"Contrivance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... period the ingenuity of man came to woman's rescue, by the invention of an interesting, and, judging by its popularity, exceedingly serviceable contrivance known as a dress elevator, which enabled ladies to instantly elevate their enormous trains when they came to a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... contrivance," Harry said when they took their seats on the buffalo robes round the fire and looked up admiringly at their work. "The logs will get as dry as chips, and in future we sha'n't be bothered with the smoke. Besides, it will do to stand the pail and pots full of snow there, and keep a supply of water, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... 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 and sometimes forgot that he was jealous of him. Jealous he was, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 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 ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... was fine; and after much contrivance, we succeeded in taking with us whatever was essential to our future security, and the whole of the provisions except two casks or flour. The horses were, however, very heavily laden, carrying at least three hundred and fifty pounds each; a weight which I was fearful the ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... wish Now comes a day too late. Haste; fare thee well! Hear'st thou not steps along the corridor? [EXIT GIACOMO.] I'm sorry for it; but the guards are waiting At his own gate, and such was my contrivance 75 That I might rid me both of him and them. I thought to act a solemn comedy Upon the painted scene of this new world, And to attain my own peculiar ends By some such plot of mingled good and ill 80 As others weave; but there arose a Power Which grasped and snapped the threads ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... this contrivance, whenever anyone reported "tracks," Mac and the Boy would hasten to the scene of action, and set a new snare, piling brush on each side of the track that the game had run in, so barring other ways, and presenting a line of least resistance straight ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the tragedy so near it. As always at Vicky Van's parties, the appointments were dainty and elaborate. Flowers decorated the table; lace, silver, and glass were of finest quality; and in the centre was the contrivance known ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... really loved. We were not near so fiery as usual, but resolved to have one thorough good orgie the next day at the cottage, as a farewell benefit to us all. We met, as agreed on, and put in force every art to augment our pleasures, and every contrivance to excite anew our powers to the utmost. Both M. and I must have spent six to seven times, but the girls being more easily excited in their finer organs of coition, went off in ecstasies some nine or ten times; until fairly exhausted, we had, from want of power, to give ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... wristbands, she told me to "keep blind man's holiday." They were usually brought in with tea; but we only burnt one at a time. As we lived in constant preparation for a friend who might come in any evening (but who never did), it required some contrivance to keep our two candles of the same length, ready to be lighted, and to look as if we burnt two always. The candles took it in turns; and, whatever we might be talking about or doing, Miss Matty's eyes were ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and great industry, he is said to have amused himself with ingenious devices. For example, wishing to hang a mirror in his father's shop in such a way that, on being lowered and raised again, its weight should be raised by means of a concealed cord, he employed the following mechanical contrivance. ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... I was. At my entrance Captain Coote presented me with a commission from Admiral Watson, appointing him governor of Fort William which I knew not a syllable of before; and it seems this dirty underhand contrivance was carried on in the most secret manner, under a pretence that I intended the same thing, which I declare never entered my thoughts. The affair was compromised by the admiral consenting that I should be governor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... which town shall be given over to fire and blood and pillage!" exclaimed the priest. "An infernal contrivance of ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... and pure as they were hideous and foul. We met in the meads—she and I. Spring was the time—God! It seems but yesterday!—and each in our bearing towards the other forgot the traditions of the names we bore. And as at first we had met by chance, so did we meet later by contrivance, not once or twice, but many times. God, how sweet she was! How sweet was all the world! How sweet it was to live and to be young! We loved. How else could it have been? What to us were traditions, what to us the hatred that for centuries had ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Supreme Court of the United States would overpower this attack, he adapted, with great ingenuity, to party warfare the theory of States' Rights, which in 1787 had nearly smothered the Constitution in its cradle. This dangerous contrivance he used vigorously against the alien and sedition law, without considering that his blows were shaking the Union itself. Mr. Calhoun looked upon the Kentucky Resolutions (Jefferson's own work) as the bill of rights of nullification, and wrote for a copy ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... spoke a donkey-engine at the right of the proposed crossing set up a noisy rattling, a thin steel cable whipped into view between the rails, and from the left there appeared a contrivance which O'Neil eyed curiously. It was a sort of drag, and rode back and forth ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... 