"Makeshift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Bible and the Lutheran Church the divine measures for converting sinners are the preaching of the pure Gospel and the administering of the unadulterated Sacraments. "New-measurism," then, as the very term indicates, is a human makeshift. Indeed, the Lutheran Church approves of all methods, also new measures, which merely serve to bring the divine means of grace into motion and men in contact with them. But it condemns all methods and measures, new or old, which hinder or corrupt or eliminate the divine means of grace. ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... buried branch and fell forward, breaking the frame. In his angry impatience he attempted no more than a temporary repair of the damage, such as he thought might see him to the end of his journey. But the poor makeshift broke down before he had gone a mile. There was nothing for him to do but to stop long enough to make a good job of it, which he did by chopping out a piece of ash, whittling down a couple of thin but tough strips, and splicing the break securely with the strong "salmon twine" that he always ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... equipment, stepping swiftly along the narrow, stone-paved street, heads down, unheeding the jagged ruin of small shops and dwellings that flanked the way. Reaching the square, they turned to cross a makeshift bridge—beside one of stone that had spanned the little river but now lay broken in its shallow bed. Beyond this stream they followed a white road that wound gently up a sere hill between rows of blasted ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... efficacies. Still, he had reasoned, the Doctor had been willing instantly to abandon this nostrum when the harm done by it was concretely brought home to him. Though this argument had fallen far short of reconciling Hal to the Surtaine standards, nevertheless it had served as a makeshift to justify in part his abandonment of the hard-won principles of the "Clarion," a surrender necessary for the saving of a loved and honored father in whose essential ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... state his errand. She did not offer him her hand but, for that matter, (she might have pleaded), she could not, very well: for one of her hands held her sunshade, and the other held an embroidered silk bag, woman's makeshift for a pocket. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... tariff areas, was obviously to its general disadvantage. Since 1903 the provinces had been held together under the Customs Union of South Africa—made by the governments of the Cape and Natal and the Crown Colony governments of the conquered provinces. This was but a makeshift arrangement, with a common tariff made by treaty, and hence rigidly unalterable, and with a pro-rata division ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... opinion, such as it is, when it reaches the reader, will truthfully express either painter or critic. Such are the limitations of one art when it comes to deal with the ideas or material of another. Criticism is at two removes from its theme. Therefore criticism is a makeshift. Therefore, let critics be modest and allow criticism to become an ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... to the ice of the broader stream which connects Lake Ste. Therese with McVicker Bay of Great Bear Lake. The village was located upon the opposite bank which rose some twelve or fifteen feet above the river ice. Through the gathering darkness Connie made out some five or six log cabins, and many makeshift dwellings of ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... position of coachman began to seem desirable to him. Charlotte need not know what he was doing; no one need know. He had resolved to give another name, and he would soon find another position. This would be a makeshift. In this he could at least keep himself to himself. He need associate with nothing except the horses, and they were likely to be thorough-breds. It would not, after all, be half so bad as some other things—guiding superb horses through ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the lake, and on the gentle slope of the foot of the hills, they had frequently observed parties of roughly dressed men, some with muskets and some without, making their way, by boat and on foot, toward the mountain. Those on the water were in rude, makeshift boats, of which there seemed to be an insufficient quantity at hand, groups waiting on the shore for the return of conveyances in order that they might ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... on the Featherstone, where he had been at work, had broken up and gone, and an old shack, deserted by some hunter, and now standing alone in the great woods, was the only home he could provide for his little family. It had answered its purpose as a makeshift in the warm weather, but now, in late November, and with the terrible northern winter coming swiftly on, it was small wonder the young lumberman had been discouraged as he tried to ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... hut examining a litter of auriferous soil on his table when Jim entered. This man's home possessed an unique interior. It was such as one would hardly have expected in a bachelor in Barnriff. There were none of the usual impedimenta of a prairie man's abode, there was no untidiness, no dirt, no makeshift. Yet like the man himself the place was ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... that Mr. Lloyd George has gradually lost in the world of political makeshift his original enthusiasm for righteousness. He is not a bad man to the exclusion of goodness; but he is not a good man to the exclusion of badness. A woman who knows him well once described him to me in these words: "He is clever, and he is stupid; truthful and untruthful; ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... laughing as they picked. They sat on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their sides, and some stood by the bin throwing the hops they picked straight into it. There were a lot of children about and a good many babies, some in makeshift cradles, some tucked up in a rug on the soft brown dry earth. The children picked a little and played a great deal. The women worked busily, they had been pickers from childhood, and they could pick twice as fast as foreigners from London. They boasted about the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... those miracles of feminine adaptability and makeshift had brought the girl to this meeting in the guise of one who had never known a broken night or an hour's care, with a look of such fresh tranquility that it seemed hardly possible she could be one and the same with that wilted little woman whom Lanyard ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... things. "It will do!" has blighted many a character, blasted many a fortune, sunk many a ship, burnt down many a house, and irretrievably ruined thousands of hopeful projects of human good. It always means stopping short of the right thing. It is a makeshift. It is a failure and defeat. Not what "will do," but what is the best possible thing to do,—is the point to be aimed at! Let a man once adopt the maxim of "It will do," and he is given over to the enemy,—he is on the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... can. If you're in range of this makeshift set, the position we'd get would be practically the same as yours," Abe told him. "Look, there's a floodlight pointed straight up. Can ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... in many quarters that the exclusion of cotton would make but little difference so far as clothing was concerned. Not only does the universal introduction of clothing tickets falsify this boast, but the cloth is found to be a mere makeshift when tested. Blouses and stockings wear out with discouraging rapidity when ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... best face on a bad matter. He remained, however, a loyal subject of the Queen, and prayed for as speedy a sight of Boxton Park, Witham, Essex, as fortune would permit. And in the meantime he enjoyed such makeshift pleasures ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... cruise down the coast the missing stock of our only anchor had been replaced by Gillies and Hannam. Two oregon "dead men", bolted together on the shank, made a clumsy but efficient makeshift. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... well," he said, as he wrinkled his brow and scratched his head viciously, "and it's very nicely done for a man who seems to have begun by making his own makeshift for paper, and then his own pen and ink. What do you make this skin to ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... doan youse depreciate yourself to all dem. Jus' youse put on de pootiest dress youse hab an' do ole Sukey proud." Then, as she helped Janice to bedeck herself she poured out the story of their makeshift life, telling how, with what had been left of the poultry, and with the products of the small patch of the garden they had been able to till, the two slaves had managed to live the year through, taking the best care they could of their master's ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... war. It was tasking our factories to produce blankets and overcoats, knapsacks and haversacks, wagons and tents, and all that goes to make up the multifarious equipment of an army. It was peering into our dock-yards to find steamers and sailing-vessels out of which to gather makeshift navies, until it could find leisure to build stancher ships. Manifestly the Government had no time for such a work. The existing Medical Bureau was hardly equal to the task. Organized to take charge of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Naraka with the full power of Alpha and Beta Centauri beating down was like stepping into a river of fire. Even with the cooling unit in his suit, Terrence was aware of the searing heat that filled the parade ground. Looking off across the makeshift native huts, he could see the bright sides of a huge space ship-like object. The big dirigible Sun Maid was lying in an open field. It's a funny world, he thought to himself, where you have to use dirigibles for planetary ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith
... makeshift expedients!" Her unavoidable eyes bit into mine. "What is a fertilizer? A tidbit, a pap, a lollypop. Indians use fish; Chinese, nightsoil; agricultural chemists concoct tasty tonics of nitrogen and potash—where's your progress? Putting a mechanical whip on a buggy ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... its moving antlers above the brake fern, one almost is compelled to withhold the word park from any enclosure without them. It is impossible to lose the feeling that the right place for cattle—even for Alderneys—is the meadow. Cows in a park are a poor makeshift; parks are for deer. To my eyes Goodwood House has a chilling exterior; the road to the hill-top is steep and lengthy; and when one has climbed it and crossed the summit wood, it is to come upon the last thing that one wishes ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... now fivefold more, an army bent on plunder, captained by lawlessness. And still no aid had come. Wardo told Marius, and Marius went up on the roofs to see, and came back square of jaw and with moody eyes. He sought out Eudemius, where the latter was going the rounds of their makeshift defences, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... to go ahead with it, Mr. Conkwright. I want to study law with you. The school was only a makeshift, any way. You are getting old and you need some one to do the drudgery of your office. I will come in ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... long time in the dry air of the empty hall. Rynason saw from the corner of his eye one of the dark little scavengers darting out of a gaping window. He could almost hear, it seemed, the noise of the brawling, makeshift town the Earthmen had established a little less than a mile away from the Hirlaji ruins, where already the nomads and adventurers and drifters had erected a cluster of prefab metal ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... inanimate things Found nothing that answered to my indefinable expectations Habit turns into a makeshift of attachment I know not what lost home that I have failed to find When the inattentive spirits are ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... time, dear," he pleaded. "The hack-work is only makeshift, and I don't take it seriously. Give me two years. I shall succeed in that time, and the editors will be glad to buy my good work. I know what I am saying; I have faith in myself. I know what I have in me; I know what literature is, now; I know the average ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... of trinity of oceans, and, by all tradition, the circumnavigator's gate of entrance to the Pacific, but also it is the temple of the god Terminus for all the Americas. So that, in relation to such dignities, it seemed to me, in the drawing, a makeshift, put up by a carpenter, until the true Cape Horn should be ready; or, perhaps, a drop scene from the opera house. This was one case of disproportion: the others were—the final and ceremonial valediction of Garrick, on retiring from his profession; and the Pall Mall inauguration of George ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... came on the uprush of the unanticipated reinforcements. With the battle readiness of a disciplined soldier, Caleb Gordon whipped from the saddle and ran to help the gun crew slue the makeshift ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... constitution saved the Roman empire from imminent collapse; but it was impossible that it should be more than a makeshift, like Cromwell's protectorate. There were huge classes with perpetual grievances; the removal of the military forces to the provinces left the city of Rome without adequate governors of the provinces themselves. And there was no ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... is one of love, and that it is presided over by an acute intelligence. [Native art-sense spoiled.] Such a sense of beauty is seldom to be met with in the Philippines. Everything there is imitation or careless makeshift. Even the pina embroideries, which are fabricated with such wonderful patience and skill, and are so celebrated for the fineness of the work, are, as a rule, spiritless imitations of Spanish patterns. One is involuntarily led to ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... to bring up my boy. Who will ever take such care of him as I should?' You were then two days old, and the very next day she died. I've never forgotten it. She passed away with that sorrow, that terrible anxiety, tearing at her heart. I took her place, as you know, but of course I was only a makeshift. I often wonder whether she is still as anxious about you as ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... that I have only heard of it, and the price seems to be such as to discourage almost all the pictorial workers that I know. In my observation of the work that has been done by pictorialists, the very fact that in many instances they use makeshift apparatus has resulted in some of the most beautiful effects in their work. Good apparatus is of course desirable, but there are happy accidents with the other sort. It is the workman, not his tools, that counts. Get ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1921 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... Messrs. Beardmore of Dalmuir, but when the war came no such ship was in existence. The light cruiser H.M.S. Hermes had been adapted for seaplane carrying and had operated with the fleet during the naval manoeuvres of July 1913, but this was no more than a makeshift. The Hermes was refitted and re-commissioned in October 1914 to carry three seaplanes, and at the end of that month was sunk by a torpedo from an enemy submarine on her passage from Dunkirk ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... puzzled the sheriff as he took the pencil and paper through the bars and returned to his bunk. He drew up the stool and sat upon it. It was a little lower than the bench, so, putting his paper on the bench, he had a fairly good makeshift desk. He began to write steadily, and after a few minutes the sheriff and jailer retired to ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... and ceremoniously "come out"—a neglect which Henrietta protested should be repaired. Positively, but very charmingly, she told Sir Charles it must. She only wished the affair could be on a larger, more worthy scale. This was, after all, but a makeshift—the modest best she could arrange under the circumstances. But he—Sir Charles—must not refuse. It would give her such intense pleasure to have the darling child make her official debut under her, Henrietta's, auspices. The hours would of necessity be early, to avoid ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... a makeshift for a lost spar, it does not follow that a jury-woman is a make-shift for any body. In fact, the women who sit upon juries are not the sort of women who personally supply ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... bands, And street-door mats, and clover brown and dry; Carpets, rope-yarn, and such things as men sell, Were burnt for 'bacca; haystacks were consumed, And men were gathered round each blazing mass, To have another makeshift sniff. Happy were those who smoked, with smould'ring logs, The harmless Yarmouth bloater after death— Another pipe not all the world contain'd; The furze was set on fire, but, hour by hour, The stock diminish'd; all the prickly points Quivered to death, and soon it all was gone. The ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... bring you back to these places. It's the—well, one has to use, once in a while, the hard-worked and generally inappropriate word "atmosphere." Like "temperament" and "individuality" and the rest of the writer-folk's old reliables, "atmosphere" is too often only a makeshift, a lazy way of expressing something you won't take the trouble to define more expressively. Dick says in "The Light That Failed" that an old device for an unskilful artist is to stick a superfluous bunch of flowers somewhere ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... at her across the little table. He understood now why the gaunt room reflected nothing of her. It was a city of refuge she had built and the refugees had failed to come; it was a makeshift temple of her patriotism and her pity. He caught her small answering smile, noting with what a docility of response her lips shaped themselves to it. No doubt she had smiled just as obediently at ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... poor makeshift at best, for what Maurice called "cat-naps" were the best they could do ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... apology, plea, exoneration, palliation, extenuation, pardon; subterfuge, evasion, pretext, makeshift. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... could have wielded that moral power whose interposition was so necessary to prevent Southern society from falling at once into the chaos of a general collision between its different elements."[99] Notwithstanding this the Bureau was temporary, was regarded as a makeshift, and ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... beds—the one for the father and mother, and the other for the grandmother. So it was arranged that the son should sleep with his grandmother, at which she was very glad, but he grumbled, and only complied to oblige his parents, and as a makeshift for one night. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... outbursts of jealousy! He cared for Gilbert far more than he cared for any man ... but he could not prevent himself from raging at the thought that Gilbert had but to hold out his arms and Cecily would run to be clasped in them. "I'm a makeshift," he ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... our downfall; but the way we set to work in prosecuting our policy. The Triple Alliance, with its excellent Reinsurance Treaty, did not constitute a sufficiently powerful springboard from which to take our plunge into world-politics. The Reinsurance contract could not be anything but a makeshift, which merely deferred the inevitable choice which had to be made between Russia and Austria-Hungary. In the course of time, we should either have had to decide entirely in favor of Russia, in the manner outlined above, or we should ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... and a trifle makeshift to Tamara and Jack when they got out of their sleigh and were welcomed ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... west of Chalons the rider crossed the historic Marne on a makeshift bridge built from the materials of a ruined house and the ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... "Here is a makeshift cartridge of Polton's manufacture, containing an eighth charge of smokeless powder for ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... rope and pass the left end over and under the right end, then the right over and under the left. If you once learn the simple formula of "Left over," "Right over," you will never make a mistake and form the despised "Granny," a most useless, bothersome, and deceptive makeshift for any purpose (Fig. 13). The true "Reef Knot" is merely the square knot with the bight of the left or right end used instead of the end itself. This enables the knot to be "cast off" more readily than the regular ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... of the children of his factory hands, no parents would consent to settle in the district and he would be without workers in his mill. As a consequence Owen found himself in the position of education authority, privy purse and organiser, and he did not flinch from the situation; he imposed no cheap makeshift, because he believed in education as an end and not as an economic means; a twofold institution was therefore established by him in 1816, one part for the children of recognised school age, presumably over six, and one for those under school age, whose only entrance test was their ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... accustomed to outdoor life and the handling of guns, all of which aided them in saving the remnant of their command. They had been ordered to take some cottages, occupied by German soldiers as a makeshift fortification. The Cameronians on the way to the attack fell into a ditch which was both deep and wide. It was necessary for them to swim to get across the ditch in some places. In the meantime Highlanders were being slain ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... rate, to act as the only mistress which the establishment possessed. This advent greatly changed the tenor of the doctor's ways. He had been before pure bachelor; not a room in his house had been comfortably furnished; he at first commenced in a makeshift sort of way, because he had not at his command the means of commencing otherwise; and he had gone on in the same fashion, because the exact time had never come at which it was imperative in him to set his house in order. He had had no fixed hour for his meals, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... without the least thought of doing anything spectacular, she had gently and calmly taken up men's tools and had done men's work—not indifferently well—not in any makeshift manner—but "in all cases, even the most technical, her work has equalled that previously done exclusively by man. In a number of instances, owing to her natural dexterity and colour sense, her work, indeed, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... too obvious to be specified. He claimed to be constructing a science, comparable to the physical sciences. The attempt was obviously chimerical if we are to take it seriously. The makeshift doctrine which he substitutes for psychology would be a sufficient proof of the incapacity for his task. He had probably not read such writers as Hartley or Condillac, who might have suggested some ostensibly systematic theory. If he had little psychology he had not even a conception of 'sociology.' ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... to disintegrate and double back the viewing wave. That's the way the lookout plates and lenses work, all over the ship—from the master-screens in the control room to the plates of the staterooms and lifeboats and the viewing-areas of the promenades. But the whole system is a rotten makeshift, and...." ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the transparent roof of a makeshift shelter of boughs through which the stars showed white and brilliant. For ten years and more he had lain out on most nights under the open sky, with wind and rain and snow working their will on him, and the bright stars, like strange ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... styles of pictorial art before the fifteenth century—is the ocular record of dress, architecture, implements of peace and war, incidents of daily life, etc., for which no Encyclopdia Britannica of verbal explanation could ever be more than the poorest makeshift. As we say, this same happy anachronism is common to other schools of illumination, and we cannot fail to notice it from Byzantium to Britain, but it is the intense realism of the Netherlands that forces it upon us so strongly that we are ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... Carmichael's arms up and down, after the method of artificial respiration which had brought me round at the outset of our journey, she and I administered oxygen gas from one of our steel bottles to his lungs by means of a makeshift funnel applied to his mouth. In some fifteen or twenty minutes he began to show signs of returning animation, and soon afterwards, to our great relief, he ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... only serve as a pis aller, or "makeshift" as food for caterpillars before the mulberry leaves come out, just to save them from starvation; but the latter is their natural and proper food, and yours are probably dying from ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... girls asked indignantly, and all joined in enthusiastic affirmations of its attractions even at high noon,—which all goes to show how relative the matter is. I, with my background of Wellesley lawns and architecture, find our school a hopelessly unsanitary makeshift to be endured patiently for a few years longer, but to these girls with their background of wretchedly poor village homes it is in its bare cleanliness, as well as in its associations, a veritable place ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... their interest. They will contrast, perhaps, as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the landscape Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is not a 'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right; it is a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if you will, admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to be loved in default of a better, with the best faculties of brain and soul, but still not that ultimate ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... suspicious clump of grass. All conditions favored the invader: the spot was isolated, communications were difficult, local labor was inadequate. The exhaustion of the fuel supply made it impossible to fly grassfighters in and men had to be sent by sea with makeshift equipment. Happily there were two supercyclone fans at Lochinvar which had been shipped there by mistake and these were immediately dispatched ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... 'pinchfist', 'suckfist', 'hatepeace' (Sylvester), 'hategood' (Bunyan), 'clutchfist', 'sharkgull' (both in Middleton), 'makesport' (Fuller), 'hangdog' ("Herod's hangdogs in the tapestry", Pope), 'catchpoll', 'makeshift' (used not impersonally as now), 'pickgoose' ("the bookworm was never but a pickgoose"){162}, 'killcow' (these three last in Gabriel Harvey), 'rakeshame' (Milton, prose), with others which it will be convenient to omit. 'Rakehell', which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the makeshift bed, her eyes closed. She looked more beautiful and defenseless than ever, and Malone wanted to do something big and terrible to all the Russians who had tried to take her away or dope her. With difficulty, he restrained himself. "How is ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... went to work again. He showed Thompson how to arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so that there would be some semblance of order instead of an indiscriminately ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... be there; and I've no present for you, and I am so sorry for both of us; but oh, my dear little Susie, the good people all say this wretched makeshift of a world is coming to an end next year, and you and I and everybody who likes birds and roses are to have new birthdays and presents of such sugar plums. Crystals of candied cloud and manna in sticks with no ends, all the way to the sun, and white stones; ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... hers show the effect of housework, when that means scrubbing the floor and cleaning the stove. Gloves? Ah, well, James Nasmyth once wrote: "Kid-gloves are great non-conductors of knowledge." I believe that gloves of any kind are a makeshift in real cleaning of dirty corners; but there should not ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... believe it does," answered Jack's sister. "It was a sort of makeshift, anyhow. Jack only got her running because someone said it couldn't be done—it was a sort of dare. But the poor old boat seems to suffer from some intermittent fever. It runs one ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... of his section chiefs stood at the base of one of the makeshift towers. The chief hydraulic engineer had a headset clamped on for contact with ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... set foot against the makeshift door, and away it went, as he had predicted. Crashing on the steps as it fell, it turned over, and a great splash arose at ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture of the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, and of the peep into the secrets of a makeshift establishment given to a visitor by the blundering ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... on the floor in sight of the pale little Skeezucks, who clung unfailingly, through it all, to the funny makeshift of a doll that "Bruvver Jim" had placed in his keeping. He appeared not at all to comprehend the meaning of the gifts the men had brought, or to know their purpose. That never a genuinely happy Christmas had brightened his little, ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... painfully dragging her big abdomen, perambulates all the nooks and corners of her makeshift dwelling, exploring them with her palpi, which she passes everywhere. After half an hour of groping and careful investigation, she ends by selecting the horizontal gallery dug in the cork. She thrusts her abdomen into this cavity and, with her head hanging outside, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... His admirers have given great praise to his work in the federal convention. His real contribution lay in the fact that when the Constitution was finally drafted and offered to the people, while he regarded it as a "wretched makeshift," to use his own expression, yet he was broad and patriotic enough to surrender his own views and advocate the adoption of the Constitution. In so doing, he fought a valorous fight, secured the acquiescence of the State of New York, and without ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... wandering and mountain-climbing: a necessity was it merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:—to FLY only, wanteth mine entire will, to fly ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... climbed up endless winding roads. The men shot at birds and prospected for diamonds along the wayside; and at night they took the hay from the mattresses to give to the cattle. Lolling indolence was in the air and plenty in the larder: big fruits, strange game, which they cooked in a makeshift oven consisting of a few stones. Then they rolled themselves up in a blanket, near the elephants tugging at their chains, and slept under the tent in ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... consistent with its size, it should be on a vastly larger scale," said the doctor. "I never believed in the theory," he continued, "that the larger the planet the smaller should be its inhabitants, and always considered it a makeshift, put forward in the absence of definite knowledge, the idea being apparently that the weight of very large creatures would be too great for their strength. Of the fact that mastodons and creatures far ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... reassembled, but, recognising discretion as the better part, suggested that "we had also better keep this affair out of sight." It was so done. The complete failure of this Committee of States scheme as an executive makeshift was in the end fortunate since it demonstrated clearly the need of a trustworthy and permanent head to the General Government. If it had been even a partial success, it might have been tried again and correction ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... It is of such a delicate nature, and involves such a disparagement of the sex in a vital point, that the Drawer hesitates to put it in words. It is said that the cap and gown will be used to cover untidiness, to conceal the makeshift of a disorderly and unsightly toilet. Undoubtedly the cap and gown are democratic, adopted probably to equalize the appearance of rich and poor in the same institution, where all are on an intellectual ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... paradises and threats of hells, there is only one belief that can rob death of its sting and the grave of its victory; and that is the belief that we can lay down the burden of our wretched little makeshift individualities for ever at each lift towards the goal of evolution, which can only be a being that cannot be improved upon. After all, what man is capable of the insane self-conceit of believing that an eternity of himself would be tolerable even to himself? Those who ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... parties, and totally lacking in a cordial sense of previous action together. None of them, probably, when they first assembled had any high opinion of their titular head. He was looked upon as a political makeshift. The best of them had to learn to appreciate the fact that this strange, ungainly man, sprung from plainest origin, without formal education, was a great genius. By degrees, however, the large minds in the Cabinet became his cordial admirers. While Lincoln was quietly, gradually exercising his ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... done so deliberately to emphasise the First of principles, that the right learning of any craft is the learning it under a master, and that all else is makeshift; to drive home the lesson insisted on in the former volumes of this series of handbooks, and gathered into the sentence quoted as a motto on the fly-leaf of one of them, that "An art can only be learned in the workshop of those who are winning ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... scrubbing and dusting. Her luxurious mood changed to one of dull irritation, and she looked sullenly at the enormous wardrobe and dressing-table with their speckled mirrors. These had delighted her at first, but in her heart she preferred the battered, makeshift furniture of Cardigan Street. A few licks with the duster and her work was done; but here the least speck of dust showed on the polished surface. Jonah, too, had got into a nasty habit of writing insulting words on the dusty surface with ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... finished; a great big place it was, with hay-stalls on both sides and a threshing-floor in the middle. The shed and the other makeshift places were emptied now, and all the hay brought into the barn; the corn was reaped, dried in stacks, and carted in. Inger took up the carrots and turnips. All their crops were in now. And everything might have been well with them—they had all they needed. Isak ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... a condition the land is in politically. Cowardice and hypocrisy are slated to win, and makeshift and the cheapest politics are to take possession of national affairs. Better even obstinacy and ego-mania! Cox, I think, has made a gallant fight. He is to be beaten because Wilson is as unpopular as he once was popular. Oh! if he had been frank as to his illness, the people would have forgotten ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... caravans, which frequently were "stalled" in the mud of the mountain roads; emigrants from all parts of the Eastern States, and many countries of Europe, often toiled painfully on foot over these execrable highways, with their bundles on their backs, or following scrawny cattle harnessed to makeshift vehicles; and now and then came a well-to-do equestrian with his pack-horses,—generally an Englishman,—who was out to see the country, and upon his return to ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... had all the advantages for nearly two years of war, and in all that time our old front line, whether held by the French or by ourselves, was nothing but a post to be endured, day in day out, in all weathers and under all fires, in doubt, difficulty, and danger, with bluff and makeshift and improvisation, till the tide could be turned. If it be dull to read about and to see, it was, at least, the old line which kept back the tide and stood the siege. It was the line from which, after all those months of war, the tide turned and ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... having re-established his creaking equilibrium and resumed his accustomed furtive regard of things, he was suddenly reminded by the shifted position of the furniture of the purpose of this makeshift barricade. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... it, certainly. But I wouldn't hold it long. I regard it only as a makeshift for a time. Unhappily, I don't know how to earn my own bread by the labour of my hands, as I think we ought all to do in a well-constituted society; so unless I choose to starve (about the rightfulness of which I don't feel quite certain), I MUST manage somehow to get ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... motor-cyclists, who had cut across country, and an officer. The officer[8] told us how he had been sent on to construct trenches at Le Cateau. It seems that although he enlisted civilian help, he had neither the time nor the men to construct more than very makeshift affairs, which were afterwards but slightly improved by the men ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... little gesture that included everything that those few small rooms of Oliver's epitomized, "that this sort of thing," she resumed, "was what most women want more than anything else in the world. Any other activity was simply preparation, or courageous makeshift if this was denied. I made it easy for Bob, in my letter, to answer me in the spirit of friendly argument if he chose, but he didn't. He came on instead. We're going to be married," she said, in a voice as casual as if she were announcing that they ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... no nest, but puts its eggs out to be hatched, as does our cow blackbird, and our cuckoo is master of only the rudiments of nest-building. No other bird in the woods builds so shabby a nest; it is the merest makeshift,—a loose scaffolding of twigs through which the eggs can be seen. One season, I knew of a pair that built within a few feet of a country house that stood in the midst of a grove, but a heavy storm of rain and wind ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... most distinctive character was just its utterly ludicrous want of object. Even a man of Caesar's genius had to learn by experience that democratic agitation was completely worn out, and that even the way to the throne no longer lay through demagogism. It was nothing more than a historical makeshift, if now, in the interregnum between republic and monarchy, some whimsical fellow dressed himself out with the prophet's mantle and staff which Caesar had himself laid aside, and the great ideals of Gaius Gracchus came once more upon the stage distorted into a parody; the so-called party ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... removed from the spar, and this was a great assistance in strengthening it. The raft, however, without the means of guiding it, would be of little use. They had, therefore, to construct a couple of paddles and a rudder, and they then found that, with the help of two small spars, they could form a makeshift mast and yard, their shirts and pocket-handkerchiefs fastened together forming a sail. This would carry them to the rock, as the wind was off the shore, and they must trust to the assistance of their friends ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... "He came down here to spy on you, uncle, and to try and show that the blessed miracle was a makeshift. I knew it long before he told me, by his insulting ways. He wanted to ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... was forced to give way. Fidelity of representation was less their object than beauty; with us it is exactly the reverse. On this principle, the use of masks, which appears astonishing to us, was not only justifiable, but absolutely essential; far from considering them as a makeshift, the Greeks would certainly, and with justice too, have looked upon it as a makeshift to be obliged to allow a player with vulgar, ignoble, or strongly marked features, to represent an Apollo or a Hercules; nay, rather they would have deemed it downright ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... maintaining always a great and honoured court. Now the Count had four daughters, and no son; and by the sense and provision of the good romeo—(I can do no better than translate 'procaccio' provision, but it is only a makeshift for the word derived from procax, meaning the general talent of prudent impudence, in getting forward; 'forwardness,' has a good deal of the true sense, only diluted;)—well, by the sense and— progressive ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... me that trouble was impending. For myself I never knew, and I suppose she read the signs among the men and got certain definite information from the women. We therefore slept some miles away from the encampment in a makeshift gunyah built of boughs, in front of which the usual fire was made. After we had retired to rest, Yamba woke me and said that she detected strange noises. I immediately sprang to my feet and looked all round ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... their ranks. The armies were splendidly equipped. They were able to obtain any amount of the finest guns, rifles, and ammunition of war from the workshops of Europe; while the Confederates, cut off from the world, had to rely solely upon the makeshift factories they had set up, and upon the guns and stores they ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... and when she had succeeded in this by managing to get the French squadron safe at Terceira, she then withdrew her permission to Drake and Hawkins, and thus escaped from the quarrel altogether. But it was a poor makeshift for conversation. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... He tumbled into the makeshift bed as he spoke; and in a few minutes, worn out after the unwonted exertions of the evening, both men were ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... at this minute doubled up in a large box that was stowed away under a sort of makeshift counter. He had hurriedly concealed himself in this manner during the absence of the ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... better in my experience, sir," answered Skelton Jones. "When I was last out, we had the worst of fare!—starveling locust wood—damned poor makeshift at gentlemanly privacy—stuck between a schoolhouse and a church! But this is good; this is nonpareil! Fine, brisk, frosty weather, too! I hate to fight on a muggy, leaden, dispirited day, weeping like a widow! It's as crisp ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... had been eager to see him, but now that I stood before his door all desire had vanished just as a toothache disappears when you get almost within forceps distance of a dentist. However I encouraged myself. "These clothes," I said, "have been waiting for months in a half-sewn state and with makeshift button-holes. They must be put out of their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... matter completely, Medora led Abner to the place of honour and bade him eat the meal she had prepared. Abner ate and was hers. Even a good boarding-house, he now felt, was a mistake; the best, but a makeshift. ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... infinite flatness that is all about the literature of the Middle Ages, as if there had fallen upon them, in that Alean plain, the shadow of the enormous beast out of Aristotle's Poetics, they chose to renounce all superfluity, and throw away the makeshift wedges and supports by which an epic is held up. In this way they did great things, and Volosp (the Sibyl's Prophecy) is their reward. To write out in full the story of the Volsungs and Niblungs was left to the prose compilers of the Volsunga Saga, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... and an empire in disorder, if the grand justification for the senate's authority—its government of the foreign dependencies of Rome—were first questioned, then tossed aside? Would not the Individual makeshift have in such a case as this to be invested with military authority? Might not his power be defended and perpetuated by a weapon mightier than the voting tablet? Might not his supporters be a class of men, to whom the charms of civil life ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... study of letters, so that it was only natural that there should be among them one or two renowned writers of verses; for how could they ever resemble the families of such upstarts, who only employ puerile expressions as a makeshift to get through what they have to do? But the why and the wherefore must be sought in the past. The consort, belonging to the Chia mansion, had, before she entered the palace, been, from her infancy, also brought up by dowager lady Chia; and when Pao-y was subsequently added to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the wind was in their favor, rigged up the royal-yard in the middle of the raft as a mast. It was stayed with shrouds, and carried a makeshift sail. A large broad-bladed oar was fixed behind to act as a rudder in case the wind was sufficient to require it. The greatest pains had been expended on strengthening the raft to resist the force of the waves, but the question remained whether, in the event of a change ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... annoyed about this, but he was certainly impressed. His demeanour suggested that he had met autocrats before but never such a thorough autocrat as I. For the rest of my time there I pressed my trousers in the usual way, well knowing that he would regard the process not as the makeshift of a valetless pauper but as the eccentricity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... guns, the ships in the river were ready to give support, the Back Creek and a series of marshes protected the north shore. But Bacon was not discouraged. All night long his men labored to throw up a makeshift fortress of "trees, bush and earth" facing the isthmus, as a protection should Berkeley's force sally out. When the governor saw what was going on he ordered the ships and shallops to move up to fire ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... resemblance is so striking that this is sometimes called the arrow-head character, though it is more generally known as the wedge or cuneiform character. The inscriptions on the flanks of the lions are, however, only makeshift books. But the veritable books are no farther away than the next room beyond the hall of Asurnazirpal. They occupy part of a series of cases placed down the centre of this room. Perhaps it is not too much to speak of this collection as ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... pointing out the long-standing lack of a suitable medium which would permit the making of finer paintings, other than wall and decorative paintings. The old tempera medium was hardly suited to finer work, since it was a makeshift of very inadequate working qualities. Briefly, the method consisted of mixing any pigment or paint in powder form with any suitable sticky substance which would make it adhere to a surface. Sticky substances frequently ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... bunk-shelved sleeping chambers with their cavernous aisles walled with orderly rows of lockers. Again I came to other barracks where the men were not yet asleep but were straggling in and sitting about on the lowest bunks of these sterile makeshift homes. ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... language; they forsook Arianism for Catholicism; they accommodated themselves to city life; they were liberal patrons of Italian art and industry. Although they introduced a strictly Teutonic form of administration, their rule compared not unfavourably with the makeshift methods of Byzantine statesmanship. In Imperial Italy we see the strange spectacle of a military despotism tempered by the usurped privileges and jurisdictions of the great proprietors, or by the ill-defined temporal pretensions of the ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... horses. With entrails hanging, they were taken to the corrals, and submitted to a hurried adjustment in order that they might return to the arena stimulated by a false energy. Again and again they were reduced to this makeshift cobbling until finally a fatal goring finished them. . . . These recently cured men continually brought to her mind those poor beasts. Some had been wounded three times since the beginning of the war, and were returning surgically patched together ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "I love the country," he said; "it's fed me and harbored me. But I wouldn't lift a finger to put a single patch on this makeshift of a government; I wouldn't stave off the crash if I could. And it's coming! You and I have seen something of the rottenness of the underpinning which props up empires. You and I, Scarlett, have learned a few of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... rock on which Jean had spread his own and David's blankets was a poor couch at best. But to Tom it represented the freedom he had despaired of ever again attaining, and he was more than satisfied with his makeshift bed. Worn out by his recent exertion, he had fallen asleep directly after they had eaten supper. He awakened at daybreak declaring that he felt ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... lantern. Then I managed to get a candle, and cut a piece off, and rigged it up with paper inside the binnacle. This answered for about ten minutes, but finding it was again flickering, I opened the tin door, and found all the candle had melted into bright liquid oil; so this makeshift was a failure. However, another candle was cut, and the door being left open to keep it cool, with this lame light I worked on bravely, but very determined for the rest of my sailing days to have the oil bottle always accessible. Finally the wind blew out the candle, though it was very much sheltered, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... expression of my regret that such a proceeding should have become indispensably necessary to the tranquillity and welfare of the colony." Until 1849 the government was carried on by a General Assembly—a makeshift Assembly—in which members of the House of Assembly sat side by side with members of the Council, the latter ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... that hollow among the stones, sir," said Denham, pointing to a little depression. Into this one of our makeshift bags was emptied, and the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... that I remember was opening my eyes and perceiving the form of Job, who had now practically recovered from his attack of fever. He was standing in the ray of light that pierced into the cave from the outer air, shaking out my clothes as a makeshift for brushing them, which he could not do because there was no brush, and then folding them up neatly and laying them on the foot of the stone couch. This done, he got my travelling dressing-case out of the Gladstone bag, and opened it ready for my use. First he stood it on ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... cling to it but they dreaded another night in which their weary bodies could not possibly ward off sleep. Even though they tied themselves fast, what if the raft should be capsized by the heave of the mounting swell? It was the merest makeshift, scrambled together in haste as a ferry from the wreck of ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine |
