"Contrivance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trespass a little more upon you, in describing the contrivance of blowing the Fire in the Brassworks of Tivoli neer Rome (it being new to me) where the Water blows the Fire, not by moving the Bellows, (which is common) but by affording the Wind. See Fig. II. Where A. is the {26} River, B. the Fall of it, C. the Tub ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... to want was this water with fruit, or such native vegetables as there were. Bickley disapproved and made me eat fish occasionally, but even this revolted me, and since I gained steadily in weight, as we found out by a simple contrivance, and remained healthy in every other way, soon he allowed me to choose ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... strong tendency of the Rev. Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, towards the Arminian Heresy may have had something to do with it, and that the Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs was a false show of the Daemon's Contrivance, he having come in to listen to a Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, of course, not being capable of being killed Himself. Others said, however, that, though there was good Reason to think it was a Daemon, yet he did come with Intent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... been made that it is not too much to say that perhaps some day we may be able to establish some sort of communication with Mars, and if it be inhabited by any intelligent beings, we may be able to signal to them; but it is almost impossible that any contrivance could bridge the gulf of airless space that separates us, and it is not likely that holiday trips to Mars ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... Gloomy forebodings crept upon him. He beheld in this strange visitation another and a manifest interposition of Heaven, fighting against the cause he had unhappily espoused. Rest was out of the question, his whole thoughts being occupied in the contrivance of measures ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... not believing it to be patentable. But another person did so, thereby anticipating Watt in the application of the crank for producing rotary motion. He had therefore to employ some other method, and in the new contrivance he had the valuable help of William Murdock. Watt devised five different methods of securing rotary motion without using the crank, but eventually he adopted the "Sun-and-planet motion," the invention of Murdock. ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... positions cleverly chosen, like the English. The power and the reputation of Wellington went on increasing in proportion to our defeats. King Joseph, feeble and honorable, unjustly imposed by a perfidious contrivance on a people who repelled him, carried to France the recital ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... "It was by Marius's contrivance that he was placed sentry over the girl," he heard her tell Fortunio, and he thought ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... loss how to explain pur; either the muse of Euthyphro has deserted me, or there is some very great difficulty in the word. Please, however, to note the contrivance which I adopt whenever I am in a difficulty of ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... the Chief Chamberlain whom they brought into the presence; and he summoned likewise the leaders of the Turks and Daylamites and said, "As soon as it is dawn, do ye set forth for Constantinople; and thou, O Chamberlain, shalt take my place in council and contrivance, while thou, O Rustam, shalt be my brother's deputy in battle. But let none know that we are not with you and after three days we will rejoin you." Then he chose out an hundred of the doughtiest riders, and he and Sharrkan and the Minister Dandan set out ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... from thence. "Now," observed my father, in his letter, "I cannot help surmising, that my brother, in his anxiety to retain the advantages of the title to his own family, has resolved to produce to the world a spurious child as his own, by some contrivance or other. His wife's health is very bad, and she is not likely to have a large family. Should the one now expected prove a daughter, there is little chance of his ever having another; and I have no hesitation in declaring my conviction that the measure has been taken with ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... perfection of the body: they are alembics through which its parts must necessarily move to attain that vigor which shall continue forever."18 To state this figment is enough. It would be folly to attempt any refutation of a fancy so obviously a pure contrivance to fortify a preconceived opinion, a fancy, too, so preposterous, so utterly without countenance, either from experience, observation, science, reason, or Scripture. The egg of man's divinity is not laid in the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... kept on rubbing the mirror. This mirror was, in fact, provided with some western mechanism, which enabled it to open and shut, so while goody Liu inadvertently passed her hands, quite at random over its surface, the pressure happily fell on the right spot, and opening the contrivance, the mirror flung round, exposing a door to view. Old goody Liu was full of amazement as well as of admiration. With hasty step, she egressed. Her eyes unexpectedly fell on a most handsome set of bed-curtains. But being at the time still seven or eight tenths ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... elephant head began slowly to raise itself and revolve backward on some concealed pivot, forming a gaping opening right across the body of the Ganapati. And, as the opening gradually widened, by some devilish contrivance the hammer of a gong concealed within the idol was set in motion, and there resulted a loud continuous clanging din that could have been heard at a far distance. Instinctively I thrust my fingers in my ears to shut out the infernal noise. But after a time the clangor ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... landed each night, and it is believed that there are more than sixty thousand soldiers in Dublin alone, and that they are supplied with every offensive contrivance ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... ten, and often fifteen inches thick. This done, they begin what is called the "undercut"—the cut on that, side toward which the tree is meant to fall; and when they have made a little progress, they, by an ingenious and simple contrivance, fix upon the proper direction of the cut, so as to make the tree fall accurately where they want it. This is necessary, on account of the great length and weight of the trees, and the roughness ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... arrangement of the conversation, which according to ancestral custom is begun from the last place on the left-hand couch when the wine is brought in; as also in the cups which, as in Xenophon's banquet, are small and filled by driblets; and in the contrivance for cooling in summer, and for warming by the winter sun or winter fire. These things I keep up even among my Sabine countrymen, and every day have a full dinner-party of neighbours, which we prolong as far into the night as we ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Holl(an)d dined here yesterday, and we had the contrivance to keep our party a secret from Craufurd, for, although he was engaged to two other places, he told March that he should have been glad to have come, and certainly would, if he had known it. I think verily he grows more tiresome ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term— And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such— The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snakestone—rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... Another contrivance which soon came into use was the "cradle." This was a long box, sometimes only a hollowed-out log. At the top was a sieve which sifted out the stones. Nailed to the bottom of the cradle were small cleats of wood, or "riffles," which kept the water from running so fast ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... order to obtain early information, had couriers posted along the road, and the intelligence was conveyed by a very curious contrivance called picture writing, persons being employed to represent, in a series of pictures, everything that passed, which was the Mexican mode of writing: Teutile and Pilpatoe were employed to deliver the answer of their master, ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... that the non-Catholic American aspires to deal with God through the aid of as few exterior appliances as possible. To come near God by his own spiritual activity without halting at forms of human contrivance is his spiritual ambition. His religious joy is in a spiritual life which deals with God directly, His inspired Word, His Holy Spirit. Father Hecker longed to tell his fellow-countrymen that the Catholic Church gives them a flight to God a thousand times ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... glancing back at intervals to make sure we were keeping the line. So long as they remained in sight, and aligned with each other, we could not otherwise than travel in a straight path. It was an ingenious contrivance, but it was not the first time I had been witness to the ingenuity of my trapper-friends, and therefore I was ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... of a garden which is all novelty to an English eye, and full of variety to the Italian himself; a garden equally unique in its position and productions. The Ear is probably the most wonderful acoustic contrivance in existence; and that it was the work of studious design, is proved by a second one commenced in a neighbouring quarry—commenced, but not further prosecuted, evidently because it would not answer, from the soft, chalky ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... contrivance of the priests to increase their power and wealth. There was always a temple built near, with priests and priestesses; the questions were put through them; and they would not ask them except on great occasions, or for people ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... some of them pieces of kangooroo skin, tied with thongs; though it could not be learnt whether these were in use as shoes, or only to defend some sore. It must be owned, however, they are masters of some contrivance in the manner of cutting their arms and bodies in lines of different lengths and directions, which are raised considerably above the surface of the skin, so that it is difficult to guess the method they use in executing this embroidery of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... exhibition of properties quite foreign to the imagination, insomuch that in every line of the most applauded poems, we meet with either ideas drawn from the external senses, or truths discovered to the understanding, or illustrations of contrivance and final causes, or, above all the rest, with circumstances proper to awaken and engage the passions. It was, therefore, necessary to enumerate and exemplify these different species of pleasure; ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... to work. But beyond the fact that the whole contrivance was the work of an amateur hand, he found nothing strange about it, except the fact that ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... a considerable period, dividing his time between teaching his little pupil how to talk and puttering away at a proposed invention which he called a "harmonic telegraph." Both Sanders and Hubbard had become greatly interested in this contrivance and backed Bell financially while he worked. It was Bell's idea that, by a system of tuning different telegraphic receivers to different pitches, several telegraphic messages could be sent simultaneously over the same wire. The idea was not original ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... me true, it goes by itself; but it creeps like old Sobieska,' he added, to comfort himself. Yet, deep down in his heart he was afraid of this new contrivance and felt that it boded no good to the neighbourhood. And though he reasoned inconsequently he was right, for with the appearance of the railway engines there also came much thieving. From pots and pans, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... recesses are very deeply splayed in the thickness of the walls, and it will be noticed that the exterior openings are above the level of the roof, so as to admit the daylight obliquely, an ingenious contrivance to intensify the solemnities within, where an artificial light is almost a necessity. The plain bands of stone which constitute the vaulting are supported by shallow piers, or pilasters, built against the lateral walls, and all alike in their general structure and moulded bases; but there ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... this I lifted over the roof, and gently set it down on the space between the first and second court, which was eight feet wide. I then stept over the building very conveniently from one stool to the other, and drew up the first after me with a hooked stick. By this contrivance I got into the inmost court; and, lying down upon my side, I applied my face to the windows of the middle stories, which were left open on purpose, and discovered the most splendid apartments that can be imagined. There I saw the empress and the young princes, in their several lodgings, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... of the possibility of building railroads in a country scarce of capital, and with immense stretches of very rough country to pass, in order to connect commercial centres, without the deep cuts, the tunneling and leveling which short curves might avoid. My contrivance saved this road ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... was again and again repeated, until we rode as close to the shore as the tug could take us, then the line was cut, a rope was thrown us from shore, and with a steam windlass or other contrivance, we were hauled upon ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Athenians had voted an alliance with the Olynthians, and resolved to send succors. But the sending of them was delayed, partly by the contrivance of the opposite faction, partly from the reluctance of the people themselves to engage in a war with Philip. Demosthenes stimulates them to exertion, and encourages them, by showing that Philip's power is not ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... however, due to repetition capability, but to other causes, chiefly, I will say, to counterpoise. The radical defect of repetition is that the repeated note can never have the tone-value of the first; it depends upon the mechanical contrivance, rather than the finder of the player, which is directly indispensable to the production of satisfactory tone. When the sensibility of the player's touch is lost in the mechanical action, the corresponding sensibility of the tone suffers; the resonance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... had some contrivance for packing his Committees, whether they happened always to be made up of optimists by nature, whether they were cajoled into good-humor by polite attentions, or whether they were always really delighted with the wonderful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... country, "Shure it will be time enough to think of that when the could weather sets in." Everything about the house wore a Robinson Crusoe aspect, and though there was not any appearance of original plan or foresight, there was no lack of ingenious contrivance to meet every want as ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of the persons with whom I propose to deal. They must be similar in attitude and size, but no exactness is necessary in either of these respects. Then, by a simple contrivance, I make two pinholes in each of them, to enable me to hang them up one in front of the other, like a pack of cards, upon the same pair of pins, in such a way that the eyes of all the portraits shall be as nearly as possible superimposed; ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... much shorter than the Anglo-Saxon line,—there are four words beginning with p; in the second, three beginning with cl, and so on. This, of course, necessitates much not merely of circumlocution, but of contrivance, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... which town shall be given over to fire and blood and pillage!" exclaimed the priest. "An infernal contrivance of yours, Diurbanu!" ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... devilish wife, notwithstanding the impudence of such an action, escaped safely to her house, and the next day, according to custom, attending at the well, introduced the bramin to the ladies, and informed them of her worthy contrivance.[FN176] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... family and even upon himself. Eliza Marshall had almost come to regard him as she regarded his business: each was a respectable and estimable abstraction which held its own without too direct a heed from her; each an admirable contrivance that had accomplished its purposes so long and with so trustworthy a regularity that the thought of hitch, lapse, failure never presented itself as a really tangible consideration. Each day he grew a shade paler, a degree feebler, but the change came too gradually ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... houses, all windows and full of people, come rushing down the street with a fearful whirr and clank of bell, he wanted to bolt. But the man on his back spoke in an easy, calm voice, saying, "So-o-o! There, me b'y. Aisy wid ye. So-o-o!" which was excellent advice, for the queer contrivance whizzed by and did him no harm. In a week he could watch one without ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... indeed was the fact, that the ball had been prepared for the verses, and that it was only for the appropriateness of their application that the First Consul had pressed her to dance. He adopted this strange contrivance for contradicting an article which appeared in an English journal announcing that Hortense was delivered. Bonaparte was highly indignant at that premature announcement, which he clearly saw was made for the sole ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it was, one day that spring when I'd got tired to death churnin', an' the butter wouldn't come in a churn I'd had to borrow, and he'd gone an' took ours all to pieces to get the works to make some other useless contrivance with. He had no sort of a business turn, but he was well meanin', Mr. Wallis was, an' full o' divertin' talk; they used to call him very good company. I see now that he never had no proper chance. I've always regretted Mr. Wallis," ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the Nameless's shed, and at this door there had been waiting, for some moments before the conclusion of the race, a big automobile. In it were seated a bronzed man, with broad shoulders, and an alert, wideawake expression, and a boy, whose foot was propped up on an extemporized contrivance ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... revived at Covent Garden in 1825, and also by Daly in America in 1885, non of Farquhar's other plays has been put on the stage for upwards of a century. Hallam says: 'Never has Congreve equalled The Beaux-Stratagem in vivacity, in originality of contrivance, or in clear and rapid development of intrigue'; and Hazlitt considers it 'sprightly lively, bustling, and full of point and interest: the assumed disguise of Archer and Aimwell is a perpetual amusement ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... Aunt Madge, and there will be some over. I can buy the stuff for baby's winter pelisse without troubling Marcus, and do you know," knitting her brows in careful calculation, "I do believe that with a little contrivance and management I can get some new trimming for my Sunday hat, and a pair of chevrette gloves; good chevrette gloves are dear, but they wear splendidly, and a pair would last me most of the winter—yes," her eyes brightening, "I am sure I could do it; it does fret Marcus ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... efforts to engage attention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It never had a toy, or knew what a coral meant. It grew up without the lullaby of nurses, it was a stranger to the patient fondle, the hushing caress, the attracting novelty, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand contrivance to divert the child; the prattled nonsense (best sense to it), the wise impertinences, the wholesome lies, the apt story interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and awakens the passion of young wonder. It was never sung to—no one ever told to it a tale of the nursery. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... boat with which the boy in the country first makes acquaintance. It is propelled by two oars, usually fastened to the sides by pivot row-locks. This is a handy boat for getting about in, but it is quite impossible to learn the art of rowing from such a mechanical contrivance. ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... the difficulties of my unprecedented position not to know all that is intended to be conveyed in the reproach cast upon a President without a party. But I found myself placed in this most responsible station by no usurpation or contrivance of my own. I was called to it, under Providence, by the supreme law of the land and the deliberately declared will of the people. It is by these that I have been clothed with the high powers which they have seen fit to confide to their Chief Executive and been charged ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... see evidence of contrivance and design, of method and arrangement, of conception, perception and judgment, which are all the effects and outflowings of intelligence which belong, and alone belong, to mind; and therefore we say, "The machine was made, and there was and must have been a maker." So universally is this fact accepted, ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... lee-lurches which the closely united combatants made, they came thundering against the frail legs of a dresser, which was ingeniously contrived to support two or three tiers of shelves, which, again, were laden with stoneware, the pride of Mrs. Anderson's heart, built up with nice and dexterous contrivance, so as to shew to the greatest advantage. Need we say what was the consequence of this rude assault on the legs of the aforementioned dresser, supporting, as it did, this huge superstructure of shelves and crockery? Scarcely. But we will. Down, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... reducing them to extreme fineness. The refining engines are, however, used only in the manufacture of certain grades of paper. The pulp is next taken from the beater or refining engine, as the case may be, to what is called a "stuff-chest," an inclosed vat partly filled with water, in which a contrivance for shaking and shifting, properly called an "agitator," keeps ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... mirror.] However, accumulating infirmities and eventually death prevented Sir William Herschel from applying his plan, which 'evinced the most profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood, determined upon testing it at whatever cost. Within two years of his father's death he completed his new apparatus, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... and the strange things which formed the Musungu's personal baggage and furniture. After gazing in stupid wonder at the table, on which was placed some crockery and the few books I carried with me; at the slung hammock, which he believed was suspended by some magical contrivance; at the portmanteaus which contained my stock of clothes, he ejaculated, "Hi-le! the Musungu is a great sultan, who has come from his country to see Ugogo." He then noticed me, and was again wonder- struck at my pale complexion and straight hair, and ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Ay, is this more of your contrivance? Madam, you make me blush. But to-day at least I know where I can find him. This afternoon, on the Pantiles, he must dance attendance on the Duke of York. Already he must be there; and there he is at my mercy. DOROTHY. Thank God, you ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... of arms and other war material. In another sector they captured 30,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, 300 boxes of machine-gun ammunition, 200 boxes of hand grenades, 1,000 rifles in good condition, four machine guns, two optical range finders, and even a brand-new Norton well, a portable contrivance for the supply of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... this contrivance to a favourable issue, Verdugo made an agreement with the master and pilot of the vessel, and had every thing that could be useful or necessary carried on board. He then carried all his prisoners in irons in carts or waggons to the shore, and embarked ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... he did not think it would serve any purpose. He contented himself with making arrangements for their departure, which they took early on the morrow. Vane had a brief interview with Mabel, and then by her contrivance he secured a word or ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... a similar contrivance about him, and he looked somewhat contemptuously upon the Kingstonians, who had not the beefy, brawny look of his own ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... convincing proof of sympathy than a gift? The gift is one of these obvious contrivances—like the wheel or the lever—which smooth and simplify earthly life, and the charm of whose utility no obviousness can stale. But of course any contrivance can be rendered futile by clumsiness or negligence. There is a sort of Christmas giver who says pettishly: "Oh! I don't know what to give to So-and-So this Christmas! What a bother! I shall write and tell her to choose something herself, and send the bill to ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... describes it:—"Our cot is on the banks of the Thames, not looking on it, but the garden-gate opens on the towing-path. It has a nice little garden, but sadly out of order. It is shabbily furnished, and has no spare room, except by great contrivance, if at all; so, perforce, economy will be the order of the day. It is secluded but cheerful, at the extreme verge of Putney, close to Barnes Common; just the situation Percy desired. He has ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... prelate met with deserved retribution, for his purple did not save him from enduring his own favorite mode of punishment, and being shut up in a great iron cage. The new Perillus was thus enabled—to the intense satisfaction of many whom he had wronged—to test in his own person the merits of a contrivance which he was ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... manner; making victorious and handsome battle for himself, in entering Maelare Lake; and in getting out of it again, after being frozen there all winter, showing still more surprising, almost miraculous contrivance and dexterity. This was the first of his glorious victories, of which the Skalds reckon up some fourteen or thirteen very glorious indeed, mostly in the Western and Southern countries, most of all in England; till the name of Olaf Haraldson became quite famous in the ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... before the world was created. They are not dependent on it. The sea is not lost when one bubble or a thousand break on the rocky shore. The world is not the main thing in the universe. It is only a temporary contrivance, a mere scaffolding for a special purpose. When that purpose is fulfilled it is natural that it should pass away. The time then comes when the voice that shook the earth should signify the removal of "those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... birds and insects pass horrible last hours of ineffectual struggle. It may have automatic window-cleaning arrangements, but they will be hidden by "picturesque" mullions. The sham chimneys will, perhaps, be made to smoke genially in winter by some ingenious contrivance, there may be sham open fireplaces within, with ingle nooks about the sham glowing logs. The needlessly steep roofs will have a sham sag and sham timbered gables, and probably forced lichens will give it a sham appearance of age. Just that feeble-minded contemporary shirking of the truth ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... had a mode of establishing copyright the most secure of any contrivance with which we are acquainted. The law of the ghaselle, or shorter ode, requires that the poet insert his name in the last stanza. Almost every one of several hundreds of poems of Hafiz contains his name thus interwoven more or less closely with the subject of the piece. It is itself ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... deck, and that his body and his grin had been wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor, Johansen, was sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving the needle through with a leather contrivance fitted on the palm ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... origin of the sound, the time when it began to be heard, and the circumstances under which it ceased, are all more or less doubtful. Some of those exceedingly clever persons who find priest-craft everywhere, think that the musical sound was the effect of human contrivance, and explain the whole matter to their entire satisfaction by "the jugglery of the priests." The priests either found a naturally vocal piece of rock, and intentionally made the statue out of it; or they cunningly introduced a pipe into the interior ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... night, for the fire would go out, and then a pack of wolves would hardly be worse than the invading cold. It was by no means an easy task to rouse him, however, and indeed remained in large measure unaccomplished—so far so, that, after with much labour and contrivance relieving him of his coat and boots, the laird had to satisfy his hospitality with getting him into bed in the remainder of his clothes. He then heaped fresh fuel on the fire, put out the candles, and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... had undertaken to subdue the Scots by a show of force, it seems they concluded to defend themselves by a show too, though theirs was a cheaper and more simple contrivance than his. They advanced with about three thousand men to a place distant perhaps seven miles from the English camp. The king sent an army of five thousand men to attack them. The Scotch, in the mean time, collected great herds of cattle from all the country around, as the ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... inquiry. The father, who was rich and a miser, had died suddenly, and been buried in haste, owing, it was said, to the heat of the weather. Suspicion once awakened, the examination became minute. The old man's servant was questioned, and at last confessed that the son had murdered the sire. The contrivance was ingenious: the wire was so slender that it pierced to the brain, and drew but one drop of blood, which the grey hairs concealed. The accomplice will ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... beyond this; it proves her beauty and her disinterestedness. The fairest maid might have chosen, nay, commanded, even a city dignitary. Does the so? No; Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves her, and—beautiful poetic contrivance!—we are left to imagine he does "not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the least frightened. I crept cautiously along the floor, on tip-toe, to examine the contrivance. A hollow shaft of light wood, a sort of big wooden pipe, led down through the floor, probably to the ground-floor or basement, much as a mast goes down through a ship's decks into the hold. It was slowly revolving, being worked by some simple, not very strong mill-contrivance downstairs. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... a girl for contrivance," Perry said; and it was something in his manner rather than the words which made Mandy, as she followed the two boys, vaguely feel she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the management of a physical laboratory are much greater than those of a chemical one. The cause of this lies in the fact that in the latter the apparatus is less complicated and the pieces less varied. Any contrivance that will reduce the labor and worry connected with the running of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... latter," Socrates proceeds to a detailed description of the adaptations of the eye, ear, teeth, mouth and nose to their several uses, and concludes with the question: "And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like this should be a work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?" He also argues in like manner from the existence of intelligence in man, the soul, and the general adaptability of man's powers and conditions to the furthering of his life. This argument to design has appropriately been called "peculiarly the Socratic proof,"[7] ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... result is bad. The vintage is rarely ripened by time, whose unrivalled work is imperfectly done in the estufa or flue-stove, the old fumarium, or in the sertio (apotheca), an attic whose glass roofing admits the sun. The voyage to the East Indies was a clumsy contrivance for the same purpose; and now the merchants are beginning to destroy the germs of fermentation not by mere heat, but by the strainer extensively used in Jerez. The press shown to me was one of Messrs. Johnson and Co., which passes the liquor through eighteen ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... valueless; hundreds of houses without anything in them deserving the name of furniture; hundreds of beds without clothing, and hundreds of children whose excuses for clothes are barely sufficient, with every contrivance decent poverty can suggest, to cover the body as civilized society demands. In the towns I have enumerated, in fact, if the least reliance may be placed in newspaper reports, in every town and village in the country the same want prevails to ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... guiding stars are visible, it is very difficult to direct the telescope's tube on a point of this sort. A card tube with wire fastenings, such as we have described, may appear a very insignificant contrivance to the regular observer, with his well-mounted equatorial and carefully-adjusted finder. But to the first attempts of the amateur observer it affords no insignificant assistance, as I can aver from my own ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... eye for the mystery of mechanics, and had invented an improvement in the cotton-spinning process which was now largely used and was known by his name. You might have seen it in the newspapers in connection with this fruitful contrivance; assurance of which he had given to Isabel by showing her in the columns of the New York Interviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent—an article not prepared by Miss Stackpole, friendly as she had proved herself to his more sentimental ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... these are turned, and you see that another part of the body, the legs or arms as it may be, are subjected to the same force as this wire, which as the fellow keeps turning you see—strains, and straightens, and strains, till—crack!—there!—that is what we call a rack. A most ingenious contrivance and of great use. This is going up within the hour to the hall of ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... the two things. Oh! in verity, dreadful as it is, one could almost laugh. But the moment I lose sight of you, my instructions vanish as quickly as that hair on your superior lip, which took such time to perfect. Alas! you must grow it again immediately. Use any perfumer's contrivance. Rowland! I have great faith in Rowland. Without him, I believe, there would have been many bald women committing suicide! You remember the bottle I gave to the Count de Villa Flor? "Countess," he said to me, "you have saved ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perpendicular to the base. Then, having two musket bullets attached to a silk thread, simply hang them over the camera, and everything required will be attained much quicker by these plumb-lines, and with accuracy equal to the spirit-levels. The advantage of the simple contrivance of two bullets suspended by threads is, that when the thread is laid across the camera, it is at once seen whether the thread touches all the way down both sides; if not, one or other side of the camera ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... Thing, is called the secret Thrust. I don't know whether this Error proceeded from those who have not learned, or from the Chimera of some self-conceited Masters, who have sold to ignorant Scholars, some Thrusts as infallible, of their own Contrivance, as ridiculous and dangerous as the Simplicity of the Scholar and the Knavery of ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... would have been satisfied, had Aladdin's carpet or other magical contrivance transported him to where the steamship Pride of the South was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A thick-set, short man, shipped ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the little boy he had so long wished for to be his page, took pity on the disgraceful situation into which, by his merry contrivance, he had brought his Titania and threw some of the juice of the other flower into her eyes; and the fairy queen immediately recovered her senses, and wondered at her late dotage, saying how she now loathed the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... figures on this side give us new material for reflection. They are discussing the terrible news. Matthew turns his face eagerly to his two companions on the left, hastily stretching out his hands towards the Master, and thus, by an admirable contrivance of the artist, he is made to connect his own group with the preceding one. Thaddaeus shows the utmost surprise, doubt, and suspicion; his left hand rests upon the table, while he has raised the right as if he intended to strike his left ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... veils was helping a soldier to a seat at the next table. He found himself staring in a face, a face that still had some of the chubbiness of boyhood. Between the pale-brown frightened eyes, where the nose should have been, was a triangular black patch that ended in some mechanical contrivance with shiny little black metal rods that took the place of the jaw. He could not take his eyes from the soldier's eyes, that were like those of a hurt animal, full of meek dismay. Someone plucked at Martin's arm, and he turned ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... for mechanics, which led him to spend his time and wealth in exercising his mechanical ingenuity. These brakes were so adjusted as to bear only a certain strain, when they released themselves. This ingenious contrivance was applied by Mr. Everett to the paying-out machinery. The strength of the cable was such that it would not break except under a pressure of a little over three tons. The machinery was so adjusted that not more than half that strain could possibly come ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... puddings to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and on Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his chief nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him went a page carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. I put it to you, is that the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!" Dame Isabeau squealed on a sudden; "you are ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... a peach basket! What a strange contrivance! Go away, Bowser. Oh, Richard, come and see what Bowser ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... existence as facts of consciousness, no less than their objective expression in the history of religion, demands explanation, and cannot be hastily set aside, as was thought in the last century in France, by the vulgar theory that the one is factitious, and the other the result of priestly contrivance. The writers are men whose characters and lives forbid the idea that their unbelief is intended as an excuse for licentiousness. Denying revealed religion, they cling the more tenaciously to the moral instincts: their tone is one of earnestness; ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... money for a skin of that gigantic bird, the ux, which has been so often reported to exist among the inaccessible peaks of the Tasmanian Mountains. Needless, perhaps, to say that the skin proved a fraud, being nothing more than a Barnum contrivance made up out of the skins of a dozen ostriches and cassowaries, and most cleverly put together by Chinese workmen; at least, such was the report made on it by Sir Peter Grebe, who had been sent by the British Society to Antwerp to examine the acquisition. Needless, also, perhaps, to say ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... convinced that it had the effect of bringing its possessors into very undesirable company. That it must be returned to the source whence it came they were agreed, and further, that the only safe and certain way was that of personal service; and here contrivance would be necessary, for Dunning was known by sight to Karswell. He must, for one thing, alter his appearance by shaving his beard. But then might not the blow fall first? Harrington thought they could time it. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... operations that are necessary for the production of this land; and if these operations are natural to the globe of this earth, as being the effect of wisdom in its contrivance, we shall have reason to look for the actual manifestation of this truth in the phaenomena of nature, or those appearances which more immediately discover the actual cause in ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... AND SOLIDS.—There is a very simple contrivance illustrating machines of this class used to free air from dust or other heavy solid impurities which may be in suspension. See Fig. 33. The air enters the passage, B (if it has no considerable velocity of itself, it must be forced in), forms a whirlpool ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... been advised, took a noddy. A minibus is only a small omnibus. A noddy is a contrivance that holds four, and has a door at the end, and only one ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man, and accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a couch, by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table into a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice appearance. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... advocates for three or four confederacies cannot reasonably suppose that they would long remain exactly on an equal footing in point of strength, even if it was possible to form them so at first; but, admitting that to be practicable, yet what human contrivance can secure the continuance of such equality? Independent of those local circumstances which tend to beget and increase power in one part and to impede its progress in another, we must advert to the effects of that superior ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... see," said her ladyship, "for all the trouble and contrivance and expence I have been at merely to oblige you, while the whole time, poor Mortimer, I dare say, has had his sweet Pet advertised in all the newspapers, and cried in every market- town in the kingdom. By the way, if you do send him back, I would advise you to let your man demand ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... when Mrs. Ripwinkley was a widow, and poor,—that is, comparative; and it took all her and my contrivance to look after the place and keep things going, and paying, up in Homesworth; there was something to buckle to, then; but now, everything is eased and flatted out, as it were; it makes me res'less, like a child put ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... from among the great mass of his contemporaries and predecessors, by virtue of his highly developed artistic consciousness. He was, says Mr. Gosse, 'never carried away. His effects are closely studied, they are the result of forethought and anxious contrivance'; and no one can doubt the truth or the significance of this dictum who compares, let us say, the last paragraphs of The Garden of Cyrus with any page in The Anatomy of Melancholy. The peculiarities ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... gravely enough, taking care, after some practice, to hold his head sufficiently high to prevent the stones or roots of trees from striking against the end of the stick, which experience had taught him would give a severe shock to his teeth. This contrivance produced a ludicrous appearance, but my fellow-travellers told me it was constantly adopted by the Slatees, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... not a single penal institution or reformatory in the United States where men are not tortured "to be made good," by means of the blackjack, the club, the straightjacket, the water-cure, the "humming bird" (an electrical contrivance run along the human body), the solitary, the bullring, and starvation diet. In these institutions his will is broken, his soul degraded, his spirit subdued by the deadly monotony and routine of prison life. In Ohio, Illinois, ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... taught himself to hope that any good could be done by prolonged travelling he would readily have thrown over Custins and Lord Popplecourt. He could not bring himself to trust much to the Popplecourt scheme. But the same contrivance had answered on that former occasion. When he spoke to her about their plans, she expressed herself quite ready to go back to England. When he suggested those Chinese cities, her face became very long and she was immediately ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... trav'ller to haste Straight onward, nor pause on my way; Nor forethought in anxious contrivance to waste On the tent only ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... not only the pyramids, which date from the very earliest period of Egyptian history, and which are to this hour the wonder of the world for size, for boldness, for exactness, and for skilful contrivance, but also the temples, with long ranges of colossal columns wrought in polished granite, with wonderful beauty of ornamentation, with architraves and roofs vast in size and exquisite in adjustment, which by their proportions tax ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the most perfect mechanical contrivance hitherto brought out was tried in Manila by its Spanish inventor, Don Abelardo Cuesta; it worked to the satisfaction of those who saw it, but the saving of manual labour was so inconsiderable that the greater bulk of hemp shipped is still ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... regarded him coolly. "Look here!" said he, "this sort of thing won't do, you know. I don't understand this contrivance around the soles of your boots, but it seems to me you've got a set of springs there which aids your height when you desire it. Now I will not stand any more nonsense. If I engage you at all, you must first take off your boots, and lie flat upon your back ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II., having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... rights? or what else can have interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose you know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she comes before the world, retaining all the privileges of privacy,—a contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell me what I can ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... strictly limited; each man being allowed two parcels, one of bedding, and the other of clothes, neither to be more than could be easily carried on the back of a single cargador. Mr. Worcester took along for the whole party an ingenious apparatus of his own contrivance for boiling drinking-water, as all streams in the Philippines at a level lower than 6,000 feet have been found to contain amoebae, [7] the parasitic presence of which in the intestines produces that frightful disease, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... long journey? They tie them to a board, and wrap them up in strong bandages of linen or cotton, which they sew firmly together with their stoutest thread, and then they suspend the odd-looking burden to their backs. By this contrivance, they lessen the weight of the child considerably, and are able to walk many miles without showing signs of fatigue. It is also much more pleasant and healthy for the child than to be uncomfortably cramped up in its mother's arms, and shifted about from side ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill
... somehow as an indignity. How is that poor little, red-saddled, long-eared creature to carry you? Is there to be one for you and another for your legs? Natives and Europeans, of all sizes, passed by, it is true, mounted upon the same contrivance. I waited until I got into a very private spot, where nobody could see me, and then ascended—why not say descended at once?—on the poor little animal. Instead of being crushed at once, as perhaps the writer expected, it darted forward, quite briskly and ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... bomb is a great improvement on its original of the Middle Ages. The modern contrivance is thoroughly scientific, and it does its destructive business with certainty ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... This was Wednesday, already three-quarters spent; but there was the coming night and the whole of Thursday. But Friday morning imperatively required that the traveller should be found back at home again. The whole span, the irreducible maximum, not to be stretched by any contrivance beyond about thirty hours. Something could be done, but not much. As I thought of the strict and narrow limits, it seemed that these were some precious golden hours, and never to recur again; the opportunity ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... being no frame to spare, drive a stake into each corner of the bed. Connect the tops of the stakes, about one foot from the surface of the bed, with four rods securely tied, and upon these place other rods, over and around which any protecting material at command may be used. With this simple contrivance it is quite possible to grow ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... peculiar to all the figures an impersonal movement abstract and simple, movement in general, so to speak: we put this into the apparatus, and we reconstitute the individuality of each particular movement by combining this nameless movement with the personal attitudes. Such is the contrivance of the cinematograph. And such is also that of our knowledge. Instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming of things, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becoming artificially. We take snapshots, as it were, of the passing reality, and, as these are ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... band above the elbows—tighter—so. I do assure you, Sir, this is no gag— 'Tis but a poor contrivance of mine own To guard the mouth against th' encroaching sud. Refreshing, Sir, indeed, this change of weather! But one more knot.... ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... of a young girl which had been brought about by her mother's contrivance was interrupted by the appearance of Somers and his wife and family on the Budmouth Esplanade. Alfred Somers, once the youthful, picturesque as his own paintings, was now a middle-aged family man with spectacles—spectacles worn, too, with the single ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... "Yesterday Miss Lucy broke a china-cup; but the artful little hussy went and hid it in the foot-boy's room, and the poor boy was whipped for it. I don't believe there was ever a girl of her age that had half her cunning and contrivance." I knew by her tone of voice, and her manner of speaking, that she did not blame me in her heart, but rather commended my ingenuity. And I thought myself so wise, that I could thus get off the blame from myself, ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... The contrivance was worked by gravity, the loaded car crossing the river by virtue of its own weight, and at the same time dragging the empty car back. The loaded car being emptied, and the empty car being loaded with more ore, the performance ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... the inquietude of the times, that his lordship had not long enjoyed this tranquility, before there was hatched a most villainous contrivance; not only to take away his life, but, the lives of archbishop Sancroft, lord Marlborough, and several other persons of honour and distinction; by forging an instrument under their hands, setting forth, that they had an intent to restore king James, and to seize upon the person ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Punch, wearied of a loathsome contrivance on four wheels with a mound of luggage atop—"where is our broom-gharri? This thing talks so much that I can't talk. Where is our own broom-gharri? When I was at Bandstand before we comed away, I asked Inverarity Sahib why he was sitting ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... persons can be found ready to undertake the journey at the same time—until the flock of sheep is big enough to fancy itself a match for wolves. They could not, I think, really secure themselves against any serious danger by this contrivance, for though they have arms, they are so little accustomed to use them, and so utterly unorganised, that they never could make good their resistance to robbers of the slightest respectability. It is not of the Bedouins ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... the presence of a lady in Leipsic through whom raps occurred, and psychography. This last phenomenon consisted in communication through a little contrivance, furnished with an index or pointer, which answered questions by pointing to letters laid out before it. This it did when the lady placed her hand on the machine. The questions were "usually" not asked ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... our hero saw that by an ingenious contrivance, a person standing on the platform could, by turning a crank, raise or lower himself at will. He cautiously approached the edge of the chasm, and holding down the light, endeavored to penetrate through the darkness; but in vain—he could see nothing, though he could faintly hear a dull, sluggish ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... leading them into the interior of Germany, we find Arminius again energetic in his country's defence. The old quarrel between him and his father-in-law, Segestes, had broken out afresh. Segestes now called in the aid of the Roman general, Germanicus, to whom he surrendered himself; and by his contrivance his daughter Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius, also came into the hands of the Romans, being far advanced in pregnancy. She showed, as Tacitus relates, [Ann. i. 57.] more of the spirit of her husband than of her father, a spirit ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... number will be forwarded as fast as they can be got ready. Colonel Forrester, an experienced officer of horse, has given us a specimen of complete accoutrements, which have been found best; the saddle is of a singular contrivance, very cheap, and easily made or repaired; and the buff belts so broad, that crossing on the breasts, they are good armor against the point of a sword, or a pistol bullet. We propose to have as many sets made with these saddles, as will mount a squadron, but shall omit saddles for ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... of an experienced politician he grasped the fact that if he was ever to present his Covenant to the world clothed with the authority of the mightiest states, now was his opportunity. After the Conference it would be too late. And the only contrivance by which he could surely reckon on success was to insert the Covenant in the Peace Treaty and set before his colleagues an irresistible incentive for elaborating both ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... strange mixed music of water, wind, and strings met her ear, swelling and sinking with an almost supernatural cadence. The character of the instrument was far enough removed from anything she had hitherto seen of Bob's hobbies; so that she marvelled pleasantly at the new depths of poetry this contrivance revealed as existent in that young seaman's nature, and allowed her emotions to flow out yet a little further in the old direction, notwithstanding her late severe resolve to bar ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... expression of function and truth in architectural works reduces itself to this principle. The useful contrivance at first appeals to our practical approval; while we admire its ingenuity, we cannot fail to become gradually accustomed to its presence, and to register with attentive pleasure the relation of its parts. Utility, ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... vehicle. The vehicle was a cart twenty feet long, covered over by a tilt, and resting on four large wheels without spokes or felloes, or iron tires— in a word, plain wooden discs. The front and hinder part were connected by means of a rude mechanical contrivance, which did not allow of the vehicle turning quickly. There was a pole in front thirty-five feet long, to which the bullocks were to be yoked in couples. These animals were able to draw both with head and neck, as their yoke was fastened on the nape of the neck, and ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... The plow and scythe of the New England colonist on his little farm were metamorphosed into the colossal steam-driven shapes, in which machinery seems transmuted into intelligence, as he moved to the conquest of the acres of the West which summoned him to dominion. First the need was felt; the contrivance was created in response. A man of business sees before him in imagination the end to be reached, and applying his ideal to practical conditions, he makes every detail converge to the result desired. All rebellious circumstances, all forces that pull the other way, he bends to his ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... mean this in earnest,' said Fairford; 'you cannot really mean to avail yourself of so poor a contrivance, to evade the word pledged by your friend, your ghostly father, in my behalf. I may have been a fool for trusting it too easily, but think what you must be if you can abuse my confidence in this manner. I entreat you to reflect that this usage releases me from all promises ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... invented by a Dr Barker about the end of the 17th century. It consisted of a hollow vertical cylinder, provided with a number of horizontal arms fitted with lateral apertures; the contrivance is mounted so as to rotate about the vertical axis. By allowing water to enter the vertical tube, a rotation, due to the discharge through the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... disappointed existence five years longer, he died in the arms of his beautiful and still young wife. Thereafter the youthful widow managed to keep life in herself and her two little ones by dint of pinching, management and contrivance on the pittance that had come to her from the estate of her impecunious father. They lived in a palace, it is true—but who does not live in a palace in Rome?—high up, where the cooing doves built their nests ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Hodgson talks of making a third in our journey; but we can't stow him, inside at least. Positively you shall go with me as was agreed, and don't let me have any of your politesse to H. on the occasion. I shall manage to arrange for both with a little contrivance. I wish H. was not quite so fat, and we should pack better. You will want to know what ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... illness, and that he had something important to disclose to me. I bade my gentlemen, save one, proceed to Bleiberg. My aide and I entered the carriage which was to convey us to the castle. We never reached it. On the road we fell into an ambush, a contrivance of Madame's. I was brought to the chateau. Whatever happened to Hofer, my aide, I do not know. Doubtless he is dead. But Madame shall pay, both in pride and wealth. I will lay waste this duchy of hers, though in the end the emperor crush ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... it," rejoined the turnkey. "It would have been risking our lives to venture near them. One is a murderer, taken in the fact; and the other is quite as bad, for he set the city on fire; so its right and fair he should perish by his own contrivance." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... earlier at Alexandria than it would in a city which lay a hundred miles to the west? There was no telegraph wire by which astronomers at the two Places could communicate. There was no chronometer or watch which could be transported from place to place; there was not any other reliable contrivance for the keeping of time. Ptolemy's ingenuity, however, pointed out a thoroughly satisfactory method by which the times of sunset at two places could be compared. He was acquainted with the fact, which must indeed have been known ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... contrivances for capturing insects. Did you think they were too obvious? I daresay there is no difficulty, but I feel sure they will be seized on as inexplicable by Natural Selection, and your silence on the point will be held to show that you consider them so! The contrivance in Utricularia and Dionaea, and in fact in Drosera too, seems fully as great and complex as in Orchids, but there is not the same motive force. Fertilisation and cross-fertilisation are important ends enough to lead to any modification, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... a whaleboat with all her gear in place; in a corner, the twisted jaw of a sixty-barrel bull, killed in the Seychelles; and Asa Worthen's big desk, with a six-foot model of his old ship atop it, between the forward windows. Beside the desk stood that contrivance known to the whalemen as a "woman's tub"; a cask, sawed chair-fashion, with a cross board for seat, and ropes so rigged that the whole might be easily and safely swung from ship to small boat or back again. Asa had taken his ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... much aggravated by the fact that there is a considerable infusion of white blood in the negro race in the United States, leading to complications and social aspirations that are infinitely pathetic. Time only and no present contrivance of ours ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, "seems so much a man of Nature's making, that we can scarce accord to Shakspeare the merit of creating him." What will you say of Balak, Nabal, Jeroboam? "Macbeth is rather guilty of tempting the Weird Sisters than of being tempted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... it was imminent, troops being expected from San Fiorenzo. At the urgent request of the prisoner, one of the seamen taken with him was permitted to land with a letter, stating the impending danger. By a singular coincidence, or by skilful contrivance, the San Fiorenzo troops appeared on the heights upon the evening, May 19, following this conversation. Flags of truce had already been hoisted, negotiations were opened, and on the 22d the French colors were struck and the British took possession. "When I reflect what ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan |
