"Contrivance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her, "Yesterday Miss Lucy broke a china-cup; but the artful little hussy went and hid it in the foot-boy's room, and the poor boy was whipped for it. I don't believe there was ever a girl of her age that had half her cunning and contrivance." I knew by her tone of voice, and her manner of speaking, that she did not blame me in her heart, but rather commended my ingenuity. And I thought myself so wise, that I could thus get off the blame from myself, that I every day improved in new inventions to ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... of marine telegraphy was offered him by the time his balance had grown again, a promising contrivance, but it failed to return the twenty-five thousand dollars invested in it by Mark Twain. The list of such adventures is too long to set down here. They differ somewhat, but there is one feature common to all—none of them paid. At last ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... only a very primitive and clumsy method of harnessing the wind; but connected with it is a very ingenious contrivance that redeems it entirely from the commonplace. A system of mud walls are built about, the same height or a little higher than the shaft, in such a manner as to concentrate and control the wind in the interest of the miller, regardless ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... till it made it impossible. The most remarkable is that of the Poor Law. The administration of that law is not now very good, but it is not too much to say that almost the whole of its goodness has been preserved by its having an official and party protector in the House of Commons. Without that contrivance we should have drifted back into the errors of the old Poor Law, and superadded to them the present meanness and incompetence in our large towns. All would have been given up to local management. Parliament would have ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... living. Consider the allegory of the centipede. From the beginning of time he had manipulated his countless legs with exquisite precision. Men had regarded him with wonder and amazement. But he was innocent of his own art, being a contrivance of nature, perfectly constructed to do her bidding. One day the centipede discovered life. He discovered himself as one who walks, and the newly awakened intelligence, first observing, then foreseeing, ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... to fasten the other children in like manner to another mast. She thus having the care of the two elder children, and I of the two younger, we bound ourselves separately to these masts with the children; and but for this contrivance we had all been lost, for the ship split on a mighty rock, and was dashed in pieces; and we, clinging to these slender masts, were supported above the water, where I, having the care of two children, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... Ghost, formally the most nebulous person in the Trinity, and now become its sole survivor as it has always been its real Unity, can help him in any way. And so, if the Superman is to come, he must be born of Woman by Man's intentional and well-considered contrivance. Conviction of this will smash everything that opposes it. Even Property and Marriage, which laugh at the laborer's petty complaint that he is defrauded of "surplus value," and at the domestic miseries of the slaves of the wedding ring, will themselves be laughed ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... prince, with a laugh, "It is a rather clever contrivance; but having been warned in time I should indeed be foolish to be ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... trail towards the north, but Shotaye held him back in token of misgivings. He understood her motive, but pointed to his circular foot-gear and smiled. It was clear that he trusted to the round tracks left by that contrivance for safety. So he went on toward the brink of the gorge that lay before them. As soon as his form had sunk below it, Shotaye also turned, this time in ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... a board raft, ten or twelve feet square. Cut a round hole in the center, eight or ten inches in diameter. Lie down on the raft with the face over the hole, covering the head with a coat or shawl, to exclude the light. By this contrivance the rays of the light are concentrated directly under the raft, and objects of any size can be seen a considerable distance below the surface. Tow the raft over the place where the drowned person is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... likely, from that uncle in New York. He had the business head. The old man had no more contrivance than one of the bulls in his pastures. He could lock horns and stay there, but it wa'nt no trouble to outflank him. More than once his brother Jacob got to the windward of him in a bargain. He was made a good deal like his own land. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... half-past five o'clock in the afternoon, at which hour the old man usually sat digesting his dinner. He had drawn his black leather-covered armchair before the fire, and put on his armor, a painted pasteboard contrivance shaped like a top boot, which protected his stockinged legs from the heat of the fire; for it was one of the good man's habits to sit for a while after dinner with his feet on the dogs and to stir up the glowing coals. ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... Constitution would sweep us like a torrent towards them. But your remedy is to be suited to your disease—your present disease, and to your whole disease. That man thinks much too highly, and therefore he thinks weakly and delusively, of any contrivance of human wisdom, who believes that it can make any sort of approach to perfection. There is not, there never was, a principle of government under heaven, that does not, in the very pursuit of the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... and imperfection that it appears narrow and imperfect. The lighthouse is good in its place: it beckons home, with its "wheeling arms of dark and bright," many a benighted voyager; but we must remember that it is a structure made with hands, and not confound the stone and iron of human contrivance with the great Source ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... amidst the labours of man. Both alike inspire us with admiration, though we are enabled to obtain but unequal results as to their respective origins. The bridge, built by human hands, is, indeed, a triumph of the perfection of skilful contrivance; the strength and beauty of the arch are among the most simple yet exquisite results of science, wonderful as they may appear to the untaught beholder: but how shall we explain the formation of stupendous rock-arches across deep ravines and rolling torrents, in countries where none but the wild ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... had thus discovered in himself a sharp eye for the mystery of mechanics, and had invented an improvement in the cotton-spinning process which was now largely used and was known by his name. You might have seen it in the newspapers in connection with this fruitful contrivance; assurance of which he had given to Isabel by showing her in the columns of the New York Interviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent—an article not prepared by Miss Stackpole, friendly as she had proved herself ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... owing, it was said, to the heat of the weather. Suspicion once awakened, the examination became minute. The old man's servant was questioned, and at last confessed that the son had murdered the sire. The contrivance was ingenious: the wire was so slender that it pierced to the brain, and drew but one drop of blood, which the grey hairs concealed. The accomplice will ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... you have no ladies in your party," vouchsafed Don Antonio. "The trip is hard for ladies, senors. They must either ride astride, through rain and mud, or trust themselves to chairs upon the backs of natives. Sellero do we call that kind of a contrivance." ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... with the intention of looking about him only and of buying later on. First of all, he visited a so-called American shoe store, where heavy travelling shoes were shown him. The clerk brought out a kind of ironclad contrivance, studded with spikes like a harrow, which he claimed to be made from Rocky Mountain bison skin. He was so carried away with them that he would willingly have bought two pair, but one was sufficient. He carried them away under his arm, which soon became ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of each, he could judge between those who would be reliable and those to whom he would be obliged to refuse membership. The tenants, conclaving together of an evening on doorsteps, had come to the conclusion that the Universal Thrift Club was the very contrivance which they had lacked for years. They saw in it a cure for all their economic ills, and the gate to Paradise. The dame who put the question to him on the morning after his defeat wanted to be the possessor of carpets, a new teapot, a silver ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Middle Ages had not made any adequate provision. Governments then had no power of taxation, like that so freely exercised in modern times; and even now, taxes in France and England take the form of grants from the people to the kings. And as to the contrivance, so exceedingly ingenious, by which inexhaustible resources are opened to governments at the present day—that is, the plan of borrowing the money, and leaving posterity to pay or repudiate the debt, as they please, no minister of finance had, in William's day, been brilliant enough to discover ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... confidence, and will not submit to any charge that would dishonor me. What I have done has been done openly, before all eyes, and without resort to cunning or contrivance. I must do myself the justice to believe that you knew all this without the necessity of my speech, and even while ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... cave was hollowed out, all unsuspected by the owner of the garden, large enough to contain fourteen men, and thither one after another of the Christian slaves contrived to make his way. From February to September fugitives were hiding there, fed by stealth by the contrivance of Cervantes, who succeeded in sending information to some of the vessels visiting the port either with merchandise or to treat for ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... too, worked round with pink wool, and little sheets, and everything—all made out of nothing but love and contrivance! ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... This little contrivance, which saved her alike from shewing favour or giving offence, could not but be applauded by both parties: and while they obeyed her orders, she took a third glass herself from ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... mechanical carriage in the parlor, in which he could wheel himself. Paper kites and paper lanterns were his favorite toys. In the yard of the house he traced on a wall the movements of the sun by means of fixed pins; the contrivance received the name of "Isaac's dial," and was a standard of time to the country people in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Now meditate and examine closely; and roll yourself about in every way, having wrapped yourself up; and quickly, when you fall into a difficulty, spring to another mental contrivance. But let delightful sleep ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... much better contrivance than this of the philosopher's; which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper. This is generally done. And though it does not abolish, it at least shortens the period of female dominion. This paper is decorated with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... can be more cruel than caricature," if such a proverb existed. Crawling behind an infirm horse, a metropolitan hackney carriage drew up on wobbly wheels and with a maimed driver on the box. This last peculiarity caused some embarrassment. Catching sight of a hooked iron contrivance protruding from the left sleeve of the man's coat, Mrs Verloc's mother lost suddenly the heroic courage of these days. She really couldn't trust herself. "What do you think, Winnie?" She hung back. The passionate expostulations ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... spirits of that earth are not inclined to associate with the spirits of our Earth, because they differ in disposition and manners. They say that the spirits of our Earth are cunning, and are quick and clever in the contrivance of evils, and that they know and think little about what is good. Moreover, the spirits of the earth Jupiter are much wiser than the spirits of our Earth; they also say of ours that they talk much and think little, and that therefore they cannot interiorly perceive ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... first touches. He always painted standing, and never used a stick for resting his hand on; for such was his accuracy of eye, and steadiness of nerve, that he could introduce the most delicate touches, or the almost mechanical regularity of line, without aid, or other contrivance than fair off-hand dexterity. He remained in his painting-room till a little after five o'clock, when he walked home, and dined at six.... From one who knew him in his youthful days, and sat to him when he rose in fame, I have this description of his way ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... history was the empress Massalina, and nothing is more natural than that she should be selected for a heroin by a Frenchman. In a new five act play of which the Parisian journals give us elaborate criticisms, she is represented as a very virtuous wife, by the ingenious contrivance of giving a certain courtezan such a striking personal resemblance to her that it was impossible to distinguish between the two, and making the courtezan commit all the atrocities of the real Massalina. The play is not without literary merit. It is called Valeria—the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... three main factors, the growing political power of the working classes, the growing social sympathy of many members of all classes, and the belief, based on the growing authority of scientific method, that social arrangements can be transformed by means of conscious and deliberate contrivance.[1] ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... is called for, if the callus is not yet firmly consolidated, it may be possible, under an anaesthetic, to bend the bone into position or to re-break it, either with the hands or by means of a strong mechanical contrivance known as an osteoclast. In the majority of cases, however, an open operation yields results which are more certain and satisfactory. When the deformity is comparatively slight, the bone is divided with an osteotome and straightened; when there is marked bending or angling, a wedge is taken from ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... pressures, with or without the presence of other substances, is prohibited by an Order in Council dated July 1900; to which prohibition the mixture of acetylene and air that takes place in a burner or contrivance in which the mixture is intended to be burnt, and the admixture of air with acetylene that may unavoidably occur in the first use or recharging of an apparatus (usually a water-to-carbide generator), properly designed and constructed with a view to the production ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... keep it openly; the money or the bulb she must have. And the bulb she could not, would not have again; so the money, unearned, distasteful, having a not too pleasant savour, must be hers. At last, in this way, without her contrivance, against her will, there had come a way to pay ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... possibilities of steam as a force, whether turned to practical uses or not. For years the subject remained an alluring one which led many a scientist into experiments without number. In various parts of the world men played with the idea and wrote about it; but no one actually produced any practical steam contrivance until 1650, when the second Marquis of Worcester constructed a steam fountain that could force the water from the moat around his castle as high as the top of one of the towers. The feat was looked upon as a marvel and afterward a larger fountain, similar in principle, was constructed at ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... a loss how to explain pur; either the muse of Euthyphro has deserted me, or there is some very great difficulty in the word. Please, however, to note the contrivance which I adopt whenever I am in a difficulty ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... proceeding—because x presents attributes at least as much higher than consciousness or volition as these are higher than mechanical motion. For when we consider the utmost that our conscious volition is able to accomplish in the way of contrivance—how limited its knowledge, how short its duration, how restricted its range, and how imperfect its adaptations—we can only conclude that if the ultimate constitution of all things is pyschical, the philosophy of the Cosmos becomes a 'philosophy of the Unconscious' ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... the woman, it was the conduct of a mild, and merciful man, but not that of one who declared, "that he came to fulfil the law." For God commanded concerning such, "that they should surely be put to death." Now though Jesus was not her judge, and had no right to pronounce her sentence; yet the contrivance by which he deterred the witness from testifying against her, was a contrivence directly calculated totally to frustrate the ends of justice; and which, if acted upon at this day, in Christian countries, would infallibly prevent the execution of the criminal law: For what testimony would ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... of their caves. A special formation of the toes enables birds to sleep on one leg, which automatically and without fatigue clutches the swaying bough. The Empusa shows me nothing akin to their contrivance. The extremity of her walking-legs has the ordinary structure: a double claw at the tip, a double ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... you have a long steel plank there, with some kind of a compressed air contrivance at one ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... the Josselyns to be helped than to help. It was not easy for them to bring forth their breadths and their linings, and their braids that were to be pieced, and their trimmings that were to be turned, and to lay bare to other eyes all their little economies of contrivance; but Miss Craydocke managed it by simple straightforwardness,—by not behaving as if there were anything to be glossed over or ignored. Instead of hushing up about economies, she brought them forward, and gave them a most cheery and comfortable, not to say ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... formal acquaintance sprang up between us; an acquaintance fostered by trifles and dependent on the idlest, or what seemed the idlest, casualties. I say "seemed," for often that which to her appeared the work of chance was the result of elaborate contrivance on my part. She little knew, when I met her on the staircase, how I had been listening for the last hour to catch the echo of her step. She little dreamed when I encountered her at the corner of the street, how I had been concealed, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... amazement, the Tai-o-hae men, surmounting incredible difficulties, laid the gun in position, and as the Hapaas scorned the futile-looking contrivance and declared that they would not make peace with the whites, Porter sent his first assistant with forty men, armed with muskets and accompanied by natives carrying these weapons ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... scarcely need of flue or chimney, for the smoke curling up among the interlacing rafters of the roof, might long gather in its ample cavity without threatening those below with serious inconvenience. It is curious to observe that when at length so obvious a contrivance as the chimney grew into more general use, its introduction was opposed by much the same sort of arguments as have in other ages resisted the encroachments of change and novelty. A moralist of the times has left us his recorded opinion, that nothing but agues ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... to be hoped rare) instances, it is a crime of the very deepest dye: it is a premeditated contrivance for taking away the life of the most inoffensive and most helpless of all human creatures, in opposition not only to the most universal dictates of humanity, but of that powerful instinctive passion which, for a wise and important purpose, the Author of our nature has planted ...
— On the uncertainty of the signs of murder in the case of bastard children • William Hunter
... which lay a hundred miles to the west? There was no telegraph wire by which astronomers at the two Places could communicate. There was no chronometer or watch which could be transported from place to place; there was not any other reliable contrivance for the keeping of time. Ptolemy's ingenuity, however, pointed out a thoroughly satisfactory method by which the times of sunset at two places could be compared. He was acquainted with the fact, which must indeed have been known ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... of the collection was a monstrous abortion of a boot, made for a clubfoot, with a sole and heel six inches deep, that had cost Paasch weeks of endless contrivance, and had only one fault—it was as heavy as lead and unwearable. But Paasch clung to it with the affection of a mother for her deformed offspring, and gave it the pride of place in the window. And daily the urchins flattened their noses against the panes, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... one thing," he said to himself, at last, "that they could have had that for. The captain says that those ancient fellows put their gold there keep it from the Spaniards, and they must have rigged up this devilish contrivance to work if they found the Spaniards had got on the track of their treasure. Even if the Spaniards had let off the water and gone to work to get the gold out, one of the Incas' men in the corner of that other cave, which most likely was all shut up and not discoverable, would have ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... this singular equanimity was that he always had the full command of all the resources of one of the most fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly no complication of perils and embarrassments could perplex him. For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready; and, whatever may be thought of the justice and humanity of some of his contrivances, it is certain that they seldom failed to serve the purpose for which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term— And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such— The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snakestone—rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs) And writeth ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... the Mess Wargrave looked back and saw an elephant heave into sight around a bend below the Dermots' house and plod heavily up to their gate. On the charjama—the passenger-carrying contrivance of wooden seats on the pad with footboards hanging by short ropes—sat a lady and two European men holding white umbrellas up to keep off the vertical rays of the noonday sun. When the animal sank to its knees in front of the bungalow Wargrave saw the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... which, it seems, is an essential point. He had imagination enough to be almost persuaded of fairyland by her earnestness, and she certainly took him into doll-land. He had a turn for carpentry and contrivance, and he undertook that the Ladies Rosella, etc., should be better housed than ever. A great packing-case was routed out, and much ingenuity was expended, much delight obtained, in the process of converting it into a doll's ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the castle. The apartments which he occupied are in very good taste; the ceilings are arched, and the proportions are excellent. In one of the rooms is an admirable picture of Louis the Fourteenth on horseback. The spiral staircase is a contrivance which it is impossible to explain; it is so managed, as to contain two distinct staircases in one, so that people may go up and down at the same time, without seeing each other. The apartments are ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... just now. I saw her only yesterday, so we'll put you aboard of her and there you'll find a reg'lar shore-goin' surgeon, up to everything, and with all the gimcracks and arrangements of a reg'lar shore-goin' hospital. They've got a new contrivance too—a sort o' patent stretcher, invented by a Mr Dark o' the head office in London—which'll take you out o' the boat into the ship without movin' a bone or muscle, so keep your mind easy, skipper, for you'll be aboard the Queen Victoria before ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... likewise teach you Cunning, i. e. by lying abscond, or at Bo-peep with your Adversary; this is a subtlety which perhaps may gain the Advantage of a Pass or Hazard. For I must tell you, in this Game, is required much Cunning, and subtle Contrivance, as in any Recreation whatever, and therefore when you are to Play with an Expert Player, you must muster up all the forces of your Ingenuity and Wit, for ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... not help loving you—who that knows you can? I am a plain man, and say what I think. He loves you still. Why make an enemy of him, who would at a word be at your feet? Dearest Lady Gorgon, listen to me. Sir George Gorgon and Mr. Scully have already met—their meeting was our contrivance. It is for our interest, for yours, that they should be friends. If there were two Ministerial Members for Oldborough, do you think your husband's peerage would be less secure? I am not at liberty to tell you all I know on this subject; but do, I entreat you, be reconciled ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this "excellent British Constitution," and say whether it is simple. On the contrary, it is the most complicated, irrational, and ridiculous contrivance ever devised as a government of enlightened men. Its admirers say that this complexity is a virtue, on account of the nice balance of powers between King, Lords, and Commons, which guarantees a kind of liberty through the resulting inertia of the whole. The Lords check the Commons ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... and contrivance. It would be more honest to speak our minds, and not pretend to agree ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... contrivance of her fair companions,—girls are so wily and sympathetic with each other,—had been left seated by the side of Philibert, on the twisted roots of a gigantic oak forming a rude but simple chair fit ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Majesty was in Hanover; involved, he, and all his State doctors, English and Hanoverian, in awful contemplation on Pragmatic Sanction, Kaiserwahl, Celestial Balance, and the saving of Nature's Keystone, should this still prove possible to human effort and contrivance. In which Imminency of Doomsday itself, the small English-Spanish matter, which the Official people, and his Majesty as much as any, had bitterly disliked, was quite let go, and dropped out of view. Forgotten by Official people; left to the dumb English ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... found out all about it, for the thing was simple enough. The paper was a will, or, as I heard long after, a thing called a codicil—a contrivance what you add to a will. And it revoked and denied everything as the dead man had wrote before. In a few words the paper swept away Squire Champernowne's former wills and testaments, and left Woodcotes to Lawrence Champernowne, the son of General Sir Arthur and the brother of the chap ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... thus, with an appearance of art, I address myself to my father and mother, to whom I am forbidden to approach, or to write. Hard it is to be reduced to such a contrivance! Forgive likewise the plain dealing I have used in the above, with the nobleness of a gentleman, and the gentleness due from a brother to a sister. Although of late you have given me but little room to hope either for your favour or compassion; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... window—which had commanded such a cheerful outlook into one of the pretty gardens, with a pink thorn, a laburnum-tree or two, and some sycamores which still flourish fresh and fair on Campden Hill—was obscured now by some detestable contrivance in transparent ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... teeth struck him he gave a jump which lifted the trap off the twig platform, and it immediately sank in the deep water and soon drowned him; for the water-rat, though continually diving, can only stay a short time under water. It proved a fatal contrivance, chiefly, as was supposed, because the gin, being just under the water, could not be smelt. No fewer than eleven rats were thus captured in succession at the mouth of one hole. Altogether 150 were taken in the course ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... had come with him, and they had lived together on very small means, high up in a many-storied lodging-house, while he daily attended the Lycie. His reminiscences were very happy of those days of cheerful contrivance, of her eager desire to make the tiny appartement a home to her boy, of their pleasant Sundays and holidays, and the life that in this manner was peculiarly guarded by her influence, and the sense of being all she had upon earth. He had scarcely ever spoken of her before, and he dwelt on her ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... constant regularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising magnificence, beauty, and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite contrivance of the smaller parts together with the exact harmony and correspondence of the whole—I say, if we consider all these things, and at the same time attend to the import of the attributes, one eternal, infinitely wise, good, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... gone by; Lord of the secret birth of things is he Within the lap of earth, and in the depths Of the imagination dominates; And his are all things that eschew the light. The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance, For Jupiter, the lustrous, lordeth now, And the dark work, complete of preparation, He draws by force into the realm of light. Now must we hasten on to action, ere The scheme and most auspicious positure Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight, For the heavens ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... castle. There must have existed there originally a nodule of rock, but out of this a platform has been formed artificially of earth gathered from the port, and this platform was converted in Roman times into a fort. On one side may be seen a curious contrivance for resisting the outward pressure of the earth heaped up within. The basement wall has not buttresses thrust forth, but consists of a series of semicircular concave depressions in its face. In Mediaeval times a strong castle with circular towers was erected on the ancient basement, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... so that the wire hung down to the water in a gentle curve, the next insulator being fastened to a tree at a considerable distance. One end of the raft was then attached to this wire, by a noose that worked along it; and this contrivance enabled the swiftest streams to be triumphantly crossed, the loads of rice, meanwhile, being kept dry. The success of the experiment created ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... it is suggested that a strong tendency of the Rev. Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, towards the Arminian Heresy may have had something to do with it, and that the Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs was a false show of the Daemon's Contrivance, he having come in to listen to a Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, of course, not being capable of being killed Himself. Others said, however, that, though there was good Reason to think it was a Damon, yet he did come with ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was gagged so tightly that he had to exercise some care in cutting the knotted strips of linen which bound her face and head. A piece of coarse sacking had been thrust into her mouth, and she scarce had the power to utter a word when the brutal contrivance was withdrawn. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... holes, closed together, like friezed work on gold or silver, part of which the fellow had scraped away. The genie second en experiences (says Lord Orford), from so trifling an accident, conceived mezzo-tinto. The prince concluded, that some contrivance might be found to cover a brass plate with such a ground of fine pressed holes, which would undoubtedly give an impression all black, and that, by scraping away proper parts, the smooth superfices would leave the rest of the paper white. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... which, by an ingenious contrivance, on the Butler opening it for the purpose of helping himself to a glass of wine, instantly blows up with a loud explosion, that obliges him to desist in his design. But their chief ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... stopping, training, &c., as required. Set the early crops when in blossom, keeping a dry and lively atmosphere during that period. Air to be given freely in favourable weather, but cautiously, with some contrivance to break cold winds. Do not allow a plant to swell a fruit until sufficiently ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... Mr. Holyoake, however, is far from being consistent in his various statements on this subject. For not content with saying, "Most decidedly I believe that the present order of Nature is insufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent Creator," he adds that "no imaginable order, that no contrivance, however mechanical, precise, or clear, would be sufficient to prove it."[261] At one time he tells us that "an increasing party respectfully and deferentially avow their inability to subscribe to the arguments supposed to establish ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... "When we are abroad, we shall find that useful, ma'am"; or "Mr. Macartney will be asking for that in Norway." As for James, it had changed his spots, if not his nature. James bought marvellous climbing boots, binoculars, compasses of dodgy contrivance, sandwich-cases, drinking-flasks, a knowing hat. He read about Norway, studied a dictionary, and ended by talking about it, and all to do with it, without any pragmatism. Lucy found out how he relied upon Urquhart ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... stakes, about one foot from the surface of the bed, with four rods securely tied, and upon these place other rods, over and around which any protecting material at command may be used. With this simple contrivance it is quite possible to grow Asters in ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... bread and water! Down tears, down; a man must be a man; but, oh, what a bitter sight for Arthur Berkeley! And yet, what could he do to mend it? Money they would not take; he dare not even offer it; and he was at his wit's end for any other contrivance for serving them without their knowledge. He must do what he could; but how he was to ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... support him in his suit for the consulate. He himself made such journeys, as he thought would conduce to the health of his men by change of air; and though he was frequently told that Labienus was solicited by his enemies, and was assured that a scheme was in agitation by the contrivance of a few, that the senate should interpose their authority to deprive him of a part of his army; yet he neither gave credit to any story concerning Labienus, nor could be prevailed upon to do anything in opposition to the authority of the senate; for he thought that his ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... very admirable: but if eyes so framed could not view at once the hand, and the characters of the hour-plate, and thereby at a distance see what o'clock it was, their owner could not be much benefited by that acuteness; which, whilst it discovered the secret contrivance of the parts of the machine, made ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... thus obtained the little boy he had so long wished for to be his page, took pity on the disgraceful situation into which, by his merry contrivance, he had brought his Titania and threw some of the juice of the other flower into her eyes; and the fairy queen immediately recovered her senses, and wondered at her late dotage, saying how she now loathed the sight of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... movements peculiar to all the figures an impersonal movement abstract and simple, movement in general, so to speak: we put this into the apparatus, and we reconstitute the individuality of each particular movement by combining this nameless movement with the personal attitudes. Such is the contrivance of the cinematograph. And such is also that of our knowledge. Instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming of things, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becoming artificially. We take snapshots, as ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... self-control, when at last I heard the conversation resumed,—"He should never have risked his life in such a vessel"— said one of the voices in a somewhat gentler tone—"It was a wonderfully clever contrivance, but the danger of all that electricity was obvious. In a storm it ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... something they did not understand, some contrivance of the tyrant Man to curb them, to harness them, to make them his slaves. The waters were angry. They gloomed fearsomely. As they swelled higher in the broad basin their wrath grew apace. They chafed against their prison walls, they licked and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... raft of reeds or bamboo; on which is erected an apparatus not unlike the mast and yard of a square-rigged ship. To one end of the yard is attached a net which may be raised from and lowered into the water. This contrivance is called by the natives timba. See full description of the salambao, and of other native modes of fishing, in Zuniga's Estadismo (Retana's ed.), i, pp. 199, 200; and illustration of this apparatus in F. Jagor's Travels in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... they might for the future always have notice of her coming and so be able to escape. This proposition was hailed with the greatest applause, and was agreed to at once unanimously. Upon this, an old Mouse, who had sat silent all the while, got up and said that he considered the contrivance most ingenious, and that it would, no doubt, be quite successful; but he had only one short question to put; namely, which of them it was ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, one of whom, being civil lieutenant, had the power to separate her again from her lover. This must be prevented. Lachaussee left the service of Sainte-Croix, and by a contrivance of the marquise was installed three months later as servant of the elder brother, who lived with the civil lieutenant. The poison to be used on this occasion was not so swift as the one taken by M. d'Aubray so violent a death happening so soon in the same ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Briganteen to Secure and look after their Interest, With Orders to keep them Company Untill some farther Disposition shou'd be Made, which was Intended to be done the next day, but so it happened by Some Misadventure or Contrivance to this Depon't unknown they never Coul'd come up with the Sloops again (th'o they had Severall times sight of Them), Whereupon the said Smith and Company Alledging they shou'd be short Of Provisions ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... that it has to be carried out on the floor of the studio with long strings, &c., which is a very clumsy and unscientific way of setting to work. The architects in such cases make use of the centrolinead, a clever mechanical contrivance for getting over the difficulty of the far-off vanishing point, but by the method I have shown you, and shall further illustrate, you will find that you can dispense with all this trouble, and do all ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... washed a solid mass of yellow flame across the front door, but the fire fell back, and then Dan saw the doll which he himself had made for Joan; it had been thrown by the smashing of the wall squarely in front of the door, and now the fire reached after it—long arms across the floor. It was an odd contrivance, singularly made of carved wood and with arms and legs fastened on by means of bits of strong sinew, and Joan prized it above all the rosy faced dolls which Kate had bought for her. For an instant Dan stood watching the progress of ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... water is very pure, being supplied by a small river, of the choicest transparency, which was turned thitherward for the purpose. And Blenheim owes not merely this water-scenery, but almost all its other beauties, to the contrivance of man. Its natural features are not striking; but Art has effected such wonderful things that the uninstructed visitor would never guess that nearly the whole scene was but the embodied thought of a human mind. A skilful painter hardly does more for his ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as to the dress livery our footmen wore, and whether Mr. Carvel used outriders when he travelled abroad. This was the other side of the man. As the wine warmed and the pipe soothed, I spoke at length of Grafton and the rector; and when I came to the wretched contrivance by which they got me aboard the Black Moll, he was stalking hither and thither about the cabin, his fists clenched and his voice thick, breaking into Scotch again and vowing that hell were too good ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... river and explained the means employed in irrigation. On the Euphrates there are two methods used for local irrigation apart from the system of canals flowing from the river. One is the water-wheel, a curious contrivance built out on stone piers. It consists of a huge paddle-wheel with buckets like those of a dredger, that fills a trough that runs ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... is something yet more refined in the contrivance and structure of our modern theatres. For, first, the pit is sunk below the stage with due regard to the institution above deduced, that whatever weighty matter shall be delivered thence, whether it be lead or gold, may fall plump into the jaws of certain critics, as I think they are called, ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... in the grip of fog, and when we passed along the corridor communicating with our apartments, faint streaks of yellow vapor showed in the light of the lamp suspended at the further end. I knew that Nayland Smith suspected the presence of some spying contrivance in our rooms, although I was unable to conjecture how this could have been managed without the connivance of the management. In pursuance of his idea, however, he extinguished the lights a moment before we actually quitted the ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... luminous powers; very differently from their parents, on the slightest touch they feigned death and ceased to shine; nor did irritation excite any fresh display. I kept several of them alive for some time: their tails are very singular organs, for they act, by a well-fitted contrivance, as suckers or organs of attachment, and likewise as reservoirs for saliva, or some such fluid. I repeatedly fed them on raw meat; and I invariably observed, that every now and then the extremity of the tail was applied to the mouth, and a drop of fluid exuded on the meat, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... like a door at one side; we then saw that the engine was of considerable thickness, leaving just room enough inside for a man to be placed. The door was of equal thickness and of great weight, for it took the custodian all his strength, aided though he was by the contrivance of the pulley, to open it. This weight was partly due to the fact that the door was of manifest purpose hung so as to throw its weight downwards, so that it might shut of its own accord when the strain was released. The inside was honeycombed ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... dramatick Poetry so far as he did. The Fable is what is generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the constituent parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be thought of in the contrivance and course of the whole; and with the Fable ought to be consider'd the fit Disposition, Order, and Conduct of its several parts. As it is not in this province of the Drama that the strength and mastery of Shakespear lay, so I shall not undertake the tedious and ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... state, dusted over the tree when wet with rain or dew. The operation is inexpensive, as a very small quantity suffices, one cwt. being sufficient for nine or ten acres. It can be applied through a bamboo-joint covered with a perforated top, or any equally simple contrivance. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... it drops into rags," replied Katherine. "I call it my happiness skirt, and I wear it only when I feel happy. To-day the winter has somehow got into my bones or up in my head, and I feel as light-hearted and reckless as if I had been having oxygen pumped into me by a special contrivance; so plainly this is the proper time for my ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... hands with his host at the door of his bedroom (which was emphatically the room of a bed, a huge, be-stepped, pillared, testered contrivance that waited at one end of the large apartment to murder sleep), Sir Robert fell to winding his watch with what looked like interest, but all his thoughts were with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... occupation, for years I was connected with the Opera. Twenty years, Excellency. Then I grew old, and another—" His voice broke. What with excitement and terror, he was close to tears. "Now I am reduced to selling tickets for an American contrivance, a foolish thing, but I ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Having completely comminuted and blended this mouthful, it is swallowed a second time; but instead of returning to the paunch or reticulum, it passes through another valve into a side cavity,—the omasum, where, after a maceration in more saliva for some hours, it glides by the same contrivance into the fourth pouch,—the abomasum, an apartment in all respects analogous to the ordinary stomach of animals, and where the process of digestion, begun and carried on in the previous three, is here consummated, and the nutrient principle, by means ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... pieces out of it. To facilitate the latter part of the process, the seamen, who are always fond of doing things in their own way, took advantage of a fresh northerly breeze, by setting some boats sails upon the pieces of ice, a contrivance which saved both time and labour. This part of the operation, however, was by far the most troublesome, principally on account of the quantity of young ice which formed in the canal, and especially about the entrance, where, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... looking back at last from the iron gates, it was not of the past she thought, nor of the heartache buried there, but of a world newly purified, with long, broad vistas of hope and aspiration lengthening before her. But we must not too long leave the bell—an absurd contrivance of wire and knob—that tinkled rather absently and eerily in the kitchen pantry. Let us repeat once more and for the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... being hypothetically accounted for by the theory of descent. I have heard an eminent Professor tell his class that the many instances of mechanical adaptation discovered and described by Darwin as occurring in orchids, seemed to him to furnish better proof of supernatural contrivance than of natural causes; and another eminent Professor has informed me that, although he had read the Origin of Species with care, he could see in it no evidence of natural selection which might not ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... mood of the person who beat upon it. It consisted of three little metal bowls upon a string; they were unequal in size, and, upon being tapped with a padded stick, gave forth vibrations almost musically pleasant. It was Alice who had substituted this contrivance for the brass "dinner-bell" in use throughout her childhood; and neither she nor the others of her family realized that the substitution of sweeter sounds had made the life of that household more difficult. In spite of dismaying increases ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... wanted early, a small hotbed should be made in some convenient place; the roots to be taken up and placed upon it, covered with a little light soil, and protected by boards or any other contrivance most convenient and suitable to exclude light and the inclemency ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... and at his dealing and contrivance and invested him with [the control of] all his affairs and of his kingdom and the land abode [under his governance] and he said to him, 'Take and people.'[FN244] One day, the tither went out and saw an old man, a woodcutter, and with him wood; so he said to him, 'Pay a dirhem ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... not for a moment take his eyes off a contrivance with pirns in it that was climbing up and down ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... charcoal is finely pulverized. First melt the beeswax and rosin, being careful not to have the fire too hot. Add the charcoal, stirring constantly, and then add the oil. Mould into bricks by pouring into greased pans. When desiring to use break off a few lumps and melt in such a contrivance as is shown in the plate of grafting tools. The wax must be quite ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... when his rites sacerdotal were o'er, In the depths of his cell with its stone-covered floor, Resigning to thought his chimerical brain, Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain; But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers We know not; indeed, 'tis ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... belongs this book, The Bravo of Venice; which was published in 1804, when the writer's age was twenty-nine. It was written at Inverary Castle, dedicated to the Earl of Moira, and received as one of the most perfect little romances of its kind, "highly characteristic of the exquisite contrivance, bold colouring, and profound mystery of the German school." In 1805 Lewis recast it into a melodrama, ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... support or sustain its own weight unless the poles were very near together. In such case an auxiliary or sustaining wire is run along with it, and by clips or hangers the cable is connected thereto at as frequent intervals as seem desirable. The contrivance may take the form of a strip of metal surrounding the cable and carrying a hook or eye through ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... books, pictures and wringers, and nearly every contrivance imaginable, I became discouraged and thought there was no chance for a poor man to earn a living. There was nothing to do on the farm, and I could not get a job in town, when I happened to see how a teacher made money selling platers, and thought I would try my luck. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... was completed in July, 1814. The affair, though clumsy, worked successfully on the Killingworth railway, drawing eight loaded carriages, of thirty tons each, at the rate of four miles an hour. It was the first locomotive made with smooth wheels, for he rejected the contrivance which Trevithick, Blenkinsop and others had thought necessary to secure sufficient adhesion between the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... of a huge, long-legged bird watching for a reptile to seize upon. Trunks of palm or other trees with their bark still on them unite the banks by a shaky and infirm foot-bridge which, if not a very secure crossing, is nevertheless a wonderful contrivance for gymnastic exercises in preserving one's balance, a thing not to be despised. The boys bathing in the river are amused by the difficulties of the old woman crossing with a basket on her head or by the antics of the old man ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... by assassins at Stenay upon the Meuse, now the best town in the duchy of Bar in Lorraine. The people, however, chose Pepin and Martin dukes or governors of Austrasia, who defended their liberty against Ebroin. Martin was afterwards assassinated by the contrivance of Ebroin, and Ebroin by Ermenfrid; but Pepin, in 687, defeated Theodoric III. at Testry, took Paris, and the king himself; from which time, under the title of mayor, he enjoyed the supreme power in the French monarchy. The death of St. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... mounting .. a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany color, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailorlike ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... This contrivance has been considered by some a very important adjunct to the balloon; whether it be so or no, we do not pretend to determine, but certainly it is an interesting and curious machine, ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... glancing back at intervals to make sure we were keeping the line. So long as they remained in sight, and aligned with each other, we could not otherwise than travel in a straight path. It was an ingenious contrivance, but it was not the first time I had been witness to the ingenuity of my trapper-friends, and therefore I ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... moon-light near Casale exhibited an entertainment of a very different nature, not unmixed with ill-concealed fear indeed; though the contrivance of crossing it is not worse managed than a ferry at Kew or Richmond used to be before our bridges were built. Bridges over the rapid Po would, however, be truly ridiculous; when swelled by the mountain snows it tears down all ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... our machines have extraordinary-looking mechanisms, which remain inexplicable so long as they are seen in repose. But wait until the whole is in motion; then the uncouth-looking contrivance, with its cog-wheels interacting and its connecting-rods oscillating, will reveal the ingenious combination in which all things are skilfully disposed to produce the desired effects. It is the same with certain insects; with certain weevils, for instance, and notably with the Acorn-beetles or ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... By an ingenious mechanical contrivance the present air was forced, by compressed air draught, into compartments from which the bad air was expelled through sea-valves. An instant change for the better ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... ordered, by which the currency was depreciated one-fifth; those who took a thousand pieces of gold or silver to the mint received back an amount of coin of the same nominal value, but only four-fifths of the weight of metal. By this contrivance the treasury gained seventy-two millions of livres, and all the commercial operations of the country were disordered. A trifling diminution of the taxes silenced the clamours of the people, and for the slight present advantage the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... abuses in the Government, he was the most popular Minister (Lord Chatham, when the great Pitt, excepted) in Europe. Yet his errors were innumerable, though possessing such sound knowledge and judgment, such a superabundance of political contrivance, diplomatic coolness, and mathematical calculation, the result of deep thought aided by great ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... front falls to the feet, leaving a decided train. The mantle begins at a point just in front of the arm, under which, and along the sides, it hangs, like a long open sleeve, being cut away behind about half down the figure. The contrivance of the yoke enabled the artist, by gathering the drapery, to determine the lines in which it should drop, and they were few but positive. In movement, the train was to draw the gown to the form so its outlines could be easily ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... ring out of her casket, and putting it on her finger, and embracing her in a transport of joy, said, "How infinitely am I beholden to you, my good mother! I should never have thought of so ingenious a contrivance. It cannot fail of success, and I begin to recover my peace. I leave the care of the wooden figure to you, and will go ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... payment or tender of the price, and not other wise; for, though he acquires the right of property by the contract of sale, he does not acquire the right of possession, until he pays or tenders the price. But if the seller delivers the goods absolutely, and without fraudulent contrivance on the part of the buyer, the buyer will hold ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... while the burying-beetle does the same thing though it has no special apparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter provender in pockets, an inch wide, long and half an inch wide within its cheeks; the field-mouse does so without the help of any such contrivance. The migratory instinct displays itself with equal strength in animals of widely different form, by whatever means they may pursue their journey, whether by water, ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... mentioned just now Medea and Atreus, persons celebrated in heroic poems, who had used this reason only for the contrivance and practice of the most flagitious crimes; but even the trifling characters which appear in comedies supply us with the like instances of this reasoning faculty; for example, does not he, in the Eunuch, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... later an ingenious Yankee invented what was called a "Reflector," made of bright tin for baking. It was a small tin oven with a slanting top, open at one side, and when required for use was set before the fire on the hearth. This simple contrivance was a great convenience, and came into general use. Modern inventions in the appliances for cooking have very much lessened the labour and increased the possibilities of supplying a variety of dishes, but it has not improved ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... "Look here!" said he, "this sort of thing won't do, you know. I don't understand this contrivance around the soles of your boots, but it seems to me you've got a set of springs there which aids your height when you desire it. Now I will not stand any more nonsense. If I engage you at all, you must first take off your boots, and lie flat upon your back ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton |
