"Contriver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Institute, coffee-rooms, eating-rooms, and lodging-houses, by which the umbrella firm strove to keep their hands respectable and contented, and were highly pleased with all, most especially with Mr. Dutton, who, though his name did not come prominently forward, had been the prime mover and contriver of all these things, and might have been a wealthier man if he had not undertaken expenses which he could not charge ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be acquainted with this gentleman while I was at Leipsic. It pleased him exceedingly to have been the contriver of so fine a structure as the Conclusions of Leipsic, and he was glad to be entertained on that subject. I had the relation from his own mouth, when, but very modestly, he told me he thought 'twas an inspiration darted on a sudden into his thoughts, when the Duke ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... the contriver of the passage indignantly, "her Grace might sleep there herself and take no harm. There is not even ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... horses of Euthyphro prance. 'Only one more God; tell me about my godfather Hermes.' He is ermeneus, the messenger or cheater or thief or bargainer; or o eirein momenos, that is, eiremes or ermes—the speaker or contriver of speeches. 'Well said Cratylus, then, that I am no son of Hermes.' Pan, as the son of Hermes, is speech or the brother of speech, and is called Pan because speech indicates everything—o pan menuon. He has two forms, a true and a false; and is in the upper part smooth, and in ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... Protestant league. Slowly, unwillingly, the various German states, and the surrounding countries also, found themselves dragged into the struggle. At first Emperor Ferdinand was successful, Bohemia was completely subdued and made Catholic, as Austria had been. A great general and shrewd contriver, Wallenstein, rose to the Emperor's aid and laid Germany prostrate at his feet. For a moment the Hapsburgs seemed as all-powerful as in the proudest days of Charles V. But his own coreligionists turned against Ferdinand. The princes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... battle in which he was for ever worsted. He was still trying in vain to sell his house at Chelsea, the house planned at the height of his brief prosperity, built and finely furnished on borrowed money, and now apparently unsaleable, because of certain peculiarities in it, which suited its contriver, and no one else. And meanwhile the bank from which he had borrowed most of his building money was pressing inexorably for repayment; the solicitor in Bedford Row could do nothing, and was manifestly averse to running up a longer bill on his own account; so that, instead of painting, Fenwick ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... disobeyed the divine commandment, and in consequence forfeited the bliss of primeval paradise, he was seduced by his fair partner, who had already listened to the wily suggestions of the serpent; but Abraham, so far from being tempted by his wife, appears to have been the sole contriver of this disingenuous artifice, and employed all his influence to induce her to transgress. In following him from his original residence into Canaan, and subsequently to Egypt, she obeyed the dictates ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... very thought of catering to such appetites disgusted Gallatin. To Jefferson he frankly said, in 1809, that while he did not pretend to step out of his own sphere and to control the internal management of other departments, yet he could not "consent to act the part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of resources for the purpose of supporting useless baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... same degree that the weight of water is lighter than the weight of the earth. Here he ordered vapors, here too, the clouds to take their station; the thunder, too, to terrify the minds of mortals, and with the lightnings, the winds that bring on cold. The Contriver of the World did not allow these indiscriminately to take possession of the sky. Even now, (although they each of them govern their own blasts in a distinct tract) they are with great difficulty prevented from rending the world asunder, so great is the discord of the brothers.[18] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... surrounded on the rear. Nor does that guilt, which I now state, extend to all the Albans. They followed their leader; as you too would have done, if I had wished my army to make a move to any other point from thence. Mettus there is the leader of that march, the same Mettus is the contriver of this war; Mettus is the violator of the treaty between Rome and Alba. Let another hereafter attempt the like conduct, unless I now make of him a signal example to mankind." The centurions in arms stand round Mettus, and the king proceeds with the rest as he had commenced: "It ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... this Poet says, in his doctrine of criticism, declining peremptorily to accept of the ancient rules in matters of taste;—a rule in art which requires, of course, a corresponding rule of interpretation. In fact, it is no bad exercise for an ordinary mind, to undertake to track the contriver of these plays, through all the latitudes which his art, as he understands it, gives him. It is as good for that purpose, as a problem in mathematics. But, 'to whom you will not give an hour, you give nothing,' he says, and 'he had as lief not be read at all, as be read ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation which I had painted as the common effects of those destructive machines; whereof," he said, "some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. As for himself, he protested, that although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom, than be privy to such a secret; which he commanded me, as I valued any life, never ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... most indefatigable contriver, inventor, and organizer of industry. One of his inventions was a double-bottomed ship, to sail against wind and tide. He published treatises on dyeing, on naval philosophy, on woollen cloth manufacture, on political arithmetic, and many other subjects. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... cost him and his son to calculate its dimensions, and fix it in its place. The dial had been serenely numbering the hours through the busy years that had elapsed since that humble dwelling had been his home; during which the Killingworth locomotive had become a great working power, and its contriver had established the railway system, which was now rapidly becoming extended in all ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... bringing it to perfection. Were the first condensing engine made at Soho—now to be seen at the Museum in South Kensington—in like manner to be compared with the last improved pumping-engine made yesterday, even the great James Watt might be made out to have been a very poor contriver. It would be much fairer to compare Koenig's steam-printing machine with the hand-press newspaper printing machine which it superseded. Though there were steam engines before Watt, and steamboats before Fulton, and steam locomotives before Stephenson, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... Post, so well known and still practised, I cannot omit, nor the contriver, Mr. Dockwra, who has had the honour to have the injury done him in that affair repaired in some measure by the public justice of the Parliament. And, the experiment proving it to be a noble and useful design, the author must be remembered, wherever mention is made of that affair, ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... the public mind had been adroitly fanned into flame by the evil genius of Lord Shaftesbury. Eachard states that if he was not the original contriver of this disturbance, "he was at least the grand refiner and improver of all the materials. And so much he seemed to acknowledge to a nobleman of his acquaintance, when he said, 'I will not say who ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... is too gross a pretence to pass at any time, and especially in this age, where we all know one another so well. Yet, whoever proposeth any scheme which may prove to be a public benefit, I shall not quarrel if it prove likewise very beneficial to the contriver. It is certain, that next to the want of silver, our greatest distress in point of coin is the want of small change, which may be some poor relief for the defect of the former, since the Crown will not please to take that work upon them ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... that I know not how to do any thing but curse them. And then, truly, they are for helping me out with some of their trite and vulgar artifices. Sally, particularly, who pretends to be a mighty contriver, has just now, in an insolent manner, told me, on my rejecting her proffered aids, that I had no mind to conquer; and that I was so wicked as to intend to marry, though I would not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... my army coat!—Throw it over me! [Nurse gets the coat and puts it over him.] Ah, my rough lion skin that, you wanted to take away from me! Omphale! Omphale! You cunning woman, champion of peace and contriver of man's disarmament. Wake, Hercules, before they take your club away from you! You would wile our armor from us too, and make believe that it is nothing but glittering finery. No, it was iron, let me tell you, before it ever glittered. In olden ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... yielded but upon great persuasion, and partly to save his life, for she heard he was in a consumption. So these two mad wits were reconciled, and made a match of it, after Claudio and Hero were married; and to complete the history, Don John, the contriver of the villany, was taken in his flight, and brought back to Messina; and a brave punishment it was to this gloomy, discontented man, to see the joy and feastings which, by the disappointment of his plots, took place at the palace ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... angels. Now, his name comprehends wisdom, goodness, power, mercy, and justice. The first three he declares in all the works of his hands. All are well done and wisely done. The excellency of the work shows the wonderful counsellor and the wise contriver. The goodness of any creature in its kind, declares the inexhausted spring of a self-being from whom it proceeds, and the bringing all these out of nothing, and upholding them, is a glorious declaration of his power. But yet, in all the works of his hands, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... cast up a short and silent prayer to God, she turns about, and bespeaks her: 'In the name of God, mother, why do you trouble me?' 'Peace,' says the spectrum; 'I will do thee no hurt.' 'What will you have of me?' says the daughter," &c.[86] Dunton, the narrator and probably the contriver of the story, proceeds to inform us at length of a commission which the wife of Mr. Leckie receives from the ghost to deliver to Atherton, Bishop of Waterford, a guilty and unfortunate man, who afterwards died by the hands of the executioner; ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... affirmer aider almoner annoyer arbiter assenter asserter bailer caster censer (vessel) concocter condenser conferrer conjurer consulter continuer contradicter contriver convener conveyer corrupter covenanter debater defender deliberater deserter desolater deviser discontinuer disturber entreater exalter exasperater exciter executer (except in law) expecter frequenter granter idolater imposer ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... information of, concerning the printing and publishing their Books and Pamphlets, and to examine also what they know concerning the Libel [the Libel against the Peers of which George Jeffrey had dispersed copies], who was the author, printer, and contriver of it; and the Gentleman-Usher shall attach the parties, and bring them before the Judges; and the Stationers are to be present at their examinations, and give evidence ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... were twisted, and the eyes of all turned upon me with a frightful squint; not an individual present but squinted, - the genteel Pepa, the good-humoured Chicharona, the Casdami, etc. etc. The Gypsy fellow, the contriver of the jest, squinted worst of ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... I know you for a cunning contriver—an upsetter of calculations—but no Turk. Nevertheless, as I understand it, we go against Ali Higg, who calls himself the Lion of Petra. Sheikh Ali Higg has amassed a heap of plunder—hundreds of camels—merchandise taken from the caravans; that should be ours for the lifting. That is ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... for a few moments longer, to tell you that the scheme was carried into execution, and fully answered the hopes of the generous contriver. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... is every thing. What an admirable contriver did I think myself till now! Even for this scheme among the rest! But how pitifully foolish does it now appear to me!—Scratch out, erase, never to be read, every part of my preceding letters, where I have boastingly mentioned it. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... me tell you—I suppose Mr. Horne must be in town—as I received a letter two days ago, from the contriver of some literary society or other who had before written to get me to belong to it, protesting against my reasons for refusing, and begging that 'at all events I would suspend my determination till I had been visited by Mr. H. on the subject'—and, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Sheridan's(246) beginning a negotiation without him. I have figured him, if it be true, saying to him, at his arrival, as Hecate does to the Witches in Macbeth, "Saucy and (over) bold, how did you dare to trade and traffic, &c., and I, the mistress of your charms, the close contriver of all harms, was never called to bear my part," &c. I will not (go) on to the rest of the passage,(247) for fear of offending. I hope that I shall not have offended you by anything which I have said; if I do not, you shall hear from me as often as you please. Be only persuaded ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... funeral, Cicero had remained in Rome. His timidity seemed to have forsaken him, and he had striven, with an energy which recalled his brightest days, to set the Constitution again upon its feet. Antony charged him in the Senate with having been the contriver of Caesar's death. He replied with invectives fierce and scurrilous as those which he had heaped upon Catiline and Clodius. A time had been when he had affected to look on Antony as his preserver. Now there was no imaginable ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... with experiments upon mind, or experiments for producing effects through the medium of voluntary acts of the human mind, so that the contriver must take into consideration the laws of mind in forming his plans. To illustrate this by rather a childish case: I once knew a boy who was employed by his father to remove all the loose small stones, which, from the peculiar nature of the ground, had accumulated in the road ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... beneath them some vestiges of the tops of the former words which had been effaced, perceived, as was indeed the case, that by interpolations of the original letter, matters very different from any of which Silvanus was author had been written over them, according to the fancy of the contriver of this forgery. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... it, I freely give him leave to do as I did, and go up to the Moon for a Demonstration; and if upon his return he does not give ample Testimony to the Case in every part of it, as here related, I am content to pass for the Contriver of it my self, and be punish'd as the Law shall say ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... I believe I know some that have been familiarly acquainted with it. This is a little trick wrought by some pitiful contriver, envious of my ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Thee, the contriver, thee full of gall and bitterness, who sinned against the gods by bestowing their honors on creatures of a day, the thief of fire, I address. The Sire commands thee to divulge of what nuptials it is that thou art ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... thou Baggage, thou wicked Contriver of Mischief, what excuse had'st thou for running away? ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... Dexterous contriver, he undoubtedly is. Lady Cowry has it from Sir Meeson Corby, who had it from the poor dowager, that Lord Fleetwood has installed the man in his house and sits at the opposite end of his table; fished ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ocean of outdoors." There are social companies as hard to get rid of as this. They want to go, and every one wants them to go, but just how to make the start, no one seems to know. Dr. Holmes and his "inclined plane" may have been successful with the private caller, but who will be the "contriver of a ceremonial," one sufficient to land the social company into its "native element, the great ocean of outdoors?" No, this most delicate of the problems involved in a successful modern social must be left to a tactful hint from the entertainment committee, ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... an act of treason to the Sikh chieftains and the Sikh soldiery, which, added to the Maharajah's total neglect of public business, accelerated a fatal conspiracy by his brother-in-law Ajeet Singh, and Dhyan Singh, "the close contriver of all harms." Shere Singh, being invited to inspect his brother-in-law's cavalry at a short distance from Lahore, was there shot by Ajeet. The assassin, riding quietly back to the city, met on the way the carriage of Dhyan Singh, dismounted, and, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... had forfeited all claim to indulgence by becoming privy to the Assassination Plot. This man, Portland said, constantly haunted Versailles. Barclay, whose guilt was of a still deeper dye,—Barclay, the chief contriver of the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green,—had found in France, not only an asylum, but an honourable military position. The monk who was sometimes called Harrison and sometimes went by the alias of Johnson, but who, whether Harrison or Johnson, had been one ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to pain; but this may have been a necessary condition of its susceptibility to pleasure; a supposition which avails nothing on the theory of an omnipotent Creator, but is an extremely probable one in the case of a Contriver working under the limitation of inexorable laws and ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... fashions prevailing in the Twenty-Third Regiment. But beside these there are certain other constructions that seem to spring with the ease and grace of spontaneity from the hands of an ingenious and experienced contriver of a tent-home,—if so sacred a word may be used in so profane a connection. Not a little ingenuity is called into play in disposing advantageously about the tent the necessary personal paraphernalia of the soldier, not to mention the dozen little conveniences ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... put, but it will apply to the mechanism of animal and vegetable bodies only, if it is used to show that they too must have had a contriver who has a hand, or something tantamount to one; who does act; who, being a contriver, has what all other contrivers must have, if they are to be called contrivers—a body which can suffer more or less pain or chagrin if the contrivance is unsuccessful. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... to a part of the rock which was seldom guarded, and showed them where to place their ladders. He had been in the service of the Lord Fleming, the governor, but on account of contumelious usage had quitted it, and had been the contriver ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... forth, the horse a third, but now two only have returned! My heart is utterly o'erborne with grief, filled with anxious thoughts, it cannot rest. And you, deceitful man! Untrustworthy and false associate! evil contriver! plainly revealed a traitor, a smile lurks underneath thy tears! Escorting him in going; returning now with wails! Not one at heart—but in league against him—openly constituted a friend and well-wisher, concealing underneath a ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... reasons may be added from the levity of the stile and manifest absurdities contained in that Paper. Upon confederation of all which this Assembly doth condemn the said Pamphlet as forged, scandalous, and false, And further Declare the author and contriver of the same void of charity and a good conscience, and a grosse lyar and calumniator led by the Spirit of the accuser ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... observes, "As meanly as you may now think of these Drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians; and, I may say, by some that then exceeded all now living; the incomparable Robert Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and author of most of these farces. How I have heard him cried up for his John Swabber, and Simpleton the Smith; in which he being to appear with a large piece of bread and butter, I have frequently known several of the ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... not deny, that human reason is powerful within its own province. It may discover in the beautiful structure of the Universe, and in the harmony and fitness of all its parts, the hand of a great contriver. It may conclude upon attributes, as belonging to the same. It may see the fitness of virtue, and deduce from thence a speculative morality. They only say that it, is incompetent to spiritual discernment. But though they believe the two spirits ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... summit of defence her flood went pouring into the moat around its feet, until it mantled to the brim, turning the weeds into a cold shadowy pavement of green for a foil to its pellucid depth. She understood all the secrets of the aqueous catapult, at which its contriver had little more than hinted on that memorable night when he disclosed so much, and believed she could arrange it for action without assistance. At the same time her new responsibilities required but a portion of her leisure, and lady Margaret was not the less pleased with the wise-headed girl, whose ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... must be laid with art; I would not be left destitute, I must secure some money. Alas! to what loathsome shifts must I be driven? Yet a whole life of falsehood was otherwise my portion: and when remorse at being the contriver of any cheat made me shrink from my design I was irresistably led back and confirmed in it by the visit of some aunt or cousin, who would tell me that death was the end of all men. And then say that my father had surely lost his wits ever since my mother's ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... recovered reputation, and all the dignity of a countess, with a long train of noble relations in their several phaetons, and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise and four, behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. But my affair is widely different; I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace; and no sweet elation of spirits ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
