"Makeshift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The Triple Alliance, with its excellent Reinsurance Treaty, did not constitute a sufficiently powerful springboard from which to take our plunge into world-politics. The Reinsurance contract could not be anything but a makeshift, which merely deferred the inevitable choice which had to be made between Russia and Austria-Hungary. In the course of time, we should either have had to decide entirely in favor of Russia, in the manner outlined above, or ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... schooners, to guy the headstays, thrusts downward a short spar, at right angles to the bowsprit; it is called the martingale or dolphin-striker. The amateur riggers who had tinkered with the Polly's gear in makeshift fashion had not troubled to smooth off spikes with which they had repaired the martingale's lower end. Captain Mayo ducked low to dodge a guy, and the spikes hooked themselves neatly into the back of his reefer coat. Mr. Marston had bought ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... end and a fork on the other. Lay a stout pole across the two forks like a gypsy fire rig. Then lean poles against the crosspiece and finally thatch the roof with spruce, hemlock or other boughs and pile up boughs for the sides. A brush camp is only a makeshift arrangement and is never weather proof. It is simply a temporary shelter which with the all-night fire burning in front will keep a man from freezing to death in the woods. Any kind of a tent is better or even a piece of canvas or a blanket for the roof of ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... throne here referred to was a makeshift arrangement used by the later emperors. Nadir Shah in 1738 cleared the palace of the peacock throne and almost everything portable of value. The little that was left the Marathas took. Their chief prize was the silver filagree ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... monologue. Almost as if they had known the horror of infinite flatness that is all about the literature of the Middle Ages, as if there had fallen upon them, in that Alean plain, the shadow of the enormous beast out of Aristotle's Poetics, they chose to renounce all superfluity, and throw away the makeshift wedges and supports by which an epic is held up. In this way they did great things, and Volosp (the Sibyl's Prophecy) is their reward. To write out in full the story of the Volsungs and Niblungs was left to the prose compilers of the Volsunga Saga, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... occasional ejaculation expressive of his contempt for the man who had brought such unhappiness upon her. She let him understand, too, that her married life, from the first, had been far less happy than he had imagined—wretched makeshift for the true relation of husband and wife. She spoke of her future buoyantly, yet with a touch of sadness, as though to indicate that she was aware that the triumphs of intelligence and individuality could not entirely be a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... that trouble was impending. For myself I never knew, and I suppose she read the signs among the men and got certain definite information from the women. We therefore slept some miles away from the encampment in a makeshift gunyah built of boughs, in front of which the usual fire was made. After we had retired to rest, Yamba woke me and said that she detected strange noises. I immediately sprang to my feet and looked all round our little shelter. It was much too dark for me to see anything distinctly, but ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... hell of a condition the land is in politically. Cowardice and hypocrisy are slated to win, and makeshift and the cheapest politics are to take possession of national affairs. Better even obstinacy and ego-mania! Cox, I think, has made a gallant fight. He is to be beaten because Wilson is as unpopular as he once was popular. Oh! if he had been frank as to his illness, the people would have ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... cruise down the coast the missing stock of our only anchor had been replaced by Gillies and Hannam. Two oregon "dead men", bolted together on the shank, made a clumsy but efficient makeshift. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... from the Province Terror. Then every window in the hamlet would have blazed for him. Then every door would have been set wide to welcome Aldebaran, the royal son of kings, fittest to bear the Sword of Conquest. And now Aldebaran was but the crippled makeshift of a man, who could not even draw that Sword from out its scabbard; at whose wry features all must turn away in loathing, and some perchance might even set the dogs to snarling at his heels, in ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... country, with four different tariff areas, was obviously to its general disadvantage. Since 1903 the provinces had been held together under the Customs Union of South Africa—made by the governments of the Cape and Natal and the Crown Colony governments of the conquered provinces. This was but a makeshift arrangement, with a common tariff made by treaty, and hence rigidly unalterable, and with a pro-rata ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... June, 1777, Congress resolved "that the flag of the U.S. be thirteen stripes, alternates red and white, that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." This was the original of the national flag. The flag at Ft. Stanwix was a hasty makeshift put together under direction of Col. Marinus Willet, who found it difficult to obtain materials because the fort was hemmed in by the British. In his diary Col. Willet relates that "white stripes were cut out of an ammunition shirt; the blue out of a camlet cloak taken ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... at all that will get me this 'job.' I've got to have it as a makeshift until I can get hold of something better. Let ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... who should invite him to state his errand. She did not offer him her hand but, for that matter, (she might have pleaded), she could not, very well: for one of her hands held her sunshade, and the other held an embroidered silk bag, woman's makeshift for ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... pilot, provided with oars, sails, and iron-shod poles for pushing. They continued to carry, in cargoes of five tons, all the merchandise that passed to Upper Canada. Sometimes these boats were provided with a makeshift upper cabin, which consisted of an awning of oilcloth, supported on hoops like the roof of an American, Quaker, or gipsy waggon. If further provided with half a dozen chairs and a table, this cabin was deemed the height of primitive luxury. The batteaux went in ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... confess that I have only heard of it, and the price seems to be such as to discourage almost all the pictorial workers that I know. In my observation of the work that has been done by pictorialists, the very fact that in many instances they use makeshift apparatus has resulted in some of the most beautiful effects in their work. Good apparatus is of course desirable, but there are happy accidents with the other sort. It is the workman, not his tools, that counts. ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1921 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... a flock being herded, in the rear of the artillery. Another bridge had been constructed, as if the sad thought had occurred that the first might give way. But the second was narrow and without a railing; nevertheless, it at first seemed a very valuable makeshift in such a calamity. But how disasters follow each other! The stragglers rushed there in crowds. The artillery, the baggage-wagons, in a word, all the army material, had been in the front on the first bridge when, it was broken; and when, from the sudden panic ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... stream which connects Lake Ste. Therese with McVicker Bay of Great Bear Lake. The village was located upon the opposite bank which rose some twelve or fifteen feet above the river ice. Through the gathering darkness Connie made out some five or six log cabins, and many makeshift dwellings of poles, skins and ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... clotting it is frequently scraped off with a small switch as it flows. In rheumatism and other local diseases the scratching is confined to the part affected. The instrument used is selected in accordance with the mythologic theory, excepting in the case of the piece of glass, which is merely a modern makeshift for the ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... the birds' twitterings were comments on his appearance, they must have been admiring comments. The man's skin was white and he was lithe and tense and muscular. Breeding showed in him as it shows in the muscles and conformation of a race-horse. When he was dried he threw down the makeshift towel and combed his shock of brown hair with his fingers. Now that the bristle of beard was off his face he ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... mountain-climbing: a necessity was it merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:—to FLY only, wanteth mine entire ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... showed that he was acquainted with the formalities proper to the ceremony of tasting. He filled his makeshift glass, he held it up to the light, and looked at the wine severely; he moved the tumbler to and fro under his nose, and smelt at it again and again; he paused and reflected; he tasted the claret as cautiously ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... little feast provided by Judith and Jane had been eaten and the ten girls still sat about the makeshift banqueting board, that Jane, urged by Judith to "Speak up, Janie," began rather diffidently to speak of her cherished ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... makeshifts. Honesty is a makeshift. A makeshift for saving time. Whoever wants to save time is not fit for the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... about thirty European residents altogether in the district. The chief town, Mooteeharree, consisted of a long bazaar, or market street, beautifully situated on the bank of a lovely lake, some two miles in length. From the main street, with its quaint little shops sheltered from the sun by makeshift verandahs of tattered sacking, weather-stained shingles, or rotting bamboo mats, various little lanes and alleys diverged, leading one into a collection of tumble-down and ruinous huts, set up apparently by chance, and presenting the most incongruous appearance ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... London dwelled a mery pleasant man (whiche for [t]his tyme we may call Makeshift[319]) who, beyng arrayed somewhat haruest lyke, with a pytcheforke on his necke, went forth in a mornyng and mette with twoo lode of hey comeyng to the citieward, for the whiche he bargayned with the owners to paye xxx shillynges. Whyther ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... and make what good she can out of them, keeping her face towards the coming time. I cannot better the image I have already used for the thinking and believing modern-minded people of to-day as an advance guard cut off from proper supplies, ill furnished so that makeshift prevails, and rather demoralized. We have to be wise as well as loyal; discretion itself is loyalty ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... was prepared, it came to be understood, to put the best face on a bad matter. He remained, however, a loyal subject of the Queen, and prayed for as speedy a sight of Boxton Park, Witham, Essex, as fortune would permit. And in the meantime he enjoyed such makeshift ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... song in her heart never ceased. Day by day a fresh note was added; everything she touched; everything she saw was transformed. The old tumble-down house with its propped-up furniture and makeshift carpets seemed to have become already the place she planned it to be. There would be vines over the door and a new summer kitchen at the back'; and there would be a porch where her mother could sit, flowers all about her—her ...
— Abijah's Bubble - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... at any rate, to act as the only mistress which the establishment possessed. This advent greatly changed the tenor of the doctor's ways. He had been before pure bachelor; not a room in his house had been comfortably furnished; he at first commenced in a makeshift sort of way, because he had not at his command the means of commencing otherwise; and he had gone on in the same fashion, because the exact time had never come at which it was imperative in him to set his house in order. He had had no fixed hour for his ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... it should be at once withdrawn from circulation, or the loss of an important part of the book may result. The remedy commonly resorted to, of patching up the book by pasting in the loose leaves, is a mere makeshift which will not last. The cause of a loose signature is generally to be found in a broken thread in the sewing, and the only permanent cure is to take the book out of its cover, and re-sew it, when it may usually be re-inserted ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... whoop from out of the fog. It was Mr. Gibney. He did not possess a megaphone so he had gone below and appropriated a section of stove-pipe from the galley range, formed a mouthpiece of cardboard and produced a makeshift that ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... big acetylene headlights from motor cars, and connected them up. There was a little porch at the entrance of the chateau, with a short flight of steps leading up to it, and then we decided that that would make an excellent makeshift theater. Since it would be dark they decided they must have lights, so that they could see me—just as in a regular theater at hame! That was where the headlights they borrowed from motor cars came in. They put one on each side of the porch and one off in front, so ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... hair), bodkins, knitting-needles, crochet-needles, needle-cases, compasses, glass stoppers, candles, corks, tumblers, forks, tooth-picks, toothbrushes, pomade-pots (in a case recorded by Schroeder with a cockchafer inside, a makeshift substitute for the Japanese rin-no-tama), while in one recent English case a full-sized hen's egg was removed from the vagina of a middle-aged married woman. More than nine-tenths of the foreign bodies found in the female bladder or urethra are due to masturbation. The age of the individuals ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... magnificence is reserved for a Cardinal (Gregory XVI. who had been a Camaldolese frequently came here), or a travelling Bishop and his suite, or a heretic English or American milord! But not for any daughter of Eve! And the makeshift room over a carpenter's shop, which is called the forestieria, has been devoted to the purpose only in consequence of the incomprehensible mania of female English heretics for visiting the disciples of St. Romuald. And there the food supplied from the convent can be brought to them. But for ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... far as the records show, was never afterwards considered. His admirers have given great praise to his work in the federal convention. His real contribution lay in the fact that when the Constitution was finally drafted and offered to the people, while he regarded it as a "wretched makeshift," to use his own expression, yet he was broad and patriotic enough to surrender his own views and advocate the adoption of the Constitution. In so doing, he fought a valorous fight, secured the acquiescence of the State of New York, and without its ratification ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... but for the unlucky accident to the tiller, which had made the Fair Maid unmanageable for the moment, and caused her to come up to the wind. They were thus able to draw very near us before the man at the helm had contrived to rig up a makeshift tiller out of a splinter off the gunwale. Just as he began to get the ship's head round again the launch approached within hailing distance, ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... for their needs, so wasteful of labour and so devoid of beauty as this was, and it is only now as I describe this that I find myself thinking of the essential absurdity of an intelligent community living in such makeshift homes. It strikes me now as the next thing ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... governor was acting under influences exerted from Paris, private if not official, in refusing the navigator access to the material which it was believed was essential to the completion of the charts that would demonstrate his discoveries, until the French officer could hurry out a makeshift atlas and fictitious claims could be ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... in English politics, is certain to produce both unreasonable and reasonable grounds for still further loosening the tie which binds together the two islands. The cry 'Ireland a nation' is one of which no Irishman need be ashamed, and to which North and South alike, irritated by the vexations of a makeshift constitution, are, as I have already insisted, likely ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... little appliances, madam," Santa Fe went on, "are just our own makeshift imitations of what you are familiar with—building-blocks, and alphabet-blocks, and dissected pictures, and that sort of thing. Our local carpenter made the blocks for us, and we put on the lettering ourselves—as, indeed, its poor quality shows. The ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... smiling again. "Mayn't I—for the present—do what I will with mine own? I return in their wages some of my ill-gotten gains as a landowner. It is all makeshift, of course." ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... atmosphere to develop. Of course, with closer intimacy, there were temperamental adjustments, as always, but they came easily. The household machinery ran smoothly, almost from the first, because there was a machine, properly set up, operated and adjusted—rather than an uncertain makeshift. ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... our dearth of great prose. With the exception of Henry James and Hawthorne, Poe is our only master of pure prose. We lament our dearth of poets. With the exception of Lowell, Poe is our only great poet. Poe found short story writing a bungling makeshift. He left it a perfect art. He wrote the first perfect short stories in the English language. He first gave the short story purpose, method, and artistic form. In a careless reading one can not realize the wonderful literary art, the cunning devices, the masterly effects ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... pleaded. "The hack-work is only makeshift, and I don't take it seriously. Give me two years. I shall succeed in that time, and the editors will be glad to buy my good work. I know what I am saying; I have faith in myself. I know what I have in me; I know what literature is, now; I know the average rot that is poured out ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... Cloche at Dijon in later years, Ruskin showed me the room where he had "bitten" the last plate in his wash-hand basin, as a careless makeshift for the regular etcher's bath. He was not dissatisfied with his work himself; the public of the day wanted something more finished. So the second edition appeared with the subjects elaborately popularized in fashionable engraving. More recently they have undergone reduction for a ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... little studio which he had lent to a comrade for the term of his elegant absence. The comrade was another ingenuous compatriot, to whom he had wired that tea was to await them "regardless," and this reckless repast, and the second ingenuous compatriot, and the faraway makeshift life, with its jokes and its gaps, its delicate daubs and its three or four chairs, its overflow of taste and conviction and its lack of nearly all else—these things wove round the occasion a spell to which our ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... a few Meloans in the crude tent that served as their headquarters. Duke went back toward the cubbyhole where a thin, haggard man sat on a broken block behind a makeshift desk. ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... can hear the sound of hammer and nails," an Old Boy once said. He was determined that the School should have the very best buildings and fittings possible, although he was never at a loss to carry things on when a makeshift was necessary. ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... across the lake, and on the gentle slope of the foot of the hills, they had frequently observed parties of roughly dressed men, some with muskets and some without, making their way, by boat and on foot, toward the mountain. Those on the water were in rude, makeshift boats, of which there seemed to be an insufficient quantity at hand, groups waiting on the shore for the return of conveyances in order that they might ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... doan youse depreciate yourself to all dem. Jus' youse put on de pootiest dress youse hab an' do ole Sukey proud." Then, as she helped Janice to bedeck herself she poured out the story of their makeshift life, telling how, with what had been left of the poultry, and with the products of the small patch of the garden they had been able to till, the two slaves had managed to live the year through, taking ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... that, as a man of sense, you can accept us as a makeshift; but you can sleep here, and my sister can lie with me on the sofa in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... should at least be silent about it. But how could he help these outbursts of jealousy! He cared for Gilbert far more than he cared for any man ... but he could not prevent himself from raging at the thought that Gilbert had but to hold out his arms and Cecily would run to be clasped in them. "I'm a makeshift," he ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the lower sash of which was up, and gazed out—down into that dust-fogged, noisy, turbulent main street, of floury human beings and grime-smeared beasts almost within touch, boiling about through the narrow lane between the placarded makeshift structures. I lifted my smarting eyes, and across the hot sheet-iron roofs I saw the country south—a white-blotched reddish desert stretching on, desolate, lifeless under the sunset, to a range of stark hills black ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... numerous belongings. A little study enabled the architects to combine the maximum of shade with the maximum of wind ventilation. Save for a short period at Romani and then at el Arish, when the tents were brought up, these makeshift shelters were our homes until proper bivouac sheets and poles were issued in June 1917. They had to come down every night when the blanket was required for covering, and so we slept beneath the stars. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... on the uprush of the unanticipated reinforcements. With the battle readiness of a disciplined soldier, Caleb Gordon whipped from the saddle and ran to help the gun crew slue the makeshift ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... up with paper inside the binnacle. This answered for about ten minutes, but finding it was again flickering, I opened the tin door, and found all the candle had melted into bright liquid oil; so this makeshift was a failure. However, another candle was cut, and the door being left open to keep it cool, with this lame light I worked on bravely, but very determined for the rest of my sailing days to have the oil bottle always accessible. Finally the wind blew out the candle, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... of stilting the smaller arches to raise their crowns to the level of those of the larger arches was in constant use in Byzantine and early Romanesque architecture, in the kind of manner shown in the sketch, Fig. 99; and a very clumsy and makeshift method of dealing with the problem it is; but something of the kind was inevitable as long as nothing but the round arch was available for covering contiguous spaces of different widths. The whole of these difficulties were approximately got over in theory, and almost entirely in practice, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... It's suffocating in here. Come." She rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way back to ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... none. The Germans would put over a few shells during the day. They would level our sandbag breastworks and blow our frail shelters to smithereens. We had no dugouts and no communication trenches. With a shell of tremendous power they would rip up yards of our makeshift defenses and kill half a dozen of our boys. Sometimes we would groan aloud and pray to see a few German legs and arms fly to the four winds as compensation. But no. We would wire back to artillery headquarters: "For God's sake, send over a few shells, even one shell, to silence ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... lover can find any ground at all for serenity in the tide of an elderly rival's success, he finds it in the fact itself of that ancientness. The other side seems less a rival than a makeshift. But Christopher no longer felt this, and the significant signs before his eyes of the imminence of Ethelberta's union with this old hero filled him with restless dread. True, the gentleman, as he ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... the relativity of knowledge that dances before the eye, that bewilders, eludes, evades. Group-systems and electives seem like a makeshift for the real thing. We cannot tie a fact to a pupil, because to the tail of the fact is tied history itself. Until a pupil gets a glimpse of that relation, that dependence of which we have just heard, with all that has yet happened ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... without the least thought of doing anything spectacular, she had gently and calmly taken up men's tools and had done men's work—not indifferently well—not in any makeshift manner—but "in all cases, even the most technical, her work has equalled that previously done exclusively by man. In a number of instances, owing to her natural dexterity and colour sense, her work, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... feeling is not so strong in America as it is abroad, it still has a considerable influence upon parents and their children in the selection of a vocation. While one does not lose caste by doing manual labor, temporarily or as a makeshift, he suffers socially, in certain circles, who chooses deliberately a vocation which requires him to wear soiled clothing, to carry a plebeian dinner-pail, and to work hard with his hands. Because of this, many ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... into that hollow among the stones, sir," said Denham, pointing to a little depression. Into this one of our makeshift bags was emptied, and the impromptu trough proved ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... prospected for diamonds along the wayside; and at night they took the hay from the mattresses to give to the cattle. Lolling indolence was in the air and plenty in the larder: big fruits, strange game, which they cooked in a makeshift oven consisting of a few stones. Then they rolled themselves up in a blanket, near the elephants tugging at their chains, and slept under the tent in ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... His demeanour suggested that he had met autocrats before but never such a thorough autocrat as I. For the rest of my time there I pressed my trousers in the usual way, well knowing that he would regard the process not as the makeshift of a valetless pauper but as the eccentricity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... of jealous politicians new to this sort of office, drawn from different parties, and totally lacking in a cordial sense of previous action together. None of them, probably, when they first assembled had any high opinion of their titular head. He was looked upon as a political makeshift. The best of them had to learn to appreciate the fact that this strange, ungainly man, sprung from plainest origin, without formal education, was a great genius. By degrees, however, the large minds in the Cabinet became his cordial admirers. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... not positively detest this little Chrysantheme, and when there is no repugnance on either side, habit turns into a makeshift of attachment. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... perversity of inanimate things Found nothing that answered to my indefinable expectations Habit turns into a makeshift of attachment I know not what lost home that I have failed to find When the ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... stroke of the hurricane the schooner was pitching bows under, and shipping increasing quantities of water at every plunge. And now, as we once more bestirred ourselves, we were confronted with a fresh calamity. For our makeshift protection of the damaged companion and skylight, as well as the fore-scuttle, had been swept away, probably at the first stroke of the hurricane, although not one of us had observed it, and already vast quantities of water were pouring into the little vessel's ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... more in keeping with their curtailed income. A job of some kind to keep the kettle boiling was very necessary, so Jimmie reluctantly applied for his old job and became once more a $14 a week shipping clerk. This however was a temporary makeshift, he protested. He was chock full of good ideas, and now he was rid of Stafford, who he claimed, had really paralyzed his efforts, he would be able to give free rein to his inventive genius. Fanny listened patiently. By this time she had few illusions left concerning ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... (Cranmer), 'swillbowl' (Stubbs), 'smell-smock', 'cumberwold' (Drayton), 'curryfavor', 'pinchfist', 'suckfist', 'hatepeace' (Sylvester), 'hategood' (Bunyan), 'clutchfist', 'sharkgull' (both in Middleton), 'makesport' (Fuller), 'hangdog' ("Herod's hangdogs in the tapestry", Pope), 'catchpoll', 'makeshift' (used not impersonally as now), 'pickgoose' ("the bookworm was never but a pickgoose"){162}, 'killcow' (these three last in Gabriel Harvey), 'rakeshame' (Milton, prose), with others which it will be convenient to omit. ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Senatorship is the most important office to be filled by the people of California under the provisions of the proposed Direct Primary law. The so-called district plan for nominating United States Senators is worse than a makeshift. it provides for no pledge on the part of candidates and would be purely a straw ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... for our sins, as taught by the Scriptures, a makeshift, but, rather, a real, full redemption, ransom. Just as a captain can honorably, honestly be given as a ransom for a number of private soldiers in an exchange of prisoners; just as a diamond can redeem a debt of many dollars; ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... Weener—miserable, makeshift expedients!" Her unavoidable eyes bit into mine. "What is a fertilizer? A tidbit, a pap, a lollypop. Indians use fish; Chinese, nightsoil; agricultural chemists concoct tasty tonics of nitrogen and potash—where's your progress? Putting a mechanical whip ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Answers, Tit Bits, or whatever Greatest Novel of the Century happened to be going.... But, as I hope to make clearer in my later papers, this "Democracy," or Wholesale method of living, like the railways, is transient—a first makeshift development of a great and finally (to me at least) quite ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Devonian period such as existed on earth, though, if consistent with its size, it should be on a vastly larger scale," said the doctor. "I never believed in the theory," he continued, "that the larger the planet the smaller should be its inhabitants, and always considered it a makeshift, put forward in the absence of definite knowledge, the idea being apparently that the weight of very large creatures would be too great for their strength. Of the fact that mastodons and creatures far larger than any ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... over and over in his mind, but could make nothing of it, unless the words foreshadowed an attempt on the temporary dam. But there seemed to be little chance for the success of such an undertaking. Big acetylenes flared all night by the makeshift structure, and two men with shotguns watched by it. The whole camp was under ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... dozen of his section chiefs stood at the base of one of the makeshift towers. The chief hydraulic engineer had a headset clamped on for contact ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... follows, is really imaginative and picturesque, but spoilt by carelessness, carelessness, carelessness. Either write verses, we say again, or prose. And unless the metre and accent coincide with the sense, and make music when read merely as prose is read, the lines are a makeshift and a failure, and neither worth writing or reading, though they were as fanciful and overloaded as Mr. Browning's, or as grandiloquent and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... spectacle of a foreign commerce in decay and an empire in disorder, if the grand justification for the senate's authority—its government of the foreign dependencies of Rome—were first questioned, then tossed aside? Would not the Individual makeshift have in such a case as this to be invested with military authority? Might not his power be defended and perpetuated by a weapon mightier than the voting tablet? Might not his supporters be a class of men, to whom the charms of civil life are few, whose habits ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... influence of the first rays of the sun. There was an exhilarating freshness in the air that made Van Hielen keenly sensitive to the ambitious demands of a newly awakened stomach. Opposite him was the hut of the old woman, the entrance somewhat clumsily blocked with a makeshift door. As Van Hielen looked at it curiously, wondering if the woman was in the habit of barricading it in this fashion on account of her proximity to the forest, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... organizations the men and women and boys and girls of the Church. Of course, elaborate, expensive decorations ought to be discouraged. Simplicity always is more consistent with the spirit of worship than is extravagance. But contrast the difference in effect on children of a bare, untidy, makeshift room as against a cozy room decorated with a few beautiful pictures or draperies and made homelike with comfortable seats and ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... only a poor makeshift at best, for what Maurice called "cat-naps" were the best they ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... was a smile that would have gone a long way at a college dance. Here, it made the pitying company shudder for her. "I think it's a silly, makeshift sort of a speech," she said cheerfully, in which opinion the unhappy playwright out in the audience hotly agreed. "It's a bit of threadbare archness, and if I were to play Miss Lyston's part, I'd be glad to ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in his lean, desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the green glass drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced newspapermen, he rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of copy paper. He poured himself a draught of clear but rather tepid water, and drank it without noticeable relish. His lifted head betrayed only the automatic thankfulness of the domestic fowl. There had been a time when six o'clock meant something ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... attention had to be given to the sledge equipment, for there was scarcely an article in it that did not need to be thoroughly overhauled and refitted. But in spite of all their efforts, the outfit for the coming season was bound to be a tattered and makeshift affair. Skins of an inferior quality had to be used for sleeping-bags; the tents were blackened with use, threadbare in texture, and patched in many places; the cooking apparatus was considerably the worse for wear; the ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the election of the President and Vice-President of the United States was contested in 1877, Congress, as a temporary makeshift, bridged over the difficulty by creating a commission of fifteen, five from each house and five from the Supreme Court, to decide upon the returns. Four of the justices were especially selected by the act passed for this purpose, two of them being Republicans ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... one for the father and mother, and the other for the grandmother. So it was arranged that the son should sleep with his grandmother, at which she was very glad, but he grumbled, and only complied to oblige his parents, and as a makeshift for one night. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... disc, they waited. Would that stupendous ray be hurled back upon itself? Or would it sear through their makeshift defense, plunging them and the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... must, of course, render each other assistance, in the construction of houses. They will be obliged to build with wood in the beginning, because iron will not be immediately available. Later on the original, inadequate, makeshift buildings will be ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... day I got together driftwood and bound it together in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant steps, made my way ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... that Bonbright and herself were embarked on one of these unstable, experimental craft. She saw, as he did not, that it was unseaworthy and must founder at the first touch of storm. She pinned no false hopes to it; recognized it as a makeshift, welcome to her only as a reprieve—and that it must soon be discarded for a vessel whose planking was reality and whose sails were woven of ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... approach to the town was defended by three heavy guns, the ships in the river were ready to give support, the Back Creek and a series of marshes protected the north shore. But Bacon was not discouraged. All night long his men labored to throw up a makeshift fortress of "trees, bush and earth" facing the isthmus, as a protection should Berkeley's force sally out. When the governor saw what was going on he ordered the ships and shallops to move up to fire on the crude structure, while his soldiers let loose with repeated volleys. ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... sheriff as he took the pencil and paper through the bars and returned to his bunk. He drew up the stool and sat upon it. It was a little lower than the bench, so, putting his paper on the bench, he had a fairly good makeshift desk. He began to write steadily, and after a few minutes the sheriff and jailer ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... so idle, so indisposed to assume or accept responsibility, that he falls back upon this temporary makeshift of a creator. It is temporary indeed, for it can only last during the activity of the particular brain power which finds its place among us. When the man drops this mental life behind him, he of necessity leaves with it its magic lantern and the pleasant illusions he has conjured ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... give my titular makeshift, then, a wide interpretation; and are always to remember that in the bleak, florid age these tales commemorate this Chivalry was much the rarelier significant of any personal trait than of a world-wide code in consonance with which all estimable people lived and died. Its root was ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... question of the box lunch presents a serious problem, when we consider the large number of children who must depend upon it for their noon-day meal. This meal should be so constituted as to make it a real meal and not a makeshift. The same principles which govern the preparation of the meal should govern the preparation of the lunch box. It is said that the school lunch should consist of "something starchy and something meaty, something fat and something fibrous, something ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... Lawrence. In the first place, De Monts had lost the last vestige of his influence at court; as a Huguenot he could not expect to have retained it under the stern regency which followed the assassination of Henry IV in 1610. Then a half-dozen makeshift arrangements came in the ensuing years. It was always the same story faithfully repeated in its broad outlines. Some friendly nobleman would obtain from the King appointment as viceroy of New France and at the same time a trading monopoly for a term of years, always promising to send ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... down the sail, unshipped the mast, and jumped ashore to find a rock big enough to use for a makeshift anchor. It wan't more'n three minutes after we fust struck afore my boots hit dry ground, but Billings beat me one hundred and seventy seconds, at that. When I had time to look at that shover man he was a cable's-length from high-tide mark, settin' down and grippin' ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... choice; in England only dire need can compel to its consumption. Lentils and haricots are not merely insipid; frequent use of them causes something like nausea. Preach and tabulate as you will, the English palate—which is the supreme judge—rejects this farinaceous makeshift. Even as it rejects vegetables without the natural concomitant of meat; as it rejects oatmeal-porridge and griddle-cakes for a mid-day meal; as it rejects lemonade and ginger-ale offered as substitutes for ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Mr. Ormond from his end of the table. "Does Harry know anything about it?" he added, alluding to a boy who had come in as a makeshift to clean knives and boots since the ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... and women, old and young, working here in the wilderness like beavers, clearing and digging, scraping and building. All are pressed hard by a strong hope of establishing a permanent home and of earning future independence. But we still live in makeshift houses, and so far only a few families are able to make a living, bare and meager, out of their clearings, diggings, and cows. The vast majority—almost all of us—have, at times, to leave the farm in care of women and children and look for work elsewhere—in Duluth, Chicago, ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... like to have hers show the effect of housework, when that means scrubbing the floor and cleaning the stove. Gloves? Ah, well, James Nasmyth once wrote: "Kid-gloves are great non-conductors of knowledge." I believe that gloves of any kind are a makeshift in real cleaning of dirty corners; but there should not be ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... him to his home; he can be held only by its ministry to him; he will be there if it is the most attractive place for him. Some parents who are praying for wandering boys would know why they wandered if they looked calmly at the crowded quarters given to the boy, the comfortless room, the makeshift bed, and the general home organization which long ago assumed that a boy could be left out of ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... will not wait for the mob at his heels, I am certain. A Minister who does that, is a post, and goes down with the first bursting of the dam. He has tried compromise and discovered that it does not appease the Fates; is not even a makeshift-mending at this hour. He is a man of nerves, very sensitively built; as quick—quicker than a woman, I could almost say, to feel the tremble of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and looked into the next compartment. From the opposite side, he saw another hatch partially open and the outline of Roger's head and shoulders. Between them, a man was bending over a makeshift desk, copying information from a calculator and a set of blueprints. Tom nodded across to Roger and they both stepped into the compartment at the ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... winced a little; but this was rarely, for you were very nearly, oh, very nearly an animal, your temperament and intelligence were just those of a dog that has picked up a master, not a real master, but a makeshift master who may turn it out at any moment. Dickens would sentimentalise or laugh over you; I do neither. I merely recognise you as one of the facts of civilisation. You looked—well, to be candid,—you looked neither young nor old; hard work had obliterated the delicate markings of the years, and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... far greater relief than they had experienced in many a day. Now at last they saw a feasible plan for leaving the island upon a seaworthy craft. There would be no more hard labour at ship-building, and no risking their lives upon a crudely built makeshift that would be quite as likely to go to the bottom as it ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the agency of gradual heat in rendering clay fit for use in cookery and preferable to any previous makeshift. The modern Zuni name for a parching-pan, which is a shallow bowl of black-ware, is thle mon ne, the name for a basket-tray being thlae' lin ne. The latter name signifies a shallow vessel of twigs, ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... Laurence said, "we COULD get this thing up beautifully, with canopies and flags of the four colours, and turkey red strips down these paths and all that. But this will do for a makeshift game." ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... sense experience, which does not seem to reveal this dual element in thought. Anyhow the unification of the content of thought and its essence had to be made, and this could not be done except by what may be regarded as a makeshift—a transcendent illusion running on from beginningless time. These difficulties occurred because Sa@mkhya soared to a region which was not directly illuminated by the light of common sense experience. The Nyaya position is of course much worse ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... no doubt will not need to be reminded that this is the original title of The Marriage of Kitty,—literally "gangway," but in the sense of "makeshift" or "locum tenens." ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... 1870 to a friend, whom he had advised upon a prosecution for heresy, saying that he saw clearly that we were drifting towards voluntaryism. Any other solution was for the present out of the question; although he continued to regard this as a makeshift compound, and never ceased ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a permissionnaire came home on his six days' leave, and that was for five weeks. More than once I decided to go back to the Crillon, where the bathrooms are the last cry in luxury, for I detest the makeshift bath, but by this time I was too fascinated by the Ecole to tear ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that cost so many lives exploded within the hull of the La Provence, killing a good part of the engineroom crew, it was seen that only a few of her large company could escape. Lifeboats, rafts, and the makeshift straws to safety that could be seized upon in emergency accommodated a bare 700 and odd men. The troops gathered on the upper decks and sang the "Marseillaise" as the great hull settled in the water. Officers ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... that I retrace my way toward a makeshift of Omnipotence. But for this I will have ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... season, very citified, with brand-new shotguns, and knickerbockers, and English deer-stalker caps. And these were accompanied by dogs, neither well suited nor broken to the business of finding birds and holding them. There was one pair of sportsmen whose makeshift was a dropsical coach dog, very much spotted. And, I must be forgiven for telling the truth, one was followed, ventre a terre, by a dachshund. My father, a very grave man with his jest, said that ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... stacking ammunition cases in front of the dope. Gordon went out to get the others and start moving in the supplies and transferring the corpses to the truck for disposal. Randolph scurried off to start setting up his makeshift plant in the basement. ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... makeshift plan I proceeded to execute. Transporting the material to the middle of the weed-grown space, I covered it lightly with twigs and various articles of loose rubbish. It was now quite invisible, and I was turning away to go when suddenly I bethought me of the dry preparation ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... epitomized the sciences and arts. It was not that he had anything so wonderful, or even comparable to the collection of his laboratory. But as I ran my eye over the box I would have wagered that from the contents he might have made shift to duplicate in some makeshift form almost anything that he might need. It was truly amazing, representing in miniature his study ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... Demetrio complained bitterly of his wound; he could no longer ride on horseback. They were forced to carry him the rest of the way on a makeshift ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... set foot against the makeshift door, and away it went, as he had predicted. Crashing on the steps as it fell, it turned over, and a great splash ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... cannon on board that beastly steam tub of theirs!" cried George. "Luckily for us it's a makeshift concern and no gunboat; but it can catch us on our way back to the yacht, and ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... Mr. Lloyd George has gradually lost in the world of political makeshift his original enthusiasm for righteousness. He is not a bad man to the exclusion of goodness; but he is not a good man to the exclusion of badness. A woman who knows him well once described him to me in these words: "He is clever, and he is stupid; truthful and untruthful; pure and impure; good ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... to a boat with a cabin on it, and sat on its roof on decrepit cane chairs, and the rowers below with makeshift oars gradually pulled us up and down the face of the Ghats—what oars, and what a ramshackle tub of a boat—too old and tumble-down for a fisherman's hen run ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... they passed narrow rifts in the walls of the trench, entrances to dugouts betrayed by glimmers of candle-light through the cracks of makeshift doors or the coarse mesh of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... people camped round the lake. The night was ablaze with countless camp-fires, the day a buzz of busy toil. Everywhere you heard the racket of hammer and saw, beheld men in feverish haste over their boat-building. There were many fine boats, but the crude makeshift effort of the amateur predominated. Some of them, indeed, had no more shape than a packing-case, and not a few resembled a coffin. Anything that would float and keep out the water ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... how this condition arose may be answered very briefly. The Church ordained that marriage is indissoluble, but, this being found impossible to maintain in practice, the State stepped in with a way of escape—a kind of emergency exit. But what a makeshift it is! how flagrantly indecent! how inconsistent! Adultery must be committed. To escape the degradation of an unworthy partner another partner must first be sought, and love degraded in an act of infidelity. Adultery is, in fact, a State-endowed offence against morality, just ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... have always impoverished a majority of our people, the Agriculturists; that agriculture has thus been made a most unprofitable vocation throughout the States, and that this unsoundness at the very foundation of the business of the American people has often forced our finances into such makeshift conditions, that under any unusual financial strain a panic, with all its wretched accompaniments, ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... on the combination pedal or piston to operate also his Pedal stops and couplers. Most large organs now built are furnished with a pedal for reversing the position of the Great to Pedal coupler. Though to a certain extent useful when no better means of control is provided, this is but a makeshift. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... occupied a large unfinished room, obviously makeshift, that had previously been used for the storage of stage properties. There were two flat-topped desks, placed so that their swivel chairs faced across a considerable expanse of surface, two bookkeepers' perches also rigged up to meet the exigencies of run-away ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... England was practically safe, although the British held Newport; and all the country south of the Delaware was free from them. The perplexities and discouragements of Washington were great indeed, while he stubbornly held the field with a beggarly makeshift for an army and sturdily continued his appeals to Congress and to the country for men, arms, and clothing; yet only New York City and New Jersey were really in the possession of the enemy. It was one thing for England to occupy a few cities, and quite another to conquer ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... paid me many compliments, and repeatedly inquired after my health. He would not hear about my business till I had had breakfast. Luncheon had been arranged for me, he said, but that could not be ready for some hours. Would I be so kind as to excuse a makeshift? Even as he spoke, a soldier entered with a tray on which were slabs of Arab bread, a pitcher of sour milk, and heaps of grapes. Another soldier began pounding coffee, while yet another blew upon the charcoal in a brazier. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... all these exhibits from the vegetable kingdom were attached to the seafloor by only the most makeshift methods. They had no roots and didn't care which solid objects secured them, sand, shells, husks, or pebbles; they didn't ask their hosts for sustenance, just a point of purchase. These plants are entirely self-propagating, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... parson and his family. In Newbury, April 20,1768, "Young ladies met at the house of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, who preached to them a sermon from Proverbs 31-19. They spun and presented to Mrs. Parsons two hundred and seventy skeins of good yarn." They drank "liberty tea." This makeshift of a beverage was made of the four-leaved loosestrife. The herb was pulled up like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and were boiled. The leaves were put in a kettle and basted with the liquor distilled from the stalks. After this the leaves were dried in an oven to use ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... deposits. My impression upon the subject (simple, as I have no doubt you would expect to find the result of any mental process of mine) is that paper money is a financial expedient, the substitution of an appearance or makeshift for a real thing, and likely, like all other such substitutes of whatever kind, to become a source of shame, trouble, and ruin whenever, after the appointed time of circulation, which every expedient has, there should be a demand for the real article; more especially ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... would translate Emerson's sentence from American into English, without loss of brevity, directness, and simple Saxon strength. For my part, I can think of nothing better than "In man she is always telling it," which strikes me as a feeble makeshift. "All the time," I suggest, is precisely one of the phrases we should accept with gratitude—if, indeed, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Inverness-shire, Skye, and the Outer Islands. Many of them had been gamekeepers and hence were accustomed to outdoor life and the handling of guns, all of which aided them in saving the remnant of their command. They had been ordered to take some cottages, occupied by German soldiers as a makeshift fortification. The Cameronians on the way to the attack fell into a ditch which was both deep and wide. It was necessary for them to swim to get across the ditch in some places. In the meantime Highlanders were being slain by German shells and the rifle fire that the men in ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... and there is nothing about it exteriorly to distinguish it from other houses of the solid block in which it stands. Interiorly, it reminds one rather of a converted dwelling than a laboratory proper. Its rooms are well enough adapted to their purpose, but they give one the impression of a makeshift. The smallest American college would be ill-satisfied with such an equipment for any department of its work. Yet in these dingy quarters has been accomplished some of the best work in the new science of bacteriology that our century ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... sunlight, we were received by the taupo and her maidens, who were spreading fine mats for us to sit on. Oh the sweet, cool, clean freshness of a native house! It would not be fair to call it a hut, for that suggests squalor, or makeshift, whereas these houses are works of art. The roof rises inside like a great dome, the inner thatch being intricately woven in patterns, while the floor is made of clean pebbles, neatly laid and covered with fine mats. In the centre of the house the main pole stands ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... of the east door towards the river; wheeling when she reached a little wind-row of rotted timbers. This chaos had once stood up in order, forming makeshift bastions for the fort, and supporting cannon. Such boards and posts as the negroes had not carried off lay now along the river brink, and the Okaw was steadily undermining that brink as it had already undermined and carried away the Jesuits' ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "He lent it to us, but not bein' built for picnics, 'twa'n't the best in the world to pack twenty-three shovin' people in, bein' meant for just one still one; but my grandmother always told me a lot of life was a makeshift, and if you couldn't do what you'd like, then like what you had to do; and we had a lot of fun comin' out. Just like Congressmen goin' to a funeral. But I reckon you wonder what we come for?" This time she turned to Mary Cary. "We come to tell you something. Mr. Milligan, he's goin' ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... and arranging his escape, that scarcely ever crossed the old man's mind. It would have been to resign the lands of Nid de Merle, to return to the makeshift life he knew but too well, and, what was worse, to ruin and degrade his son, and incur his resentment. It would probably be easy to obtain a promise from Berenger, in his first joy and gratitude, of yielding up all pretensions of his own or his wife's; but, however honourably meant, such a ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... They sat on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their sides, and some stood by the bin throwing the hops they picked straight into it. There were a lot of children about and a good many babies, some in makeshift cradles, some tucked up in a rug on the soft brown dry earth. The children picked a little and played a great deal. The women worked busily, they had been pickers from childhood, and they could pick twice as fast as foreigners from London. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... building for each of these organizations. The rural Christian Associations have been proceeding on the policy of using such buildings as are now available, but it is evident that in the vast majority of small communities, present buildings can at best be but a makeshift for complete community service. It is hoped that the time will come when the several denominations will find some way of pooling their financial resources so that as religious organizations they can provide a common building for community service. The writer ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... Then, finally, it refused to run at all. We tried to make ourselves believe that the gasoline was too low in the tank, that the pressure of the oil had something to do with it. At first we really knew better. But days of drudgery at the paddles transformed the makeshift hope into something almost like ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... a story of its own, as has the family. In primitive days there was little necessity of a dwelling-place, except as a nest for young or a cache for provisions. A cave or a rough shelter of boughs was a makeshift for a home. Thither the hunter brought the game that he had killed, and there slept the glutton's sleep or went supperless to bed. When the hunter became a herdsman and shepherd and moved from place ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... of the preceding days—overtook us, but the rising tide, coming farther up the beach than it had done on the day before, forced us to labour at the boats, which we hauled slowly to a higher ledge. We found it necessary to move our makeshift camp nearer the cliff. I portioned out the available ground for the tents, the galley, and other purposes, as every foot was of value. When night arrived the 'Stancomb Wills' was still away, so I had a blubber-flare lit at ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... And still no aid had come. Wardo told Marius, and Marius went up on the roofs to see, and came back square of jaw and with moody eyes. He sought out Eudemius, where the latter was going the rounds of their makeshift defences, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... ford, a makeshift boat was constructed with the aid of the serviceable tarpaulin, and the Hume was crossed, close to the site of the present town of Albury. Still passing through good pastoral land, watered by numerous creeks, they crossed a river which was named the Ovens, and ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... winter, he caught his snowshoe on a buried branch and fell forward, breaking the frame. In his angry impatience he attempted no more than a temporary repair of the damage, such as he thought might see him to the end of his journey. But the poor makeshift broke down before he had gone a mile. There was nothing for him to do but to stop long enough to make a good job of it, which he did by chopping out a piece of ash, whittling down a couple of thin but tough strips, and splicing ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... without the means of guiding it, would be of little use. They had, therefore, to construct a couple of paddles and a rudder, and they then found that, with the help of two small spars, they could form a makeshift mast and yard, their shirts and pocket-handkerchiefs fastened together forming a sail. This would carry them to the rock, as the wind was off the shore, and they must trust to the assistance of ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston |
