"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and it was soothed as if dropped into words upon the blank sheet before her. How often a full heart has had its burden lifted and lightened at the pen's point, as if the sorrow it recorded grew less heavy beneath the calming touch of that potent instrument! ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... instrument, and practised there till half-past eleven, at which hour Mr. Moss presented himself. "You'll want to hear me sing of course," she said without ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the Graces can it foote To the Instrument: They dauncen deffly, and singen soote, In their meriment. Wants not a fourth Grace to make the daunce even? Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven. She shal be a Grace, To fyll the fourth place, And reigne ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... kind, so we are told. Not pleasant, but painful. And the man that can play the instrument of Earthrid would be able to conjure up the most astonishing forms, which ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... the men to pursue those various industries and ingenuities, which, though they are affectedly considered against "discipline," formed, as he knew well, the best preservative from real insubordination, and the best instrument in humanizing and ameliorating the condition of his comrades. The habit of application alone was something gained; and if it kept them only for a while from the haunts of those coarsest debaucheries which are the only possible form in which the soldier can pursue the forbidden ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... maturity. The example of his father, and the teachings of Madame de Genlis, inclined him strongly in the direction of popular rights, though his mother did not at all sympathize with these revolutionary principles. When the exasperated people rose and demolished the Bastile—the symbol and the instrument of as great despotic power as ever existed upon earth—Madame de Genlis took her pupils into Paris to witness the sublime drama. In describing ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... body, a beak that resembled a huge nose, and a very monstrous mouth. When I first noticed him he was amusing himself by picking off the small insects from the flowers with his big beak, a most unsuitable instrument, one would imagine, for so delicate a task. At the same time he was hungering for more substantial fare, and every time a rook flew by over him on its way to or from a neighbouring too populous rookery, the young crow would open ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It was the blast of war,—the song of peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... prominence of all the truths and of all the errors; that which you were wont to call natural and clear will seem to you affected and semi-obscure, and you will perceive by force of contrast why, among the Greeks, the instrument of thought being more simple, it did its office better ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... be considered is, The instrument by which this execution is done, and that is death, compared here to an axe; and forasmuch as the tree is not felled at one blow, therefore the strokes are here continued, till all the blows be struck at it that are requisite for its felling: for now cutting ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Nelaton and Broca, have not hesitated to attribute the opening, large as it is (seven by six inches), to a surgical operation. If the incisions are carefully examined it is easy to see that they were made with the help of a pointed instrument, such as a clumsily made drill, for instance. Each incision must have taken a long time to make, and we note with ever increasing astonishment that the ancient Peruvians were not acquainted with the use of iron or steel, and that the hardest ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... mingling their Fires, not only all the Lights of a Branch together cast a more extensive Brightness, but each single Light burns with a stronger Flame. And lastly, take this along with you, that if Wealth be an Instrument of Pleasure, the greatest Pleasure it can put into your Power, is that of doing Good. 'Tis worth considering, that the Organs of Sense act within a narrow Compass, and the Appetites will soon say they have enough: which of the two therefore is the happier Man? He, Who confining all ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... His presence and through His grace that whatever of fragrance or beauty may be found in us comes forth. Of Him as its source, through Him as its instrument, and to Him as its end, is all that is gracious and divine. But HE HIMSELF is better far than all that His grace works ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... of the seals to Charles the Ninth of France, was one day ordered by his sovereign to put the seals to the pardon of a nobleman who had committed murder. He refused. The king then took the seals out of his hands, and having put them himself to the instrument of remission, returned them immediately to Morvilliers, who refused to take them again, saying, "The seals have twice put me in a situation of great honour: once when I received them, and ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... confessions of individual experience—there are bursts of hearty melody. The conductor of the meeting will start up a verse or two of a hymn illustrative of the experiences mentioned by the last speaker, or one of the girls from the Training Home will sing a solo, accompanying herself on her instrument, while all join in ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... upon it. As the feudal class was a landed class, so the class represented by the guilds became a moneyed and commercial class, the pioneers of our modern capitalist class. As Mr. Brooks Adams[117] has shown very clearly, it was this moneyed, commercial class, which gave to the king the instrument for weakening and finally overthrowing feudalism. It was this class which built up the cities and towns from which was drawn the revenue for the maintenance of a standing army, thus liberating the king from his dependence ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... great faith in Peter. It was a part of the scheme of the savage to make this straight for-ward soldier an instrument in placing many scalps in hit power; and though he had designed from the first to execute his bloody office on the corporal himself, he did not intend to do so until he had made the most of him as a stool-pigeon. Here were four more pale-faces thrown ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... represented in the State, and that the subordination of the State to the family has kept pace with the subordination of physical to spiritual force. Woman has an interest in everything which affects the State, and only lacks the legitimate instrument of these interests—the ballot—with which to enforce them. Life regulates legislation. Domestic life is woman's sphere, but a sphere of much larger dimensions than has ever yet been accorded it, these dimensions reaching out and controlling the functions of the State. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... at the teeth, so as to see how the teeth of a cutting saw were shaped. And while he looked on, he observed that Raymond had a little instrument in his hand, and he took hold of the first tooth of the saw with it, and bent it over a little to one side, and then he took hold of the next one, and bent it over to the other side; and so he went on, bending them alternately to the right and left, until he passed ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... recovers herself again. This is repeated several times, till she is at length no longer able to rise. Her head will be turned to one side; she loses the sense of feeling, and although pricked with a sharp instrument gives no sign of pain; and if not relieved, death closes the scene. If the sense of feeling returns, it is the first sign of recovery. The moment that milk-fever is observed the veterinary surgeon should be called in. There ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... perceived that the object he had seized was a small Eastern dagger and that he had plunged it into the canvas. He seemed animated by a sudden fury, for with extreme vigour of hand he dragged the instrument down (Lyon knew it to have no very fine edge) making a long, abominable gash. Then he plucked it out and dashed it again several times into the face of the likeness, exactly as if he were stabbing a human ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... differed from the spinet in being square instead of triangular in form. The word pair was used in the obsolete sense of a set, as we read also of a pair of organs. The instrument is supposed to have obtained its name from young ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... at him, fascinated; his voice swayed her, his handsome, grave face held her. Whether it was reason or emotion, mind or heart, I know not, but her whole sensitive being seemed to respond to his voice; and as he played upon this lovely human instrument, varying his deep theme, she responded in every nerve, every breath. Reason, hope, sorrow, tenderness, passion—all these I read in her deep, velvet eyes, and in the mute language of her lips, and in the timing pulse-beat under the ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Josh, busy at work upon an instrument or weapon which consisted of a large hook about as big as that used for meat; and this he had inserted in a strong staff of wood some four feet long, while, to secure it more tightly, he was binding the staff just below the hook most neatly ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... 2: Each consecration of the chrism has not the same object. For just as an instrument derives instrumental power in two ways, viz. when it receives the form of an instrument, and when it is moved by the principal agent; so too the sacramental matter needs a twofold sanctification, by one of which it becomes fit matter for the sacrament, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... nothing else but the care of the safety of others; and that it is the duty of a good emperor to restrain power, to resist any desire to possess all things, and all implacability of passion, and to know, as the dictator Caesar used to say, "That the recollection of cruelty was an instrument to make old age miserable!" And therefore that it behoves any one who is about to pass a sentence affecting the life and existence of a man, who is a portion of the world, and makes up the complement of living creatures, to hesitate long ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... term by which is denoted the exact character of the ownership. Quite frequently an owner may believe that he has a clear title when, as a matter of fact, his title is derived through some testamentary instrument which gives him a holding only for life, or perhaps trusts have been set up in the will which are a charge upon the property, although all of the beneficiaries of the trust have been long since dead. There are many hundreds of possible legal complications affecting the validity of ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... to provide for a possible regency. Constitutional usage pointed to the queen as the proper person to be regent during the infancy of her son. George, however, wished to have the power to nominate a regent by an instrument revocable at pleasure. Grenville dissuaded him from this idea, and, with his ministers' consent, he announced from the throne that a bill would be laid before parliament restricting the regency to the queen and other ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... rang and Tom picked up the instrument from the desk. As he answered in the usual way and then listened a moment, a strange look came over ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... discovering the good qualities of a man on his staff as a miner of finding a nugget, and never wearied of expatiating upon them. Indeed, he did this more than once to his own disadvantage, thus furnishing an instrument to treachery. ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... become rich, she would have lived and died in want rather than claim her own. I do not think any of us would like to turn out the possessor of a fine estate enjoyed for two or three generations on the faith of unquestioned ownership by making use of some old forgotten instrument, which accident had thrown in ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... attain, I am not just now denying. But luckily men attain in many ways: and the man who sits himself down of fixed purpose to be an AEolian harp for the winds of the world, is of all men the least likely to be merely AEolian. For the first demand of AEolian sound is that the instrument should have no theories of its own; and explicitly to proclaim yourself AEolian is implicitly to proclaim yourself didactic. As a matter of fact, both the "Ballad of the Making of a Poet" and the "Ballad of a Nun" contain sharply pointed morals very stoutly driven home. In each ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the less imperfect years, When human frailty shall have died, When the vexed riddle of the spheres, Interpreted and glorified, Shall be as nothing to the tide Of light in which Thy hidden ways Will be revealed: I may abide Thy meanest instrument of praise, And from the broad calm ocean of Thy truth And wisdom ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... me, Hora, that you can play the lute. Take that instrument hanging upon the wall, strike its cords and sing me some old air, very sweet, very tender, and very slow. The sleep which comes to one cradled by music is full ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... not thoughts are things which have power to produce effects, there are certainly people who answer to expectation with fatal facility, and Beth was one of them. Eventually she resisted with all her own individuality, but at this time she acted like an instrument played upon by other people's minds. This peculiar sensitiveness she turned to account in after life, using it as a key to character; she had merely to make herself passive, when she found herself reflecting the people with whom she ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... paper contained nothing less than a carefully written extract from the personal description of Magdalen in Miss Garth's letter. With a daring ingenuity which even Captain Wragge might have envied, Mrs. Lecount had found her instrument for exposing the conspiracy in the unsuspecting ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... walls of that chamber seem to open as the scene of a theatre. A grim dungeon; streets through which pour shadowy crowds; wrath and hatred, and the aspect of demons in their ghastly visages; a place of death; a murderous instrument; a shamble-house of human flesh; herself; her child;—all, all, rapid phantasmagoria, chased each other. Suddenly the phantom-Zanoni turned, it seemed to perceive herself,—her second self. It sprang towards her; her ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in fluid lenses and made great improvements in casting specula for reflecting telescopes. From 1842-45 he was engaged upon the construction, in his park at Parsonstown, of his great reflecting telescope 58 feet long. This instrument, which cost L30,000, long remained the largest in the world. He was president of the Royal Society from 1848 ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... Prince was led into the palace, which was compassed about by a running stream whose banks were planted with all manner of fruit-trees and sweet-smelling flowers. Moreover, in this palace were forty chambers and in every chamber ten slave-girls, each skilled in some instrument of music, so that whenever one of them played, the palace danced to her melodious strains. Here the Prince passed one night; but, on the following morning, the King's favourite concubine happened to cast eyes upon his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... and I hope that upon this occasion you will not fail to exercise it. I abhor preface and preamble, and don't know why I have now used it so freely. But I am well aware that what I am going to relate needs much apology from me, and will need much to you. If I am the unwilling, the unfortunate instrument of depriving you of any part of your promised gayety or pleasure, I hope you are too generous to aggravate the misfortune by upbraiding me with it. Be assured (I hope the assurance is needless), that whatever diminishes ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Railway may, like Nature, be careless of the individual, but it is extremely careful of the typewriter, and insists on making a special charge for this instrument, officially regarded as a bicycle. But as Sir ERIC GEDDES announced that this extortion, "though legal," was in his opinion "neither just nor expedient," we may hope that it will shortly be abandoned. The Ministry of Transport at last seems likely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... and very refractory ores generally, whether of the precious or of the baser metals, that the finer applications of the art of the ore-dresser will receive their first great impetus. The vanner, as well as the jigger, will become an instrument of precision; and in combination with rushing appliances operated by cheap power in almost unlimited quantities it will materially assist in multiplying the world's supply of metals. This again will aid in promoting the further extension of machinery. Gold ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... perused the document. He was astounded!—not so much at the contents of that soiled bit of parchment, which was the instrument by which Natalie, or the holder, could come into possession of a handsome fortune; but it was at the honesty of this whole-souled sailor. Was it possible that this poor fellow, who gained his bread by dint of hard labor, having a fortune within his grasp, which he conscientiously could have called ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... she dares herself persuade, She'll be for many a month content, Quite sure no duchess ever played Upon a sweeter instrument. ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... commendable in one so round, Sissy dropped beneath the piano, and, whipping off her apron, proceeded to wipe the dust from the back legs of the instrument with it. This done, she rammed the apron up between the wall and the piano, and was seated, breathless, but with a bit of very dirty white embroidery in her hands, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... and general assistant, Miss Casimir." The politician's voice was sonorous, a beautifully controlled instrument. He leaned across the desk. The recorder by his elbow whirred in ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... life. George Darwin tells us that when we walk on the ground we warp and bend the surface very much as we might bend or dent the epidermis of a colossal pachyderm. He and his brother devised an instrument by which the slight fluctuations of the ground, as we move over it, could be measured. The instrument was so delicate that it revealed the difference of effect produced by the same pressure at seven ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Irish progress, and the co-operative movement was intended to complete the agrarian revolution. In more recent times the hostility of the Nationalist leaders has become bolder as they found a ready instrument in Mr. T. W. Russell in his official capacity as Vice-President ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the podgy dealer knew what had happened, she had sprung right round him, seized the telephone instrument and placed her mouth to the receiver. She smiled at him defiantly. 'Yes, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... band. One reason Jerry liked this particular march was because he had shaken bells to it in the rhythm band at school. Next summer Jerry was going to take lessons playing a horn. He had already picked out the instrument he wanted to learn to play, a giant tuba in Kitt's music store downtown. By fall he would be ready to play in the junior ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... present it was all ecclesiastical aesthetics, and discontent with the existing system, especially as regarded penitence; by and by, when his hold should be secure, he would persuade the heiress that she had been the prime instrument in his conversion, and that she ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... obtain renown! destroy thy foes! Fight for the kingdom waiting thee when thou hast vanquished those. By Me they fall—not thee! the stroke of death is dealt them now, Even as they show thus gallantly; My instrument art thou! Strike, strong-armed Prince, at Drona! at Bhishma strike! deal death On Karna, Jyadratha; stay all their warlike breath! 'Tis I who bid them perish! Thou wilt but slay the slain; Fight! they must fall, and thou must ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... might have been its character for veracity in former days, had now become such an inveterate story-teller, that it was pretty safe to accept as true, exactly the reverse of what it indicated. One evening Mr Sudberry kept tapping that antique and musical-looking instrument, with a view to get it to speak out its mind freely. The worthy man's efforts were not in vain, for the instrument, whether out of spite or not, we cannot say, indicated ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... religion, judged by its actions for humanity, is the only true, the only beneficent and noble civilizing force. During the last days of my diaconate, grace, no doubt, enlightened me. I have fully forgiven my father, regarding him as the instrument of my destiny. My mother, though I wrote her a long and tender letter, explaining all things and proving to her that the finger of God was guiding me, my poor mother wept many tears as she saw my ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... sitting-room without lights; for the windows were open; and there was a hazy moon. Theodora sat at one window, looking off upon the lake; while Ellen slowly and rather imperfectly played tunes on a melodeon, lively tunes, I believe, but the old instrument seemed to me to be weeping and wailing to us under a mask of pretended music. Beyond doubt I was a little homesick and tired from my journey; and after a time grandmother lighted a candle to show me the way up-stairs to bed. I remember feeling disappointed when she told me that I was to sleep ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... his queer mansion and showed them the beautiful rooms in all the five stories. The lower room was a grand reception hall, with a hand-organ in one corner. This instrument the Scarecrow, when alone, could turn to amuse himself, as he was very fond of music. The walls were hung with white silk, upon which flocks of black crows were embroidered in black diamonds. Some of the ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... it left the hands of its authors. The additions which have been made to it proclaim larger freedom and more extended citizenship. Popular government has demonstrated in its one hundred and twenty-four years of trial here its stability and security, and its efficiency as the best instrument of national development and the best safeguard to ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... that physical instrument, the brain, wonder seat of the mysteries of the mind, was rent apart. His splendid mind no longer ruled his splendid body. His body itself, relaxing, sank forward, his head at one side, his hand dropping limp. A smile drew down ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... wondered at their allowing any weight to people bereft of understanding. But that is the very reason for allowing them weight: that very defect it is which makes them capable of being organs for conveying words from higher intelligences. A fine human intelligence cannot be a passive instrument—it cannot be a mere tube for conveying the words of inspiration: such an intelligence will intermingle ideas of its own, or otherwise modify what is given, and pollute what ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... interesting experience to be in the little space behind the pipes, working away at a long handle. As they took it in turns they were able to keep the organ going fairly steadily, and only once left Monica without wind in the middle of a piece. As a reward she allowed them to try the instrument before she locked it up, showing them the various stops and pedals, and how they were ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... weak and faint, she felt by the thrill that went through her heart like some sharp instrument, as the sound of his passionate entreaty fell upon it, that, spite of herself, she might be made powerless in his hands were the interview to proceed. The thought filled her with dread. She started up, and tottering a step or two from the sofa, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... I feel fur sparin' her some more trouble, seein' I was the instrument in the hands of Providence fur gettin' her into all this here ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... foster the implementation of human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law; to act as an instrument of early warning, conflict prevention, and crisis management; and to serve as a framework for conventional arms ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... proposition. For the dominant motive even in Judaism is not a religious motive. It is an ethical motive. Judaism does not conceive its God as requiring man to be damned for his glory. It conceives its God as an instrument by the worship of whom "thy days may be lengthened in the land." Righteousness and not salvation is the aim even of the Jewish religion. Hebraism is the name for this living spirit which demands righteousness, expressed in all the different interests in which Jews, as Jews, have a share—in ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... there is a hope of the pursuit purifying the motive. And Robert no sooner heard the fiddle utter a few mournful sounds in the hands of the soutar, who was no contemptible performer, than he longed to establish such a relation between himself and the strange instrument, that, dumb and deaf as it had been to him hitherto, it would respond to his touch also, and tell him the secrets of its queerly-twisted skull, full of sweet sounds instead of brains. From that moment he would be a musician for music's own sake, and forgot utterly what had appeared ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... first, whether there is any other object of pursuit in the same predicament—wealth, health, knowledge, fame, power. These are, every one, a means or instrument of happiness, if not happiness itself. Must we, then, in the case of each, avoid aiming straight at the goal? must we look ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... who wishes farther information respecting these deeply interesting memorials, to his valuable work. They are plain, unchiselled slabs of marble, with simple characters, scratched with some sharp instrument by the aid of the lamp, recording the name and age of the person whose remains they enclosed, to which is briefly added, "in peace," or "in Christ." Piety here is to be tested, not by the profession on the tombstone, but by the sacrifice of the life. A palm branch carved on ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... pastures of Llanfachreth; the noble sirloin, and, in fact, every substantial delicacy that wealth could procure, pressed even to groaning the broad tables of our host; while the harper in the hall twanged his instrument with a force and a fury, that plainly showed his previous intimacy with the good cheer of the place. But noble and magnificent as our entertainment was in the eating department, it was infinitely surpassed by that which was devoted to the orgies of Bacchus. No ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... the house and wandered gloomily about Regent's Park. For the first time in his recollection the confidence which was wont to inspirit him gave way to an attack of sullen discontent. He felt himself ill-used by destiny, and therefore by Marian, who was fate's instrument. It was not in his nature that this mood should last long, but it revealed to him those darker possibilities which his egoism would develop if it came seriously into conflict with overmastering misfortune. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... common dogs, and was answered by a distant baying. One could not say that these majestic animals "barked." There was as indisputable a difference between an ordinary bark, and the sound they made, as between the barrel instrument played in the streets, and a ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... only one cluster of hare-bells within easy reach, I said very gravely that I thought one would do this time, and I picked it and gave it to him. Bruno ran his hand once or twice up and down the flowers, like a musician trying an instrument, producing a most delicious delicate tinkling as he did so. I had never heard flower-music before—I don't think one can, unless one's in the 'eerie' state and I don't know quite how to give you an idea of what it was like, except ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... of his life. As we bumped past him, I started the "Flowers of the Forest"—the old version—on the antique stringed instrument I carried, and I sang the words very plain. Tommy's eyes bulged out of his head, and he shouted at me in English to know who the devil I was. I replied in the broadest Scots, which no man in the submarine or in our boat could have understood a word of. "Maister Tammy," I cried, "what ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... arched arrangement of the bones of the foot has several mechanical advantages, the most important being that it gives firmness and elasticity to the foot, which thus serves as a support for the weight of the body, and as the chief instrument of locomotion. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... nationale! pas bonne chose!" he exclaimed, seating himself at his instrument and twirling a huge moustache. "Voila le Marseillaise! Zat make hymn national for you!" And he made the whistle roar and shriek in a way to have sent the red caps into the air ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... intermitted, but resumed on the first evening after Mr. Gaskell's term of confinement was expired. After they had performed several suites of Graziani, and finished as usual with the "Areopagita," Mr. Gaskell sat for a time silent at the instrument, as though thinking with ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... the old enclosures and their conversion into recreation grounds. The Metropolitan Board of Works, the London County Council, the City Corporation, public vestries, and private persons, have shared in the good work, but the chief instrument has been the Public ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... and immediately from some curtained passage or gallery there was music; each instrument seeming to lead in contrapuntal skill. His Lordship led forth Katherine and others followed in the movement of the passacaille. Mistress Penwick was beneath a great lustre that shone down and set her shoulder knot ablaze with brilliancy, when Lady Constance passed and noted it. She bit her lip ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... and tired as if it were the Vatican. They had a pride in taking books out of the Public Library, where they walked about on tiptoe with bated breath; and they thought it a divine treat to hear the Great Organ play at noon. As they sat there in the Music Hall, and let the mighty instrument bellow over their strong young nerves, Bartley whispered Marcia the jokes he had heard about the organ; and then, upon the wave of aristocratic sensation from this experience, they went out and dined at Copeland's, or Weber's, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... mad. It is for her, and for Veronica! What do I care about myself? What have I left to care for? What I have done, I have done. I am not good, I am not religious, I am perhaps a worse sinner than most men, and a poorer believer than many. But I will not be the instrument of these deeds—and yet, if I refuse—there is death, or shame, or both, to those I love! At least I have spoken, and you will not betray me. It has been a relief, a moment's respite from torture. I thank you for it, my friend, and I wish I could repay you. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... night, the cabin boy left the water-can sitting on the cabin floor, instead of putting it on the sideboard, where it usually stood. For this offence the commander ordered him up on deck after midnight, and made the quarter-master flog him. The instrument used in this case, (the regular flogging stick having been used up by previous service,) was the commander's cane—a heavy knotted club. The boy held out one hand and received the blows. He howled most piteously, and it was some seconds before he ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... sequel. In a little time she learnt the Spanish, by which the circuitous means of double interpretation was avoided. She was always faithful to the Spaniards, to whom her services were of the very highest importance; as she not only was the instrument of their negotiations with the various nations of Anahuac, but often saved their lives by giving them notice of dangers, and suggesting the means of avoiding them. Don Martin Cortes, her son, was afterwards most unjustly put to the torture at Mexico ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... humbly, that inasmuch as divine providence saw fit to use me as a instrument for the saving of those presshious lives, the honner conferd upon me was greater than the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... only too plain that the automobile —like that other inartistic instrument of torture, the grand piano —is not adapted to the drawing-room. It is not quite at home in the stable; it demands a house of its own. If the friend who invites you to visit him has a machine, then accept, for he is a brother crank; but if he ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... many patriotic statesmen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, that that instrument would destroy the liberties of the people, every genuine American rejoices in the fullness of a grateful heart that we have a government under which the humblest person in our midst has a feeling of safety and repose not ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... God. And besyde the highe awtiere, 3 degrees of heighte, is the fertre [Footnote: Bier.] of alabastre, where the bones of Seynte Kateryne lyzn. And the prelate of the monkes schewethe the relykes to the pilgrymes. And with an instrument of sylver, he frothethe the bones; [Footnote: Rubbeth.] and thanne ther gothe out a lytylle oyle, as thoughe it were a maner swetynge, that is nouther lyche to oyle ne to bawme; but it is fulle swete of smelle: And of that thei zeven a litylle to the pilgrymes; ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... but Beverley, to her discomfort, remained a cheery failure, and worse, absolutely refused to snub Sellers. It was not as if Sellers' advice and comments were disinterested. Beverley was simply the instrument on which he played his songs of triumph. It distressed Annette to such an extent that now, if she went upstairs and heard Sellers' voice in the studio, she came down ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Indian agent, was nearly as frank as Brant in expressing his views of the conduct of the British towards their allies; he doubtless felt peculiar bitterness as he had been made the active instrument in carrying out the policy of his chiefs, and had then seen that policy abandoned and even disavowed. In fact he suffered the usual fate of those who are chosen to do some piece of work which unscrupulous men in power wish to have done, but wish also to avoid the responsibility ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... insight and rarer taste he discountenanced the prevalent Merovingian hand, and substituted in eclectic hand, known as the Carolingian Minuscule, which way still be regarded as a model of clearness and elegance. The chief instrument in this reform was Alcuin of York, whom Charles placed, partly for this purpose, at the head of the School of Tours in A. D. 796. The selection of an Englishman for the post naturally leads us to inquire what hands were then used in ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... I or the gods of which I am the instrument. At least I remember that I sent you certain messages in answer to a prayer for help that reached me, here in my darkness. For know that since we parted I have gone quite blind so that I must use this maiden's eyes to read what is written in yonder divining-cup. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... "Intelligence Department" which now came into use, was that extraordinary instrument known as the "I-Tok," intended for picking up enemy telegraphic and telephonic messages. We never were supposed to know where its operators performed, and rarely did know, but more often than not they placed themselves near Battalion Headquarters, and the sheaves ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... above all others, led him captive, and filled his spirit with the majesty of its truth and the sublimity of its eloquence. It was the Declaration of American Independence. The author and the signers of that instrument became, in his early youth, the heroes of his political worship. I doubt if history affords any example of a life so early, so deeply, and so permanently influenced by a single political truth, as was Abraham Lincoln's by the ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... observed that the mercury was up to 125. Thinking that it had been unduly influenced, I put it in the fork of a tree close to me, sheltered alike from the wind and the sun. In this position I went to examine it about an hour afterwards, when I found that the mercury had risen to the top of the instrument, and that its further expansion had burst the bulb, a circumstance that, I believe, no traveller has ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... The crude musical instrument of the Sioux, the flute, was made to appeal to the susceptible ears of the maidens late into the night. There comes to me now the picture of two young men with their robes over their heads, and only a portion of ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... old home. The road, the hills, the rocks, the trees, and many of the buildings are the same; but, oh, how many and varied are the changes that strike the eye, and awaken in the breast ten thousand bewildering remembrances. Truly has the human heart been compared to a many stringed instrument, giving diversity of sound as it is swept ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... heretofore related have been confined solely to the nerves. We may now proceed to the consideration of what takes place when the spinal cord is operated upon in a similar way. If the cord be divided with a knife or other instrument, all parts of the body supplied with nerves given off below the division will become paralyzed and insensible, while all parts of the body supplied with nerves from the spinal cord above the division will retain their sensibility and power of motion. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the grief of the female relations was carried to great excess. They not only cut their hair, cried and howled, but they would sometimes, with the utmost deliberation, employ some sharp instrument to separate the nail from the finger and then force back the flesh beyond the first joint, which they immediately amputated. "Many of the old women have so often repeated this ceremony that they have not a complete finger remaining ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... well known to the President, cabinet, and collectors, could obtain the necessary appointments without the Senator's participation or even knowledge. Nevertheless, he relied upon public patronage as an instrument of party and factional success, and uniformly employed it throughout his career. The principal objection of the independent press to his appointment as chief justice implied his devotion to practical politics and an absence of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of being folded vertically, as is commonly the case. This is the only butterfly which I have ever seen, that uses its legs for running. Not being aware of this fact, the insect, more than once, as I cautiously approached with my forceps, shuffled on one side just as the instrument was on the point of closing, and thus escaped. But a far more singular fact is the power which this species possesses of making a noise. [6] Several times when a pair, probably male and female, were chasing each other in an irregular course, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... untrodden neighborhood of New York City in The Harbor; he consolidated his reputation with the thoughtful study of a troubled father of troubling daughters in His Family; since then he has sounded no new chords, strumming on his instrument as if magic had deserted him. Perhaps it was not quite magic by which his work originally won its hearing. There is something a little unmagical, a little mechanical, about the fancy which personifies the harbor of New York and makes it recur and reverberate throughout that first novel. The ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... long 'un and a stout 'un," Ma Moll's voice had raised to a shrill cry as she described the instrument of death. Tessibel's head was now close to the hag's. Her wild terror-stricken eyes following the stick as it stirred the contents ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... started on his forehead, and his breath came in shorter gasps. Malcolm and Lilias, standing near, likewise felt a sense of strange awe, for they too had heard of this relic, a supposed fragment of St. Andrew's own instrument of martyrdom, which had belonged to St. Margaret, and had been thought a palladium to the royal family ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... general physical and moral truths. Thus, while Jupiter, to the vulgar mind, was the god or the upper regions, "who dwelt on the Summits of the highest mountains, gathered the clouds about him, shook the air with his thunder, and wielded the lightning as the instrument of his wrath," yet in all this he was but the symbol of the ether or atmosphere which surrounds the earth; and hence, the numerous fables of this monarch of the gods may be considered merely as "allegories which typify the great ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... up!—what would have happened? The estate would have sunk, more and more lamentably, into the power of a certain low attorney who has been Melrose's instrument in all his worst doings for years—and of a pair of corrupt clerks in the local office. Who would have gained? Not a soul! On the contrary, much would have been lost. Heaven knows I have been able to do little enough. But I have done ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... client's friendship; it had taken many invitations to get him to Winchester and Wickham Manor; but he had gone at last, and was now returning. It has been remarked by some judicious thinker (possibly J. F. Smith) that Providence despises to employ no instrument, however humble; and it is now plain to the dullest that both Mr Wickham and the Wallachian Hospodar were liquid lead and wedges ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... city was governed by a series of commissions appointed by the Governor of the State, and the citizens were deprived of all voice in the management of their own affairs. It was urged by the friends of the New Charter, that that instrument restored to the citizens of New York the right of self-government. Had its provisions been honestly carried out, New York might have had a good government; but we shall see that they were perverted by a band ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... value of the compilation. He writes in the Theosophical Review: "It has been translated into no less than twenty different languages, and may be said without the faintest risk of contradiction, to have been the busiest instrument of Buddhist propaganda for many a day in the annals of that long somnolent dharma. The least that learned Buddhists of Ceylon can do to repay the debt of gratitude they owe to Colonel Olcott and other members of the Theosophical ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... to catch it. Her day's experience had made her content to bear the eccentricities of her humble foster-father, but she was by no means anxious to be the instrument that should provoke a characteristic expression ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... stick and amber mouth-piece with which I had been presented. With a cigar I am as much at home as any man in the City. I can nibble off the end of it, and smoke it to the last ash, when I am three parts asleep. But I had never before been invited to regale myself with such an instrument as this. What was I to do with that huge yellow ball? So I watched my ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... captivate the imagination and excite the feelings. German and Italian we studied together. The most romantic parts of history—all that was most interesting and bewitching in poetry, furnished materials for those hours which we devoted to reading. Reading! that most powerful instrument in the education of the heart!—silently searching into its secrets, rousing its dormant passions, and growing sometimes itself into a passion! But there was scarcely less excitement in conversing with my ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... and more irritable as the tension increased. The breaking of a shoe lace called forth a flow of profanity, and when the mainspring of his watch snapped, he hurled the instrument against the log ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... liberating the long-prisoned storm whose elements we have attempted to describe in the preceding chapter. With just intellect enough to be capricious, and just determination enough to be mischievous, he was an instrument fitted for the uses of every ambitious villain who could succeed in gaining his ear. To flatter his puerile tyranny, the infatuated intriguers of the Court rewarded the heroic Stilicho for the rescue of his country with the penalty of death, and defrauded Alaric of the moderate ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... them to go in the house, and the three stood there awkwardly, handling the time like a blunt instrument. Then Simeon Buck, proprietor of the Simeon Buck North American Dry Goods Exchange, plunged into what ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... telephone directory lay open on one of the pedestals. He must have been consulting it when he heard me on the stairs; he had another look at it now; and that gave me my opportunity. With a presence of mind rare enough in me to excuse the boast, I flung myself upon the instrument in the corner and hurled it to the ground with all my might. I was myself sent spinning into the opposite corner at the same instant. But the instrument happened to be a standard of the more elaborate pattern, and I flattered myself that I had put the delicate engine out ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... instrument—" Gisela walked rapidly over to the biplane. A girl sat at the joy-stick looking as if carved out of wood. There was no more expression on her face than if she were sitting in the gallery at a rather dull play. Her lover and six brothers ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... appearance of the man the buck's courage deserted him. He knew men and their far-reaching instrument of death and he did not stop to argue even the question of fresh vegetables. Instead, he presented the flag of truce and his little family lost no time in following his example. Only Brown Brother hesitated. Between the rows of beets his tongue had ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... any accompaniment, as we had no instrument ; but the S. S. says she plays too, very well. Indeed, I fancy she can ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D'Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... most useful instruments which the ingenuity of man has devised, is the Thermometer. It is so familiarly known that I need not describe it. This instrument does not enable us to estimate the actual quantity of heat contained in a substance, but it indicates the proportion of that subtile element which is sensible—that is recognisable by the sense of touch. The dusky ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... corridor. In the instrument room, Ahla the maid sat at the table with a head-piece clasped to her ears. She was talking softly but swiftly into the transmitter. In the mirror beside her I caught a glimpse of the place to which she was talking. A sort of cave—flickering lights—a ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... and laid his hand on the revolver. It was a small slim ivory toy—just the instrument for a tired sufferer to give himself a "hypodermic" with. Granice raised it slowly in one hand, while with the other he felt under the thin hair at the back of his head, between the ear and the nape. He knew just where to place the muzzle: he had once got a young surgeon to show him. And as he found ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... unprecedented interference with a country's domestic arrangements and are capable of being so operated as to take from Germany all effective control over her own transport system. In their present form they are incapable of justification; but some simple changes might transform them into a reasonable instrument. ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... so with all my poor weak might. I denounced her to myself again for a soulless harlot; blamed her for all the ill that had befallen me; accounted her the very hand that had wielded me, a senseless instrument, to slay her ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... somewhat pompous but sustained. He specially emphasised freedom of gesture and inflexion. Beauvallet, in my opinion, did not teach anything that was any good. He had a deep, effective voice, but that he could not give to any one. It was an admirable instrument, but it did not give him any talent. He was awkward in his gestures; his arms were too short and his face common. I detested ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Aristocrates the Theban, accompanied their harps with lyric songs. The performers on wind instruments were divided on a similar, although it could not be on the same principle. Dionysius from Heracleia, and Hyperbolus from Cyzicum, sang to the flute, or some such instrument; while Timotheus, Phrynichus, Scaphisius, Diophantus, and Evius, the Chalcidian, first performed the Pythian overture, and then, accompanied by chorusses, displayed the full power of wind instruments in masterly hands. There was also a peculiar class called eulogists of Bacchus; these acquitted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his chair, laughing and singing, "Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!" Clara laughed, too. Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the model student of their class was a very homely girl in ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... chance I made a straight seam I brought it to so sudden a stop that the thread raveled back before my weary eyes. When my back and fingers ached so that I could no longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument that responded with niceness to their guidance. Above the incessant roar and burring din they called gaily to each other, gossiping, chatting, telling stories. What did they talk about? Everything, except domestic cares. The management of an interior, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... instrument usually employed is a trawl net, which is shaped like a pocket, of from sixty to eighty feet long, and open at the mouth from thirty-two to forty feet, and three deep. This is dragged along the ground by the vessel, and on the art of the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... delicate frame, and rather of a timid nature, yet I soon became so inured to punishment, that I constantly bore the most severe flogging without altering a muscle of my face, notwithstanding I frequently received from ten to twenty lashes from the recently made instrument of torture, which was composed of new birch twigs, each stroke from which drew the blood; and it was no uncommon thing, after I had left the room, to get some other boy to pick out the spills which were left sticking in my lacerated flesh, some of them more than half an inch long. Nay, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... served the cross? Answ. I ask, and wherefore then served the wood by which the sacrifices were burned? The sacrifices were burned with wood upon the altar; the wood then was not that altar, the wood was that instrument by which the sacrifice was consumed, and the cross that by which Christ suffered his torment and affliction. The altar then was it that did bear both the wood and sacrifice, that did uphold the wood to burn, and the sacrifice to abide the burning. And with reference ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... opposition away, and now the Index was swamped and reduced to powerlessness, compelled more and more to limit its field of action, to confine itself to the examination of the writings of ecclesiastics, and even in this respect it was becoming corrupt, fouled by the worst passions and changed into an instrument of intrigue, hatred, and vengeance. Ah! that confession of decay, of paralysis which grew more and more complete amidst the scornful indifference of the nations. To think that Catholicism, the once glorious agent of civilisation, had come to such a pass ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... was quaint and interesting, the canal boats, the buffalo ploughs, the gaily-feathered birds,—all revealed a new and delightful phase of life and nature. We were immensely struck with the appearance of a native cutting grass. He had a hooked blade of steel fastened to a long handle, forming an instrument not unlike a cleek or other golf-stick. This he slowly swung round his head, and each time it touched the ground cleared about three inches of grass. The thing looked too absurd. We all wanted to get out and ask him how ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... that follows is likely to be full of warlike fury. So, as soon as the war began I started for it. It's not inherent in me. As I said, it's the confined ardor of generations bursting forth suddenly in my person. I'm not an active agent. I'm merely an instrument." ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... done.[338] Compared with this world of living individualized feelings, the world of generalized objects which the intellect contemplates is without solidity or life. As in stereoscopic or kinetoscopic pictures seen outside the instrument, the third dimension, the movement, the vital element, are not there. We get a beautiful picture of an express train supposed to be moving, but where in the picture, as I have heard a friend say, is the energy or the fifty ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... "swell" and stole a fish. Louis Freear, a housemaid, and all the leading men appeared as policemen. No one had more than a line to speak which just gave the audience time to recognize him or her. The composers and orchestra leaders came on as a German band, each playing an instrument, and they got half through the Washington Post before the policemen beat them off. Then Marie Lloyd and all the Music Hall stars appeared as street girls and danced to the music of a hand-organ. Hayden Coffin, Plunkett Greene ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Frank: "The instrument which she plays is a violin. For my part, I do not care for it. It does not make enough noise. Give me a harmonium or a cornet. But my daughter persists in saying that she will not learn anything but the violin. Perhaps it's better after all," he added, suddenly ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... with his door. He went out to the hen-house, carrying with him an instrument called a square, on which feet and inches were marked. With this he measured the hole which his door was to cover, and then making proper allowance for the extension of the door, laterally, beyond the hole, he determined on the length to which he would saw off ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... twisting and untwisting of which by approaching and separating the hands causes the button to revolve. Upon this design, and by substituting a jagged disk of slate for the button, the senior 'Bull-dogs' (we were all called 'Burney's bull-dogs') constructed a very simple instrument of torture. One big boy spun the whirligig, while another held the small boy's palm till the sharp slate-edge gashed it. The wound was severe. For many years a long white cicatrice recorded the fact in my right hand. The ordeal was, I fancy, unique - a prerogative ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... believe, is an instrument which takes a ray of light and proceeds to spread it abroad. At all events, the description seems ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... a foreign language is presented for the first time to the English beginner in written form, shields him against carrying over his native mixed vowel system to languages which use the same letters as English, but give quite a different value to them. In both cases[1] the essentials of the new instrument of learning are the same—that it be of universal application, that it be sufficiently different from the mother-tongue or alphabet to prevent confusion by association of ideas, that each of the new forms or letters convey only one idea or sound ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... the organ-loft the candidates were crowded together in eager expectation, and the glances that passed from one to another were not the kindliest. Each of them had been allowed several hours, at some time during the past week, for practice on the instrument; and each doubtless considered himself deserving ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the contents of the volume which God had thus given them, they expressed many thanks to M. —— for his generosity, and were about to proceed on their way, apparently rejoicing, when M. —— dismissed them by saying: "My friends, I feel peculiarly happy in thus being the instrument of putting into your hands that volume which contains the records of eternal life, and which points you to 'the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' If you faithfully read it, and imbibe its glorious and precious truths, and obey its precepts, ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... words are quite as important as the melody. It was only in the artificial songs of the Netherland school and the Italian opera composers that the voice was degraded to the function of a mere inarticulate instrument; and it remained for Wagner, following the precedence of Gluck, to restore it to its rank as the inseparable companion of poetry. And what led him to do this was not abstract reflection but artistic instinct and experience. ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... remain drinking, take a nap during the heat of the day, which in this country is from two to four in the afternoon. At five the ladies arrive, and the company amuse themselves in catching fish for supper, walking in the woods, swinging, singing, playing on some musical instrument, &c. I have often been on these parties, and never spent my time more to my satisfaction; which is more than you will be able to say of that spent ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... persons, who by unaccustomed favour, had been allowed to assume rank and dignity to which their birth did not entitle them; that it was time this irregularity should be stopped short, and that with this view, an instrument had been drawn up, which the Keeper of the Seals ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dignity little suspected by the careless practitioners in his court.... And so this elderly gentleman, for he had crossed the sixty mark by now, recalled the timid, pale-faced, undersized girl, with her "common" aunt, who seven years before had appeared in his court and to whom he had been the instrument of giving riches. What had she done with the golden spoon he had thrust into her mouth and what would she do with it now? Ah, that was always the question with these inheritances which he was called upon to administer according to the complicated rules of law—and ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... he was a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway. That didn't satisfy him. The mystery of the telegraph (and what is more mysterious?) constantly called him. The click of the instrument was a voice from an unknown world speaking to him words far different from those recorded in the messages that ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... animals) is a separate entity, which inhabits and rules the body only during its individual life, but leaves it at death. The widespread "piano-theory" (Claviertheorie) compares the "immortal soul" to a pianist who executes an interesting piece—the individual life—on the instrument of the mortal body, but at death withdraws into the other world. This "immortal soul" is usually represented as an immaterial being; but in fact it is really thought of as quite material, only as a finer invisible being, ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... soon dispelled. It was not long till the newspaper Italia del Popolo, revealed the fact that he still held to extreme and revolutionary views. The minds of the people were poisoned by the ravings of this journal, and filled with mistrust. It became the instrument by which sects and parties were stirred up to work the ruin of the country. "Unita e non unione. Assemblea del Popolo Italiano e non dieta." "Unity; not union. The assembly of the Italian people; not a federal ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... No piano was in the room, no musical instrument of any kind, and Pat lay helpless upon his bed. How, then, could he accompany? The O'Shaughnessy ingenuity had, however, overcome greater difficulties than this, and it was not the first time by many that Pat had hummed an ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine Providence saw fit to use me as an instrument for the saving of those preshious lives, the honner conferd upon me was greater ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine |
