"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Republic, and was made much more permanent than Carnot made victory. Unequivocal evidences of its existence became visible before the Constitution was in a condition to be violated; and when that instrument was accepted, it appeared to have been set up in order that politicians and parties might have something definite to disregard. The first President was Guadalupe Victoria, an honest Republican, whose name has become somewhat dimmed by time. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... aware of her movement and of nothing else, save that low undercurrent of melody that wailed and sobbed from the delicate instrument, as the player's ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... for it. In addition to the advantage of being a single woman in unusually easy circumstances, she enjoyed a reputation for vast learning and exquisite culture. It was said in Wiltstoken that she knew forty-eight living languages and all dead ones; could play on every known musical instrument; was an accomplished painter, and had written poetry. All this might as well have been true as far as the Wiltstokeners were concerned, since she knew more than they. She had spent her life travelling with her father, a man of active mind ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... applied, may serve to correct this misuse of our American soil. The careful tiller should note that all soils whatever which lie on declivities having a slope of more than one foot in thirty inevitably and rapidly waste when subject to plough tillage. This instrument tends to smear and consolidate the layer of earth over which its heel runs, so that at a depth of a few inches below the surface a layer tolerably impervious to water is formed. The result is that the porous portion of the deposit becomes ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... by them the cable winds round a "drum" four times. The drum is another wheel, four feet in diameter and nine inches deep, which is also controlled by powerful brakes; and from it the cable passes over another grooved wheel before it gets to the "dynamometer" wheel. The dynamometer is an instrument which shows the exact degree of the strain on the cable, and the wheel attached to it rises and falls as the strain is greater or less. Thence the cable is sent over another deeply grooved wheel into ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... most obviously necessary things in the world. So simple is it and so necessary that we marvel that mankind should have but now discovered it. It is however impossible any longer to delay its introduction as an indispensable instrument of human intercourse. ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... kept her awake for a long time, and the suspicion—nay almost the conviction—that it was herself, indeed, who had aroused that "great love" in Orion's heart gave her no rest. If it were she? There, under her hand was the instrument of revenge on the miscreant; she could make him taste of all the bitterness he had brewed for her aching spirit. But which of them would the punishment hurt most sorely: him or herself? Had not the little girl's confidences ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... copper railing, on which, only a moment before, her careless fingers had rested. There was no sign, no alteration in the shining surface of that polished metal. But she knew that a change, terrible and malignant, had taken place. It was no longer a mild and innocent guard-rail. It was now an instrument of destruction, an unbuoyed channel of death. She stood staring at it, with fixed and horrified eyes, until it wavered before her, a glimmering and meandering rivulet of ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... or his fellows. When, on the other hand, he acquires skill in various home occupations, as opening and closing the gates, attending to the furnace, harnessing and driving the horse, or playing a musical instrument, he finds that this skill enables him in some measure to serve in the community life of which he is a member. A second factor in social efficiency, therefore, is the possession of such skill as will enable us to co-operate effectively ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... in one so round, Sissy dropped beneath the piano, and, whipping off her apron, proceeded to wipe the dust from the back legs of the instrument with it. This done, she rammed the apron up between the wall and the piano, and was seated, breathless, but with a bit of very dirty white embroidery in her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Innerarity easily learned Louisiana's wants and don't-wants by heart. She wanted a Creole governor; she did not want Casa Calvo invited to leave the country; she wanted the provisions of the Treaty of Cession hurried up; "as soon as possible," that instrument said; she had waited long enough; she did not want "dat trile bi-ju'y"—execrable trash! she wanted an unwatched import trade! she did not want a single additional Americain appointed to office; ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... men, some real geniuses, all thought we would in time be able to talk to those a thousand miles away without media. Now, if we can make an instrument so wonderful that we can send wireless messages a thousand miles, is there any reason why we should not through mental control transmit messages from one person to another? The wireless message should not be as easy to send ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... from the despot's eye, and lifted his staff. A poet stepped forward with an instrument that resembled a harp and a drum combined. After he had struck the strings, and beaten the drum, he began to recite. It was a song celebrating all Attila's feats in terms of strong exaggeration, and it would have been endless, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... the air they breathe, as common for use as household stuff. Had Barbara been what is now termed a clever girl, the Buccaneer might have employed her, not as an agent of falsehood—that his delicate love of his child would have prevented—but as an instrument, perhaps, to work some delay in a wedding that humanity, independent of one or two new and latent causes, called upon him to prevent; but in any plot where finesse was necessary, he saw that Barbara would be perfectly useless; and before taking his departure, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... no doubt that hypnotism is a very old subject, though the name was not invented till 1850. In it was wrapped up the "mysteries of Isis" in Egypt thousands of years ago, and probably it was one of the weapons, if not the chief instrument of operation, of the magi mentioned in the Bible and of the "wise men" of Babylon and Egypt. "Laying on of hands" must have been a form of mesmerism, and Greek oracles of Delphi and other places seem to have been delivered by priests or priestesses ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... ancient lore? If there be aught of value in the laws of ancient Rome which has not been translated into our native tongue, let it be translated; but let not our youth waste precious years in learning to play upon an instrument (Greek or Latin) which when learned can give forth no sound. But if we turn to Nature and to her grand volume, we there find all the knowledge man can acquire. From her study, too, we can learn a lesson, ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... dreary night at Russell. All the afternoon the telegraph instrument at headquarters was clicking away with details of the brief and sudden fight upon the Rosebud, and the officers read in silence the description of the hordes upon hordes of savages that swooped down upon Crook's little column, and whirled his allied Absarakas and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... extreme end of the great fiord. We estimated the distance by the tide and our rate of rowing, tracing the shore-line and islands as we went along and getting the points of the compass from our little pocket instrument. ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... knew the use of it? I told him I had seen something like it in our overseer's hands; but that I had never known its use. It was a thermometer. Mr. Y—— took great pains to show me how, and on what occasions, this instrument ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Jesus, having Saint Michael on her right and Jeanne d'Arc on her left.[2777] It is of Italian workmanship and very roughly executed. Jeanne's head, which has disappeared beneath the blows of some hard-pointed instrument, must have been execrably drawn, if we may judge from the others remaining on this panel. All four figures are represented with a scrolled and beaded nimbus, which would have certainly been condemned by the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... greatest Revelations of the Divine Will. For tho' it was a singular Favour which God vouchsafed the other Prophets, in communicating to them some of the Secrets of his Purposes; yet Moses was the Man whom God chose to be the Instrument of the Deliverance of his People Israel, by such convincing Signs and Wonders, as were undeniable Evidences of the Divine Power by which they were wrought, and who was not only to be God's Messenger to his People in some few Particulars, but the ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... of the natural resources of our country. He led, and indeed during its most vital period embodied, the fight for the preservation through use of our forests. He played one of the leading parts in the effort to make the National Government the chief instrument in developing the irrigation of the arid West. He was the foremost leader in the great struggle to coordinate all our social and governmental forces in the effort to secure the adoption of a rational and farseeing ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothing else to do, and ask me to play you Tartini's Devil's Sonata on that extraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as one of the master-pieces of Joseph Guarnerius. The vox humana of the great Haerlem organ is very lifelike, and the same stop in the organ of the Cambridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... antiquity. Lord Ravensworth manages his woods admirably well, and with good taste. His castle is but half-built. Elections[52] have come between. In the evening, plenty of fine music, with heart as well as voice and instrument. Much of the music was the spontaneous effusions of Mrs. Arkwright, who had set Hohenlinden and other pieces of poetry. Her music was of a highly-gifted character. She was the daughter of Stephen Kemble. The genius she must have inherited from her mother, who was a capital actress. The Miss Liddells ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... since then has governed European politics. He hastily arranged a meeting with Count Andrassy, the Austrian Minister, and in a few days the two statesmen agreed on a defensive alliance between the two Empires. Many years later, in 1886, the instrument of alliance was published. It was agreed that if either of the German States was attacked by Russia the other would join to defend it; if either was attacked by France the other would observe neutrality; but if the French were supported by Russia then the first clause ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... resemblance to any special object is concerned. The authors remark of this side of the tablet, "The back of the stone has three deep longitudinal grooves, and several depressions, evidently caused by rubbing,—probably produced in sharpening the instrument used, in the sculpture." This explanation of the depressions would seem to be reasonable, although it has been disputed, and a "peculiar significance" (Short) attached to this side of the tablet. In ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... to what was best to be done, I still felt that I was justified in making a few inquiries as to the cause of Delora's presence in Newcastle with that particular companion. I went to the telephone, therefore, and rang up the County Hotel. I asked to speak to the manager, who came at once to the instrument. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... give any further information. But our record shows that the house burned down about two weeks ago. No one else has been given the number. There's no instrument there!" ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... appears an extremely pale yellow, or very nearly white; still the atmosphere absorbs some of the light rays, so we cannot see its true colour as we do now. Those coloured fringes round the edges can only be seen from the earth by the aid of a special instrument, and then they do not show all ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... multiply your personality, as it were; you lengthen your days, figuratively speaking; you come in contact with more diversified aspects of life than a person of my limited means can afford to do. The body, you say, is a subtle instrument to be played upon in every variety of manner and rendered above all things as sensitive as possible to pleasurable impressions. In fact, you want to be a kind of Aeolian harp. I admit that this is more than a string ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... prevent him, let nothing be demanded of him. This only let each bishop remember, that he shall not dedicate a church or basilica before he shall have received the endowment of the basilica and its service confirmed by an instrument of donation; for it is a not light rashness for a church to be consecrated, as if it were a private dwelling, without lights and without the support of those who are to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... LONG, Opticians, Philosophical and Photographical Instrument Makers, and Operative Chemists, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... meeting will start up a verse or two of a hymn illustrative of the experiences mentioned by the last speaker, or one of the girls from the Training Home will sing a solo, accompanying herself on her instrument, while all join in ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the centre of the homage of all the young nobles, who feasted their eyes on this apple of love, and of the old ones, who warmed themselves at this sun. But you may be sure that all of them, old and young, would have suffered death a thousand times over to have at their service this instrument of joy, which dazzled their eyes and muddled their brains. Bertha was more talked about in Loches then either God or the Gospels, which enraged a great many ladies who were not so bountifully endowed with ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... banshee wail of the hooters. The music was awe-inspiring, and ineffably weird. It seemed to portend the cries of the dying; and it was small wonder that the people subsequently endeavoured—as they did successfully—to have a more tuneful instrument employed. The immediate effect of the alarm was to send members of the Town Guard running from their respective homes and churches to the Town Hall, and thence, in orderly squads of four, with grim and stern faces, to the redoubts. Non-combatants, in compliance with the ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... as acute as ever, and had been trained as the tonal sense of few composers ever was. In point of fact the compositions of the later period are as sweet as those of any former period whatever. The last sonata for the pianoforte is one of the most advanced compositions that exist for the instrument. It is a tone poem which will outlast most other things that Beethoven wrote for this instrument. In fact, the accuracy with which the capacity of the instrument is gauged is one of the most striking peculiarities of the last sonatas and other ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... is a curious amusement to trace many of these thoughts and expressions to Plato, or Plotinus, or Proclus, or Porphyry, to Spinoza or Schelling, but the same tune is a different thing according to the instrument on which it is played. There are songs without words, and there are states in which, in place of the trains of thought moving in endless procession with ever-varying figures along the highway of consciousness, the soul is possessed by a single ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a violin, and raising the instrument to his shoulder, he began. He played at first very slowly. Caillette, with her arms folded—she had long before renounced the balancing pole—advanced up the rope. She knelt, and remained absolutely motionless. Then there came a peremptory summons from the violin. She arose and extended ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... that surrounded her. She was too clear-sighted and intelligent to proceed to question the Emperor. She feared light and dreaded the truth. She hesitated before the abyss that awaited her, and shuddered before the Emperor's glance. She suffered on the throne, as if it were an instrument of torture. It was then that Fouche took some steps which doubled her anguish. The incident is thus recounted, by Prince Metternich in the despatch already cited: "One day the Minister of Police visited her at Fontainebleau. and ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... acquire the touch for an organ, though it would spoil your touch for the piano. Not that that matters a great deal. A piano isn't much as an instrument.' ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... attempted to do could distract her mind or dispel her loneliness. The book which she had taken up over and over again lay with its face down upon the table. The harpsichord was open, but the music on its rack was tossed and tumbled. Zulma was a good musician and passionately fond of her instrument, but could not abide it when her spirits were depressed. She used to declare that, even in her best moods, the simplest melody had for her a tinge of sadness, which, when she herself was sorrowful, became a ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... got to convert you, old man. It is a poor instrument that has but a single string; and David's harp of solemn sound would bore me as much as it would other folks, if I tried to play on it all the time. How many people would sit out this talk of ours, or read it if we put it in print? Taken ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... as though the hamlet had expired in the burning air and was dried up. To while away the time Yegorushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear, and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without noticing how he came there. His uncle and Father Christopher ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... on a dry diet of Digests; and it was not until hunger began to sharpen his faculties that he thought of going back of the statutory law to the fountain-head in the constitution of the State. Here, after he had read carefully section by section almost through the entire instrument, his eye lighted upon a clause which gradually grew luminous as he ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... women like fun and don't care about serious affairs. They have the theaters and operas for amusements, so we better get a real amusement for American Liza. The best fun would be a huge hurdy-gurdy or something of that kind, an instrument with sensation. Our village violins and harps are too mild ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... adjacent countries, who struck such occasional discordant notes as Acota, and that in the ear of the beautiful princess Babe-bi-bobu, who, far from being displeased, appeared to approve of his occasional violence, which not only threatened to crack the strings of the instrument, but the tympanums of those who were near, who longed to escape, and leave the princess to enjoy the dissonance alone, little thinking that the discord was raised that their souls' harmony might be undisturbed ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... said the abbess, smiling, "I will have nothing said which shall make Euphrosyne look upon my guest as a sorceress, or as the instrument of any evil one. I wish all my daughters to meet Madame Oge with cheerfulness. It is the best I have to offer her,—the cheerfulness of my family; and that of which she has least at ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... brought the harp of Flora from a small recess, and as he placed it before her, whispered something in a low tone, which for a moment crimsoned the brow of the maiden, then coldly bowing to him, she drew the instrument toward her, and warbled a wild and spirited Highland air, her eyes flashing, and her bosom heaving with the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... doubt, to an imperfect stage of society; it has a side of pure brutality. But it is not all brutal. Wordsworth's daring line about "God's most perfect instrument" has a great truth behind it. What examples are to be found in the tales here retold, not merely of heroic daring, but of even finer qualities—of heroic fortitude; of loyalty to duty stronger than the love of life; of the temper which dreads dishonour more than it fears death; ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... please, for a moment. Mr. Griscom, this is urgent," and Ralph arose and hurried to the next room, where the instrument was located. ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... He removes this grace, very shortly the mind goes back to a false, uneven, inharmonious state; so we become like an instrument all out of tune, and are caused indescribable sufferings, like a musician whose ears and nerves are tortured by false notes, whilst his unmusical neighbours feel no pain! The musician pays a price for the privilege of his great gift; so the ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So wonderfully eloquent was he that, whatever he might choose to say, his hearers had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong. His voice, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success,—when it had been heard in halls of state and in the courts of princes,—after ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... toward the lighted window, and through the drawn curtains I distinctly perceived a woman, dressed in white, with her hair loose, and swaying before her instrument like a person conscious that she was alone and responding to her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... way since this Parliament assembled, in the discussion of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony Constitutions. When the change of Government took place Mr. Lyttelton's Constitution was before us. That instrument provided for representative and not responsible government. Under that Constitution the election would have been held in March of this year, and the Assembly would have met in June, if the home Government had not changed. But just at the time that the Government changed in December ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... various instruments (vibration massage), and with the help of certain suction cups (suction massage, which is indeed a form of vibratory massage). Many authors are satisfied with their results without the employment of any instrument, and prefer simple massage with the tip of the finger to any form of the instrumental variety, to quote the words of Casey Wood. At one time in my career I experimented very extensively with massage, ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... people, on each side of the narrow channel, are nearly similar; that the arms they use for procuring subsistence are the same; that their boats and method of fishing are exactly alike; that both make use of a wooden instrument for procuring fire by friction; that neither attack their enemies in the open field, but take all advantages of ensnaring them by wiles and stratagem; and that the vanquished, when taken prisoners, are ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Parliament existed to pass laws of its own conception, such has never been the practice, except when there has been chronic opposition between the executive and the legislature. Parliament has generally been the instrument of Government, a condition essential to strong and successful administration; and it is still summoned mainly to discuss such measures as the executive thinks fit to lay before it. Certainly the proportion of Government ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... finding a musical instrument in the road, asked the name of it, and was told that it was a fish-horn. The next time he went fishing he set his nets and blew the fish-horn all day to charm the fish into them; but at nightfall there were not only no fish in his nets, but none along that ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... the dead silence which stilled the roaring hall, when his harp was reverently placed before him by his attendant—nor even the commands or entreaties of the Prince himself—could extract from Cadwallon more than a short and interrupted prelude upon the instrument, the notes of which arranged themselves into an air inexpressibly mournful, and died away in silence. The Prince frowned darkly on the bard, who was himself far too deeply lost in gloomy thought, to offer any ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... highly curious "History of Music" (vol. ii. page 274) says "The Cruth or Crowth" was an instrument "formerly in common use in the principality of Wales," and is the "prototype of the whole fidicinal species of musical instruments." "It has six strings, supported by a bridge, and is played on by a bow." "The word Cruth is pronounced in English Crowth, and ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... affectionately patted his gun. "I reckon this yere instrument will do the business all right if any misunderstandin' should arise atween us goin' down. However, I 'll trouble yer to discard them weapons for the ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... designed this embassy; and Fergus, believing all things and trusting all things, had gladly undertaken to be the messenger of forgiveness; fated, instead, to be the instrument of betrayal. So they turned their faces homewards towards Emain, Deirdre full of desponding, as one whose day of grace is past. They set sail again through the long Sound of Jura, with the islands now on their right hand and the gray ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... cause them to be brought them. They willingly accepted the proffer, and fair Safie, going to fetch them, returned again in a moment, and presented them with a flute of her own country fashion, another of the Persian sort, and a tabor. Each man took the instrument he liked, and all the three together began to play a tune. The ladies, who knew the words of a merry song that suited that air, joined the concert with their voices; but the words of the song made them now and then stop, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... M-, a small place with two or three houses and a general store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair constituted ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... when the others already had turned in. It was that way on this night, and I waited with some impatience for nine o'clock to come. For the purpose of reading the scale we used a small bull's-eye lantern belonging to a transit instrument, and it threw out a long beam of light. I entertained myself by flashing this beam of light in various directions to the distress of one member lying near not asleep, who was somewhat nervous as to the character of the Indians responsible for ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... not," said he, mechanically. And, amid much laughter from the disinterested, while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument, described by Mr. Samuel Weller—a pair of patent, double-million magnifying microscopes of hex-tery power, to see through a deal door. Instead of this I had to learn what happened only ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... fact. A much more important one lies in the astonishing ease with which the masses of the people have been discriminated against, exploited and oppressed. Theoretically the power of government resides in the people, down to the humblest voter. This power, however, has been made the instrument for enslaving the very people supposed to be ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... and applauded constantly. It was Julia who found the new atmosphere most difficult. She laughed often, it is true, but she had always a semi-subjective feeling, as though it were some other person who was really there, and she the instrument chosen to give physical indication of that other person's presence. Only once life seemed suddenly to thrill and burn in her veins, to shoot through her body with startling significance, and in that brief space of time, life itself was transformed ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was an earnest and artistic performer. Miss Pringle's Jefferson had with him a harmonica, or mouth organ, which he at once produced. Jefferson was endowed with the peculiar gift of manipulating this little musical instrument solely with his lips, moving it back and forth and round about as he played, without touching it with his hands; and this left his hands free to pat the time. The negro orchestra perched itself on the top of the cabin, and in a moment Lady Agatha, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... are told, hate the English with an irreconcilable hatred, and would unquestionably use any Constitution as an instrument for satisfying their master passion. Irrational hatred, they say, can be treated by rational men with composure. The Czechs of Bohemia are said to be irreconcilable, yet the South Germans bear with their hatred; and if we cannot cure we might endure the antipathy of Ireland. Now, as for the illustration, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... a musical sound uttered with decision by one instrument always makes the corresponding chord of another vibrate; and Mary felt, as she left her positive, but warm-hearted friend, a plaintive vibration of something in her own self, in which she was conscious her calm friendship for her future husband had no part. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... house and rapidly put into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in his brain. By standing on a chair in the library one could reach a shelf on which reposed a fat, important-looking key. The key was as important as it looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the lumber- room secure from unauthorised intrusion, which opened a way only for aunts and such-like privileged persons. Nicholas had not had much experience of the art of fitting keys into keyholes and turning locks, but for some days ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... and another box-shaped instrument hanging from the ring. The latter had an ivory plate bearing "statoscope" and other words in French, and a little indicator quivered and waggled, between Montee and Descente. "That's all right," said Bert. "That tells if you're going up or down." On the crimson ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... breeze, and the meal was hearty and prolonged. After it was concluded, several of the knights brought up from below viols and other instruments of music; for the ability to accompany the voice with such an instrument was considered an essential part of the education of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... already that Mr. Dutt had not yet mastered his instrument, but he did not lack thoughts: merely the power to express them. Throughout these thirty odd pages one sees him floundering in the morass of a new language, always with something that he wants to say but can only suggest. Here, for example, is a personal statement, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... manuscripts, as of my one published work, is simply flatness, and not that surpassing subtilty which is the preferable ground of popular neglect—this verdict, however instructively expressed, is a portion of earthly discipline of which I will not beseech my friend to be the instrument. Other persons, I am aware, have not the same cowardly shrinking from a candid opinion of their performances, and are even importunately eager for it; but I have convinced myself in numerous cases ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... the mystery proved to be the pianoforte of the missionary's wife, which, being too cumbrous an article to take away, had been buried there, with the hope of being one day able to recover it. Never having seen such an instrument before, Africaner had it dissected for the sake of the brass wires; and thus ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... made by stretching a serpent's skin over one of their clay pots, is loudly beaten, and the thigh-bone of an ostrich, with key-holes burned in, is a common musical instrument. From the algarroba bean an intoxicating drink is made, called ang- min, and then yells, hellish sounds and murderous blows inspire terror in the paleface guest. "It is impossible to conceive anything more wild and ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... moment there was heard on the strand below a single note from the Mothon's instrument, low, but prolonged; it ceased, and was again renewed. The royal ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... the startling announcement through me, an humble instrument, that in like manner, God created the earth for the "within"—that is to say, for its lands, seas, rivers, mountains, forests and valleys, and for its other internal conveniences, while the outside surface of the earth is merely the veranda, the porch, where things grow by comparison but sparsely, ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... should have spoken and acted thus, is only another and a stronger reason for believing him to have been deranged in his last moments! You need give yourself no farther trouble! I shall act upon the authority of this instrument which I hold in my hand," replied Colonel Le ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of Tory Governments in the days before Canning, the identification of British interests with the maintenance of Ottoman power. If a generation of sentimentalists were willing to sacrifice the grandeur of an Empire to their sympathies with an oppressed people, it was not Disraeli who would be their instrument. When the massacre of Batak was mentioned in the House of Commons, he dwelt on the honourable qualities of the Circassians; when instances of torture were alleged, he remarked that an oriental ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... stood high in Lodovico's favour, and spent much of his time at Milan. We find Isabella d'Este writing to her friend, Niccolo da Correggio, in 1493, begging him to procure her the loan of a silver lyre, given him by Atalante, that she may learn to play this instrument; and in the following year the marchioness herself stood godmother to the Florentine musician's infant daughter, who was called Isabella after her illustrious sponsor. And in 1492 we find Lodovico writing to thank Francesco Gonzaga for allowing a certain Narcisso, who was in the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... her hand to slip out of his—as though he were closing a door upon her. The phrase, "Good-bye," still rang in his ears, but grew fainter and fainter, receding as in a dream. He stared blankly at the telephone instrument. Some one opened the door, anxious to use the booth. This roused him. He came out into the store, and the life around him brought him to himself once more. But what did this new development mean? Where ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... withered hand, the Ashtons from you, and you from them, and both from their own passions. You can have nothing—ought to have nothing, in common with them. Begone from among them; and if God has destined vengeance on the oppressor's house, do not you be the instrument." ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... up in the library at Fletcherwood. Then he unscrewed all the bulbs from the chandelier in the library and attached in their places connections with the usual green silk-covered flexible wire rope. These were then joined up to a little instrument which to me looked like a drill. Next he muffed the drill with a wad of felt and applied it to ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... not independence of the Empire, or good intentions towards the country, that were wanting in the Chamber of the Hundred Days, but intelligence and resolution. It neither lent itself to imperial despotism nor revolutionary violence; it was not the instrument of either of the extreme parties,—it applied itself honestly to preserve France, on the brink of that abyss towards which they had driven her; but it could only pursue a line of negative policy, it ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ask them to go in the house, and the three stood there awkwardly, handling the time like a blunt instrument. Then Simeon Buck, proprietor of the Simeon Buck North American Dry Goods Exchange, plunged into what they had ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... strict laws of justice are suspended, in such a pressing emergence, and give place to the stronger motives of necessity and self-preservation. Is it any crime, after a shipwreck, to seize whatever means or instrument of safety one can lay hold of, without regard to former limitations of property? Or if a city besieged were perishing with hunger; can we imagine, that men will see any means of preservation before them, and lose their lives, from a scrupulous regard to what, in other situations, would be ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... intolerance, the confessor's language was (taking his view of the case) reasonable and just, because the honest priest was himself convinced of what he said; a blind instrument of Rodin, ignorant of the end in view, he believed firmly, that, in forcing Frances to place these young girls in a convent, he was performing a pious duty. Such was, and is, one of the most wonderful ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Priesthood is so much adorned, represented the duties of it as too weighty for him, and rendered him still more worthy of that honour which they made him decline. These, you know very well! were not the Reasons which made Mr. ADDISON turn his thoughts to the civil World; and, as you were the instrument of his becoming acquainted with my Lord HALIFAX, I doubt not but you remember the warm instances that noble Lord made to the Head of the College, not to insist upon Mr. ADDISON's going into Orders. His arguments were founded on the general pravity [depravity] ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... removal of the uvula are very definite. Seat the patient upon a stool in a bright light while an assistant holds the head; after the tongue has been firmly depressed by means of a speculum let the assistant hold this speculum in place. With the left hand then insert an instrument, a stilus, by which the uvula is pulled forward, and then remove the end of it by means of a heated knife or some other process of cauterization. The mouth should afterwards be ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... save the wretched beings who are in our midst, then the Author will have gained a richer reward than all the profits accruing from this work. He will have been more than rewarded by the knowledge that he has been the instrument, through which charity has once more visited the South, and swept oppression and want from our land. Such scenes as those we daily witness were never seen, even in the mildest form a few short years ago. Prior to the war there was scarcely a beggar in the South, and ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... the King and Queen, Philippe Egalite, Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, Robespiere, cum multus aliis —Unexampled dispatch introduced in putting persons to death by means of the guillotine—Guillotin, the inventor or improver of this instrument, dies of grief—Little impression left on the mind of the spectators of these sanguinary ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... edges of the hills, Rising or setting, would he stand alone, Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him,—And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals, And long halloos, and screams, and echoes ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... This instrument of research I find to be the use, by the human person, of all the various energies of personality concentrated into one point; and the resultant spectacle of things or reality of things, which this concentrated vision makes clear, I call the original revelation of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... all the parties were assembled, Lord Chatterino appearing with a copy of the protocol in his hand. This instrument was formally read, by the young peer, in a very creditable manner, when a silence ensued, as if to invite comment. I know not how it is, but I never yet heard the positive stipulations of any bargain, that I did not feel a propensity to look out for weak places ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the implementation of human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law; to act as an instrument of early warning, conflict prevention, and crisis management; and to serve as a framework for conventional arms control ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... but might not dream of really attaining the same perfection, except at least through the medium of the Holy Scriptures and the apostolic office, that is, the Church. The place of the holy Christendom that had the Spirit in its midst was taken by the ecclesiastic institution possessing the "instrument of divine literature" ("instrumentum divinae litteraturae") and the spiritual office. Finally, we must mention another factor that hastened the various changes; this was the theology of the Christian philosophers, which attained importance in the Church as soon as she ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... individual, in the different cases I have handled, as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of sorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be the instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely decided in my mind what to do with you ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... instrument was invented by Kotei, one of the three Chinese Emperors of the Mythological age. Kotei was the son of the Emperor Yuhi. Before he was born his mother had a vision which foretold that her son would be ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... not till the ship was out throbbing swiftly Over the smooth sea and darkness had fallen that they began to sing. Then those of them who were not working gathered together with a stringed instrument forward and sang of pity and of death. One of them said to me, "Knight, can your grace sing?" I told him that I could sing, certainly, but that my singing was unpleasing, and that I only knew foreign songs. He said that singing ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... back to his instrument and asked Henry to rush the traps. He inquired about his fellows of the Wireless Patrol. Henry had nothing out of the ordinary to report. Then Charley asked Henry to get the forester ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... hardships from the almost constant rains, which sometimes continued for weeks together. The completeness of the equipment was also in other respects largely due to the public spirit of Captain Fitz-Roy. He provided at his own cost an artist, and a skilled instrument-maker to look after the chronometers. (Either one or both were on the books for victuals.) Captain Fitz-Roy's wish was to take "some well-educated and scientific person" as his private guest, but this generous offer was only accepted by my father on condition of being allowed to pay a fair ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... it," replied her father. "I cannot, of course, allow her to practice on any musical instrument, because my studies demand quiet, but I don't think she cares ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... abolition of slavery. 2. The extension of political rights. 3. Science as an instrument of civilization. 4. ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... the day, one of the most remarkable is the telephone, by which we can hear each other's words at a considerable distance. By means of that instrument the sermon of the preacher, the music of the singer, the weighty words of the wise, and the silly babble of the foolish, can be carried over a great space. Have you ever thought, brethren, that if a telephone could be invented sufficiently large to convey the words uttered in one day in one of our ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... again, and scrambled over the broken equipment that was strewn over the deck. He stumbled over more rubble that was once a precision instrument panel and climbed the ladder leading ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... the flowerbeds the Princess Katakasianopulos was slowly walking up and down, very slender in her black dress, very pale in the moonlight. But then, who saw it? She too felt herself to be a precious instrument of precious experiences. But where were they, for whom these experiences were destined? At the end of the garden-walk she stopped and looked pensively out upon the white mists that rose from the meadow. Once she had lived for a month in Athens with her ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... were inspired with their present spirit of levelling. Their old vanity was led by art to take another turn: it was dazzled and seduced by military liveries, cockades, and epaulets, until the French populace was led to become the willing, but still the proud and thoughtless, instrument and victim of another domination. Neither did that people despise or hate or fear their nobility: on the contrary, they valued themselves on the generous qualities which distinguished ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Box (Cox being unable to accompany him on the piano or any other instrument, by reason of the severe weather) to hear STAVENHAGEN at St. James's Hall, Thursday last, the 22nd. Our Musical B. was nearly turned out of the hall, he was in such ecstasies of delight over a Beethovenly concerto, which ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... one nothing is dangerous, if he fear nothing. To endure all things, is to endure nothing. Let us be good and kindly, and the whole round world shall be the same. For the world will be an instrument for your goodness, and your persecutors will work to make you ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... form. I likewise command you, Fernao Riquel, notary-in-chief of this camp, and all the other clerks and notaries thereof, to give and transfer to me all the summons, protests, replies, and responses which may be made in this matter, now or hereafter, and the instrument and instruments which shall be necessary to me, in duly attested form. In this galley "San Francisco," on the nineteenth day of the month of October of the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. Let there be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... been expected that, among the stores sent with Parry, there would be a supply of Congreve rockets,—an instrument of warfare of which such wonders had been related to the Greeks as filled their imaginations with the most absurd ideas of its powers. Their disappointment, therefore, on finding that the engineer had come unprovided with these missiles was excessive. Another hope, too,—that of being enabled ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... how different will be the results if the system we contend for be consistently pursued—if the mother not only avoids becoming the instrument of punishment, but plays the part of a friend, by warning her boy of the punishments which Nature will inflict. Take a case; and that it may illustrate the mode in which this policy is to be early initiated, let it be ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... engagement subject to penalties affixed by our criminal code. He now draped himself in white linen, dark-coloured clothes, a tall hat, and such outward marks of respectability, if not station, going even so far as to invest in kid gloves and an "umbrellier," as he called that instrument. At first sight, but for his boots, Jim might almost have been mistaken for a real gentleman. About this period, too, he left off vulgar liquors, and shamefully abandoned a short black pipe that had ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... of the telegraph instrument was expected to announce a rupture in the diplomatic relations between the United States and the Kingdom of Spain, all knew that the mobilization of the army South meant preparing it for the serious work for which ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... breath. When he spoke his voice had the timbre of some softly played instrument, and a tremor ran ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... individuality, the other by the spirit of society. In America he sees the individual absorbing society; as in France he sees society absorbing the individual. "Ce peuple Anglo-Saxon," he says, "qui trouvait devant lui la terre, l'instrument de travail, sinon inepuisable, du mons inepuise, s'est mis a l'exploiter sous l'inspiration de l'egoisme; et nous autres Francais, nous n'avons rien su en faire, parceque NOUS NE POUVONS RIEN DANS L'ISOLEMENT.... L'Americain supporte la solitude avec un stoicisme admirable, mais ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... handkerchief; and indeed in our common tragedies we should not know very often that the persons are in distress by anything they say, if they did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend for is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the actor's tongue sympathise with ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the distance between the voice of the clown, who never thought of the power that dwells in this faculty, who delivers himself in a rude, discordant and unmodulated accent, and is accustomed to confer with his fellow at the distance of two fields, and the man who understands his instrument as Handel understood the organ, and who, whether he thinks of it or no, sways those that hear him as implicitly as Orpheus is said to have subdued ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... understand one another could be brought into close relationships, and for this purpose some generally accepted system of communicating ideas became essential. Moreover, the tribes and assimilated nations found the force of common language in the coherency of group life. Thus it became a powerful instrument in developing tribal, racial, or national independence. If the primal force of early family or tribal organization was that of sex and blood relationship, language became a most powerful ally in forcing the group into formal social action, and in furnishing a means of defense ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... other things that were then respected, were wills; but it was not known to a single individual, among all those who thronged the dwelling of Deacon Pratt, that the dying man had ever mustered the self-command necessary to make such an instrument. He was free to act, but did not choose to avail himself of his freedom. Had he survived a few years, he would have found himself in the enjoyment of a liberty so sublimated, that he could not lease, or rent a farm, or collect a common debt, without coming ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... revery, "yes, the day is at hand when Rome shall rise again from her ashes; Justice shall dethrone Oppression; men shall walk safe in their ancient Forum. We will rouse from his forgotten tomb the indomitable soul of Cato! There shall be a people once more in Rome! And I—I shall be the instrument of that triumph—the restorer of my race! mine shall be the first voice to swell the battle-cry of freedom—mine the first hand to rear her banner—yes, from the height of my own soul as from a mountain, I see already rising the liberties and the grandeur of the New Rome; and on the corner-stone ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... danced out into the hallway, switching on lights wherever he could find a button to press. Presently he located the phone in a secluded alcove and slumped down on a divan with the instrument ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... authentically made, and by the said ambassador, his servants whose names be under-written, and train, in presence of the notary, and witnesses under-named, recognised, and acknowledged. Given the day, month, and year under-written, of which instrument into every of the said ships one testimonial is delivered, and the first remaineth with the said ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt |
