"Ingenious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lately read Mr. Goodall,S(1043) book. There is certainly ingenuity in parts 'of his defence: but I believe one seldom thinks a defence ingenious without meaning that it is unsatisfactory. His work left me fully convinced of what he endeavoured to disprove; and showed me, that the piece you mention is not the only one that he has written ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... scholar, a feeling from which he never cleansed himself, had been the chief cause of his so readily delivering himself a dupe to allegations not specious, backed by forgeries that were anything but ingenious. Dr. Johnson had a narrow escape on that occasion. Had Dr. Douglas fastened upon him as the collusive abettor of Lander, as the man whose sanction had ever won even a momentary credit for the obscure ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... money, more than they could count, Scent from a most ingenious little fount, More beer, in little kegs, Many dozen hard-boiled eggs, And goodies ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... gathered it was Blenkiron who had had him sent to St Anton, and in his time there, as a disgruntled Boer, he had mixed a good deal with Germans. They had pumped him about our air service, and Peter had told them many ingenious lies and heard ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... preferable to four small ones. It is, to be sure, sometimes difficult to put the windows where they will let in the sunlight, the registers where they will heat, and the wall space where it will permit the sleeper to have fresh air without a draught. But marvels in the way of ingenious planning have been evolved where necessity, the mother of invention, has ruled; and assuredly there is no greater necessity than ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... by our savants. They have an excellent wild duck, called the Canvass Back, which, if delicately served, would surpass the black cock; but the game is very inferior to our's; they have no hares, and I never saw a pheasant. They seldom indulge in second courses, with all their ingenious temptations to the eating a second dinner; but almost every table has its dessert, (invariably pronounced desart) which is placed on the table before the cloth is removed, and consists of pastry, preserved fruits, and creams. They are "extravagantly fond," to use their own ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... was, and in fact still is, the period of Sargon I, King of Agade, inasmuch as the date of his reign is settled, according to the reckoning of the scribes of Nabonidus, as about 3800 B.C. It is true that this date has been called in question, and ingenious suggestions for amending it have been made by some writers, while others have rejected it altogether, holding that it merely represented a guess on the part of the late Babylonians and could be safely ignored in the chronological schemes which they brought forward. But ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... electric-light expert, the lawyer, the estate agent, and numberless other persons, during the night meditated and evolved advertisements. There was to be a continual stream week by week after the inn was opened of ingenious advertisements. Altogether Mr. Twist had his ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, by a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great logs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands snapped ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... for a short time. Marion never before in her life received two such letters. Both were anonymous. The first one that she opened aroused enough curiosity to "unsettle" her. She thought she knew whom it was from—those ingenious Boy Scouts of Spring Lake—perhaps it was written by cousin Clifford himself. It was just like him. He was a natural leader among boys, and often up to mischief of some sort. Marion was sure he was one of the prime movers of the ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... guess the poor old thing could tell tales that would curdle your blood. She's the mulatto woman who was standing in here a while ago, with her apron to her eyes. The old woman is a fury; there never was anybody like her for demonstrative piety and ingenious cruelty. She made Harvey's life a hell for him when he lived at home; he was so sick ashamed of it. I never could see how he ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... whether he wanted the clothes, and the outlay was a serious one. Mrs. Tadman had need to hold his every-day coat up to the light to convince him that the collar was threadbare, and that the sleeves shone as if purposely polished by some ingenious process. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... gets to the bridge first," said the Sunday. With an ingenious movement of the shoulders he arranged himself so that the parapet should bear the weight of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Mechanics of a Liquid.—An ingenious method of measuring the volume of fibrous and porous substances without immersion in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... full well that God has practised no partiality in the distribution of the noblest of his gifts—the intellect; I know that in many a retired hamlet of our province—amid many a painful scene of poverty and toil—there may be found young minds ardent and ingenious and as worthy of cultivation as those of the pampered children of our cities. It is greatly important to the advancement of the country that these ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... into a single mighty giant's body. To develop its full strength, however, this body needs some inspiration through a suggested idea, which finds an active echo in the hearts of the soldiers. Maintenance of the warlike spirit in decisive moments is one of the most important problems for the ingenious general. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... midst of speaking, he was so hurried away by his passion, against his judgment, that his voice lost its tone, and he began to pass into mere abusive talking, spoiling his whole speech. As a remedy to this excess, he made use of an ingenious servant of his, one Licinius, who stood constantly behind him with a sort of pitch-pipe, or instrument to regulate the voice by, and whenever he perceived his master's tone alter, and break with anger, he struck a soft note with his pipe, on hearing which, Caius immediately ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a very ingenious affair, folding tightly up when not in use, and taking up very little ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 28, May 20, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... "you cannot pass a true judgment of it unless you had read their histories; for, if they are to be believed, they had towns among them before these parts were so much as inhabited; and as for those discoveries that have been either hit on by chance or made by ingenious men, these might have happened there as well as here. I do not deny but we are more ingenious than they are, but they exceed us much in industry and application. They knew little concerning us before our arrival among them. They call us all by a general name ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... phenomenon which, as you know, has been utilized by Prof. Graham Bell in that most ingenious and striking invention, the photophone. By the kindness of Prof. Silvanus Thompson, I have a few slides to show the principle of the invention, and Mr. Shelford Bidwell has been kind enough to lend me ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... further ensured by the fact that the material of which they were constructed was an amalgam largely composed of aluminium. They were completely decked from stem to stern with a light covering of the same material, rendering them absolutely watertight; but by an ingenious arrangement of wing nuts these decks could be removed in a few minutes; while, by a similar arrangement, the hulls could almost as quickly be ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... widow was sadly uncertain, for every one was aware that Mrs. Lunn could now depend upon only a scant provision. She was much younger than her husband, having been a second wife, and she was thrifty and ingenious; but her outlook was acknowledged to be anything but cheerful. In truth, the honest grief that she displayed in the early days of her loss was sure to be better understood with the ancient proverb in mind, that a lean sorrow is hardest ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... who was emphatically a man of action should become weary of a minister who was a man of speculation. Charles, who went to Council as he went to the play, solely to be amused, was delighted with an adviser who had a hundred pleasant and ingenious things to say on both sides of every question. But William had no taste for disquisitions and disputations, however lively and subtle, which occupied much time and led to no conclusion. It was reported, and is not improbable, that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... These ingenious stories of the success of the imperturbable Sherlock Holmes in detecting crime and disentangling mystery have become known wherever the English language is spoken. It is a notable thing to be able to create a character that is known even by people ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Sykes remarks that this species has the same ingenious nest as O. longicauda. I have found the nest on several occasions, and verified Colonel Sykes's observations; but it is not so neatly sewn together as the nest of the true Tailor-bird, and there is generally more grass and other vegetable fibres used in the ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... filled with wine at the fountains, and offered them to the king and to the nobles who accompanied him. On the top of the castle, between the four towers, there stood a golden angel with a crown in his hand. By some ingenious mechanism, this angel was made to extend his arm to the king, as if in the act of offering him the crown. This was a symbol representing the idea often inculcated in those days, that the right of the king to reign was a divine ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... English trench and looking from the outside like an innocent, natural crevice. Immediately behind it was a steel grating, firmly embedded in the sides of the tunnel, and on one of the bars the muzzle of the sniper's rifle was laid, its stock resting on an ingenious wooden fork, which could be raised or lowered by a ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... you justice, Lieutenant, even if you get the best in the potato trial. I say you've passed a good human life, for a soldier, in places where the rifle is daily used, and I know you are a creditable and ingenious marksman; but then you are not a true rifle-shooter. As for boasting, I hope I'm not a vain talker about my own exploits; but a man's gifts are his gifts, and it's flying in the face of Providence to deny them. The Sergeant's daughter, here, shall judge between us, if you have the stomach to submit ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... examples of the Soho chicken have lately appeared upon the show benches at various important poultry contests. This ingenious creation, which has long been familiar to the patrons of our less expensive restaurants (hence the name), is said to possess qualities of endurance superior to anything previously on the market. Its muscular development is phenomenal, while the entire ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... Mr. Hueffer's romantic personality. But if we consider Mr. Stanley Weyman, we are taking a novelist in whom everything depends upon the thrill of incident. Still, he has made of his work a fine craft. He uses words conscientiously. He has exceptional skill in tracing his ingenious plots. He has read history carefully, and for the most part adheres faithfully to facts—though I believe he is not so well instructed in German as in French history. The scrupulousness which refines his work gives quality to his narrative, and he can be read with ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... knowledge I know this to be false. The officials over there have found out an effectual way to rid themselves of their discharged prisoners as fast as their sentences expire, and cast them on our shores, and this is so ingenious a way that the wrong can never be brought ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... apostasy of Julian, had much more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions were apparently ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... these Finesses, these Conceits, these glittering Strokes, these Gaieties, these little cut Sentences, these ingenious Prodigalities" in which wit is expressed might be either sober or funny. Most of the examples in the Essay on Wit are of the sober kind, coming under the order of wit because they are pretty and diverting fancies. But by the 1690's there had been a clear tendency ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... of which we shall speak in our third part, breaks out between you and madame, you will always have plenty of ingenious excuses for rummaging in the drawers and escritoires; for if your wife is trying to hide from you some statue of her adoration, it is your interest to know where she has hidden it. A gyneceum, constructed on the method described, will enable you to calculate at a glance, whether there ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... tempting prize within her bill. But she was perch'd too high, And Reynard could not fly: She chose the tallest tree in all the wood, What then could bring her down? Or make the prize his own? Nothing but flatt'ry could. He soon the silence broke, And thus ingenious hunger spoke: "Oh, lovely bird, Whose glossy plumage oft has stirr'd The envy of the grove; Thy form was Nature's pleasing care, So bright a bloom, so soft an air, All that behold must love. But, if to suit a form like thine, Thy voice ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... anyway, there's no necessity for your knowing her—— I mean," he said hastily, "she doesn't want to know you, dear old thing. Now, don't be peevish. Ham, you sit there. Becksteine will sit there. You, young miss, will sit near me, ready to take down my notes as they fall from my ingenious old brain." ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... John, Hans Carvel's ring upon thy finger, who was the King of Melinda's chief jeweller. Besides that this Hans Carvel had the reputation of being very skilful and expert in the lapidary's profession, he was a studious, learned, and ingenious man, a scientific person, full of knowledge, a great philosopher, of a sound judgment, of a prime wit, good sense, clear spirited, an honest creature, courteous, charitable, a giver of alms, and of a jovial humour, a boon companion, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Casks (Vol. viii., p. 439.).—Your correspondent B. H. C., though ingenious, is in error. The X on brewers' casks originated in the fact, that beer above a certain strength paid 10s. duty; and the X became a mark to denote beer of that better quality. The doubling and tripling of the X are nothing but inventions of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... next forty-eight hours in ingenious efforts to put together certain additional information as to the current value of founders' shares in the new company, the nature and amount of Wharton's debts, and so on. Thanks to his father's hints he was able in the end to discover quite enough ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... few seconds Edie returned in triumph with an old soiled and torn copy of the 'Morning Intelligence,' duly procured by the ingenious Mrs. Halliss from the dairy opposite. It was a decidedly antiquated copy, and it had only too obviously been employed by its late possessor to wrap up a couple of kippered herrings; but it was still entire, so far as regarded the leaders at least, and it was perfectly ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... well-laden dwarf cases of brilliant volumes, crowned with no lack of marble busts, bronzes, and Etruscan vases. On each side opened a magnificent saloon, furnished in that classic style which the late accomplished and ingenious Mr. Hope first rendered popular in this country. The wings, projecting far into the gardens, comprised respectively a dining-room and a conservatory of considerable dimensions. Isolated in the midst of the gardens was a long ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Hanover, all these things were at perfection: men were patterns of politeness and gallantry; women, of beauty, wit, and entertainment. His troops there were the bravest in the world; his manufacturers the most ingenious; his people the happiest: in Hanover, in short, plenty reigned, riches flowed, arts flourished, magnificence abounded, everything was in abundance that could make a prince great, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... under depressing circumstances. There was a deficit of L2,750,000, or about $15,000,000, and taxation upon articles of consumption had been pushed to its utmost limit. Peel was a great financier, but the fiscal difficulties by which he was now surrounded were enough to appall the most ingenious of financial ministers. ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... better; guard-bands add to its appearance without troubling the wearer; and it has the merit of lasting to look well longer than any other kind of cap whatever. In the lancers they should always preserve that national cap which tells us of the origin of this arm, and which is an ingenious and elegant adaptation of the strength of the helmet to the lightness of the shako; it is beautiful and graceful as the lance itself; we have nothing to say of it but what is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... ingenious, Joseph, and shows a deep knowledge of human nature. But who was this tardy saint that ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the freedom of some of the architectural forms, particularly in the archways at east and west, there is a suggestion of Renaissance influence. The plan with its four cut-corners with fountains, and its half-dome facing down the long colonnade to the bay, is ingenious. The half-dome itself, dominating feature of the court, is exceptionally dignified and impressive. To obtain the best view of it as a single unit, one should stand between two columns of the colonnade near either the Fountain of Summer or the ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... "You're an ingenious old nightmare, pardner—you almost make it convincing. But Great Scott, man! Can't you see that your fine, plausible theory is all built on surmise and wild conjecture? You haven't got a leg to ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Yesterday morning some discussion arose about a question which Brougham put to Powell. He asked him who was his principal, as he was an agent. The question was objected to, and he began to defend it in an uncommonly clever speech, but was stopped before he had spoken long. He introduced a very ingenious quotation which was suggested to him by Spencer Perceval, who was standing near him. Talking of the airy, unsubstantial being who was the principal, and one of the parties in this cause, he said ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... proclamation was issued directing the removal of fences which inclosed the public domain. Many of these have been removed in obedience to such order, but much of the public land still remains within the lines of these unlawful fences. The ingenious methods resorted to in order to continue these trespasses and the hardihood of the pretenses by which in some cases such inclosures are justified are fully detailed in the report of the Secretary ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... credit; so, since the fashion hath been taken up of exploding religion, the Popish missionaries have not been wanting to mix with the Freethinkers; among whom Toland, the great oracle of the Anti- Christians, is an Irish priest, the son of an Irish priest; and the most learned and ingenious author of a book called the "Rights of the Christian Church," was in a proper juncture reconciled to the Romish faith, whose true son, as appears by a hundred passages in his treatise, he still continues. Perhaps ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... composed, did not compose music; for instead of making melodies, he made harsh and discordant sounds. For eighty years, many men of learning and culture have been loudly proclaiming that Browning, whatever he was, was not a poet; he was ingenious, he was thoughtful, a philosopher, if you like, but surely no poet. When The Ring and the Book was published, a thoroughly respectable British critic wrote, "Music does not exist for him any more than for the deaf." On the other hand, the accomplished poet, musician, and critic, Sidney ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... some spiders use these peculiar glands to form light webs by whose aid, though wingless, they float balloon-wise through the air; that others employ them to line the sides of their underground tunnels, and to make the basis of their marvellously ingenious earthen trap-doors; that yet others have learnt how to adapt these same organs to a subaquatic existence, and to fill cocoons with air, like miniature diving bells; while others, again, have taught themselves to construct webs thick enough to catch and hold even creatures so superior ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... to which we have referred, discoveries, which might have been easily understood, gave rise to the supposition that the actors were in compact with the devil. On the first occasion of the German printers carrying their books to France, the ingenious inventors of printing were condemned to be burned alive as sorcerers—a sentence that would have been executed had those discoverers of a useful art not saved ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... development by evolution, and the survival of the fittest in violin, 'cello, contrabass, alto, beside countless others whose very names have perished with the time that produced them, and the fingers which played them—ingenious guesses, clever misses—the tragedy of harmony as ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... man. Only one, but a very formidable person. Strong as a lion—witness the blow that bent that poker! Six foot three in height, active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers, finally, remarkably quick-witted, for this whole ingenious story is of his concoction. Yes, Watson, we have come upon the handiwork of a very remarkable individual. And yet, in that bell-rope, he has given us a clue which should not have ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... it joyfully. Others who heard the name and were not aware of the joke in which it originated supposed that the bearer of it was really an Indian chief, about whose bloody prowess they were ready to believe any tales which the ingenious Mr. Murphy might invent. And so, for the remainder of the voyage, Scotty was known throughout the column as Big Scalper, the fiercest Indian ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... An ingenious demonstration was decided on, which was made possible by a contribution of $1,000 from the Leslie Suffrage Commission. An interview of Vermont women with the Governor was arranged by a good friend of suffrage, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... until their mighty engines should be devoted to increasing human welfare they were and would continue mere curious scientific toys of no more real worth or utility to the race than so many particularly ingenious jumping-jacks. This craze for more and more and ever greater and wider inventions for economic purposes, coupled with apparent complete indifference as to whether mankind derived any ultimate benefit from them ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... "Ingenious at argument as you are, he remarked quietly, "you will hardly deny that Knight, of Omaha, is the exact opposite of Forbes, of London. My nose is almost Jewish - my complexion is dark as an Arab's. Still, I suppose I am the sallow, snub-nosed Forbes described here, inasmuch as I have stolen ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Jane Sands as a rule; it was almost an unheard-of thing for her seat to be empty. But to-day it was so, and the row of little boys whom her gentle presence generally awed into tolerable behaviour, indulged unchecked in all the ingenious naughtiness that infant mind and body are ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... beautiful Kentuckian spoke of the work among the white mountaineers; a very venerable gentlewoman from Chicago, exquisitely frail, talked on behalf of the children in factories; a crisp, curt, efficient woman from Oregon advocated the dissemination of books among the "lumber-jacks." They were ingenious in their pursuit of benevolences, and their annual reports were the impersonal records of personal labors. They had started libraries, made little parks, inaugurated playgrounds, instituted exchanges for the sale of women's wares, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... came about that Harrison, enjoying himself one night, after the manner of his kind, was suddenly dropped upon with violence. He had constructed an ingenious machine, consisting of a biscuit tin, some pebbles, and some string. He put the pebbles in the tin, tied the string to it, and placed it under a chest of drawers. Then he took the other end of the string to bed with him, and ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... sonorous, the sense largely depending upon inflection, copious in vowel sounds, abounding in metaphor; affording constant opportunity for the ingenious combination and construction of words to image delicate, and varying shades of thought, and to express vehement manifestations of passion; admitting of greater and more sudden variations in pitch, ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... Newbury's ingenious citizen, Jacob Perkins, in drawing out diseases with his metallic tractors, was quite as successful as modern "faith and mind" doctors. The Quakers, whipped at Hampton on one hand and at Salem on the other, went back and forth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... stratagem and deceit—men of this class deal in prophecy and jugglery of all kinds, and out of their ranks sometimes come tyrants and demagogues and generals and hierophants of private mysteries and the Sophists, as they are termed, with their ingenious devices. There are many kinds of unbelievers, but two only for whom legislation is required; one the hypocritical sort, whose crime is deserving of death many times over, while the other needs only bonds and admonition. In like manner also the notion that the Gods take no thought of men produces ...
— Laws • Plato
... of Arc or The Revolt of the Tartars, which are not historical studies but romantic dreams inspired by reading history. In the critical field, "The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth," "Wordsworth's Poetry" and the "Essay on Style" are immensely suggestive. As an example of ingenious humor "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" is often recommended; but it has this serious fault, that it is not humorous. For a concrete example of De Quincey's matter and manner there is nothing better than "Levana or Our Ladies of Sorrow" ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... dead. She was obliged to take to her bed and continually remain there, and then, it occurred to her mind that the clerk had caused her to fast to punish her carnal appetites, and she came to the conclusion that his methods were ingenious and effective, and would not have been thought of by a ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... by the applause, Kate had chaffed and mocked at the Baillie so winningly that she at once won the sympathy of the house. But the following night a tall, sour-faced girl, who wore pads, and with whom Kate had had some words concerning her coarse language, hit upon an ingenious device for 'queering the scene!' Her trick was to burst into a roar of laughter just before she had time to say, 'A fat head.' The others soon tumbled to the trick, and in a night or two they worked so well ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... from the ridge pole down to the eaves. All are kept in their places, an inch and a half apart, by cross pieces, made fast with cinnet. The whole of this upper cagelike work looks compact and tidy, and at the first glance is admired by strangers as being alike novel, ingenious, and neat. The wood of the bread-fruit tree, of which the greater part of the best houses are built, is durable, and, if preserved from wet, ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... many a building, which would have been decent enough if let alone, has been scrawled over with straight lines, as in Fig. III., on exactly the same principles, and with just the same amount of intelligence as a boy's in scrawling his copy-book when he cannot write. The device was thought ingenious at one period of architectural history; St. Paul's and Whitehall are covered with it, and it is in this I imagine that some of our modern architects suppose the great merit of those buildings to consist. There is, however, no excuse for errors in disposition of masonry, for ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... classmate of mine saying, "Why, man, can't you let anything alone?" I said, "I let everything alone that you can show me is not itself moving in the wrong direction, but I am not going to let those things alone that I see are going downhill"; and I borrowed this illustration from an ingenious writer. He says, "If you have a post that is painted white and want to keep it white, you cannot let it alone; and if anybody says to you, 'Why don't you let that post alone,' you will say, 'Because I want it to stay white, and therefore I have got to paint it at least ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... Palace, These dolls thus arrayed he arranged on a plan in relief of the Interior of Notre Dame, and carrying it to the Emperor, said: "Sire, I bring Your Majesty something better than the drawings." Napoleon thought the idea ingenious, and used the dolls and the plan to make every official understand his ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... in having feared the Goblin as a dangerous competitor in the quest of the Grail. King, as we have intimated before, was a quaint-minded and ingenious person, modest in stature but with a twinkling and roving eye. He was one of the leading spirits of the OUDS, known in full as the Oxford University Dramatic Society, and his ability to portray females of the ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... to the forms assumed by the beings and the objects of those days. I have examined all that remains of stone, of iron, or of wood worked by the hands of those old artisans, who were freer and consequently more ingenious than ours, and whose handicraft reveals a desire to animate and adorn everything. To the best of my ability I have studied figures carved and painted, not exactly in France—for there, in those ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... as to distinctly recognise its authority. The All-True and All-Knowing cannot have made a mistake, nor can He have expressly led His disciples to regard as genuine and Divine, prophecies which were in truth the inventions of an ingenious romancer.' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of inventive genius. Tom Swift is a bright, ingenious boy and his inventions and adventures make the most ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... might make of me. Wauna's own inclinations greatly influenced her mother, and finally we obtained her consent. Our preparations were carefully made. The advanced knowledge of chemistry in Mizora placed many advantages in our way. Our boat was an ingenious contrivance with a thin glass top that could be removed and folded away until needed to protect us from the rigors of ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... appeal to so often, such training may develop a machine-like skill in routine lines (it is far from being sure to do so, since it may develop distaste, aversion, and carelessness), but it will be at the expense of those qualities of alert observation and coherent and ingenious planning which make an occupation intellectually rewarding. In an autocratically managed society, it is often a conscious object to prevent the development of freedom and responsibility, a few do the planning and ordering, the others follow directions and are deliberately ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... priesthood, their pliancy in the hands of demagogues, threaten continuance of these ills; yet, on the other hand, we must regard them as most valuable elements in the new race. They are looked upon with contempt for their wont of aptitude in learning new things; their ready and ingenious lying; their eye-service. These are the faults of an oppressed race, which must require the aid of better circumstances through two or three generations to eradicate. Their virtues are their own; they are many, genuine, and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... majesty of the throne, but it was sacrilege. The slightest offence, viewed in this light, merited death; and the gravest could incur no heavier penalty. *10 Yet, in the infliction of their punishments, they showed no unnecessary cruelty; and the sufferings of the victim were not prolonged by the ingenious torments so frequent ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... his curly head on the horse's neck, and he very nearly tumbled off. After that he dismounted, and pulling down the prancing legs of the horse, got between them, and holding fast, he had a fine ride after an ingenious invention of his own; for, as the horse's legs rose in the air, up went little Bailey, and then down he came with a funny little stamp of his feet on the carpet, which sent him into the ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... frequently did the work themselves at home, using a smaller kind of bow called dhunkara. The clean cotton is made up into balls, some of which are passed on to the spinner, while others are used for the filling of quilts and the padded coats worn in the cold weather. The ingenious though rather clumsy method of the Bahna has been superseded by the ginning-factory, and little or no cotton destined for the spindle is now cleaned by him. The caste have been forced to take to cultivation or field labour, while ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... play is concluded by the precipitate marriage of his daughter with Colonel Promise. Mr. Fustian, the Tragic Author, who, with Mr. Sneerwell the Critic, is one of the spectators of the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, and inquires where the preliminary action, of which there is not the slightest evidence in the piece itself, has taken place. Thereupon Trapwit, the Comic Author, replies as follows, in one of those ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... supplies its bright and ingenious wits who produce comedy. But as there is no second Shakspeare, so there is ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Brixton seems to have something on its conscience; Peckham suffers more than a virtuous Peckham might be supposed to deserve; the howling neighbourhood of Deptford figures largely in the accounts of the ingenious gentlemen who are out in every wind that blows, and to whom it is an ill high wind that blows no good; but, there can hardly be any Walworth left by this time. It must surely be blown away. I have read of more chimney-stacks and house-copings coming down with terrific smashes at ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Ornamental Gardening (not Mason the poet), began a work of a similar kind about forty years ago, but he only lived to finish a parallel between the characters of Macbeth and Richard III which is an exceedingly ingenious piece of analytical criticism. Richardson's Essays include but a few of Shakespeare's principal characters. The only work which seemed to supersede the necessity of an attempt like the present was Schlegel's very ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... others; but I never could tell of myself. It is quite true that this duplicity and reserve seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are forced upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of enquiry; but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detectives, most ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative case; and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible exploratory instinct, and so, for the most part, when detected we are found out not only to be in love, but ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... ingenious a series of books for little folks as has ever appeared since "Alice in Wonderland." The idea of the Riddle books is a little group of children—three girls and three boys decide to form a riddle club. Each book is full of the adventures and doings of these six youngsters, but as an ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... them had their faces, breasts, and thighs painted black. The canoes were precisely like those of Amsterdam; with the addition of a little rising like a gunwale on each side of the open part; and had some carving about them, which shewed that these people are full as ingenious. Both these islanders and their canoes agree very well with the description M. de Bougainville has given of those he saw off the Isle of Navigators, which lies nearly under ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... which was readily complied with. Mrs. Robinson had afterward the gratification of finding this offspring of her genius inserted in the Annual Register, with a flattering encomium from the pen of the eloquent and ingenious editor. ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... suffer torments by the fire, because of their contrary qualities. And for this reason 'tis that the demons, who had a body of an aetherial nature, were massed with a body of air, that they might feel the fire." Mackenzie's Scottish Writers: vol. i., 49. All this may be ingenious enough; of its truth, a future state only will be the evidence. Very different from that of Scotus is the language of Gregory Narienzen: "Exit in inferno frigus insuperabile: ignis inextinguibilis: vermis immortalis: fetor intollerabilis: tenebrae palpabiles: flagella ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... her lips, and all her happiness so sparkling in her eyes. She was the most restless, too, of human beings; but it was the restlessness of a glow of enjoyment, of a bird in the first sunshine, of a butterfly in the first glitter of its wings. She was now continually forming some party, some ingenious surprise of pleasure, some little sportive excursion, some half theatric scene, to keep all our hearts and eyes as much alive as her own. Lafontaine obviously did not like all this; and some keen encounters of their wits took place, on the pleasure which, as he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... course, being built for two, was a broad affair, and little Jacques and Jacqueline rolled around in it inextricably mixed, until Pat had the ingenious idea of putting a board down the middle for a partition. Then the infants rocked side by side in harmony, going up and down alternately, without a thought of debating the eternal question of superiority between the sexes. Their weight was the same. ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... in nickel. The tub was long enough for a Prussian Guard, and above the set bowl was a sensational exhibit of tooth-brush holder, shaving-brush holder, soap-dish, sponge-dish, and medicine-cabinet, so glittering and so ingenious that they resembled an electrical instrument-board. But the Babbitt whose god was Modern Appliances was not pleased. The air of the bathroom was thick with the smell of a heathen toothpaste. "Verona been at it again! 'Stead of sticking to Lilidol, like I've re-peat-ed-ly asked her, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... proud title of "merry," to distinguish them from other and less happy, because more serious, nations; for now they sadden at amusement, and sicken and turn pale at a jest; so entirely have they forfeited it, that an ingenious critic cannot believe they ever possessed it; and has set himself accordingly to prove, that, in the old English, merrie does not mean merry, but sorrowful, or heart-broken, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... "That's ingenious, King," said Mr. Maynard, "and it may be true. I hope so, I'm sure. But why should she stay away so long ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... waves under the gentle wind, and the Indian canoes, with their silent occupants reflected vividly upon its surface, like pictures in a burnished mirror. Again he strained with eye and mind. He examined every canoe. He forced his brain to construct ingenious theories that might mean something, but ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the coincidence was yet enough to fill me with uneasiness. All afternoon, as I say, I sat and pondered upon this quite to myself; for my lady had trouble of her own, and it was my last thought to vex her with fancies. About the midst of our time of waiting, she conceived an ingenious scheme, had Mr. Alexander fetched, and bid him knock at his father's door. My lord sent the boy about his business, but without the least violence, whether of manner or expression; so that I began to entertain a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interesting investigations carried out from this point of view by the Abbe Crosnier at the Priory of Saint Gilles, and the Abbe Devoucoux at the Cathedral of Autun, I remain sceptical as to their conclusions, which I regard as very ingenious, but far from trustworthy. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... leave him—But she in her turn meets her master—and Marianne's master is Adolphe Gochard, a horrid Parisian blackguard—who is so much her master that, after all, the real hero of the romance is Adolphe Gochard. Such is the secret philosophy of this brilliant and ingenious romance. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... gone into the byways and hedges and found this—er—peculiar plea, which has enabled him to show you the proverbial woman, to put her in the box—to give, in fact, a romantic glow to this affair. I compliment my friend; I think it highly ingenious of him. By these means, he has—to a certain extent—got round the Law. He has brought the whole story of motive and stress out in court, at first hand, in a way that he would not otherwise have been able to do. But when you have once grasped ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... parties began, and the men began to gather at the clubs. The Contessa did not object to this period of quiet. She acquainted Lucy with all she meant to do in the meantime, to the great confusion of that ingenious spirit. "Bice must be dressed," the Contessa said, "which of itself requires no little time and thought. Unhappily M. Worth is not in London. Even with M. Worth I exert my own faculties. He is excellent, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... over the period has not been dispelled by those modern writers, who, like Varillas, in his well-known work, Politique de Ferdinand le Catholique, affect to treat the subject philosophically, paying less attention to facts than to their causes and consequences. These ingenious persons, seldom willing to take things as they find them, seem to think that truth is only to be reached by delving deep below the surface. In this search after more profound causes of action, they reject whatever is natural and ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... man, a man really grand and noble in heart and intellect, has this advantage with women, that he is an idol ready-made to hand; and so that very painstaking and ingenious sex have less labor in getting him up, and can be ready to worship him on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... of an ingenious turn of mind, had contrived an affair which was supposed to look like a Roman chariot, and which was, therefore, a bit incongruous ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... economic management which are classed as financiering operations. To these may be added the greater part of mercantile occupations. In their best and clearest development these duties make up the economic office of the "captain of industry." The captain of industry is an astute man rather than an ingenious one, and his captaincy is a pecuniary rather than an industrial captaincy. Such administration of industry as he exercises is commonly of a permissive kind. The mechanically effective details of production and of industrial organization are delegated to subordinates ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... romanticist and fed his brain on pabulum from the pen of Mr. Fergus Hume and other ingenious concocters of peripatetic mystery, wondered as he gave his horse a meaning lash with his whip—a tribute to the beauty of the fare—"Wot the dickens she was h'up to, with 'er big eyes and 'er ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... those readers who may feel tempted to believe this that in 1817 a learned librarian of Agen, Jean-Baptiste Peres, demonstrated, in a highly plausible manner, that Napoleon had never existed, and that the story of this supposed great captain was nothing but a solar myth. Despite the most ingenious diversions of the wits, we cannot possibly doubt that Bluebeard and Napoleon ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... mountaineers, who are enveloped in masses of earth, concludes that, from the name of the phenomenon there formed, viz., on the plains, where it is more particularly distinguished or observed, we have named the country Sahara, or the country of the Sehaur." In this whimsical and ingenious derivation there is a change of the س into ص, but which is sufficiently frequent in the Shemitic languages. The grand fallacy of the above etymology is, that it assumes the Sahara to be a perfectly flat country, or country ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... upon the communications of Bonaparte's Italian force impossible. Moreau's army was the first to move. An Austrian force, not inferior to Moreau's own, lay within the bend of the Rhine that covers Baden and Wuertemberg. Moreau crossed the Rhine at various points, and by a succession of ingenious manoeuvres led his adversary, Kray, to occupy all the roads through the Black Forest except those by which the northern divisions of the French were actually passing. A series of engagements, conspicuous for the skill of the French general ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Duke of Exeter, of Sir John Talbot, and the Prior of Kilmaine. So that the total of the army that besieged Rouen was, at least, 45,000 men. This large force was brought across the Seine, partly by the old bridge of Pont de l'Arche, partly by a light and ingenious pontoon bridge made of planks supported on watertight leather boats, which could be packed up and carried with ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... vapor, and carbon compounds of the interstellar spaces are returned to the sun, and that the action of the sun on these literally converted the universe into a regenerative furnace. On a small scale, in a way adapted to ordinary human uses, and by ingenious contrivances, he produced a regenerative gas furnace which so utilized what had hitherto been wasted that, in the last lecture delivered by Michael Faraday (1862) before the Royal Society, he praised the qualities of the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... space to the problem. It so happened, too, that the week was an exceedingly barren one from a news point of view; therefore, the Bates case had the place of honor. There was absolutely no fresh information, not a single line that pointed to a definite solution of the problem. Indeed, the ingenious way in which most of the papers contrived to fill some three columns a day was beyond all praise. But both Gurdon and Venner searched in vain for a scrap of information that threw any light on the identity ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... called Pontiac, succeeded in forming a confederacy of the Ottawas, Hurons, Chippewas, and some other tribes, with the avowed object of expelling the British from the lake regions of the country. With the craftiness peculiar to the Indian race, an ingenious stratagem was devised, by means of which it was hoped that the allies would easily ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... spur of the moment devised this ingenious difficulty for the child, who was sure to suffer in many ways from such a conflict of authorities, Clem began to consider how she should spend her evening. After all, Jane was too poor-spirited a victim to afford long entertainment. Clem would have liked dealing ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... now discovered, and the culprit, after the first shock to his feelings had abated, showed me, with evident if subdued satisfaction, how the ingenious device worked. ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... "Highly ingenious," he said; "but all the same, my boy, considering the cuisine we have in the Palace already, it seems a waste of ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... was an ingenious person that objected, there might be a great fallacy in this experiment, and there ought not to be any stress put upon this to convict the parties, for the children might counterfeit this their distemper, ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... vocabulary into which have been cast a dozen once separate tongues, superposed and then welded together through bilingual and trilingual compromises. [Footnote: Vide an excellent article, La Langue Francaise en l'an 2003, par Leon Bollack, in La Revue, 15 Juillet, 1903.] In the past ingenious men have speculated on the inquiry, "Which language will survive?" The question was badly put. I think now that this wedding and survival of several in a common offspring is ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... as well as a bold man. He undoubtedly possessed an ingenious mechanical mind, which displayed itself very much in practical joking. It is said of him that he made a machine, the spring of which was attached to an old slipper, which lay (apparently by chance) on the floor of his bedroom. If a visitor kicked this ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... Philip adding to the doctor's expenses, it soon came about that, in the land where he had hoped to make a new fortune, he parted with the last of what fortune he had originally possessed. Then occurred to him the ingenious thought of turning bookseller, a business which, far from requiring that he should ever absent himself from his precious volumes, demanded rather that he should always be among them. But the stock that ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... politics and medicine, has promptly recognised the impossibility of continuing to wear a name which has been indelibly tarnished by the arch-disturber of Europe's peace. He has accordingly elected to replace his first two names by the ingenious and harmonious collocation of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... iv. pp. 341, 342. The later opinion, adopted by Schlozer, Belnay, and Dankowsky, ascribes them, from their language, to the Finnish race. Fessler, in his history of Hungary, agrees with Gibbon in supposing them Turks. Mailath has inserted an ingenious dissertation of Fejer, which attempts to connect them with the Parthians. Vol. i. Ammerkungen ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... under cross-examination, not only contradicted one another, but shown the most complete ignorance (a highly creditable ignorance) of the nature and conditions of a prize-fight; then counsel would venture to say confidently that the theory of the prosecution, ingenious as it was, and ably as it had been put forward, was ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... 'You are very ingenious, Miss Longworth, but I can see, in spite of your way of putting it, that what you propose is merely a form of charity. Suppose we did not succeed in forming our company, how could we repay ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... freely admitted that no modern work of this nature has been successful, but that does not prove that this must absolutely be a failure. The project ought not to be condemned in advance because of the great difficulties surrounding it, its unequalled scope and its novelty. Mr. Bartholdi is above all ingenious, bold, and fertile in resources; it would be a great pity not to have him allowed every opportunity to carry out a design in which, as we have seen, there are so many elements of interest and even of grandeur. It has been said that "there does not exist on French ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... insects smell the approaching observer as the deer wind the stalker. The Gatekeeper butterfly is common; its marking is very ingenious, may I say? regular, and yet irregular. The pattern is complete, and yet it is incomplete; it is finished, and yet it suggests to the mind that the lines ought to go on farther. They go out into space beyond the wing. If a carpet were copied from it, and laid down in a room, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... in various stages of anticipation of a similar pleasure. Secondly, you would have been surprised at the comfortable, if not artistic, interior of our exteriorly unattractive hut. In the centre of the "ward-room" or sitting-room was an open fireplace of ingenious design. On a stone and earth base, covered with sheet iron, rested a large cast-iron box with many peculiarly shaped apertures resembling as far as possible the incomprehensible design of a lady's lace mouchoir. The fire-box was supported ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... a pillory on top; "the said Pickering to make a good strong dore and make a substantiale payre of stocks and places the same in said cage." A spot conveniently near the west end on the meeting-house was selected as the site for this ingenious device. It is more than probable that "the said Pickering" indirectly furnished an occasional bird for his cage, for in 1672 we find him and one Edward Westwere authorized by the selectmen to "keepe houses of publique entertainment." He was a versatile ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... elaborate index includes in one ingenious list all references, whether to hymns, tunes, or metres; and the inaccuracies which will creep into even as handsome typography as this are unimportant, and rectified as quickly as observed. The size is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... ingenious, unselfish little scheme, and the manner in which she had laid it bare to the person most concerned was delightfully unsophisticated. He laughed at her tenderly, stroking her soft, pretty hair with his big man's hand, the while he explained ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was the opinion of Gregory Nazianzen, as well as others. There is an ingenious article on this subject in the "Bibliotheca Sacra" for April 1855. Its author, the Rev. Isaac Jennings, advocates the view ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... happened to be one of the company. But the member of our circle whom the reader will hereafter know as Number Seven, began stirring his tea in a nervous sort of way, and I knew that he was getting ready to say something about the case. An ingenious man he is, with a brain like a tinder-box, its contents catching at any spark that is flying about. I always like to hear what he says when his tinder brain has a spark fall into it. It does not follow that because he is often wrong he may not sometimes be right, for he is no ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said nominal value. As the articles were all gold and silver—at any rate, professed to be—it was easy to ascertain their actual value; so they were sent to the United States Assay Office, melted up, and a certificate of the net proceeds returned. And how much does the ingenious reader suppose this five hundred and ninety-nine dollars of gold and silver proved to be worth? Just nine dollars and sixty-two cents ($9.62)! That was what our friend got for the two hundred dollars cash he had invested. And that ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... journey from which he is not expected to return. It accordingly seemed better that I should myself supervise a new edition, since this would enable me to remove a few of the numerous spots and pimples which decorate the ingenious countenance of the work before handing it on ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... crests of the ever-rising waves of this present generation—four pleasant young fellows whose existence was problematical, since they were not known to possess either stock or landed estates, yet they lived, and lived well. These ingenious condottieri of a modern industrialism, that has come to be the most ruthless of all warfares, leave anxieties to their creditors, and keep the pleasures for themselves. They are careful for nothing, save dress. Still with the courage of the Jean ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... a sense of her own shortcomings, to distract her mind from speculation, which she might otherwise have indulged, over the sudden development of so many unpleasant qualities in her lover. Though, indeed, had her speculations been never so active and ingenious, the actual plan on which Hunt was proceeding would probably have lain far beyond ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... broken into fragments,—to degrade the poor inhabitants to a still lower level than that on which they had been so cruelly precipitated,—though persons of a not very original cast of mind might have found it difficult to say how; and the Duke of Sutherland has been ingenious enough to fall on exactly the one proper expedient for supplementing their ruin. All in mere circumstance and situation that could lower and deteriorate, had been present as ingredients in the first process; but there still ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... not their faith, so happily youthful, which so reveals their ingenious minds as their resultant annoyance. That resentment illuminates the essential fact for us in studying their mentality as social animals. They really did accept without question, with open and receptive mouths ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... property and slave soil. But the slow and tedious hand method of separating the fiber of the cotton bulb from the seed greatly limited the ability of the Cotton States to meet and satisfy the fast growing demand of the English manufacturers, until Eli Whitney, in 1793, by an ingenious invention solved the problem of supply for these States. The cotton gin was not long in proving itself the other half—the other hand ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... station are the mere veneer of life, the central reality is love. That is true, if by love you read the love of God, of Christ. Do you remember my going one day over the works with your poor father? Well, after I had been through rooms and rooms of whirring machinery infinitely ingenious and diversified—that made my head ache—they took me to a shed where stood in a sort of giant peace the great engine that moved it all. 'God!' was my instant thought, and somehow my headache fled. And ever since then, when I have been oppressed by the complex clatter of life, my thought ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... to a like number of inhabited planetary systems, the sheer quantity of life, of struggle, of suffering implied, seems a thought at which to shudder. We are inclined to say to the inventor of sentience: "Since this ingenious combination of yours was at best such a questionable boon, surely you might have been ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... one of the founders of German rationalism, born near Stuttgart; held in succession sundry professorships; denied the miraculous in the Scripture history, and invented ingenious rational explanations, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... must bear in mind, while reading or thinking over Miss Porter's novels, that, in her day, even the exaggeration of enthusiasm was considered good tone and good taste. How this enthusiasm was fostered, not subdued, can be gathered by the author's ingenious preface to the, we believe, tenth edition of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... astronomer at Cambridge, called early "to be of use," but I was engaged to lunch out with the Winthrops, so we arranged to meet to-day. Dick went to play the organ at Advent Church, and was delighted with it, full of ingenious mechanism. At half-past twelve Hedley and I met him at the station, and Mr. Perkins met us, and we found Mrs. Winthrop's carriage at Brooktines. Mr. Perkins is a very accomplished man, lived a ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... thrown away in visiting the establishment of Madame Merckel, she having found the means of applying the phosphorus and chemical matches, which she has invented, to such a number of purposes, and of introducing them in so curious and ingenious a manner into divers articles, calculated both for utility and ornament, that her manufactory might be considered quite a little museum; amongst a variety of pretty things, I was first struck with a time-piece which ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... which he had been devising for extending the use of steamships in naval warfare,—to which last excellent improvement he greatly contributed. He arrived at Hydra in April, 1822, just in time to take part in the fighting off Chios. One of his ingenious suggestions, made to Andreas Miaoulis, and its reception, have been described by himself. "I proposed to direct a fireship and three other vessels upon the frigate, and, when near the enemy, to set fire to certain ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... and copyhold estate; think,' said Mr. Snitchey, with such great emotion that he actually smacked his lips, 'of the complicated laws relating to title and proof of title, with all the contradictory precedents and numerous acts of parliament connected with them; think of the infinite number of ingenious and interminable chancery suits, to which this pleasant prospect may give rise; and acknowledge, Dr. Jeddler, that there is a green spot in the scheme about us! I believe,' said Mr. Snitchey, looking at his partner, 'that I speak for ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... glowing hearth. Tiny troops promenade the writing-table. One perches himself quaintly on the top of the inkstand, and holds colloquy with another who sits cross-legged on a paper weight, while a companion looks down on them from the top of the sandbox. It was an ingenious little device, and gave me the idea, which I often expressed to my wife, that much of the peculiar feeling of security, composure, and enjoyment which seems to be the atmosphere of some rooms and houses came from the unsuspected presence of these little ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... finds his manly son, Kingston Brooks, unforgiving, and determined to work out his own career. The difficulties with which Brooks meets in carrying out his purpose, the attempts of Lord Arranmore to assist him, together with the divided love interest, make up an ingenious present-day romance, ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should have pleased my fancy with many ingenious ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the employment and good pay of more thousands than are now employed in it. A collection of American china, terra cotta, etc., begun at this time and added to from year to year, will soon be a most interesting cabinet. Both in the eastern and western manufactories ingenious workers are rediscovering and experimenting in pastes and glazes and colors, simply because there is a large demand for all such, and they can be supplied at prices within the reach of most buyers. It needs only to point out this flourishing state of things, through the "let-alone" principle, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various |