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 ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... moves of the Turk are not made at regular intervals of time, but accommodate themselves to the moves of the antagonist—although this point (of regularity) so important in all kinds of mechanical contrivance, might have been readily brought about by limiting the time allowed for the moves of the antagonist. For example, if this limit were three minutes, the moves of the Automaton might be made at any given intervals longer than three minutes. The fact then of irregularity, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... however it was, after they eat separate there was other things. There was the weather. They always read the weather signs different. And each of 'em had that way of speakin' 'bout the weather as if it was a little contrivance of his own, and he was the only person who could give a hint how 'twas run, or had any natural means of findin' out if 'twas hot, or cold, or middlin', 'less he took hold and told 'em. It's a powerful tryin' sort of way, and finally it come so that, if Reuben said ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... walk brought us to a wooden footbridge,—a narrow, shaky contrivance, with a treacherous footing and a slender hand-rail. Here the bottom of the cave seemed to have dropped out, and the roof to have gone in search of it; and but for the dim glimpse of the rock on the other side one might have suspected that this bridge would launch him into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... consent, it appears from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollet, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He said, 'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned[1043].' And at another time, 'A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company[1044].' The ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... 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 ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... descend more gently into the sea, by which means it makes a sort of little tongue or slip of land, washt on one side by itself, on the other side by the sea. In this slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... could to a certain extent, mould the household routine to her comfort. She was no longer entirely dominated, and only a small amount of independence was enough to satisfy her, a born submitter, to whom contrivance was more than rule. She wanted only freedom for her tastes and pleasures, and Joanna did not now strive to impose her own upon her. Occasionally the younger woman complained of her lot, bound to a man whom she no longer cared for, wearing only the fetters of her wifehood—she still ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the wind, and a watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call out the hours by the water-clock. This is a very ingenious contrivance, which measures time well in both rough weather and fine. It is simply a bucket half filled with water, in which floats the half of a well-scraped cocoa-nut shell. In the bottom of this shell is a very small hole, so that when placed to float in ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the automobile means to us, Jim. Can you blame me for being so interested in a new one? Maybe it will have some contrivance for scaring cows out ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... bring forth their young in burrows on the open plain, and not among the woods, like the other species. They are the most cunning of American animals, not excepting their kindred the foxes. They cannot be trapped by any contrivance, but by singular manoeuvres often themselves decoy the over-curious antelope to approach too near them. When a gun is fired upon the prairies they may be seen starting up on all sides, and running for the spot in ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... 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 equally well have been adduced in favour ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... in Congress in a humorous speech of Thaddeus Stevens, who declared that the alleged speech could never have been delivered; that it was "a part of the cunning contrivance of the copperhead party, who have been persecuting our President;" that it was "one of the grandest ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Draining, published in England in 1797, the only kind of tiles or clay conduits described or alluded to by him, are what he calls "draining-bricks," of which he gives drawings, which we transfer to our pages precisely as found in the American edition. It will be seen to be as clumsy a contrivance ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... posts, which hypocritically tried to maintain an air of solidity, though perfectly aware that they were wellnigh rotted away at the base. The action of this gate was assisted—or more correctly encumbered—by the contrivance of a sliding ball and chain, creating a most dismal clatter and flap as often as it was opened. The white-washed picket fence, scaled and patched by the weather, kept the posts in excellent countenance; and inclosed a moderate grass-plot, adorned with a ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 brooch, and a cookery book; and ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... de soi-meme. Seduced by the epicurean title of self-enjoyment, the sale of the work was continual with the libertines, who, however, found nothing but very tedious essays on religion and morality. In the sixth edition the marquis greatly exults in his successful contrivance; by which means he had punished the vicious curiosity of certain persons, and perhaps had persuaded some, whom otherwise his book might ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... teaching. And, indeed, I did not think you would want any more. I thought I had bidden you farewell. But I am seated once again at my writing-table, to write for you—with a strange feeling, however, that I am in the heart of some curious, rather awful acoustic contrivance, by means of which the words which I have a habit of whispering over to myself as I write them, are heard aloud by multitudes of people whom I cannot see or hear. I will favour the fancy, that, by a sense of your presence, I may ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... a short time after the latter had made up their minds to secure the hands of these two young ladies, if possible, there was a mutual confession of the fact. This was followed by the putting of their heads together for the contrivance of such plans as would best lead to the effectuation of the end each had proposed to himself. It is a curious fact, that on the very Sunday afternoon on which we have seen Mr. and Mrs. Larkin conversing ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... swarm'd with men, That one Prometheus, sprung of heavenly birth (Our author's song can witness), lived on earth. He carved the turf to mould a manly frame, And stole from Jove his animating flame. 20 The sly contrivance o'er Olympus ran, When thus the Monarch of the Stars began: 'Oh versed in arts! whose daring thoughts aspire To kindle clay with never-dying fire! Enjoy thy glory past, that gift was thine; The next thy creature meets, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... passed over without an offer from a single candidate. The "vicinity" of Findramore and its "naborhood" seemed devoted to ignorance; and nothing remained, except another effort at procuring a master by some more ingenious contrivance. ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Gadzooks, a most ingenious contrivance—if we were to go through with it. But why must the match only be seemingly carried on? Odd, let it be ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... it proves her beauty and her disinterestedness. The fairest maid might have chosen, nay, commanded, even a city dignitary. Does the so? No; Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves her, and—beautiful poetic contrivance!—we are left to imagine he does "not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel of great Giles. He makes no speeches—soils ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... over and looked at the contrivance. Then his glance fell to a huge, old-fashioned keyhole below the new fastening. "You didn't use that ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... covetousnesse will prove deare to the ffrench as to the Hurrons in few days. Presently they procure some boats, ffor the Iroquoits had but eleven and the hurrons none, for they came in the ffrench shallope. So that it must be contrivance for the one and other, which was soone done. In lesse then 8 dayes parted the dwelling we found more then 30 boats, and all very great, we being also so many in company, 80 Iroquoits, some hundred huron women and some 10 or 12 men, 20 ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... offspring, the body remains as a cast-off envelope whose future is but to die." Finally to quote the metaphor of J. Arthur Thomson, one may "think for a moment of a baker who has a very precious kind of leaven; he uses much of this in baking a large loaf; but he so arranges matters by a clever contrivance that part of the original leaven is always carried on unaltered, carefully preserved for the next baking. Nature is the baker, the loaf is the body, the leaven is the germ-plasm, and ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... think with myself that David shed blood to cover his adultery, and that by the sword of the children of Ammon; a work that could not be done but by continuance and deliberate contrivance, which was a great aggravation to his sin. But then this would turn upon me: Ah! but these were but sins against the law, from which there was a Jesus sent to save them; but yours is a sin against the Saviour, and who shall save you ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... afraid to go so far as that,' said the old lady. 'Shakespeare is not everybody, and I am sure that thousands of people who have seen those plays would have driven home more cheerfully afterwards if by some contrivance the characters could all have been joined together respectively. I uphold our anonymous author on the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... concern. I have been made to feel too sensibly the difficulties of my unprecedented position not to know all that is intended to be conveyed in the reproach cast upon a President without a party. But I found myself placed in this most responsible station by no usurpation or contrivance of my own. I was called to it, under Providence, by the supreme law of the land and the deliberately declared will of the people. It is by these that I have been clothed with the high powers which they have seen fit to confide to their Chief Executive and been charged with the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... to 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 earn ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the fugitive was in hiding in one of the old quarries. Every road and entrance to Norcaster, and to all the adjacent towns and stations, was watched and guarded. There was no hope for Mallalieu but in the kindness and contrivance of the aunt and the nephew, and Mallalieu recognized the inevitable and was obliged to yield ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... curved, too big for the street, and dwarfing it. And automobiles threaded between them, and bicycles dared the spaces that were left. From afar off there came a flying light, like a shot out of a gun, and it grew into a man perched on a shuddering contrivance that might have been invented by H.G. Wells, and swept perilously into the contending currents, and by miracles emerged untouched, and was gone, driven by the desire of the immortal soul within the man. This strange ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... seems to have sold none in that year, nor any for six years afterwards. He sold two in 1840, seven in 1842, fifty in 1844. The machine was not really adapted to the hills of the Valley of Virginia, and farmers hesitated to buy a contrivance which needed the attention of a skilled mechanic. McCormick made a trip through the Middle West. In the rolling prairies, mile after mile of rich soil without a tree or a stone, he saw his future dominion. Hussey had moved East. McCormick did the ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... shoulders. After many experiments I succeeded in this substitution; but the chain had yet one objection in common with the rope and the strap, arising from the difficulty of getting it properly adjusted. I contented myself with its use, however, until the spring of 1861, when I hit upon a contrivance which has proved a complete success. It consists of a wooden yoke fitting across my shoulders, and having two chains connected with it in such a manner as to enable me to lift on every occasion to the most advantage. With this contrivance my lifting-power ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... his eye upon the wild turkeys; and for the purpose of securing some of them alive, he had constructed, not far from the house, a species of penn—which is known in America by the name of 'log-trap.' This was a very simple contrivance. It was made of split rails, such as Cudjo used for his fences; and these were placed upon one another, so as to enclose a hollow square between them. They were raised about the height of an ordinary fence from the ground, while other rails—heavy ones—were ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... * This contrivance became so common, that an article was obliged to be added to the decree, importing, that whenever the papers were damaged or effaced by the weather, or deranged by the wind, the inhabitants should replace them, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... that Hebrew has a perfect and imperfect, or past and future (for the grammars use all kinds of names), why on earth should people who have, on their showing, a past tense, use a clumsy contrivance of turning a future tense into a ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he could describe himself "as sorrowful—yet always rejoicing; as poor—yet making many rich; as having nothing—and yet possessing all things" (2 Cor. 6. 10). But a Family left, by our labour and contrivance, in a situation in which, as our Blessed Lord himself declares, it is all but impossible that they should be saved,[5] presents an object of contemplation widely different. Faith can only lay hold of the fearful declaration;—"It is easier for a camel to go through ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... these forms of creation are necessary. The intuitive process can suffice for an invention of short duration: a rhyme, a story, a profile, a motif, an ornamental stroke, a little mechanical contrivance, etc. But as soon as the work requires time and development the discursive process becomes absolutely necessary: with many inventors one easily perceives the change from one form to the other. We have seen that in the case of Chopin, "creation was spontaneous, miraculous," coming complete ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... bands,—one by water, and the other by land. Those who went in sleighs took care that a heavy stone was fastened by a rope to the back of each carriage, that its bobbing and dancing on the road might keep off the wolves. Glad would they have been of any contrivance by which they might as certainly distance Nipen. Rolf then took a parting kiss from Erica in the porch, pushed Oddo on before, and followed with Peder. Erica watched them quite to the door of their own house, and then came in, and busied herself in making a clearance of ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... disappointment deepened when, after three strokes from the engineer's bell, the hoisting engine suddenly started into life, and, out from the darkness of the shaft, there slowly emerged into view an ungainly contrivance of four great timbers, arranged in a hollow square and hung on a cable, which passed freely through openings in the upper and lower timbers, to carry a huge bucket fastened to its end, while a black-faced miner stood in the bucket, much in the attitude ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... better than a mechanical contrivance for registering the opinions of electors on certain subjects. Otherwise all Parliamentary debate is a mockery. A representative he is of the majority of electors, but he must act freely and with initiative. Often enough he may be constrained to vote, not as many of his constituents would prefer, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... and another chap in regimentals on the front seat, outside, and a great white bear-skin inside that just swallowed us up to the waist, as if we had settled down in a snow-bank of fur. Under that was a muff for your feet, and some contrivance that must have been a foot-stove hid away, for it was as ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... those who suspected a treacherous design in this huge contrivance was Laocoon, a priest of Apollo, who, in company with his two young sons, had issued from the city with the Trojans in order to offer a sacrifice to the gods. With all the eloquence at his command he urged his countrymen not to place confidence in any gift of the Greeks, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... relief or aid the minister and his bank might expect from this low contrivance of five-pound notes, it will increase the inability of the bank to pay the higher notes, and hasten the destruction of all; for even the small taxes that used to be paid in money will now be paid in those notes, and the bank will soon find itself with scarcely any other money ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Thus, for instance, in the centre of his tent, he begins by making himself a goling, or fireplace of mud and stone, some three feet high and four or five long, by one and a half wide, with two, three, or more side ventilators and draught-holes. By this ingenious contrivance he manages to increase the combustion of the dried dung, the most trying fuel from which to get a flame. On the top of this stove a suitable place is made to fit the several raksangs, or large brass pots and bowls, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... a little pocket-money, by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his desolate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Particularly, the action is so much one, that it is the only one of the kind without episode, or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing to the main design, and every act concluding with a turn of it. The greatest error in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia; for, though I might use the privilege of a poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had not enough considered, that the compassion she moved to herself and children was destructive to that which I reserved for Antony and Cleopatra; whose mutual love being ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... thought I, indeed, the hero of the haunted room? Is there really a spell laid upon me, or is this all some contrivance of mine host, to raise a laugh at my expense? The idea of being hag-ridden by my own fancy all night, and then bantered on my haggard looks the next day was intolerable; but the very idea was sufficient to produce the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... cooking-machines which I could procure for trial, and, as it succeeds better than any of them, and has been approved by trial in five of my own voyages, and in another to Iceland, besides shorter trips, and in the Abyssinian campaign, &c., &c., it may be of some use to describe the contrivance here. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... contrivance to secure a furred pouch, which could have been ripped open without any attempt on the spring, reminded me of the verses in the Odyssey, where Ulysses, in a yet ruder age, is content to secure his property by casting a curious and involved complication of cordage around the sea-chest ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the honour to inform you. A vizard is a contrivance for concealment, whether in silk and pasteboard or in an inflexible visage—whether in a woman who wants to disguise her features, or in a man who wants to hide his heart—whether in a masquerader or an assassin. For example, when I hear a hypocrite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... 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
... watched the sheep; when he was thirsty he led them down to drink, and as it grew dark drove them to the fold. This fold was a strange contrivance. Jack had never seen one before. It was inclosed by a fence of woven willow branches, roofed with rushes that the rain might not injure it, but in one place an opening had been left, over which was a roof made of reeds, supported by posts. "That's the entrance to the fold," said Jack to ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... to pressure, rises up on either side of your head and engulfs eyes and nose and everything else into its folds. No escape! You are strangled, smothered; you might as well have gone to bed with an octopus. In this horrid contrivance you lie for eight long hours, clapped down like a corpse in its coffin. Every single bed in rural England ought to be burnt. Not one of them is fit for a Christian to ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Patrollotism has removed; but can it remove the lungs of man? Anaxagoras Chaumette we saw mounted on bourne-stones, while Tallien worked sedentary at the subeditorial desk. In any corner of the civilised world, a tub can be inverted, and an articulate-speaking biped mount thereon. Nay, with contrivance, a portable trestle, or folding-stool, can be procured, for love or money; this the peripatetic Orator can take in his hand, and, driven out here, set it up again there; saying mildly, with a Sage Bias, Omnia ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the edict of the Emperor Theodosias, (A.D. 385) from which we also learn that it was usual for those who hired post-horses, to provide their own saddle, and that the saddle should not weigh more than sixty pounds, a cumbrous contrivance, more like the howdahs placed on the backs of elephants than the light and elegant saddle of modern times. Side-saddles for ladies are an invention of comparatively recent date. The first seen in England was ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... said nothing, but with a significant glance at Kennedy he drew a peculiar contrivance from his pocket. It had four round holes in it and through each hole he slipped a finger, then closed his hand, and exhibited his clenched fist. It looked as if he wore a series of four metal rings on ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... I have supposed the tools of my craft harder to manipulate than those of others. The use of words, particularly, seemed readier, handier for the contrivance of effects than pigments. I thought the language of words less elusive than that of colour, leaving smaller margin for unintended effects; and, believing in complacent good faith that words conveyed exact meanings exactly, it was ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... to be at Custins by the middle of October. Had he taught himself to hope that any good could be done by prolonged travelling he would readily have thrown over Custins and Lord Popplecourt. He could not bring himself to trust much to the Popplecourt scheme. But the same contrivance had answered on that former occasion. When he spoke to her about their plans, she expressed herself quite ready to go back to England. When he suggested those Chinese cities, her face became very long and she was immediately attacked by paroxysms ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Bell's services as teacher. Bell lived in Sanders's home for a considerable period, dividing his time between teaching his little pupil how to talk and puttering away at a proposed invention which he called a "harmonic telegraph." Both Sanders and Hubbard had become greatly interested in this contrivance and backed Bell financially while he worked. It was Bell's idea that, by a system of tuning different telegraphic receivers to different pitches, several telegraphic messages could be sent simultaneously over the same wire. The idea was not original with Bell, although he supposed ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... upon the table, lay the knife, a heavy, clumsy contrivance I had bought to use in my carpentry, and I now, mechanically, picked it up. As I did so the light gleamed evilly upon ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... drives through the country, he may see the peasants gossiping at the well, which is a hole dug in the ground and fenced in with planks, the bucket being raised and lowered by means of a very primitive contrivance. This consists of a horizontal tree-trunk swinging upon another tall vertical one forked at the top; a chain depends from one end of the horizontal beam or bar, to which the bucket is attached, whilst the other end is ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... a great deal less of Bessy in the memoirs than, say, of Lady Donegal, or of Rogers, or of Lord Lansdowne, but somehow or another she makes herself felt; and though her appearances in them are of Tom's contrivance, a personality is more surely expressed than in most of his more elaborate portraits. One gets to know her as indeed the "excellent and beautiful person" of Lord John's measured approval, not so much by what she says or does as by her reactions ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... the door itself, showing that the thing was intended to be moved from one room to another in a certain way and in a fixed line. The rails, had the door been opened, would have been seen to descend upon the other side by a gentle inclined plane into the centre of a huge marble basin, and the contrivance thus made it possible to wheel a person into a bath and out again without necessitating the slightest effort or change of position in the body. In the bedroom the windows were arranged so that the light and air could be regulated to a nicety. The walls were covered with fine basket work, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... number of plates have to be treated. The main difficulty is to secure an adequate water supply and to dispose of the waste water. At a small expenditure of money and energy it is easy, however, to rig up a contrivance which, if it does not afford the conveniences of a properly equipped dark room, is in advance of the jug-and-basin arrangement with which one might otherwise have to be content. A strong point in favour of the subject of this chapter is that it can be moved without any trouble if the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... Discoverie of Witchcraft, lib. viii. chap. 12. The contrivance of this illusion was possibly like that at Delphi, where in the centre of the temple was a chasm, from which arose an intoxicating smoke, when the priestess was to announce divine revelations. Seated over the chasm upon the tripod, ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... for me a nullity—I complain that the pleasant fiction described in the books as 'personal freedom' has had a most unpleasant illustration in my person—and I furthermore and particularly complain that by the design and contrivance of what are called 'the authorities,' I have been brought to this country, not for trial but for condemnation—not for justice ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... were obliged to use them as oars, or rather paddles, to get across; and we had floated some way down the stream before we again could find the bottom. At last we landed, and drew up our canoe. I proposed leaving it, to make the natives wonder at the strange contrivance. ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... equalising the supply of water, and letting none go waste. His calculations of the relative merits of undershot, overshot, breast, and turbine wheels are most valuable, especially of the last, which is a late and successful French contrivance, acting by pressure. He proposes to use the turbine in coast mills, the tide being the motive-power; and, strange as it sounds, the experiments seem to decide in favour ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... picker staves. The thread for the needle is supplied by a bobbin, the movement of which is checked by a friction band, this securing the proper tension, and the slack of the thread is duly taken up by a suitable contrivance for the purpose. Thus, all the essential features of the most approved sewing-machine were first found in that of Mr. Howe; and the machines of later date are, in fact, but modifications ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... door," said Gaston exultingly. "It is in truth a cunning contrivance. Let me have the light here a moment, Brother. I will see what the trick of the door upon ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... more calorific power, and an engine would, of course, require a smaller quantity of them. The heat-giving power does not, however, vary as the illuminating power, but at a much slower rate; and, adopting the same contrivance as that on which the absolute scale of temperature is formed, I would suggest a formula of the following type: H C (I K), in which H represents the number of heat-units given out by the combustion of 1 cubic foot of gas, I is the illuminating power in candles, and C and K two constants to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... the cothurnus, you have heard of the mask. So far as it was fitted to swell the intonations of the voice, you are of opinion that this mask would be a happy contrivance; for what, you say, could a common human voice avail against the vast radiation from the actor's centre of more than three myriads? If, indeed (like the Homeric Stentor), an actor spoke in point of loudness, (Greek Text), as much as other fifty, then he might become audible to the assembled ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... cold stage under the microscope, the movements of the organisms became, gradually slower, until at last they entirely ceased; the necessity, therefore, arose for the use of a warm stage, and the very ingenious contrivance by which a continuous and even temperature was maintained within the one-tenth of a degree was exhibited. The greatest difficulty in the matter was, however, experienced in obtaining specimens for observation, in order to be able to trace them from their earliest to their latest stage. The President ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... society. I have not considered those attributes of man which may serve indifferently for good or for ill, as he may happen to be or not to be the subject of those fiercer excitements, that will oft times corrupt the most ingenuous nature, and have a tendency to inspire into us subtle schemes and a deep contrivance. I have confined myself to the consideration of man, as yet untamed to the modes of civilised community, and unbroken to the steps which are not only prescribed by the interests of our social existence, but which are even in some degree indispensible to the improvement ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... 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, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... foundations, the second would prove to be an article half umbrella, half revolver, while in the third I would perhaps find an extremely quaint notion for a portable pocket corkscrew. I myself picked up many ideas for future use, and hope some day, if I do nothing else, at least to perfect a clever little contrivance of my own for arousing the inmates of a house invaded by burglars by casement concussions. I propose calling this valuable little instrument (which is founded to some extent on the simple construction by which the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... who can provide for every thing? The old lady, it turned out, could swim like a duck; and the whole result had been to refresh her with a little sea-bathing. Here was worshipful intelligence. Could any man's temper be expected to stand such continued sieges? Money, and trouble, and infinite contrivance, wasted upon one old woman, who absolutely would not, upon any terms, be murdered! Provoking it certainly was; and of a man like Nero it could not be expected that he should any longer dissemble his disgust, or put up with such repeated affronts. He rushed upon his simple congratulating friend, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... of the Silver Foxes, had a wooden rattle which he claimed could be heard for seven miles—eight miles and a quarter at a pinch. The Tigers, with Bert Winton at their head, had some kind of an original contrivance which simulated the roar of their ferocious namesake. The Church Mice, from down the Hudson, with Brent Gaylong as their scoutmaster, had a special squeal (patent applied for) which sounded as if all the mice in Christendom had gone suddenly mad. ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hardly astonishing that this form of dual authority should have led to a good deal of squabbling between the rival "monarchs." It proved, indeed, a cumbrous contrivance, and, when the period for its operation terminated, with the close of 1878, the constitution of the board was allowed to revert to the limits laid down under the Act of 1864, without any provision for sectional directors at all. During these intervening years, indeed, questions of finance ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... other devices, and thinking out ways and means for saving labor and making short cuts. Within a few weeks after his joining the force he had invented a bit of apparatus which could be carried in the coat pocket, and which took the place of a clumsy contrivance which required a horse and wagon to carry it. In this way he saved the company the price of horses, wagons, drivers, etc., on a great many operations. From the very first the young man rose very much more rapidly than ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... to reform generally the 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... to talk of this thing, he was not going to do it with the burden of any sort of reserve or contrivance on his soul. "This afternoon?" Bushwick nodded; and Verrian added, "That was she." Then he went on, wrathfully: "She's a girl who has to make her living, and she's doing it in a new way that she's invented ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... account of a similar kind which was told to me during the last few years see "Midian Revisited," i. 15. These hiding-places are innumerable in lands of venerable antiquity like Egypt; and, if there were any contrivance for detecting hidden treasure, it would make the discoverer many ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... of these he found provided with powerful steel hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in the timber of the window-frame, which was secured by an iron pin outside, and swung open on its removal. This was the room in which they had placed me, and this the contrivance by means of which the room had been entered. The problem of ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... had thought that the simpler his contrivance the better. And the screws—the Saint Helices that had been thrown in his teeth at the Weldon Institute—had sufficed for all the needs of his flying machine. One series could hold it suspended in the air, the other could drive it along under conditions that were marvelously ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... suddenly, and been buried in haste, 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
... Islands (See in Ethnographical Room of British Museum, a specimen in case 16): in shape it differs from the Australian ones (which themselves vary in different localities) but the principle of construction and mode of use are precisely the same. In the islands of Tanna and New Caledonia a contrivance is in use to produce the same effect as the throwing-stick in propelling the spear; but, apart from other considerations, the nature of the instrument (a piece of stiff plaited cord six inches long, with an eye in one end and a knot ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... 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 in the atmosphere ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... moving in the clear waters of the Susquehanna. I went, and was surprised to find that they were herrings. We made something like a small net, by the interweaving of twigs, and by this rude and simple contrivance we were able to take them in thousands. In less than ten days each family had an ample supply, with plenty of salt. I also obtained from the Legislature, then in session, seventeen hundred bushels ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... his passion, swore he would never see me again till I acquiesced in his will, I also made a vow, that I would never take a husband from his hand; nothing shall make me break that oath: but if you have spirit and contrivance enough to carry me off ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... would hardly be worse than the invading cold. It was by no means an easy task to rouse him, however, and indeed remained in large measure unaccomplished—so far so, that, after with much labour and contrivance relieving him of his coat and boots, the laird had to satisfy his hospitality with getting him into bed in the remainder of his clothes. He then heaped fresh fuel on the fire, put out the candles, and left ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the old woman caught me up hurriedly, 'what do you mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it's some sinful contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son's not the one to lend himself to anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three times.) He's the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; the foremost, your ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... set; so that when the grouse are hopping along the edge of the willows to feed, which is their usual custom, some of them soon get into the snares, where they are confined till they are taken out. I have caught from three to ten grouse in a day by this simple contrivance, which requires no further attendance than going round ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston |
