"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had not only done that in his wrath, but had unbuckled his leathern garter, fit instrument for strife and blood, and peradventure would have smitten, had not the knight, with magisterial ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... grew up vigorously, quick-witted, looking out into the world with clear eyes, and though somewhat rude like his countrymen, yet gifted with senses fully alive to the beauties of nature and the harmonies of voice and instrument. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... American. The friends of Major Andre (and it appears that all who knew him were his friends) will look with a jealous eye on the Poem, whose principal incident is the sad catastrophe which his misconduct, in submitting to be an instrument in a transaction of treachery and deceit, justly brought upon him: but these friends have no cause of offence; the Author has adorned the poetical character of Andre with every virtue; he has made him his Hero; to ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... ditty. The Wren songs, entitled The Window, were privately printed by Sir Ivor Guest in 1867, were set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, and published by Strahan in December 1870. "A puppet," Tennyson called the song-book, "whose only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry that my puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days" (the siege of Paris), "but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise." The verses are described as "partly in the old style," but the true old style ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... the defence of their homes, have failed to assist the Ameer in the formation and maintenance of that indispensable instrument—an organized, well-equipped, easily mobilized army. In regular battle the Afghans can have but little hope of success; their strength lies in the petty warfare peculiar to a wild, mountainous country. As auxiliaries, as partisan troops in their own country, ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... and when I had given him leave, uncovering my side, applied one of his horn cups, which he stopped with chewed paper, and by that means made it stick fast; in the same manner he fixed on the other two, and fell to sharpening his instrument, assuring me that he would give me no pain. He then took off his cups, and gave in each place a stroke with his poignard, which was followed by a stream of blood. He applied his cups several times, and every time struck his lancet into the ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... went we encountered negroes driving in from the country to market, in their rickety old wagons. On some wagons there would be four or five men and women, and here and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a proportionable disposition, such, notwithstanding, is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that part of man which is most divine, that some have thereby ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... high relief, and where the seams Are worn with handling, through the polished crimson sheen, Long streaks of black, the under lacquer, shine out clean. Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights of players Sitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layers Of music to serve every instrument, are there, And on the apex a large flat-topped golden pear. It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering lights, When the sun flares the old barn-chamber with its flights And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards, Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... principle of shame was a main instrument of the penal code of the Athenians, so they endeavoured to attain the same object by the sublimer motive of honour. Upon the even balance of rewards that stimulate, and penalties that deter, Solon and his earlier successors ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lambert in your father's place—a cold, unfeeling man—a money-worshiper, and suspected of being only too willing an instrument in furthering his master's infamous designs. Lambert sedulously cultivated an intimacy with the Hunters—condoled with the mother, ingratiated himself with the young man, and affected unbounded friendship. Ellen, however, with the true instinct of a pure and innocent girl, shrank ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... conditions, and free to try to obtain better terms from other sources, in pursuit of which purpose he was expending money in a variety of directions. The dark and unscrupulous Mohun Lal was his confidant and instrument. Akbar Khan and the chiefs of his party had become aware of Macnaghten's machinations, and they laid a snare for him into which he fell with open eyes. Emissaries were sent to him with the sinister proposals that the British should remain in Afghanistan ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... "drinking in many rivers" with the numerous mouths it has assumed. Then Garuda finds that right above the Soma is "a wheel of steel, keen edged, and sharp as a razor, revolving incessantly. That fierce instrument, of the lustre of the blazing sun and of terrible form, was devised by the gods for cutting to pieces all robbers of the Soma." Garuda passes "through the spokes of the wheel", and has then to contend against "two great snakes of the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... When the instrument was first tried on a select party of confirmed optimists two of them rushed out of the office and have not been heard of since, while the others clawed savagely at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... in the library at Fletcherwood. Then he unscrewed all the bulbs from the chandelier in the library and attached in their places connections with the usual green silk-covered flexible wire rope. These were then joined up to a little instrument which to me looked like a drill. Next he muffed the drill with a wad of felt and applied it to the ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... generally cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, even before Terpander had devised a system of musical notation: and that in their religious ceremonies music was much used. The sistrum, of which the visitor will notice one or two samples in the division, was the instrument most generally used. It consisted of wires suspended through the sides of an arch, to which a handle, generally highly ornamented with the head of Athor, as in the one in the case, is fixed:—the wires terminating ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... Renan left to posterity? As a scholar he created religious criticism in France, and prepared for universal science that incomparable instrument, the Corpus. As an author he bequeathed to universal art, pages which will endure, and to him may be applied what he said of George Sand:—"He had the divine faculty of giving wings to his subject, of producing under the form of fine art the idea which in other hands remained crude and formless." ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... officer's instrument is in the conning tower, but it is usual, too, to have a similar instrument below, and I am sure it is located to the left of the cook's galley. It would not be safe, however, for either of us to be spying around in that quarter," responded ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... outlawry, and exile, by virtue of an act of parliament made for this purpose; and all persons insulted, shall have recourse to this tribunal: let every man who seeks personal reparation with sword, pistol, or other instrument of death, be declared infamous, and banished the kingdom: let every man, convicted of having used a sword or pistol, or other mortal weapon, against another, either in duel or rencountre, occasioned by any previous quarrel, be subject to the same penalties: if any man is killed ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... for his bagpipes, which, with pipes of ebony, tipt with silver, he did play beyond anything of that kind that ever I heard in my life; and with great pains he must have obtained it, but with pains that the instrument do not deserve at all; for, at the best, it is mighty barbarous musick. So home and there to my chamber, to prick out my song, "It is Decreed," intending to have it ready to give Mr. Harris on Thursday, when we ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... affect his adrishta which is that felt but unseen power working out the Karma vivaka, or fruition of works, done by him in former births. This belief directly antagonizes incarnation from the Christian standpoint, where it appears as God's mighty instrument of grace to man. Not so from the Hindu standpoint. The incarnations of Vishnu are referred to in their Shastras "as consequences of deeds which the god himself had performed. One was the fruit of sins he had committed; another of a curse which had been ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... something to my imagination. Two of 'America's Leading Banjoists' charmed me next, for, after all, there is nothing like the banjo. If one does not one's self rejoice in its plunking, there are others who do, and that is enough for my altruistic spirit. Besides, it is America's leading instrument, and those who excel upon it appeal to the patriotism which is never really dormant in us. Its close association with color in our civilization seemed to render it the fitting prelude of the next act, which consisted of 'Monologue and Songs' by a divine creature ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... "separatism," the Government next attacked the special Jewish "system of taxation," not to abolish it, of course, but rather to place it under a more rigorous control for the purpose of preventing it from serving in the hands of the Jews as an instrument for the attainment of specific Jewish ends. It is significant that on the same day on which the Kahal ukase was made public was also issued the new "Regulation Concerning the Basket Tax." [1] The revenue from this tax which ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... a great relief, and restored me to confidence in the establishment. I am at a loss to explain how my faith should have been confirmed afterwards by coming upon a guillotine—an awful instrument in the likeness of a straw-cutter, with a decapitated wooden figure under its blade—which the custodian confessed to be a modern improvement placed there by Signor P——. Yet my credulity was so strengthened by his candor, that I accepted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... She was lucky to die when she did. She did not see the torch, the bayonet, and the mud. But the boy did—with his English accent! How he escaped I don't know; but he died to-night, and the emeralds are in my pocket. See!" Karlov held the instrument close to the other's face. "Look at it well, this grand duke ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... are great and important gaps. Contemporary writers make themselves the judges of what is important to record; documents preserved in public or private archives relate only to such events as need or command the written record or instrument, or to those which have interested some of the actors and their families. Hence in both departments of history, the historical narrative and the original record, it will be found on careful examination that much is needed to make the picture of life complete. ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the tiny instrument to his lips, and drew from it sounds so sweet, so soft, so melodious and tuneful, that his companions seemed to listen in a trance of delight, with eyes as well as ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... arguments may be urged in favour of independent telescopic observation. In the first place, the student who wishes to appreciate the facts and theories of astronomy should familiarize himself with the nature of that instrument to which astronomers have been most largely indebted. In the second place, some of the most important discoveries in astronomy have been effected by means of telescopes of moderate power used skilfully and systematically. One instance may suffice to show what can ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... Astronomer, how to use the controls, and he began to sweep the sky with the instrument, greatly pleased with its resolving ability and ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... moved, but it cast no human shadow on the blind. The light came finally to a standstill, and then there followed sounds which Hugo could not diagnose—short, regular sounds, broken occasionally by a sharp clash, as of an instrument falling. And when these had come to an end, there were more footsteps—a precise, quick walking to and fro, which continued for ages of time. Lastly, the footsteps receded; something dropped, not heavily, but rather in a manner gently subsiding, and a groan ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... scissors," he continued; and then, after a minute, when they had been handed to him and he had removed the fur, "Ha!" he said gravely, "this is not so simple as I thought. The cat has been poisoned, but by a prick with some sharp instrument." ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... canvas, or "paper royall" (i.e. parchment), though the parchment used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps of it remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the weapon had to be "wormed," or scraped out, with an instrument like an edged corkscrew. A tampion, or wad, of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball in place. When the gun was loaded the gunner filled the touch-hole with his priming powder, from a horn he carried in his belt, after thrusting ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... apparition of Samuel and the doom that the ghost has spoken. His children humour and soothe the broken old man, and finally succeed in softening his mind toward David—whom he at once loves, dreads, and hates, as the appointed instrument of his destruction and the successor to his crown. Act third shows David playing upon the harp before Saul, and chanting Saul's deeds in the service and defence of Israel—so that he calms the agonised delirium of the haunted king and wins his blessing; ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... and the girls must practise. Better keep a good instrument than sell it for fifty pounds and spend the money on a ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... denunciation by letter, had not Albinia seriously argued with her, and finding ridicule, expediency, and Christian forgiveness all fail of hitting the mark, said, 'I don't know with what face you could attack Louisa, when you helped her to persecute poor Genevieve because you thought she had an instrument of torture in ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... read concerning the bit, or as it is called by us THE MORDACCHIA, which is a very simple contrivance to confine the tongue, and compress it between two cylinders composed of iron and wood and furnished with spikes. This horrible instrument not only wounds the tongue and occasions excessive pain, but also, from the swelling it produces; frequently places the sufferer in danger of suffocation. This torture is generally had recourse ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... effect in favour of the unfortunate exile, whose friends were greatly outnumbered in this assembly. His messenger was ordered into custody, and afterwards dismissed with a pass instead of an answer. James, foreseeing this contempt, had, by an instrument dated in Ireland, authorised the archbishop of Glasgow, the earl of Balcarras, and the viscount Dundee, to call a convention of the estates at Stirling. These three depended on the interest of the marquis of Athol and the earl of Mar, who professed the warmest affection ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... AGRIPPA, who wrote on "the vanity of the arts and sciences," many of these are only tracing in the arts which they have abandoned their own inconstant tempers, their feeble tastes, and their disordered judgments. But, with others of this class, study has usually served as the instrument, not as the object, of their ascent; it was the ladder which they once climbed, but it was not the eastern star which guided and inspired. Such literary characters were WARBURTON,[A] WATSON, and WILKES, who abandoned their studies when ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... upright piano, that startled, Dwightish instrument, standing in its attitude of unrest, Lulu came in with ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... struggle persuading him to give up his wretched toy; but I've handled harder cases. You should of seen the light in the mother's wan face when he consented! The twelve dollars won't be much, though it will do something for her and those starving children; and then he will no longer have the instrument ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the "Jolly Brothers' Galop," which he had been learning to play with Ed. Big boy as he was, the sudden thought that never again would they sit shoulder to shoulder, thundering the marches or singing the songs both liked so well, made his eyes fill as he laid away the music, and shut the instrument, feeling as if he never wanted to touch it again. Then he went and sat down beside Jack with an arm round his neck, trying to steady his voice by a natural question before he told the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the people who at this time were wholly normal. The whole world seemed a great musical instrument, overstrung and giving out previously unknown harmonies and inharmonies. Amid the thunders of great crashing discords the individual note was almost unheard—but the individual ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this vehicle, there not being room to show the whole on the coin fully and in rear of the horse; (3) the implement described by Sir John Evans[B] as a "lyre-shaped object." It would be most interesting to ascertain what this instrument—which is frequently delineated—may really be. It might be a musical production of the bagpipe character, or a head-dress, or a warlike weapon. An extensive museum or collection of very ancient implements ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley
... cave upon the hill were found A bundle of rude pikes, the instrument Of those who war but on their native ground 2445 For natural rights: a shout of joyance sent Even from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent, As those few arms the bravest and the best Seized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now present A line which covered and sustained the rest, 2450 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and Stark were inseparable companions by this time. Charles attached himself to no person in particular, but was the friend of all; pitied and respected for his misfortunes, allowed to come and go much as he would; regarded rather as one set aside by Heaven for an instrument of vengeance; standing alone, as it were, not quite like any of his comrades; a dreamy, solitary creature, seldom talking much, often passing the whole day in silent brooding; yet when there was fighting to be done, waking up to a sort of Berserker fury, dealing blows with an almost superhuman ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... let him see Barbara, his wife, turn from him in horror and loathing, to have his craven life at last! This desire, continually thwarted, never extinguished, upholds me. It is meat, and drink, and clothing to my famished, shivering body. I must be the chosen instrument of God's vengeance, or I should have died of sheer despair before now. Die? No, not yet. I must press on. Who knows but I may be even ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... surprise from Jonah to Clara. She coloured slightly. Jonah saw that she was annoyed. The salesman led them to another instrument, and, with less deference in his tone, remarked that this was the firm's special cheap line at fifty guineas. But Jonah had noticed the change in Clara's manner, and decided against the cheaper instrument instantly. They thought he wasn't good for a hundred quid, did they? Well, he would ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... sea, always go out upon the deck at noon, if the sun is out, with a very curious and complicated instrument, called a sextant, in their hands; and with this instrument they measure exactly the distance from the sun at noon down to the southern horizon. This is called making an observation. When the observation ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... duties requed,— which Colonel Curtis doubted. The work was not to commence until the spring, when I was to be given a trial. I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune. I studied the mode of leveling. I saw a man on the Hocking canal operate his instrument, take the rear sight from the level of the water in the canal, then by a succession of levels backwards and forwards carry his level to the objective point. Then the man was kind enough to show me how, by simple addition and subtraction, the result wanted could be obtained. I was well advanced in ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... subject. There is not, I can assure you, that man on earth, who would so strongly unite the two monarchs whom we serve as myself; and may perdition seize the wretch who would do the least thing towards lessening that harmony! And could it ever happen, that any English minister wanted to make me an instrument of hurting the feelings of his Sicilian Majesty, I would give up my commission sooner than do it. I am open to your excellency; and, I think, you are so to me. The interests of our sovereigns require it; and, I am sure, that we both only think of uniting ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... he cast his eyes too lightly upon a damsel's beauty, we are then rather to lament than chastise his backsliding; and, imposing on him only such penance as may purify him from his iniquity, we are to turn the full edge of our indignation upon the accursed instrument, which had so well-nigh occasioned his utter falling away.—Stand forth, therefore, and bear witness, ye who have witnessed these unhappy doings, that we may judge of the sum and bearing thereof; and judge whether ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Dickens. His memory, in the space of five years, may have been inaccurate: he probably neither knew nor cared who Datchery was; and he may readily have misunderstood what Dickens told him, orally, about the ring, as the instrument of detection. Moreover, Forster quite overlooked one source of evidence, as I ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... effectually than others, but particularly by means of the latter. For history has shewn us, that we cannot always place a reliance on a mere prohibition of any particular amusement or employment, as a cure for gaming, because any pastime or employment, however innocent in itself, may be made an instrument for its designs. There are few customs, however harmless, which avarice cannot convert into the means of rapine on the one hand, and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... thing about that. It's love in this world I'm speaking of. I believe it has as much to do with flesh and blood, as an instrument has with the music that it makes. What would become of the music if it wasn't ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... fire-place there is a writing-table with a telephone-instrument upon it. A chair stands at the writing-table, its back to the window in the wall on the right; and in front of the table, opposing the settee by the piano, there is a third settee. On the left of this settee, almost ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... noon it was, Mark appeared on deck with his quadrant, and as he cleaned the glasses of the instrument, he announced his conviction that the ship would shortly make the group of the crater. A current had set him further north than he intended to go, but having hauled up to south-west, he waited only for noon to ascertain his latitude, to be certain ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... is a rustic musical instrument formed of reeds, similar to the Tyrrhenian and Lydian pipes we find depicted on the ancient Etruscan vases. It consists of three or four reeds of proportionate lengths to create two octaves, a terce and a quint, with a small mouthpiece at the end of each. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Rossi's Tremitoscope.—This instrument (Fig. 6) unites, upon the same stone base, three different arrangements for showing evidences of trepidations of the earth. On one side we find (protected by a glass tube) a weight suspended over a mercury cup by a spring, and designed to show vertical motions. The two other parts of the apparatus ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... the nave have been pared and carved into the soaring lines and panel work of the Perpendicular period. This alteration was carried out here by Abbot Ramsam about the year 1500. In the north transept is the organ, a fine and famous instrument. The ceiling of the south transept was presented by the last Earl of Bristol and is composed of black Irish oak. The Earl's monument with his effigy and that of his two wives, stands beneath. There will be noticed on the south wall a memorial to two children, the ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... satisfied with all he had eaten, and that enough was as good as a feast; so the young people fell into line, and we trudged to the third house, where, with the same dispatch, the third couple were united. Then the fiddler scraped the strings of his instrument, and a double-shuffle dance commenced. The girls stamped and moved their feet about in the same manner as the men. Soon four or five of the young ladies left the dancing-party, and seated themselves in a corner, pouting discontentedly. My companion ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... grandson lay hold of; but there were a few inhabitants of the place who could have interpreted it, and it was commonly believed that one part of his devotions was invariably a prolonged petition for vengeance on Campbell of Glenlyon, the main instrument in ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... and Instrument Maker to the Royal Observatory, the Board of Ordnance, the Admiralty, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... when his instrument is perfectly attuned, so Mr. Letgood knew when he repeated the text that his hearers had surrendered themselves to him to be played upon. It would be useless here to reproduce the sermon, which lasted for nearly an hour, and altogether impossible to give any account of the preacher's ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... proved that Indian girls can receive; of Indian girl; for girls; Hindu or Christian; an instrument to break down seclusion of the zenanas; college, and leadership; college, and motherhood; and early marriage; and child widows; and world peace; "triangular alliance" in; Christian unity in; college, for Indian girls justified; missions can not long meet demand for; Christian, ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... could coax the apprentices from the lawn, and thus escape the injury to his popularity, that he so much dreaded. It is true, these apprentices were not voters, but then some of them speedily would be, and all of them, moreover, had tongues, an instrument Mr. Bragg held in quite as much awe as some men dread salt-petre. In passing the ball-players, he called out in a wheedling tone to their ringleader, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... pledged my belief. But I had a power of comprehending persons and things which gave rise to the strongest hopes on the part of those who wished to convert me and who thought me entirely their own." Thus Lamartine, in a rapturous strain, had congratulated himself on having been the instrument of saving his friend from the abysm of unbelief. When Lamennais was forming the group of disciples who retired with him to La Chesnaye, M. Sainte-Beuve was invited to join them. While declining the proposal, he imagined the position in which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... more difficult. There are many arts which, perhaps, cannot be learned properly after one has reached maturity. It is said that no one has ever become a great violinist who did not begin his study of the instrument before the age of twelve. However that may be, psychologists and anatomists agree in informing us that the brain of a human being is exceedingly plastic in childhood, and that it gradually grows more and ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... gravely. "It is not well that mortals should know the future, and your imprudent act is destructive of all the plans I have had for you. You must leave us instantly, for that instrument is for the gods alone. Moreover, the knowledge of that ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... by the lowest passion for majorities. Among other things that were then respected, were wills; but it was not known to a single individual, among all those who thronged the dwelling of Deacon Pratt, that the dying man had ever mustered the self-command necessary to make such an instrument. He was free to act, but did not choose to avail himself of his freedom. Had he survived a few years, he would have found himself in the enjoyment of a liberty so sublimated, that he could not lease, or rent a farm, or collect a ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... hundred years ago, as could have done so forty years ago, but because it was not the fashion to sign one's name. Instead of doing that, everybody who was a free man, and a man of substance, in executing any legal instrument, affixed to it his seal, and that stood for his signature. People always carried their seals about with them in a purse or small bag, and it was no uncommon thing for a pickpocket to cut off this bag and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... barometer would become a much more useful instrument, if, instead of the words usually engraved on the plate, a short list of the best established rules, such as the above, accompanied it, which might be either engraved on the plate, or printed on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... her there until the morning was merged into noon and the noon into the middle of the afternoon, and then she could stay no longer. The hour had come when she must go, for the other force which was to be the instrument in changing all her future was astir, and she must go to keep her unconscious ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... dissatisfied with the position which they occupy, and are always free to leave it, they think of nothing but the means of changing their fortune, or of increasing it. To minds thus predisposed, every new method which leads by a shorter road to wealth, every machine which spares labor, every instrument which diminishes the cost of production, every discovery which facilitates pleasures or augments them, seems to be the grandest effort of the human intellect. It is chiefly from these motives that a democratic people addicts itself to scientific pursuits—that it understands, and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... There was certainly the point of departure for the negotiations which that felon-officer, traitor to all sides, worked at will toward the realization of his own infamous project. I do not think that Michael ever confided to Natacha that he was, from the very first, the instrument of the revolutionaries. Natacha, who sought to get in touch with the revolutionary party, had to entrust him with a correspondence for Annouchka, following which he assumed direction of the affair, deceiving the Nihilists, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... got reason to be satisfied about is your camera," suggested Frank, knowing what store his comrade set by his treasured instrument. ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... the short, square-built young man of the Red Cross taxi. Leaning with both elbows on the instrument stood the doll-like figure of his companion, the girl in nurse's dress. His back and her profile were turned our way, but at the sound of the opening door he wheeled on the stool, and both stared at Mr. Beckett. Also ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on each side of the narrow channel, are nearly similar; that the arms they use for procuring subsistence are the same; that their boats and method of fishing are exactly alike; that both make use of a wooden instrument for procuring fire by friction; that neither attack their enemies in the open field, but take all advantages of ensnaring them by wiles and stratagem; and that the vanquished, when taken prisoners, are tortured without mercy. These observations ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... to see his patient. The earl gave one glance at him, recognized firmness, and said not a word. But when he would have applied to his wrist an instrument recording in curves the motions of the pulse, he would not consent. He would have no liberties taken with him, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... all food reformers will agree that the main reason for food reform is to make the body a more harmonious instrument for the true life of man, and that carries with it the belief that there is some correspondence, if we cannot yet see absolute unity, between the physical and the spiritual. Now the law of life, according to Christ, is one of continual progress towards perfection and I do not see how this ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... fourth tea in very tiny cups, and others various things, and finally saki, the wine of the country, was produced, served in small cups like the tea. Then came the girls. Seven approached, each carrying a musical instrument of queer construction. They bowed profoundly, but I noticed did not touch the mat with their foreheads, their rank being much superior to that of the servants, and began ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... to be brought: they willingly accepted the proposal, and fair Safie going to fetch them, returned again in a moment, and presented them with a flute of her own country fashion, another of the Persian, and a tabor. Each man took the instrument he liked, and all three together began to play a tune The ladies, who knew the words of a merry song that suited the air, joined the concert with their voices; but the words of the song made them now and then stop, and fall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... knowledge of life was limited, having resided in that inkstand, and performed all the writing of the family, ever since he was a quill. But his experience was wise and virtuous; and he could bear witness to many an industrious effort at improvement, in which he had been the willing instrument; and to many a hard struggle for honesty and independence, which figures of his writing had recorded. I liked to watch the good Pen at his work when the father of the family spent an hour in the evening in teaching Susan and her brothers to write; or when the careful ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... that was wrought of a shell Luminous as the shine Of a new-born star in a dewy dell,— And its strings were strands of wine That sprayed at the Fancy's touch and fused, As your listening spirit leant Drunken through with the airs that oozed From the o'ersweet instrument. ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... absence—I must be eternally at the feet of my fair enemy—such, I think, is the title with which romances teach us to grace the fair and cruel to whom we devote our hearts and lives.—Speak for me, good lute," he added, taking up the instrument, "and show whether I know not ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... here that the brain is both visible and tangible in man, and that man is in his brain, and, therefore, the brain is man. Medical science, however, shows that the brain no more thinks than the hand and foot do, but is simply the instrument of the invisible thinker. The proof of this is that we have two brains, just as we have two eyes and two ears, but that only one of our two brain hemispheres is the instrument for talking, thinking, or knowing. Which one of the two hemispheres will ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... appears to the naked eye, is but a tiny instrument of war; so small, indeed, that its wound would pass unheeded by all the larger animals, if it was not for the poison introduced at the same instant. It has been described as being "composed of three parts, a sheath and two darts. Both the darts are furnished with small points or barbs like a ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... Judaicum. But no such musical intrument is spoken of by any of the old authors that treat of the Jewish music. In fact, the Jews-harp is a mere boy's plaything, and incapable of in itself of being joined either with a voice or any other instrument; and its present orthography is nothing more than a corruption of the French Jeu-trompe, literally, a toy trumpet. It is called jeu-trompe by Bacon, Jew-trump by Beaumont and Fletcher, and Jews-harp by Hackluyt. In a rare black-letter ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... the performer on a musical instrument approaches perfection, the larger is that part of his execution which is unconscious. Consciousness arises with defect, or sense of something to be overcome. How conscious we are when striving to ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... power that dwells in this faculty, who delivers himself in a rude, discordant and unmodulated accent, and is accustomed to confer with his fellow at the distance of two fields, and the man who understands his instrument as Handel understood the organ, and who, whether he thinks of it or no, sways those that hear him as implicitly as Orpheus is said to have subdued the ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... reaching glimpse into the future. Industry, for him, is still in the last stage of handicraft; it is a matter of skillful workmanship and not of mechanical appliance. Capital is still the laborious result of parsimony. Credit is spoken of rather in the tones of one who sees it less as a new instrument of finance than a dangerous attempt by the aspiring needy to scale the heights of wealth. Profits are always a justified return for productive labor; interest the payment for the use of the owner's past parsimony. Business is still the middleman ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... their mathematical science as applied to such purpose is so nicely accurate, that on the report of some observer in an air-boat, any member of the vril department can estimate unerringly the nature of intervening obstacles, the height to which the projectile instrument should be raised, and the extent to which it should be charged, so as to reduce to ashes within a space of time too short for me to venture to specify it, a capital twice as ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... hair fell coquettishly from the girl's dark head low upon the fiddle, and Theodore loved and wanted to kiss it, and when the instrument dropped from under the dimpled chin, he ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... my eyes, as he observed, were better than his, I could not by any means equal him in representing visible objects. I said, the difference between us in this respect was as that between a man who has a bad instrument, but plays well on it, and a man who has a good instrument, on which he ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... any special bent or qualifications, was in the pioneer states the useful man. In that country it was sheer waste to spend much energy upon tasks which demanded skill, prolonged experience, high technical standards, or exclusive devotion. The cheaply and easily made instrument was the efficient instrument, because it was adapted to a year or two of use and then for supersession by a better instrument; and for the service of such tools one man was as likely to be good as another. No special equipment was required. The farmer was obliged to be all ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... work,' were greatly affected, their future being largely determined by it. They all subsequently exhibited deep moral and religious purpose, and were foremost in philanthropic action. Without the preaching of Dr. Tyler as its great instrument, and without such a man presiding over it, and guiding it, there is no reason to suppose that the revival would have taken place, or would have been so ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... the Prophet to himself, after a long silence, "these means are sure. It was not for me to hesitate. A blind and obscure instrument, I know not the motives of the orders I have received: but from the recommendations which accompany them—but from the position of him who sends them—immense interests must be involved—interests connected with all ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... conditions of atmosphere of which most of the European observatories cannot boast. It is to the honour of Schiaparelli, of Milan, that under comparatively unfavourable conditions and with a small instrument, he so far outstripped his contemporaries in the observation of the features of Mars that those contemporaries received much of his early discoveries with scepticism. Light and dark outlines and patches on the planet's surface had indeed been ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... until the second century, or until after the days of Justin Martyr, that the instrument upon which Jesus was executed was called a cross. But whatever may have been its form, as soon as the myths of former religious worship began to attach themselves to his history, he became the symbolical dead ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... as the camp-fire cast a ruddy, genial flame, He'd bring his tuneful fiddle out and play upon the same; No diabolic engine this—no instrument of sin— No relative at all to that lewd toy, the violin! But a godly hoosier fiddle—a quaint archaic thing Full of all the proper melodies our grandmas used to sing; With "Bonnie Doon," and "Nellie Gray," and "Sitting on the Stile," "The Heart Bowed Down," the "White Cockade," ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... hackish senses of 'engine' are actually close to its original, pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or instrument (the word is cognate to 'ingenuity'). This sense had not been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which explains why he named the stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... boy could make, and, then and there, he resolved to go into that concert business himself. So he pushed on, without having said a word to the owner of the whistle, fully persuaded to invest his money in the same sort of a musical instrument. Supposing that the whistle was bought at the store where he had seen toys in the window, he took a bee ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... thou but A dagger of the mind; a false creation, Proceeding from the heat oppressed brain? I see thee yet in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses, Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still; And on thy blade and handle, gouts of blood, Which was not so before, there's no such thing; It is the bloody business, which informs Thus to mine eyes, now o'er the one-half world Nature ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... chiefly of an explanatory description of these artistic designs, and closing with a hint that the gift was a suggestive and emblematic one, and that the President would recognize the use to which such an instrument should ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Thackeray, which I quote from the same article by Mrs. Ritchie. The poem alluded to must, however, be 'The North and the South,'[101] Mrs. Browning's last poem, written with reference to Hans Andersen's visit to Rome; not 'A Musical Instrument,' as Mrs. Ritchie suggests, which had been written ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... business it is to serve their ends by means of faul or food. And the honest Englishman wishing to vote for justice but swayed by conflicting opinions and dominated by distorted versions, often ends by becoming an instrument of injustice. ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... or mental state has its corresponding rate and mode of vibration. And by an effort of the will of the person, or of other persons, these mental states may be reproduced, just as a musical tone may be reproduced by causing an instrument to vibrate at a certain rate—just as color may be reproduced in the same may. By a knowledge of the Principle of Vibration, as applied to Mental Phenomena, one may polarize his mind at any degree he wishes, thus ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... end of the trail, seated on the ground, was a big Highlander. He was knitting a woolen stocking and his needles were clicking like an instrument. I was taken off my feet, but I tried to ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... that bared arm, her breath held. The long square fingers closed once more with a firm grip on the instrument. "Miss Lemoris, some No. 3 gauze." Then not a sound until the thing was done, and the surgeon had turned away to cleanse his hands in the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... but even then there would be the tendency towards becoming de-humanised. This, however, might be overcome by shorter hours and higher wages, which would raise the standard of comfort and widen the worker's interests. Unwisely used, "scientific management" will become an instrument for shackling the worker, and increasing at a great rate the wealth of the capitalist. It will be freely admitted that anything that will increase the productivity of the labourer, and therefore the wealth of the community, is advantageous, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... them to abjure. The troops had been "shown," therefore, to the Reformers of Bearn; the intendant of that province, Foucault, had come to Paris to concert with the minister the management of the enterprise; Louvois could not have found a fitter instrument than this pitiless and indefatigable man, who had the soul of an inquisitor under the garb of a pliant courtier. On his return from Paris, Foucault, seconded by the Parliament of Pau and the clergy, began by the demolition, on account of "contraventions," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... neighborhood: The churls assemble; for the fiend, who lay In the close woody covert, urg'd their way. One with a brand yet burning from the flame, Arm'd with a knotty club another came: Whate'er they catch or find, without their care, Their fury makes an instrument of war. Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast, Then clench'd a hatchet in his horny fist, But held his hand from the descending stroke, And left his wedge within the cloven oak, To whet their courage and their rage provoke. And now the goddess, exercis'd in ill, Who ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... our balconies. Some of the Hull-House investigations are purely negative in result; we once made an attempt to test the fatigue of factory girls in order to determine how far overwork superinduced the tuberculosis to which such a surprising number of them were victims. The one scientific instrument it seemed possible to use was an ergograph, a complicated and expensive instrument kindly lent to us from the physiological laboratory of the University of Chicago. I remember the imposing procession we made from Hull-House to the factory full of working women, in which ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... power of Russia, or in Eastern affairs generally, which could be remotely compared with those of the possessors of India. The personal needs of Napoleon III. made him, while he seemed to lead, the instrument of the British Government for enforcing British aims, and so gave to Palmerston the momentary shaping of a new and superficial concert of the Powers. Masters of Sebastopol, the Allies had experienced little difficulty in investing their own conclusions with the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... on the bed, "You're mistaken," said he, "Encolpius, if you fancy it possible for you to dye before me: I was first in the design, and had not surviv'd my choice of Ascyltos; if I had met with an instrument of death: But had not you come to my relief in the bath, I had resolv'd to throw my self out of the window: And that you may know how ready death is to wait those that desire it: see—I've got what you so ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... a poor voice, to sing at sight without the aid of an instrument; from that your ear will constantly improve. In case, however, that you have a good voice, do not hesitate a moment to cultivate it; and believe, at the same time, that heaven has granted ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... constructed for the use of man, but of which there are, nevertheless, over fifteen thousand in the streets of the imperial city. It has very low wheels, a heavy, awkward body, and is as noisy as a hard-running Concord coach. Some one describes it as being a cross between a cab and an instrument of torture. There is no rest for the occupant's back; and while the seat is more than large enough for one, it is not large enough for two persons. It is a sort of sledge on wheels. The noise made by these low-running ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... this she sat in the hallway, her hand on the instrument, in the attitude of hanging up ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... said he mechanically. And amidst much laughter from the disinterested while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument described by Mr. Samuel Weller—a pair of patent double-million- magnifying microscopes of hextry power, to see through a deal door. Instead of this, I had to learn what happened only ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... determine our longitude; for by the captain's chronometer we were in 25 W., but by his observations we were much farther, and he had been for some time in doubt whether it was his chronometer or his sextant which was out of order. This land-fall settled the matter, and the former instrument was condemned, and becoming still ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... conversation, Eve having taken the precaution to have the piano tuned before quitting port, an expedient we would recommend to all who have a regard for the instrument that extends beyond its outside, or even for their own ears. John Effingham executed brilliantly on the violin; and, as it appeared on inquiry, the two younger gentlemen performed respectably on the flute, flageolet, and one or two other wind instruments. We shall leave ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... columns to the efforts of the Henry F. Miller Piano Co. to foster the designing of artistic piano cases. Their later designs are a long step away from the conventional and hopelessly ugly piano cases that have been put out by the piano trade universally. They reason that the piano, as an artistic instrument, should have an artistic setting, and it is to draw the attention of architectural designers to this point that they have already given prizes for one competition, and purpose offering another prize, probably of $100, for a second competition. The making of special designs for piano cases ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 01, No. 12, December 1895 - English Country Houses • Various
... and its functions. This is the great organ of digestion. It is the chief instrument by which food is prepared to nourish, sustain, and renovate the different tissues of the body, to carry on the various functions, and to supply the waste which continually takes place in the system. It is not strange, therefore, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... wonder he came back to his brother and showed him the two hands. Sankha said unto him, 'All this has been accomplished by me through my penances. Do not be surprised at it. Providence hath been the instrument here.' Likhita answered, 'O thou of great splendour, why didst thou not purify me at first, when, O best of regenerate ones, such was the energy of thy penances?' Sankha said, 'I should not have acted otherwise. I am not thy chastiser. The ruler (who has punished thee) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... The instrument began to talk to the youth and I hurried away. I fell to ciphering. In half an hour it would be nine o'clock. Knights and horses in heavy armor couldn't travel very fast. These would make the best time they could, and now that the ground was in good condition, and no snow or mud, they would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it should be held that this view is untenable, and that women are disfranchised by the several State constitutions directly, or by implication, then I say that such prohibitions are clearly in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and yield thereto. The language of that instrument is clear and emphatic: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside." "No State shall make, or enforce any law that shall abridge the privileges ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... sweeter. But that armillary sphere he had so ably made for himself out of twisted rods had undone him: his grandmother, terrified by the child's interest in these mystic convolutions, had betrayed the magical instrument to his father. Other episodes of the long pursuit of Knowledge—not to be impeded even by flogging pedagogues, diverted but slightly by marriage at the age of eleven,—crossed his mind. What ineffable ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... up and down Galilee, she said. And now I'll leave you to him. I've that girl on my mind. And while Jesus slept, Joseph pondered on the extraordinary adventure that he found himself on, giving thanks to God for having chosen him as the humble instrument of ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... alphabetical writing; because we find its image employed in painting ideas, during the first stage of the graphic art above described. The wheel was likewise in use before the mysteries of Ceres or those of Isis were established; as is evident from its being imagined as an instrument of punishment in hell, in the case of Ixion, as represented in those mysteries. The taming of the ox and the horse, the use of the sickle and the bow and arrow, a considerable knowledge of astronomy, and its ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... no; you know better than that. That clear, dawning intelligence, that deepening love, that childlike faith in God, that pure innocence of soul, did not come from the dust. How could they return thither? The music ceases because the instrument is broken. But the player is not dead. He is learning a better music. He is finding a more perfect instrument. It is impossible that he should be holden of death. God wastes ...
— What Peace Means • Henry van Dyke
... sure and have a strong, short, sharp and pointed pair—the surgical instrument, not the fancy article. Nail scissors would not be amiss but for the roughness of the file on ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... the Arabian madfaa, which in turn had doubtless descended from an eastern predecessor, was the original cannon brought to western civilization. This strange weapon seems to have been a small, mortar-like instrument of wood. Like an egg in an egg cup, the ball rested on the muzzle end until firing of the charge tossed it in the general direction of the enemy. Another primitive cannon, with narrow neck and flared mouth, fired an iron dart. The shaft of ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... was with her falsehood and her cruelty, he imagined that she intended no other use of her lie, than to set herself free from his embraces and solicitations, and was very far from suspecting that she would treasure it in her memory as an instrument of future wickedness, or that she would endeavour for this fictitious assault to deprive ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... you over to the Bank-side, I will commit you to the master of the Garden, if I hear but a syllable more. Must my house or my roof be polluted with the scent of bears and bulls, when it is perfumed for great ladies? Is this according to the instrument, when I married you? that I would be princess, and reign in mine own house: and you would be my subject, and obey me? What did you bring me, should make you thus peremptory? do I allow you your half-crown a day, to ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... a piano in the flat now; it had been Grannie Amber's, and was old, but still it fulfilled its purpose of a musical instrument. It stood in the sitting-room, across one of the corners by the fire, and after dinner Marie played and Julia sang; and when she refused to sing more, it was Desmond's turn. He looked through Marie's pile of music, selected a ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... legitimate use of RIDICULE is denied: the wisest men have been some of the most exquisite ridiculers; from Socrates to the Fathers, and from the Fathers to Erasmus, and from Erasmus to Butler and Swift. Ridicule is more efficacious than argument; when that keen instrument cuts what cannot be untied. "The Rehearsal" wrote down the unnatural taste for the rhyming heroic tragedies, and brought the nation back from sound to sense, from rant to passion. More important events may be traced ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... itself has sent you to me, that I may be strengthened and inspired in my work." His face kindled with devout rapture. "It must have been by the guidance of Heaven that you were trained in so unusual an accomplishment. It was the hand of God that led you hither, to be an instrument in a great work." ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... wonders that they showed. One took an instrument from the table that he held to his face, saying that he would summon the other scientists or men of knowledge to see their experiment that night. He spoke into the instrument as though to different men, and let me hear voices from it answering him! They said that ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton |
