"Ingenuity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manufactures, not to Portugal, but to South America; while Portugal would be obliged to send the bullion to some other country that it might carry on a smuggling trade with its neighbour, Spain. It was impossible for the ingenuity of man to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... confessor of princes is not commonly a difficult matter to compass: but in the present case, these two potent engines of command were found very incompatible. Mrs. Sedley, who possessed all the wit and ingenuity of her father, Sir Charles made the priests and their counsels the perpetual objects cf her raillery; and it is not to be doubted but they, on their part, redoubled their exhortations with their penitent to break off so criminal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... his room and earnestly gave himself up to the perusal of the writings Bessy Bell had given him. He experienced shocks of pain and wonder, between which he had to laugh. All the fiendish wit of youthful ingenuity flashed forth from this verse. There was a parody on Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break," featuring Colonel Pepper's famous and deplorable habit. Miss Hill came in for a great share of opprobrium. One verse, if it had ever come under the eyes ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... exercise your ingenuity in a rational and contemplative manner.—No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, "De ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... offer, on the spur of the moment, the alternative explanation she demanded. Indeed it would have taken a good deal of ingenuity to construct one. It was safer, anyway, just ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... passages relate to the means which Dr. Reid employed to prevent the decay of his faculties as he advanced in years; to remedy the errors and deficiencies of one failing sense by the increased activity of another, and by the resources of reasoning and ingenuity to resist, as far as possible, or to render supportable, the infirmities of age . . . My father never forgot this passage, and acted ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... I rather admired the man's ingenuity. With a box of tools and a few mighty simple contrivances he had made out to have a devil of a temple. Any poor Kanaka brought up here in the dark, with the harps whining all round him, and shown that smoking face ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beforehand in his chamber; and he would put the point with infinitely greater cogency than could have been exhibited by him who suggested it, and defend it from the assaults of his opponents and the bench with truly admirable readiness and ingenuity. He exhibited great judgment and discrimination, however, on these occasions. A false or doubtful point he quietly rejected in limine, and would afterwards point out to him who had suggested it, the impolicy of adopting it. Sir William ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... than one or two inches long: the edge of this is renewed, and the flint itself is formed into heads for arrows, by means of the point of a deer or elk horn, an instrument which they use with great art and ingenuity. There are no axes or hatchets; all the wood being cut with flint or elk-horn, the latter of which is always used as a wedge in splitting wood. Their utensils consist, besides the brass kettles, of pots in the form of a jar, made either of earth, or of a stone ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... morning carried him in chains and delivered him to the Emperor. By him he was in turn delivered to his sister Theodora, mother of the young knight, the first victim of Rogero's spear. By her he was cast into a dungeon, till her ingenuity could devise a death sufficiently painful to satiate ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... woman should have become indifferent—willing to let a life that to her was full of fears and difficulties slip peacefully away from her, that was possible. But that she should exercise thought and ingenuity—that she should have reasoned the thing out and deliberately laid her plans, calculating at every point on their ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... besiegers; and offensive when comprehending the various works for conducting a siege. It is natural when it opposes rocks, woods, marshes, ravines, &c., to impede the progress of an enemy; and artificial, when raised by human ingenuity to aid the advantages of the ground. The latter is again subdivided into permanent and field fortification: the one being constructed at leisure and of permanent materials, the other ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... is a very respectable apothecary, and most liberal of his skill, his medicine, his soup, and his wine, among the sick. He preached a very queer sermon—the former half too familiar, and the latter half too florid, but not without some ingenuity ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... but his very understanding of that made him seek for subtle treachery. She saw he suspected her; was it not good policy to seem perfectly frank, even if such frankness for the moment gave a strengthening to suspicion? What devilish ingenuity might after all be concealed in this woman, whom he had ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... taken to avoid its numerous evil effects, depend the actual value and capacity for smooth working of any acetylene generator. Just as, by an immutable law of chemistry, a given weight of calcium carbide yields a given weight of acetylene, and by no amount of ingenuity can be made to produce either more or less; so, by an equally immutable law of physics, the decomposition of a given weight of calcium carbide by water, or the decomposition of a given weight of water by calcium carbide, yields a perfectly definite quantity of heat—a quantity ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... as lands and lakes; in one part, woods like vast deserts; in another part, open spaces and expansive prospects. The projectors and superintendents of this plan were Severus and Celer, men of such ingenuity and daring enterprise as to attempt to conquer by art the obstacles of nature and fool away the treasures of the prince. They had even undertaken to sink a navigable canal from the lake Avernus to the mouth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... republican experiment was very great. People had practiced local self-government under monarchical supervision for a long time; now they were bound to extend the sphere of their political activity, and in the adjustment of the new machinery there was abundant opportunity for all the ingenuity and wit of the educated class to exercise itself. Then there was a great impetus given by politics to the democratizing of the nation, and, in the rapid social changes of the day, the educated class found itself well shaken up with the mechanic. The terms which Webster employs ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... rapacious struggle for wealth, it may temper the undiscriminating sympathy of the emotional to reflect that oppression, torture, extortion, and slavery, not to mention human sacrifices and cannibalism were practised among them with a hideous ingenuity upon which no refinement introduced by the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... is given to the gentleman who has succeeded in proposing, and to the girl who has alluded all efforts of her partner by her wit and ingenuity. ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... of the Less Armenia, and reducing forts and cities, he sent Appius to Tigranes to demand Mithridates; but he went himself to Amisus, which was still holding out against the siege. This was owing to Kallimachus the commander, who by his skill in mechanical contrivances, and his ingenuity in devising every resource which is available in a siege, gave the Romans great annoyance, for which he afterwards paid the penalty. Now, however, he was out-generailed by Lucullus, who, by making a sudden attack, just at that time of the day when he was used ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... these, and never paint anything so truly good and effective as the rugged woodcut we must all remember, of Apollyon bestriding the whole breadth of the way, and Christian girding at him like a man, in the old sixpenny Pilgrim's Progress; and a young medical student may have zeal, knowledge, ingenuity, attention, a good eye and a steady hand—he may be an accomplished anatomist, stethoscopist, histologist, and analyst; and yet, with all this, and all the lectures, and all the books, and all the sayings, and all the preparations, drawings, tables, and other helps of his teachers, crowded ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... in short. Careful observation and recollection determine what is given, what is already there, and hence assured. They cannot furnish what is lacking. They define, clarify, and locate the question; they cannot supply its answer. Projection, invention, ingenuity, devising come in for that purpose. The data arouse suggestions, and only by reference to the specific data can we pass upon the appropriateness of the suggestions. But the suggestions run beyond what is, as yet, actually ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... time we'll provide for every chance. We'll take all the precautions ingenuity can devise ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... there is some redeeming feature—some good results, even where it is not intended: pride and vanity, utterly selfish and wrong in themselves, often throw money into the hands of the poor, and thus tend to excite industry and ingenuity, while they produce comfort. But slavery is all evil—within and without—root and ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Who objected to 'part', Went in 'on the nod', and to do it he Crawled in through a crack In the tent at the back, For the boy had no slight ingenuity. ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... man possessed of a certain amount of ingenuity. It was said of him that he knew on which side his bread was buttered, and that if you wished to take him in you must get up early. After dinner and during the night he pondered a good deal on what he had heard. Lady Cantrip had told him there had been a—dream. What was he to believe ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... mind, both by his own writings and by the controversies and experiments he has excited in all parts of Europe. He had abilities for investigating statistical questions, and in some parts of his life has written pamphlets and essays upon public topics with great ingenuity and success; but after my acquaintance with him, which commenced in Congress in 1775, his excellence as a legislator, a politician, or a negotiator most certainly never appeared. No sentiments more weak and superficial were ever avowed by the most absurd philosopher than some of his, particularly ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... in his lecture on Plato's Phaedon. The powers of his mind were never more successfully displayed than when he illustrated his positions by the scriptural instance of the two Galilean demoniacs, who abode in the tombs night and day. It was reserved for his ingenuity and learning to discover that those unfortunate Bedlamites were not mortals, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... was first proposed, much ingenuity was employed in conjecturing, and much eloquence displayed in expatiating upon, the various evils that might result from them; yet the genius of party, however usually successful in gloomy perspective, did not at that time imagine half the inconvenience this measure was fraught with. It was easy, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... feebleness, from the maroon couch and prepared to go upstairs to assume the appropriate neglige. Only when she was at her full height did the Prophet, rendered desperate by the terrible results of his own ingenuity, nerve himself to utter ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... murmured the governess, "but the will of Heaven be done! Cannot ingenuity supply the place of strength, and the boat be cast from the decks before the fatal ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... is determined, as Mr. Buckle and other philosophers have assured us, by the climate and the soil. A little ingenuity, such as those philosophers display in accommodating facts to theory, might discover a parallel between the type of Crabbe's personages and the fauna and flora of his native district. Declining a task which might lead to fanciful conclusions, I may assume that the East Anglian ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... however, be too implicitly relied on, for they are all imitated with wonderful ingenuity by the skilful adulterator, and they are applicable only to Peruvian guano; the others being so variable that no general rules can be given for determining whether they are genuine. Neither are they so precise as to enable us to give any opinion regarding the relative ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... made her most venturesome journey, for she brought with her to the North her old parents, who were no longer able to walk such distances as she must go by night. Consequently she must hire a wagon for them, and it required all her ingenuity to get them through Maryland and Delaware safe. She accomplished it, however, and by the aid of her friends she brought them safe to Canada, where they spent the winter. Her account of their sufferings there—of her mother's complaining ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... understood by their respective champions. This was brought about by the use of two methods. In the first place, the works of Aristotle on the one side, and the Bible and the writings of the Fathers on the other side, were treated as of equal authority in their respective spheres The ingenuity of the theologians was to be employed in harmonising them. It is, in fact, only from this period that "the Scholastic Philosophy became distinguished by that servile deference to authority" which we ordinarily ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... a lull in the Parachute folly until some twenty years ago, when Madame Poitevin startled the Metropolis from its propriety by her perilous escapes both in life and limb. Although considerable ingenuity was displayed in the plan of expanding the Parachute by the sudden discharge of gas from the balloon; still the very fact of a woman being exposed to such danger by her husband, will, we trust, hereafter prevent Englishmen ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my brief sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European citizens of a town in the neighborhood of Bangkok had a prodigy among them by the name of Eckert, an Englishman—a person famous for the number, ingenuity and imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to "draw him out" before strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rational and speculative principle, can only end in a practical acquaintance with individual objects; the operations of the rational faculties, on the other hand, if allowed to go on without a constant reference of external things, can lead only to empty abstraction and barren ingenuity. Real speculative knowledge demands the combination of the two ingredients—right reason and facts to reason upon. It has been well said, that true knowledge is the interpretation of nature; and therefore it requires both the interpreting ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... had refused to participate in the planning and devising of the work, thereby shutting herself off from that most fascinating pastime, house-building; leaving everything down to the minutest details to the imagination, ingenuity, and inventive genius of the Arab. For months she had listened to the monotonous chant of the men at work, the tap of hammer, swish of saw, and dull thud of machinery, and also to the grunting and grumbling of the camels who, in great caravans from every point of the compass, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... of Andre Certa with the daughter of the wealthy Samuel, was an important event. The beautiful senoras had not given themselves a moment's rest; they had exhausted their ingenuity to invent some pretty corsage or novel head-dress; they had wearied themselves in trying without cessation the most ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... can describe him? There is no language which can do justice to him; no supernatural foresight which can predict where his next thrust will fall, from what unsuspected corner he will send his next arrow. Like death, he has all seasons for his own; his ingenuity is infernal. Whoever tries to forestall or appease him might better be at work in Augean stables; because, after all, we must admit that the facts of life are on his side. It is not intended that we shall be very comfortable. There ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... abundantly with me in proportion to my need. My need is its call. The spasm of fear which crosses my heart summons it to my aid. It not only never deserts me, but it never delays, and is never at a loss for some new ingenuity to meet new requirements. "From strength to strength" is its law, carrying me on with the impetus of its own ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... instance far more ingenuity had been displayed in the number and nature of the side attractions. There were guessing machines where the cocksure were reduced to humbleness of mind by their failures to state accurately the number of women voting in the world or some section ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... blow—as Brian de Bois-Guilbert was wont to hammer home his mace-strokes with "Ha! Beauseant, Beauseant!"—with some amazing oath. It is recorded of an American gentleman, much given to blasphemy, that he could entertain "an intelligent companion" for half a day with the mere force and ingenuity of his expletives; and this singular talent seemed to be shared by Richard Yorke's antagonist. That one of the most accomplished roughs of the Midlands had fallen to the young painter's lot in that night's melee, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... a uniform appearance, because the Company must build cheaply where it provides the building materials to a great extent; but the detached houses in little gardens will be united into attractive groups in each locality. The natural conformation of the land will rouse the ingenuity of our young architects, whose ideas have not yet been cramped by routine; and even if the people do not grasp the whole import of the plan, they will at any rate feel at ease in their loose clusters. The Temple ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... The city is like a mining-camp in the days of a fabulous strike. Instead of new mines, there are new factories every day, and the record of this industrial high tide is being made in brick, stone, and mortar. Energy, resource, and ingenuity are being pushed to the last limit to take advantage of the golden opportunity that the overwhelming demand for the automobile has created. It is a thrilling and distinctively American spectacle, and it makes one feel proud and glad to be part of the people ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... and mounting on the top and standing bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he would most probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent battery with the ruler upon the upper panels of the door. Captivated with his own ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position, which he had taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained down such a ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... her work she granted a second audience to the Roman envoy. Timagenes exerted all his powers of eloquence, skill in persuasion, wit, and ingenuity. He again promised to Cleopatra life and liberty, and to her children the throne; but when he insisted upon the surrender or death of Mark Antony as the first condition of any further negotiations, Cleopatra remained steadfast, and the ambassador ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which Gallieni has evolved out of the environs of Paris; but the need passed, and the uniform was laid aside. The two little boys are combed and dressed as only French and American children are combed and dressed, and with a more economical ingenuity than American children. Each has a beautiful purple silk necktie and a beautiful silk handkerchief to match. You may notice that the purple silk is exactly the same purple silk as the lining of their mother's rich mantle hanging over ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... serving as cook of the camp while the boat was being built. Then, loading the craft with barrel-pork, hogs, and corn, they started on their voyage south. At a place called New Salem the flat-boat ran aground; but Lincoln's ingenuity got it off. He rigged up a queer contrivance of his own invention and lifted the boat off and over the obstruction, while all New Salem stood on the bank, first to criticise ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... The greater part of his time on this occasion will be devoted to the study of the wonders that lie under the surface of the earth; of the revelations of extinct animal life made by impressible rocks; and of the metallic wealth which human ingenuity has adapted to the wants and luxuries of mankind. In the fossil remains he will be able to recognise traces of an animal life, of which we have no living specimens; of trees, the like of which never rise from the bosom of the soil at the present time. The lessons that lie ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... this was all nonsense, for with such a clever savage as Ebo and our own ingenuity and tools we could have built another boat—not such a good one as we had arrived in, but quite strong enough to bear us over a calm sea to one or the other of the islands ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... some military support for the opinion that if, on the 18th or at some more suitable time, the fleet had acted in the spirit of Farragut's "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!" and, protected by dummy ships, bumpers, or whatever other devices naval ingenuity could devise, had steamed up to and through the Narrows in column, it would not have suffered much more severely than during the complicated maneuvering below. Of such an attack General von der Goltz, in command of the Turkish army, said that, "Although ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... exclamation. And, strange as it may seem, it was not entirely of chagrin, for the striking originality and ingenuity of the plan immediately appealed to his own peculiar genius for getting ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... quickly at his companion's rather grim face, and was silent for a few moments. He judged that Mr. Feist's inquiries must have concerned a woman, since Griggs was so reticent, and it required no great ingenuity to connect that probability with one or both of the ladies who had been at the dinner where Griggs and Feist ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... the eventful night arrived—a beautiful, still, star-lit night. You may fancy the splendor of the more than royal festivities. What a magnificent levee of gayety, rank, and beauty! What unexampled illuminations!—what fantastic and inexhaustible ingenuity of pyrotechnics! How the gorgeous suites of salons laughed with the brilliant crowd! How the terraces, arched and lined with soft-colored lamps, re-echoed with gay laughter or murmured flatteries! What an atmosphere it was of rosy hues, of music, and ceaseless ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... calling upon the resources, the efficiency and the ingenuity of the American manufacturers of war material of all kinds— airplanes and tanks and guns and ships, and all the hundreds of products that go into this material. The government of the United States itself manufactures few of the implements of war. Private industry will continue to be ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... tillage, the beautiful system of irrigation by aqueduct and canal, the scientific processes by which these "accursed" had caused the wilderness to bloom with cotton, sugar, and every kind of fruit and grain; the untiring industry, exquisite ingenuity, and cultivated taste by which the merchants, manufacturers, and mechanics, guilty of a darker complexion than that of the peninsular Goths, had enriched their native land with splendid fabrics in cloth, paper, leather, silk, tapestry, and by so doing had acquired fortunes for themselves, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... course would be mapped, certain plans formed, a certain objective determined, and before the course could be finished, the plans executed, or the objective point attained the perverse, inexplicable movement of the ice baffled their determination and set at naught their best ingenuity. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... countries where mechanical ingenuity has but few outlets it exhausts itself in the constructions of bits, each more peculiar in form or more torturing in effect than that which has preceded it. I have seen collections of these instruments of torments, and among them some of which Marlowe's curious adjective would have been highly ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... charmingly they showed the moderation that becomes a victor in Valerian's time! They vanquished him by fraud; they kept him a prisoner to advanced old age; they let him die in dishonor; and then when he was dead they stripped off his skin, and with diabolical ingenuity made of a perishable human body an imperishable monument of our shame. Verily, if we follow this envoy's advice, and look to the changes of human affairs, we shall not be moved to clemency, but to anger, when ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... favourite schoolfellows, after they had learned their class lesson and before the class was called up, and with a sheet of paper and book on his knee, invent and tell a story, making rapid little pictures of each Dramatis Persona. The plot was woven and spread out with much ingenuity, and the characters were various and well-discriminated. But two of them were sure to turn up in every tale, the Devil and the Pope: and the working of the drama invariably had the same issue—the utter ruin and ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... you that what you have said to me to-night has changed my plans, my life. I shall not leave Sylvia exposed to your cruel attacks,—attacks which I believe will come in every practical form that your ingenuity can devise. It was my example that brought that girl into the House of Martha, and now that she has vowed to devote her life and her work to its service I shall not desert her. I will not have her pure purpose shaken and weakened, little by little, ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... beyond the Equinoctial Line; for their Chronicle mentions a shipwreck that was made on their coast 1,200 years ago; and that some Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent the rest of their days amongst them; and such was their ingenuity, that from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts that were then among the Romans, and which were known to these shipwrecked men: and by the hints that ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... unpleasant seat, and rendering thanks to the king for the lesson he had given him, firmly resolved to amend his life. All who were present commended the ingenuity of the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... dread truth forced itself on my mind; but I can hardly say that the shock was any the less, when, on getting near, we saw by the pallid countenances, fixed, glassy eyes, and fallen jaws, that all our friends were dead. The savage ingenuity of Indians had propped the bodies in reclining positions, and thrown them into attitudes that had a horrible resemblance to the species of indulgence that I have ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... still conducted by Mr. Grant; several of the witnesses were made to contradict each other, and partially to contradict themselves; but as it was only on points of minor importance, no material change could be effected in the general appearance of things, in spite of all Mr. Grant's ingenuity. He kept Stebbins a long time on the stand; and once or twice this individual seemed a good deal confused in manner and expression; still nothing important could be drawn from him, his account of the papers corresponding sufficiently well with ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... into full play; and, with the variety of fruits and vegetables which the country afforded, he exercised his ingenuity, and produced several dishes of so savoury a nature that the hermit was compelled to open his eyes in amazement, and smack his lips with satisfaction, being quite unable to express his sentiments in words. While thus busily and agreeably employed, they were told by the owner of ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is needless to repeat, was a young person of ideas; that was her strong point, and Dan at least considered her a marvel of ingenuity and invention. Their tiny sitting-room, where Dan slept, was a witness to her taste and originality. There were picturesque shelves which Dan had made in accordance with her directions; there were cheesecloth window-curtains, with rustic boughs in place of poles; there were barrels standing bottom ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... The ingenuity which the beggars sometimes display in asking for alms is often humoristic and satirical. Many a woman on the cold side of thirty is wheedled out of a baiocco by being addressed as Signorina. Many a half-suppressed exclamation of admiration, or a prefix of Bella, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther, perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable. In addition, I had always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... to this his awful imagining; and when he had completed it all, from portico to attic, he had extorted even the critical praise of Horace Walpole, who described it in one of his letters as a 'singular triumph of classical taste and architectural ingenuity.' It still remains unrivalled in its kind, the ugliest great country-seat in the county of Devon—some respectable authorities even say in the whole ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... me only one-third of the yearly sum. I thought the court was in straits;—when both Russia and Spain supported it! I was nothing but a court painter. But when you went to France, I blocked your way with all the ingenuity I could bring." ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... disposal. I took possession of that the day after the murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I went to Scotland Yard, as Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a game—and it required some ingenuity." ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... mindful men at some corner, or at some central point amidst the rides, biding your time, consoling yourself with cigars, and not swearing at the vile perfidious, unfoxlike fox more frequently than you can help. For the fox on such occasions will be abused with all the calumnious epithets which the ingenuity of angry men can devise, because he is exercising that ingenuity the possession of which on his part is the foundation of fox-hunting. There you will remain, nursing your horse, listening to chaff, and hoping. But even when the fox does go, your ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... of her, her father encouraged this, taking all the attention she attracted as compliments to himself; and the gentlemen displayed great ingenuity in devising various excuses for being in frequent attendance at headquarters, in the service of her ladyship. Lieutenant Goring, the best horseman in the —— light dragoons, a squadron of which had been sent hither with the brigade, to fatten their emaciated steeds on the barley and maize ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... The small erection that it had been the Major's pride to erect by means of the men a short distance back and just inside the jungle, and to which he had brought to bear all the ingenuity he possessed, so as to ensure safety—sinking it deep in the earth, protecting it by a chevaux de frise, and then thickly planting the outside with a dense belt of the closest and most rapid-growing of the jungle shrubs—had been ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... wants of our species are the same in all regions of the globe, and so are our passions. These are grand levellers of the proud distinctions, by which some of us exalt ourselves so much above others; and they have never yet been set aside or eradicated by any process which human ingenuity has contrived. Often, indeed, savages excel in the knowledge and dexterous attainment of the means necessary to supply and gratify them. Our judicious Shakespeare seems to have been aware of this, when he causes the brutish Caliban ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... this remarkable theory is sought, with great ingenuity and patience, in the fragmentary accounts of barbarous people, and in an exhaustive study of heroic stories and religious myths. Bachofen argues powerfully for the ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... as the Marquis of Worcester and Captain Savery had very imperfect ideas as to the upshot of their own action. The simplest steam engine now in use in England is probably a marvel of ingenuity as compared with the highest development which appeared possible to these two great men, while our newest and most highly complicated engines would seem to them more like living beings than machines. Many, again, of the steps leading to the present development have been due ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... is no mode which human ingenuity has ever yet devised for determining the hands in which the supreme executive of a nation shall be lodged, which will always avoid doubt and contention. If this power devolves by hereditary descent, no rules can be made so minute and full as that cases will not sometimes ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... word must be said about the hair dressed a l'imperatrice, redolent of the sweetest patchouli, disclosing all the glories of that ingenuous, but perhaps too open brow. A word must be said; but, alas! how inefficacious to do justice to the ingenuity so wonderfully displayed! The hair of the Lady Crinoline was perhaps more lovely than abundant: to produce that glorious effect, that effect which has now symbolized among English lasses the head-dress a l'imperatrice as the one idea of feminine beauty, every hair ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... may leave their apartments for travel summer or winter, knowing that their property is as secure as modern appliances, system and ingenuity can make it. Not so with our isolated dwelling. The cost of providing all these means of protection is too great to make them practicable. The result is that the fear of burglary and fire at all times causes uneasiness, particularly on the part ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... kinds for the hero and his friends, whose pluck and ingenuity in extricating themselves from awkward fixes are always equal to the occasion. It is an excellent story full of honest, manly, patriotic efforts on the part of the hero. A very vivid description of the battle of Trenton is also found In this ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... be really sensible of the disadvantage of having now nothing to say in proposing the toast you all anticipate, if I were not well assured that there is really nothing which needs be said. I have to appeal to you on the old grounds, and no ingenuity of mine could render those grounds of greater weight than they have hitherto successfully ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... and told my mother how I had bought it for cash in open competition with all the world. My mother and my aunt set to work with shears and needles and built me a suit of clothes out of the brown overcoat. It took a lot of ingenuity to make the pieces come out right. The trousers were neither long nor short. They dwindled down and stopped at my calves, half-way above my ankles. What I hated most was that the seams were not in the right places. It was a patchwork, and there were seams down the front of ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... undertaking, her master was informed of her being in the city, and sent constables in pursuit of her. Luckily, her friends were apprized of this in season to give her warning; and her own courage and ingenuity proved adequate to the emergency. She disguised herself in sailor's clothes, and walked boldly to the Philadelphia boat. There she walked up and down the deck, with her arms folded, smoking a cigar, and occasionally passing and repassing the constables who had ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... any sordid holes, that assume that name to cloke the practice of debauchery,) that it is the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, and academy of civility, and free-school of ingenuity. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... herd. As, at the time of his death, he had been standing in a shallow part of the river, it was possible with great trouble to drag the huge carcass out, but it took the strength of ten horses and the ingenuity of as many men to ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... declare, ladies and gentlemen, for myself, that from first to last I have never uttered one syllable that could be twisted by any ingenuity into encouragement by the Boers. No, I have never even expressed ordinary pity for, or sympathy with them, because I did not wish to run the risk of being misunderstood. What I have done, and what I hope I shall continue to do, ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... him?—And yet, good Gods! what a wonderful man! I say nothing of his merit as a Citizen, a Senator, and a General; we must confine our attention to the Orator. Who, then, has displayed more dignity as a panegyrist?—more severity as an accuser?—more ingenuity in the turn of his sentiments?—or more neatness and address in his narratives and explanations? Though he composed above a hundred and fifty orations, (which I have seen and read) they are crowded with all the beauties of language and sentiment. Let us select from these ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... willing to trade fagots for epithets, and the rack for anything that may be said in his sermon. I am willing to trade the instrument of torture with which they could pull the nails from my fingers for anything which the ingenuity of orthodoxy can invent. When I saw that report—although I do not know that I ought to tell it—I felt bad. I knew that man's conscience must be rankling like a snake in his bosom, that he had contributed a dollar to the support of a man as bad as I. I wrote him ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... life of the Proveditore, and the evidence given by him as to the identity of the prisoner, had the result that may be supposed, and the old Uzcoque was put to the torture. But the ingenuity of Venetian tormentors was vainly exhausted upon him; the most unheard of sufferings failed to extort a syllable of confession from his lips. At last, despairing of obtaining the desired information by these means, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... intellectual and moral insanity as a direct result of disease of the intellectual and moral centres. This will be more clearly seen when I recall the fact that moral insanity in its worse form—the suicidal—often exists with such intellectual clearness that there is the greatest ingenuity displayed in carrying out self-destruction. These mind and soul centres are often gravely diseased without impairment of muscle energy: the furious strength of the insane is an ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... to breakfast earlier than expected next morning, we discovered George busy at some more of his loving ingenuity. He half blushed in his shy way, but went on writing in this wise, with chalk, upon a small blackboard: 'Thursday—Thor's-day—Jack the Giant Killer's day'. Then, in one corner of the board, a sun was rising with a merry face and flaming locks, and beneath him was written, 'Phoebus-Apollo'; ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... carriages." Seven years later a Mr. Blinkensop, of Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, constructed another locomotive engine, upon which he obtained a patent in 1811. These and a number of other inventors of steam engines vainly expended great ingenuity in attempting to overcome a purely imaginary difficulty. They believed that the adhesion between the face of the wheel and the surface of the road was so slight that a considerable portion of the propelling power would be lost by the slipping of ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... gained the banks of the Cabul river, a placid flowing stream, and as the neighbourhood of our camp did not offer any features of peculiar interest, I determined to try my luck in fishing; but first I had to tax my ingenuity for implements, as I had neither rod, line, nor net. A willow stick and a bit of string was all I could command; and yet my primitive apparatus was very successful, for the fish also were primitive, affording me ample sport and taking the bait with extraordinary eagerness. My occupation ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... and buried itself among the mowing grass. "Come six, Podder!" I shouted, amid cries of "Keep on running!" "Run it out!" etc., from spectators and scouts alike. And run we did, for the umpire forgot to call "lost ball," and we should have been running still but for the ingenuity of one of our opponents; for, whilst all were busily engaged in searching among the grass, a red-faced yokel stole up unawares, with an innocent expression on his face, raced poor "Podder" down the pitch, produced the ball from his trouser pocket, and knocked ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... of great scientific interest, owing to the ingenuity of its design and construction. The metallic skeleton was built up from aluminium and over this was stretched the fabric of the envelope, care being observed to reduce skin friction, as well as to achieve impermeability. But it was the internal arrangement ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... easily be derived. Some of his plays have suffered severely from the ravages of time, the ignorance of copyists, and the more dangerous officiousness of grammarians. Some passages of the Bacchae, Rhesus, Troades, and the two Iphigenias, despite the ingenuity and erudition of such scholars as Porson, Elmsley, Monk, Burges, and a host of others, must still remain mere matter for guessing. Hermann's Euripides is, as a whole, sadly unworthy the abilities of the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... and can only say I'm sure you couldn't do it, e- ven if you practised night and day, Unless you have a turn that way, And natural ingenuity. ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... the reason, the old man continued, "Sultan Amir bin Noamaun has resolved that no one shall wed his daughter unless he can perform three tasks which he will impose, and these are of so difficult a nature as not to be executed by the labour or ingenuity of man, and many unhappy princes have lost their heads in the attempt; for he puts them to death instantly on failure: be advised, therefore, and give up so fruitless an expedition." The prince, instead of listening to the admonition of the old ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... was surrounded by a few friends. Into this number I was now admitted. Sarsefield and myself made a part of this company. Various topics were discussed with ease and sprightliness. Her societies were composed of both sexes, and seemed to have monopolized all the ingenuity and wit that existed in ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... than common application to adapt remedies to the various irregularities which from time to time grew up in the settlement, and something more than common ingenuity to counteract the artifices of those whose meditations were hourly directed to schemes of evasion ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Let the ingenuity of Gladstonians reconcile, as best it can, the doctrine of 1886 with the doctrine of 1893. To a man of sense who weighs the matter without reference to considerations of party, one thing will soon become apparent: the retention at Westminster of eighty, or indeed of any Irish ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... The Haggadic tradition connects numerous and various sayings with the name of Rabbi Jochanan. The Haggadah was a peculiarly fascinating branch of study. Abounding in brilliant sallies, displays of ingenuity, and wonderful stories, it gave special scope for the cleverness and the rich imagination of the lecturers. By it a Halachah might be illustrated, or a passage of Scripture commented upon in a novel fashion. Without binding himself to ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into that harmless little cube. I would have you observe, besides..." Lupin went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of Maryland and the crystal stopper. His adversary's ingenuity and shrewdness interested him all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... is organised," thought Mr. Prohack, decidedly impressed by the ingenuity of the musical arrangement and by the promptness of the orchestral director in obeying the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... me the very small funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving. The whole amount did not exceed sixty-five dollars, but with this, and a gold watch worth twice as much, I hoped to be able to subsist until my own ingenuity enabled me to provide more liberally for the future. Naturally enough, I scanned the papers closely to discover some account of File's death and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was only too likely to ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... had made up his mind to expect difficulties, and knew how to conquer them, if human ingenuity could do it. He loved the bright young creature, and had resolved within himself that no unreasonable opposition on the part of his former friend should prevent him marrying her, while there was a possibility of conciliating his bride, ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... monotonous here; but there was a world of beauty and caprice in the forms of the seed-pods dried upon their stalks. Most of these pretty little purses were empty. Their treasure went, like the savings of a maiden aunt, when the idle wind got hold of it. There is an almost humorous ingenuity in the pains Nature has taken to secure the propagation of some of the meanest of her plant-children. The most worthless little vagabond seeds have wings or fans to fly with, or self-acting bomb-receptacles that burst and empty their contents (which nobody wants) upon ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Talleyrand, Sieyes, and others. By her skill she kept hidden Napoleon's plans until all was ripe for them. She was in the secret of the 18th Brumaire; "nothing was concealed from her. In every conference at which she was present, her discretion, gentleness, grace, and the ready ingenuity of her delicate and cool intelligence were of great service." During the Directorate she allayed jealousies and appeased the differences between Republicans and Royalists. As wife of the First Consul, she conciliated the emigres. At that time she was ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... of finance and all the branches of unsanctified ingenuity. Even Andy, whose brain rarely ever stopped working, began to make ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... ingenious," she observed drily, as she rose to her feet. "I should not have thought of that. It is a pity that you have not been able to apply your ingenuity better in other ways, too. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford |
