"Motive power" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the stoutest oak planking, and with timbers upwards of a foot in thickness. All were bolted together with iron pins "as thick as a man's thumb." Forecastle and poop were alike lofty, with a lower waist for the use of sweeps if needful. But this was only exceptional, sails being the usual motive power. And these were constructed chiefly with a view to strength. Instead of canvas, they were formed of untanned hides. And instead of hempen cables the Veneti were so far ahead of their time as to use iron ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... transfer these articles from the hulk to the shore a raft would be necessary; and a raft would also be required to eventually convey those goods round to the islet. The latter transfer would involve the expenditure of an immense amount of labour and time unless the wind or some other motive power could be pressed into their service; and Gaunt had already learned during the course of his professional experience that when any important work had to be performed it was better and more economical in every way to provide efficient "plant" in the first instance. Now the construction of the ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... will have become there more abundant and cheap. In general, we must regard the opening of a profitable avenue for trade as we should the invention of a new machine, the discovery of a better electrical transmitter, or the utilizing of a cheaper motive power. It gives us more goods as the fruit of a given expenditure of labor and capital and affords a profit which, as we shall see, comes first to entrepreneurs and later to laborers and capitalists within the pale. Ultimately, those living beyond the pale ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... sails, or turning one side of the deck into a rope-walk, where they manufacture a clumsy sort of twine, called spun-yarn. This is spun with a winch; and many an hour the Lancashire boy had to play the part of an engine, and contribute the motive power. For material, they use odds and ends of old rigging called "junk," the yarns of which are picked to pieces, and then twisted into new combinations, something as most books are manufactured. This "junk" is bought at the junk shops along the wharves; outlandish ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... on board. To work the jangada along the windings of the river and between the hundreds of islands and islets which lay in its course required fully as many as were taken, for if the current furnished the motive power, it had nothing to do with the steering, and the hundred and sixty arms were no more than were necessary to work the long boathooks by which the giant raft was to be ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... with propriety—in her auxiliary work to the church she can become a mighty power. Woman's Missionary Societies, Christian Endeavor Societies, Sabbath School work, etc., afford a broad field of labor for our educated women. Her activity in all things pertaining to racial advancement will be the motive power in establishing firmly and intelligently an enlightened racial existence. Thirdly: The educated Negro woman must take her stand among the best and most enlightened women of all races; and in so doing she must seek to be herself. Imitate ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the motive power of the Ark was developed, and it began to obey its helm. From the shelter of a "captain's bridge," constructed at the forward end of the huge levium dome that covered the vessel, Cosmo Versal, with Captain Arms, a liberally bewhiskered, veteran navigator in whose skill he confided, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... wheels at court. Barkilphedro became the motive power. Have you remarked, in certain mechanisms, the smallness ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... sore, he got a forked stick and used that instead; then he got a larger one and used both hands; then a still larger one, and used oxen as the motive power; and then he fitted handles to it, and other parts till he finally produced a plough. But the principle has not been changed, and the gang-plough is but a multifold forefinger. It is great fun to loose the tether of the mind and let it go racing along, in and out, till it runs to earth the original ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... in compliment of mankind. Now this same marvelous creature, man, has a critical spirit. He is endued with a quality of progression. The motive power in this progression is dissatisfaction. Let us listen to the sages when they drop eulogy and become out ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... moderate degree of wisdom, will carry a man further than any amount of intellect without it. Energy makes the man of practical ability. It gives him VIS, force, MOMENTUM. It is the active motive power of character; and if combined with sagacity and self-possession, will enable a man to employ his powers to the best advantage in all the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... nor was it until a wheel of thirty tons weight for a pair of engines of 100-horse power each was erected and set to work, that their prognostications of failure entirely ceased. From that time the principles introduced by Mr. Fairbairn have been adopted wherever steam is employed as a motive power in mills. ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... even one might do, as Josh eats so little; how nice it would be. Jack, don't you suppose, now, you might creep up behind that island yonder, drop ashore, since the law forbids one to shoot ducks from a craft driven by sails or any motive power except a fellow's muscles, and get a shot into the lovely little bunch that ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... I am not quite such a fool as I look, and that I have to be fished for with a rod and line for a good long while before I am caught, I will proceed to explain why I specially wished to make your brother look a fool. That my motive power is hate, I do not attempt to conceal. I have felt that before dying (and I am dying, however much fatter I may appear to you), I must absolutely make a fool of, at least, one of that class of men which has dogged me all my life, which I hate so cordially, and which is so prominently ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... traveling carriage and down to the falling block, is taken along the jib over a sliding pulley which leads it on to the grooved barrel, 3 ft. 9 in. in diameter. In front of the barrel is placed an automatic winder which insures a proper coiling of the chain in the grooves. The motive power is derived from two cylinders 10 in. in diameter and 16 in. stroke, one being bolted to each side frame; these cylinders, which are provided with link motion and reversing gear, drive a steel crank shaft 23/4 in. in diameter; on this shaft is a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... that, therefore, he cannot go to the country, where no one can give him such wages,—he is, by virtue of his very occupation, unfitted for serving the people. He knows how to calculate the highest mathematical arch of a bridge, how to calculate the force and transfer of the motive power, and so on; but he is confounded by the simplest questions of a peasant: how to improve a plough or a cart, or how to make irrigating canals. All this in the conditions of life in which the laboring man finds himself. Of this, he neither ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... very well supply the enthusiasm, but the task of legislation is one which demands the cool, solid judgment of the layman. He insists upon this, for example, in noticing Professor Seeley's description of the 'Enthusiasm of Humanity' in 'Ecce Homo.' Such a spirit, he urges, may supply the motive power, but the essence of the legislative power is to restrict and constrain, and that is the work not of the enthusiast, but of the man of business. During this period he seems to have had some hopes that his principles might be applied. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... thus afflicted is greatly embarrassed and mortified at his paralytic condition. That buoyancy of spirit is gone; the snap, vim and vigor that once held sway has departed—and why? Because that great motive power (amativeness) that gives the push and go-aheaditiveness is checked, or rather, ceases ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... and its remedy emigration is found in preventive checks to increase. These sometimes take the form of restricted or late marriages, as Malthus found to be the case in Norway and Switzerland in 1799,[1342] before the introduction of steam or electric motive power had stimulated the industries of these countries or facilitated emigration thence. The same end is achieved by the widespread religious celibacy which sometimes characterizes mountain communities. In the barren Auvergne Plateau of France, the number of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... quantities available, the fuel problem would cease to have any significance. But of course liquid air is not indefinitely available, and exactly here comes the difficulty with the calculations of many enthusiasts who hail liquefied gas as the motive power of the near future. For of course in liquefying the air power has been applied, for the moment wasted, and unless we can get out of the liquid more energy than we have applied to it, there is no economy of power in the transaction. Now the simplest study ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... the stern of the boat, paddle in hand. As they expected to drift with the current, always swift in these deep Florida streams, there was no need of additional motive power; though Tony had also picked up another paddle, as ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... is not sufficient motive power of passionate thought, no typographical aids will make anything of this sort of verse but metrical nonsense—which it nearly always is—even in Cowley, whose brilliant wit and ingenuity are strangely out of harmony with ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... some time—unflinching valour being opposed to desperate courage; and while a burning sense of injury, with a resolve to conquer or die, was the motive power, no doubt, on one side, on the other there was the high sense of duty to Queen and country, and the pride ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Thy Glory!" Shall we pray it, meaning it now, to the very uttermost? The uttermost may hold hard things, but, easy or hard, there is no other way to reach the place where our lives can receive an impetus which will make them tell for eternity. The motive power is the love of Christ. Not our love for Him only, but His very love itself. It was the mighty, resistless flow of that glorious love that made the first missionary pour himself forth on the sacrifice and service. And the joy of it rings through triumphantly, ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... contract, the State furnishes the shop to the contractor rent free, also the motive power, shafting and ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... important change, however, arose from scientific and mechanical discoveries—the application of heat to the production of motive power. As long as water, which is a non-exhaustive source of motion, was used, the people were scattered over the land; or if segregation took place, it was in the neighborhood of running streams. The application of steam to the propulsion of machinery, and the discovery of engines ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... him to see the prosperity of His chosen, that he might rejoice in the gladness of the nation, and glory with His inheritance. He had lived, trusting in God's bare promise, and, as he lived, he died. The Epistle to the Hebrews lays hold of the true motive power in the incident, when it points to Joseph's dying 'commandment concerning his bones' as a noble ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... receiver against his ear. His faith in Mr. Keen was naturally boundless; he believed that whatever the Tracer attempted could not result in failure. He desired nothing in the world so ardently as to see Kerns safely married. His own happiness may have been the motive power which had set him in action in behalf of his friend—that and a certain indefinable desire to practice a species of heavenly revenge, of grateful retaliation upon the prime mover and collaborateur, if not the sole author, of ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... modern "spiritus," in its valve-directed inspiration, has with that more ancient spiritus, or warm breath, which people used to think they might be "born of." Whether, in fine, there be any such thing as an entirely human Art, with spiritual motive power, and signal as of human voice, distinct inherently from this mechanical Art, with its mechanical motive force, and signal of vulture voice. For after all, this shrieking thing, whatever the fine make of it may be, can but pull or push, and do oxen's work in an impetuous ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... to the true comprehension of the motive power behind the war to remember what this "news from the South" was. It was not the news of the death of Uncle Tom or of the hanging of John Brown. It had not the remotest connection with Slavery. It was an insult offered to the flag. In the ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... this was still left to him. He, Orlando Brotherson, despair while his great work lay unfinished! That would be to lay stress on the inevitable pains and fears of commonplace humanity. He was not of that ilk. Intellect was his god; ambition his motive power. What would this casual blight upon his supreme contentment be to him, when with the wings of his air-car spread, he should spurn the earth and soar into the heaven of fame simultaneously with ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... of the parable are found at the beginning and the end. It was spoken in order to show that a man should set no limit to the forgiveness of injuries; and in order to show this, the parable goes into the deep things of God. It shows that the motive power which can produce in man an unlimited forgiveness of his brother, is God's mercy forgiving himself. At the close it lays down the law, that the act or habit of extending forgiveness to a brother, is a necessary effect of receiving forgiveness from God. If you get pardon from ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... drawn his grand interest from distinctions in which God and Nature have had no hand. There may be romance, fancy, imagination, sentiment, and even instruction in such compositions as these, but there is no poetry. They have not in them the immortal life and the motive power of truth. We have only to carry distinctions thus attempted to be glorified to their logical results to land in the slavery of the masses to the over-mastering few. Now there never was, and there never can be, any poetry in slavery. Since time ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... great many hours of work and the exercise of no small amount of patience before it could be pronounced ready for use. It was said to be a "torpedo-boat destroyer," and was constructed out of the hull of an old tin boat. Her engines had once formed the motive power of a clockwork locomotive, but they had now been adapted to marine requirements, and made to turn a ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... Upper Canada, and to confer the appointment upon the best man within his reach. How ignominously he failed to carry out his wishes in this particular is known to every student of Upper Canadian history; but what is not known, either to students of history or anyone else, is—What was the motive power which directed his choice? By what whimsical combination of circumstances it came about that the appointment was finally offered to, and accepted by, one of the most unlikely men in the three kingdoms, is one of those official riddles which appear to defy solution. The fact remains, that ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... about the size of the Seine. On the other hand, the numerous falls and rapids on even the smallest streams render their ascent in boats extremely difficult and often impossible. But lakes and canals are the natural highways of the country; rivers are only utilized as a motive power for electricity, manufactories, and for conveying millions of logs of timber yearly from the inland forests to the sea. A curious fact is that, although many parts of the interior are far below the level of the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... gas is continually being adopted for fresh purposes; and we can confidently look forward to an almost unlimited field in the rapid and ever increasing use of gas as a fuel and for cooking purposes, as well as for motive power. The new and really excellent gas engines now being brought into the market will, no doubt, create a healthy rivalry, and tend to cheapen these useful machines, and so bring them within the reach of many persons ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... im-portune, opportunity, &c.), are of deep and intricate significance; their various senses of bringing, abstracting, and sustaining being all centralized by the wheel (which bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune,—"Volve sua spera, e beata si gode:" the motive power of this wheel distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas with her iron nails; or [Greek: ananke], with her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, fixed at the centre. Portus and porta, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... first ever used here for practical purposes was built in England and brought to New York city in 1829, and in August of that year made a trial trip on the rails of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. The experiment was a failure; and for several years horses were the only motive power in use on the railroads. In 1830, however, the South Carolina Railroad having finished six miles of its road, had a locomotive built in New York city, and in January, 1831, placed it on the tracks at Charleston. Another followed ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... much in the same groove," said Barrington, "but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the gun-boats were much smaller than those just mentioned, trusting mainly to their sweeps for motive power, and each relying for offence on one long pivot gun, a 12- or 18-pounder. In the Chesapeake there was a quite a large number of these small gallies, with a few of the larger kind, and here it was thought that by acting together in flotillas the gun-boats might in ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... efficiency and discipline with the iron bound box and crew of "horse marines" which I had just left. But it was in no spirit of depreciation of the gallantry of my comrades, for I was quite sure that they would stand to their guns. The wretched "bowl of Gotham" which had no efficient motive power, and which could not even be got under way, when anchored, without slipping the chain cable, caused the misgivings. It is no disparagement to the prowess of the U. S. fleet which passed the forts, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... William and I raised that summer a quantity of nice watermelons, the seeds having been brought from Springfield. In the fall we loaded up two wagons with them and with oxen as the motive power started one afternoon for St. Anthony. We had to make our way down towards Fort Snelling until we came within two miles of the fort. Then we turned towards our destination. It was a long and tedious trip. We camped ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... so still. She was sure of his sympathy, sure of his devotion, and she respected him as sincerely as she trusted him. In fact, had there been any outlet for her superfluous mental energy, any satisfactory purpose to which the motive power of it might have been applied, she would have made Mr. Kilroy an excellent wife. She was not in love with him, but she probably liked him all the better on that account, for she must have been disappointed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... there being forty or more rivers and streams of importance, some of them being navigable for a distance of thirty-five miles from their mouths for deep-draught ships, others forming means of irrigation and motive power throughout the region, whilst numerous lakes and lagoons exist. Among the navigable rivers are those of Coatzacoalcos, San Juan, Tonto, Papaloapam, Tuxpam, Casones. The scenery is extremely picturesque ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... factory itself which was involved. The scheme was carefully gone into by the owner, his son, and their assistants together, and it was decided to try it. It was entirely successful; LESS than half the motive power now sufficed. ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... position of Orthodoxy is, that man, in the second or regenerate state, is a new creature. It asserts the change to be entire and radical, and the difference immense. Not only the whole direction of the life is changed, but the motive power is different, and the spirit different. Instead of ambition, there is content; in the place of sensitive vanity, there comes humility; instead of anxiety, trust in God. The burden of sin is taken away; the sense of our unworthiness no longer torments ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Bolinas was, we rose and went out for a view of the town. It was beautifully situated on a gentle rise which swelled up from the water's edge and fell rapidly off in the rear of the town into a deep ravine, where a brawling mountain stream supplied a little flouring-mill with motive power. Beyond the ravine were small fields of grain, beans and lentils on the rolling slopes, and back of these rose the dark, dense vegetation of low hills, while over all were the rough and ragged ridges of mountains ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... is, purely and simply, a trivial perfume without special efficacy of any kind; while the Double Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm are two operative compounds, of a motive power which acts without risk upon the internal energies and seconds them. Their perfumes (essentially balsamic, and of a stimulating character which admirably revives the heart and brain) awake ideas and vivify them; they are as wonderful ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... used to occur to me, when with Mr. Rhodes, how desirable it would be to induce our sons and young men in general to imitate some of the characteristics which were the motive power of his life, and therefore of his success. I noticed especially the wonderful power of concentration of thought he possessed, and which he applied to any subject, no matter how trivial. The variety and scope of his many projects did not lessen his interest in any one of them. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Sammy Steele used as motive power in his bark mill a fine white mare and an iron grey mule. When Alfred could not get the use of the white mare he rode or drove the mule. Alfred's parents and others continually cautioned him ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... call is to avoid debt or to avoid gathering, we will look up for new motive power into our Master's face. Him we love; Him we long to commend; and to Him we belong with all we have. In His Name, and for His sake, we will ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... and Yard.—The necessities for the Harrison improvements are two-fold: First, as a place to change motive power from steam to electric, and vice versa; second, as a transfer for passengers from trains destined to the new Station at Seventh Avenue and 33d Street, New York City, to steam or rapid transit trains destined to the present Jersey City ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • E. B. Temple
... is its immediate act, as it were, elicited by it, namely, "to wish"; the other is an act of the will commanded by it, and put into execution by means of some other power, such as "to walk" and "to speak," which are commanded by the will to be executed by means of the motive power. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... nature, and it is unprofitable, on the other, to speculate on what may be accomplished by the discovery of now unknown and unimagined natural forces, or even by the invention of new arts and new processes. But since we have seen aerostation, the motive power of elastic vapors, the wonders of modern telegraphy, the destructive explosiveness of gunpowder, of nitro-glycerine, and even of a substance so harmless, unresisting, and inert as cotton, there is little in the way of mechanical achievement which seems hopelessly ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... to win money and its power. Mind you, I wouldn't call that a high motive, but in a young man it's a kind of a mainspring that sets him a-going and keeps the works busy until he can get better motive power. In ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... fully acquainted with its geography. He is also a thorough artist, and spends a considerable portion of his time in painting,—though he is too modest to exhibit. The last time we visited his beautiful home at Hammerfield, he was busy polishing glasses for one of his new telescopes,—the motive power being a windmill erected on ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... these would-be fugitives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was the same want of motive power ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... taken place in naval vessels and naval warfare since the introduction of steam as a motive power for ships of war demands either a corresponding change in some of our existing navy yards or the establishment of new ones for the construction and necessary repair of modern naval vessels. No inconsiderable embarrassment, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... severe winters, your soil not so favorable for agriculture, in a degree kept you a manufacturing and a commercial people. Even after the cause had passed away—after railroads had been built—after the steam-engine had become a motive power for a large part of manufacturing machinery, the natural causes from which your people obtained a manufacturing ascendancy and ours became chiefly agriculturists continued to act in a considerable measure to preserve that relation. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... are not metamorphoses of sensation. It causes them, puts them in play. In order to put them in play a motive power is necessary, for matter of itself cannot produce movement.' And I found that in your Voltaire," Pecuchet added, making a ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... all stages of their growth are creatures of the warmth; the heat is the motive power that makes them go; when this fails, they are still. The katydids rasp away in the fall as long as there is warmth enough to keep them going; as the heat fails, they fail, till from the emphatic "Katy did it" of August they dwindle to a hoarse, dying, "Kate, Kate," in October. Think ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... manifestation without any special occult knowledge; the weakened links between the physical and the higher phases of the soul render the temporary passing-out comparatively easy, and the strong desire of the dying person furnishes the motive power necessary. Such visits, however, are often found to be merely the strongly charged thought of the dying person, along the lines of telepathy, as I have previously explained to you. But in many cases there can be no doubt that the phenomenon ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... up in the vessel for trial purposes it had to steam round and about Yokohama Harbour, to the great danger of the foreign warships and merchant steamers there, until the steam was in due course exhausted and the machinery automatically stopped through the lack of any motive power to drive it, as the Japanese engineer in charge did not know how to shut off steam. The Stonewall Jackson, I may observe, did not take part in the now almost forgotten battle of Hakodate, which took place at the time of the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... faucet at once and resist the inclination, when, in a few minutes, the desire will have passed away, then turn on the faucet again. Be sure to allow the full weight of the body to rest on the "Cascade," and have no fear. It is the weight of the body itself that furnishes the motive power and to ease up ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... however, I have little hope of gaining much work by this gain of time. My mental disharmony is indescribable; sometimes I stare at my paper for days together, without remembrance or thought or liking for my work. Where is that liking to spring from? All the motive power which, for a time, I derived from my dreary solitude is gradually losing its force. When I commenced and quickly finished the "Rhinegold," I was still full of the intercourse with you and yours. For the ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... at the bottom of his heart a sympathy with the rebel who chafes against the institutions of society, whether religious, political, social or economic, is well on the road to the other camp. But the dynamic force of Liberty, that great motive power of progress, though a good servant, may be a bad master; and the perennial problem of society is to harmonise its aims with those of the ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... pebbles with which the Madeira streets are paved, with scarcely a sound, and as smoothly as though they ran on ice. The chariot, as Arthur always called it afterwards, was built of beautiful woods, and lined and curtained throughout with satin, whilst the motive power was supplied by two splendidly harnessed white oxen. Two native servants, handsome young fellows, dressed in a kind of white uniform, accompanied the sledge, and saluted Arthur on his ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... returned Heliobas, composedly. "'Physical workings' of any kind are impossible unless the motive power of physical life be in action. You, regarded as a HUMAN creature merely, had during seven hours practically CEASED TO BE,—the vital principle no longer existed in your body, having taken its departure together with its inseparable companion, the Soul. When it returned, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... in him much of this mother-quality. Thoreau, you remember, said that genius is essentially feminine; if he had teachers in mind his remark was certainly true. The men of much motive power are not the best teachers—the arbitrary and imperative type that would bend all minds to match its own may build bridges, tunnel mountains, discover continents and capture cities, but it can not teach. In the presence ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... step, rate, pace, tread, stride, gait, port, footfall, cadence, carriage, velocity, angular velocity; clip, progress, locomotion; journey &c 266; voyage &c 267; transit &c 270. restlessness &c (changeableness) 149; mobility; movableness, motive power; laws of motion; mobilization. V. be in motion &c adj.; move, go, hie, gang, budge, stir, pass, flit; hover about, hover round, hover about; shift, slide, glide; roll, roll on; flow, stream, run, drift, sweep along; wander &c (deviate) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... country in which horses constitute the means of communication, the motive power for the farm and the most easily marketable form of property, the stealing of horses was the commonest sort of crime; and where the population was so sparse and unorganized, and unprovided with means of sending ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... machine which has planes, and is heavier than air. Usually a flying structure which is propelled by some motive power. ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... "Drew, I'm not going to take the fortune unless—I'm fit to handle it. I've been a tramp long enough to know that I can keep on being a tramp, but I'm going to make one more almighty try before I succumb. I may be all wrong, but lately I've thought the—the motive power has—come to me." A strange, uplifting dignity seemed to fall upon Filmer. Drew tried to speak; to say the right thing, but he merely smiled feebly and ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... nature to be devoid of jealousy; and wise enough to understand that restless activity was the law of his ally's being. Upon those conditions only was it possible for a cooler, more temperate, and, on some subjects, better instructed politician to steer the tremendous motive power which Mr. Chamberlain's personal force afforded. What was lost to the world when the crippling of Sir Charles disjointed that alliance can never be reckoned. Not only the alliance, but the personal intimacy, was broken when their political ways sundered ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... of course, no more knowing that they swept their spheres at one particular distance from each other, than they know what are the several angles of the hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic plates; the motive power of the process of natural selection having been the construction of cells of due strength and of the proper size and shape for the larvae, this being effected with the greatest possible economy of labour and wax; that individual ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... attached in the most simple manner—by lashing a cross-piece of wood to their horns which has already been made fast to the tongue. The animals have neither yoke nor harness, and the forward push of the head is the motive power by which the carreta is propelled. Once in motion, the noise of the wooden axle is such as to defy description. The cries of a whole family, with children of all sizes, in bitter agony, can alone represent the concert of terrible sounds; and we must go ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... time, as his senses thrilled to the deep touch of beauty, he asked himself if out of these floating and fugitive vibrations he might not build something concrete and stable, if even such dull common cares as now oppressed him might not become the motive power of creation. If he could only, on the spot, do something with all the accumulated spoils of the last months—something that should both put money into his pocket and harmony into the rich confusion of his spirit! "I'll write—I'll write: that must be what the whole thing means," ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... were greedily read by us. We kept bees, white mice, and other living things clandestinely in our desks; and the mechanical arts were a good deal cultivated, in the shape of coach-building, and making pumps and boats, the motive power of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... teaching. But His commandment proposed a new object of love, it set forth a new measure of love, so greatly different from all that had preceded it as to become almost a new kind of love, and it suggested and supplied a new motive power for love. This commandment 'could give life' and fulfil itself. Therefore it comes to us as a 'new commandment'—even to us—and, unlike the words which preceded it, which we were considering in former sermons, it is wholly and freshly applicable to-day as in the ages that are passed. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... salvation are like men on a treadmill, going round, and round, and round; toiling, and toiling, and toiling; but nothing comes of it all. There is no progress, and there cannot be until you have the motive power within, till the breath of life comes from God, which can alone give you power ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody
... subject of aerial navigation had in the United States one of its periodical revivals. Mr. Cooper, believing that a motive power developed from materials of small weight was essential to the solution of the problem, resolved to employ the explosive force of chloride of nitrogen,—one of the most dangerous compounds known to chemists. The result of his ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... minor, but as a self-moving power, it is not possible to avoid the characteristic except only in the degree by which the inspiring nature happens to be feeble. The exorbitations that differentiate them may be of narrow compass, but only where the motive power was originally weak. And agreeably to this remark it may be asserted that in all literature properly so-called genius, is always manifested, and talent generally; but in the literature of knowledge it may be doubted very seriously whether ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... of the Forces gives us a clear explanation of the fact that animals can obtain their food only through the medium of the vegetable kingdom. Plants are stationary mechanisms; they have no need to develop motive power, as animals have, in moving themselves from place to place. Their temperature is, we may say, the same as that of the medium in which they exist. Such beings as plants do not, therefore, require the ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... much struck by the beauty and simplicity of the experiment, and prevailed upon Ericsson to give more attention to a principle which he considered highly important. The young officer accordingly made sonic experiments on an enlarged scale, and succeeded in the production of a motive power equal to that of a steam-engine of ten-horse power. So satisfactory was the result, from the compact form of the machine employed, as well as the comparatively small consumption of fuel, that he conceived the idea of at once bringing it out in England, the great field ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... up a machine to discover the motive power, would you? But that is just what you are doing there with that brain. You are hoping by dissecting it to find the power that made it go, aren't you? And the power that made it ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... opinions, beliefs, dogmas, the cries of propaganda only—precisely the food needed for developing the mob mind to its full strength. Envy, jealousy, hatred ruled supreme. Liberty was a catchword. Blood lust was the motive power driving ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... absolute necessity of such products to the use of submarines, aeroplanes, and motors, the United States Government has not yet reached the conclusion that they are improperly included in a list of contraband. Military operations today are largely a question of motive power through mechanical devices. It is therefore difficult to argue successfully against the inclusion of petroleum among the articles of contraband. As to the detention of cargoes of petroleum going to neutral countries, this Government has, thus far, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... it. Why should the workman not be esteemed by kings and universities? Mr. Burns asks. So great is his self-respect that the respect of others is taken as a matter of course. Much of the criticism that has been directed against Mr. John Burns misses the mark, because it does not recognise that the motive power at work all the time in his career is the triumph of his class. It is the triumph of a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, of a London workman, that Mr. John Burns beholds with unconcealed ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... as all of God's processes are. Sometimes painfully gradual, and will be strictly in proportion as the man yields himself unreservedly to the control of the indwelling Spirit. And the process will be by the injection of a new and mighty motive power. The shallow-minded man will have an intense desire to study God's wondrous classic so as to learn His will. And though his studies may not get much farther, yet no one book so disciplines and deepens the mind as that. The lazy man will find a fire kindling in ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... have been ridiculous to expect a dividend the first year, though the Nagasaki people were pacified with difficulty. All the business letters came to Tom's address, and everybody who was not directly concerned thought that he was the motive power of the reawakened enterprise. Sometimes business people came to the mill, and were amazed at having to confer with Mrs. Wilson, but they soon had to respect her talents and her success. She was helped by the old clerk, who had been promptly recalled and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... touch, and hence it is said (Isa. 9:15): "The aged and honorable, he is the head"—"Power," because the power and movement of the other members, together with the direction of them in their acts, is from the head, by reason of the sensitive and motive power there ruling; hence the ruler is called the head of a people, according to 1 Kings 15:17: "When thou wast a little one in thy own eyes, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?" Now these three things belong spiritually to Christ. First, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground—as well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is put into a solution of pyrogallic acid, the developer, and carbonate of sodium, the motive power in the process. Other developers are often used. The chemical action here is somewhat obscure, but those parts of the plates which were affected by the light are made visible, a part of the AgzBr being reduced to Ag ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not grow weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the wayside to be left ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... none of the nervous timidity that marked Mrs. Leatrim's intercourse with her husband in the conduct of her son. His love for his stern father was without fear, it almost amounted to worship; and the hope of deserving his esteem was the motive power that influenced his studies, and gave a colouring to every act ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... hieroglyphics, serenely summing up the monstrous deeds and sufferings of men of action. How cold, how niggardly, to state merely that Penrod and the painted Verman succeeded in giving the long, black snake a motive power, or tractor, apparently its own but consisting of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... recommendation. He was for ever going on; and the further he went, the further his horizons receded. The embracing lines were rather indiscriminate. He came to think himself capable of reducing every domain to his scale. Men's ambitions, however, are part of their motive power; and, had his been less sweeping, the qualities of his work might have diminished with the defects. "Four men," he cried in one of his vauntings, "have had an immense life, Napoleon, Cuvier, O'Connell, and—I mean to be the fourth! The first lived with the life of Europe; he inoculated himself ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the applications of rubber, that of packing for the steam engine and connecting machinery appears to have been the most important, as it has been an essential condition of the development and extended use of steam as a motive power." ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... Who would throw the human intellect back into a state of uncertainty respecting a future existence and the manner of securing its blessedness? Who would dry up the living fountains of joy which have been opened to us in the gospel? Who would destroy the motive power of our religion and wither its fruits of righteousness? Who would rob the bereaved heart of its consolations and provoke anew the tears of the mourner which have been wiped away? Who would go to the widow and say: Go ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... same spot, the question at once arises as to how these movements of the solid earth came about, and what was the cause which operated in such a manner. We can only judge that, in some way or other, heat, or the withdrawal of heat, has been the prime motive power. We can perceive, from what is now going on in some parts of the earth, how great an influence it has had in shaping the land, for volcanoes owe their activity to the hidden heat in the earth's interior, and afford us an idea of the power of ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... at another? Why does one whole group of muscles contract when the lobster wishes to extend his tail, and another group, when he desires to bend it? What is it originates, directs, and controls the motive power? ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Stoneledge had retarded development. Never having mingled with children, she was untested and untried along certain lines. Poor, shabby Sandy Morley had been and was her only interpretation of youth as it had touched her personally—he and her ungoverned imagination had supplied the motive power, so far, for the foundation of ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... pursuits; and like them, his example as a statesman seems to acquire new force and beauty from the long and contented retirement from official life that evinced the plenitude of his own resources, and evidenced how much more a sense of public duty than political ambition had been the motive power of his civic career. It is this which distinguishes the first-class representative men of our country from the mere politicians; we feel that their essential individuality of character and genius was superior to the accidents of position; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... whom was exchanged for another as caprice incited. The spirit of national aggrandizement which influenced Catharine, was a spirit possessed, to an equal extent, at that time, by every cabinet in Christendom. It was the great motive power of the age. Dismembered Poland excites our sympathy; but Poland was as eager to share in the partition of other States as she was reluctant to submit to that operation herself. In personal character Catharine ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... the Duchess, who, under the sway of La Rochefoucauld, had been one of the instruments of the first Fronde war, became the motive power of the second and far more serious one—well named by the witty Parisians "the women's war." From the citadel of Stenay, of which she took the command, she directed the wills and actions of the men of her party, into which she thoroughly won over Turenne. Her importunities, aided by ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies |
