in the clutch that hooked it up with the stripper I looked out over the silent, brown-faced crowd. I had to grin at their expectant, half-scared ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... the Bristol Company with a letter inviting me to be the first to fly over Sydney, and asking me to go out to the Ascot Race Course at about eleven o'clock, where the machine was quartered. I drove out, and on my arrival I was told that the pilot was away but that the mechanic, a young Scotsman of about twenty years of age, who had a pilot's certificate, was available if I wished to trust myself to him. I certainly felt rather doubtful on the point when I looked at the youth, especially as he had not been up in it himself since his arrival in ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... loudest—merit: Wealth claimed distinction and found grace, But poverty was ever base. Right, law, and industry gave way Where'er his selfish rule had sway; And so corruption seized the swarm, Who plundered underneath his arm. Thus he harangued: "Whilst vulgar souls Waste life in low mechanic holes, Let us scorn drudgery: the drone And wasp, whose elegance we own, Like gentlemen sport in the rays Of sunbeams on all summer days; It were not fitting they should moil,— They ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... ascertained where Joshua Iden was employed, betook himself that way just at the noon hour. Iden, like so many other Middleville citizens, gained a livelihood by working for the rich Swann. In his best days he had been a master mechanic of the railroad shops; at sixty he was foreman of one ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... a plain boy of humble parentage, and would probably be a hard working mechanic. In fact he was looking ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... great event of the day, which of course you heard as you came here. This is a proof how things are brought about unexpectedly. Not a man in England, statesman or mechanic, could have imagined, for the last six weeks, that this dark, cold-blooded plotter, Sir John Fenwick, had failed ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Test. Filing an Irregular Block. Filing a Bar Straight. Filing Bar with Parallel Sides. Surfacing Off Disks. True Surfacing. Precision Tools. Test of the Mechanic. Test Suggestions. Use of the Dividers. Cutting a Key-way. Key-way Difficulties. Filing Metal Round. Kinds of Files. Cotter-file. Square. Pinion. Half-round. Round. Triangular. Equalizing. Cross. Slitting. Character of File Tooth. Double Cut. Float-cut. Rasp Cut. Holding the File. Injuring Files. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... engine, not remarkable for novelty or ingenuity of construction. Opposite stands the manufactory of the ingenious Bramah, whose locks baffle knavery, and whose condensing engines promise such important results to philosophy and the mechanic arts. Belgrave-Place, lower and upper, proves the avidity of building-speculations, which could thus challenge the prejudices against the opposite marshes. But I was assured by a resident of twenty years, that he and his family had enjoyed uninterrupted health ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... examples to be found in Mr. Joynson's work as exercises for youth, and that the said youth eventually find them of great use. Surely this is commendation indeed, and with this we close a brief notice of a very nicely got-up and creditable volume.'—English Mechanic. ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... who were older and wiser, and willing to be guided by them; the other indolent, and inclined to follow the leadings of his own will. Now, at the age of thirty-five, Mr. Wheeler is an intelligent merchant, in an active business; while Mr. Allen is a journeyman mechanic, poor, in embarrassed circumstances, and possessing but a small share of ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... full directions for obtaining United States patents, sent free. A handsomely bound Reference Book, gilt edges, contains 140 pages and many engravings and tables important to every patentee and mechanic, and is a useful handbook of reference for everybody. Price 25 cents, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... command the most wonderful wages, there is such a demand for them that one can hardly pick and choose. A plough-boy gets from four to six pounds a month, an experienced man from eight to ten pounds, besides their board and lodging; a mechanic or artisan from fourteen to sixteen shillings a day; women servants are very scarce, they get from four to six pounds a month. We were so astonished at the wages in New York; the head gardener in the Navy Yard was receiving one hundred and fifty pounds ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... ragamuffins. It was Thomson, I believe, who used to cut the leaves with his snuffers. Perhaps an event in his early career may have soured him of the proprieties. It is said that he had an uncle, a clever active mechanic, who could do many things with his hands, and contemplated James's indolent, dreamy, "feckless" character with impatient disgust. When the first of The Seasons—Winter it was, I believe—had been completed at press, Jamie thought, by a presentation copy, to triumph over his uncle's scepticism, and ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... understands, as no seeing person can know and understand, they will trust him; they will follow where he leads. But behind him has got to be YOU. You've got to be the eyes for—for them all; not to teach the work—we'll have others for that. Any good mechanic will do for that part. But it's the other part of it—the soul of the thing. These men, lots of them, are but little more than boys—big, strong, strapping fellows with the whole of life before them. And they are—blind. Whichever way they turn a big black curtain shuts ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... travelling at twenty miles an hour; but we see no reason for thinking that, in the progress of improvement, a much higher velocity might not be found practicable; and in twenty years hence a shopkeeper or mechanic, on the most ordinary occasion, may probably travel with a speed that would leave the fleetest courser behind." Wonderful words these! At a first glance we may not deem them so, being so familiar with the ideas which they convey, but our estimate of them will be more just if we ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... that it be appropriated to the establishment of a manual labor school, where children could be taught the elements of knowledge which are usually the courses of a grammar school; and where the boys could be given, in addition, the practice of some mechanic art and the girls could be instructed in those domestic arts which are the proper occupations of their sex. Such a school he though would so equip the Negro youth as to enable him to take over much of the work then being ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... far enough, And in the same inevitable stuff Discovered an odd reason too for pride In being what he must have been by laws Infrangible and for no kind of cause. Deterred by no confusion or surprise He may have seen with his mechanic eyes A world without a meaning, and had room, Alone amid magnificence and doom, To build himself an airy monument That should, or fail him in his vague intent, Outlast an accidental universe— To call it nothing worse— Or, by the burrowing guile Of ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... made as requested. Many photographs of the sun also were taken during the hours when Vulcan, if he exists at all, might be expected to cross the sun's face. But the 'planet of romance,' as Abbe Moigno has called Vulcan, failed to appear, and the opinion I had expressed last October ('English Mechanic and World of Science,' for October 27, 1876, p. 160), that Vulcan might perhaps better be called the 'planet of fiction' was pro tanto confirmed. Nevertheless, I would not be understood to mean by the word 'fiction' aught savouring of fraud so ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... sadness He now gazed upon the changes. Change was wrought on all about him, Change was wrought on all within him, Yet the walls beloved were standing, 'Mid the wreck of worlds beyond them, Bearing witness to her children, Standing monuments of witness. And John Bruce, the great mechanic, Was the brother of the stranger; Was another noted scion Of this noble house of learning. To his genius of invention Is the river world indebted For the cutting of the sawyers, Of the treach'rous snags and sawyers, That were wont to plunge ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... were priests and magistrates. They were divided into three classes:[7] the bard proper, whose province was philosophy and poetry; the Druid, or minister of religion; and the ovate, or mechanic and artist. These classes were all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... sometimes "saw red" to such a degree that they would do anything to get in a blow! And sometimes they did get it in, when the Germans least thought it was coming. When a skipper suddenly found a German U-boat (Unterseeboot or under-sea-boat) rising beside him, just as his engine-room mechanic had come up with a hammer in his hand, he called out, "look sharp and blind her!" Without a moment's hesitation the mechanic jumped on her deck and smashed her periscope to pieces, thus leaving her the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... accident. And it is evident that such an invention as the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph could never have been brought into action without it. For a very high degree of scientific knowledge, and the nicest skill in the mechanic arts, are combined in it, and were both necessary to bring it into successful operation. And the fact that Morse sought and, obtained the necessary information and counsel from the best sources, and acted upon it, neither impairs his rights ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... great assistance. He was the deviser of the machine. Which is the larger, the divisor or the quotient? This difference being settled, he will pay due deference to your opinion. The ingenious mechanic was also an ingenuous man. Not a lineament could be recognized by his friends. Apply to the wound a healing liniment. The principal in the agreement was devoid of moral principle. Though a great liar, he could ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... fees from avaricious and contentious church litigants. For church members will engage in lawsuits, the authority of John Wesley, and the still higher authority of St. Paul to the contrary, notwithstanding. The mechanic too, must have the patronage and influence of the church. Neighbor B., over the way, is a regular church member in good standing; and I must become one too, in order to compete with him in business. Dear me, says the farmer to his beloved spouse, don't ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... visited them occasionally. Within a year they united with our Society. The man had formerly been a drinking man, but had ceased entirely. They were regular attendants on our church services. He was a mechanic. His well-behaved life restored public confidence in him, and he soon found constant employment at his trade. After about two years he felt a desire to take the Lord's Supper. I did not dissuade him; for, as he had abstained so long and faithfully, I felt sure he would continue. He presented ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... openly defy authority, whose language and conduct is such as was never before seen or heard out of Bedlam. There are men who are known to have murdered their companions, and who boast of it. With these the English farm labourer, the riotous and ignorant mechanic, the victim of perjury or mistake, are indiscriminately herded. With them are mixed Chinamen from Hong Kong, the Aborigines of New Holland, West Indian blacks, Greeks, Caffres, and Malays, soldiers for desertion, idiots, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... people know nothing of Mr. Lessingham, your ladyship, beyond the fact that he did not return last night. They received a message from Hill's Garage, however, about half an hour ago, to say that their mechanic had driven Mr. Lessingham early this morning to Norwich, where he had caught the mail train to London, The boy was to say that Mr. Lessingham would be back in ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that in order to understand the character and aims of the mob he must appear to be one of them, and he decided that he could carry off the disguise of a young city mechanic better than any other. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... restrictions, and industry and enterprise are checked by the regulations of the incorporated trades, which place the rod of oppression in the hands of ignorance and self-interest; and which bring home its influence to the work-bench of the mechanic, and too often paralyze the arm of laborious poverty. Within ten years, and in one of the most enlightened cantons, men and women have been arrested, and fined, and imprisoned, in the most cruel manner, for assembling ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... body or mind, That hath for its object the good of mankind! The Farmer, who cheerily ploughs the soil, And gathers the fruit of his hopeful toil,— The strong Mechanic, whose manly brow Weareth of labor the healthful glow,— The bold Inventor, beneath whose hands The useful engine completed stands,— The Artist, who, with unrivalled skill, Creations of loveliness forms at will,— The Teacher, ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... Dammartin, and knew something would go wrong. It did. A sentry all but shot me. I nearly rode into an unguarded trench across the road, and when I started back with my receipt my bicycle would not fire. I found that the mechanic at Dammartin had filled my tank with water. It took me two hours, two lurid hours, to take that water out. It was three in the morning when I got going. I was badly frightened the Division had gone on, because I hadn't the remotest conception where it was going to. When ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... made room to fix their instruments, and then, by strength, and the help of those two mechanic powers, the screw and the lever, they raised out of their ancient beds those massive bodies, and then filling up the cavities with gravel, set them up, mostly end-ways, along the sides of the road, as directions in time of ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... stupidly modelled that they look like figures out of a Noah's Ark. The finest site in London, Hyde Park Corner, has been disfigured by Boehm with a statue of the Duke of Wellington so bad, so paltry, so characteristically the work of a German mechanic, that it is impossible to drive down the beautiful road without experiencing a sensation of discomfort and annoyance. The original statue that was pulled down in the interests of Boehm was, it is true, bad English, but bad English suits the landscape better than ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... from that organized and efficient emigration, so long advocated by the seer Carlyle? Only the crassest ignorance and the listlessness born of misery and want prevent the able-bodied pauper, the frozen-out mechanic, or the weary and ill-clad, the over-worked and under-fed agricultural labourer, from quitting the scenes of his purgatory, and from finding, scattered over earth's surface, spots where he may enjoy a comparative paradise, heightened by the memory of privations endured ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... uneasy, till I tried whether or no I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation into practice. For many a fair precept in poetry, is like a seeming demonstration in mathematics: very specious in the diagram, but failing in mechanic operation. I think I have generally observed his instructions. I am sure my reason is sufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness; which in other words is to confess no less a vanity, than to pretend that I have at least in some places ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... world, declaring that food could be obtained from the roots of the forest, if not administered otherwise. At this time he assumed the name of Matthias, called himself a Jew, and set out on a mission, taking a western course, and visiting a brother at Rochester, a skillful mechanic, since dead. Leaving his brother, he proceeded on his mission over the Northern States, occasionally ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... through the people, gained the street, and fairly ran down the alley that led to the side entrance of the hall, where a small group was gathered under the light that hung above the doorway. There stood on the step, a little above the others, a young man in a grey flannel shirt, evidently a mechanic. I addressed him. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of Odyssean story or the King's daughter and the Efreet in the "Second Royal Mendicant's Adventure," could not more easily transform themselves than the French peasant. Husbandman to-day, mechanic on the morrow, at one season he plies the pruning-hook, at another he turns the lathe. This adaptability of the French mind, strange to say, is nowhere seen to greater advantage than in out-of-the-way ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... romantics had, as Berthelot ("Evolutionisme et Platonisme", pages 45, 46, 47. Paris, 1908.) shows, appealed to life to redress the judgments drawn from mechanism. Now, in Spencer, evolution gave us a vitalist mechanic or mechanical vitalism, and the appeal seemed cut off. We may return to this point later when we consider evolution; at present I only endeavour to indicate that general pressure of scientific criticism ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... a pendulum, but without the cat's curiosity about a pendulum. He never interrupted when Potter was speaking; and Canby noticed that whenever Potter talked at any length Tinker looked thoughtful and distant, like a mechanic so accustomed to the whirr and thunder of the machine-shop that he may indulge in reveries there. After a moment or two the old fellow ceased to follow the pendulum stride, and turned to ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... to Hempdon, near Selford," Malcolm Sage continued, pointing to the map. Tims stepped forward and bent over to identify the spot. "The car will break down. It will take you or any other mechanic two hours to put ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... if Protestants will be saved, in God's good time, or not," continued Michael. "I find there are different opinions among the clergy about that, and of course it is not for me, only a plain mechanic, to be sure where learned and pious scholars are in doubt. But I am sure about one thing. Those Protestants, and others too, mind you, who profess and preach good deeds, and themselves do bad deeds—they will never be saved. They will have ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... is able to teach. Teaching and the matter of musical proficiency are two very different things. Many conservatories now conduct classes for teachers, which are excellent in their way. In the olden days a mechanic had to work side by side with his master before he was considered proficient to do his work by himself. How much more important is it that our educators should be competently trained. They do not have to deal with machinery, but they do have ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... convincing proof that they grew in the neighbourhood. We all tried them; and for several days each member of our community was to be seen walking about with a piece of sugar-cane in his mouth. Sambo was an ingenious mechanic, and forthwith set to work to construct a sugar manufactory. It was very simple, consisting of a number of our largest clay pots for boiling the juice, and a long trough with sides, and a board ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... great city are a never-failing source of amusement to the man whose sympathies are hospitable enough to embrace all his kind, and who, refined though he may be himself, will not sneer at the humble wit or grotesque peculiarities of the boozing mechanic, the squalid beggar, the vicious urchin, and all the motley group of the idle, the reckless, and the imitative that swarm in the alleys and broadways of a metropolis. He who walks through a great city to find subjects for weeping, may ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... countries;—rushing out from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any herd of "six hundred swine," any convoy of Lubeck or Hamburg merchant-goods, that had not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and mechanic fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful? Arbitrary rule, on the part of these Noble Robber-Lords! And then much of the Crown-Domains had gone to the chief of them,—pawned (and the pawn-ticket lost, so to speak), or sold for what trifle of ready money ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... grooming the roller that it struck him his own appearance was unusual for a highway mechanic. He was still wearing the famous floorwalker suit, which he had punctiliously donned every Sunday for chapel. But he had had to flee without a hat—even without his luggage, which was neatly packed in a bag in the vestry. That, he felt sure, Mr. Poodle had already burst open for evidences ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... arts go, it is a bad sign of poet, painter, or musician, who is arrogant enough to call his work his own. It never was his, and never will be. It is planned by a higher intelligence than his, only he happens to be the hired labourer chosen to carry out the conception; a sort of mechanic in whom boastfulness looks absurd; as absurd as if one of the stonemasons working at the cornice of a cathedral were to vaunt himself as the designer of the whole edifice. And when a work, any work, is completed, it ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... sections one and two of this Article shall not be so construed as to prevent a laborer's lien for work done and performed for the person claiming such exemption, or a mechanic's lien for ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... In New Zealand, the "mechanic" missionary only carries on his trade till he has every comfort around him—his house finished, his garden fenced, and a strong stockade enclosing all, to keep off the "pagan" savages. This done, then commences the easy task of preaching. ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... pre-eminent above all other crafts that are practised by the hand of man, to which our Lord humbly inclines His breast, to which the finger of God is applied, performing the office of a pen! We do not read of the Son of God that He sowed or ploughed, wove or digged; nor did any other of the mechanic arts befit the divine wisdom incarnate except to trace letters in writing, that every gentleman and sciolist may know that fingers are given by God to men for the task of writing rather than for war. Wherefore we entirely approve the ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... carelessly, "a Chilean, I think. He worked for me for two months during the summer and I fired him for getting fresh with Lina. Good mechanic, but dumb as an ox. Had to tell him every little detail when he was doing something in the shop. I'd have saved time if I'd done ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... diligences. Their effect on the men employed about them ought to decide the superiority of steam without further argument. I have never observed an engine-driver who did not seem an exceptionally intelligent mechanic, while the very writers and artists who have preserved the memory of the coaching days for us do not appear to have taken coachmen seriously, or to have regarded them as responsible and civilized men. Abuse of the railway from a pastoral point of view is obsolete. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... takes the images from our own past experience or those gleaned from the work of others and puts them together in new and original forms. The inventor, the writer, the mechanic or the artist who possesses the spirit of creation is not satisfied with mere reproduction, but seeks to modify, to improve, to originate. True, many important inventions and discoveries have come ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... of a prince should be struck off like a sapling by the blow of a churl, and during the turmoil of a midnight riot? Well, mediciner, thus far our courses hold together, and I bid thee well believe that I will crush for thee this reptile mechanic. But do not thou think to escape me when that part of my revenge is done which will be most ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... legs is self-made. But if we award his just praise to the man who has attained any kind of excellence without having had the same advantages as others whom, nevertheless, he has equalled or surpassed, let us not be betrayed into undervaluing the mechanic's careful training to his business, the thorough and laborious education of the scholar and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of animals, descending to the position of dogs, fallen in virtue and devoid of all religious observances. He who takes food from a physician takes that which is no better than excrement; the food of a harlot is like urine; that of a skilled mechanic is like blood. If a Brahmana approved by the good, takes the food of one who lives by his learning, he is regarded as taking the food of a Sudra. All good men should forego such food. The food of a person ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... breech apart pays no attention to the field of guns around him or the burst of a shell a hundred yards away, no more than the man with a motor breakdown pays to passing traffic. Is he a soldier? Yes, by his uniform, but primarily a mechanic, this man from Birmingham, who is polishing that heavy piece of steel which, when it locks in the breech, holds the shell fast in place and allows all the force of the explosion to pass through the muzzle, while the recoil cylinder takes up the shock ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Europe, who would go, like Sir Joseph Banks, in search of islands in the Atlantic, where the natives in six thousand years have not improved the science of carving fishing-hooks out of bones or flints! Well! I hope these new mechanic meteors will prove only playthings for the learned and the idle, and not be converted into new engines of destruction to the human race, as is so often the case of refinements or discoveries in science. The wicked wit of man always studies ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... of a mechanic in relation to a certain piece of work, I called upon one in my neighborhood, then in the employment of a gentleman, and was informed, on stating my object, that as he should be through with his present engagement on the evening of a certain day, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Money is a scarce commodity with farmers everywhere. Most of their income is in the shape of farm produce, and used in the family. Only a small surplus is converted into money, and a dollar, therefore, seems more to them than to a mechanic, whose substantial income is perhaps less. This is the reason, probably, why farmers are generally loath to spend money. Harry knew that if he should hire out to a farmer for the six months the utmost he could expect would ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... if the dying man could have got out of bed, but the interference of the officer put an end to the disturbance. It was their parting words taken in connection with what followed, that made a deep impression upon me:—"If it wasn't that you are dying I would blacken your eyes for you," cried the mechanic. "How do you know I am dying? You look as like dying as anybody, you miserable cripple," retorted the other. "Ah! I'm tough stuff, you'll not see me die in a hurry." The cripple who uttered these words went shortly afterwards to bed, was seized with a ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous |
