"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shores and the shores of our distant Dominions were secure from invasion. All that we had to fear was an occasional Chartist riot, or Irish rebellion, or Indian mutiny, or petty Colonial war. To suppress these sporadic disorders a small professional army was incomparably the best instrument, and it was, of course, best secured and maintained by the system of voluntary enlistment. Thus in the halcyon Georgian and Victorian days the right inherent in every sovereign Government to call upon its subjects for national service sank into forgetfulness, the ancient military obligations ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... that brought about the Revolution; and which the act that passed soon after, declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown, intends, when his late Majesty is therein called the glorious instrument of delivering the kingdom; and which the Commons, in the last part of their first article, express by the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood! Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me!" [laughs and clasps] Bravo! Encore! Bravo! Where the devil is there any old age in that? I'm not old, that is all nonsense, a torrent of strength rushes over me; this is life, freshness, youth! Old age and genius can't exist ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... implementation of human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law; to act as an instrument of early warning, conflict prevention, and crisis management; and to serve as a framework for conventional arms control and ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that he might go before us, or be our leader in all things; which is a much higher view than the common understanding of the passage, which merely supposes him to have been God's instrument in creating the physical universe. He is the image of the invisible God—the first-born of the whole creation. This creation is the new creation—that which is intended in Revelation (3:14), where Christ is spoken of as the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... killed a man with such an instrument as half a pair of scissors seemed to turn my stomach. I am sure I might have killed a dozen with a firelock, a sabre, a bayonet, or any accepted weapon, and been visited by no such sickness of remorse. And to this feeling every unusual ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He was in consequence left to himself, and the conversation proceeded as before. The length of his beard seemed to annoy him much, and he expressed eager wishes to be shaved, asking repeatedly for a razor. A pair of scissors was given to him, and he shewed he had not forgotten how to use such an instrument, for he forthwith began to clip his hair ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... accompaniment, do not seek to display your own talent, but play so as to afford the best support possible for the voice singing. The same rule applies to a second in any instrumental duet, which is never intended to drown the sound of the leading instrument. ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... senses; now they were quite dull, and my leg alive and throbbing; now I had no leg at all, but more than all my ordinary senses in every other part of me. And the devil's orchestra was playing all the time, and all around me, on every class of fiendish instrument, which you have been made to hear for yourselves in every newspaper. Yet all that I heard was ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... complete such purchase within said ten days, then the pew may be sold by the owner or owners thereof (after payment of all such arrears) to any one respectable white person, but upon the same conditions as are contained in this instrument; and immediate notice of such sale shall be given in writing, by the vendor, to ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... Larry took up his position at a short distance from an instrument called a microphone, and at a signal from Mr. ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... thought of it only as another enslavement, will be the nucleus for higher positivism—and that it will be the means of elevating into infinitude a new batch of fixed stars—until, as a recruiting instrument, it, too, will play out, and will give way to some new medium for generating absoluteness. It is our acceptance that all astronomers of today have lost their souls, or, rather, all chance of attaining Entity, but that Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo and ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... transports of joy, admiration, and astonishment, as if a man born with a genius for music, but brought up in a desert, had for the first time heard a well-played instrument. He set himself immediately to reading Malherbe, passed his nights in learning his verses by heart, and his days in declaiming them in solitary places. He also read Voiture, and began to write verses in imitation. Happily, at ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... it, his eyes and ears being alone for 'Lena. Seating himself near her, he commenced talking to her in an undertone, apparently oblivious to everything else around him, and it was not until Durward twice asked how he liked Mabel's playing, that he heard a note. Then, starting up and going toward the instrument, he said, "Ah, yes, that was a fine march, ('twas the 'Rainbow Schottish,' then new,) please repeat it, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... whittling them out of a block of soft wood with a sharp jack-knife, the only instrument she used. Trina was very proud to explain her work to McTeague as he had already explained his ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... European grain be cultivated without irrigation. The natives all cultivate the dourrha or holcus sorghum, maize, pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, and different kinds of beans; and they are entirely dependent for the growth of these on rains. Their instrument of culture is the hoe, and the chief labor falls on the female portion of the community. In this respect the Bechuanas closely resemble the Caffres. The men engage in hunting, milk the cows, and have the entire control of the cattle; they prepare the skins, make the clothing, and in many respects ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... or three days after, more of the keys stayed down, and I said, "That piano must be fixed." The tuner came, and the children all stood around him, with curious eyes, as he took the instrument apart. Presently I heard a great shout. What do you think? In one corner, on the key-board, where every touch of the keys must have jarred it, was a mouse's nest, with five young ones in it! Those mice must have been fond of music! The mother mouse sprang out and escaped; but the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... recommend to the States. It had no power to tax, to support armies or navies, to provide for the interest or payment of the public debt, to regulate commerce or internal affairs, or to perform any other function of an efficient national government. It was merely a convenient instrument of repudiation for the States; Congress was to borrow money and incur debts, which the States could refuse or neglect to provide for. Under this system affairs steadily drifted from bad to worse for some ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... accidents, by settling it on his daughter. Whether, having so settled it, he could again resume it without the daughter's assent, Sir Felix did not know. Marie, who had no doubt been regarded as an absolutely passive instrument when the thing was done, was now quite alive to the benefit which she might possibly derive from it. Her proposition, put into plain English, amounted to this: 'Take me and marry me without my father's ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... into my head to jump into the wood and on with a mask before you could say, Bristol town? It's the mysterious ways of Providence, your Reverence. Even I didn't understand it at the time, but the moment I heard Paddy's tale I knew at once I was but an instrument in the hand of Providence, for I had not said, 'Stand and deliver!' this many a ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... Heeren, "was always accompanied by some instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a medium between ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... her father's house, Semestre's call and the gay notes of a monaulus—[A musical instrument, played like our ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he filled his high exalted place, The brave emancipator of a race, He thought of the fierce struggle and the victory And humbly deemed himself to be Only the instrument of a Divine decree. Rejoicing in the faith of brighter coming days His "fervent prayers" were merged in those ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... remarks respecting them[256]. Whether the altitudes have been taken by Don Juan with that precision which geography requires, may also be in some measure questioned; since we find there was a crack in the instrument employed, the size of which is not mentioned; neither were all the observations repeated. Even if they had been, it is well known that the observations of those times were by no means so accurate as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... which I have genius, in which I can never doubt I have!—is the hour when dawn falters on the boundaries of the dark sky. Then, filled with the same quivering as leaves and grass, thrilled to the very tips of my wing quills, I feel myself a chosen instrument. I accentuate my curve of a hunting-horn, Earth speaks in me as in a conch, and ceasing to be an ordinary bird, I become the mouthpiece, in some sort official, through which the cry of the earth ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... get everybody in on it," he mused, as he pounded the telegraph instrument; "can't tell—some of those higher-ups might be in New York and think there wasn't anything to it unless they could see it in the New York papers. I—" Then he stopped as the wire cut under his finger and clattered forth a message. He jumped. He grasped ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of those songs you brought, but I don't think they go well with the harmonium," she said, pointing to some music on its rack, "except one. Just listen." She rose, and with the same nervous quickness she had shown before, went to the instrument and began to sing and play. There was a hopeless incongruity between the character of the instrument and the spirit of the song. Mrs. Rylands's voice was rather forced and crudely trained, but Joshua Rylands, sitting there comfortably slippered by the fire and conscious of the ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the strength of its arguments, for these, though plausible, were clearly inferior in weight to the facts copiously adduced by those familiar with conditions, but through the prejudices which the then generation had received from the three or four preceding it. The policy being adopted, the instrument at hand for enforcing it was the relation of colonies to mother countries, as then universally maintained by the governments of the day. The United States, like other independent nations, was to be excluded wholly from carrying ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... the operation of the State banks can not produce this result, the probable operation of a national bank will merit consideration; and if neither of these expedients be deemed effectual it may become necessary to ascertain the terms upon which the notes of the Government (no longer required as an instrument of credit) shall be issued upon motives of general policy as a common ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Photophone, patented in 1881. Both the Hubbards and the Bells decided to move to the Capital. While Bell took his bride to Europe for an extended honeymoon, his associate Charles Sumner Tainter, a young instrument maker, was sent on to Washington from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to start the laboratory.[3] Bell's cousin, Chichester Bell, who had been teaching college chemistry in London, agreed to come as the third associate. During his stay in Europe Bell received ...
— Development of the Phonograph at Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory • Leslie J. Newville
... worse) on persons, condemning this and that, approving the other? Or suppose a man sneers and jeers or shows a malignant temper? Has any among us the skill of the lute-player, who knows at the first touch which strings are out of tune and sets the instrument right: has any of you such power as Socrates had, in all his intercourse with men, of winning them over to his own convictions? Nay, but you must needs be swayed hither and thither by the uninstructed. How comes it then that they prove so much stronger than ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... our engagement we have furnished ourselves with copies of this instrument of writing. Given under our hands in New York the 22 ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... one who sees this somewhat out-of-the-way name imagine it is anything very dreadful. It is merely that of an instrument for measuring the moisture ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sentiments, of which I will only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame when they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself. I did. I heard him speak—heard him denounce Christianity as the instrument of tyrants." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dog of his own mind. Disease itself is, of course, in one sense natural, as being the result of natural causes; but if we assume health as the mean representing the normal poise of all the mental facilities, we must be content to call hypochondria subternatural, because the tone of the instrument is lowered, and to designate as supernatural only those ecstasies in which the mind, under intense but not unhealthy excitement, is snatched sometimes above itself, as in poets and other persons of imaginative temperament. In poets this liability to be possessed by the creations of their own ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... are still to be seen in Mexico. Such drums figured in the religious ceremonies of the Aztecs, and one often hears of them in Mexican history. I have mentioned already the great drum which Bernal Diaz saw when he went up the Mexican teocalli with Cortes, and which he describes as a hellish instrument, made with skins of great serpents; and which, when it was struck, gave a loud and melancholy sound, that could be heard at two leagues' distance. Indeed, they did afterwards hear it from their camp a mile or two ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... be compared, as I have compared it, to an instrument or a weapon of steel, to a chisel or a sword. It was hard, polished, keen, stronger than what it bit into, and of its nature enduring. This was the first of the characters that gave him his ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... be the customer that Joe Bodley speaks of? Oh, dear me!" sighed Janice. "I'm so sorry Hopewell has to sell his violin. And I'm sorry he is going to sell it this way. If that 'foxy looking foreigner,' as Mr. Bowman called him, is the purchaser of the instrument, perhaps it is worth much more ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... cunning for anything! It was a little silver plum-extractor. With it a child could extract all the fattest raisins from her piece of mince-pie or portion of rice pudding without having to bother with the uninteresting remainder and being reprimanded; for the ingenious little instrument was invisible to adults. All the other presents were marked "For Sara, with our congratulations, because she is older than the Snoodle." But this one was marked, in a round, childish hand, "For my dear Sara—because she is older ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... at San-Carlo, where a mad and infatuated public had bade me so enthusiastic an adieu. While all that crowd had eyes, for him alone I wished to be beautiful—for him alone to be worthy of the admiration I excited. Dreaming this, my fingers run over the keys, and joining my voice to the instrument, I sang almost unconsciously that touching air in which I had been so much applauded. My song was at first low and half-whispered, but gradually increased in power. I thought I spoke to him, and that his eyes were fixed on mine. At last I paused, pale with surprise, joy and terror. In the glass before ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... was it? I never heard any sound like that before, so thin and small, and yet so horribly clear and piercing; neither like the cry of a child nor of an animal, nor like the wail that could come from any instrument. Valentine, now I see a little flame come from where you are sitting. It's so tiny and faint. Don't you see it? It is floating toward me. Now it is passing me. It's beyond. It's going. There, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... it, Jerry sensed that the thing, the instrument of nothingness, lurked about him. Nor did he see the dorsal fin break surface and approach him from the rear. From the yacht he heard rifle- shots in quick succession. From the rear a panic splash came to his ears. That was all. The peril passed and was ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... Metronome, an instrument for measuring tune in music, invented about the year 1815 by Maelzel, of Vienna, and often employed and ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... stones which serve as a tripod. In the larger houses it is in the form of a bedstead, filled with sand or ashes, instead of a mattress. The water in small households is carried and preserved in thick bamboos. In his bolo (forest-knife), moreover, every one has an universal instrument, which he carries in a wooden sheath made by himself, suspended by a cord of loosely-twisted bast fibers tied round his body. This, and the rice-mortar (a block of wood with a suitable cavity), together with pestles and a few baskets, constitute the whole of the household [Furniture.] ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... best quality was a genuine love for music. He could play any sort of instrument; and had besides a wonderfully sweet high soprano voice, which he was always ready to use for the pleasure of his friends. That promised many a happy night around the camp-fire, when once the Silver Fox ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... sleep, except Beaulieu. He had his fiddle and now he proceeded to favour us with 'A Life on the Ocean Wave,' 'The Campbells are Coming,' etc., in a manner worthy of his social position and of his fiddle. When not in use this aesthetic instrument (in its box) knocks about on deck or underfoot, among pots and pans, exposed in all weather; no one seems to ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... fatigues like his own was bent over a stand of some sort. The figure straightened at the same time a tinkle of music filled the room. He recognized the red-gold hair of the young woman he had seen beside the pool. She was wielding two mallets to play a stringed instrument that lay on its side supported ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... high, with a round hole in the middle, eight inches in diameter, just as I was looking intently at an iron machine. This machine was like a horse shoe, an inch thick and about five inches across from one end to the other. I was thinking what could be the use to which this horrible instrument was put, when the gaoler said, with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... garden was torn up and laid waste, the big account-book lay open on the table in my room, my fiddle, which I had almost clean forgotten, hung dusty on the wall; a ray of morning light glittered upon the strings. It struck a chord in my heart. "Yes," I said, "come here, thou faithful instrument! Our kingdom is not ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... from the report of some informers, who exaggerated the offence given, and with very unnecessary vigour ordered an inquiry to be made into the affair; and because Frontinus, the assessor of Hymetius, was accused of having been the instrument of drawing up this letter, he was scourged with rods till he confessed, and then he was condemned to exile in Britain. But Amantius was subsequently convicted of some ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, instead of responding as expected, "squawked," as our phonetic language has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... held him by the collar, and the terrible instrument of torture was raised over his head. It fell, and Richard writhed with the pain, not of the body alone, for the blow seemed to penetrate to his soul. It lacerated his pride, his self-respect, more than it did his legs. ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... to consider was whether the window was fastened. In that case he would have some difficulty, though for this he was prepared, having an instrument with which he could cut a pane of glass, and, thrusting in his ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... unfortunately for England and Scotland both, England was thrusting that sermon and all the other writings of its author on the Church of Christ in Scotland at the point of the bayonet, and that is the very worst instrument that can be employed in the interests of truth and of ecclesiastical comprehension and conformity. And among the many things we have to be thankful for in our more emancipated and more catholic day, it is not the least that Rutherford and Hooker ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... trunk of a huge silky oak. Having shrewdly scrutinised the bark, she judged the tenant to be at home. With a portion of one of the "feelers" of creeping palm stripped of all the prickles save two, she probed the tunnel and, screwing the instrument triumphantly, withdrew a huge white grub, which she ate forthwith; and then, with a grimace, assumed an air of shame and contrition, for she had astonished herself as well as others by an exhibition of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Gunpowder was used as early as 250 A.D., in the making of fire-crackers; but it was certainly as late as the middle of the twelfth century that it was first employed in war. The Chinese were early acquainted with the polarity of the loadstone, and used the compass in journeys by land long before that instrument was known in Europe. In various branches of manufactures,—as silk, porcelain, carved work in ivory, wood, and horn,—the Chinese, at least until a recent period, have been pre-eminent. In the mechanical arts their progress has been slow. Their crude implements of husbandry are in contrast ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... transmit, through any channel which may be open, to us who are still associated with planetary matter, messages which shall serve as a sign of their continued existence and affection; and that the biological organism or part of an organism of a living but unconscious or semi-conscious person is an instrument which may, though with difficulty, ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... suspected by the careless practitioners in his court.... And so this elderly gentleman, for he had crossed the sixty mark by now, recalled the timid, pale-faced, undersized girl, with her "common" aunt, who seven years before had appeared in his court and to whom he had been the instrument of giving riches. What had she done with the golden spoon he had thrust into her mouth and what would she do with it now? Ah, that was always the question with these inheritances which he was called upon to administer ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... great impression upon the world are those of St. Augustine and of Rousseau; but, with one short exception in St. Augustine, neither of those compositions contains any passion, and, therefore, De Quincey stands absolutely alone as the inventor and sole performer on a new musical instrument—for such an instrument is the English language in his hands. He belongs to a genus in which he is the only individual. The novelty and the difficulty of the task must be his apology if he fails, and causes of additional glory if he succeeds. He alone of all human beings ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... which is now driven at, is not that all wicked and unclean persons should be utterly excluded from our ecclesiastical societies, and so from all hearing of God's word; yea there is nothing less intended: for the word of God is the instrument as well of conversion as of confirmation, and therefore is to be preached as well to the unconverted as to the converted, as well to the repenting as the unrepenting: the temple indeed of Jerusalem had special ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... around the instrument-board and Dunark explained the changes he had made—and to such men as Seaton and Crane it was soon evident that they were examining an installation embodying sheer perfection of instrumental control—a ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... suspect that just as large a proportion of people in England could write well six hundred years ago, as could have done so forty years ago, but because it was not the fashion to sign one's name. Instead of doing that, everybody who was a free man, and a man of substance, in executing any legal instrument, affixed to it his seal, and that stood for his signature. People always carried their seals about with them in a purse or small bag, and it was no uncommon thing for a pickpocket to cut off this bag and run away with the seal, and thus put the owner to very serious inconvenience. This was what ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... truth a Fascination by means of the Voice, which has in it a much deeper and stronger power or action than that of merely sweet sound as of an instrument. The Jesuit, GASPAR SCHOTT, in his Magio Medica treats of Fascination as twofold: De Fascinatione per Visunt et Vocem. I have found among Italian witches as with Red Indian wizards, every magical operation depended on an incantation, and every incantation on the feeling, intonation, ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... that really frightened him about the radio was its possibilities as a new instrument of tyranny. The British Broadcasting Company holds in England a monopoly and is to a considerable extent under Government control. It is possible to forbid advertising programmes because the costs are met by a tax of 10 sh. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... by one thrust of this instrument which is worked by the arms alone. After a vertical cut is made by a spade, in a line at right angles to a bank of peat, the slane cuts the bottom and other side of the block; while at the end the latter is ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... art a monk by vows, thou'rt holy. 'Tis not my blood that's now upon thy hand, And shall hereafter be upon thy soul, Which makes thee less so: thou'rt but an instrument. I pray thee, shrive me, that my guilty soul May quit in ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... Chicago, kindly informs us that he has been able to get a slight shock from a telegraph battery in the following manner: "On every learner's instrument there are two binding-posts, and to one of them is joined a wire from the battery; a small file is fastened to the other; the key is closed, and then the other wire of the battery is taken in your ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... near enough to enable me to observe it, and make some scientific notes," came from Mr. Parker. "I am positive that one of these mountain peaks that we saw to-day will disappear in a landslide within a few days. I have an instrument somewhat like the one that records earthquakes, and it has been ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... guide. 'The one is a pleasing talker, excellent company by reason of his pleasant humour, and of a carriage very pleasant and inviting; but they observed he had a sword by his side, and a pair of pistols before him, together with another instrument hanging at his belt, which was formed for pulling out of eyes.'[7] The pilgrims suspected this well-armed cavalier to be one of that brood who will force others into their own path, and then put out their eyes in case they should forsake it. They have not got rid of their dangerous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... with seven kinds of unguents, and its eyes smeared with eye paint. After the statue had been washed and dressed a meal of sepulchral offerings was set before it. The essential ceremony consisted in applying to the lips of the statue a curiously shaped instrument called the PESH KEF, with which the bandages that covered the mouth of the dead king in his tomb were supposed to be cut and the mouth set free to open. In later times the Liturgy of Opening the Mouth was greatly enlarged and was called ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... giants, but has been revealed for a long time; whence they too, come. For from such homunculi, when they come to the age of manhood come giants, dwarfs and other similar great wonder people, [Just like Genesis vi, 4] that were used for a great tool and instrument, who had a great mighty victory over their enemies and knew all secret and hidden things that are for all men impossible to know. For by art they received their life, through art they received body, flesh, bone and blood, through ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... cracker one-half so thin. The thinnest cracker is thick compared with piki, and yet the Hopi make it with marvelous dexterity. Cornmeal batter in a crude earthenware bowl, is the material; a smooth, flat stone, under which a brisk fire is kept burning, is the instrument; and the woman's quick fingers, spreading a thin layer of the batter over the stone, perform the operation. It looks so easy. A lady of one of my parties tried it once, and failed. My cook, a stalwart Kansas City man, knew he would ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... Grenoble as no one can make them, not even in Paris itself. He was a poor strolling musician, who, singing and working, had made his way through Italy; one of those busy Germans who fashion the tools of their own work, and make the instrument that they play upon. When he came to the town he asked if any one wanted a pair of shoes. They sent him to me, and I gave him an order for two pairs of boots, for which he made his own lasts. The foreigner's skill ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... come in to enjoy the concert and incidentally to do a little shopping and chat with each other and their village friends. Although it may be called by the name of the village, it is usually a community band, for farm boys who can play an instrument are always welcome and frequently form a considerable part of the membership. The community comes to have a real pride in even a moderately good band, and on holiday celebrations and other festival occasions it is an invaluable asset ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... yet looking as if her own fate touched her less than the parting from you, my good friend Geoffrey Vickars was well-nigh mad, and declared that in some way or other, and at whatever risk to ourselves, you must both be saved. In this matter I have been but a passive instrument in his hands; as indeed it was only right that I should be, seeing that he is of gentle blood and an esquire serving under Captain Vere in the army of the queen, while I am but a rough sailor. What I have done I have done partly because his heart was in ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... strengthened by the common feeling that capitalists are enriched by ill-gotten gains, led to an obscure campaign against the Jews and all capitalists. The reminiscences of Panama did not allay these feelings. Soon the royalists seized this instrument as a means of discrediting the Republic, asserting that it had been organized through the influence of German-Jewish immigrants who were enriching themselves at the expense of the thrifty but guileless ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... facilitate the keeping of the plantation in order. Yet wholly aside from the value of a tool as an implement of tillage and as a weapon for the pursuit of weeds, is its merit merely as a shapely and interesting instrument. A man will take infinite pains to choose a gun or a fishing-rod to his liking, and a woman gives her best attention to the selecting of an umbrella; but a hoe is only a hoe and a rake only a rake. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... political right of establishing a constitution or form of government, is not enjoyed by the people of that country. They have no written instrument, like ours, called constitution, adopted by the people. What is there called the constitution, is the aggregate or sum of laws, principles, and customs, which have been formed in the course of centuries. There is ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... of the wildest excitement and confusion. The sight of such quantities of "loot" quite upset my hungry followers. Wandering through the station and warehouse, filled with stores, a Texan came upon a telegraphic instrument, clicking in response to one down the line. Supposing this to be some infernal machine for our destruction, he determined to save his friends at the risk of his own life, and smashed the instrument with his heavy boots; then rushed among his comrades, exclaiming: "Boys! they ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... but a gust might come suddenly. A hot hoosh was soon eaten and we plodded on towards a sharp ridge between two of the peaks already mentioned. By 11 a.m. we were almost at the crest. The slope had become precipitous and it was necessary to cut steps as we advanced. The adze proved an excellent instrument for this purpose, a blow sufficing to provide a foothold. Anxiously but hopefully I cut the last few steps and stood upon the razor-back, while the other men held the rope and waited for my news. The outlook was disappointing. I looked down a sheer ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... her daughter on the piano, and after a time not merely on the instrument. The organ of both was fine and richly cultivated. It was choice chamber music. Mr. Neuchatel seated himself by Myra. His tone was more than kind, and his manner gentle. "It is a little awkward the first day," he said, "among strangers, but that will wear off. You must bring your mind to feel ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... and beauty, so the silent artist, civilisation, approaches nearer and nearer to perfection, and by evolution of form and mind developes what is practically a new order of physical and mental build. Peron,—who first used, if he did not invent, the little instrument, the dynamometer, or muscular-strength measurer,—subjected persons of different stages of civilisation to the test of his gauge, and discovered that the strength of the limbs of the natives of Van Diemen's Land ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson
... The authors remark of this side of the tablet, "The back of the stone has three deep longitudinal grooves, and several depressions, evidently caused by rubbing,—probably produced in sharpening the instrument used, in the sculpture." This explanation of the depressions would seem to be reasonable, although it has been disputed, and a "peculiar significance" (Short) attached to this side of the tablet. In Short's ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... as Maturin's Family of Montorio, though "full of sound and fury," fail piteously to vibrate the chords of terror, which had trembled beneath Mrs. Radcliffe's gentle fingers. The instrument, smitten forcibly, repeatedly, desperately, resounds not with the answering note expected, but with an ugly, metallic jangle. Melmoth the Wanderer, Maturin's extraordinary masterpiece, was to prove—as late as 1820—that there were chords in the orchestra of horror as yet unsounded; but in ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... are too often unconvincing), and even of villains (who have rather a habit of being so).[52] Why a man who is represented as being intensely, diabolically, wicked, but almost diabolically shrewd, should employ, and go on employing, as his instrument a blundering poltroon like the Gascon Chaudoreille, is a question which recurs almost throughout the book, and, being unanswered, is almost sufficient to damn it. And at the end the other question, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... there were people waiting, and already the telegraph instrument on the stage had begun clicking off the returns. When the final accounts were made up, the Socialist vote proved to be over four hundred thousand—an increase of something like three hundred and fifty per cent ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... I know that my labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. I am much encouraged by our Lord's expression, 'He who reapeth' (in the harvest) 'receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto eternal life.' If I, like David, only am an instrument of gathering materials, and another build the house, I trust my joy will not be the less." This was written to the well-beloved Pearce, whom he would fain have had beside him at Mudnabati. To guide the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... take away: the piano, for instance; he would consider it a real kindness if she could remove that, he had no use whatever for it, and had a case of rare butterflies that would stand very comfortably in its place. So the instrument arrived one day at the lodgings, and gave the children more enjoyment than anything else, for the evenings were drawing in, and it was too dark for a run on the Heath after the boys ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... booklets which it is desired to dress in an elegant or dainty style, but is highly unsuitable for library books. Vellum proper is a much thicker material, made from the skins of calves, sheep, or lambs, soaked in lime-water, and smoothed and hardened by burnishing with a hard instrument, or pumice-stone. The common vellum is made from sheep-skin splits, or skivers, but the best from whole calf-skins. The hard, strong texture of vellum is in its favor, but its white color and tendency to warp are fatal objections to ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... members at the Mansion House had flatly declared that the decree was an instrument of the unscrupulous enemies both of Ireland and of the Holy See. The Tablet, which declared that it had been promulgated with full and intimate knowledge of all the circumstances, retorted—"As a matter of fact we believe that the English Government ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... nor persuaded out of certain measures. He hardly knew how to act in the emergency, and with his usual caution he did nothing. The Chief Justice Sewell went to England for the purpose of repelling the accusations against him, and as he was only the instrument of, not under any circumstance the author of a wrong, English public opinion, of course, went strongly with him. The Executive Councillors, the merchants, and the other principal inhabitants of Quebec presented ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... which bore N.E. by N. Djebel Dhana bore N.E. by F., and Djebel Hesma S.S.E. I must here observe, that during all my journeys in the deserts I never allowed the Arabs to get a sight of my compass, as it would certainly have been considered by them as an instrument of magic. When on horseback I took the bearings, unseen, beneath my wide Arab cloak; under such circumstances it is an advantage to ride a mare, as she may easily be taught to stand quite still. When ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... Commons. I have been endeavouring to get a license. Very true, Jack. I have the mortification to find a difficulty, as the lady is of rank and fortune, and as there is no consent of father or next friend, in obtaining this all-fettering instrument. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... arms. And this is held to be one of the most distinguished honors. For six days they ordain to sing with music at table. Only a few, however, sing; or there is one voice accompanying the lute and one for each other instrument. And when all alike in service join their hands, nothing is found to be wanting. The old men placed at the head of the cooking business and of the refectories of the servants praise the cleanliness of the streets, the ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... the world. We cannot read all the deep reasons in the divine nature, and in human receptivity, which make that sequence absolutely necessary, and that preliminary indispensable. But this, at least, we know, that the Divine Spirit whom Christ gives uses as His instrument and sword the completed revelation which Christ completed in His Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension, and that, until His weapon was fashioned, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... should have spoken and acted thus, is only another and a stronger reason for believing him to have been deranged in his last moments! You need give yourself no farther trouble! I shall act upon the authority of this instrument which I hold in my hand," replied Colonel Le ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... point of the Sa@mkhya epistemology and metaphysics. The substance of knowledge copies the external world, and this copy-shape of knowledge is again intelligized by the pure intelligence (puru@sa) when it appears as conscious. The forming of the buddhi-shape of knowledge is thus the prama@na (instrument and process of knowledge) and the validity or invalidity of any of these shapes is criticized by the later shapes of knowledge and not by the external objects (svata@h-prama@nya and svata@h-aprama@nya). ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... information upon points in which, previous to experiment, widely different opinions have been entertained; the following extract is inserted from Mr Telford's Report on the State of the Holyhead and Liverpool Roads. The instrument employed for the comparison was invented by Mr Macneill; and the road between London and Shrewsbury was selected ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... motives of fear and policy, begun to show the presiding spirit of the popular party a feigned deference. Others were sincere advocates of a free government, but regarded Savonarola simply as an ambitious monk—half sagacious, half fanatical—who had made himself a powerful instrument with the people, and must be accepted as an important social fact. There were even some of his bitter enemies: members of the old aristocratic anti-Medicean party—determined to try and get the reins once more tight in the hands of certain chief families; or else licentious young ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of matter. The brain, I thought, secreted the mind, as the liver does the bile. But how can this be when I see mind working from a distance and playing upon matter as a musician might upon a violin? The body does not give rise to the soul, then, but is rather the rough instrument by which the spirit manifests itself. The windmill does not give rise to the wind, but only indicates it. It was opposed to my whole habit of thought, and yet it was undeniably possible and worthy ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... musical sound uttered with decision by one instrument always makes the corresponding chord of another vibrate; and Mary felt, as she left her positive, but warm-hearted friend, a plaintive vibration of something in her own self, in which she was conscious her calm friendship for her future husband ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... receipt of this discouraging opinion, and then once more, as he had been doing regularly all through the night, raised to his eyes the instrument that hung by a cord from the neckpiece of the suit. Through it he scanned slowly and methodically the portion of black heaven that had been assigned to him. The instrument would have resembled a bulky pair of electro-binoculars with its twin tubes and eyepieces, had not there been, underneath ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... against him he could not believe. No! She was merely an instrument of Eve's subtlety. And his suspicion had not gone beyond the truth. Eve entertained the hope that Patty might take her place. Perchance the silly, good-natured girl would feel no objection; though it was not very likely that she foresaw or schemed ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... are kidnapped and secured. The herds of cattle, still within their kraal or "zareeba," are easily disposed of, and are driven off with great rejoicing, as the prize of victory. The women and children are then fastened together, and the former secured in an instrument called a sheba, made of a forked pole, the neck of the prisoner fitting into the fork, and secured by a cross-piece lashed behind, while the wrists, brought together in advance of the body, are tied to the pole. The children are then ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... arms. He accordingly addressed himself with large promises, to Bomilcar, the same nobleman who had been with Jugurtha at Rome, and who had fled from thence, notwithstanding he had given bail, to escape being tried for the murder of Massiva; selecting this person for his instrument, because, from his great intimacy with Jugurtha, he had the best opportunities of betraying him. He prevailed on him, in the first place, to come to a conference with him privately, when, having given him his word, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... spoke, one of the sharp little telegraphic bells rang viciously. He waited to ascertain the result while Clazie rose—quickly but not hurriedly—and went to read the instrument with ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... When he first came among the villagers, he played for three days and three nights almost incessantly the maddest tunes. Superstitious folks muttered one to another that it must be Old Nick himself who could draw such spirit and life from the instrument, as never to let any one have rest or quiet any more than he seemed to require it himself. During the whole of this time he scarcely ate a morsel, and only drank—but in potent draughts—during the pauses. Often it seemed as if ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... wrought in prominence and by the aid of great gifts of God—of unusual attainments. Let him confine himself to his own sphere; let him serve God in his vocation, remembering that God makes him, too, his instrument ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... repeated almost every summer for several successive years, and perhaps even the {p.126} first of them was in some degree connected with his professional business. At all events, it was to his allotted task of enforcing the execution of a legal instrument against some Maclarens, refractory tenants of Stewart of Appin, brother-in-law to Invernahyle, that Scott owed his introduction to the scenery of The Lady of the Lake. "An escort of a sergeant and six men," he says, "was obtained from a Highland regiment lying in Stirling, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... studied them for a while but didn't find anything I hadn't seen before. Well, I had done my job at least. I had orbited Mars, I had the glory of being the first American to do that. I had dropped the instrument package and transmitted all the data I could get back to Lunar. My only failure would be in ...
— Last Resort • Stephen Bartholomew
... human touch and the man-made whistle. I may measure, define, place it; know the steamer that it speaks far and the man that pulls the throttle cord. I may find the pitch, touch the identical note on guitar or cornet. I have neither wind nor stringed instrument that will record so low a note as that of the drumming of the partridge. I count the vibrations of the first of it with ease. They speed up toward the end, but they do not raise the pitch. I know nothing in our human musical notation that will touch its depth. Yet it is ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Nala began to walk up and down that shed. And, O Bharata, pacing thus to and fro, he found a handsome sword lying near the shed, unsheathed. And that repressor of foes, having with that sword cut off one half of the cloth, and throwing the instrument away, left the daughter of Vidharbha insensible in her sleep and went away. But his heart failing him, the king of the Nishadhas returned to the shed, and seeing Damayanti (again), burst into tears. And he said, "Alas! that beloved one of ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... an hour, and with the same result. I grew annoyed and irritated—not with the deluded sinner, as I deemed her, but with myself, the feeble and unequal instrument. For a second time I had attempted to comply with the instructions of my master, and for a second time had I been foiled, and driven back in melancholy discomfiture. The imperturbability and easy replies of the woman harassed and tormented ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... of Argyle met his doom with firmness; when laying his head on the grim instrument of death, he said it was "a sweet Maiden, whose embrace would waft his soul into heaven." The tragic story of the Earl of Argyle has been ably told by Mr. David Maxwell, C.E., and his iniquitous death is one of many dark passages in the ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... States,' whether there is a conviction or not; but, in case of conviction, they are to be recoverable from the defendant. It seems to me that, under the influence of such temptations, bad men might convert any law, however beneficent, into an instrument of persecution ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... with myself. I looked on Christianity, from the first, as a means of enlightening and regenerating mankind, and changing them into the likeness of Christ and of God. In other words, I regarded it as a grand instrument appointed by God, for making bad men into good men, and good men always better, thus fitting them for all the duties of life, and all the blessedness they were created to enjoy. And I considered that the great business of a Christian minister was to use it for those great ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... endowment of the said college. And all three, the said father provincial, the prior, and the commissary, authorize the justices who can and ought to try this cause, so that they may compel and force all on whom falls the fulfilment of this instrument to observe it, as if they were condemned thereto by the definitive sentence of a competent judge, rendered in a case decided. We renounce whatever laws and rights plead in our favor, and in this case, and the law and rule ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... morning, when the raid was over and things had quieted, we emerged from the trench and went back to the job. Just before we got back an ugly instrument of death familiarly known amongst the boys as a 'minnie' burst about the spot where our work was. That was not encouraging! But we went back and set to again. One or two more 'minnies' burst not far from us while we were there. You should have seen us ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... ascertain the level of high and low water of ordinary spring and neap tides and of equinoctial tides, as well as the rate of rise and fall of the various tides. This is done by means of a tide recording instrument similar to Fig. 4, which represents one made by Mr. J. H. Steward, of 457, West Strand, London, W.C. It consists of a drum about 5 in diameter and 10 in high, which revolves by clockwork once in twenty-four hours, the same mechanism also driving ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... gently with his right foot, his gaze shifting alternately from the instrument board to the looming hulk of stone before him. As the little spacecraft moved in closer, he tapped the reverse pedal with his left foot. He was now ten meters from the surface of the asteroid. It was moving, all right. "Well, Jules," he said in his most commanding voice, "we'll see just ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... said the lawyer, after a preliminary cough, "you are assembled to listen to the will of Mrs. Manning, just deceased. The document which I hold in my hand I believe to be such an instrument. I will now open if for ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the light within the room was being moved, but it cast no human shadow on the blind. The light came finally to a standstill, and then there followed sounds which Hugo could not diagnose—short, regular sounds, broken occasionally by a sharp clash, as of an instrument falling. And when these had come to an end, there were more footsteps—a precise, quick walking to and fro, which continued for ages of time. Lastly, the footsteps receded; something dropped, not heavily, but rather in a manner gently subsiding, and a groan (or was it a moan, a tired suspiration?) ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... sophisticated, a simplicity of thought and word, a transparency of motive, and, when vanity is played upon cunningly, a naive gullibility—that move us to wondering admiration. It, furthermore, I grieve to admit, furnishes manoeuvring wives with a ready instrument for the accomplishment of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... resumed his seat, laid his pipe down, fixed his eyes on the girl's face, and began to question her. At the same time his right hand, with which he had held the pipe, found its way to the telegraph key. None but an expert could have distinguished any change in the clicking of the instrument, which had been almost incessant; but Watkins had "called" the head office on the Missouri. In two minutes the "sounder" rattled out "All right! What ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... number is due in part to the practice of not enacting amendments to an existing constitution, but of promulgating the amended instrument as a new constitution. On three of the occasions here indicated a constitution was abrogated in order to revive a prior one. No account is taken in the above computation of the instances where a successful ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... handed him the goblet, she took the ivory fiddle from him, and drawing the bow across the strings, brought out such thrilling sounds, that Gilbert listened in amazement, wondering why he had been unable to elicit any such tones from the instrument when it seemed so simple to accomplish. In a moment he saw the surrounding heights covered with sheep or mist, he could not tell which, for the wine that had only just moistened his lips, seemed already to have confused his brain, and altered all the features ...
— Up! Horsie! - An Original Fairy Tale • Clara de Chatelaine
... And after a while Choflo danced a sacred dance around the fire. He wore an anklet of dried seeds that rattled above his right foot; as he stepped over the sand in rhythm with the music of a wind instrument made of a long-necked calabash, and the thrumming of a snake-skin drum played by two assistants, he called upon Tumwah to look down upon them and to pity their unhappy plight. Then both dancer and feasters went quietly to their shelters and the fire ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... the yacht naturally centred in the gradually approaching craft, which was closely scanned through the various glasses. Miss Starland stood beside her brother, her instrument leveled, while he used only his unaided eyes. After ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis |
