"Invent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are very beautiful so." And to vary that in a hundred different ways. To keep himself cool, to bear himself like a nobleman, to have a free tongue and a modest one, to endure with a smile all the evils the devil may invent on his behalf, to smother his anger, to hold nature in control, to have the finger of God, and the tail of the devil, to reward the mother, the cousin, the servant; in fact, to put a good face on everything. In default of which the female escapes and leaves you in a fix, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... to invent a fictional character, to give him for the initials of his name the letters D. C. M., to describe him as awkward and burly, with an untidy head of grey hair, to make him a novelist, a Bohemian and a wanderer, and then to ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... impatient when they are waiting for the accomplishment of any event they have set their hearts upon. The prince, therefore, to make the time seem short to him, proposed as a kind of merry pastime that they should invent some artful scheme to make Benedick and Beatrice fall in love with each other. Claudio entered with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and Leonato promised them his assistance, and even Hero said she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Christian. Euclid, if I remember right, was not a Christian, and yet he had quite a turn for mathematics. As a matter of fact, Christianity got its idea of algebra from the Mohammedans, and, without algebra, astronomical knowledge of to-day would have been impossible. Christianity did not even invent figures. We got those from the Arabs. The very word "algebra" is Arabic. The decimal system, I believe, however, was due to a German, but whether he was a Christian or not, I ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "Yes, certainly," answered the monk, "and I doubt not but that his soul hath departed in peace." This expression was reported to Erasmus; but "I don't believe it," said he; "it is the story that these fellows are obliged to invent after their victim's death, to appease the wrath ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to stir up conflagrations in other countries without leaving his own. Passports and things are put in to make it more difficult when he comes to getting his inflammable material and directions for use over the frontier. So he has to invent a way ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... outcome was earnest, and she looked to a slow and painful progress as the result of human struggles. When called an optimist, she responded, "I will not answer to the name of optimist, but if you like to invent Meliorist, I will not say you call me out of my name." She trusted in that gradual development which science points out as the probable result of the survival of the fittest in human life. In "A Minor Prophet" she has presented her conception of ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... on duty and two off. But for the thousand-odd colonists, the men and women who were to be the spearhead of migration to a new and friendlier planet, it had none. They slept, and played, worked at such tasks as they could invent, and slept again, while the huge ship ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... that branch of his science which treats of variable stars. His methods have been followed by his successors to the present time. It was his policy to make the best use he could of the instruments at his disposal, rather than to invent new ones that might prove of doubtful utility. The results of his work seem to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... to invent something. I read the other day in that ladies' magazine of a man who invented a very simple little thing to save candles, and he made thousands and thousands of pounds by it; and I've got an idea too—it's a thing to save ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... had any need to be toned down, veiled, or dressed up to suit the taste of modern France. They showed themselves deficient in the critical faculty in supposing that the Catholicism of the theologians was the self-same religion of Jesus and the prophets; but they did not invent for the use of the worldly, a Christianity revised and adapted to their ideas. This is why the serious study—may I even add, the reform—of Christianity is more likely to proceed from St. Sulpice than from the teachings of M. Lacordaire or M. Gratry, and a fortiori, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... every local eruption. Every time he batted he made a home run. He even made initiative suggestions for schemes which were more or less amalgamated with reason and insanity. It is said that he was first at the dances, and first in the hearts of the ladies. It is certain he was the first to invent the sewerage system idea; and the patents were applied for before the final endorsements had ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... so energetic, and so able to invent mechanical devices at sudden need, was bound to succeed in a business like this. And young Eads did succeed. "Fortune," he believed, "favors the brave;" and his ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... the publishers that I meant it when I said I would not. Yet the reason is plain: I cannot. I wish I could. There are some facts one can bring home much more easily than otherwise by wrapping them in fiction. But I never could invent even a small part of a plot. The story has to come to me complete before I can tell it. The stories printed in this volume came to me in the course of my work as police reporter for nearly a quarter of a century, and were printed ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... as distinguished from nature; but art itself is natural to man. He is in some measure the artificer of his own frame, as well as of his fortune, and is destined, from the first age of his being, to invent and contrive. He applies the same talents to a variety of purposes, and acts nearly the same part in very different scenes. He would be always improving on his subject, and he carries this intention wherever ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... and were driven to the attempt at pure self-expression—to the exaltation of the great god Whim. They had no training, they recognized no traditions, they spoke to no public. Each was to express, as he thought best, whatever he happened to feel or to think, and to invent, as he went along, the language in which he should express it. I think some of these men had the elements of genius in them and might have done good work; but their task was a heart-breaking and a hopeless ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... entertaining me with a love-story, a little April comedy, which I ought certainly to hand over to the author of A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE, for he could write it as it should be written, and I am sure (although I mean to try) that I cannot. - But who would have supposed that a Brownie of mine should invent ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interesting to see whether she would commit herself to his plot by not recognizing him. If she did that—Yet he hoped she wouldn't. If she did recognize him he would say that it was through Miss Desmond's relatives that he had heard of Madame Gautier. Betty could not contradict him. He would invent a niece whose parents wished to place her with Madame. Then he could ask as many questions as he liked, about hours and studios, and all the details of the life ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... always said that Fred was the most ingenious fellow they had ever known. He could invent schemes that often made some of the duller-witted chaps fairly gasp, and declare he must be ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... son's indignant disregard, Lady Audley turned all her fury on her niece; and, in the most opprobrious terms that rage could invent, upbraided her with deceit and treachery—accusing her of making her pretended submission instrumental to the more speedy accomplishment of her marriage. Too much incensed to reply, Sir Edmund seized his cousin's hand, and was leading her from ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... everything in life, my lord; and would lay it down for any one of them. What brings you here to disturb this quiet household? What keeps you lingering month after month in the country? What makes you feign illness, and invent pretexts for delay? Is it to win my poor patron's money? Be generous, my lord, and spare his weakness for the sake of his wife and children. Is it to practise upon the simple heart of a virtuous lady? You might as well storm the Tower single-handed. But you may blemish her ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to be lost to the world. Still, it may be that sufficient will be recovered to give some skilled mechanician sufficient guidance to enable him to reproduce the lost pirate car. If not, well, I don't suppose it matters. Some one else will be sure to invent something similar. In fact, from the hints Mannering gave me, and owing to the opportunity I had of examining the car in his workshop, I think it is not unlikely that I shall shortly be applying for letters ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... like one of Mrs. Humphry Ward's puppets, set up to be a great politician. Remington as a thinker is almost a great man; he is a profound analyst of society on its human side; he is a gifted critic of public institutions; even his absurd perversity in trying to invent a constructive, motherhood-endowing Toryism is the perversity of a versatile and clever man whose action is ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... in his library still, it had been a busy day with him; it appeared as if every creature within reach who could invent a plea of business had chosen that time to ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... conceivable that, in the course of the ages, the wisdom of mankind might invent some language more ideally perfect than Esperanto, but we cannot afford to wait. We want a key language and we want it now. And as by general agreement of all the most competent authorities, Esperanto is the best ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... heard and seen among the Christians, it did not become me to act with slaves as I had acted hitherto—that they too were people. For a number of days they moved about in mortal terror, in the belief that I was delaying so as to invent punishment the more cruel, but I did not punish, and did not punish because I was not able. Summoning them on the third day, I said, 'I forgive you; strive then with earnest service to correct your fault!' They fell on their knees, covering their faces with tears, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of their own, But catch the spreading notion of the town; They reason and conclude by precedent, 410 And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men. Of all this servile herd, the worst is he That in proud dulness joins with quality; A constant critic at the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night; names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... thing before the Owl had explained to her half-a-dozen ingenious structures. She said that inanimate objects had no business to be so clever, and that, if the mechanicians did not take care, they would shortly invent machines that would conspire together to assassinate them, and then ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... getting proofs of the different states of his plates whilst etching them, incited my husband to invent a press for his own laboratory, that he might judge of his work in progress by taking proofs for himself whenever he liked. Considering the present state of our affairs I was not favorable to the idea, but I was overruled, as in all ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... as to whether I was to turn or to keep straight ahead. This necessitated my turning back to Mr. Mortimer to catch a glimpse of which way his feet were pointing. I covered this by speaking to him, begging him to will me aright —to will me more earnestly—or some such bunk. I could invent many reasons for turning round; pretend I had lost my feeling of 'guidance,' or pretend I heard a sudden noise, as of danger, or even pretend I felt I was going wrong. Well, I got a peek at those feet as often as was necessary, and the rest was just play-acting to mislead the people's minds. Of ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... address in Putney, verify the fact that Ricardos has a daughter, and give me a trunk call to Brighton. Better go yourself, Graviter. If you see her, don't say anything, of course— invent some excuse. [GRAVITER nods] I'll be up in time ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is in allusion to the misnomer of Wallace's book, "Darwinism," that he introduces the term "Wallaceism" {0d} for a theory of descent that excludes the transmission of acquired characters. This was, indeed, the chief factor that led Charles Darwin to invent his hypothesis of pangenesis, which, unacceptable as it has proved, had far more to recommend it as a formal hypothesis than the equally formal ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... wretchedness out of my pale face. But they never knew the story, and they could only guess at what made me wretched. It is amazing (again) what power there is in silence, and how much you can keep in your hands if you do not open them. People may surmise—may invent, but they cannot know your secret unless you tell it to them, and their imaginings take so many forms, the multitude of things that they create blot out all definite design. Thus every one at R—— had a different theory about my loss of spirits and the relapse of Mr. Langenau, but no one ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... the course of a brilliant career of forty years we have never seen only six cans of peaches that were worth the powder to blast them open. A man that will invent a can opener that will split open one of these pale, sickly, hard hearted canned peaches, that swim around in a pint of slippery elm juice in a tin can, has got a fortune. And they have got to canning pumpkin, and charging money ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... of a planet we are on, or how large or small it is. If suddenly it sometimes seems as if it were all used up and things look cramped again (which they do once in so often) we have but to think of something, invent something, and let it out a little. We move over into a new world in a minute. Columbus was mere bagatelle. We get continents every few days. Thousands of men are thinking of them—adding them on. Mere size is getting to be old-fashioned—as a way of arranging ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... were consumed. Others were suspended by their limbs, and heavy weights attached to them to make the agony more intense. Others were deprived of their teeth; and every cruelty that a horrible ingenuity could invent was used. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... only be produced and operated by large co-operative farms like this; with a carefully chosen force of co-operators, who are thinkers as well as workers; who are intellectually, physically and socially prepared to invent and construct machines that are perfectly fitted to do this particular kind ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... results it led, the whole world would take a very strong interest in the revelation. The essential point, however, to be observed, is that it is the real truth in respect to the subject that the world are now interested in knowing. Were a romance writer to invent a tale in respect to the origin of writing, however ingenious and entertaining it might be in its details, it would excite in the learned world at the present ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... my word on 't, the balance of power is with us. Our tongues have enough to do at home, without chattering in high places; and as to our arms! mine could ill wield battle-axe or broadsword. I suppose these people of whom you speak would invent a new sex to look after domestic matters, while we assist in the broil and the battle! We shall lose our influence, depend on 't, the moment we are taken out of our sphere—we shall lose caste as women, and be treated with contempt as men. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... sensible heart is still more susceptible of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men's wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amusement—our youths both fell in love: if passions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all the licentious theory, thought himself in love, because ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... shoulders. The Madonna of the Goldfinch is a still higher type of loveliness, uniting with gentle dignity a certain delicate, high-bred grace, which Raphael alone could impart. Her face is charmingly framed in the soft hair which falls modestly about it. One wonders if any modern coiffeur could invent so many styles of hair dressing as does this gifted young ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... joy to invent a carmen gratulatorium to his Majesty, whom, by the grace of Almighty God, I was to see, the which my little daughter ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... and it is not too far for you," said Mrs. Coleman (who evidently considered me in the last stage of a decline), trotting into the breakfast-room where I was lounging, book in hand, over the fire, wondering what possible pretext I could invent for ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of position has constantly to be spoken of, it is denoted by the word "homology" and its derivatives; and for Geology (which after all is only the anatomy and physiology of the earth) it might be well to invent some single word, such as "homotaxis" (similarity of order), in order to express an essentially similar idea. This, however, has not been done, and most probably the inquiry will at once be made—To what end burden science with a new ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... deal, which seemed to him a mistake; no doubt if Mr. Man could see their car he would have his changed. Then the 'Coon and the Old Black Crow said, "Of course," and that there never was anybody so smart to invent things as Mr. 'Possum, and that it was too bad he couldn't go over and suggest thoughts to ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... deck-chairs. Deck-stewards darted hither and yon, wearing the harassed expressions appropriate to persons of their calling—doubtless to a man praying for that bright day when some public benefactor should invent a steamship having at least two leeward sides. A clatter of tongues assailed the ear, the high, sweet accents of American women predominating. The masculine element of the passenger-list with singular ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... twenty-five miles in the snow; increase business; buy mahogany in the plank; saw veneers with a hand saw; trade cases for movements; move to Bristol; bad luck; lose large sum of money; first cases by machinery in Bristol; make clocks in Mass.; good luck; death of my little daughter; form a company; invent Bronze Looking ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... with this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... blissful. But there were times too, when she felt—though always with a certain contempt of herself, as when she sat on that sunwarmed stone below the tor—a queer dissatisfaction, a longing for something outside a world where she had to invent her own starvations and simplicities, to make-believe ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for my own departure. To this point I had persuaded the host, but now found him by no means inclined to advance me the additional funds needed for carrying off a young singer. To cloak the bad behaviour of my directors I was compelled to invent some tale of misfortune, and to leave the astonished and indignant young lady behind. Heartily ashamed of this adventure, I travelled through rain and storm via Leipzig, where I picked up my brown poodle, and reaching Magdeburg, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... "A word invented by the Boston transcendentalists." And Mr. Bartlett quotes from Judd's Margaret. Mr. Judd was a good scholar, and the word is legitimately compounded, like ensphere and imparadise; but he did not invent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... corrupter to the corrupted, had he never taken, and it would have appeared in his eyes a species of degradation to receive the first, and of treason to his nationality to accept the last; though he would lie, invent, manage, and contrive, from morning till night, in order to transfer even copper from the pocket of his neighbor to his own, under the forms of opinion and usage. In a word, Ithuel, as relates to such things, is what is commonly called ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in the most gentle terms he could invent, had no other effect than to set her into an immoderate laughter: nothing could be more provoking, than the contempt with which she treated his advice; and on his insisting at last, in terms which she might think were somewhat too strong, on her being less frequently seen with some persons he ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... arts will survive; only luxury will be annihilated. It is what was seen at the fall of the Roman Empire; the art of writing even became very rare; almost all those which contributed to the comfort of life were reborn only long after. We invent new ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... some of whom I had no doubt were in the opposing army, as it was recruited where many of them lived; and I knew they would be loyal to the old flag, and ready to defend it with their lives. But the alarm came so suddenly that I had no time to feign sickness, or invent an excuse for being ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... approached; but no other homage was paid to the sovereign, who thus takes his walk in public almost every day. Lady Morgan is merry at the expense of the Grand Duke's taste for brick and mortar: but monarchs, like other men, must have their amusements; some invent uniforms, some stitch embroidery;—and why should not this good-natured Grand Duke amuse himself with his trowel if he likes it? As to the Prince of Carignano, I give him up to her lash—le traitre—but perhaps he thought he was doing right: and at all events there are not ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... gain according to schedule. But I've only Dinky-Dunk's bulky grain-scales, and it's impossible to figure down to anything as fine as ounces or even quarter-pounds on such a balancer. Yet my babies, I'm afraid, are not gaining as they ought. Poppsy is especially fretful of late. Why can't somebody invent children without colic, anyway? I have a feeling that I ought to run on low gear for a while. But that's a luxury I ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... God's; wastes shall yet become savings and defeats victories; nevertheless, life's woes, wrongs and delays are such as to stir misgiving. The multitudes hunger for power and influence, hunger for wealth and wisdom, for happiness and comfort; satisfaction seems denied them. Watt and Goodyear invent, other men enter into the fruit of their inventions; Erasmus and Melanchthon sow the good seeds of learning; two centuries pass by before God's angels count the bundles. In a passion of enthusiasm for England's poor, Cobden wore his life out toiling for the corn ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... there was much talent and many a spark of genius in that army. But only those who were there know of the many busy brains that worked overtime devising improvements in the weapons that were available, and ever seeking to invent contrivances that added to comfort. Many of the inventions are forgotten, but some are in use in France to-day, notably the "periscope rifle" or "sniperscope" and the "thumb periscope" which is no thicker than a man's finger. It was found that our box-periscopes were always ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... religious worship should have place in the heart or on the tongue of his own true sons and daughters, can it become a faithful child of our Heavenly Father to be seeking for excuses and palliations, and to invent distinctions between one kind of ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... Confederates. For he spared none that seemed guilty: some to this day lye chained in Prison, being sequestred of all their Estates, and beg for their living. One of the most noted Rebells, called Ambom Wellaraul, he sent to Columba to the Dutch to execute, supposing they would invent new Tortures for him, beyond what he knew of. But they instead of executing him, cut off his chains, and kindly entertained him, and there he still is in the City of Columba, reserving him for some designs they may hereafter have ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... in at the receipt of her letter, was not a flattering idea:—to know she was in Paris, where, in all probability, she had come to seek him, and to have the intelligence of it from herself, had all the effect on him that the most raptured fancy can invent. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... is doubled, and sometimes tripled. I have, therefore, listed Dr. Samuel Johnson in some of my memorandums of the principal planters and favourers of the enclosures, under a name which I took the liberty to invent from the Greek, Papadendrion[299]. Lord Auchinleck and some few more are of the list. I am told that one gentleman in the shire of Aberdeen, viz. Sir Archibald Grant, has planted above fifty millions ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Singh between the tables in case he should have any orders to give, noticed particularly that he did not say we were going to Gallipoli. He said, "The plan now is to send us to Gallipoli." The trade of a leader of squadrons, thought I, is to confound the laid plans of the enemy and to invent unexpected ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... astonished at what makes them fall in love. Often it suffices for a man to ride past them at the head of a company of artillery, or show himself at a ball in tight clothes. Sometimes a mere turn of the head, a melancholy attitude, makes them suppose a man's whole life; they'll invent a romance to match the hero—who is often a mere brute, but the marriage is made. Watch the Chevalier de Valois: study him; copy his manners; see with what ease he presents himself; he never puts on a stiff air, as you do. Talk a little more; one would ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... no cure for the evil. The brain of man is fertile enough, as fast as one custom is prohibited, to fix upon another. And if all the games, now in use, were forbidden, it would be still fertile enough to invent others for the same purposes. The bird that flies in the air, and the snail, that crawls upon the ground, have not escaped the notice of the gamester, but have been made, each of them, subservient to his pursuits. The wisdom, therefore, of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... Ruth said. "And what we want to do is to invent some way of earning money in which every girl will have her part, and do her part, and feel that she has done her full share in rebuilding the ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... lamentable epilogue was in truth the guiding thought of the whole investigation. Nature had been proved a figment of human imagination so that, once rid of all but a mock allegiance to her facts and laws, we might be free to invent any world we chose and believe it to be absolutely real and independent of our nature. Strange prepossession, that while part of human life and mind was to be an avenue to reality and to put men in ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... American styles. Ralph had two theories about this intervenes. Either his passion was a sentimental fiction of Miss Stackpole's (there was always a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarity of the sex, that they should discover or invent lovers for each other), in which case he was not to be feared and would probably not accept the invitation; or else he would accept the invitation and in this event prove himself a creature too irrational to demand further consideration. The latter clause of Ralph's argument might have seemed incoherent; ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... me," whispered Will, "for I'm not going to get out beyond the reach of the rails. I guess we'll have to go back and invent some other means of ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... protestatem.. To ditto for a capias ad computandum.. To Frog's new tenants per account to Hocus, for audita querelas.. On the said account for writs of ejectment and distringas.. To Esquire South's quota for a return of a non est invent and nulla habet bona.. To —— for a pardon in forma pauperis.. To Jack for a melius inquirendum upon a felo-de-se.. To coach-hire.. For ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... forests of Spenser and Ariosto. What a pity, that instead of a princess in distress we meet only a nurserymaid! But here is the fitting and convenient locality to brood over our thoughts; to project the great and to achieve the happy. It is here that we should get our speeches by heart, invent our impromptus; muse over the caprices of our mistresses, destroy a cabinet, and ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the further objection, that it is true that our legislators can never invent regulations such as are convenient for all individuals, 'Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est; id modo quaeritur, si majori parti et in summam prodest. (Cato apud Livium, L. 34, circa init.)' But the reason is that the limited condition of their knowledge compels them to cling to laws which, ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... this man's soul abhorreth the truth of God; no marvel, therefore, if God's soul abhorreth him; he hath invented a way contrary to God, to bring about his own salvation; no marvel, therefore, if God invent a way to bring about this man's damnation: and seeing that these rebels are at this point, we shall have peace; God will see whose word will stand, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... What beautiful colors it presents! Seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer? Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... absurd, and did expose her to the greed of every lying mendicant within reach of her. Not unnaturally, therefore, it had occurred to a certain collier to make his way to the bottom of the shaft, on the chance—hardly of finding, but of being enabled to invent something worth reporting; and there, to the very fooling of his barren expectation, he ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... turning point in Pestalozzi's career. He was soon chosen assistant teacher at Burgdorf. His experience at Stanz, without books and without appliances, had compelled him to invent methods of interesting the children. He was thus brought to the use of objects, and here we have the beginning of practical object teaching. It was not long, however, before the head master of the school became jealous of him because he secured ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... *security of property is essential to civilization and progress*. Men would labor only for the needs of the day, if they could not retain and enjoy the fruits of their labor; nor would they be at pains to invent or actualize industrial improvements of any kind, if they had no permanent interest in the results of such improvements. Then, too, if there were no protection for property, there could be no accumulation ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... wretch![1] The villagers have min; kaj mi retiras min de la beaten me; and I am retiring from aferoj. Neniam, ecx en miaj plej business. Never, even in my most eltrovemaj tagoj, mi elpensis ingenious[2] days, did I invent tiel mortigan turmenton por such a deadly[3] torment for a progresema homo, kiel sukcesi en progressive man, as to succeed in la produkto de profitiga uzilo, producing a beneficial[4] device, kaj tiam devi penadi, por igi and then ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... perhaps, there still was in the world something to write about. Yet I did not see anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals a large parcel of a valuable commodity—so people say. It's either true or untrue; and in any case it has no value in itself. To invent a circumstantial account of the robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents not running that way I did not think that the game was worth the candle. It was only when it dawned upon me that the purloiner ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife beautiful as the Houries, and wise as Zobeide; with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdat, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase and fancy can invent. I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my last days in obscurity and contemplation, and lie silently down on the bed of death. Through my life it shall be my settled resolution, that I will never depend upon the smile of princes; that I will never stand exposed to the artifices ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... my success, for I knew what it meant—they thought that Rendle was in love with me! Do you know, at times, they almost made me think so too? Oh, there was no phase of folly I didn't go through. You can't imagine the excuses a woman will invent for a man's not telling her that he loves her—pitiable arguments that she would see through at a glance if any other woman used them! But all the while, deep down, I knew he had never cared. I should have known it if he had made love to me every day of his life. I could never ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... of invention is easily disposed of. Any child can invent a world transcending human experience by the simple combination of ideas which are in themselves incongruous—a world in which the horses have each five feet, in which the grass is blue and the sky green, in which seas are balanced on the peaks ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... McQuade can invent. I should be very careful, if I were you. Your own conscience may prove you guiltless of scandal, but there are certain people who would rather believe bad than good—scandal than truth; and these are always in the majority. Don't ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... long before Noah, and he is allowed to be called just what he pleases, and I am to have no voice in it with my own particular and dearest friends! Nevertheless I will go, and if I don't come to-day, or the day after, I will write you the prettiest little love-letter I can invent." ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... You said, 'My darling wife, it has all been a mistake—a terrible mistake—and I am come to ask your pardon and to take you home.' In my dream, Norman, you kissed my face, my lips, my hands, and called me by every loving name you could invent. You were so kind to me, and I was so happy. And the dream was so vivid, Norman, that even after I awoke I believed it to be reality. Then I heard the sobbing of the waves on the beach, and I cried out, 'Norman, Norman!' thinking you were still ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... What did the first lawgiver think when, seeking for the corner-stone in the social edifice, angered doubtless by some idle importunity, he struck the tables of brass and felt in his bowels the yearning for a law of retaliation? Did he then invent justice? And the first who plucked the fruit planted by his neighbor and who fled cowering under his mantle, did he invent shame? And he who, having overtaken that same thief who had robbed him of the product of his toil, forgave him his sin, and instead of raising his hand to smite ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... with their own, and more and more appropriated the tales of the Greek mythology, linking them to their own deities. Of the early worship peculiar to the Romans, we know but little. But certain traits always belonged to the Roman religion. Their mood was too prosaic to invent a theogony, to originate stories of the births, loves, and romantic adventures of the gods, such as the Greek fancy devised. The Roman myths were heroic, not religious: they related to the deeds of valiant men. Their deities were, in the first place, much more abstract, less vividly ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... wouldn't let it get dusty," said Mrs. Maybough, and then, in self-defence, Charmian gave Cornelia the worst character for housekeeping that she could invent from her knowledge ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... absolute darkness. At last he was discharged, a friendless, tradeless, penniless man, without a past, and with very little to look to in the future. His very name was altered, for it had been necessary to invent one. John Huxford had passed away, and John Hardy took his place among mankind. Here was a strange outcome of a Spanish ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "I shall invent some means of consolation for him," she replied. "I like dancing among the bright flowers. Why should we not have everything gay and bright ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... notes himself to a hollow in a rock near a clear spring called "The Phantom," which was in the outskirts of the park, sheltered by a thatched roof. Sidonie thought that a charming episode. In the evening she must invent some story, a pretext of some sort for going to "The Phantom" alone. The shadow of the trees across the path, the mystery of the night, the rapid walk, the excitement, made her heart beat deliciously. She would find the letter saturated with dew, with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Ramsgate, and the days seemed to go by quickly, instead of creeping along as they did at first. And this was in a great measure owing to the companionship of Sophia Jane, for, though Aunt Hannah was kind and Nanna and Margaretta caressing, Susan's life would have been dull without someone to invent games with her and play in the attic; and, although she thought herself far superior to Sophia Jane, she knew this very well. When she wrote to her mother she was able to say that she liked being at the ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... slumber, and did the laws of nature become silent at his command? When we transcend what is scientifically possible, all suppositions are admissible; and we leave the reader to take his choice between these and any others he may choose to invent. ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... real thing, but always the same thing. There were moments when I rather writhed under the serenity of her confidence that she WAS the real thing. All her dealings with me and all her husband's were an implication that this was lucky for ME. Meanwhile I found myself trying to invent types that approached her own, instead of making her own transform itself—in the clever way that was not impossible for instance to poor Miss Churm. Arrange as I would and take the precautions I would, she always came out, in my pictures, too tall—landing me in the dilemma of having ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... of His sufferings were omitted. Think, for instance, of the predictions contained in the xxii Psalm. Death by crucifixion was unknown among the Jewish people. No nation in touch with Israel, living at that time, put human beings to death in that way. It was reserved for cruel Rome to invent death; by crucifixion. Yet in this Psalm there is given by divine inspiration a complete picture of that unknown mode of death by crucifixion. We read of His hands and feet pierced, the bones out of joint, the excessive thirst, the tongue cleaving ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... pray that God would set a watch before his mouth, and on his lips, lest he should be led to utter evil words. By evil words he means excuses which we invent to cover our sins.[1] ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... another Italy. She must have her miracles, and if God will not perform them, so surely will some one be at hand to invent them. Still further, the miracle must be a miracle pertaining to the Virgin. La Madonna! the mind, the heart, the tongue of the Italians are full of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... said to his friend: "My heart has been stolen by Love-cluster. It is no longer in my body. How can I comfort it? Love has made an empty quiver of me. So invent some plan by which I may meet ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... exclaimed, with the most comforting sympathy. "You have had a run of bad luck and no mistake! We must invent something. You can't read and you can't sew—how about knitting? Suppose we knit a scarf in school colours for Dick, or a jumper for yourself to wear when you are better? I could get wool in the village. That would do to begin with, till I ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... that since the good fortune of the Lady Dorothea prevented them carrying out their scheme, they must invent some other way of taking him home to ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... they found it difficult to manage without her. Seven younger brothers and sisters all looked to Patty to settle their quarrels, hem their boat sails, dress their dolls, kiss their bumps and bruises better, sympathize with their small woes and troubles, tell them stories, invent new games, and generally take the lead in all the important matters of the nursery. She was her mother's right hand, and from the time she was old enough to feel herself a little older than the rest, she had helped ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... to invent an artificially digested porridge in order to save the modern stomach any exertion, let his spoon fall for a moment and said: "You must take only such foods as will tend to add phosphorous matter to the brain. The answer to your question will then ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... hunger drives them, may find these details set out in the pages of Josephus, the renegade Jewish historian. It serves no good purpose and will not help our story to repeat them; indeed for the most part they are too terrible to be repeated. History does not record, and the mind of man cannot invent a cruelty which was not practised by the famished Jews upon other Jews suspected of the crime of having hidden food to feed themselves or their families. Now the fearful prophecy was fulfilled, and it came about ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... things stir a man's blood, like a great wrong or passion of the instant. And with these in their minds, and with a museum there, having a chamber full of such frightful instruments of torture as the devil in a brain fever could scarcely invent, there are hundreds of parrots, who will declaim to you in speech and print, by the hour together, on the degeneracy of the times in which a railroad is building across the water at Venice; instead of going down ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... and was even most tyrannical towards his own connections, as he drove all the kings out of the Uplands: although, indeed, it was but just reward for having been false to their oaths of fealty to King Canute, and having followed this King Olaf in all the folly he could invent; so their friendship ended according to their deserts, by this king mutilating some of them, taking their kingdoms himself, and ruining every man in the country who had an honourable name. Ye know yourselves how he has treated the lendermen, of whom many of the worthlest have been murdered, and many ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... grew outrageous in his demands upon the Devil, and put him to all sorts of absurd and ridiculous tasks; but they were all punctually performed, until Simon could invent no new ones, and the Devil sat all day with his hands in his pockets ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it were not Friday,' Vida said slyly as her sister was preparing to leave the house, 'you'd invent some errand to take you out of the contaminated air of Queen Anne's ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... void of any of those feelings which actuate men to do good. But he was perhaps equally void of those which actuate men to do evil. He got into debt with utter recklessness, thinking of nothing as to whether the tradesmen would ever be paid or not. But he did not invent active schemes of deceit for the sake of extracting the goods of others. If a man gave him credit, that was the man's look-out; Bertie Stanhope troubled himself nothing further. In borrowing money he did the same; he gave people references ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... our food was but indifferent; no fruit or vegetables, or fish. Eggs we had in abundance from the chickens and ducks we had brought with us, and which had scarcely ceased laying since we arrived, so much did they thrive in this luxuriant island. The evenings were very tedious, and we had to invent all sorts of games which would at once amuse them, and yet ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... 705 T' enervate this objection, And prove myself; by topic clear No gelding, as you would infer. Loss of virility's averr'd To be the cause of loss of beard, 710 That does (like embryo in the womb) Abortive on the chin become. This first a woman did invent, In envy of man's ornament; SEMIRAMIS, of Babylon, 715 Who first of all cut men o' th' stone, To mar their beards, and lay foundation Of sow-geldering operation. Look on this beard, and tell me whether Eunuchs wear such, or geldings either? 720 Next it appears I am no horse; That I can argue ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... adultery, they stand in connection with the prophet only through the mother; as soon as he has rejected the mother, he has nothing further to do with them.—The supposition that Gomer had died, is evidently the result of an embarrassment which finds itself compelled to invent such fictions.—Finally,—Several interpreters, after the example of Augustine, suppose that no marriage at all is here spoken of, but only a certain kindness which the prophet should manifest to some woman, in order to encourage her conversion. But this opinion is ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... If all the manufacturers of a single product get together and agree to form a patent pool, it means that if one company buys a patent, all of them can use it. Say the automobile companies have one. That means that if you invent a radical new design for an engine—one, maybe that would save them millions of dollars—you'll be offered a few measly thousand for it. Why should they offer more? Where else are you going to sell it? If one company gets it, they all get it. There's no competition, and if you ...
— With No Strings Attached • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA David Gordon)
... monitory or profitable to them.... As soon as possible he would make the children learn to write; and, when they had the use of the pen, he would employ then in writing out the most instructive, and profitable things he could invent for them.... The first chastisement which he would inflict for any ordinary fault was to let the child see and hear him in an astonishment, and hardly able to believe that the child could do so base ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... to talk over this matter of the poor Le Bretons with your son. Oh, Mr. Arthur, something must really be done to help them. I know you say there's nothing to be done; but there must be; we must find it out; we must invent it; we must compel it. When I sat there this morning with that dear little woman and saw her breaking her full heart over her husband's trouble, I said to myself, somehow, Hilda Tregellis, if you can't find a way out of this, you're not worth your salt in this world, and you'd better make haste ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... invent a nice cluster of titles for the book and send them to me to choose from, to Hotel de l'Arno, Florence. I must get that out before the day of judgment, if I can. I'm so glad of your sweet flatteries in this note ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... the Government for its new coastguard service. 'I don't deny,' he said, 'it's an improvement on anything we've seen yet under the Customs, or would be, if there was any real smuggling left to grapple with. But the "trade" has been dwindling now for these thirty years, and to invent this fire-new service to suppress what's dying of its own accord is an infernal waste of public money.' 'I doubt,' Sir John demurred, 'if smuggling be quite so near death's door as you fancy. Hey, doctor—in Polpeor now?' The doctor ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... or homely, tall or short, fair or dark, plump or spare. I was interested in their eyes, but, somehow, I was still more interested in their mouths. Some mouths would set my blood on fire. I would invent all sorts of romantic episodes with myself as the hero. I would portray my engagement to some of the pretty girls I had seen, our wedding, and, above all, our married life. The worst of it was that these images often visited my brain while I was ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... be found, like a wild flower, 215 All over his dear Country; [S] left the deeds Of Wallace, like a family of Ghosts, To people the steep rocks and river banks, Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul Of independence and stern liberty. 220 Sometimes it suits me better to invent A tale from my own heart, more near akin To my own passions and habitual thoughts; Some variegated story, in the main Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts 225 Before the very sun that brightens it, Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish, My best and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... The forms also of Reduction (a term which will be explained later on) would be simplified; and generally the introduction of the quantified predicate into logic might be attended with certain mechanical advantages. The object of the logician, however, is not to invent an ingenious system, but to arrive at a true analysis of thought. Now, if it be admitted that in the ordinary form of proposition the subject is used in extension and the predicate in intension, the ground for the doctrine is at once cut away. For, if the predicate be not used in its ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... bakers, Cardinal Khlesl and the Vizier Etmekdschifade. It was destined to endure through all the horrors of the great war, a stronger protection to Vienna than all the fortifications which the engineering art could invent. He was safe too from Poland, King Sigmund being not only a devoted Catholic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to become rifle-bombers, although their knowledge of bombs was of the most elementary description. Two problems therefore faced those responsible for the training and equipment of the rifle-bombers. First how to get them even partially trained in the time, and second to invent some apparatus for carrying the rifle-grenades. At first it was only possible to train the N.C.O.s in charge of the rifle-bombing sections—leaving them to instruct their sections as ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... aggravated, when such advantage is taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can invent? ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... invent the tale of Othello; English genius could put it on the stage; but Nature alone reserves the power of throwing into a single glance an expression of jealousy grander and more complete than England and Italy together could imagine. This look, seen by Esther, made her clutch the Spaniard by the arm, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... surfaces, and of determining the foci of lenses, and of the relative positions of the images which they form, and the objects from which the rays proceed. He was thus led to explain the rationale of the telescope, and to invent the astronomical telescope, which consists of two convex lenses, by which objects are seen inverted. Kepler also discovered the important fact, that spherical surfaces were not capable of converging rays to a single focus, and he conjectured, what Descartes afterwards proved, that this property might ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... you needn't be troubled about that, Agnes. I dare say they've got on perfectly well together. Very likely they're sitting down to the unwholesomest hot supper this instant that the ingenuity of man could invent. ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... This he sometimes tries to do; and people who have seen him "turning cart-wheels" along the side of the road have supposed that he was amusing himself, and idling his time; he was only trying to invent a new mode of locomotion, so that he could economize his legs and do his errands with greater dispatch. He practices standing on his head, in order to accustom himself to any position. Leapfrog is one of his methods ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... with tug and strain, lifts it, ready to slip off and smash at any moment, and, grunting, transfers it to the kiln. A little mechanical appliance would save nine-tenths of the labour, a stage on wheels raised or lowered at will (a thing which surely should not be hard to invent) would bring it from the bench to the kiln, and then, if needs be, and no better method could be found, the fork might be used to put ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... deities are like the figures on porcelain vases: all know their appearance and some their names, but hardly anyone can give a coherent account of them. A poly-daemonism of this kind is even more fluid than Hinduism: you may invent any god you like and neglect gods that don't concern you. The habit of mind which produces sects in India, namely the desire to exalt one's own deity above others and make him the All-God, does not exist. No Chinese god ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... said Jeanne Bergre, "that already God has opened His mind to her, and that she knows of that vengeance, which we with our small minds are not able to invent." ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... a short distance to the elder Entriken's farm, and, rather than invent a laborious explanation of the horse's absence all night, Gordon walked. Numberless excuses offered him plausible reason for his own delayed return home.—It was better to say nothing to Lettice of his actual intention; she was already ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... little chance that he would know anything of what had occurred. It was a fortunate chance that the next day was Sunday, and there would be no morning paper to enlighten him as to the doings in Hampshire. They had only to invent some plausible excuse for their wish to accompany him, and get him to drop them upon the Spanish coast. Once out of sight of England and on the broad ocean, what detective could follow ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you could find some scheme, invent some plot, to get me out of the trouble I am in, I should think myself indebted to you ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... are of every sort,[535] and taken from everywhere. Chaucer never troubled himself to invent any; he received them from all hands, but he modelled them after his own fashion, and adapted them to his characters. They are borrowed from France, Italy, ancient Rome; the knight's tale is taken from Boccaccio, that of the nun's priest is imitated from the "Roman de Renart"; ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the exercise of the reasoning powers is absolutely sinful—l'homme qui raisonne est l'homme qui peche. Franklin, on the other hand, in a familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the cupidity of the indolent and avaricious ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... first the occupations of this little group were many and various. They worked if they had something to do, or could invent a pretext. They told and retold stories until all were wearisome. They sang songs. Mercedes taught Spanish. They played every game they knew. They invented others that were so trivial children would scarcely have been interested, and these they played ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... definition of the word which can make it possible to describe him as having any style at all. It is not only that he manifestly recognized no external canons whereto to conform the expression of his thoughts, but he had, apparently, no inclination to invent and observe—except, indeed, in the most negative of senses—any style of his own. The "style of Sterne," in short, is as though one should say "the form of Proteus." He was determined to be uniformly eccentric, regularly irregular, and that was all. His digressions, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... toilet-boxes, containing blond sponges, curling-irons, sea-wolves' teeth to polish the nails, the green rouge of Egypt, which turns to a most beautiful pink on touching the skin, powders to darken the eyelashes and eyebrows, and all the refinements that feminine coquetry could invent. Other litters were freighted with purple robes of the finest linen and of all possible shades from the incarnadine hue of the rose to the deep crimson of the blood of the grape; calasires of the ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... presented to the public. In vain did the author of this work, in his younger days, search the book stores and libraries in the hopes of finding such a book, and many are the traps and snares which necessity forced him to invent and construct for himself, for want of just such a volume. Several of these original inventions will appear in the present work for the first time in book form, and the author can vouch for their excellence, and he might almost say, their infallibility, for in their perfect state he has never yet ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... interested, could not help saying that he was thankful these murderous engines of war had not been discovered in his time. It is indeed sad to think that the ingenuity of people should be required to invent such dreadful engines for the destruction of their fellow-creatures. When will the blessings of the gospel of peace be universally spread abroad, and nations learn ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... best intentions, say unpleasant things. She has for this quite a rare talent—you will soon experience this; but she does not intend anything so bad. She can also joke! Thank God that you will not remain there over night, otherwise you would experience what she and the Mamsell can invent!" ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... course proves the terms On which man wins content; Reason the proof confirms— We spurn it, and invent A false course for the world, and for ourselves, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold |
