"Ingenious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at a distance from him, the intervention of a special conducting mechanism becomes indispensable, in order to establish instantaneous communication between him and the distant performers. Many attempts, more or less ingenious, have been made of this kind, the result of which has not everywhere answered expectations. That of Covent Garden Theatre, in London, moved by the conductor's foot, acts tolerably well. But the electric metronome, set up by Mr. Van Bruge in the Brussels ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... had a message to leave to posterity and he left it in his empty canteen. However, unless attention could be called to the canteen, the man who found the skeleton would merely bury it and never think of looking in the canteen. So Oliver Corblay wrote that message in the lava; really the most ingenious piece of inlaid work I ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... was really due to the Government. To Cerizet, as manager of the paper, it was rather too evident that he was as a bird perched on a rotten bough; and then it was that he promoted that nice little joint-stock company, and thereby secured a couple of years in prison; he was caught, while more ingenious swindlers succeeded in catching ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. The hoe is an ingenious instrument, calculated to call out a great deal of strength ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... contract for payment if you will give it me. Further, I want to say that I've been to look at your work, and it pleases me. There are plenty of men in this province who would have done it as solidly, but it's the general design and ingenious fixings that take my fancy. May I ask ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... many of them are not to blame, poor boys, for not knowing, for they have not had much time to study, and have been neglected by their parents. But Providence was at hand. You should have seen Derossi, and what trouble he took to help them; how ingenious he was in getting a figure passed on, and in suggesting an operation, without allowing himself to be caught; so anxious for all that he appeared to be our teacher himself. Garrone, too, who is ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... told him once by a survivor of a trading ship Judd the Kite had destroyed. It wasn't a nice tale. The Kite, so the report ran, was diabolically ingenious with a long peeling knife, and could improvise with it for hours. Friday pursued the tack of thought, and then suddenly began to sweat in earnest. He recalled—horrible!—that Judd possessed a special dislike ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... dubious question, when the foot is trembling on debatable ground, knowing not whether to advance or recede, make this the final criterion, "What saith the Scripture?" The world may remonstrate—erring friends may disapprove—Satan may tempt—ingenious arguments may explain away; but, with our finger on the revealed page, let the words of our Great Example be ever a Divine formula for our guidance:—"This commandment have I received of ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... 'twas the voice of Lord Howard that awakened her, "the queen must have been inspired to invent so ingenious a device. ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else—dreadful alternative!—we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not the just man ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... but keeps his Christmas in the old fashion, and wears his clothes in the new fashion, without regard to heat or cold. A nation that never surrenders to the fire of an enemy cannot be expected to give in to the fire of the sun, but if some ingenious mortal would only invent some light and airy costume, after the fashion of the Greek dress, and Australians would consent to adopt the same, life in Melbourne and her sister cities would be much cooler than ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... Mr. Carrington; and he laughed gently. "Well, every one has been assaulted except the poacher; exquisitely Pomeranian! But it's just as well that they have, or that ingenious brother of yours would be in a fine mess. As it is, I think we can go on teaching our young Pomeranian not to be so ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... explaining the system of protection; an ingenious device whereby the workingman permitted the manufacturer to charge him higher prices, in order that he might receive higher wages; thus taking his money out of his pocket with one hand, and putting a part of it back with the other. To the senator this unique arrangement ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... chain and wire rope works are situated not far from these; and between the two, at the foot of the inclined plane, an ingenious device for transferring boats from one canal to the other, is the celebrated "Tar Tunnel," driven into the coal measures, from which petroleum was formerly exported on a large scale, under the name ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... the trial before the jury, with all the ignominy that necessarily accompanies it, would be harder yet. But, after all, it would all disappear in the joy of acquittal; when that time came, there would be found, surely, some ingenious idea, sympathy, effective support, to pay him for all that he would have suffered. Certainly, things would come to pass thus, and the acquittal would be carried with ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... musket bullets. They supplied me as fast as they could, showing a thousand marks of wonder and astonishment at my bulk and appetite. I then made another sign, that I wanted drink. They found by my eating that a small quantity would not suffice me; and being a most ingenious people, they slung up, with great dexterity, one of their largest hogsheads, then rolled it towards my hand, and beat out the top; I drank it off at a draught, which I might well do, for it did not hold half a pint, and tasted like a small ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... introduced tobacco-chewing into the school, with fearful effects one Saturday night on the aristocratic interiors of Lords Gartridge and Windhall and Honourables Edwin Bellamy and Hildebrand Kyne. It was the ingenious gambling-game imported by Ogden which was rapidly undermining the moral sense of twenty-four innocent English boys when it was pounced upon by Glossop. It was Ogden who, on the one occasion when Mr Abney reluctantly resorted to the cane, and administered four mild taps with it, relieved ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Webster's argument in the White Murder Case, from which I print a short extract on page 157, is a famous example of an argument on circumstantial evidence; and in fiction Sir Conan Doyle has created for our delectation many notable and ingenious cases of it. But reasoning from circumstantial evidence is far from being confined to criminal cases and fiction; as Huxley points out (see p. 241), it is also the basis of some of the broadest and most illuminating generalizations of science; and the example below from Macaulay is only ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... method of attack was devised by a French engineer of the highest reputation for skill in his profession, the Chevalier D'Arcon. The plan offered by him was so original and ingenious as to fill the besiegers with hopes of sure success, and the necessary preparations were diligently made. Ten powerful floating batteries were constructed, which were thought fully adapted to resist fire, throw off shells, and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... of Great Britain are not disposed to resort to the ridiculous relations of travellers, or to the wild systems which ingenious men have thought proper to build on their authority. We will take another mode. We will undertake to prove the direct contrary of his assertions in every point and particular. We undertake to do this, because your Lordships know, and because the world knows, that, if you go into a country where ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the nature of life and of consciousness. Without going into this very complex question, however, there remains the undoubted fact of the connection; the thought, which is known by us in consciousness; and the brain-change, which has been verified by ingenious mechanical and electrical instruments, and the effects of which we behold in the chemical changes in the brain-substance itself after severe thinking. This being so, it has been said, Why not suppose that so-called subconscious actions are merely ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... familiar to English-speaking children as Jack the Giant Killer, but it is equally widespread abroad as told of a little tailor or cobbler. In the former case there is almost invariably the introduction of the ingenious incident, "Seven at a Blow," the number varying from three to twenty-seven. I have adopted a fair average. The latter part of the story is found very early in M. Montanus, Wegfuehrer, Strassburg, 1557, though most of the incidents occur in folk ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... a sharp eye on one another, and do not trust each other the best. Ingenious in little artifices, they wait for those whose knowledge walketh on lame feet,—like ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... arches from pillar to pillar, and on these he placed the roof with stone gutters along the top of the arches to carry off the water, inclined at such an angle that the roof should be safe, as it is, from the danger of damp. This thing was so novel and ingenious that it well deserves the consideration of our day. He next prepared plans for the first cloisters of the old convent of that church, and shortly after he removed from the outside of the church of S. Giovanni ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... enough—insolent enough—to convey the unutterable contempt avowed for all that he had written, by the fashionable critics. One critic—who still, I believe, edits a rather popular journal, and who belongs to that class, feeble, fluttering, ingenious, who make it their highest ambition not to lead, but, with a slave's adulation, to obey and to follow all the caprices of the public mind—described Mr. Wordsworth as resembling, in the quality of his mind, an old nurse babbling in her ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... M. Delsarte's labors in relation to what has been spoken or written up to this time on the art of singing or acting, I should say that the numerous precepts which have been formulated on dramatic art have had hardly any object other than the manner in which each character ought to be conceived. Ingenious and multiplied observations have been employed to bring forth the delicacies of the part and its unpcrceived features. The intellectual strength of the actor or vocalist has been directed to the author's conception. He has been told to be pathetic ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... interesting Query which our correspondent has forwarded on the subject of the disappearance of Shakespeare's MSS. without referring to the ingenious suggestion upon that subject so skilfully brought forward by the Rev. Joseph Hunter in his New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 105.:—"That the entire disappearance of all manuscripts ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... for it but to shut the cabin-door, make a clean breast of my fears, and desire him to help me in devising some new plan. He was a good fellow, and ingenious too; for after he had dashed up my hopes with the news that a similar embargo lay on all foreign ships in the port, his face cleared, and, said he, 'There's no help for it, but you must play the sea-lawyer ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The country was full of trees, and, in particular, there were abundance of cokers,[1] penang, serie, and palmitos, among which were plenty of poultry, pheasants, and wood-cocks. I went ashore along with our merchants, and had a tent set up. Our carpenter made several very ingenious pitfalls for catching the wild-hogs. We took some fish among the rocks with much labour, and got one pheasant and two wood-Pigeons, which last were as large in the body as ordinary hens. Some of our company staid all night ashore to look for the wild-hogs ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... more dreadful than private duels in America. The two adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the prairies— their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent of the enemy. A single mistake, a moment's hesitation, a single false step may cause death. On these occasions Yankees are often accompanied by their dogs, and keep up ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... the only brewing animal known to scientific research. All other creatures take their food and drink neat, or in a raw state. Of course, almost all mammals are enabled by a highly ingenious internal mechanism to brew milk, or some other lacteal substitute, but this is performed by a natural, instinctive impulse towards the preservation of their young and conserves none of the spirit of artifice and calculation so necessary to ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... and the fiddles aforesaid, whose strings were of gut procured from the native wild-cat—a very little fellow, by the way, about the size of a fair-sized rat; I found him everywhere. These cats were great thieves, and only roamed about at night. I trapped them in great numbers by means of an ingenious native arrangement of pointed sticks of wood, which, while providing an easy entrance, yet confronted the outgoing cat with a formidable chevaux-de- frise. The bait I used was meat ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... show you how they were concealed," he rejoined; and he exhibited the ingenious recess and the working of the curious spring. She was greatly interested, she grew excited and became familiar; she appealed to him again not to do anything so foolish as to give up the papers, the rest of which, in their little blank, impenetrable ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... there were four chairs, two on either side of the room, of such elaborate and sinister construction that there could be no question as to their being designed for the purpose of inflicting various kinds of ingenious and exquisite agony upon the unhappy occupants; while, in addition to these there was an instrument which clearly betrayed itself as a specimen of the notorious "boot." Hung here and there upon the walls were other curious-looking ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... led the ingenious and subtle mind of Leibnitz to his celebrated doctrine of a pre-established harmony. He, too, thought that mind could not act upon matter, nor matter upon mind, and that the two, therefore, must have been arranged by their Maker like two clocks, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... that what he had thought was the cry of a screech-owl the night previous to Uncle Jim's disappearance, might have been the agonized utterance of that murdered man. It was highly characteristic of that camp—and, indeed, of others in California—that nobody, not even the ingenious theorists themselves, believed their story, and that no one took the slightest pains to verify or disprove it. Happily, Uncle Billy never knew it, and moved all unconsciously in this atmosphere of burlesque suspicion. And then a singular change took ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... enemy down," and "admirable for its advantages and ingenuity." In the first place it is an open question whether the enemy needed drawing down; on this occasion he advanced boldly enough. The formation may have been ingenious, but it was the reverse of advantageous. It would have been far better to have had the strongest vessels to windward, and the schooners, with their long guns, to leeward, where they would not be exposed to capture by any accident happening to them. Moreover, it does not speak well for the ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... enriching them with the Leaves of Brank Ursine and Roses. It's said, That this Capital, which, according to Vitruvius, makes all the Distinction betwixt the Corinthian and Ionick Order, was invented by this ingenious Artisan upon this occasion. Having seen the Leaves of the above-mentioned Plant grow round about a Basket which was set upon the Tomb of a Young Corinthian Lady, and which, as it happened, was set upon the middle of the Plant. He represented the Basket by the ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... composition of his tales. Save for a few experiments (which I should call the least successful in the collection) his formula is not the episodical "slice of life," with crumbly edges. His choice is for the well-made, with usually some ingenious little twist at the finish, and (so to speak) a neatly tied bow to end all. As an instance of this kind I commend to your notice the admirably shaped little yarn called "Two-penn'orth." Mr. PALMER has a pretty wit (perhaps here and there a trifle thin), shown nowhere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... the seaside near our large cities, since that is rather a matter of carpentry; nor of portable houses; nor of lattice-work with painted paper; nor even of a "schbang" such as I have often built of old doors, shutters, outer windows, and tarred paper: any one who is ingenious can knock together all the shelter his needs require or means allow. But, where you are camping for a week or more, it pays you well to use all you have in making yourself comfortable. A bush house, a canopy under which to eat, and something better ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... insures against the occurrence of such calamities." Chang Yu says: "So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness." Now Sun Tzu says nothing whatever, except possibly by implication, about ill-considered haste being better than ingenious but lengthy operations. What he does say is something much more guarded, namely that, while speed may sometimes be injudicious, tardiness can never be anything but foolish — if only because it means impoverishment ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... failed in most of his endeavors for a livelihood. "Rebellious Staymaker; unkempt," says Carlyle; but General Charles Lee noted that there was "genius in his eyes," and he bore a letter of introduction from Franklin commending him as an "ingenious, worthy young man," which obtained for him a position on the "Pennsylvania Magazine." Before he had been a year on American soil, Paine was writing the most famous pamphlet of our political literature, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... owed to the "Decamerone" the idea of including a number of stories in the framework of a single narrative, it implies too much. For this notion, a familiar one in the East, had long been known to Western Europe by the numerous versions of the terribly ingenious story of the "Seven Wise Masters" (in the progress of which the unexpected never happens), as well as by similar collections of the same kind. And the special connexion of this device with a company ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... listened to its melody. The compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was wonderful—extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to smile in reply to the other's contagious but low laughter. While under the influence of these gentle and natural feelings, no trace of ferocity was to be seen in the softened features of the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... opening and closing her shutters with a bang. By breakfast-time my revered relation becomes a respectable and no longer a riotous member of society, but during the early morning hours her inventions for disturbing her neighbors are ingenious ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... could not be pronounced in certain parts of northern Italy without calling up tragic yet noble historical recollections.... Its merits, simply as a work of literary art, are of a very high order. The style is really beautiful—easy, sprightly, graceful, and full of the happiest and most ingenious turns of phrase and ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... question began to be very hotly discussed in France. There was M. Pouchet, a professor at Rouen, a very learned man, but certainly not a very rigid experimentalist. He published a number of experiments of his own, some of which were very ingenious, to show that if you went to work in a proper way, there was a truth in the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Well, it was one of the most fortunate things in the world that M. Pouchet took up this question, because it induced a distinguished French chemist, ...
— The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.—The Origination Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... "A deuced ingenious argument," he commented. "It wouldn't have occurred to me if you hadn't explained. Then you claim the privilege ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... inability to set fertile seed, no wonder it woos its benefactors with a showy mass of color, charming fringes, sweet perfume, and copious draughts of nectar, and makes their visits of the utmost value to itself by the ingenious mechanism described above. Here is no waste of pollen; that is snugly packed in little bundles, ready to be carried off, but placed where they cannot come in contact with the adjoining stigma, since every orchid, almost without ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... doubt to escape suspicion; and because it was war-time, and the censorship had closed on India like a throttling string, it was not in code. So the wording, all things considered, had to be ingenious, for the Mirza Ali, of the Fort, Bombay, to whom it was addressed, could scarcely be expected to read more than between the lines. The lines had to be there ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... improvement in costume. It is the epauletted sleeve, which gives expansion to so many figures which are, unfortunately, too narrow. All physiologists are speculating on the growing narrowness of chest in the Anglo-Saxon race. It is singularly apparent in America. To remedy this, some ingenious dress-maker devised a little puff at the top of the arm, which is most becoming. It is also well adapted to the "cloth of gold" costume of the days of Francis I., which modern luxury so much affects. It is a Frond sort of costume, this ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... there can be no doubt, first, as to the widespread, nay, universal, prevalence of the race idea, the race spirit, the race ideal, and as to its efficiency as the vastest and most ingenious invention of human progress. We, who have been reared and trained under the individualistic philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and the laisser- faire philosophy of Adam Smith, are loath to see and loath to acknowledge this patent fact ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... the Republic, wholly employed in restoring the peace of his country, and receiving for the reward of his pacific intentions an imprisonment, which would in all probability have been perpetual, had not the ingenious friendship of his wife with great address procured his liberty. But as the occasion of these events was the warm dispute kindled in the United Provinces concerning Grace and Predestination, we must ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... with the view of developing a plan 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
... speaking of the first formation of the Royal Society:—Many physicians, and other ingenious men went into the society for natural philosophy. But he who laboured most ... was Robert Boyle, the Earl of Cork's youngest son. He was looked on by all who knew him as a very perfect pattern. ... He neglected ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... uplifted rocks; it ran hissing like fiery serpents among the scattered stones; it buzzed and exploded in the very face of Haig, and under the pony's belly. If he had been caught in a burning storehouse of fireworks—rockets, Roman candles, pinwheels, and all the ingenious products of the pyrotechnician—the experience might have been like this, only a thousand times less terrifying. He dodged and ducked, and threw up his hands to shield his face, expecting instantly that one of those exploding things would make ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... services." He was before long sent to Pignerol, where he passed ten years. There he met Fouquet, and that mysterious personage called the Iron Mask, whose name has not yet been discovered to a certainty by means of all the most ingenious conjectures. It was only by settling all her property on the Duke of Maine after herself that Mademoiselle purchased Lauzun's release. The king had given his posts to the Prince of Marcillac, son of La Rochefoucauld. He at the same time overwhelmed Marshal ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... at Rangihu, where for twelve axes he bought two hundred acres of land from a young rangatira named Turi. The land was conveyed to the Church Missionary Society by a deed of sale. As Turi could not write, Hongi made the ingenious suggestion that his moko, or face-tattoo, should be copied on the deed. This was done by a native artist. The ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... this solution of the difficulty was rendered unnecessary. A compromise, as usual, afforded a convenient escape to all parties, without disappointing any; and by an ingenious re-distribution of three or four regiments (devised by His Majesty himself), Taylor was provided for elsewhere, and Nugent obtained his lieutenant-colonelcy. There was great difficulty, nevertheless, in bringing His Majesty to this point. He had made up his mind to give the vacant regiment ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... visit to the lamented Bob McCook's "Old Ninth" Regiment. The men are in splendid condition—the pride of the division. They are noted as the most ingenious battalion in the Army of the Cumberland. They have improvised a turning-shop, and manufacture chessmen, checkers, and every variety of specimens in that line. They have a flying-Dutchman, revolving swing, quoits, bag races, etc., while the lovers of horse-racing ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... body; and consequently the same animal, as we have observed, is the same continued LIFE communicated to different particles of matter, as they happen successively to be united to that organized living body. And whatever is talked of other definitions, ingenious observation puts it past doubt, that the idea in our minds, of which the sound man in our mouths is the sign, is nothing else but of an animal of such a certain form. Since I think I may be confident, that, whoever should see a creature of his own shape or ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... with his ear to the ingenious little "electric eavesdropper," experienced an unpleasant chill upon hearing the ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... we suffer the French to multiply, till we are no longer in a condition to oppose their efforts? What will the other nations say of us, who pass for the most ingenious of all the Red-men? They will then say, we have less understanding than other people. Why then wait we any longer? Let us set ourselves at liberty, and show we are really men, who can be satisfied with what we have. From this very day let us begin to ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... 