"Watchmaker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visited at the house intimately ever since her childhood, all but refused to believe her spectacles (though Supply Ham made them(1.)) when brought face to face with the frescoes. (1. In the early part of this century, Supply Ham was the leading optician and watchmaker ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... watch, were to come forward and say: "I have discovered the secret of this watch. There is a spring in it which possesses resiliency, and it is that which drives the wheels. I think I have heard people say that there must have been a watchmaker to design and construct this piece of machinery, but, in face of my discoveries, any such explanation is wholly unnecessary and ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... poorly furnished watchmaker's shop, but the lady there could do nothing for my watch. She told me that, being an optician in a small way as well, she had had a whole stock of spectacles and glasses. When the Germans came through the town in October, they demanded fieldglasses. ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... reveals objects hidden because of their minuteness, and enlarges for our careful contemplation objects otherwise barely visible. The watchmaker, unassisted by the magnifying glass, could not detect the tiny grains of dust or sand which clog the delicate wheels of our watches. The merchant, with his lens, examines the separate threads of woolen and silk fabrics to determine the strength ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... watch was restored to the table from which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the very moment it was so withdrawn, nor, despite all the skill of the watchmaker, has it ever gone since,—that is, it will go in a strange, erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop; ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... has palsy. This week he was claiming he used to be a watchmaker before he began to shake. The week before, he'd said he was a brain surgeon. A woman I didn't know, a real old Boxcar Bertha, dragged herself over and began some kind of story about how her sister married a Greek, but she passed out before we ...
— The Altar at Midnight • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... The "tripod of life" a French physiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which leg of the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactly what the difficulty is;—which would be as intelligible and amusing as a watchmaker's description of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It is enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I think this attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences, —which expression means ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... perorated Mr Tregaskis. "And if you don't like it, the man at the shop'll change it for something of equal value." Here with a sweep of the hand he withdrew the handkerchief and disclosed the gift. "I forget the chap's name for the moment, but he's a watchmaker, and lives off the Town Quay as you turn up west-an'-by-north to the Post Office. The round mark on the lid—as p'r'aps I ought to mention—was caused by a Challenge Cup of some sort standin' upon it all last summer in ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 1703, and his brother, mentioned above as born at Little Chelsea, became the fourth earl, and distinguished himself in the military, scientific, and literary proceedings of his times. In compliment to this Lord Orrery's patronage, Graham, an ingenious watchmaker, named after his lordship a piece of mechanism which exhibits the movements of the heavenly bodies. With his brother's death, however, in 1703, at Earl's Court, Kensington, the connection of the Boyle family with this neighbourhood appears ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... intangible of assets and the most unescapable of liabilities. On Saturday, Mr. Mix had arrived too late because he had overslept because his alarm-clock had been tinkered by a watchmaker who had inherited a taste for alcohol from a parent who had been ruined by the Chicago fire—and almost before he knew it, Mr. Mix had trailed the blame to Adam and Eve, and was feeling personally resentful. It ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... exist—and it has since been proved—another, a second gold-bearing alluvial bottom on that field, and several had tried for it. One, the town watchmaker, had sunk all his money in 'duffers', trying for the second bottom. It was supposed to exist at a depth of from eighty to a hundred feet—on solid rock, I suppose. This watchmaker, an Italian, would put men on ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... now a rich and prosperous man, would gladly have taken his old tutor to his home, but Prometesky was still too proud, and all that he would do was to build a little hut under a rock on the Boola Boola grounds, where he lived upon the proceeds of such joiner's and watchmaker's work as was needed by the settlers on a large area, when things were much rougher than even when my nephews came home. No one cared for education enough to make his gifts available in that direction, except as concerned Harold, who had, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his wife, who departed this life April 2nd, 1810, aged 79. He was a watchmaker. The third is as follows: "Sacred to the memory of Eliza, daughter of William Parker, Solicitor, and Elizabeth, his wife, who died 1st April, 1835, aged 20 years. Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Mr. Parker occupied part of the premises now ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... much like what I might have seen at home in a similar gathering. Men, women, and children were dressed in a style which showed both self-respect and good taste, and the speeches were far above mediocrity. One pale young man, a watchmaker, as I was told afterwards, delivered an address, which, though doubtless it had the promising fault of too much elaboration and ornament, yet I thought had passages which would do honor to any ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... ought to have been taken into account that this non-intelligent cause, which produces such beautiful things in the grains and seeds of plants and animals, and effects the actions of bodies as the will ordains them, was formed by the hand of God: and God is infinitely more skilful than a watchmaker, who himself makes machines and automata that are [246] capable of producing as wonderful effects as ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the devising of improvements in the mounting and motion of the various instruments then in use, or the test and trial of newly-constructed "eyepieces," most of which were executed by Herschel's own hands. "Wishing to save his time, he began to have some work of that kind done by a watchmaker, who had retired from business, and lived on Datchet Common; but the work was so bad, and the charges [were] so unreasonable, that he could not be employed. It was not till some time afterwards, in his frequent visits to the meetings ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... year 1825 there lived at St. Heliers, Jersey, an old watchmaker, named Urban Purfoy. He was a hard-working man, and had amassed a little money—sufficient to give his grand-daughter an education above the common in those days. At sixteen, Sarah Purfoy was an empty-headed, strong-willed, precocious girl, with big brown eyes. She had a bad opinion of her own sex, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... was thrown away, the clock had to be sent to a watchmaker, and the "Samovar" to the copper-smith. The blackbeetles, and bugs and other filthy things were not at all frightened of Moshe. And the fox went on doing what a fox ought to do. But Moshe-for-once still remained the same Moshe-for-once he had been. After all, he had ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... many of them are musicians and painters of still-life subjects. M. de Choiseul, as we have just seen, works at tapestry; others embroider or make sword-knots. M. de Francueil is a good violinist and makes violins himself; and besides this he is "watchmaker, architect, turner, painter, locksmith, decorator, cook, poet, music-composer and he embroiders remarkably well."[2255] In this general state of inactivity it is essential "to know how to be pleasantly occupied in behalf of others as well as in one's own behalf." Madame de Pompadour is a musician, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... piece of brass tubing 4 inches or so in diameter and 3 inches long. (The case of an old brass "drum" clock, which may be bought for a few pence at a watchmaker's, serves very well if the small screw holes are soldered over.) The ends should be of brass or zinc, the one which will be uppermost being at least 1/16 inch thick. If you do not possess a lathe, lay the tube on ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... would have exposed me to attacks from Mr. Barrow of the Admiralty, in the Quarterly Review: especially as I had taken liberties with Mr. Croker in a note.—Your chronology was almost equally out of order: but I put that into the hands of an eminent watchmaker; and he assures me that he has 'regulated' it, and will warrant its now going as true as the ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... in the dining room the German watchmaker was winding up the clock. Stepan Arkadyevitch remembered his joke about this punctual, bald watchmaker, "that the German was wound up for a whole lifetime himself, to wind up watches," and he smiled. Stepan Arkadyevitch was fond of a joke: "And maybe she will come round! That's ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the watch, but the watchmaker—said quietly, "By your leave," and, pulling a single hair from my head, touched it to a fine gauge, which indicated exactly the thickness of the hair. It was a test of the twenty-five hundredth part of an inch. But there are also gauges graduated to the ten-thousandth part of an inch. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... watchmaker. When he was young he made watches of curious design. But for years he has had to content himself with repairing watches. Incased in his old-fashioned leather apron that hangs from his shoulders, the venerable and somewhat Gargantuan ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... used to assemble those of the family in his room, give them cakes and sweetmeats, and set them dancing to the sound of his flute. He was very friendly to those around him, and cultivated a kind of intimacy with a watchmaker in the court, who possessed much native wit and humor. He passed most of the day, however, in his room, and only went out in the evenings. His days were no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and it would ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... bottom of the boat, and my satchel had taken water enough to spoil my paper collars and a dozen cigars. My greatest calamity on that night was the sudden and persistent stoppage of my watch. An occurrence of little moment in New York or London was decidedly unpleasant when no trusty watchmaker ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... account of his deafness and dumbness; the one thing I saw was his mastership over a single subject. Gradually my incompleteness came to weigh on me like a nightmare. I imagined that if I had learned any craft which required skill, I should have been content. I was depressed when I looked at the watchmaker examining my watch. I should have walked the streets erect if there had been one thing which I could do better than anybody I met. There was nothing: I stood for nothing: no purpose was intended by God through me. I was also constitutionally inaccurate—this was another of my troubles—and nothing ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... the watchmaker, with his wife and two daughters. I need not explain what I mean by vulgar, when ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... none, that he was very weary, that he liked the town, and that he had resolved to take up his abode in it. The police were astounded by his coolness, and continued to ply him with questions. They asked what his station in life was, when he seemed a little confused; but ultimately said he was a watchmaker. They demanded his name, and he said it was Nauendorff, but whence he had come he refused to tell; and his sole worldly possession was a seal, which, he said, had belonged to Louis XVI. of France. The police kept the seal, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... pinning your ears back and jiu-jitsing the fried chicken, and then doing a high dive into a little dish that ain't—that isn't either a wash-bowl or real good lemonade. He's a perfect lady, Percy is. Dabs his mouth with his napkin like a watchmaker tinkering the carburetor in ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... was soon followed by mechanical clocks, the clock watch, and the more delicate work of the watchmaker. The watch has become more accurate in its marking of time by the introduction of machinery in its manufacture; and it is cheapened by competition, so that now every one for a mere trifle can carry in his pocket a watch by means of which he can tell accurately the hour of day, ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... he was accustomed to frequent, and there he learned to work at the forge, to handle the hammer and file, and in a short time to shoe horses with considerable expertness. A cousin of his named Farer, a clock and watchmaker by trade, having returned to the village from London, brought with him some books on mechanics, which he lent to Joseph to read; and they kindled in him an ardent desire to be a mechanic instead of a slater. He nevertheless continued to maintain ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... the attributes of our own spirits, he makes "the grotesque supposition that the tickings and other movements of a watch constituted a kind of consciousness; and that a watch possessed of such a consciousness, insisted on regarding the watchmaker's actions as determined like its own by springs and escapements." (p. 111). The vast majority of men, instead of agreeing with Mr. Spencer in this matter, will doubtless heartily, each for himself, join the German philosopher Jacobi, in saying, "I confess to Anthropomorphism inseparable ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... a watchmaker, not a chemist; take your eyes to an oculist, and if you cannot afford to see one privately, get an eye-hospital note. (To allow a chemist or "optician" to try lenses until he finds a pair through which you "see better" ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... appeared to get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of smock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window, seemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... who settled there had succeeded in keeping out all others, and that the first tailor, the first mason, the first printer, the first watchmaker, the first hair-dresser, the first physician, the first baker, had been equally fortunate. Paris would still be a village, with twelve or fifteen hundred inhabitants. But it was not thus. Each one, except those whom you still keep away, came to make money in this ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... and Letty did not understand their value, but nevertheless even they could guess that they belonged to a superior description of jewellery from that which was displayed beneath the glass cases of Mr. Kurtz the watchmaker of Shadywalk. Then Clarissa's dress was of fine quality, and made beautifully, and her little gold watch with its chain "put a finish upon it," Anne said. A little hair necklace with a gold clasp was round her neck besides; and her comb was real tortoise-shell. Clarissa was dainty, ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... Puritans quite envied the child in "The Boy and the Watchmaker," a jingle wherein the former said, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study. Nay, your common mechanics and artisans are proofs of the wonderful dexterity acquired by use; a watchmaker, finishing his wheels and springs, a pin or needle-maker, &c. I think there is a particular occupation in Europe, which is called paper staining, or linen staining, A man who has long been habituated to it, shall sit for ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... his hand. "Benson, the little old watchmaker on the corner, gave me that. No, it's not a dime. It pleases him immensely to see me wear it. It's not bad, ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... in Riazan, when a certain master-watchmaker went and hanged himself to a ventilator, he first of all stopped every watch and clock in his shop. Now, the question is, why ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... interesting book, by-the-bye—is that the sight improves and strengthens by constant use, and that an agricultural labourer, who hardly uses his eyes at all, has rarely in the decline of life so good a sight as the watchmaker or the student. I have read immensely all my life, and find myself no worse for that indulgence. But you may read the debates to me if you like, my dear, for if my eyes are strong, I myself am very tired. Sick to death, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... was, early in 1794, leaving his chambers in the Temple for the purpose of paying a visit in the Northern outskirts of London. Upon crossing Fleet Street he had to traverse Bell Yard; and as he passed a watchmaker's shop his attention was attracted by a placard in the window, of a very revolutionary character, convening a meeting of a certain society, that evening, at the watchmaker's. Many a man would have passed ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... activities. It is by such enumeration that we describe a watch, or a steam-engine, or any other piece of machinery. Describe I say, but such description does not account for the watch or tell us its full significance. To do this, we must include the watchmaker, and the world of mind and ideas amid which he lives. Now, in a living machine, the machine and the maker are one. The watch is perpetually self-wound and self-regulated and self-repaired. It is made up of millions of other little watches, the cells, all working together for one common ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... his pressing bodily wants; to take from him, at least for one day, the temptation to commit a theft. But I knew that the temptation would recur again, and as long as he continued in blind ignorance, there could be small hope that he would even wish to resist it. I remembered that my watchmaker had given me the direction of a Ragged School at which his daughter taught; spending her time and energies as so many do now, in this noblest labour of love. This school was not very far off, and I resolved to take this opportunity of paying it a long-intended visit. I took the poor little fellow ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... the watchmaker's getting mended,' he said with a smile. He was neither young nor handsome, but he was clever, and that goes further than either in dealing ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... jealous care. As a natural consequence of my assiduity in study I was destined for the priesthood. Moreover, I was of sedentary habits and too weak of muscle to distinguish myself in athletic sports. I had an uncle of a Voltairian turn of mind, who did not at all approve of this. He was a watchmaker, and had reckoned upon me to take on his business. My successes were as gall and wormwood to him, for he quite saw that all this store of Latin was dead against him, and that it would convert me into a pillar of ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... command at Killala, when the presence of the commander-in-chief was required elsewhere, bore the name of Charost. He was a lieutenant colonel, aged forty-five years, the son of a Parisian watchmaker. Having been sent over at an early age to the unhappy Island of St. Domingo, with a view to some connections there by which he hoped to profit, he had been fortunate enough to marry a young woman who brought ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... a land into which the legal practitioners must be imported from an immense distance. All English labour in India, from the labour of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, down to that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be paid for at a higher rate than at home. No man will be banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for nothing. The rule holds good with respect to the legal profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen thousand miles from all his friends, with the thermometer at ninety-six in the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... first-rate—better than they make them now,' Jacinth continued; 'and Lady Myrtle has had it thoroughly overhauled by her own watchmaker in London, so she's sure it'll go perfectly, with any one careful; and I am careful, am I not, Francie? Lady Myrtle says she could see I was, almost the first ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... eye and the hand, those perfect instruments of optical and mechanical contrivance and adaptation, without the least waste or surplusage—these, say Paley and Bell, certainly prove a designing maker as much as the palace or the watch proves an architect or a watchmaker. Let this mind, in this state, cross Darwin's work, and find that, after a sensitive nerve or a rudimentary hoof or claw, no design is to be found. From this point upward the development is the mere ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... throat, and wabbles and beats too quick, he just flunks. I would like to dissect a real brave man, and see what condition the things inside him are in, but it would be a waste of time to dissect dad, 'cause I know all his inner works need to go to a watchmaker and be cleaned, and a new ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... story indeed, Graheme; the duke was so fascinated with your talents as a watchmaker that he bestowed a charger fit for his own riding upon you to carry you across ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... quite empty. In one sense a man should always be enough for himself. He should have enough of principle and enough of conscience to restrain him from doing what he knows to be wrong. But can a ship-builder build his ship single-handed, or the watchmaker make his watch without assistance? On former occasions such as this, I could say, with little or no help from without, whether I would or would not undertake the work that was proposed to me, because I had only a bit of the ship to build, or a wheel of the watch to make. My own efficacy ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... put a stop to the slave trade, as was then alleged, purchased a young boy slave for one hundred roubles, the average price of the human article in Bokhara, and brought him to St. Petersburg. The boy was subsequently apprenticed to a Tartar watchmaker, and later became a convert to the Russian church. According to a letter in the Russian Official Gazette, the young Ameer's decree, finally freeing all the bondmen within his dominion, was promulgated Nov. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... the more wonderful a thing is, the greater the necessity for creation; that a watch is a wonderful thing, and that it must have had a creator; that the watchmaker is more wonderful than the watch, therefore he must have had a creator. Then we come to God; He is altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker, therefore He had no creator. There is a link out somewhere; I don't pretend ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... went to a watchmaker, and presenting a small French watch to him, demanded to know how much the repair of it would come to. The watchmaker, after examining it, said, "It will be more expense repairing than its original cost."—"I don't mind that," said the tar; "I will even give you double ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... was a wig or the Duchess's—the faded Oriental shawl which was fastened beneath her chin and which fell over her thin, bent chest. There was O'Flaherty, the good-natured policeman on the beat. There was the old watchmaker next door. There was Black Hurley, the notorious gang leader, who sometimes swaggered into the district like a dirty and evil feudal lord. There was a Jewish pushcart peddler, white-bearded and skull-capped. There was an Italian mother sitting on the curb, her ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing. Credulity is not wooed through the impressionable senses; nor have we recourse to the small circular glow of the watchmaker's eye to raise in bright relief minutest grains of evidence for the routing of incredulity. The Comic Spirit conceives a definite situation for a number of characters, and rejects all accessories ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy, as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all were,—cheap, painted wood, of a shining red, and tawdry pictures on the doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... takes him to the fatal scene. But when he is to be introduced to the lady he entirely declines to part with his sword; and when the whole secret is revealed he, with the help of Cristalline, who is really a good-natured creature in more senses than one, slays the three chief minions of the tyrant—a watchmaker who sets the clock, a locksmith who is to count the detached rings, and a kind of Executioner High-priest who is to do the flaying and burning,—cuts his way with Cristalline herself to the enchanted boat, regaining terra firma and (relatively speaking) ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... sudden whirr and series of convulsions, ending in a dead stop, which was an unmistakeable intimation to the Captain that something vital had given way; that the watch had gone into open mutiny, and nothing short of a visit to the watchmaker could restore ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... that spring and summer and autumn. Then an important turn was given to his history. It seems that among the commissions with which he was charged on leaving Lexington was one from Edward West, the watchmaker and inventor, who some time before, and long before Fulton, had made trial of steam navigation with a small boat on the Town Fork of the Elkhorn, and who desired to have his invention brought before the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. He had therefore placed a full description ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... engaged in interesting conversation. It turned upon chronometry and horology, and the engineer amazed his lordship by the extent of his knowledge on the subject, in which he displayed as much minute information, even down to the latest improvements in watchmaking, as if he had been bred a watchmaker and lived by the trade. Lord Denman was curious to know how a man whose time must have been mainly engrossed by engineering, had gathered so much knowledge on a subject quite out of his own line, and he asked the question. ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... passed us; their construction was awkward to a degree. The French are very far behind the English in the ingenuity of the lower order of their artisans. A French watchmaker usually exceeds an English one; but a French blacksmith, a French carpenter, are as infinitely inferior. The things in common use are execrable: not a window that shuts close, not a door that fits; every thing clumsy, rough hewn, and ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... aeronauts guided their balloons. Not to speak of Blanchard, whose assertions might be doubted, at Dijon, Guyton-Morveaux, by the aid of oars and a helm, imparted to his machines perceptible motions, a decided direction. More recently, at Paris, a watchmaker, M. Julien, has made at the Hippodrome convincing experiments; for, with the aid of a particular mechanism, an aerial apparatus of oblong form was manifestly propelled against the wind. M. Petin placed four balloons, filled with ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... of them, an elderly watchmaker, got up and made a dry and cynical little speech, nothing moving but the thin lips in the shrivelled mahogany face. Robert knew the man well. He was a Genevese by birth, Calvinist by blood, revolutionist by development. He complained that Mr. Elsmere had ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The old watchmaker was upright in the middle of the room, which resounded with the roaring of the river. His bristling hair gave him a sinister aspect. He was talking and gesticulating, without seeing or hearing anything. Gerande stood ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... about the middle of the street, on the south side, lived Theophilus Holdred, a jobbing watchmaker, whose name will always hold a place in one department of mathematical history. He discovered a method of approximating to the roots of numerical equations, of considerable ingenuity. He, however, lost in his day and generation the reputation that was really ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 49, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1850 • Various
... proceedings of the Congress of the United States. Thomas Godfrey, the second, died after having given the most promising indications of an elegant genius for pathetic and descriptive poetry. He was an apprentice to a watchmaker, and had secretly written a poem, which he published anonymously in the Philadelphia newspaper, under the title of "The Temple of Fame." The attention which it attracted, and the encomiums which the Provost in particular bestowed ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... belonged to an officer. This theft was committed at the hospital, where Sparrow was at the time a patient, although able to work occasionally at his business; and being a young man of abilities as a watchmaker, and of good character, was employed by most of the gentlemen of the settlement. Suspicion fell upon a notorious thief who was in the same ward, and who had some time before proposed to another man to take the box. On his examination ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... the body; it contains substances to keep our bodies in order. Suppose the clock gets out of order and does not keep good time, what does the watchmaker do to it? He regulates it. That is what certain kinds of food do for us. What then is another use of food? Food regulates ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... myself, however, escaping from the deadly device, and in order to hide myself more effectually, making for Compiegne. Should I have enough money? Then I reflected that it might be possible to sell my watch to an old watchmaker whom I used to see, when on my way to the Lycee, at work behind the window of his little shop, with a glass fixed in his right eye. That was a sad faculty of foresight which poisoned so many of the harmless ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... capable as his fellow. But in the complexity of modern industrial life such a calculation no longer applies: the differences of skill, of native ingenuity, and technical preparation become enormous. The hour's work of a common laborer is not the same thing as the hour's work of a watchmaker mending a watch, or of an engineer directing the building of a bridge, or of an architect drawing a plan. There is no way of reducing these hours to a common basis. We may think, if we like, that the quantity of labor ought to be the basis ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... be examined in still greater detail. Does a man merely inherit manual skill, let us say, or does he inherit the precise kind of manual skill needed to make a surgeon but not the kind that would be useful to a watchmaker? Is a man born merely with a generalized "artistic" ability, or is it one adapted solely for, let us say, music; or further, is it adapted solely for violin playing, ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... lies, in Horizontal position, The outside case of George Routleigh, Watchmaker, Whose abilities in that line were an honour To his profession; Integrity was the main-Spring, And Prudence the Regulator Of all the actions of his life; Humane, generous, and liberal, His Hand never stopped Till he had relieved ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... Wattie Sim, the watchmaker, long and lank, with grey bushy eyebrows meeting over his nose, wandered, with the gait of a heedless pair of compasses, across from his own shop to Redford the bookseller's, at whose door a small group was ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... His history was curious. He had been born in Bavaria, and when a youth of twenty-two had taken an active part in the revolutionary movement of 1848. Heavily compromised, he managed to make his escape, and at first found a refuge with a poor republican watchmaker in Trieste. From there he made his way to Tripoli with a stock of cheap watches to hawk about,—not a very great opening truly, but it turned out lucky enough, because it was there he came upon a Dutch traveller—a rather famous man, I believe, but I don't remember his name. It was that naturalist ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and seconded the laugh of his eyes; and his wide mouth was garnished with a pair of well-formed and well-coloured lips, which, when he laughed, disclosed a range of teeth strong and well set, and as white as the very pearl. Such was the elder apprentice of David Ramsay, Memory's Monitor, watchmaker, and constructor of horologes, to his Most Sacred ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... dress of a decent artisan of the Jura—such a man as he had known in his boyhood as a watchmaker of Locle or the Doubs. For a few days he stayed in Geneva, lodging in such a street as a Locle artisan would have chosen; but he could not feel secure there, in spite of his own certainty that his transformation was complete. A restless dread haunted him. He knew well that there are in every one ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... morning after our last interview I set out, as usual, to bid good-morrow to my father. My uneasy thoughts led me unaware to extend my walk, till I reached the door of a watchmaker with whom my servant had, some time before, left a watch to be repaired. It occurred to me that, since I was now on the spot, I might as well stop and make some inquiry about it. On entering the shop I almost repented of my purpose, as two persons were within the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... think so," answered Mrs. Sampson. "It does get a little slow sometimes, not 'avin' been cleaned for some time, which my nevy bein' a watchmaker I allays 'ands it over ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... opened his gate and passed out and started down the sidewalk. Midway of the next square he overtook a man he knew—an elderly watchmaker, a Swiss by birth, who worked at Nagel's jewelry store. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of times he had passed this man upon the street. Always before he had passed him with averted eyes and a stiff nod of recognition. Now, coming up behind the other, Mr. Stackpole bade him a ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... dinners, for balls, for punches, for I know not what, to the Ministers—only to the Ministers! How many are they? Ten! Yes! one hundred thousand francs to each of them for eating and drinking during the famous Exposition! Only there are some who get more, some who get less. That little watchmaker Tirard, they give him 250,000 francs! Did he ever earn 250,000 francs in his life? Never! and will they spend all this money on dinners and punches? No, never in life! It is just simply to pocket a million of the money of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... in his visit to a retired watchmaker, who had got from government a premium of L10,000 for the best chronometer. Hook was very partial to journeys in search of adventure; a gig, a lively companion, and sixpence for the first turnpike being generally all that was requisite; ingenuity ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... that, Jervis," my friend observed as his assistant retired. "Looks like a rural dean or a chancery judge, and was obviously intended by Nature to be a professor of physics. As an actual fact he was first a watchmaker, then a maker of optical instruments, and now he is mechanical factotum to a medical jurist. He is my right-hand, is Polton; takes an idea before you have time to utter it—but you will make his more intimate ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... life. He was punctual in everything, and made everyone about him punctual. So careful a man delighted in always having about him a good timekeeper. In Philadelphia the first President regularly walked up to his watchmaker's to compare his watch with the regulator. At Mount Vernon the active yet punctual farmer invariably consulted the dial when returning from his morning ride, and before ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... in the Communist League that Marx and Engels saw their first opportunity to impress their ideas on the labor movement. At the urgent request of Joseph Moll, a watchmaker and a prominent member of the League, Marx consented, in 1847, to present to that organization his views, and the result was the famous Communist Manifesto. Every essential idea of modern socialism is contained in that brief ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter |
