"Clockwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his narrative once more, and tells how the Lancers thundered over the shivering veldts in pursuit of flying hordes of foemen, and for awhile, like some graveyard ghoul, he revels in the moans of the dying and the blood of the slain. Another pull at the flask sets him going again like clockwork, and he makes a vivid picture out of the thunder of the guns as our gallant (they are always gallant) fellows bombarded the ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... but which really were depth-charges dropped round the submarine. Then an anxious pause, quickly followed by "all clear," and that by another fleet order which changed the whole formation back again as easily as if the lines of wheeling ships had been a single piece of clockwork and their two million tons of steel had simply answered to the touching of a ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... matter which grated against Beethoven's love of Bohemianism; to be forced to dress for dinner, especially at a set hour of the day, was to him an abomination not to be suffered. The workings of his genius were not to be regulated by the clockwork contrivances of civilised life, and hence he first took to dining out at some tavern, where he could be at his ease, and finally went altogether into lodgings. But the Prince and Princess, like the good, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... mother would have died for shame; there was no modern cant about your mother; she thought—she said to me, sir—I'm glad she's in her grave, Dick Naseby. Misinformed! Misinformed, sir? Have you no loyalty, no spring, no natural affections? Are you clockwork, hey? Away! This is no place for you. Away!" (Waving his hands in the air.) "Go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stopped in his forward course, but this didn't check the action of his clockwork legs, which now scudded along as swiftly as before, into the very ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... and oppression was not discernible in the acts of officers, from general down to corporal, as formerly. Notwithstanding all this grand transformation in our affairs, old Joe was a strict disciplinarian. Everything moved like clockwork. Men had to keep their arms and clothing in good order. The artillery was rubbed up and put in good condition. The wagons were greased, and the harness and hamestrings oiled. Extra rations were issued to negroes who were acting as servants, a thing unprecedented ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... severity of a hungry man. "It seems to me they don't amount to ANYthing. Here I am, at my time of life, up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the cook at quarter-past six every morning, and the breakfast is on the table at half-past seven right along, like clockwork, but I never see anybody but you till I go to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was like a very firstfruits to loving little Inna, in her endeavour to influence this big, strong, wilful cousin for good. Nay, she shamed him into industry and painstaking by her own application to studies, going to and from the Owl's Nest, "like clockwork, you little grinder!" as the boy expressed it, making his awkward admission to her on Christmas Eve, the two wreathing the house with holly and evergreens. This was something which Carlo and Smut the black cat thought it their duty to look into, to ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... his former embarrassment; 'she does not seem to care for me now at all. Indeed, she positively refuses me. She says—to put it in the dear child's own racy language—that she wouldn't take me on at any price. She says it would be like marrying a clockwork figure without the key. She's more frank than complimentary, but I ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... everything, and more than Mary, with her young inexperience, could have thought of. She prepared the warm bath, and tried it with her husband's own thermometer (Mr. Jenkins was as punctual as clockwork in noting down the temperature of every day). She let his mother place her baby in the tub, still preserving the same rigid, affronted aspect, and then she went upstairs without a word. Mary longed to ask her to stay, but dared not; though, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... on duty?" said Bunting slowly, uncomfortably. "I thought Joe's hours was as regular as clockwork—that nothing could make any difference to them. However, there it is. I suppose it'll do all right if I start about eleven o'clock? It may have left off snowing by then. I don't feel like going out again just now. I'm pretty tired ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... perhaps they sought to keep their countenances before the world; at any rate, they sat on opposite sides of the room, Jack keeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, her lead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With the air of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children were kissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the centre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another in whispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Joseph Henry (Journal Franklin Inst., 1886) employed a cylinder driven by clockwork, making ten revolutions per second. The surface was divided into 100 equal parts, each equal to 1/1000 second. The time marks were made by two galvanometer needles, when successive screens were broken by a shot. Henry also used an induction-coil spark to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... by clockwork must be wound and set each time. The accompanying diagram shows how to make the connection that will ring a bell by electric current at the time set without winding the alarm. The bell is ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... commander, and took his station to his left and rear. With much deliberation of manner, Mr. Williams drew sabre and easily gave the various orders for the showy manual of arms, the white-gloved hands moving like clockwork in response to his command until, with simultaneous thud, the battalion resumed the "order," certain spectators with difficulty ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... ever required on behalf of the Star. That is one great fixed point in this shifting universe. But THE WORLD MOVES. And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and readjustment for the soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called THE WILL. Hence, while the soul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the Will in intense activity holds the mirror in position lest the drifting motion ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl; wide awake and longing to get up, but not daring to do so for fear of the unseen power in the next room—a certain Betty, whose slumbers must not be disturbed until six o'clock struck, when she wakened of herself 'as sure as clockwork', and left the household very little peace afterwards. It was a June morning, and early as it was, the room was full of ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... box of chocolates, a basket of peaches and a clockwork train she hurried back to the ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... leading to the barracks in which we had lived previously. The little extra exertion demanded to pass the sentry without creating any suspicions in his mind now told on me. Once I had passed out of his sight the reaction set in, and I fell into a clockwork pace. I was determined to fulfil my mission at all hazards, so plodded along slowly. I could see nothing, and heeded nothing, being only conscious of the fact that I was going to get something to eat and to bring food back for my stranded companions on the field. Soon everything ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... I am with you," remarked Juanito, rolling his eyes like some dolls that are moved by clockwork, and to make the resemblance more real he stuck out ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would—along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... pre-eminently adapted for hard work; conscientious in the force of its instinct to carry out everything undertaken by it to the very end, and judging that whatever it undertook was good and worth finishing; having something of the nature of a strong piece of clockwork which being wound up must run to the utmost limit before stopping, whether regulated to move fast or slow, with a fateful certainty independent of will; possessed of such uncommon strength as to make it ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... the Republicans stopped firing altogether. But they were waiting for shorter range, and a moment later, at a hundred paces, their reopening volley had all the clockwork dispatch of platoon drill. Yet the Imperialists took the dose as a thing expected, and sprang over their wounded to gain the trenches. They required only the lull of reloading. But instantly a second volley prolonged the first. The column staggered, and faces blanched. In a sudden despair ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Dumont the world was presently to know more, and the same must be said of another inventor, Dr. Barton, of Beckenham, who shortly completed an airship model carrying aeroplanes and operated by clockwork. In an early experiment this model travelled ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... altar whose basement formed the glass isolating "island" which all of us who have ever seen an electrical machine know so well. The electric machine itself, a battery of Leyden jars was hidden under the altar and connected by a piece of clockwork with that opening covered with metal in which the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... bell and switching on a red lamp. Clissold had realised that the continuous ringing of the bell would not be soothing to the nerves of our party, nor the continuous burning of the lamp calculated to prolong its life, and he had therefore added the clockwork mechanism which automatically broke the circuit after a short interval of time; further, this clockwork mechanism could be made to control the emersion of the same warning signals at intervals of time varied according to the desire of the operator;—thus because, when in bed, he would ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... information I obtained was briefly this: that Nature, in Skitzland, never removes the stomach. Every man has to feed himself; and the necessity for finding food, joined to the necessity for buying clothes, is a mainspring whereby the whole clockwork of civilized life is kept in motion. Now, if a man positively can not feed and clothe himself, he becomes a pauper. He then goes to the Workhouse, where he has his stomach filled with a cement. That stopping lasts ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... glimmer of a lamp. The lamp is the source of the light, projected on to small mirrors attached to the magnetic needles of three variometers. A ray of light is reflected from the mirrors for several feet on to a slit, past which revolves sensitized photographic paper folded on a drum moving by clockwork. The slightest movements of the suspended needles are greatly magnified, and, when the paper is removed and developed in a dark-room, a series of intricate curves denoting declination, horizontal intensity and vertical force, are exquisitely traced. Every day ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Insensibly he wandered with uncertain steps down a lane which led by a gentle slope out into the fields, the fall of the ground guiding his footsteps, and then stumbling over the root of an ash-tree, fell heavily on the wet grass. His eyes, half-shut before, closed as if by clockwork, and in a moment he was firm asleep. His hat had fallen from his brow, and the grizzled hair was blown about by the wind as it came in gusts through the hedge. His body was a little sheltered by the tree, but his chest was ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... wise and ancient cow, Who chews her juicy cud so languid now Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough Lulls all but inward vision, fast asleep: But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep Mysterious clockwork guides, and some hid pulley Her drowsy ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... method of finding asteroids and comets by means of photography is simple and easy. The plate is exposed in a frame that moves by clockwork with the earth, so as to keep the same field of stars steady on the glass. After two, three or four hours' exposure, the photograph will show the fixed stars, but the planets, asteroids and comets will reveal themselves ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... look upon his adviser, and moved off, like a piece of Dutch clockwork, to set at liberty his imprisoned angels in this dire emergency. Meanwhile, Sergeant Bothwell began to put the test-oath with such a degree of solemn reverence as might have been expected, being just about the same which is used to this day ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... attic room. France goes rolling all around, Fledged with forest May has crowned. And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, Thinking how the fighting started, Wondering when we'll ever end it, Back to Hell with Kaiser send it, Gag the noise, pack up and go, Clockwork soldiers in a row. I've got better things to do Than to waste my time ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... like the thumbscrew of the medieval torture chamber. They would get new pacemakers and pay them more; they would drive the men on with new machinery—it was said that in the hog-killing rooms the speed at which the hogs moved was determined by clockwork, and that it was increased a little every day. In piecework they would reduce the time, requiring the same work in a shorter time, and paying the same wages; and then, after the workers had accustomed themselves to this new speed, they would reduce ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... hands of a repairer. It was always so with Lloyd. Her charges were not infrequently persons whom she knew, often intimately, but during the time of their sickness their personalities vanished for the trained nurse; she saw only the "case," only the mechanism, only the deranged clockwork in ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... along the smooth Roman road at a splendid pace, "the ponies going like clockwork," as Vixen remarked approvingly; but poor Miss McCroke thought that any clock which went as fast as those ponies would be deemed the ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors to get through with it in time ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... action. Hence by the requirements of the case man should be capable of placing himself either in a positive or a negative relation to the Parent Mind, from which he originates; otherwise he would be nothing more than a clockwork figure. ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... the sleeping room floor in which stood the mechanism for running the Terror, and the other beneath the store room floor, in which stood a small powerful dynamo which operated automatically by a spring clockwork. ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... blazed as usual, but the deck-house was empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle was. And, answering these signs of existence, could be distinguished the red and green lights of steamers, the firm rays of lighthouses, and the red or white warnings of gas-buoys run by clockwork. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... with charm. But men with that great gift are not to be met with in every railway-carriage, or at every dinner. The man we actually meet is one whose joke, though we have signalled it a mile off, we are powerless to stop, whose opinions come out with a whirr as of clockwork. Besides, it always happens in life that the man—or woman—with whom we would like to talk is at the next table. Those who really have something to say to each other so seldom have a chance of ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... the big court-yard, and all along the wide street as far as High Street, the trades unions were gathered about their banners. The great review had all been planned beforehand, and all went as by clockwork by those who were accustomed to handling great masses of men; there was no running from side to side; every one found his place with ease. Pelle and Stolpe, who had devised the programme, went along the ranks ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... gentle whirring somewhere amongst them. It made him start and look behind him. There were the sails of a windmill going round and round almost close to his ear. He thought at first it must be one of those toys which are wound up and go with clockwork; but no, it was a common penny toy, with the windmill at the end of a whistle, and when the whistle blows the windmill goes. But the wonder was that there was no one at the whistle end blowing, and ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... great cause for complaint the next morning. A restless tramping over his head had kept him awake all night. That it was intermittent had made it all the more intolerable. Just when he thought it had stopped, it would start up again,—to and fro, to and fro, as regular as clockwork ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... achieved by collective determination. Was it the result of hard and constant training, perfect discipline, or esprit de corps that at this moment of trial made these thin extended lines work as if by clockwork to their own saving and the ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... these instinctive dispositions with their powerful impulses, and the organism would become incapable of activity of any kind; it would lie inert and motionless, like a wonderful clockwork whose mainspring had been removed, or a steam-engine ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... broken by a shrill sound like the creaking of a rusty spring. It startled Don Juan; he all but dropped the phial. A sweat, colder than the blade of a dagger, issued through every pore. It was only a piece of clockwork, a wooden cock that sprang out and crowed three times, an ingenious contrivance by which the learned of that epoch were wont to be awakened at the appointed hour to begin the labors of the day. Through the windows there came already a flush of dawn. The ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... a clockwork man and quite a funny sight— He talks and walks mechanically, when he's wound up tight; And we've a Hungry Tiger who would babies love to eat But never does because we feed ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... moved, going in and out among the ruins, rubbing itself against the fallen pillars. And the reason Philip laughed and sighed was that he knew that dragon very well indeed. He had known it long ago. It was the clockwork lizard that had been given him the Christmas before last. And he remembered that he had put it into one of the cities he and Helen had built together. Only now, of course, it had grown big and had come alive like all the other images ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... for some one to fall in love with, I can tell that from your last letter. The pretty brunette had not intellectuality enough, had she? My dear fellow, as if that had anything to do with it! You were not ready, that was all. You fall in love by clockwork once every year; and it is time now. If you should see the P. B. again to-morrow, you'd be lost directly. As for me—I should think you would be tired of asking. No, I am not in love. No, I feel no inclination whatever to become so. No, there is no 'charmer' (what vile expressions ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... Clockwork can often be employed for propulsion purposes, but this method is not very satisfactory. It is also very difficult to obtain suitable clockworks to install in a boat. Oftentimes it will be possible to salvage the works ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... the most exciting stage of the argument, for no reason that Katharine could see, all chairs were pushed back, and one after another the Denham family got up and went out of the door, as if a bell had summoned them. She was not used to the clockwork regulations of a large family. She hesitated in what she was saying, and rose. Mrs. Denham and Joan had drawn together and stood by the fireplace, slightly raising their skirts above their ankles, and ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... may fairly be said that every subject of a distinctly practical nature, which could be advanced by mathematical knowledge, had an interest for him: and his incessant industry enabled him to find time for many of them. Amongst such subjects were Tides and Tidal Observations, Clockwork, and the Strains in Beams and Bridges. A certain portion of his time was also given to Lectures, generally on current astronomical questions, for he held it as his duty to popularize the science as far as lay in his power. And he attended the meetings of the Royal Astronomical ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... order of the camp, and every cart as it arrives moves to its appointed place. This business usually occupies about the same time as raising camp in the morning, for everything moves with the regularity of clockwork. ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... But hes worse than me. Hes not looking after anything; and he keeps out of my way. His manner's not natural. He hasnt asked us to dinner; and hes never said a word about our not asking him to dinner, after all these years when weve dined every week as regular as clockwork. It looks to me as if Gilbey's trying to drop me socially. Well, why should he do that if he ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... twenty-two hours of work a day was needed for her home. She knew how much money she could spend and she proceeded to divide the work and money among several assistants coming in on different shifts. Her household now runs like clockwork. One of the splendid things about this new system is its great flexibility and the fact that it can be adapted ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... revolve by means of clockwork, were fed with mineral oil, a refined kerosine; and the refraction was caused by highly ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... Esther Deland. Her mother's playing Canada. And this is little Sidonia Vavasour—mother out in one of the highest-priced sketches in vaudeville. Know it? 'The Snake.' Every morning that God sends comes her good-morning telegram to this little mite, just as regular as clockwork." ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... first turned on, each reflector will bear on the same point. Notice that they are moveable. They are arranged so that they move together. As soon as the first hole is bored through, they will move by clockwork, extending the opening until each points vertically upward and the hole is four hundred yards in diameter. I am positive that there will be no rapid flow even after the current is turned off, for I believe that the liquid is about as mobile as petroleum jelley. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... are said to be moderate. The dreaded Boomerang collapsed and was stormed with hardly a casualty. This was owing partly to the two trench mortars lent us by the French and partly to the extraordinary fine shooting of our own battery of 4.5 howitzers. The whole show went like clockwork—like a Field Day. First the 87th Brigade took three lines of trenches; then our guns lengthened their range and fuses and the 86th Brigade, with the gallant Royal Fusiliers at their head, scrambled over the trenches already taken by the 87th, and took the last two lines ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... want here," remarked the barmaid. "Look in tonight any time after eight o'clock, and if you don't know more about the history of Market Milcaster by ten than you did when you sat down, you must be deaf. There are some old gentlemen drop in here every night, regular as clockwork, who seem to feel that they couldn't go to bed unless they've told each other stories about old days which I should think they've ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... same moment to press down another key at the other end of the line of wire. Moreover, the key at the farther end of the line could be so arranged as to make an impression on a piece of paper that was slowly drawn under it by clockwork. Now if the man at one end of the line held his key down for only an instant, this impression would look like a dot. If he held it down longer, it would look like a short dash. Morse combined these dots and dashes into an alphabet. For instance, one dash meant the ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... this private government strip also seems to run like clockwork. To be sure the wheels even of a clock grind a bit with friction at times, but the clock goes on keeping time for all that. The Canal Zone is the best governed district in the United States. It is worth any American's time and sea-sickness ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... miles and repeat to a freight wagon.' Well, we unloaded before night, and it was pitch dark before we made camp. I explained the situation to the men. We planned to go in empty in five days, which would give us seven to come back loaded. We made every camp on time like clockwork. The fifth morning we were anxious to get a daybreak start, so we could load at night. The night herder had his orders to bring in the oxen the first sign of day, and I called the cook an hour before ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... he began, "I was put on to Caroline Schimmel; I have found out all about her by this time. She is as regular as clockwork in her duties at least. She wakes at ten and takes her absinthe. Then she goes to a little restaurant she knows, and has her breakfast and a game at cards with any one that will play with her. At six in the evening ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... theaters of the Parisian boulevards at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and which had been imitated already by Hugo and the elder Dumas. At its best, the "well-made play" was an amusing piece of mechanism, a clockwork toy which had a mere semblance of life, but which did precisely what its maker had ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... "As regularly as clockwork," snapped Miss Husted. "Half price, but how long will he be able to pay even that? Only three pupils, and only one of them pays him in cash. Oh, how people round here have changed since I first came here; how much they do expect for their ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... rebounded heavenwards, at the vision of the eager dreamy lad whose question had set going all this odd clockwork of association. He wouldn't lose his Shelley for the world! How like twenty! And how many things that he wouldn't lose for the world will he have to give up before he is thirty, I reflected sententiously,—give up at last, maybe, with a stony ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... wrote to Bedford, in reply to his letter, "suppose me a troublesome man to deal with, pertinacious about trifles, or standing upon punctilios of authorship. No, Grosvenor, I am a quiet, patient, easy-going hack of the mule breed; regular as clockwork in my pace, sure-footed, bearing the burden which is laid on me, and only obstinate in choosing my own path. If Gifford could see me by this fireside, where, like Nicodemus, one candle suffices me in a large room, he would see a ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... and although the day was hot, and the noon meal was in preparation, there was no excessive heat and no fumes. The white-clad Chinese waiters did their appointed tasks with the smoothness and lack of confusion of clockwork. ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... inversion of the parts, the geometrical development of a farcical misunderstanding, and many other stage contrivances, must derive their comic force from the same source,—the art of the playwright probably consisting in setting before us an obvious clockwork arrangement of human events, while carefully preserving an outward aspect of probability and thereby retaining something of the suppleness of life. But we must not forestall results which will be duly disclosed in ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... that the present companies in operation do not afford us that to our heart's content. It is but a very few years ago since we used to glorify ourselves in the rapidity of the mail-coach, doing its ten miles an hour with the punctuality of clockwork. Now we have arrived at the ratio of forty within the same period, and yet we are not content. Next year, within fourteen hours we shall be transported from Edinburgh to London. That, it seems, is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... small handle at the back of the windmill to a sound of clockwork, set it down again, and released it. Instantly the sails began to revolve, noiseless and swift, producing the effect of a rapidly flashing circle of light across which span lines, waxing and waning with ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... most comfortable of the six Confederate prisons of which I saw the interior. With all his alleged brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, and his ravenous appetite for greenbacks, for which we could not blame him, Dick Turner seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything went like clockwork. We knew what to expect or rather what not to expect, and when! My diary for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the day after ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... looked consider'ble better than they had when I see 'em last. The shover had got a gang of men and they'd got the gas cart ashore, and Billings and a blacksmith was workin' over—or rather under—the clockwork. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... by clockwork inclosed between two disks, and would rotate continuously were it not for the catch, G, working in and out of the cogs. Through this catch, G, the wheel is dependent on the movement of electro-magnet. This cogged wheel is a double one, consisting ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... watch. "The thing is beyond all human power to prevent now. The projectile will be released by clockwork. In fact"—his voice rose, his excitement finally getting the better of him—"it is even now sliding! It is only a matter of seconds; the projectile is lubricated ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... the result of much thought and preparation was transparent even to the unreflecting. Like an elaborate piece of clockwork, the whole affair was not as yet in motion. But a glance on the foredeck of the steamer showed, mingling amongst the fashionable crowd, Spanish singers with their guitars, Tyrolese joedelers, and some two or three popular comedians, ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... the boat, and clockwork to set the whole thing off at ten o'clock tonight. He didn't come right out and say so, you understand, and I may be making a fool of myself. But if I am—God knows, it won't be the first time ... Anyhow we'll ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... I ain't got a quarrel with 'em, the Lord knows. I go to church like clockwork, and pay my pew-rent, too, which is more than some do that gabble the most about salvation. If I pay for the preacher's keep it's only fair that I should get some of the good that comes to him hereafter; that's how it looks to me; so I don't trouble my head much about the ins and the outs ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... way," she said, "if I looked after things myself, but I shall expect you, Patty, to take entire charge of the occasion, and then everything will go along like clockwork." ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite the best of all. For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents ...
— The Velveteen Rabbit • Margery Williams
... certain your retreat is known. We have just had another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the usual humiliating result. Zero is quite disheartened. We are all scattered, and I could find no one but the SOLEMN ASS who brings you this and the money. I would love to see your ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... serve as a hand grip. When the aviator is ready to drop a bomb all he has to do is to make a simple adjustment, taking not more than a second, which releases the propeller, and then throw the bomb overboard. As it drops the propeller is set into rapid motion and drives the clockwork mechanism inside the bomb. After a hundred-yard drop it is all ready to explode when it strikes. There are also round cannon-ball-shaped bombs, and special bombs for starting a ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... least, the then existing system of sluggish and irregular stage-coaches, the property of private persons and companies, by a new system of government coaches, in connexion with the Post-Office, carrying the mails and also a regulated number of passengers, with clockwork precision, at a rate of comparative speed, which he hoped should ultimately be not less than ten miles an hour. The opposition to the scheme was, of course, enormous; coach proprietors, innkeepers, the Post-Office ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... themselves at once. While Tim unbuttoned the severe black coat and pulled it off, Judy brought a jacket of dingy tweed from behind a curtain in the corner, and stood on a chair to help the figure put it on. All knew their duties; the performance went like clockwork. And Maria sat and watched in helpful silence. There was a certain air about her as though ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... half-past seven, previous to going to breakfast. They dined at one, and had a combined tea and supper at seven o'clock. At nine o'clock they went to bed. Before two months had passed away, everything went on like clockwork. One day passed away so like another, that the time flew imperceptibly, and they wondered that the Sundays came round so quick. They had now time to unpack everything, and the books which Mrs Campbell had selected and brought with her had been arranged on shelves in ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... child to find out the truth," thought Jane. "She looks, anyhow, like she hadn't a friend on earth! I'm going to let her think the money comes as regular as clockwork! I d' know but I'm real glad he don't send it. Makes me feel closer to the little ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... ma'am—an orphant, I guess. She's travelling alone with her uncle. And he charged me express when he came on board to look after her. Of course I forgot. My hands are that full my head won't hold it. It's 'Vaughan here' and it's 'Vaughan there,' regular as clockwork. Why ain't he called ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... him. It might prove a labor saver," he said. "Being a little old-fashioned, he has depended on clockwork, which requires a special orderly to wind us when we fun down and nod at our desks." Then he turned solicitous. "The Gray staff will certainly give you an escort beyond the Gray lines, where you will find a ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... magazine at random, and, presently, for the sake of verisimilitude, turned a page. Rodney was turning pages as regularly as clockwork. It was a silly magazine! She wished she'd found something that really could interest her. It was getting harder and harder to sit still. He couldn't be angry about anything, could he? No, that was absurd. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... in a song and dance. They were about eighteen inches apart, and alternately jumped two feet into the air, alighting always in the same spot. As soon as one bird alighted the other bird jumped up, their time being like clockwork in its regularity, and each "accompanying himself to the tune of 'to-le-do'—'to-le-do'—'to-le-do,' sounding the syllable 'to' as he crouched to spring, 'le' while in the air, and 'do' as he alighted." The performance was kept up for more than a minute, when ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Clockwork Mice, and Coloured Marbles Painted Bird that sweetly warbles, Dolls of every age and size, With flaxen hair ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... crammed with models of battleships,—in wood, clay, porcelain, lead, and tin,—of many sizes and prices. Some of the larger ones, moved by clockwork, are named after Japanese battleships: Shikishima, Fuji, Mikasa. One mechanical toy represents the sinking of a Russian vessel by a Japanese torpedo boat. Among cheaper things of this class is a box of colored sand, for the representation ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... and well contented crew, and everything seemed to be running like clockwork, when suddenly "another dish of trouble", as Mother Atterson called it, was served them in ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Dorothy was seated, and next to her was Tik-Tok, the Clockwork Man, who had been wound up as tightly as his clockwork would permit, so he wouldn't interrupt the festivities by running down. Then came Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, Dorothy's own relations, two kindly old people who had a cozy home in the Emerald City and were very happy and contented there. ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... have a new departure. Gill at the Cape, having the comet 1882.ii. all to himself in those latitudes, wished his friends in Europe to see it, and employed a local photographer to strap his camera to the observatory equatoreal, driven by clockwork, and adjusted on the comet by the eye. The result with half-an-hour's exposure was good, so he tried three hours. The result was such a display of sharp star images that he resolved on the Cape Photographic ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... neither bell nor knocker. We entered by the open door and walked along a paved passage, which, was evidently not held as sacred as it should have been by the roving fowls; looked in at the great dark kitchen, where beside the Gothic arch of the broad chimney was some ruinous clockwork mechanism for turning the spit, which probably did turn to good purpose when powdered wigs were worn; then ascended the stone staircase, where there was room for four to walk abreast, but which had ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... do that easily, and if you wanted a green-house on the north side it would only be necessary to set up a few looking-glasses to pour a blazing sun upon it all day long. You might need a little clockwork to keep them adjusted at the right angles, but Yankee invention ought to be equal to that. I have no doubt we shall see patent sunshine-distributors in the market very shortly if your idea gets abroad; in fact, I shouldn't be surprised to hear that a company ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... and commands, issued like clockwork amid the confusion of battle. Our executive officer seemed to be in a ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... the morning became routine, and proceeded like clockwork. Each patient ox voluntarily drew near, and stood, waiting to be yoked with his fellow and chained to his daily task. So well did each know his place by the side of his mate that the driver had only to place one end of the yoke on the neck of the "off" ox, known, for example, ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... small glass door. The dial was a curiosity. It was painted in garish colors in a primitive style and represented a chubby-cheeked sun wearing the Island of Heligoland as a crown. Below the face, little metal sailing vessels connected with the clockwork swayed back and forth in the same sober rhythm as the pendulum. This was designed to make the tempest-tossed seafarer doubly sensible of the comforts of ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... uncle—we never had one—but the uncle of our predecessors at Kirk Braddan. And almost every Sunday evening he spent at the Vicarage—poor old thing! He was quite silent. One thing, though, he would say, as "regglar as clockwork." My mother occasionally apologised for the evening being so exclusively musical (we were great singers). Whenever she did so, the reply was prompt from U.T.: "I'm passionately fond of music." This, to us children, was highly ludicrous. Indeed, my mother was amused—she had no Manx blood in her—but ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie |
