"Contrivance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a graphic Description of a Martian Home and Surroundings, then shows how the Food is manipulated. It is brought from a Central Depot in a Mechanical Contrivance which is run underground, thence up into the Dining room. The Soiled Dishes are run down and off the same way. No ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... suggested itself. In walking along I saw far away the glow of some lava which had flowed to the shore at the end of the sandy beach, and was probably cooling down at the water's edge. Here, then, was a natural fire, which might serve us better than any contrivance of our own, and toward this we at once proceeded. It was about two miles away; but the beach was smooth, and we reached ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... used, a good player with a quick ear being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of six drums by his deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning is still performed generally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to any desired semitone within the range of ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... incident to illustrate its novelty, or speed, or convenience, or unusualness, lead up to the description or explanation of some mechanical contrivance. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... to justify his claim by fresh advances. New apparatus for lights in new situations was continually being designed with the same unwearied search after perfection, the same nice ingenuity of means; and though the holophotal revolving light perhaps still remains his most elegant contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over the much later condensing system, with its thousand possible modifications. The number and the value of these improvements entitle their author to the name of one of mankind's benefactors. In all parts of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way and to the extent that they affect such distribution in practice. Hence results may differ widely from the expectations with which those provisions are introduced. A constitution is essentially a growth and never merely a contrivance. ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... very clear suggestions of the transition from water to land. We must, of course, conceive it as a slow and gradual adaptation. At first there may have been a rough contrivance for deriving oxygen directly and partially from the atmosphere, as the water of the lake became impure. So important an advantage would be fostered, and, as the inland sea became smaller, or its population larger or fiercer, ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... for his life.[3] Still, he held on, keeping up his men's spirits, and knowing that relief must arrive in time. He was never greater than in unlooked-for difficulties. He never rested. He was always inventing some new contrivance. He could have retired from the place with no serious loss. He could have taken to his ships and forced his way to sea in spite of the winds and the Alexandrians. But he felt that to fly from such an enemy would dishonor the Roman name, and he ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... Roman history was the empress Massalina, and nothing is more natural than that she should be selected for a heroin by a Frenchman. In a new five act play of which the Parisian journals give us elaborate criticisms, she is represented as a very virtuous wife, by the ingenious contrivance of giving a certain courtezan such a striking personal resemblance to her that it was impossible to distinguish between the two, and making the courtezan commit all the atrocities of the real Massalina. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... boys gathered near the archway. Unheeding, the girl passed in at an open door and felt her way up a staircase; the air was noisome, notwithstanding a fierce draught which swept down the stairs. She entered a room lighted by a small metal lamp hanging on the wall—a precaution of Pennyloaf's own contrivance. There was no bed, but one mattress lay with a few rags of bed-clothing spread upon it, and two others were rolled up in a corner. This chamber accommodated, under ordinary circumstances, four persons: Mr. and Mrs. Candy, Pennyloaf, and a son named Stephen, whose years were eighteen. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... to drive his sheep to the edge of a precipice, and then is in a despair how to get them down again. Pharaoh is behind my flock Israel, in the south is Baal-zephon, in the north Midgol, and before us the sea lies spread out. [24] Thou knowest, O Lord, that it is beyond human strength and human contrivance to surmount the difficulties standing in our way. Thine alone is the work of procuring deliverance for this army, which left Egypt at Thy appointment. We despair of all other assistance or device, and we have recourse only to our hope in Thee. If there be any escape possible, we look ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... light shawl, which completely hides the slit in the dress from view. She now takes her muff, which, to the uninitiated eye, has nothing to distinguish it, outwardly, from thousands of other muffs, but which is a master-piece of ingenious contrivance. It is covered with any kind of fur, just as honest muffs are, with the significant exception that, instead of being padded with cotton, the fur rests upon a framework of wire. Between the fur covering and ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... the appearance of these organisms in time, and of the wonderful order in which they were chronologically arranged. Not only—to borrow from Paley's illustration—does it enable him to argue on the old grounds, from the contrivance exhibited in the watch found on the moor, that the watch could not have lain upon the moor forever; but it establishes further, on different and more direct evidence, that there was a time when absolutely the watch was not there; nay, further, so to speak, that ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... meed of credit and praise should be awarded to Chief Engineer William W. W. Wood, of the navy, to whose inventive abilities and experience in submarine warfare we owe the contrivance of the torpedo and the successful arrangement by which it is handled and exploded. The one fired by Lieutenant Cushing contained but fifty pounds of powder; but it did its work to a charm. There was no chance of its failing ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... intimately acquainted with the circumstances of each, he could judge between those who would be reliable and those to whom he would be obliged to refuse membership. The tenants, conclaving together of an evening on doorsteps, had come to the conclusion that the Universal Thrift Club was the very contrivance which they had lacked for years. They saw in it a cure for all their economic ills, and the gate to Paradise. The dame who put the question to him on the morning after his defeat wanted to be the possessor of carpets, a new teapot, a silver ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... were that would come with him that day into the chamber where the head was, it was an easy matter for him to answer the first question at once and correctly; the others he answered by guess-work, and, being clever, cleverly. Cide Hamete adds that this marvellous contrivance stood for some ten or twelve days; but that, as it became noised abroad through the city that he had in his house an enchanted head that answered all who asked questions of it, Don Antonio, fearing it might come to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... father, 'I was cool enough last night. That detestable Maypole! By some infernal contrivance of the builder, it holds the wind, and keeps it fresh. You remember the sharp east wind that blew so hard five weeks ago? I give you my honour it was rampant in that old house last night, though out of doors there was a dead calm. But ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... they came upon the contrivance which had soaked Brick Simpson's pursuers with water. It was a cunning arrangement. Where the slip led through a fence with a board missing, a long slat was so arranged that the ignorant wayfarer could not fail to strike against it. This slat was the spring of the trap. ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... salambao is a raft of reeds or bamboo; on which is erected an apparatus not unlike the mast and yard of a square-rigged ship. To one end of the yard is attached a net which may be raised from and lowered into the water. This contrivance is called by the natives timba. See full description of the salambao, and of other native modes of fishing, in Zuniga's Estadismo (Retana's ed.), i, pp. 199, 200; and illustration of this apparatus in F. Jagor's Travels in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... felt certain that she would never make up her mind to be well, for her good health would have supplied me with too strong an argument against her pretended innocence, even in the case of Cordiani; I likewise considered her idea of having her bed placed near her mother's nothing but artful contrivance. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for One to whom ye will be dear; 25 And she will prize this Bower, this Indian shed, Our own contrivance, Building without peer! —A gentle Maid, whose heart is lowly bred, Whose pleasures are in wild fields gathered, With joyousness, and with a thoughtful cheer, 30 Will come [3] to you; to you herself will wed; And love the blessed life that [4] ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... The plan (Bog's contrivance all this) was to inquire at the gambling houses where Mr. Van Quintem, jr., was most likely to be, and, when he was found, to send this note in to him by a servant. Bog, having delivered the note, was to withdraw to the sidewalk, lie in ambush, till young Van Quintem came out, and then follow ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... they told me true, it goes by itself; but it creeps like old Sobieska,' he added, to comfort himself. Yet, deep down in his heart he was afraid of this new contrivance and felt that it boded no good to the neighbourhood. And though he reasoned inconsequently he was right, for with the appearance of the railway engines there also came much thieving. From pots and pans, drying on the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... may be excused for not being harsh. Such an outpouring of sympathy on the part of the public had never been seen in Washington since the assassination of Lincoln. Those in charge were overwhelmed with every sort of contrivance for relieving the sufferings of the illustrious patient. Such disinterested efforts in behalf of a public and patriotic object had never been seen. Mr. Jennings had gone to the trouble and expense of bringing his apparatus all the way from Baltimore to Washington in order to do what in him ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... contrivance. Tarlton produced a piece called "The Plat-form of the Seven Deadly Sins;" and in "Sir J. Oldcastle," by Drayton and others, first printed in 1600, it is used with the same meaning as in the text, viz., a contrivance for giving ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... it will not break during the struggles of the victim. Then there is a line attached to the head itself so that the hunter can handle the struggling animal or fish by means of it and of the shaft of the arrow. The whole contrivance is a marvel of ingenuity in meeting the conditions the Amazon hunter is called on to face. When the arrow struck this particular pirarucu, at close range, he made straight for the shore, hauling the canoe and its contents after him at considerable speed. We got tangled among the ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... stick for resting his hand on; for such was his accuracy of eye, and steadiness of nerve, that he could introduce the most delicate touches, or the almost mechanical regularity of line, without aid, or other contrivance than fair off-hand dexterity. He remained in his painting-room till a little after five o'clock, when he walked home, and dined at six.... From one who knew him in his youthful days, and sat to him when ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... delighted when I discovered her quickness of comprehension. I was charmed too by the unaffected pleasure she showed in acquiring new ideas, and surprised by the judicious proportion of the admiration she expressed for all that was in various degrees excellent in arrangement, or ingenious in contrivance: in short.... ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... said, "must have been at the bottom of the mischief, Davie. It must have been he who put the spoon into your pocket. What a fiendish contrivance!" ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... have appeared against the proposed Constitution, the most extraordinary and the least colorable is derived from the want of some provision respecting the debts due TO the United States. This has been represented as a tacit relinquishment of those debts, and as a wicked contrivance to screen public defaulters. The newspapers have teemed with the most inflammatory railings on this head; yet there is nothing clearer than that the suggestion is entirely void of foundation, the offspring of extreme ignorance or extreme dishonesty. In addition to the remarks I have made upon ...
— The Federalist Papers
... excluded by their Puritan and evangelical convictions from the profession for which they were trained, turned to America as the most inviting field for service among the elect of God. They were men of ability and conviction—"a chosen company of men, picked out ... by no human contrivance, but by a strange contrivance of God," to be the leaders ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Belgian artillerymen commanded by British gunners and each gun- truck carried, in addition, a detachment of infantry in the event of the enemy getting to close quarters. Personally, I am inclined to believe that the chief value of this novel contrivance lay in the moral encouragement it lent to the defence, for its guns, though more powerful, certainly, than anything that the Belgians possessed, were wholly outclassed, both in range and calibre, by the German artillery. The German officers whom I questioned on the subject after the occupation told ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... Darwin a very different interpretation. The lobster's powerful claw, the butterfly's gorgeous tints, the rose's delicious fragrance, the architectural instinct of the bee, the astonishing structure of the orchid, are no longer explained as the results of contrivance. That simple but wasteful process of survival of the fittest, through which such marvellous things have come into being, has little about it that is analogous to the ingenuity of human art. The infinite and eternal Power which is thus revealed in the physical life of the universe ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... windows and full of people, come rushing down the street with a fearful whirr and clank of bell, he wanted to bolt. But the man on his back spoke in an easy, calm voice, saying, "So-o-o! There, me b'y. Aisy wid ye. So-o-o!" which was excellent advice, for the queer contrivance whizzed by and did him no harm. In a week he could watch one without even ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... talk of this thing, he was not going to do it with the burden of any sort of reserve or contrivance on his soul. "This afternoon?" Bushwick nodded; and Verrian added, "That was she." Then he went on, wrathfully: "She's a girl who has to make her living, and she's doing it in a new way that she's invented for herself. She has supposed that the stupid rich, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... whirring driving-belts and humming wheels where men and women, with the same feverish activity, bend above machines whose very hum sang to me of death, while I have watched a cartridge grow from a disc of metal to the hellish contrivance it is. ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... grand circuit had been accomplished, by hospitable contrivance, we approached the "Jasmine harbour," when to our gratifying surprise, we found the tripod table laden with delicious bread and cheese, surmounted by a brown mug of true Taunton ale. We instinctively took our seats; and there must have ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... invented what was called a "Reflector," made of bright tin for baking. It was a small tin oven with a slanting top, open at one side, and when required for use was set before the fire on the hearth. This simple contrivance was a great convenience, and came into general use. Modern inventions in the appliances for cooking have very much lessened the labour and increased the possibilities of supplying a variety of dishes, but it has not ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... the situation is an active conditioning event; namely the coat itself, when there is no mirror or other such contrivance to produce abnormal effects. But the example of the mirror shows us that the situation may be one of the passive conditioning events. We are then apt to say that our senses have been cheated, because we demand as a right ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... their own headman and the fatherly advice of an R.E. corporal. Looking up the Canal the fatigue party, already late for their dinners, perceive a P. & O. liner about four miles away majestically crawling south. Their only hope is now the horse-ferry, an aged flat-bottomed contrivance wound across by a squad of natives and a chain. With the assistance of a friendly military policeman, the headman of this gang is discovered some hundred of yards away lying asleep with his feet in the Sweet-Water ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... made that it is not too much to say that perhaps some day we may be able to establish some sort of communication with Mars, and if it be inhabited by any intelligent beings, we may be able to signal to them; but it is almost impossible that any contrivance could bridge the gulf of airless space that separates us, and it is not likely that holiday trips to ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... of the course of nature, as it were, come I must, you know; and of this you are the best judge." So saying, Diabolus disappeared; but whether up the chimney, through the keyhole, or by any other aperture or contrivance, nobody knows. Simon Gambouge was left in a fever of delight, as, heaven forgive me! I believe many a worthy man would be, if he were allowed an opportunity to make a ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... life, and encouraged by the manifest power of the contrivance, the Khalifa immediately ordered the second of the two boilers to be sunk in the stream. As the old Egyptian officer had been killed by the explosion, the Emir in charge of the arsenal was entrusted with the perilous business. He rose, however, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... table to disappear and reappear as tables were wont to do at the notorious banquets of King Louis in the Petit Trianon. The glass observatory enabled the kitchen attendants to watch the progress of the meals. Sir Cyril knew of the contrivance, and, rushing to the upright pillar, had worked ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... As the contrivance came to rest, Cousin Egbert ran to the Tuttle person, who had dismounted, and warmly shook his hand, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... or killed by the fall. It was remarked, that Dunstan had that day prevented the king from attending the synod, and that the beam, on which his own chair stood, was the only one that did not sink under the weight of the assembly [a]. But these circumstances, instead of begetting any suspicion of contrivance, were regarded as the surest proof of the immediate interposition of Providence in behalf of those favourites of Heaven. [FN [z] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 9. Osberne, p. 112. Gervase, p. 1647. Brompton, p. 870. Higden, p. 269. [a] Chron. Sax. p. 124. W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... of these fraudulent contracts the State, it appeared, had paid more than a million and a half, while the proposals at contract prices called for less than half a million. This result, he said in substance, was brought about by a unique contrivance. The engineer designated the quantity and kinds of work to be done, and when these estimates were published by the commissioners, the favoured contractor, learning through collusion what materials would ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... a weird, hastily built contrivance composed of two semi-circular pieces of spring brass, crossed at right angles. On all four ends were bright silvery electrodes, three of them circular in shape, one of them elongated and slightly curved. With a quick, nervous gesture, Mercer fitted the thing to his head, so ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... detail one of these old fireplaces—a delight to the soul of the antiquary. Every homely utensil and piece of furniture, every domestic convenience and inconvenience, every home-made makeshift, every cumbrous and clumsy contrivance of the old-time kitchen here may be found, and they show to us, as in a living photograph, the home life of ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... p. 104. Anyone familiar with the political and psychological atmosphere would have seen that the Greeks were anxious to keep the Bulgars out by inducing the French to forestall them. But Sarrail detected in their advice a subtle contrivance either to find out his plans, or to cast the blame for the ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... stand Earthen Pots at each corner; which are for ornament; or which is a newer fashion, something made of Earth resembling Flowers and Branches. And no Houses besides, except Temples, may have these placed upon them. The contrivance of his Palace is, as I may say, like Woodstock Bower, with many turnings and windings, and doors, he himself having ordered and contrived all these Buildings, and the manner of them. At all the Doors and Passages stand Watches: and they who thus give attendance are not ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... By what contrivance has the rounded head of the Indian been moulded into this fantastic shape? I have elsewhere[17-] offered some explanations of this subject; but the present series of skulls throws yet more light on it, and enables me to indicate the precise manner ...
— Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines • Samuel George Morton
... hazel, which, bent above the car in the fashion of a booth, bore another coverlid, by way of awning, and served for protection against the weather; but few there were who could indulge in such a luxury as this of the "chaise marine," which is the name the contrivance bears, but why, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the little boy he had so long wished for to be his page, took pity on the disgraceful situation into which, by his merry contrivance, he had brought his Titania, and threw some of the juice of the other flower into her eyes; and the fairy queen immediately recovered her senses, and wondered at her late dotage, saying how she now loathed the sight of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... operations of its parts? Is a bee no more essentially one than a swarm is? Is the life of a living animal indistinguishable from the rhythm of a going watch, except in degree of complication and subtlety of contrivance? And if an animal's body, say my own, is simply an agglomerate of minute interacting material units, and its wholeness is merely accidental and apparent, how is my conscious mind to be adjusted to it? For my consciousness appears to identify itself ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... place where they had jumped into the water, and later they raided the house from the land side. The deaf mute was nowhere to be found. She had fled when she discovered that her charges had escaped and was never heard of again. They ascended in the elevator but were unable to find the contrivance which opened the door into the room, so cunningly was it devised, and had to be content with looking through the grill-work ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... and contrivance were now concentrated on seeing Dorothea when she was alone. He only wanted her to take more emphatic notice of him; he only wanted to be something more special in her remembrance than he could yet believe ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... not only the pyramids, which date from the very earliest period of Egyptian history, and which are to this hour the wonder of the world for size, for boldness, for exactness, and for skilful contrivance, but also the temples, with long ranges of colossal columns wrought in polished granite, with wonderful beauty of ornamentation, with architraves and roofs vast in size and exquisite in adjustment, which by their proportions tax the imagination, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... slowly, and rubbing his knees and shoulders, said, 'You see, my dear Scythrop, in this little incident, one of the innumerable proofs of the temporary supremacy of the devil; for what but a systematic design and concurrent contrivance of evil could have made the angles of time and place coincide in our unfortunate persons at the head of ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... provinces and dependencies, and the cap the like!" "By Allah, O my sons, discover to me their secret virtues." So they said, "O uncle, they are extraordinary; for our father wrought an hundred and thirty and five years at their contrivance, till he brought them to perfection and ingrafted them with secret attributes which might serve him extraordinary services and engraved them after the likeness of the revolving sphere, and by their aid he dissolved all spells; and when he had made ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... ear, swelling and sinking with an almost supernatural cadence. The character of the instrument was far enough removed from anything she had hitherto seen of Bob's hobbies; so that she marvelled pleasantly at the new depths of poetry this contrivance revealed as existent in that young seaman's nature, and allowed her emotions to flow out yet a little further in the old direction, notwithstanding her late severe resolve ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... were manufactured out of hard, beautifully polished black or white wood, and were provided with a point of bamboo one-third the length of the entire arrow. That bamboo point was tightly fastened to the rod by means of a careful and very precisely made contrivance of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Indiana [Mr. Morton] truly said (in the recent campaign in Ohio) that he participated in framing it; and he and those who agreed with him fixed the time so remote as to excite the unfounded charge that the bill was a sham, a mere contrivance to bridge an election. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... at a loss how to explain pur; either the muse of Euthyphro has deserted me, or there is some very great difficulty in the word. Please, however, to note the contrivance which I adopt whenever I am in ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... parts which have been restored to their natural position must be kept there, without disturbance or agitation, until the perfect formation of a callus, and it is here that ample latitude exists for the exercise of ingenuity and skill by the surgeon in the contrivance of the necessary apparatus. One of the most important of the conditions which are available by the surgeon in treating human patients is denied to the veterinarian in the management of those which belong to the animal tribes. This ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... they are alembics through which its parts must necessarily move to attain that vigor which shall continue forever."18 To state this figment is enough. It would be folly to attempt any refutation of a fancy so obviously a pure contrivance to fortify a preconceived opinion, a fancy, too, so preposterous, so utterly without countenance, either from experience, observation, science, reason, or Scripture. The egg of man's divinity is not laid in the nest ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of Brown's Jamaica Ginger, in case of sea-sickness. Debby's sister-in-law brought a bundle of dried chamomile for the same purpose. Some one had told her it was the "handiest thing in the world to take along with you on them steamboats." Cecy sent a wonderful old-gold and scarlet contrivance to hang on the wall of the stateroom. There were pockets for watches, and pockets for medicines, and pockets for handkerchief and hairpins,—in short, there were pockets for everything; besides a pincushion with "Bon Voyage" ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... to be felled, much preparation is necessary. So tall a stick, without any limbs nearer the ground than eighty or a hundred feet, is in great danger of breaking in the fall. To prevent this the workmen have a contrivance which they call bedding the tree, which is thus executed. They know in what direction the tree will fall; and they cut down a number of smaller trees which grow in that direction; or if there be none, they draw others to the spot, and place them so that the falling tree may lodge on their ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... water, and applied to the angles of the jaw, are beneficial. Inhalations of lime, made by slaking freshly burnt lime in a vessel, and directing the vapor to the child's mouth, by means of a newspaper, or similar contrivance. Flour of sulphur, blown into the back of the mouth and throat by means of a goose quill, has been highly recommended. Frequent gargling of the throat and mouth, with a solution of lactic acid, strong enough to taste sour, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... itself will do if perpendicular to the base. Then, having two musket bullets attached to a silk thread, simply hang them over the camera, and everything required will be attained much quicker by these plumb-lines, and with accuracy equal to the spirit-levels. The advantage of the simple contrivance of two bullets suspended by threads is, that when the thread is laid across the camera, it is at once seen whether the thread touches all the way down both sides; if not, one or other side of the camera is raised, until the thread lies ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... occasion for delivering, much to the delight of the Tory lords present, a long and utterly unjustified tirade against Franklin. With thunderous voice and violent beating of his fist on the cushion before him, he denounced Franklin as the "prime mover of this whole contrivance against his majesty's two governors." Although the letters had been given to Franklin for the express purpose of having them conveyed to America, Wedderburn accused him of base treachery; turning to the committee he said: "I hope, my Lords, you will mark and brand the man, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... design, as given in a summary though clear, plain, and convincing form, in the pages of Paley and the "Bridgewater Treatises." The eye and the hand, those perfect instruments of optical and mechanical contrivance and adaptation, without the least waste or surplusage—these, say Paley and Bell, certainly prove a designing maker as much as the palace or the watch proves an architect or a watchmaker. Let this mind, in this state, cross ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... jumped into the little contrivance. A sort of oar lay in the bottom. He thrust it ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... is the case. In the cellar is a neat little room of four solid walls—no windows. There is a slight crack at the bottom, and through this, by a contrivance of my own, I can let in the waters of the river. The door is solid, and, once locked in, you cannot get out. I believe that this is a fitting death for a police spy. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... wheels and pulleys and levers and half-finished inventions that wouldn't work, and that, even if they would work, would be of little consequence. There was an attempt to make a self-oiler for buggy wheels, a half-finished contrivance that was supposed to keep cordwood stacked in neat rows; an automatic contraption to prevent coffeepots from burning; a cornsheller that would all but work; a molasses faucet with an alcohol burner which was supposed to make the sirup flow ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... to the discourse, by letting her know where the Doctor made the most of his subject, and where it might have been touched to greater advantage: for it is really a very affecting story, and has as pretty a contrivance in it as ever I read. And this I did in such a grave way, that she seemed more and more pleased with me; and I have no doubt, that I shall get her to favour me to-morrow night with her company ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... conversation of the men who had gathered there. At length, beginning to grow sleepy, he retired to his chamber, taking with him a queer little lamp the landlord gave him, which appeared to hold only about a thimblefull of oil. Oscar thought it was a stingy contrivance, and had some notion of sitting up to see how long it would burn; but his eyelids grew heavy, and he gave up the idea. Throwing off his clothing, he extinguished his diminutive lamp, and took possession of one ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... voted an alliance with the Olynthians, and resolved to send succors. But the sending of them was delayed, partly by the contrivance of the opposite faction, partly from the reluctance of the people themselves to engage in a war with Philip. Demosthenes stimulates them to exertion, and encourages them, by showing that Philip's power is not so great ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... and how—that noble and calumniated couple? They had done no wrong, nor even, as it seems to us, the semblance of wrong, unless it be by having acquiesced in the foolishness of secresy, and thus aided the contrivance of false witness; for aught else, their only social error had been lack of business caution among business men. Feeling generously themselves, they gave others credit for the like good feeling; acting upon honourable impulse, they believed that other ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... contrivance of the same kind has been exhibited for some time in London and Paris under the title of Cosmorama (from Greek words signifying views of the world, because of the great variety of views.) Pictures of moderate size are placed beyond what have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... board before me was a compact contrivance about five feet square. The center of it contained a four-foot viewplate. Whatever view was picked up by the ultronoscope "eye" of the air ball was automatically broadcast on an accurate tuning channel to this viewplate by the ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... it was only the expedient of political avarice, which sacrificed a greater distant advantage to the immediate satisfaction of present gain. They will find, that they have corrupted the people without obtaining any advantage by their crime, and that they must have recourse to some new contrivance by which their own ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre requires. Particularly, the action is so much one, that it is the only of the kind without episode, or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing to the main design, and every act concluding with a turn of it. The greatest error in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia; for, though I might use the privilege of a poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had not enough considered, that the compassion she moved to herself and children, was destructive to that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... larger packs. They bring forth their young in burrows on the open plain, and not among the woods, like the other species. They are the most cunning of American animals, not excepting their kindred the foxes. They cannot be trapped by any contrivance, but by singular manoeuvres often themselves decoy the over-curious antelope to approach too near them. When a gun is fired upon the prairies they may be seen starting up on all sides, and running for the spot in hopes of coming in for a share of the game. Should an animal—deer, antelope, or ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... things curiously carved in wood are the great attractions of the shops, but they interest me far less than the objects of utility in Japanese daily life, with their ingenuity of contrivance and perfection of adaptation and workmanship. A seed shop, where seeds are truly idealised, attracts me daily. Thirty varieties are offered for sale, as various in form as they are in colour, and arranged most artistically on stands, while some are put up in packages ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... man was triumphant, satisfied with himself and his work, and he only wished to see how the contrivance of his audacious, teeming brain would succeed. Tom Lennard was on board again; and he only recovered from a congestion of adjectives on the brain, after he had fairly freed his nerves by smoking a pipe. He was still subdued, and he never let loose that ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... that of Janet McLeod, published by Dr. McKenzie. She was at the time thirty-three years of age, unmarried, and from the age of fifteen had had various attacks of epilepsy, which had produced so rigid a lock-jaw that her mouth could rarely be forced open by any contrivance; she had lost very nearly the power of speech and deglutition, and with this all desire to eat or drink. Her lower limbs were contracted towards her body; she was entirely confined to her bed, and ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... of a cosmopolitan society, while the text itself was embalmed in the Masora, an elaborate system of punctuation and notation, to every particle of which, to insure its uncorrupted preservation, a mystical significance was attached. By this curious contrivance the letter of the Law, the charter of Judaism, was sanctified forever, while its spirit was remodelled to the exigencies of the present or the future, till it would have been no longer recognized by its authors, or even by very recent disciples. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... evil for eyes that had knowledge behind them. Even in his most triumphant mood Steve was not without a feeling of repulsion at the sight. His mask held him impervious to the deadly fumes of the oozing sap, but well enough he knew that, in such a presence, it was only that ingenious contrivance that stood ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... rubbing the mirror. This mirror was, in fact, provided with some western mechanism, which enabled it to open and shut, so while goody Liu inadvertently passed her hands, quite at random over its surface, the pressure happily fell on the right spot, and opening the contrivance, the mirror flung round, exposing a door to view. Old goody Liu was full of amazement as well as of admiration. With hasty step, she egressed. Her eyes unexpectedly fell on a most handsome set of bed-curtains. But being at the time still ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... be made to traverse to and fro, thus carrying whatever is suspended from it further outward, or drawing it in, as may be required. All the cranes, both in the smith's shop and in the foundry, are fitted with the same contrivance. These trucks are moved by means of a wheel at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... deposit which Cornelius de Witt, already threatened by the unpopularity with which his countrymen were going to honour him, was placing in the hands of his godson; a contrivance so much the more cleverly devised, as it certainly was not at all likely that it should be searched for at the house of one who had always stood aloof from every ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... as I can see than any other in these parts, and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air. With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that 'tis the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... vast machine, and adjusted all its parts according to one regular plan or connected system. For though, to persons of a certain turn of mind, it may not appear altogether absurd, that several independent beings, endowed with superior wisdom, might conspire in the contrivance and execution of one regular plan, yet is this a merely arbitrary supposition, which, even if allowed possible, must be confessed neither to be supported by probability nor necessity. All things in the universe are evidently of a piece. Everything is adjusted to everything. ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... with a number of movable ends, all different, in order that Mrs. Jarley could, if she chose, vary the appearance of her curls according to her taste; and although the little lady never approved of it sufficiently to have it made, it was undoubtedly a valuable contrivance. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... of M. Bleriot suggests most horribly to me how far behind we must be in all matters of ingenuity, device, and mechanical contrivance. I am reminded again of the days during the Boer war, when one realised that it had never occurred to our happy-go-lucky Army that it was possible to make a military use of barbed wire or construct a trench ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... be precarious;" one thing to be oblique, and another to be fantastical. On such occasions the more powerful the microscope is that the critic can employ, the better; not only because all suspicion of contrivance or design is thereby further removed, but because proofs, separately trifling, are, when united, irresistible; and the circumstantial evidence to which courts of justice are compelled, by the necessity of human affairs, to recur, in matters where the lives and fortunes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... frame such predictions as these, which to him would seem as strange and unaccountable as prophesy doth to others. Even they who are blessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make it less observed) find therein sufficient cause of admiration. The wonderful art and contrivance wherewith it is adjusted to those ends and purposes for which it was apparently designed, the vast extent, number, and variety of objects that are at once with so much ease and quickness and pleasure suggested by it: all these afford subject for much and pleasing speculation, ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... the mere rattle of my fellow-prisoner's chains fill me with shivering despair. And because of these sick fears I felt great scorn of myself, and knowing I was in this place of horror by my own will and contrivance, to despair and scorn was added a bitter self-hatred. And now, remembering how Adam had vowed to rescue Sir Richard, I prayed for his coming, at one moment full of hope, the next in an agony of despair lest he should come too late. Thus I fell to my black mood, speaking no word or answering my companion ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... dare say I could rig up some sort of an arrangement, if it were worth while. But it would be rather a cumbersome contrivance to ship and unship, and I would not recommend it unless there is likely to be much of this sort of thing between here and ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... as it was when Mrs. Ripwinkley was a widow, and poor,—that is, comparative; and it took all her and my contrivance to look after the place and keep things going, and paying, up in Homesworth; there was something to buckle to, then; but now, everything is eased and flatted out, as it were; it makes me res'less, like a child put to bed ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... not mind it. The point of sight is the mark of a foregone action of the mind; what is embraced in it is seen together, because it belongs to one conception. The effect can be simulated to a certain extent by mechanical contrivance; but before the rules of perspective were systematized, the perspective of a picture betrays its history, tells how much of it was seen together, and what was added. Even late in the fifteenth century pictures are still more or less mosaics,—their piecemeal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Kirsteen's room she found a little table and a pillow, and something that might do, and having devised a contrivance by which this went into that and that into this and nothing whatever showed, she conveyed the whole very quietly up near dear Derek's room, and told darling Nedda to go down-stairs and look for something that she knew she would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a third in our journey; but we can't stow him, inside at least. Positively you shall go with me as was agreed, and don't let me have any of your politesse to H. on the occasion. I shall manage to arrange for both with a little contrivance. I wish H. was not quite so fat, and we should pack better. You will want to know ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... but firmly and invariably, affixing some slight privation or penalty to every act of resistance to her will, is the easiest to practice, and will certainly be successful. It requires no ingenuity, no skill, no contrivance, no thought—nothing but steady persistence in a simple routine. This was the first of the three modes of action enumerated at the commencement of this discussion. There were two others named, which, though requiring higher qualities in the mother than simple steadiness of purpose, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... christian duty. The members therefore of this society are expected to wait in silence, not only in their places of worship, but occasionally in their families, or in their private chambers, in the intervals of their daily occupations, that, in stillness of heart, and in freedom from the active contrivance of their own wills, they may acquire both directions and strength for the performance of the duties of life. The Quakers therefore are of opinion, that, if instrumental music were admitted as a gratification in leisure hours, it would take the place of many of these serious retirements, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... had surely committed an unpardonable error in leaving this important document in my way. My reverence, indeed, for Ludlow was such, that I sometimes entertained the notion that this seeming oversight was, in truth, a regular contrivance to supply me with a knowledge, of which, when I came maturely to reflect, it was impossible for me to make any ill use. There is no use in relating what would not be believed; and should I publish to the world the existence of islands in the space ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... face was of an uniform and permanent terra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. He was sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten. But from that debile body there issued a bullying voice, tremendously loud, harsh and resonant, as if produced by some powerful mechanical contrivance in the nature of a fog-horn. I do not know what he did with it in the private life of his home, but in the larger sphere of business it presented the advantage of overcoming arguments without the slightest mental effort, by the mere volume of sound. We had had several passages of arms. It took me ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... carry him off; for the sea was just by them. But he had no mind to desert Hyrcanus, nor bring his brother into danger; but he went to Barzapharnes, and told him he did not act justly when he made such a contrivance against them; for that if he wanted money, he would give him more than Antigonus; and besides, that it was a horrible thing to slay those that came to him upon the security of their oaths, and that when they had done them no injury. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... which the loveliest of children slept, and which was also occupied by ourselves, should be made absolutely burglar proof; and this object, by means of extraordinary bolts and chains, I flattered myself I accomplished. My Aunt Martha had a patent contrivance for fastening a door that she always used, whether at home or travelling, and in whose merit she placed implicit confidence. Therefore we did not feel it necessary to be anxious about her; and the servants slept at the top of the house, where ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... from all natural laws clamped its curious hold upon his family and even upon himself. Eliza Marshall had almost come to regard him as she regarded his business: each was a respectable and estimable abstraction which held its own without too direct a heed from her; each an admirable contrivance that had accomplished its purposes so long and with so trustworthy a regularity that the thought of hitch, lapse, failure never presented itself as a really tangible consideration. Each day he ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... death was concealed and hushed up between Ali Baba, his widow, and Morgiana, his slave, with so much contrivance that nobody in the city had the least knowledge or suspicion of the cause of it. Three or four days after the funeral, Ali Baba removed his few goods openly to his sister-in-law's house, in which it was agreed that he should in future live; but the money ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various |
