"Ingenuity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visited to-day were filthy and wretched in the extreme, and exhibited that most deplorable consequence of ignorance and an abject condition, the inability of the inhabitants to secure and improve even such pitiful comfort as might yet be achieved by them. Instead of the order, neatness, and ingenuity which might convert even these miserable hovels into tolerable residences, there was the careless, reckless, filthy indolence which even the brutes do not exhibit in their lairs and nests, and which seemed ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... basket, and escaped with the contents! We since heard that the robbers were Burman soldiers belonging to the camp at Kumaroot, whither they carried their spoils. They certainly deserved infinite credit for the ingenuity they manifested, and for the manner in which they turned the laugh against us, by showing, that the very moment they chose for their depredations, was one when a strict search was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... as they come from His pen. His most useful characters are remote and unavailable. It would seem that the villain was likely to have his way. The Author must defeat him, if possible, with some stroke of ingenuity. For this He was ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... must," said Raby. "I have gone as far off the straight path as a gentleman can. And I wish we may not repent our ingenuity. Deceive a mother about her son! what can ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... pressing her hard. All her affectionate ingenuity could not furnish an argument against such home truths. "Let us drop this hateful subject," said she, hastily; "I cannot bear ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... collecting the junior boarders, who came to her meeting out of sheer curiosity to see what she could possibly want with them. For once blunt plain-spoken Merle was silver-tongued, and advocated her club with all the ingenuity of ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... library of his new cathedral in the western transept, with an ingenuity of contrivance and a dignity of conception peculiarly his own. On the level of what in a Gothic church would have been the triforium, he constructed, both on the north and south side, a large and lofty room. It was his intention that each of these rooms should be used as ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... only in trivial quantities, at enormous expense and with exceeding labour; it is so volatile that you cannot keep it for three days. I have sometimes thought that with a little ingenuity I might make it more stable, I might so modify it that, like radium, it lost no strength as it burned; and then I should possess the greatest secret that has ever been in the mind of man. For there would be no end of it. It would continue to ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... lately finished planting," grandfather explained to me. "The crows are very bold this spring. Halstead and Addison have been displaying their ingenuity out there, to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... have been felt more and more deeply, as the years have rolled on, by students of human society. To ward them off, theory after theory has been put on paper, especially in France, which deserve high praise for their ingenuity, less for their morality, and, I fear, still less for their common-sense. For the theorist in his closet is certain to ignore, as inconvenient to the construction of his Utopia, certain of those broad facts of human nature which ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... by the General Council of the Cherokee Nation, for his ingenuity in the invention ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... agreeable; and he longed to make an exchange of partners without exciting the jealousy or shocking the morality of Dee. This was a difficult matter; but to a man like Kelly, who was as deficient in rectitude and right feeling as he was full of impudence and ingenuity, the difficulty was not insurmountable. He had also deeply studied the character and the foibles of Dee; and he took his measures accordingly. The next time they consulted the spirits, Kelly pretended to be shocked at their language, and refused to tell Dee what they had said. Dee ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... on the accumulation of wealth and the attainment of a certain point of maturity. Canals are a still later result of civilization, and are undoubtedly the greatest efforts for the encouragement of barter, and the developement of industry, to which human power and ingenuity have yet given birth. But after all, what are these artificial channels of communication, these ne plus ultras of human contrivance, compared with those natural mediums of intercourse, those mighty rivers which pervade every quarter of the globe? What are they ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... one of their enemies and one of the finest specimens in the whole herd. As, at the time of his death, he had been standing in a shallow part of the river, it was possible with great trouble to drag the huge carcass out, but it took the strength of ten horses and the ingenuity of as many ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... rightly understood had nothing but the present world in view, it would be very insufficient; for there are many sacrifices which can only find their recompense in another; and whatever ingenuity may be put forth to demonstrate the utility of virtue, it will never be an easy task to make that man live aright who has no thoughts of dying. It is therefore necessary to ascertain whether the principle of interest rightly ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... acquaintance with individual objects; the operations of the rational faculties, on the other hand, if allowed to go on without a constant reference of external things, can lead only to empty abstraction and barren ingenuity. Real speculative knowledge demands the combination of the two ingredients—right reason and facts to reason upon. It has been well said, that true knowledge is the interpretation of nature; and therefore it requires both the interpreting mind, and nature for its ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... ingenuity in screening the craft from sight. Inasmuch as Otto had forgotten himself so far as to sit down on the very tree for which he was searching without once suspecting his forgetfulness, it is not to be supposed he would have discovered the boat at all ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... purchaser—is the original work of a great man fed for as many days as are necessary on bread and water, or perhaps we may say with as many onions as will keep him in good humour. That is the way by which you will always get most for your money; no mechanical multiplication or ingenuity of commercial arrangements will ever get you a better penny's ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... idea of using carbon in the form of small granules. And one of the Bell experts, named White, improved the Hunnings transmitter into its present shape. Both transmitter and receiver seem now to be as complete an artificial tongue and ear as human ingenuity can make them. They have persistently grown more elaborate, until today a telephone set, as it stands on a desk, contains as many as one hundred and thirty separate pieces, as well as a saltspoonful of glistening ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... so much bodily suffering that I was seldom told of any worldly cares, still I often fancied things were going ill both within and without our doors. Jael complained in an under-key of stinted housekeeping, or boasted aloud of her own ingenuity in making ends meet: and my father's brow grew continually heavier, graver, sterner; sometimes so stern that I dared not wage, what was, openly or secretly, the quiet but incessant crusade of my existence—the ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... putta di undici anni," and exhibited the most remarkable turn of satirical observation and humour I have ever seen before or since. Horrible in a manner as it was, it would have redeemed any performance. This demon of ingenuity and wit was little more than fourteen years old, and sang like an angel of Paradise. Another of them was the Lucrezia, the Roman matron—put into the short skirts, spangles, and mischievous peering glances of Colombina. Belviso would ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... At length a compromise was extorted from the reluctant hands of the Vice-Chancellor, and the Club was allowed to take into consideration public affairs of a date anterior to the century. It required less ingenuity than the leaders of the Union had at their command to hit upon a method of dealing with the present under the guise of the past. Motions were framed that reflected upon the existing Government under ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... with this plan of action she presented an untroubled front at breakfast, went out riding with little Ann, and shopping with her mother afterwards. Owing to this news of Miltoun the journey to Scotland had been postponed. She parried with cool ingenuity each attempt made by Lady Valleys to draw her into conversation on the subject of that meeting at Gustard's, nor would she talk of her brother; in every other way she was her usual self. In the afternoon she even volunteered to accompany ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Saturdayers," Communist and non-Communist, and all alike spoke of these Saturday afternoons of as kind of picnic. On the other hand, I have met Communists who were accustomed to use every kind off ingenuity to find excuses not to take part in them and yet to preserve the good opinion of their ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... request, that the finest reward that could come to these young Americans who have shown such loyalty to your son, with such ingenuity and mechanical ability, is that they be encouraged to complete their technical education and then, with your son, to use their talents in a commercial way. Again congratulations for your son and those young Americans and—the best ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... is rotated. The film of iron must be exceedingly thin, because of its opacity, and hence, though the intrinsic rotating power of iron is undoubtedly very great, the observed rotation is exceedingly small and difficult to observe; and it is only by a very remarkable patience and care and ingenuity that Dr. Kerr has obtained his result. Mr. Fitzgerald, of Dublin, has examined the question mathematically, and has shown that Maxwell's theory would have enabled Dr. Kerr's ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... this obvious necessity we get an immense abstraction, worked out with all the subtle ingenuity and learning of the Cambridge professor. Mr. Cook has, in fact, used the materials he has collected with such amazing care to project therefrom just those mythological conceptions which Celt and Teuton would have worked out for themselves if they, like the Hindu ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... tempting her from word to word with a merciless ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in the collection of taxes. Suppose this were true; yet the constitution allows only the means which are necessary, not those which are convenient. If such a latitude of construction be allowed this phrase, as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one; for there is no one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience, in some way or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the list of enumerated powers, and reduce the whole to one phrase. Therefore it was ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... a delicacy of sentiments did not extremely belong to my character at that time, I confess, against myself, that I perhaps too readily closed with a proposal which my candor and ingenuity gave me some repugnance to: but not enough to contradict the intention of one to whom I had now thoroughly abandoned the direction of all my steps. For Mrs. Cole had, I do not know how unless by one of those unaccountable ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... And, indeed, help used to come whenever the distress of the holy society became too urgent. One day the foundress had not a single penny left, and was, to use a common expression, at her wits' end. But, thank God, there is something better than human wits or human ingenuity in such extremities; and that is prayer. The Sister who acted as housekeeper placed her bills before the Superioress, and asked for money to buy food for the day. Mdlle. —— told her to wait a little, and went out, not knowing very well what to do next. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... demand for a great deal of music has outstripped the supply of muscle for its production; but the ingenuity of man has partially made up for his lack of physical strength, and the sublimer harmonies may still be rendered with tolerable effectiveness, and with little actual fatigue to the artist. As we retrograde towards the condition of Primeval Man-the man with the ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... be nothing I could say?" she asked, lifting her eyes to his. "I wonder if there'd be no countercharge ingenuity could bring?" ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... were spirited and good of their kind; and though we wonder now that some of them could take in an expert, it is by no means assured that we are even to-day acquainted with the whole of Surtees' frauds. Why a man otherwise honourable, kindly, charitable, and learned, exercised his ingenuity so cruelly upon a trusting correspondent and a staunch friend, it is hardly possible to guess. The biographers of Surtees maintain that he wanted to try his skill on Scott, then only known to him by correspondence; and that, having succeeded, he was afraid to risk Scott's ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... The ingenuity and resources of the officers at South Norwalk had been fully exerted, and no result further than that already mentioned had been achieved. The evidence against Bucholz, although circumstantially telling against him, was not of sufficient weight or directness to warrant a conviction upon the ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... been disorganized for a moment by the extraordinary ingenuity of a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, was now resuming the offensive and was winning all along the line from the first. Lupin's two great adversaries, Shears and Ganimard, were put away. Isidore Beautrelet was disabled. The police were powerless. For the ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... were no hostile life-forms, there was no need for a closely knit community. Everyone who had seen it agreed that his house was the most attractive one of all, for, although it was only a standard prefab, he had used taste and ingenuity to make it a little different from ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... Mound Builders is known as Fort Ancient. Its colossal size, ingenuity in design and perfection in construction give it first rack in interest among all prehistoric fortifications, and it represents the highest point attained by this lost race in their earth-work structures. Why make a journey to Europe to ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Lamarck, genera and species have been evolved, in the main, by exactly the same process as that by which human inventions and civilisations are now progressing; and this involves that intelligence, ingenuity, heroism, and all the elements of romance, should have had the main share in the development of every herb ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... few scattered villages, surrounded with extensive cultivation, at one of which, called Buggil, we passed the night in a miserable hut, having no other bed than a bundle of corn-stalks, and no provisions but what we brought with us. The wells here are dug with great ingenuity, and are very deep. I measured one of the bucket-ropes, and found the depth of the well to be ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... professed to be a photograph of Mrs. Kirk Winfield, in which she was alluded to with reverence and gusto as one of society's leading hostesses. In the course of the article reference was made to no fewer than three freak dinners of varying ingenuity which she had provided for ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... all injuries, of which he receives, in his own opinion, a large number. He has an accurate memory for all promises made to his advantage, and he is relentless in exacting payment to the uttermost farthing. He not seldom displays a singular ingenuity in interpreting ambiguous terms for his own behoof. A youth of this kind is reported to have demanded (and received) eight apples from his mother, who had bribed him to temporary stillness by the promise of a few of that fruit, his ground being ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... speaker does not expect to be taken at his word. The love of superlatives and the want of good faith may be considered as prominent characteristics. "The readiness with which they break a promise or an agreement (wrote Colonel Hall forty years ago) can only be equaled by the sophistical ingenuity with which they defend themselves for having done so." The Quitonians, who are sensible of their shortcomings, have this standing apology: "Our vices we owe to Spain; our ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... realised how helpless man, with all his ingenuity, became in the midst of such a storm. Absolutely nothing could be done but trust themselves to the hands of God, and wait patiently ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... fought for seven years, declared that the British form of government was the best that the ingenuity of man had ever devised; and when John Adams said to him, 'without its corruptions;' 'Why,' said he, 'its corruptions are its greatest excellence; without the corruptions, it would ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... every morning went forth from the Danish camp-fires. Every noon they returned, amid a taunting racket, with armfuls of ale-skins, back-loads of salted meats, and bags bulging with the bread which they had forced the terrorized farm-women into baking for them. "They have the ingenuity of fiends!" Father Ingulph was wont to groan ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... days as the transport is tedious. That part of the capital of an individual which is employed in the carrying of his goods to and from market, is so much abstracted from his means of producing more of the article in which he exerts his ingenuity and labour, whether it be in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... Mexico an established power on her continent, with considerable opportunities for good or evil in the influence of international matters in North and Central America, and with her own future well mapped out in so much as the ingenuity of ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... could offer, on the spur of the moment, the alternative explanation she demanded. Indeed it would have taken a good deal of ingenuity to construct one. It was safer, anyway, just to go ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Hyde. I have listened also to the remarks of counsel, with high interest—and especially will I commend the masterly and irrefutable logic of the distinguished gentleman who represents the plaintiff. But gentlemen, let us beware how we allow mere human testimony, human ingenuity in argument and human ideas of equity, to influence us at a moment so solemn as this. Gentlemen, it ill becomes us, worms as we are, to meddle with the decrees of Heaven. It is plain to me that Heaven, in its ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet {17} will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature, because in her inventions there is nothing ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... the consequences of this saying; for the peace of the Princess, she retorted quickly: "In France, the princesses are so kind and obliging as to follow the fashions; but the good examples and good tone come to us from our princes, and our only merit is to imitate them with ingenuity." ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... rude in application. A fair degree of adaptability to purpose and environment is seen, indicating that the Casa Grande was one, and not the first, building of a series constructed by the people who erected it and by their ancestors, but the degree of skill exhibited and amount of ingenuity shown in overcoming difficulties do not compare with that found in many northern ruins. As architects, the inhabitants of the Casa Grande did not occupy the first rank ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... doctors on so wealthy an island as Nevis, and she recovered completely, although forced to shroud not the least of her desires. But the wild despair of Warner while she was in danger, and his following devotion, his inspired ingenuity in diverting her during her term of sadness and protest, made her feel that to cherish disappointment even in her inmost soul would be flying in the face of providence; her spirits struggled up to their normal high level, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... 'My ingenuity obtained my pardon: the lady being unable to forbear laughing throughout the whole affair, to find both so uncommonly tricked; her gaoleress her prisoner, safe locked up, and as much pleased as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... stage of literature than Shakespeare, is even more exposed to this difficulty. Shakespeare was free to take his plots where he chose, and took these old wives' tales at his own risk. The epic poet has matter of this sort forced upon him. In his treatment of it, it will be found that ingenuity does not fail him, and that the transition from the unreasonable or old-fashioned part of his work to the modern and dramatic part is cunningly worked out. "He gets over the unreason by the grace and skill of his handling,"[9] says Aristotle of a critical ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... AGE AND THE PRESENT.—A writer in the last number of Fraser's Magazine says well that, "there is in periodicals and elsewhere, a vast amount of really poetic imagery, of true and tender feeling, and cultivated ingenuity, scattered up and down in the form of verse. We have no new great poets, but very many small ones—layers, as it were, and seedlings from the lofty geniuses of the last generation, showing in every line the influence of Scott, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit and departure of Bellairs. That he had got the address, I was quite certain: that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was convinced; some ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served him. A similar chance, an equal ingenuity, was required; or I was left helpless, the ferret must run down his prey, the great oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the house let to some stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now filled the mouths ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... from the time when he violated the Prussian constitution, shortly before the war with Denmark, until the day when through her efforts and statecraft he was driven from office,—a vanquished foe. He had used in vain every weapon against her that his ingenuity could devise. He had even gone so far as to publicly charge her with treason in betraying to the English, and through them to the French, military secrets which had been imparted to her by her husband, during the war of 1870. He had, in short, done everything that lay in his ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... were kept up during the winter, and the utility of amusements in such a settlement was not forgotten. Ingenuity was taxed to give variety to the social entertainments. Snow describes a "party" that he gave in his family mansion—"a one-story edifice about fifteen by thirty feet, constructed of logs, with a dirt roof, a ground floor, and a chimney ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... "I've had some bad times with her on that account," he said. "She shows incredible ingenuity when it's a case of getting hold of liquor. At first she couldn't eat hot food at all, she was in such a state. She's altogether fearfully shattered in soul and body, and causes ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... minister's sympathy and courage I returned to my uncle's lodging in Blackfriars Wynd, and continued to devote myself to his craft in the back of his booth in the High Street, which appealed to me greatly for ingenuity and skill. ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... the compass has been assumed for the ulterior course and termination of that river, and however wrong subsequent discovery has proved this speculative geography to have been, it is not to be regarded as useless. Theories may be far short of the truth, but while they display the ingenuity and reasoning powers of their authors, they tend to keep alive that spirit of inquiry and thirst for knowledge ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... for the reverend sleuth that he nearly always happens to be in either at the death or immediately after it, instead of being summoned a day or two later when the grotesque circumstances of the crime have baffled the panting ingenuity of Scotland Yard. You find him now in this part of England, and now in that, now in America, and now in Italy. He is, in fact, a hedge-priest and has not even a cure of souls in Baker Street. But wherever he goes with his flapping hat and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... doing what is right, of righteous conduct, surrounded by righteous friends, of sweet speech, possessed of agreeable features, capable of leading men, well-versed in policy, possessed of accomplishments, energetic in action, active, possessed of ingenuity, of a sweet temper, modest in address, patient, brave, rich, and capable of adapting his measures to the requirement of place and time. That king who succeeds in obtaining such a minister can never be humiliated or overpowered by any one. Indeed, his kingdom gradually spreads over the earth like ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... All eyes were turned towards the conqueror of Hohenlinden, and while the Procureur Imperial read over the long indictment and invoked the vengeance of the law on an attempt against the head of the Republic, it was easy to perceive how he tortured his ingenuity to fasten apparent guilt on the laurels of Moreau. The good sense of the public discerned proofs of his innocence in the very circumstances brought forward against him. I shall never forget the effect produced—so ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of dancing, and display great ingenuity in devising many grotesque and fanciful costumes for wearing upon such occasions. Every beast, bird and fish almost of which they have any knowledge, is represented in some form—the heads of bear, seal and other animals ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... home grapes in a basket. Almost always sowing, in Northern work. By Spenser, with his usual exquisite ingenuity, employed in gathering in the general harvest, and portioning it out with the Scales, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Racine, as well as Shakespeare and Milton. After that they can read what they like, but they will have a standard by which to judge other authors." He was afraid that the students wasted too much time in painting play-bills and other similar exercises of ingenuity, which lead to ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... sins a person may commit is well-nigh incalculable, which is only one way of saying that the malice of man has invented innumerable means of offending the Almighty—a compliment to our ingenuity and the refinement of our natural perversity. It is not always pleasant to know, and few people try very hard to learn, of what kind and how many are their daily offenses. This knowledge reveals too nakedly ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... For while the fact that there are indeed such things as mysteries, unsearchable judgments, and incomprehensible ways in God is plainly taught in the Bible, their nature, their how, why, and wherefore, has not been revealed to us and no amount of human ingenuity is able to supply the deficiency. Hence, in as far as God is still hidden and veiled, He cannot serve as a norm by which we are able to regulate our faith and life. Particularly when considering the question ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... society will always have its active and its passive membership. How to increase the latter from without, and how to transfer recruits from the passive to the active list, are problems that have taxed the ingenuity of not a few and have not infrequently been abandoned as insoluble. It has so long been said, "This missionary work always has to be carried on by a few," that the expression has come to have something of the force of axiomatic ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 8, August, 1889 • Various
... at that time of the wealth of other discoveries that was soon to increase enormously the complexity of their problems; or of the inferences that would be drawn from them with an ingenuity and an assurance that would task to the utmost the ability and the patience of the defenders of the ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... higher opinion of him. He is certainly well described by Coleridge as the "king of men of talent." It is curious, by the way, to compare what M. says of C.: "It is impossible to give a stronger example of a man, whose talents are beneath his understanding, and who trusts to his ingenuity to atone for his ignorance.... Shakespeare and Burke are, if I may venture on the expression, above talent; but Coleridge is ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... slowly downstairs, step by step, the perplexed man of business had time enough to reflect, that if it be possible to put a fair gloss upon a true story, the verity always serves the purpose better than any substitute which ingenuity can devise. He therefore told his learned visitor, that although his son had been incommoded by the heat of the court, and the long train of hard study, by day and night, preceding his exertions, yet he had fortunately so far recovered, as to be in condition to obey upon the instant ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of simple and accurate costumes by the young people taking part; the collecting of suitable stage properties such as hearthbrooms, Indian pipes, and dishes of pewter. The greater the research, the keener the stimulus for imagination and ingenuity, two things that go to the making of every successful production. Fortunately, the patriotic play is inherently simple, its appeal is along broad general lines, so that it requires no great amount of money or energy to adequately produce it. And, as history is made ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... very modern, which some rather erroneously suppose to be the same as being human; he was also humane, in the sense of humanitarian. He sketched an ideal, or rather perhaps a fanciful social system, with something of the ingenuity of Mr. H. G. Wells, but essentially with much more than the flippancy attributed to Mr. Bernard Shaw. It is not fair to charge the Utopian notions upon his morality; but their subjects and suggestions ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... constructed in the death battle from floating boards and timbers, were agonized men, women and children, their heartrending shrieks for help striking horror to the breasts of the onlookers. Their cries were of no avail. Carried along at railway speed on the breast of this rushing torrent, no human ingenuity could ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... belief or order, those who maintain that such a hidden revolution took place are bound to bring positive evidence to the fact. This history of the Church during the second century has been likened with more of ingenuity than of poetical beauty to the passing of a train through a ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... a maxim which I laid down soon after a separation which I had, never to say or do to my late colleague what he could say or do against me in return. I knew that I had the personal superiority, but what his own ingenuity could not suggest, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... cook of the camp while the boat was being built. Then, loading the craft with barrel-pork, hogs, and corn, they started on their voyage south. At a place called New Salem the flat-boat ran aground; but Lincoln's ingenuity got it off. He rigged up a queer contrivance of his own invention and lifted the boat off and over the obstruction, while all New Salem stood on the bank, first to criticise and ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... tired of directing his most scathing satire; but while this is entirely praiseworthy it tends a little to give a false impression of his attitude towards two of the most delightful sports which modern ingenuity has invented. After all, the scorcher and the road-hog are the least representative followers of the sports which their conduct brings into question, and it is very easy to ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... amidst the rides, biding your time, consoling yourself with cigars, and not swearing at the vile perfidious, unfoxlike fox more frequently than you can help. For the fox on such occasions will be abused with all the calumnious epithets which the ingenuity of angry men can devise, because he is exercising that ingenuity the possession of which on his part is the foundation of fox-hunting. There you will remain, nursing your horse, listening to chaff, and hoping. But even when the ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... unfair of him, considering that in this matter Elisabeth, and not Fate, was entirely to blame. But Christopher was always ready to find excuses for Elisabeth, whatever she might do; and this, it must be confessed, required no mean order of ingenuity just then. Elisabeth was as yet young enough to think lightly of the gifts that were bestowed upon her freely and with no trouble on her part, such as bread and air and sunshine and the like; it was reserved for her to learn ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... evil germs of such depravity should nowhere revive. Therefore, she directed her provident vigilance to the newly-discovered regions of Africa, Asia and America, for a report had reached her that the leaders of the expeditions, Christians though they were, were wickedly making use of their arms and ingenuity to establish and impose slavery on those innocent nations. Indeed, since the crude nature of the soil which they had to overcome, nor less the wealth of metals which had to be extracted by mining, required very hard work, unjust and inhuman plans were entered into; for a new traffic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and praised by the human nits and lice of the Seamy Side, just as the achievements in a legitimate field of a Hill or a Schwab or a Rockefeller might be talked of among petty shopkeepers and little business men. He had, as the phrase goes, everything—imagination, resource, ingenuity, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... withdrawal of the legions is a matter which scarcely falls within the scope of this paper. Whether the place was abandoned, like other Roman walled towns, such as Silchester, etc., or whether it maintained a population throughout the dark ages, are questions which have exercised the ingenuity and imagination of several antiquarian authorities,[72] but it must be confessed that the evidence is insufficient to enable one to settle ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... effect even on the oppressed hearts of the other two. They knew now that, even if death should be their lot, Argutis would be faithful to their father and sick brother, and the slave at once showed his ingenuity and shrewdness; for, while the young people were vainly trying to think of a hiding-place for Heron and Philip, he suggested a spot which would hardly be discovered even ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of a preposterous Anti-German League. Disregarding the essential evils of the Prussian idea, this mischievous organisation has set itself to persuade the British people that the Germans are diabolical as a race. It has displayed great energy and ingenuity in pestering and insulting naturalised Germans and people of German origin in Britain—below the rank of the Royal Family, that is—and in making enduring bad blood between them and the authentic British. It busies itself in breaking up meetings at which sentiments friendly ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... affords no scope for ingenuity of conjecture! The foolish rime to which bishop Aylmer refers, is undoubtedly ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... epistle for different churches, leaving a blank space to be filled as occasion should require; and then it becomes impossible to explain how the reading "in Ephesus" should have been so universal in the manuscripts and versions. There is no occasion for any of this ingenuity. The omission of these words from single manuscripts is not wonderful. It finds a parallel, as Alford remarks, in the omission of the words in Rome (Rom. 1:7) from one manuscript, whether from oversight ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... the cabin, the brave man betrayed the ingenuity of his preparations for his perilous Venture, and verified ed his confident statement to Renie, that she need have no fear, as in good time he would come ashore again to tell ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... suffering. A single person can experience it. But consider, my dear sir. How can you add one man's agony to another's? They are not addable quantities. Each is an individual pain, unaffected by the other. The limit of anguish which ingenuity can inflict is that utmost pang which one man ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. But to such a nature will also come the subtlest and deepest despairs of which the human heart is capable. The same instinct which foresees and devises for the loved ones will also recognize ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... dog o' mine always barks at sic a troop o' mendicants," remarked Cousin Ronald quietly. "I ken mendicant's the word, lads and lasses, and ye hae acted it out wi' commendable ingenuity and success." ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... fully, as I used to think, and perhaps had not altogether lost even in this strangely changed society with all its wonders. Ellen seemed delighted with my pleasure at this, that, or the other piece of carefulness in dealing with the river: the nursing of pretty corners; the ingenuity in dealing with difficulties of water-engineering, so that the most obviously useful works looked beautiful and natural also. All this, I say, pleased me hugely, and she was pleased at ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... and intelligence. One of them presented me with a small basket wrought from a species of tough grass, and ornamented with the plumage of birds of a variety of brilliant colours. It was a beautiful specimen of Indian ingenuity. ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... a little ingenuity, a bed was made up of chairs and cushions, which Molly was too worn out to resist; and having seen her sink at once into an uneasy slumber, the two returned to the larger room, where the others still held ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Finally, the half of a cocoanut shell, lined, and furnished with soft cushions of thistle down, made a good bed for the little wonder; and the nursery maid, wife of a neighboring clockmaker, and a person of ingenuity, conceived the admirable idea of suspending the cocoanut cradle from the pendulum of a great clock, in order that the infant might be rocked all the time. Madam Tom Thumb was enchanted with the invention. ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... something of a scholar-like and literary air. After allowing me a sufficient time to inspect the puppets, he advanced with a bow and drew my attention to some books in a corner of the wagon. These he forthwith began to extol with an amazing volubility of well-sounding words and an ingenuity of praise that won him my heart as being myself one of the most merciful of critics. Indeed, his stock required some considerable powers of commendation in the salesman. There were several ancient friends of mine—the novels of those happy days when my affections wavered ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it was not properly my talent, said that we, being by nature rational and lovers of ingenuity, are delighted with and admire everything that is artificially and ingeniously contrived. For as a bee, naturally loving sweet things, seeks after and flies to anything that has any mixture of honey ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... in old German towns, and the rural scenes depict a variety of agricultural instruments, together with many details of home life in the olden time. The colours of the birds and flowers are as bright as if only finished yesterday. The ingenuity of the design is very striking; no two objects are alike. It would have taken hours to have looked over ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... gratitude. At the other extreme stand relations like that with Anne Park, the heroine of Yestreen I had a Pint o' Wine, which were purely passionate and transitory. Between these come a long procession affording excellent material for the ingenuity of those skilled in the casuistry of the sexes: the boyish flame for Handsome Nell; the slightly more mature feeling for Ellison Begbie; the various phases of his passion for Jean Armour; the perhaps partly factitious reverence for Highland Mary; ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Ross had little ingenuity in the line of excuses or she would never have offered such a threadbare one as that. I wanted the chance to annihilate her and here it was. I called up Bentonville and asked if Miss Ross was there. She was, and I said, "Isn't it possible for you to invent a better excuse than ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the Waverley Novels generally display much ingenuity, and are interestingly involved; but there is not one in the conduct of which it would not be easy to point out a blemish. None have that completeness which constitutes one of the chief merits of Fielding's Tom Jones. There is always either an improbability, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... the sunny faces of childhood were marked with unwonted thoughtfulness; the shadow of the common bereavement fell over the play-ground and nursery. The little girl remembered, with tears, how her broken-limbed doll had taxed the surgical ingenuity of her genial old friend; and the boy showed sorrowfully to his playmates the top which the good Doctor had given him. If there were few, among the many who stood beside his grave, capable of rightly measuring and appreciating ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... from chafing. Rough and ready they were, nevertheless they fitted well and tightly to their feet; but it was found that the want of a joint at the instep rendered it difficult to walk with these soles on, and impossible to run. Roy's ingenuity, however, soon overcame this difficulty. He cut the soles through just under the instep, and then, boring two holes in each part, lashed them firmly together with deerskin, thus producing a joint or hinge. Eager to try this new invention, ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... Henry, he had increased his pecuniary resources by his own enterprise and ingenuity; with this difference, that his speculations were connected with the Arts. He had made money, in the first instance, by a weekly newspaper; and he had then invested his profits in a London theatre. This latter enterprise, admirably conducted, had been rewarded by ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... all this, and in insisting upon the merit of Daumier may appear to make light of the finer accomplishment of several more modern talents, in England and France, who have greater ingenuity and subtlety and have carried qualities of execution so, much further. In looking at this complicated younger work, which has profited so by experience and comparison, it is inevitable that we should perceive ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... when the war came it developed that the hotel builder probably had a subsidy from the Government. For sandbags, machine guns, and quick-firers quickly converted the hotel into an excellent fort, which dominated the famous ravine. Thanks to the hardiness and ingenuity of their picked Alpine troops, the Italians, after a week of hard fighting, cleared the mountains above the ravine and dropped upon ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... that student it is very superfluous for anyone to make a fool. But though the dramatist's jests are always serious and generally obvious, he is really affected from time to time by a certain spirit of which that climate theory is a case—a spirit that can only be called one of senseless ingenuity. I suppose it is a sort of nemesis of wit; the skidding of a wheel in the height of its speed. Perhaps it is connected with the nomadic nature of his mind. That lack of roots, this remoteness from ancient instincts and traditions is responsible for a certain bleak and heartless extravagance of ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... remember that they had not then the word of God, nor any means of communicating to the minds of the people any general enlightenment and instruction. They were obliged, therefore, to resort to the next best method which their ingenuity could devise. ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Rabbis," said he, "to study only those portions of our holy literature on which they can whet their ingenuity. But from all writings which would promote piety and fear of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... called into force for the performance of "The Rivals," which was given a week or so before the end of the voyage. It went off wonderfully well; but I confess I enjoyed the preparations more than the play itself: the ingenuity displayed was very amusing at the time. You on shore cannot imagine how difficult it was to find a snuff-box for "Sir Anthony Absolute," or with what joy and admiration we welcomed a clever substitute ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... hardened into a stock-jobbing prestidigitator, and made the world the poorer by so much as he was the richer? On the other hand, he might perhaps have been a poet. Certainly a man of his temperament and ingenuity might by practice have come to write rondeaus, ballades, and those other sorts of soap-bubble verse just now in fashion; and if he had been so lucky as to be disappointed in love at the outset of his career, it is quite within the limits of possibility ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... because they think they must either take the cats along when they return to the city, where they would be a trouble and an encumbrance, or leave them in the country, houseless and homeless. These people have no ingenuity, no invention, no wisdom; or it would occur to them to do as I do: rent cats by the month for the summer and return them to their good homes at the end of it. Early last May I rented a kitten of a farmer's wife, by the month; then I got a discount ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... seven-feet high, upon wheels; sends a man to drive it through the streets; hoping to be saved thereby. He has not attempted to make better hats, as he was appointed by the Universe to do, and as with this ingenuity of his he could very probably have done; but his whole industry is turned to persuade us that he has made such! He too knows that the Quack has become God. Laugh not at him, O reader; or do not laugh only. He has ceased to be comic; he is fast becoming tragic. To me this all-deafening blast ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... extremities of war there is no example of courage and intrepidity to exceed this. Happy those ages which knew not the dreadful fury of artillery!—those instruments of hell (where, I verily believe, the inventor is now receiving the reward of his diabolical ingenuity), by means of which the cowardly and the base can deprive the bravest soldier of life. While a gallant spirit animated with heroic ardor is pressing to glory, comes a chance ball, sent by one who perhaps fled in alarm at the flash of his own accursed weapon, and in an instant cuts short ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... his unpleasant seat, and rendering thanks to the king for the lesson he had given him, firmly resolved to amend his life. All who were present commended the ingenuity of ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... man at the last. Courage, loyal obedience, patient endurance, the abnegation of selfishness,—these are the lessons the sea teaches. Why must the shore make such diabolical haste and try such fiendish ingenuity to undo them? The sea is pure and free, the land is firm and stable,—but where they meet, the tide rises and falls, leaving a little belt of sodden mud, of slippery, slimy weeds, where the dead refuse of the sea is cast up to rot in the hot sun. Something such is the welcome the men of the sea ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... repairs and in reloading. Here, for the first time, we were impressed with two characteristics in our driver: first, his ability to swear, surpassing anything that we had ever heard; second, his astonishing skill and ingenuity in repairing any accident or break, which happened on the road. Before our journey was over, we learned that both these qualities are common to his profession. It was four o'clock in the morning before we were again upon our way. All hope of reaching Union Hidalgo at the promised ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... occasions where quiet was needed. The only exception tolerated at this time was in the case of one man who offered a solemn pledge, that, if unable to restrain his cough, he would lie down on the ground, scrape a little hole, and cough into it unheard. The ingenuity of this proposition was irresistible, and the eager patient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... ordnance, manufacture their own muskets, shot, powder, and cartridge-boxes; in fact, every instrument or weapon used in civilized warfare is manufactured in Nepaul, often clumsily enough, but the mere fact of their being capable of being used, and used with effect, is highly creditable to the ingenuity ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... their hospitable host, could see nothing in the least suspicious. But, when desired, this duck-pond could be made to swing round on a pivot, and underneath it was a most convenient recess which was an admirable storehouse for such things as it was not expedient for the Preventive men to see. The ingenuity fostered by smuggling was notorious, but surely few cleverer devices than this were ever conceived for the evasion of ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... blankets, and boasted a sacking pillow. From the ridge-pole hung a candlestick, roughly fashioned from a knot of wood, and the furniture was completed by a rustic table and chair, made from branches, and showing considerable ingenuity in their fashioning. Wallaby skins thrown over the chair and upon the floor lent a look of comfort to the tiny dwelling; and a further touch of homeliness was given by many pictures cut from illustrated papers and fastened to the canvas walls. The fly of the tent projected ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... the wants of that Government, because the Spanish statesmen of 1862 are as unwise as were any of their predecessors, most of whom treated the dollar as if it contained twelve dimes. "To spend half a crown out of sixpence a day" requires the possession of as much ingenuity as would, if rationally employed, serve to convert the sixpence into a crown; but Spain rarely permits common sense to govern her action, and prefers debt to prosperity, when she can fairly make her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers— just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians— by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery. Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman. The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... famous story of the contest in song at Chalcis. In later times the modest version in the "Works and Days" was elaborated, first by making Homer the opponent whom Hesiod conquered, while a later period exercised its ingenuity in working up the story of the contest into the elaborate form in which it still survives. Finally the contest, in which the two poets contended with hymns to Apollo [1104], was transferred to Delos. These developments certainly need no consideration: are we ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... the meaning was discovered, and the solution is equally remarkable for its ingenuity and for the morality it inculcates:—"O superbe quid superbis? tua superbia te superabit. Terra es, et in terram ibis. Mox eris quod ego nunc."—"O vain man! why shouldst thou be proud? thy pride will be thy ruin. Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return. Soon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... the British columns. De Lisle, Fanshawe, Byng, Rimington, Dawkins, and Rawlinson were all snatching at him and finding him just beyond their finger-tips. The master-mind at Pretoria had, however, thought out a scheme which was worthy of De Wet himself in its ingenuity. A glance at the map will show that the little branch from Heilbron to Wolvehoek forms an acute angle with the main line. Both these railways were strongly blockhoused and barbed-wired, so that any force ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an accepted fact. Mr. Frazer came to see the Captain, who received him in the dining-room—the combined ingenuity of the family could not make the down-stairs room presentable. The interview was short, but satisfactory; so also was the one with Mrs. Polkington which followed; with Violet it was longer, but, no doubt, equally satisfactory. Lunch, too, was all that could be desired. Mrs. Polkington's ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... had which was called a "blowing tub," or by a very ancient machine known as a "trompe" in which water running through a wooden pipe was very ingeniously made to furnish air to a furnace. It is when the means are small that ingenuity is actually shown. If the later man is deprived of the use of the latest machinery he will decline to undertake an enterprise where it is required. The same man in the woods, with absolute necessity for his companion, will show an astonishing capacity for persevering ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... always looked at two sides of a penny: and he tried to purchase this mass a trifle under the usual terms, on account of the pitiable circumstances. But the good cure gently but adroitly parried his ingenuity, and blandly screwed him up to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... help smiling at Jim's earnestness and ingenuity, but his proposition was so sudden and strange, and she had so long ago given up any thought of marrying, that it was impossible for her to give him an answer then, unless she should give him ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... outskirts of the city that day, and I was much struck with an example of Chinese ingenuity. The suburban inhabitants all seem to keep poultry, and all these fowls were of the same breed—small white bantams. So, to identify his own property, Ching Wan dyed all his chickens' tails orange, whilst Hung To's fowls scratched about with ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... to the entrance; but the ingenuity of the architect, for want of a better lock to the door, which itself was but of wattles curiously twisted, had contrived a mode of securing the latch on the inside with a pin, which prevented it from rising; and in this manner it was at present fastened. Conceiving that this was some precaution ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... serviceable, it can accomplish nothing. Suppose the maker passes his life in making probably the most intricate and perfect mechanism which has been made. Is he a genius? We may admit that the products manifest great ingenuity on the part of their creator, yet we feel repelled when we think of calling ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... L'Encuerado, full of ingenuity, managed to fix some pieces of fox-skin on some old soles, and made for Lucien a pair of buskins as strong as they were inelegant. He promised to make us some like them, and Sumichrast, who succeeded only tolerably well in his cobbling, nominated the Indian ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... during the week and helped out in a grocery store on Saturday, and his earnings helped slightly, but not much. Midwinter taxes on two houses ate up more than two weeks' income. With almost superhuman ingenuity Migwan apportioned their expenses so the money covered them. This she had to do practically alone, for her mother was as helpless before a column of figures as she would have been in a flood. Meat practically ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... to Day's mechanical skill everyone paid tribute. The heating, lighting and ventilating arrangements [Page 278] of the hut had been left entirely in his charge, and had been carried out with admirable success. The cook's corner was visited next, and Scott was very surprised to see the mechanical ingenuity shown by Clissold. 'Later,' he says, 'when I found that Clissold was called in to consult on the ailments of Simpson's motor, and that he was capable of constructing a dog sledge out of packing-cases, I was less surprised, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Darwin's argument our own private ingenuity has not hitherto enabled us to pick holes of any great importance; and judging by what we hear and read, other adventurers in the same field do not seem to have been much more fortunate. It has been urged, for instance, that in his chapters on the struggle for existence and ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... but every animal exhibits for its young affection and forethought and endurance and unselfishness. We call the bee wise, and celebrate its "making the yellow honey,"[47] flattering it for its tickling sweetness; but we neglect the wisdom and ingenuity of other creatures, both as regards the birth and bringing up of their young. For example, the kingfisher after conception weaves its nest with the thorns of the marine needle, making it round and oblong in shape like a fisherman's basket, and after deftly and closely weaving it together, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... and better toys than more of an inferior quality. The thing to keep in mind is that a toy is neither an artistic model, an aesthetic ornament, nor a mechanical spectacle, but should be a stimulus to call forth self-activity, invention, ingenuity, imagination, and skill. ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... the toy shop, we are confronted by a multitude of objects, the variety and quantity of which are distracting. Everything that the ingenuity of man could devise is here presented to our astonished eyes, and children gaze upon the great spectacle and are delighted. If we go to the store just to be amused or to buy something, a very indefinite something for a child of ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg |
