"Mechanic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be sincere. In James we can readily suppose it to have been assumed; for he was a pedant in a different sense from Lord Shaftesbury; not from undervaluing modern poetry, but from caring little or nothing for any poetry, although he wrote about its mechanic rules. Still the royal imprimatur would be influential and serviceable no less when offered hypocritically than in full sincerity. Next let us consider, at the very moment of Shakspeare's death, who were the leaders of the British youth, the principes juventutis, in the two fields, equally ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... 'the Devoy,' the head of one of the most powerful and distinguished of our septs, was a blacksmith, I have often seen a mechanic, named James Dungan, who was said to be a descendant of James Dungan, Earl of Limerick; and 'the Chevers' (Lord Mount Leinster) was the clerk of Mrs. Byrnes, who carried on ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or idiot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but to be a king requires only the animal figure of man—a sort of breathing automaton. This sort of superstition may last a few years more, but it cannot long resist the awakened reason ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... person can know and understand, they will trust him; they will follow where he leads. But behind him has got to be YOU. You've got to be the eyes for—for them all; not to teach the work—we'll have others for that. Any good mechanic will do for that part. But it's the other part of it—the soul of the thing. These men, lots of them, are but little more than boys—big, strong, strapping fellows with the whole of life before them. ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... has passed deeply into the development stage scientifically, and even in this it does not yet really appear what it may be, but it is easy to see how all atmospheric energy becomes really a substance from which every skilled mechanic may ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... thus: a decent mechanic, who lodged hard by, lounging with his pipe near the gate of Musgrove Cottage, offered to converse with old Betty. She gave him a rough answer; but with a touch of ineradicable vanity must ask Peggy if she wanted a sweetheart, because there was a hungry ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... she would have presented him with his nephew! How different a figure did the same prince make in a reign of dissimilar complexion! The philosophic warrior, who could relax himself into the ornament of a refined court, was thought a savage mechanic, when courtiers were only voluptuous wits. Let me transcribe a picture of Prince Rupert, drawn by a man who was far from having the least portion of wit in that age, who was superior to its indelicacy, and who yet was so overborne by its prejudices, that he had the complaisance ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... elaborate a scale, that it represented Troy besieged, with the two hosts, their several leaders, and all other objects in their full proportion.] art, which in those days (like the needlework of Miss Linwood in ours), though no more than a mechanic craft, in some measure realized the effects of a fine art by the perfect skill of its execution. All these modes of luxury, with a policy that had the more merit as it thwarted his own private inclinations, did Hadrian peremptorily abolish; perhaps, amongst ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... least the key to the understanding of each other. The old needs of life, its destinies and fatalities, its sorrows and joys, its exaltations and depressions —these are the same everywhere; and to the manual workers —the peasant, the labourer, the sailor, the mechanic—the world-old trades, pursuits, crafts, and callings with which they are so familiar supply a kind of freemasonry which ensures them even among strangers a kindly welcome and an easy admittance. If you want to travel ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... will concede that a taxidermist should receive at least as much as a skilled mechanic and the experts both in commercial and museum work are sometimes (not ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... government agents, which Maggie and the others knew very well Hunt was not. When Hunt had rented this attic as a studio they had accepted his explanation that he had taken it because it was cheap and he could afford to pay no more. Likewise they had accepted his explanation that he was a mechanic by trade who had roughed it all over the world and was possessed with an itch for painting, that lately he had worked in various garages, that it was his habit to hoard his money till he got a bit ahead and then go off on a painting spree. All ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... their vantage-ground of political influence, they must be not only politically overthrown, but physically humiliated. Their arrogant sense of superiority must be beaten out of them by main force. The feeling with which every Texan and Arkansas bully and assassin regarded a Northern mechanic—a feeling akin to that with which the old Norman robber looked on the sturdy Saxon laborer—must be changed, by showing the bully that his bowie-knife is dangerous only to peaceful, and is imbecile before armed citizens. The Southerner ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... neighbors. He is desirous merely that the boy shall grow up wholesomely and happily, showing such superiority as there may be in him when the fitting time and opportunity present themselves. He will not attempt to make a musician of an unmusical child, nor a mechanic of an artistic child. He will not object to the brilliant and impractical dreams of the young inventor, but will help to make them practicable; and though he may squirm at some of the investigations of the budding scientist, he will ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... night in making straw-hats and willow-baskets, by which means we supplied our family with little articles of food, clothing and luxury, which slaves in the mildest form of the system never get from the master; but after this, I found that my mechanic's pleasure and pride were gone. I thought of nothing but the family disgrace under which we were smarting, and how to ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... for her own; they despaired at once of all lawful defence; and, on Sunday, the day after the Chief Justice's departure, Apia was in consequence startled with strange news. Dynamite bought from the wrecker ship, an electrical machine and a mechanic hired, the prison mined, and a letter despatched to the people of Manono advising them of the fact, and announcing that if any rescue were attempted prison and prisoners should be blown up—such were the voices of rumour; and the design appearing equally feeble, reckless, and wicked, considerable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and nature. At this day, there is a vast increase of knowledge spread over all society, compared with that in the Middle Ages; but is there not a still greater distinction between the highly-educated gentleman and the intelligent mechanic, than there was then between the baron who could not sign his name and the churl at the plow? between the accomplished statesman, versed in all historical lore, and the voter whose politics are formed by his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Robert Louis had now severed the umbilical cord. He was going to live his own life, to earn his own living. He could do but one thing, and that was to write. He may have been a procrastinator in everything else, but as a writer he was a skilled mechanic. And so straightway on that ship he began to work his experiences up into copy. Just what he wrote the world will never know, for although the manuscript was sold to a publisher, yet Barabbas did not give it to the people. There ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... "Yea!" exclaimed the mechanic, whose son had been the innocent cause of the memorable siege to poor Adam's dilapidated fortress, related in the first book of this narrative"—yea; and what did he when there? Did he not devise a horrible engine for the destruction of the poor,—an engine that was to do all the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the wars, Margaret," said he. "So much of the ancient rules and customs of chivalry as can be observed in these mechanic days shall, by us at any rate, be observed. In strict law you ought to have spent a night in prayer and fasting, but your loyal service to Margaret is a good equivalent. To labour is to pray, say the parsons, and, my lad, always remember in your soldiering that a so-minded man ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... every pliable crevice. A Medium came along, tugged at a leg and the obliging little plane lifted it for inspection. For three minutes this kept up, and then the plane became a queen and moved restlessly. Without warning, as if some irresponsible mechanic had turned the primed propellers, the four mighty wings whirred—and four Minims were hurled head over heels a foot away, snapped from their positions. The sound of the wings was almost too exact an imitation of the snarl of a starting plane—the comparison ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... visitor. The visitors,—a half-bumpkin, half country-squire-like man, who has something of a knowing air, and yet looks and listens with a good deal of simplicity and faith, smiling between whiles; a mechanic of the town; several decent-looking girls and women, who eye Ellen herself with more interest than the other figures,—women having much curiosity about such ladies; a gentlemanly sort of person, who looks somewhat ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mechanic, with sleeves rolled up, began to expatiate on "ours." "We haven't got but one—it was made in Savannah by Dr. Langon Cheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It's like Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silk dresses for it. Here'll be a strip of ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... way to Virginia's lodgings, re-entered the station, and journeyed townwards. It was an odd incident, by Monica unperceived, that when she was taking her ticket there stood close by her a man, seemingly a mechanic, who had also stood within hearing when she booked at Herne Hill. This same man, though he had not travelled in the compartment with her, followed her when she alighted at Bayswater. She ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... sent into England. Several of these had taken the children of the native Irish apprentices to them, who being humbled by the forfeiture of upward of three millions by the Revolution, were obliged to stoop to a mechanic industry. Upon the passing of this bill, we were obliged to dismiss thousands of these people from our service. Those who had settled their affairs returned home, and overstocked England with workmen; those whose debts were unsatisfied went to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... endeavor, the natural and physical sciences should have the precedence of history. The present is more important than the past, and those sciences which contribute to our comfort, place within the reach of the laborer and mechanic as common necessaries what would have been the highest luxury to the Roman emperor or to the king of the Middle Ages, contribute to health and the preservation of life, and by the development of railroads make possible such a gathering as this,—these ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... omitted to pack with his clothes, and strolled out, bare-headed, to enrich Dale. He could trust his man absolutely, and was quite sure that the Mercury would then be in the drying stage after a thorough cleaning. Thus far he was justified, but he had not counted on the pride of the born mechanic. Though the car was housed for the night, when he entered the garage the hood was off, and Dale was annoying two brothers of the craft by explaining the superiority of his engine to ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... was in Lincolnshire. It was headed by Dr. Mackrel, prior of Barlings, who was disguised like a mean mechanic, and who bore the name of Captain Cobler. This tumultuary army amounted to above twenty thousand men;[**] but notwithstanding their number, they showed little disposition of proceeding to extremities against the king, and seemed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... exceeding two hundred dollars in value; all spinning-wheels and looms, one sewing machine and other instruments of domestic labor kept for actual use; the necessary provisions and fuel for the use of the family for six months; the proper tools, instruments or books of the debtor, if a farmer, mechanic, surveyor, clergyman, lawyer, physician, teacher or professor; the horse or the team consisting of not more than two horses or mules, or two yoke of cattle, and the wagon or other vehicle with the proper harness or tackle, by the use of which the debtor, if a physician, public ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... of taxation. An American lately wrote: "The real foundation of the discontent which led to the Revolution was the effort of Great Britain, beginning in 1750, to prevent diversity of occupation, to attack the growth of manufactures and the mechanic arts, and the final cause before the attempt to tax without representation was the effort to enforce the navigation laws." When England argued that the hardship of regulation might be greater than the hardship of taxation, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Odyssean story or the King's daughter and the Efreet in the "Second Royal Mendicant's Adventure," could not more easily transform themselves than the French peasant. Husbandman to-day, mechanic on the morrow, at one season he plies the pruning-hook, at another he turns the lathe. This adaptability of the French mind, strange to say, is nowhere seen to greater advantage than in out-of-the-way ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... fools. Well, no doubt, all the world agreed with him, for everybody thought he could teach the farmer. The chemist, the grocer, the baker, the banker, the wine merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, the clerk, the mechanic, the merchant, the editor, the printer, the stockbroker, the colliery owner, the ironmaster, the clergyman, and the Methodist preacher, the very cabmen and railway porters, policemen, and no doubt the crossing-sweepers—to use an expressive Americanism, all the whole "jing-bang"—could ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... appeal to handicraftsmen in the industrial and mechanic arts. It will consist of authoritative statements by experts in every field for the exercise of ingenuity, taste, imagination—the whole sphere of the so-called ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... the interpretation of the impressions must differ according to the character of our present knowledge. In other words, the more important the aspects read into any presentation, the more valuable will be the present experience. Although when the child apperceives a stick as a horse, and the mechanic apperceives it as a lever, each interpretation is valuable within its own sphere, yet there is evidently a marked difference in the ultimate significance of the two interpretations. Education is especially valuable, in fact, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... of a mechanic in relation to a certain piece of work, I called upon one in my neighborhood, then in the employment of a gentleman, and was informed, on stating my object, that as he should be through with his present engagement on the evening of a certain day, he would commence my work on the ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... rushing out from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any herd of "six hundred swine," and convoy of Luebeck or Hamburg merchant goods, that had not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and mechanic fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful? Arbitrary rule, on the part of these noble robber lords! And then much of the crown domains had gone to the chief of them—pawned (and the pawn-ticket lost, so to speak), or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... wakened early and slipped down to the kitchen to help her mother and the little maid of all work who lived down the street and was a member of the Sunday School and an important part of the family. It was Naomi who discovered the young mechanic at the front door. There was not much that Naomi did not see. She announced his presence to Marilyn as she was filling the salt cellars for breakfast. Marilyn looked up startled, and met her mother's eyes full ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... mechanick of this sort is master of the reason of both, and might be of the practice, too, if his industry kept pace with his speculation; which were very commendable, and without which he cannot be said to be a complete naturalist or mechanic. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... only a village then,—the demands of farming life determined the round of days. Every one from childhood fell of necessity into his or her place as one of the workers, out doors and in, and the simplicity of the social organization made the farmer a mechanic as well. There was the blacksmith's shop, where a rudely trained skill supplied the more special needs; but the farmer himself not only used his tools, but mended and to some extent made them; he was carpenter also, and shoemaker, and, in general, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... low artisan.] One who had been a mechanic named Lambertaccio, arrived at almost supreme ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... lowest and meanest of our species are the most strongly addicted to this vice—men who are a scandal to their sex, and women who disgrace human nature; for the basest mechanic is so far from being exempt that he is generally the most guilty of it. It visits ale-houses and gin-shops, and whistles in the empty heads of fidlers, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... because the said term tradesman is understood by several people, and in several places, in a different manner: for example, in the north of Britain, and likewise in Ireland, when you say a tradesman, you are understood to mean a mechanic, such as a smith, a carpenter, a shoemaker, and the like, such as here we call a handicraftsman. In like manner, abroad they call a tradesman such only as carry goods about from town to town, and from market to market, or from house to house, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... good mechanic as well as surgeon, proceeded to invent, and with his own hands in a great measure construct, a kind of litter, which, with a water-bed laid upon it, could be placed in our own carriage for Connie to ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... disrespect, the presence of a single good woman at the polls seems to make the whole crowd of men as respectful and quiet as at the theater or church. For the credit of American men be it said that the presence of one woman or girl at the polls, the wife or daughter of the humblest mechanic, has as good an effect on the crowd as the presence of the grandest dame or the most fashionable belle. The American woman is clearly as much of a queen at the polls, in her own bearing and the deference paid her, as in the drawing-room or ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... were poor people. The house they lived in had formerly belonged to a convent, and it was rented to them for a very small sum, on condition that they would keep up the repairs. Even this Murillo's father found to be a heavy burden. He was a mechanic and ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... outraged creature. If wrong there be, let it lie at his door who wickedly thrust her from it. Spite of her follies, the great, hearty people of England loved, and protected, and pitied her. "God bless you! we will bring your husband back to you," said a mechanic one day, as she told Lady Charlotte Bury with tears streaming down her cheeks. They could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... declares, has been uncertain and unfruitful, and does not advance a step, while the mechanic arts grow daily more perfect; without a firm basis, garrulous, contentious, and lacking in content, it is of no practical value. The seeker after certain knowledge must abandon words for things, and learn the art of forcing nature to answer ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... a fine pace for several miles and then our tractor stopped and wouldn't start up again. Whereupon there came to our assistance a young man named Rinaldo Rinaldi, a skilled and resourceful mechanic, who was driving a tractor in rear of us. He patched up our engine and got us going again. But we kept on breaking down after intervals never very long. Time after time Rinaldo Rinaldi came running ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... position of dogs, fallen in virtue and devoid of all religious observances. He who takes food from a physician takes that which is no better than excrement; the food of a harlot is like urine; that of a skilled mechanic is like blood. If a Brahmana approved by the good, takes the food of one who lives by his learning, he is regarded as taking the food of a Sudra. All good men should forego such food. The food of a person who is censured by all is said to be like a draught from a pool of blood. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... useless art of dressing decaying teeth and of filling holes, know how to pull the stubbornest stump with an unequalled rapidity. There, the office is opened early in the morning and one is not required to wait. Seven o'clock struck at last. He hurried out, and recollecting the name of a mechanic who called himself a dentist and dwelt in the corner of a quay, he rushed through the streets, holding his cheek with his ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... have a tyrant?" demanded Benedetto. "The freedom of the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no liberty save that of making the base-born do his bidding. 'Tis hell to a man of spirit to be contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my heart's desire on the knaves, little would I reck submitting to the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... opportunity of learning apart from the experiences of my travelling companions, who estimated the punishment at seven or fourteen days. A good many of these had gaol experiences, and I am forced to admit that the decent folk on tramp were few in number. But the occasional honest mechanic or skilled workman in search ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... Chace' and 'Johnny Armstrong' were dear to Walton as to Scott, but through a century these old favourites were to be neglected, save by Mr. Pepys and Addison. Indeed, there is no more curious proof of the great unhappy change then coming to make poetry a mechanic art, than the circumstance that Walton is much nearer to us, in his likings, than to the men between 1670 and 1770. Gay was to sing of angling, but in 'the strong lines that are now in fashion.' All this while Piscator has been angling ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... man shall never improve himself, nor arrive at any perfection in anything. He must, therefore, make it his business always to put the architect, the painter, the statuary, every mechanic artisan, upon discourse of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... trifling cost! Do you want an annual contract? Write to DOUDNEYS' by the post. DOUDNEY BROTHERS! DOUDNEY BROTHERS! Not the men that drive the van, Plastered o'er with advertisements, heralding some paltry plan, How, by base mechanic stinting, and by pinching of their backs, Lean attorneys' clerks may manage to retrieve their Income-tax: But the old established business—where the best of clothes are given At the very lowest prices—Fleet Street, Number Ninety-seven. Wouldst ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... intellectual and moral faculties are moulded into Jesuitical forms. He is no longer his own. He is a pliable and obedient, even though it may be a virtuous and brilliant, tool of a spiritual master-mechanic who will use him according to his own purposes, in the interest of ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... Take them and nail a sort of snow shovel together. Never mind if it's a bit rough, it'll be easier than clearing off the whole mass of snow with common spades or brooms. If you don't know how, ask mother. She's as handy as a master mechanic, any day. Then pitch in on our own front steps. Make a path for misery to enter, if need be, and for ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... rest themselves on a secure pedestal. Five hundred years old an oak might measure more at six feet, at eight, or ten feet from the ground; after five hundred years, that is, of steady growth. But if even such a monarch were taken, and by some enormous mechanic power drawn out, and its substance elongated into a tapering spar, it would not be massive enough to form this single beam. Where it starts from the stem of the vessel it is already placed as high above the level of the quay as it is from ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... and carry to them the little that she can spare, and that which she has begged of her wealthier neighbors,—the spirit of that poor seamstress who snatches an hour daily from her exhausting toil to sew for the soldiers,—the spirit of that mechanic, who, having nothing to give, makes boxes in his evening leisure, and sells them for the soldiers,—the spirit of the brooks, that never hesitate between up-hill and down, because "all the rivers run ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Eltham to Hornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position rather above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which he was born and bred; for he was raising himself every year in men's consideration and respect. He was a mechanic by trade, but he had some inventive genius, and a great deal of perseverance, and had devised several valuable improvements in railway machinery. He did not do this for profit, though, as was reasonable, ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... obedience really society event museum penal recess superior feline nausea precedence resource theater frequent negro precise sacrilegious theology mechanic notoriety pretense ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... very long now, and you can accomplish a great deal if you feel disposed to do so. I think it possible I can obtain a situation for your father as carpenter on a plantation in the country, if he will promise to abstain from drinking. I have heard that he was a very good mechanic, and in the country he would not meet with such constant temptation. Do you suppose that he will be willing to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... subjects with young men, turned principally on literary topics, religion, morality, belles-lettres, etc., and to this conversation my mind owed its first bias towards such subjects in which they were all my superiors, I never having attended a college, and being then but a mechanic."[74] According to this account religion was not proscribed, but Professor Traill's assertion is so explicit that probably Watt's recollection errs. It is, however, another sign of the liberal spirit that then animated these Glasgow professors to find them welcoming ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... of Whittington's College," that "When the prisoners are disposed to recreate themselves with walking, they go up into a spacious room, called the Stone Hall; where, when you see them taking a turn together, it would puzzle one to know which is the gentleman, which the mechanic, and which the beggar, for they are all suited in the same garb of squalid poverty, making a spectacle of more pity than executions; only to be out at the elbows is in fashion here, and a great indecorum ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... invention was given to the public, it began to be improved in various ways. Henry Stones, a mechanic of Horwich, near Bolton, substituted metal drawing rollers for Crompton's crude wooden rollers, doubtless copying the idea from Arkwright's ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... the young and the old, the learned doctor and the practical mechanic, for the defense of Freedom—a magnet that drew both Pomeroy and Warren to that since-famous redoubt on the summit of Breed's Hill. They offered their services to Colonel Prescott, and he gladly accepted them, demurring ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... finding a market at the neighbouring town of Manchester; and it was to bring his coal to this market that he resolved to drive a canal from the mine to the river Irwell. With singular good luck he found the means of carrying out his design in a self-taught mechanic, James Brindley. But in Brindley's mind the scheme widened far beyond the plans of the duke. Canals, as he conceived them, were no longer to serve as mere adjuncts to rivers; on the contrary, "rivers were only meant," he said, "to ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... noise. Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden to "insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among us—Peter Wilkins—the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle—the Fortunate Blue Coat Boy—and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper; or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called cat-cradles; or making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the art ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... raise the cloth, when Chodowiecki waved him back. "Do not look at it," said he, quickly; "I dislike to appear as a mechanic before you, as I wish that you should honor only the artist. We poor toilers are badly off, as the old proverb is ever proving true with us, 'Art goes for bread.' We must be mechanics the chief part of our lives, in order to have ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... into the hands of a rich merchant, who, as soon as he bought me, took me to his house, treated me well, and clad me handsomely as a slave. Some days after he asked me if I understood any trade. I answered that I was no mechanic, but a merchant, and that the pirates who sold me had robbed me of all I possessed. "Tell me," replied he, "can you shoot with a bow?" I answered that the bow was one of my exercises in my youth. He ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... fierce bye-and-bye, for they had the police buffaloed, and disturbances got plentyer than the casualties at a butchers' picnic. The strikers got hungry, too, finally, because the principles of unionism is like a rash on your mechanic, skin deep—inside, his gastrics works three shifts a day even if his outsides is idle and ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... with the many visits I am to perform, according to the custom to which I am to conform, in regard of the honour of his Highness and our nation; for he who neglects these ceremonies here is censured for a mechanic or a boor. I intend from hence to go to the Prince of Sweden, to salute him from my Lord Protector, as I am advised that the Prince expects and desires it. From thence I purpose to go to Stockholm, where ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... also known an ex-dragoon officer working as a clerk in an attorney's office at fifteen shillings a week, who lived like a mechanic, and yet spake and stepped like his old self; one listened involuntarily for the clink of the sabre and spur whenever he moved across ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... friend, and I therefore wish to say for him that he is a man of sterling integrity and as a master mechanic and builder not surpassed by any in our city, or any I have known anywhere, as far as I can judge. I hope you will consider me as being really interested for Mr. Sutton and not as writing merely to relieve myself ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... frequently looked into or inquired about, and you can thus secure valuable information as to the directions in which the library most needs strengthening. Thus, in a community largely made up of people connected with manufacturing interests, the inquiries are liable to be much concerned with the mechanic arts; and you would therefore naturally seek to acquire a liberal selection of the best and latest works in technical science, or the useful arts. If you have, on the other hand, very few inquiries, indeed, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Formalists, the extra pious, Who think the mortal husk can save the soul, By trundling with a mere mechanic bias, To church, just like a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... over an' he had brought Blenham with him an' his mechanic, Guy Little; an' there was a couple of new men in the outfit I'd picked up myself that I ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... hand, and incapacitated by ignorance on the other, have ever been the earliest and best friends of progress in any science. Here you find the retired scholar, the thoughtful and independent farmer, the skilful mechanic, the enlightened merchant, the curious traveller, the inquisitive philosopher—all fitted, beyond those of either extreme, for exercising a sound judgment upon such questions, and all more interested in ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... some business to attend to to-night, in which you can help me if you choose. I know you are a good mechanic.' ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... and weep, And lay him down to sleep Where wattle-branches sweep, A style mechanic in; And, reader, that's the way The poets of to-day Spin out their little lay ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... was a clever mechanic, and had invented a machine for making chenille. Sad to say, this invention he used for the purpose of inveigling the girl into his workshop, which was situated on the second floor of an extensive range of warehouses in a yard at Nottingham. He asked her to come ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... thirty white men at that time resident in the island, but many of them were mere vagabonds, who remained there in hopes of leading a lazy and an easy life. For such Tamaahmaah had a great contempt; those only had his esteem and countenance who knew some trade or mechanic art, and were sober ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... his limp ... only slight ... scarcely noticeable, isn't it?... he's a corking mechanic as well as shoemaker ... mighty clever ... now for instance, you wouldn't ever have known, unless I told you, that his left leg is made ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... she's liftin' the hood and pawin' around among the wires and things, with Barry lookin' on puzzled and helpless, I sort of wanders about inspectin' Adelbaran curious. It's some relic, all right, and my guess is that it was assembled by a cross-eyed mechanic from choice pieces he rescued off'm a scrap heap. All of a ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... Labor of body or mind, That hath for its object the good of mankind! The Farmer, who cheerily ploughs the soil, And gathers the fruit of his hopeful toil,— The strong Mechanic, whose manly brow Weareth of labor the healthful glow,— The bold Inventor, beneath whose hands The useful engine completed stands,— The Artist, who, with unrivalled skill, Creations of loveliness forms at will,— The Teacher, ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... owners of thousands of cattle have neither milk nor butter. Fruits and vegetables are unattainable. The mission grapes, olives, and oranges have died out by reason of fourteen years' neglect. The mechanic arts are absent. What shall the harvest of this idle ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... blown, lads: This morning, like the spirit of a youth That means to be of note, begins betimes.— So, so; come, give me that: this way; well said.— Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me: [Kisses her.] This is a soldier's kiss: rebukeable, And worthy shameful check it were, to stand On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee Now like a man of steel.—You that will fight, Follow me close; I'll bring you ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... calculated to throw him on his own resources, sharpen his wits, and render him fertile in expedients. He had been a foundling, and knew no more of his parentage than a young ostrich, that springs from the deserted egg in the sand. He was left, when an infant, at the door of a poor mechanic, in Boston, by the name of Burt, and by him transferred to the almshouse, where he was called after the name of his finder, with the pet name of Barty, given him by his nurse. Here he was kept till he was four or five years old, when ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... booklet entitled "A Brief Narrative of the Invention of Reaping Machines," a large part of which is reproduced in this book. The pamphlets of which the narrative was a republication were from the pen of Edward Stabler, an able man and a mechanic of great skill and ability, a close friend of Mr. Hussey and one familiar with his reaper and with all the facts which he set forth in these articles. Such other facts and information as are published herein were ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... and snow-shoes from the sinews of deer stretched on a frame composed of strips of hard wood. She also felled trees for fuel and lined the walls of the cabin with deer and bear skins; she was the most skilful mechanic of the party, and having fitted runners of hickory to one of the boats she rigged a sail of soft skins sewed together, and once in November, after the river was frozen, and when the wind blew strongly from the northwest, the whole party ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... The people were all at work ginning cotton, and the new mechanic Nero, whom we found at the White place, was putting the engine in order. This engine serves as a moral stimulus to keep the people at work at their hand-gins, for they want to gin all the cotton by hand, and I tell them if they don't ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... most ancient families have become absorbed or overwhelmed by the mighty progress of this new element, this outpouring of wealth as from some unseen source; and in many instances their names only are recognised in these old and rickety mansions, now the habitation of the mechanic ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... rather to Carlisle's surprise, took his business quite seriously. His indolences of the sick-leave period were now sloughed from him. He had returned this time, not merely with his favorite car and mechanic for the afternoon excursions, but accompanied by mysterious "papers" and a man stenographer; and, occupying rooms in the New Arlington Hotel, gave his mornings and even some of his ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... danger, and distributed his troops in the frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the field, would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many regular sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of Chinese engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps of the secret of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of attacking a foreign country with more vigor and success than they had defended their own. The Persian historians will relate the sieges ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Laying down his headpiece, he ran across the room; opened a door into the power house adjoining where the mechanic was dozing over his pipe and called to him to ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... grace of Correggio's Diana, the voluptuous fascination of Titian's Venus, the mundane seductiveness of Veronese's Europa, the golden glory of Tintoretto's Bacchus,—all have evanesced, and in their place are hard mechanic figures, excellently drawn, correctly posed, but with no touch of poetry. Where, indeed, shall we find 'the light that never was on ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... caped cardinals, mitred and crosiered bishops, crowned and sceptred kings, ermined dukes, steel-clad knights, gowned lawyers, square-capped priests, cowled monks, and friars of every degree—nay, the mechanic with his tools, the peasant with his spade, even the beggar within his dish; old men, and children of every age; and women too of all grades—the tower-crowned queen, the beplumed dame, the lofty abbess, the veiled nun, the bourgeoise, the peasant, the beggar;—all were there, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It was his habit to avoid as much as possible sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the Champs Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic, his wife, and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation which yet characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in the craft, and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the trees. Whether in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... always occur at the busiest time. What with mowers, reapers, thrashing machines, chaff-cutters, root-pulpers, and grain-mills run by steam-power or in connection with horse-gears; hop-washers, separators, and other delicately adjusted novelties, the master must of necessity be something of a mechanic himself. I doubt if machinery is really quite the advantage claimed by theorists and reconstructionists at the present day. Even the thrashing machine, universally adopted, presents disadvantages in comparison with the ancient flail, generally regarded as obsolete, though still ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... light His life, no more triumphant, passed once more In underthought before him, while on spread The swift, contagious madness of that fire, And muttered thus, not knowing it, the man, "The mighty flame into itself takes all," Mechanic iteration. Not alone Stood he that hour. The Demon of his House By him once more and closer than of old, Stood, whispering thus, "Thy game is now played out; Henceforth a byword art thou—rich in youth - Self-beggared in old age." And as the wind Of that ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... they had collected an organ man with a monkey; a wandering musician with a harp; a man with a hammer who had been engaged in breaking stones; a Punch and Judy party, consisting of a man, woman, and boy, with their Toby-dog; five christy minstrels in their war paint; a respectable looking mechanic with his wife and three children who were tramping from one place to another in search of work; and a blind beggar; and all these were seated in more or less awkward and constrained attitudes on easy-chairs, covered with satin, velvet, or brocade, about the lawn, with ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... necessary—they are only helps to education. Many great minds have been educated without them. To educate is to learn to think. The way to learn to think is to practice thinking; "Practice makes perfect." The archer practices with his bow; the artist with his brush or chisel; the writer with his pen; the mechanic with his tool; the lawyer with his brief. So the student should practice with his mind—practice thinking, reasoning, investigating, analyzing, comparing, and illustrating. This is the practice our young female minds want. They do not think enough. They do not dig for thought, search for ideas, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... francs in one's pockets, the centuries behind, creation ahead. You do not know what it is to hunger after the power of understanding and the power of expression; to see the world as divine one minute and a mechanic hell the next; to feel the convictions of the vagabond; to grudge each sunbeam that falls unseen by you on some mouldering gate in some neglected city, each face of the living wherein possible life looks ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... showed their bare arms, which were as strong as a blacksmith's. They were two strong, athletic fellows, who showed in all their movements that elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise and which is so different to the deformity with which monotonous heavy work stamps the mechanic. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... which yours possessed. How sincerely glad should I be to pay to that young nobleman's memory the debt I owed to his friendship, whose early death deprived your family of as much wit and honour as he left behind him in any branch of it. But as to my father, I could assure you, my lord, that he was no mechanic (neither a hatter, nor, which might please your lordship yet better, a cobbler), but, in truth, of a very tolerable family, and my mother of an ancient one, as well born and educated as that lady whom your lordship made use of to educate your own children, whose ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of the tall old man was eminently aristocratic, yet his birthplace was the house of a plain though prosperous mechanic. He was born at Erfurt, in 1792. When very young his father, a man unusually sensible and well-informed for his station in life, entrusted him with the education of a younger brother, the one who, as I have mentioned, afterwards ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sitting in the back part of old Kumme's bicycle-shop, filling his pipe from the tobacco-pouch of a personal friend of the Kaiser. He had called this personal friend of the Kaiser a fool and a jackass, informing him that a real mechanic could put a ball-bearing together while he, the personal friend of the Kaiser, was spitting on his hands. Could ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... father was petitioned to lay one out at the mouth of Ryerse Creek, and was at last prevailed upon to do so, and called it Clarence. The first applicant for a lot was a Mr. Corklin, a very good blacksmith, a mechanic that was very much wanted in the settlement. He was a very intelligent young man for his class, and a great favourite with everyone, although he had one fault, that of indulging in strong drinks occasionally. He bargained for a lot, and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... hatchet, a knife, a file, and an awl obtained from the stores of the Hudson's Bay Company. In the use of these tools they were so dexterous that everything they manufactured was done with a neatness which could not be excelled by the most expert mechanic. These northern canoes were flat-bottomed, with straight, upright sides, and sharp prow and peak. The stern part of the canoe was wider than the rest in order to receive the baggage. The average length of the canoe would ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... would come to that if you did not look sharp," answered Ned. "Take my advice now. A boy like you better begin with a trade and work up to be boss mechanic; then when you are rich, buy a library and turn scholar. There's a swell carpenter's school just started down at the Institute, box and tools included in the tuition, so you'll have some property at the end of the term, if ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... great deal of their vigor, and who showed in all their movements that elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise, and which is so different to the awkwardness with which the same continual work stamps the mechanic. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... fate of a poor man's family was a serious subject: such was the hopeless condition of a useful mechanic ready for work even in the desolate forests skirting the haunts of the savage. So fares it with the DISJECTA MEMBRA of towns and villages, when such arrangements are left to the people themselves in ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... said the artist to himself. "Who would have looked for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!" ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that in order to understand the character and aims of the mob he must appear to be one of them, and he decided that he could carry off the disguise of a young city mechanic better ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... of the means of production consent to their being used. The worker who does not own the things necessary to produce wealth must work upon the terms imposed by the other fellow in most cases. The coal miner, not owning the coal mine, must agree to work for wages. So must the mechanic in the ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... curiously at them from the row of hangars. The mechanic, starting back on foot, the four people getting out of the car, the big ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... and at peace with all the world. Their thoughts—if they have any, and doubtless they have, a good many of them—are those of the most tranquil and placid nature. Perhaps they are edifying each other with reflections on the great advantages of the mechanic arts, and the art of making earthen ware in particular. The old cow is a genuine philosopher. She makes the best of every thing. Seldom, very seldom, does she allow herself to get excited. As for being angry, she makes such a bungling piece of work of it, whenever she does indulge in a little peevishness, ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... reach Professor Lesley's house. Having said this much, the way is now open to refer to him again, in Boston at school. He was generously assisted through his education and trade, and was prepared to commence life at his majority, an intelligent mechanic, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... worked on that windlass. Least of all things was I a mechanic, and in that time I accomplished what an ordinary machinist would have done in as many hours. I had to learn my tools to begin with, and every simple mechanical principle which such a man would have at his finger ends I had likewise to learn. And ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... mechanic, of Quaker origin, born in the year Seventeen Hundred Thirty-seven. He was the author of four books that have influenced mankind profoundly. These books are, "Common Sense," "The Age of Reason," "The Crisis," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... absence in Germany his works had been left under the general charge of Samuel Block. This old man was not a scientific person; he was not a skilled mechanic; in fact, he had been in early life a shoemaker. But when Roland Clewe, some five years before, had put up his works near the little village of Sardis, he had sent for Block, whom he had known all his life and who was at that time the tenant of a small farm, built a cottage for him and his wife, ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... TOUPINET, a Parisian mechanic, at the time of the Restoration, being married and father of a family, he stole his wife's savings, the fruit of arduous labor; he was imprisoned, about 1828, probably for debts. [The Commission ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... boy who can build a good ship is not to be laughed at by any mechanic or architect, no matter how tall or how ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... was collected and collecting every minute, before the bank at Norton Bury. It included all classes, from the stout farmer's wife or market-woman, to the pale, frightened lady of "limited income," who had never been in such a throng before; from the aproned mechanic to the gentleman who sat in his carriage at the street corner, confident that whatever poor chance there was, his would ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the Creator' and the 'purposive contrivances of His Creation' especially in this matter. But on more mature consideration it will be observed that the Creator, according to this conception, does after all but play the part of an ingenious mechanic or of a skillful watchmaker; just, indeed, as all these cherished teleological conceptions of the Creator and His Creation are based on childish anthropomorphism.... But it is exactly on this point that the history of evolution proves most ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... same strain. He was the type of the Belleville agitator, a lazy, dissipated mechanic, perverting his fellow workmen, constantly spouting the ill-digested odds and ends of political harangues that he had heard, belching forth in the same breath the loftiest sentiments and the most asinine ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... An intelligent man has an advantage over one who is ignorant, whether he is a farmer, or mechanic, or merchant, and is surer of success in his occupation. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... morning. Seventy miles from Delhi to Catskill—a good day's journey! It was full, and our landlord put on an extra, giving me a seat beside the driver, and filling the inside with men. Said driver was a carpenter, and an excellent specimen of an American mechanic—intelligent and self-respecting. This is a great cattle and dairy region, and we passed several hundred lambs on their way to the New York market. The driver pitied the poor creatures; and, when passing through a drove, endeavored ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
