"Clockwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Clockwork can often be employed for propulsion purposes, but this method is not very satisfactory. It is also very difficult to obtain suitable clockworks to install in a boat. Oftentimes it will be possible to salvage the ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... hungry man. "It seems to me they don't amount to ANYthing. Here I am, at my time of life, up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the cook at quarter-past six every morning, and the breakfast is on the table at half-past seven right along, like clockwork, but I never see anybody but you till I go ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... brought against the institution. Here life for the inmates is made too easy, and little can be known by them of the actual struggles of the world. The life is machine-like, and all is routine clockwork. By the discipline, which is necessary, much of the spontaneity of growing children is destroyed, and the surroundings are pervaded with the spirit of uniformity, "solidarity" and "dead levelism." On the other hand, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... four feet from the ground, two male Bailadors were seen engaged in a song and dance. They were about eighteen inches apart, and alternately jumped two feet into the air, alighting always in the same spot. As soon as one bird alighted the other bird jumped up, their time being like clockwork in its regularity, and each "accompanying himself to the tune of 'to-le-do'—'to-le-do'—'to-le-do,' sounding the syllable 'to' as he crouched to spring, 'le' while in the air, and 'do' as he alighted." The performance was kept up for more than a minute, when the birds found ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... on the Sawhorse, and the people cheered him almost as loudly as they did their lovely Ruler. Behind him stalked with regular, jerky steps, the famous machine-man called Tik-tok, who had been wound up by Dorothy for the occasion. Tik-tok moved by clockwork, and was made all of burnished copper. He really belonged to the Kansas girl, who had much respect for his thoughts after they had been properly wound and set going; but as the copper man would be useless in any place but ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... them all—the doll's house and the rocking-horse, and all the queer contents of the nursery shelves, and the fairy stories well thumbed, with here and there a loose page, and the boxes of bricks and the clockwork mouse—all, all my treasures. ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... went like clockwork. He presently found himself in a queue, behind Donovan, of officers who were passing a small window like a ticket office. Arriving, he handed in papers, and was given them back with a brief "All right." Beyond, Donovan ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... Franklin Inst., 1886) employed a cylinder driven by clockwork, making ten revolutions per second. The surface was divided into 100 equal parts, each equal to 1/1000 second. The time marks were made by two galvanometer needles, when successive screens were broken by a shot. Henry also ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... what she was about, found herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... me. I can hardly credit it. Nearly a week, and he as punctual and regular as clockwork! I must run over this evening and catch him. Something must be wrong. And yet why has he not been here? Dear ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... privileges? But this was doubly impossible. First, because men utterly misconceive the matter when they suppose that with direct consecutive succession the judgment would succeed the trespass. Large tracts of time would intervene. Else such direct clockwork as sin and punishment, repentance and relief, would dishonour God not less than they would trivialize the people. God they would offend by defeating all His purposes; the people they would render vile by ripening into ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... surer. For uncounted centuries before ever hearing of Gravitation men knew of the sun that he rose and set, of the moon that she waxed and waned, of the tides that they flowed and ebbed, all regularly, at times to be predicted; of the stars that they swung as by clockwork around the pole. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... soon tearing along the smooth Roman road at a splendid pace, "the ponies going like clockwork," as Vixen remarked approvingly; but poor Miss McCroke thought that any clock which went as fast as those ponies would be deemed the ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... strolling five abreast down the middle of the roadway. Here was the whole city coming and going. Here, precisely as he had left it thirty-five years ago, it sprang back into life again, like an illuminated clockwork. No; he was wrong, of course. It had been working all the while, and without intermission, absorbed in its own business—buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage. He had dropped ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... which is exceptional in its exemptions, involves the ordering of outside business matters), the care-taker of the garments and linen, the gardener, the secretary, the mistress and sub-mistress of novices. The house is managed like clockwork. Punctually as the bell rings each sister goes to the task appointed for that hour, and leaves it, no matter how important or absorbing it may be, for the duty appointed by the rule for the next division of time. Silence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... has been splendid!" she heard Travers say in her ear. "Things went just like clockwork. Five minutes' conversation got the whole clubhouse out of him, and what you managed in your quarter of an hour, goodness knows. You are a ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... everything, and more than Mary, with her young inexperience, could have thought of. She prepared the warm bath, and tried it with her husband's own thermometer (Mr. Jenkins was as punctual as clockwork in noting down the temperature of every day). She let his mother place her baby in the tub, still preserving the same rigid, affronted aspect, and then she went upstairs without a word. Mary longed to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... a pen drawing a continuous line on a cylinder which revolves once every hour and is worked continuously by clockwork in an exact record of time. It moves in a straight line when there is no disturbance, and it jumps from right to left and back again when there are serious oscillations of the earth. The extent of these movements of the pen measures the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... taken upon himself. If Lord Plowden's guest had no sport, the blame for it should rest upon Lord Plowden's over-arrogant keeper. Then a noise of a different character assailed his ears, punctuated as it were by distant boyish cries of "mark!" These cries, and the buzzing sound as of clockwork gone wrong which they accompanied and heralded, became all at once a most urgent affair of his own. He strained his eyes upon the horizon of the thicket—and, as if by instinct, the gun sprang up to adjust its sight to this eager gaze, and followed ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... suppose by Verrio. In the windows, which looked out on two sides, over the river and into a little court, were little tables covered with curious things, for His Majesty delighted in such ingenuities—Dutch figures in silver, clockwork, and the like, and a basket of spaniels lay beneath one of the tables. A second great table stood against the wall on the further side from that on which I entered, covered with retorts and instruments, and behind it a press, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... with me, Paul," suggested Jack, when they were more than half way back to town, with the double column moving along like clockwork, every right leg thrust out in unison, as though forming a part of a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... if I was such a biby as to belave that story, Masther Jack," he said. "I tell ye it was the lion himself attacking the bastes, and you'll see he'll be about the camp now every night, as regular as clockwork. It's very good of the masther to try and put one at his aise about the wild bastes; but that there was a lion—I know it was; and if, Masther Jack, dear, I'm missing some night, ye may know that there's a lion aiting of me; and I hope ye'll take me bones back and give me a dacent ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... been many days at the Vicarage before she found that punctuality was Aunt Sarah's idol, and that nothing offended her more than want of respect to it from others. Certainly everything went like clockwork at Waverley, and though Anna fancied that Mr Forrest inwardly rebelled a little, he was outwardly quite submissive. All Aunt Sarah's arrangements and plans were so neatly fitted into each other that the ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... had been put in place, Blake to work one and Joe the other, while the automatic, which was operated by clockwork, once the trigger-string was broken, also setting off the continuous flashlight, was set between the two boys, to command a good view of the dam, and of whoever should ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... lover of the arts. His palace was built after the Arabian style, and he had skilful mechanical experts to construct a golden tree over his throne, on the branches of which were numerous birds, and two golden lions at the foot. These birds were so arranged by clockwork, that they could be made to sing, and the lions also joined ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... were caused to alternately adhere by friction or slip by reason of electrochemical decomposition. One of these surfaces consisted of a small drum or cylinder of chalk, which was kept in a moistened condition with a suitable chemical solution, and adapted to revolve continuously by clockwork. The other surface consisted of a small pad which rested with frictional pressure on the periphery of the drum. This pad was carried on the end of a vibrating arm whose lateral movement was limited between two adjustable points. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... heard a gentle whirring somewhere amongst them. It made him start and look behind him. There were the sails of a windmill going round and round almost close to his ear. He thought at first it must be one of those toys which are wound up and go with clockwork; but no, it was a common penny toy, with the windmill at the end of a whistle, and when the whistle blows the windmill goes. But the wonder was that there was no one at the whistle end blowing, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Your mother would have died for shame; there was no modern cant about your mother; she thought—she said to me, sir—I'm glad she's in her grave, Dick Naseby. Misinformed! Misinformed, sir? Have you no loyalty, no spring, no natural affections? Are you clockwork, hey? Away! This is no place for you. Away!" (Waving his hands in the air.) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the rotation of the shell to give a regular motion to clockwork have been tried, but so far no practicable form of these fuzes has been ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Yamen messengers continue to come and go with clockwork regularity. Yesterday the Chinese Government excelled itself, and made some who have still a sense of humour left laugh cynically. In an original official despatch—that is, not a mere covering ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... and be given instructions. At a wayside inn at an appointed hour a voice speaking a thick German would advise that this bridge or that railway crossing had been cleared. At a hamlet among pine woods an unknown man would clamber up beside me and take me past a sentry-post. Smooth as clockwork was the machine, till in the dawn of a spring morning I found myself dropping into a broad valley through little orchards just beginning to blossom, and I knew that I was in France. After that, Blenkiron's own arrangements began, and soon I was drinking coffee with a young lieutenant ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... were known as accomplishments: drawing, music, physical exercises, riding, fencing, singlestick, dancing, &c. On Sundays, every one, great and small, dined at "THE GREAT TABLE," and this life of ours was as regular as clockwork ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the monotony of clockwork, fifteen seconds to the man, four men to the minute, the mugs bobbing up and down in turn like marionettes. The clerk called the name, the bailiff the offence, the judge the sentence, and the man sat down. That was all. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... unloaded before night, and it was pitch dark before we made camp. I explained the situation to the men. We planned to go in empty in five days, which would give us seven to come back loaded. We made every camp on time like clockwork. The fifth morning we were anxious to get a daybreak start, so we could load at night. The night herder had his orders to bring in the oxen the first sign of day, and I called the cook an hour before light. ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... Christmas. Christmas is a matter that humanity has taken so deeply to heart that we will not have our festival meddled with by bungling hands. No efficiency expert would dare tell us that Christmas is inefficient; that the clockwork toys will soon be broken; that no one can eat a peppermint cane a yard long; that the curves on our chart of kindness should be ironed out so that the "peak load" of December would be evenly distributed through the ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... directions and commands, issued like clockwork amid the confusion of battle. Our executive officer seemed to be in a ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... went by clockwork by the appearance; Th' exalted driver, usually so deft, Resented, in his doze, the interference Of any one poor fellow-suff'rer left; Of all his strength and energy bereft, The weary horse dragged listlessly along, And there appeared to be no effort left In the ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... have been devised by Serrin, Dubosq, Siemens, Brockie, and others, some regulating the arc by clockwork and electro-magnetism, or by thermal and other effects of the current. They are chiefly used for lighting halls and railway stations, streets and open spaces, search-lights and lighthouses. They are sometimes naked, but as a ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... had the habit of her, of her strong capable ways, the clockwork precision of her household and parish arrangements. But as time went on he saw that perhaps he was more comfortable without her: as a reformed drunkard sees that it is better not to rely on brandy for one's courage. He saw it, but of course he ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... resurrection, when all the countless millions of old rickety, rusty, worm-eaten clocks are to be resurrected, and wiped, and dusted, and repaired, for mansions in the skies! There will be every kind and character of clock and clockwork resurrected on that day. There will be the Catholic clock with his beads, and the Episcopalian clock with his ritual. There will be an old clock resurrected on that day wearing a broadcloth coat buttoned up to the throat; and when he is wound up he will go off with a ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... Chaldean plains, in the Persian and Median deserts, and upon the banks of that great, strange River, the Nile. To them the Universe was alive—instinct with forces and powers, mysterious and beyond their comprehension. To them it was no machine, no great system of clockwork; but a great live creature, an army of creatures, in sympathy with or inimical to man. To them, all was a mystery and a miracle, and the stars flashing overhead spoke to their hearts almost in an audible ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... that wise and ancient cow, Who chews her juicy cud so languid now Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough Lulls all but inward vision, fast asleep: But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep Mysterious clockwork guides, and some hid pulley Her drowsy cud, each ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... replied, with a return to his former embarrassment; 'she does not seem to care for me now at all. Indeed, she positively refuses me. She says—to put it in the dear child's own racy language—that she wouldn't take me on at any price. She says it would be like marrying a clockwork figure without the key. She's more frank than complimentary, but I ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... You are not persecuted by the process of making you comfortable; yet everything is done, and is done well. The work of the house is performed as if by magic, but it is the magic of system. Nothing is done by fits and starts, nor at awkward seasons; the whole goes on like well-oiled clockwork, where there is no noise nor jarring ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... One of them had won the Claiborne signet ring at poker after Reginald Maltravers had been stripped of his valuables, and had worn it. They had been dispatched with a bomb each, which they were to introduce into the hold of the Jasper B., retiring through the tunnel after they had started the clockwork mechanism going. It was known that one of them owed the other money; they had been quarreling about it as they entered the tunnel from the cellar of Morris's. It was conjectured that the quarrel had progressed and that the debtor had endeavored, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... he wrote to Bedford, in reply to his letter, "suppose me a troublesome man to deal with, pertinacious about trifles, or standing upon punctilios of authorship. No, Grosvenor, I am a quiet, patient, easy-going hack of the mule breed; regular as clockwork in my pace, sure-footed, bearing the burden which is laid on me, and only obstinate in choosing my own path. If Gifford could see me by this fireside, where, like Nicodemus, one candle suffices me in a large room, he would see a man in a coat 'still more ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... loathsome-looking length of a big snake became gradually clear to see, with the tail in the air announcing its owner's nature by keeping up a peculiar skirring sound something like the running down of a distant piece of clockwork. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... the company through half a dozen movements of the manual of arms, next marching the company away in column of fours. The regulars, of course, responded like clockwork. They made a fine appearance as they started off under their freakish second lieutenant. Ere they had gone far Ferrers swung them into column of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... were getting their rations each night with the regularity of clockwork, they were beginning to appreciate properly the excellence of their fare. "Seeing," as the Senior Subaltern would say, "that we are on Active Service, I think the rations is ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... magicians, having discovered Minecco Aniello's great wealth, laid a plan to rob him of his good fortune, so they made a pretty little doll which played and danced by means of clockwork; and, dressing themselves like merchants, they went to Pentella, the daughter of Minecco Aniello, under pretext of selling it to her. When Pentella saw the beautiful little thing she asked them what price they put upon it, and they replied that ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... your retreat is known. We have just had another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the usual humiliating result. Zero is quite disheartened. We are all scattered, and I could find no one but the SOLEMN ASS who brings you this and the money. I would love to see your ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... practical nature, which could be advanced by mathematical knowledge, had an interest for him: and his incessant industry enabled him to find time for many of them. Amongst such subjects were Tides and Tidal Observations, Clockwork, and the Strains in Beams and Bridges. A certain portion of his time was also given to Lectures, generally on current astronomical questions, for he held it as his duty to popularize the science as far as lay in his power. And he attended the meetings of the Royal Astronomical ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... and quiet the whole evening. In Mrs. Selvig's tap-room he found a remedy which made him insensible to moral lectures even the most reasonable and impressive. There he stood every evening a quarter of an hour after working-hours, as regular as clockwork, and when the hands of the clock drew near to eight, he just as regularly set off homewards, a punctuality which, be it said in passing, had gained for him in the tap-room the title of General ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... fitted with another, and each in its proper place, until the whole was like a mosaic of defense. The "bear" pool was met on the threshold; it was permitted to press forward eighth by eighth according to a plan; one Bayard broker having made his purchases, another took his place; it was like clockwork. The whole five hundred and sixty-one thousand shares were bought and sold; and from first to last there came never a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Sergeant!" he cried angrily. "Look for yerself.— Didn't yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge.—Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It's the old game. Yer allus 'ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and—Phew! Here! What's the matter? I've caught something, and it's got me in ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork and they moved evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the woods. They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; but she could not begin her conversation, and in default of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would—along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... I think I hear the tick-tack all the time since the last attempt. It haunts my ears, it is frightful, to say to one's self: There is clockwork somewhere, just about to reach the death-tick—and not to know where, not to know where! When the police were here I made them all listen, and I was not sure even when they had all listened and said there was no tick-tack. It is terrible to hear it in my ear any moment ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... the sleeping room floor in which stood the mechanism for running the Terror, and the other beneath the store room floor, in which stood a small powerful dynamo which operated automatically by a spring clockwork. ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... reveals events engendered by psychological laws working with the regularity of clockwork. The actors in this great drama seem to move like the characters of a previously determined drama. Each says what he must say, acts as he is bound ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... heads, was a whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... hunt the automobile and Billings. Both of 'em looked consider'ble better than they had when I see 'em last. The shover had got a gang of men and they'd got the gas cart ashore, and Billings and a blacksmith was workin' over—or rather under—the clockwork. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... you didn't say 'clockwork,'" Mike told him. "I've had enough dealings with machines today. Where ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... anything else a curiously shaped submarine coffin, Lee drifted along by the side of the ship, navigating with difficulty with his single oar and seeking vainly to find some spot to which he might affix his magazine. A fact which might have disquieted a more nervous man was that the clockwork of this machine was running and had been set to go off in an hour from the time the voyage was undertaken. As to almost anyone in that position minutes would seem hours, the calmness of sailor Lee's nerves seems to be something beyond ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... A clockwork train sent out to Peter with a hope that "he was not too old for it" fascinated Eustace, despite his four years' seniority; the exquisite little doll's dinner service for Becky set Nesta longing to play with it and cook pretence dinners ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... the altar whose basement formed the glass isolating "island" which all of us who have ever seen an electrical machine know so well. The electric machine itself, a battery of Leyden jars was hidden under the altar and connected by a piece of clockwork with that opening covered with metal in which ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... she had fallen under the last of McTeague's blows, her body twitching with an occasional hiccough that stirred the pool of blood in which she lay face downward. Towards morning she died with a rapid series of hiccoughs that sounded like a piece of clockwork running down. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... part is the successful work of Mr. Gautier, who has looked after every detail with the greatest care, and has thus realized a true chef d'oeuvre. The colossal instrument, the total weight of which is 26,400 lb., is maneuvered by hand with the greatest ease. A clockwork movement, due to the same able manufacturer, is capable, besides, of moving the instrument with all the precision desirable, and of permitting it to follow the stars in their travel across the heavens. A star appearing in the horizon can thus be observed from its rising to its setting. The astronomer, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... Clockwork Mice, and Coloured Marbles Painted Bird that sweetly warbles, Dolls of every age and size, With flaxen hair and ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... serve the drinks, though the mixing was done by men; a third offered one of the new large musical boxes capable of playing several very noisy tunes; a fourth had imported a marvellous piece of mechanism: a piece of machinery run by clockwork, exhibiting the sea in motion, a ship tossing on its bosom; on shore, a water mill in action, a train of cars passing over a bridge, a deer chase with hounds, huntsmen, and game, all in pursuit or ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... have held out encouragement to mutiny, or temptation to rebellion. Finally, on the destined moment arriving, on the casus foederis (whatever that were) emerging, in which the executive had predetermined to act, not the perfection of clockwork, not the very masterpieces of scenical art, can ever have exhibited a combined movement upon one central point—so swift, punctual, beautiful, harmonious, more soundless than an exhalation, more overwhelming than a deluge—as the display of military force in Dublin ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to be furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. The Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. He was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth without life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, yet full of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a revolution. In this ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the hills and through the woods, and shook his quiet home like a sullen summons to arms. Often, no longer able to keep down his youthful ardor, he would mount his horse, and, galloping up to the town, spend hours there in watching the different companies, as with the precision of clockwork they went through their varied and difficult evolutions. At these sights and sounds, all the martial spirit within ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... impossible for me for a long time to attract her attention to the hands, but I succeeded in making her remark the clockwork and the striking apparatus. The means I employed were very simple; I asked them not to have the bell rung for lunch, and everybody got up and went into the dining room, when the little brass hammer ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... not at some period of their life been called to notice the change which a few short hours will bring over a household. A family may have lived on for years with no break in the home circle, and every thing connected with them have moved on with the regularity of clockwork, when some sudden and unlooked-for event will all at once change the very atmosphere of their home. Owing to her advanced age, Grandma Adams' death could hardly be supposed to have been unlooked for, ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... a very careless usage, speaking of wild creatures as if they were bound by some such limitation as hampers clockwork. When we say of one and another, they are night prowlers, it is perhaps true only as the things they feed upon are more easily come by in the dark, and they know well how to adjust themselves to conditions wherein food is more plentiful by day. And their accustomed performance ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... suddenly. There had been bright unclouded skies during the days since his arrival. Only at night had it rained, like clockwork: every night for fifteen minutes immediately after midnight. A light steady shower that ceased as suddenly as it sprang up. It was unusual. This was April in the Spring of 2348 and April was always a month of showery heavens. ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... small Japanese room, wedged between two piles of cushions, motionless, so that you could see her from a distance right in the background, looking like an idol, beneath the great fan which her negro waved regularly like a piece of clockwork. These foreign women ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... all assembled to prayers at half-past seven, previous to going to breakfast. They dined at one, and had a combined tea and supper at seven o'clock. At nine o'clock they went to bed. Before two months had passed away, everything went on like clockwork. One day passed away so like another, that the time flew imperceptibly, and they wondered that the Sundays came round so quick. They had now time to unpack everything, and the books which Mrs Campbell had selected and brought with ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... down another key at the other end of the line of wire. Moreover, the key at the farther end of the line could be so arranged as to make an impression on a piece of paper that was slowly drawn under it by clockwork. Now if the man at one end of the line held his key down for only an instant, this impression would look like a dot. If he held it down longer, it would look like a short dash. Morse combined these dots and dashes into an alphabet. For instance, ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... say, the best in the province, indeed.' (He drew nearer to me.) 'But, then, Panteley Eremyitch is such a wonderful man! He has only to wish for anything—he has only to take an idea into his head—and before you can look round, it's done; everything, you may say, goes like clockwork. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... trifle earlier in order to suit my convenience. The man good-naturedly replied that, as far as the matter concerned himself, he was agreeable enough, but that the cow was not so easily to be put out of her way. She was milked regularly as clockwork at a quarter to five, the clock had only just struck four; he might leave his work and take her home, but not a drop of milk would she give before the proper time! Leaving our jug, we roamed about this little paradise, unwilling to quit ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... England hear a great deal, we hear far too much, about the economic energy of industrial America, about the money of Mr. Morgan, or the machinery of Mr. Edison. We never realise that while we in England suffer from the same sort of successes in capitalism and clockwork, we have not got what the Americans have got; something at least to balance it in the way of a free agriculture, a vast field of free farms dotted with small freeholders. For the reason I shall ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Mamma blossomed with delicate fabrics, with bright ribbons and frilly laces, and amid the blossoming, the whir of the machine and the feet and hands of the two-lire-a-day seamstress went like mad clockwork, while in and out Mamma's friends came hurrying, at the rumor, to hint of congratulation or ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... downstairs, and a lanky chap with a red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, "Here's the shepherd a-coming to wisit his faithful flock;" and in comes a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a-smilin' avay like clockwork. Such goin's on, Sammy! "The kiss of peace," says the shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he'd done, the man vith the red nose began. I was just a-thinkin' whether I hadn't better ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... actions were regular as clockwork, and the holy presence of God was the loadstar of his soul. One day I was complaining to him of the too great deference which he paid me. "And for how much then do you," he answered, "account Jesus Christ, whom I honour in your person?" "Oh!" I replied, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... perambulated the streets in rich and picturesque costumes, varying in design according to the usage of their tribes. Before the departure of the royal visitor the troops were formed up, military evolutions were performed with clockwork precision, and volley after volley was fired in the air. The Sultan declared he could never receive the Governor with such splendour, but he wanted him to promise to return his visit. It was not politic, however, to agree to do so. And ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... dead some time when he marries. One wonders what the bride was like, whom he commends for "Housekeeping Virtues, so that the Servants instantly Obey, there is no Pilfering & Loitering, & the House moves like Clockwork." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... feel anything—anything at all. Seeing her would have no more effect on me than if she was a piece of clockwork." He paused. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... invite Switzerland to dinner and toast her thus: "Colleague, our great aim is to resemble you. Who else can squeeze so much profit out of their mountains? Who else can file at such clockwork? Switzerland, make yourself at home; we don't want to rob you; there are no pickpockets at this ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... department, first; the correspondence division next; the accounting department third, and he literally swept through the office like the proverbial new broom, caught up all the loose ends, and established a routine like clockwork. So successful was his work that the directors hastened to add ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... was empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle was. And, answering these signs of existence, could be distinguished the red and green lights of steamers, the firm rays of lighthouses, and the red or white warnings of gas-buoys run by clockwork. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... uncertain in her comings and goings? Necessity of business, perhaps. Yet he had expected quite the opposite state of things. From Mrs. Brewer's description of the girl's character, he had imagined her leading a life of clockwork regularity. The point was very trivial, but it somehow caused a disturbance of his thoughts, which ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... The regularity with which the squadron's machines would leave the ground was remarkable. The twenty Sopwiths took the air at precise intervals, flew together in a V formation while executing difficult manoeuvres, and landed one after the other with the exactness of clockwork. The French pilots flew the Farman and Breguet bombardment machines whenever the weather permitted. Every one knew some big bombardment was ahead but when it would be made or what place was to be attacked was ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... him. But hes worse than me. Hes not looking after anything; and he keeps out of my way. His manner's not natural. He hasnt asked us to dinner; and hes never said a word about our not asking him to dinner, after all these years when weve dined every week as regular as clockwork. It looks to me as if Gilbey's trying to drop me socially. Well, why should he do ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... crammed with models of battleships,—in wood, clay, porcelain, lead, and tin,—of many sizes and prices. Some of the larger ones, moved by clockwork, are named after Japanese battleships: Shikishima, Fuji, Mikasa. One mechanical toy represents the sinking of a Russian vessel by a Japanese torpedo boat. Among cheaper things of this class is a box of colored sand, for the representation ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... epigram by picturing the time when, all rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being out of the question, the House of Commons may become a mere mechanical puppet-show, and may present the spectacle of 'a steam Irish Party, an electric Ministry, and a clockwork Speaker.' It is certain that there never was so much talk in the Lower House as at the present moment; but it is also certain that the complaint of 'much speaking' has before now been frequently preferred against both Chambers. Politicians have always been a wordy ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... signal was given and everything followed like clockwork. One of the prisoners short-circuited the wires, shutting off the electric lighting system and the current in the wire fences. There was no moon, and the camp ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... all. I don't even believe it's so very uncommon. Why, I've heard my mother tell of farmhouses where the rooms were swept every night as regular as clockwork, and the floors sanded, and the pots and pans scoured, and all while the maids slept. They put it down to the piskies; but we know better, miss, and now we've got the secret between us we can lie easy in our beds, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... withdrawn a little farther; and then five of them went back to the barricade which the enemy's artillery had discovered. They sat down in the trench behind it. A German battery was trying for it—putting its four big high-explosive shells regularly round it—salvo after salvo as punctual as clockwork. It was only a matter of time before the ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... Tik-Tok—he's a clockwork man and quite a funny sight— He talks and walks mechanically, when he's wound up tight; And we've a Hungry Tiger who would babies love to eat But never does because we feed him other kinds ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... I ain't got a quarrel with 'em, the Lord knows. I go to church like clockwork, and pay my pew-rent, too, which is more than some do that gabble the most about salvation. If I pay for the preacher's keep it's only fair that I should get some of the good that comes to him hereafter; that's how it looks to me; so I don't trouble ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... 'ate the sight of 'im. Every week regular as clockwork he used to come round to me with his 'and out, and then go and treat 'is mates to beer with my money. If the ship came up in the day-time, at six o'clock in the evening he'd be at the wharf gate waiting for me; and if it came up at night she was no sooner made fast than 'e was ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... present companies in operation do not afford us that to our heart's content. It is but a very few years ago since we used to glorify ourselves in the rapidity of the mail-coach, doing its ten miles an hour with the punctuality of clockwork. Now we have arrived at the ratio of forty within the same period, and yet we are not content. Next year, within fourteen hours we shall be transported from Edinburgh to London. That, it seems, is not enough. A company offers to transport ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... antitheses!' he says in 1865. 'I learnt it of my daddy' is the comment of 1880. 'Was any other human being,' he asks in 1880, 'ever constructed with such a clumsy, elaborate set of principles, setting his feelings going as if they were clockwork?' This is the comment upon a passage where he has twisted his thoughts into a cumbrous and perfectly needless syllogism. He makes a similar comment on another passage in 1865, but 'I think,' he says in 1880, 'that I was a heavy old man thirty years ago. Fifteen years ago I was at the height ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... army Colt's sped true. Our pig, flat on his back, was squealing desperately, and his feet were pawing the air as last as though he had been run by clockwork and had been suddenly released from contact with the ground. Then the municipal policeman went to pick him up. But lo, a miracle! Our Christmas pig, inspired by supersusine terror on the approach of the dire representative of ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... and irregular stage-coaches, the property of private persons and companies, by a new system of government coaches, in connexion with the Post-Office, carrying the mails and also a regulated number of passengers, with clockwork precision, at a rate of comparative speed, which he hoped should ultimately be not less than ten miles an hour. The opposition to the scheme was, of course, enormous; coach proprietors, innkeepers, the Post-Office officials themselves, were all against Mr. Palmer; he ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... life, going to and fro with clockwork regularity, and denying himself all those diversions in Society which are ever at the command of a notable man. Very rarely did he accept an invitation to dine, and the fact that he lived down at Hove was in order to have a good excuse to evade people. He was a great man, with all ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux |