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 ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... while he perished? Risking spies on the watch, I struggled up and staggered across the cave to that blue flame quivering so mysteriously. As I neared, the mystery vanished, for it was nothing more than one of those northern beds of combustibles—gas, tar, or coal—set burning by the ingenious pirates. [1] ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... told of a condemned man, whom his cruel executioner cast into a prison of ingenious structure. Each day the walls of this cage grew narrower and narrower, each day they pressed nearer and nearer to the unfortunate prisoner, until in despair he died and the dungeon became his coffin. Even so, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... attributes of a Gothic institution. It is not two years since I acquired, in a foreign land, some domestic intelligence of my own family; and this intelligence was conveyed to Switzerland from the heart of Germany. I had formed an acquaintance with Mr. Langer, a lively and ingenious scholar, while he resided at Lausanne as preceptor to the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick. On his return to his proper station of Librarian to the Ducal Library of Wolfenbuttel, he accidentally found among some literary rubbish a small old English volume of heraldry, inscribed with ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... from the Transactions of the Club, then, that Mr. Pickwick lectured upon the discovery at a General Club Meeting, convened on the night succeeding their return, and entered into a variety of ingenious and erudite speculations on the meaning of the inscription. It also appears that a skilful artist executed a faithful delineation of the curiosity, which was engraven on stone, and presented to the Royal Antiquarian Society, and other learned ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... what you do, and I am—very conceited—sure that you often think of Maria among the number, and that you have even already thought of a footstool for her. Emmeline has, by the bye, invented and executed, and given to my mother, the most ingenious footstool I ever saw, which folds up and can be put into a work-bag. She has also sent the nicest most agreeable presents to the little Foxes—a kaleidoscope, a little watering-pot, and a pair of little tin scales with weights; they set about directly weighing ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Mine is, to enforce the Necessity of Education, and mortify Pride. I was very much delighted with what you say in your First Dialogue of Apple-trees and Oranges; the different Productions of the first, and the Culture of the other. The Allegory is very ingenious, and the Application just; but I don't think, that the Conclusion, which must be drawn from it, will be of great Use to you. Page 51. Euphranor asks Alciphron, Why may we not conclude by a Parity ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... of a Territory, by the exercise of his great principle of popular sovereignty, could decide the slavery question for themselves. But, being a subtle sophist, he sought to maintain a show of consistency by an ingenious evasion. In the month of June following the decision, he made a speech at Springfield, Illinois, in which he tentatively announced what in the next year became widely celebrated as his Freeport doctrine, and was immediately denounced by his political confreres of the South as serious party ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... Sandstone," first published in 1841, has now been republished in the "Everyman Library." In this brilliant work, Miller pays his respects to the evolutionists of his age. He refers to Lamarck and says: "The ingenious foreigner, on the strength of a few striking facts which prove that to a certain extent the instincts of species may be improved and heightened, and their forms changed from a lower to a higher degree of adaptation to their circumstances, has concluded ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... Yet men thus ingenious and inquisitive were content to live in total ignorance of the trades by which human wants are supplied, and to supply them by the grossest means. Till the Union made them acquainted with English manners, the culture of their lands was unskilful, and their domestick life unformed; ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... part, a series of incidents that is, we believe, the most ingenious yet planned by its author.... The adventure develops and grows, the tension increases with each page, to such an extent that the hackneyed adjective, 'breathless,' finds an appropriate place."—NEW YORK MAIL ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... creed of a half-hatched sect, and sometimes with an intention to destroy all scriptural authority by a confusion, or an omission of texts—the whole was left open to the option or the malignity of the editors, who, probably, like certain ingenious wine-merchants, contrived to accommodate "the waters of life" to their customers' peculiar taste. They had also a project of printing Bibles as cheaply and in a form as contracted as they possibly could for the common people; and they proceeded till it nearly ended with having no Bible at all: and, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... entire authenticity, as it has obviously borrowed liberally from that of Cesar Frederick, already inserted in this work, Vol. VII. p. 142-244. It seems therefore highly probable, that the journal or narrative of Fitch may have fallen into the hand of some ingenious book-maker, who wished to increase its interest by this unjustifiable art. Under these circumstances, we would have been led to reject this article from our collection, were not its general authenticity corroborated by these other documents, and by the journal of John ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... spring drawer. Observe that this bit of carving, which seemed mere ornament, is really a vital part of the mechanism. Note, moreover, how balanced and symmetrical the whole design is, with what economy and foresight every part is fashioned. It is not only an ingenious structure, it is a handsome bit of furniture, and will materially improve the looks of the empty chambers, or disorderly or ungainly chambers that you carry under your crown. Or if it happen that these apartments are noble in decoration ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... inconvenience for a strumpet. I told them that I should not have let myself be moved on her account, but that I was bent on punishing the infamous young man, who showed how little he regarded me. Accordingly I would not yield to the remonstrances of those ingenious and worthy men, but took my sword, and went alone toward Prati:-the house where we were supping, I should say, stood close to the Castello gate, which led to Prati. [1] Walking thus upon the road to Prati, I had not gone far before ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... of course, be urged that all I am affirming for women in this far back beginning is but a process of ingenious guessing. Such criticism is just. But I am speaking of conditions at a time when conjecture is necessary. I venture to say that my suggestions are in accord with what is likely to have happened. Moreover, many difficulties will be made clearer if these guesses are accepted. I believe ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... fashion and literature no coterie has presented a more instructive and amusing exhibition of the abuses of learning, and the aberrations of ill-regulated imaginations, than the Hotel de Rambouillet, by its ingenious absurdities. Their excellent design to refine the language, the manners, and even morality itself, branched out into every species of false refinement; their science ran into trivial pedantries, their style into a fantastic jargon, and their spiritualising delicacy into the very puritanism ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... not made to fall through. In his downward progress, Tom had unluckily struck his head against the side of the house; and when he landed at the bottom of the stairs, he was utterly oblivious to all distinctions between treason and loyalty. Tom was not killed, I need not inform the ingenious reader, or this would otherwise have been the last chapter of the story; but the poor fellow did not know whether he ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... I find an ingenious arrangement excellently suited for the purpose of carrying a season ticket, so that it shall be at once secure and easily accessible. The tailor has made a horizontal slit, about two-and-a-half inches wide, in the right side of the coat, and cunningly inserted a small rectangular bag or pouch of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... by a strong partisan organization. The Canadian and British governments could not get up a "lobby" to press the matter in the ways peculiar to professional politicians, party managers, and great commercial or financial corporations. Mr. Hincks brought the powers of his persuasive tongue and ingenious intellect to bear on the politicians at Washington, but even he with all his commercial acuteness and financial knowledge was unable to accomplish anything. It was not until Lord Elgin himself went to the national capital ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... a real anxiety. The future of the captain's 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 ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Scott's tale of the then little-known land of Australia—for it is told of a time prior to the discovery of gold—is strikingly original and ingenious, animated, interesting, and puzzling.... 'The Track of Midnight' deserves grateful recognition by lovers of tales well told; in it there is life, action, character, and admirable colour. If this is, as we think it is, Mr. Firth Scott's first novel, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... sonorously prepared, and hastily and weakly finished. Nor should the balance be too striking and exact, for the one rule is to be infinitely various; to interest, to disappoint, to surprise, and yet still to gratify; to be ever changing, as it were, the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of an ingenious neatness. ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the relief of General Burnside's army, but still urged on the work. As soon as the bridge was mended, all the troops moved forward. General Howard had marched from Loudon, had found a pretty good ford for his horses and wagons at Davis's, seven miles below Morgantown, and had made an ingenious bridge of the wagons left by General Vaughn at London, on which to pass his men. He marched by Unitia and Louisville. On the night of the 5th all the heads of columns communicated at Marysville, where I met Major Van Buren (of General ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... we are speaking, and about which much busy conjecture, and learned antiquarian research has been employed; for indeed, its appearance is neither singular nor striking, the engraving being but slight, and the letters rudely formed. But the ingenious observer will esteem it a valuable curiosity; not only because it clears up the long doubted question, whether the RATAE of Antoninus's Itinerary was the present Leicester, but because it is one of those objects which assist the reflecting mind ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... to history as well as to common sense. It is as if the familiar expressions often employed in our own time, such as "the people of Africa," or "the people of South America," should be cited, by some ingenious theorist of a future generation, as evidence that the subjects of the Khedive and those of the King of Dahomey were but "one people," or that the Peruvians and the Patagonians belonged to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... school, wherein both Moses and our Saviour, the Old and New Testament, are jested at, and the scholars taught among other things to spell God backwards.* Cayley treats this accusation as a calumny,** and Birch describes its author as the "virulent but learned and ingenious Father Parsons";*** but Osborn, in the preface to his Miscellany of Sundry Essays, Paradoxes, etc., in speaking of Raleigh, says that Queen Elizabeth "chid him who was ever after branded with the title of an atheist, though a known asserter of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... were no longer noticed; those menacing reports, which still murmured over our heads, appeared forgotten. For, though this common phenomenon of the season might have shaken the firmness of some few minds, with the majority the time of omens had passed away. A scepticism, ingenious on the part of some, thoughtless or coarse on the part of others, earth-born passions and imperious wants, have diverted the souls of men from that heaven whence they are derived, and to which they should return. The army, therefore, recognized nothing but a natural and unseasonable ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... arguments upon the substantial merits of the case, were congenial, at least, to high judicial qualities. He despised chicanery of all kinds, and formed independent opinions upon broad grounds instead of being at the mercy of ingenious sophistry. He was free from the foibles of petty vanity upon which a dexterous counsel could play, and had the solid, downright force of mind and character which gives weight to authority of all kinds. I need not labour to prove that masculine common ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the host, "we must look to our conduct in the presence of one who talked with Sir William Wyndham and was a visitor in the house of Sir Hans Sloane before we were born; whose tireless intellect has been a confidant of Nature, a playmate of the Lightning and an inventor of ingenious and useful things; whose wisdom has given to Philadelphia a public library, a work house, good paving, excellent schools, a protection against fire as efficient as any in the world and the best newspaper in the colonies. Good health and long life to him and may ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... repassed the Riddleberger bill, which the creditors refused to accept, and an ingenious "coupon killer." Similar acts were passed in 1886 and 1887. The United States Supreme Court, before which these acts were brought, pronounced them unconstitutional in that they impaired the obligation of contracts, but ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... correspondent alludes is, probably, that quoted in Cecil's (Hone's) Sixty Curious and Authentic Narratives, pp. 138-140., from the Recreations of a Man of Feeling. The peerage and the pedigree of the Stair family alike prove that there is little foundation for this ingenious fiction.] ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... a work of serious value under the form of a jest. Your "Paraphrases" charm me: nothing can be more ingenious than these 24 Variations and the 16 little pieces upon ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... himself with a laugh. Smelting of abandoned gold ores, by the method of the ingenious Dando, had absorbed some of Hugh's capital, with very little result, and his other schemes for ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... faciendi has something ingenious and simple about it, enhanced by a tone and air of profound conviction; and his voice has such fervor and warmth that he carries away ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... and the morning air tempted us to uncoil ourselves from our night-wrappers, and take a brisk walk in the dust; after which we mounted the coach-box, and devised sundry practical methods for accelerating our team, who however were equally ingenious in ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... Methodist deaconesses, who have already begun to collect means for this purpose. In Scheffel's famous story of Ekkehard the only way in which the Duchess Hadwig could enter the monastery of St. Gall (as there was a law that no woman should set her foot upon the threshold) was by the ingenious device of a young monk, who lifted her over in his arms. These peaceful women of Methodism are finding no obstacle now as did Hadwig of old; they do not need even figuratively to be lifted over the entering threshold; they are gladly welcomed, and are introducing ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... an ingenious trap, or man spider web, for the catching of any human insect that might seek entrance at his window: the moment the invading body should reach a certain point, a number of lines would drop about him, in making his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the process, as in order that the sulphureted hydrogen gas obtained shall be concentrated and pure, only pure carbonic acid can be used in liberating it. The apparatus employed in its preparation is perhaps the most ingenious part of the works, and well worthy of attention by others besides alkali makers. The method is based on the fact that if dilute impure carbonic acid is passed into a solution of carbonate of sodium, the carbonic acid is absorbed, bicarbonate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... furnishings in keeping. Consciously or unconsciously, he will lean towards antiques. Further, those that look best in the 18th or early 19th century farm cottage are not necessarily expensive. Simple pine pieces, made by the village cabinet-maker or, sometimes, by an ingenious farmer in his leisure hours; Windsor and slat-back chairs; low four-post beds; trestle or tuckaway tables; even an occasional Victorian piece; all, if on simple lines, fit into such a house as though ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... in ten thousand other flowers which do not possess them. Is it not then an extraordinary idea, to imagine the Creator of the Universe contriving the various complicated parts of these flowers, as a mechanic might contrive an ingenious toy or a difficult puzzle? Is it not a more worthy conception that they are some of the results of those general laws which were so co-ordinated at the first introduction of life upon the earth as to result necessarily in the utmost possible ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a juggler! a figure projected on the wall by some ingenious contrivance of glasses. The instrument was found on the body of the performer, who turned out to be the colonel's valet—of course in the enemy's pay, and who furnished them with daily intelligence of all our proceedings. As for the loss of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... regarded either with reference to its ingenious construction and usefulness, or to its beauty, stands alone, in its superlative excellence, in the whole animal world. In no species of animal is the hand so wonderfully formed and so perfectly developed ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam wry flee feint pique mite seer idle pistol flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial kernel carat bridle lesson council collar levy accept affect deference emigrant prophesy sculptor plaintive populous ingenious lineament desert extent pillow stile descent incite pillar device patients lightening proceed plaintiff prophet immigrant fisher difference presents effect except levee choler counsel lessen bridal ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... to all nations belong their peculiar maxims and political or religious cries, which, if collected by some ingenious philosopher, would make a striking compendium of universal history. Sometimes a curious outward similarity exists between these condensed national sentences of peoples dissimilar in every other respect. Thus, to-day is heard in the senescent East the oft-repeated formula of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... The same ingenious method of promoting virtue by holding up vice to obloquy is pursued in every other field, the learned German told me. The newspapers do not print the names of men who support their wives, but they print the names of men ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... Endeavouring to impose on a suffering and surfeited public the musty old fashion of ingenious fioritura! ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... ingenious George Vertue arranging first, and then making a catalogue of the Houghton Gallery; Horace, a boy still, in looks,—with a somewhat chubby face, admiring and following: Sir Robert, in a cocked hat, edged with silver lace, a curled short wig, a loose coat, also edged with silver lace, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... aspirations. "Besides, I have written to his teacher, and this is what he says about him: 'A greater deed of charity you could not perform than to help Michael Warden carry out his desire to learn a trade. He is a clever, ingenious boy, and would learn quickly. I think he would like best to be a wheelwright, and I would suggest that you apprentice him with the master in our village.' So you see, mother, the money would not ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... holy and in every way vastly Abel's superior. In fact, he must in himself represent all desirable things, as his name indicates. And the same characteristic is manifest in his children, who are ingenious in the invention of every variety of art. Deplorable the fact that a man of Cain's qualifications, born of godly parents and signally honored of God, should display such hatred and inhumanity toward poor Abel merely because of God's Word and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... skins of the stolen beasts were deposited in a cask, and the proof was deemed complete; but of the same cooperage, another was prepared, an admirable imitation. This last was opened in court, but it was found filled with the skins of seals; and, by the ingenious transformation, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... that the officers were stunned by the terrible surprise of the day before, and as for the men, they would know nothing. He had seen early that the Germans were splendid troops, disciplined, brave and ingenious, but the habit of blind obedience would blind them also to the fact that fortune had turned her face ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to the raised writing-table, he rested his elbows upon it, and peered down at that curious blotting-pad which had so provoked the curiosity of Durham. Could Durham have seen it now the mystery must have been solved. It was an ingenious camera obscura apparatus, and dimly depicted upon its surface appeared a reproduction of part of the storehouse beneath! The part of it which was visible was that touched by the light of an electric torch, carried by a man ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... alabaster flask for his anointing; the feminine tenderness that lifted his mangled body from the cross and wrapped it in new linen, with costly spices, and laid it in a virgin tomb, have at length been surpassed by the ingenious devotion of the cursed ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... with his eyes cast down, 'and be reminded of the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough that you can look here,' pointing to Florence with a hand that slightly trembled for the first and only time, 'and think of what you have done, and of the ingenious agony, daily, hourly, constant, you have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough that this day, of all others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved, but not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had died! ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... dry when the peninsula is flooded. It faces the sea and behind is a small garden in which are many meteorological instruments. Among these are an anemometer slowly revolving in the light air, maximum and minimum bulbs in the shade, on the ground and beneath it, a most ingenious sun dial, and a heliometer. Walking inland along the central avenue, we pass some native shops, one of which bears the interesting name of Williams Brothers. In many of the verandahs, native women wrapped in highly coloured cloths but with bare feet ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... youth to have been very little of a student, or one who had been reading with a vacant mind, it also proved that the original powers of his intellect were vigorous and various—that he had an analytical capacity of considerable compass; was bold in opinion, ingenious in solution, and with a tendency to metaphysical speculation, which, modified by the active wants and duties of a large city-practice, would have made him a subtle lawyer, and a very logical debater. But the blush kept heightening on the youth's cheeks as ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... dissertation of M. d'Anville upon the Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the Memoires tom. xxviii. p. 318—346. Yet even that ingenious geographer is too fond of supposing new, and perhaps imaginary measures, for the purpose of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself. The stadia employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the Bosphorus, &c., (l. iv. c. 85,) must undoubtedly be all of the same species; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... from my personal 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
... these was William Molyneux, the "Ingenious Molyneux," as he was called by his contemporaries, a distinguished philosopher, whose life was almost exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits. Molyneux is, or ought to be, a very interesting figure ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... among the criminal classes, in a style of villainy no less peculiar. In Paris the class who live by their wits is three or four times as great as in London; and they live much better; some of them even splendidly. They are more ingenious than the London rogues; they have more animation and invention, and the dramatic faculty, in which your countrymen are deficient, is everywhere. These invaluable attributes place them upon a totally different level. They can affect the manners and enjoy the luxuries of people of distinction. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was at those droll little beggars. They bowed and courtesied in an unconcerned, wooden way, as if they were moved by some ingenious piece of Swiss clock-work. The stiff old curee, too, had an air of having been wound up and set a-going. I could almost hear the creak of his mainspring. I was smiling at that, perhaps, and thinking how strongly the scenery of some portions of ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and Glasser. The former deviated but slightly from the systems of his predecessors, but the latter invented several ingenious improvements which ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... Mr. W. E. Dighton's "Hay Meadow Corner" deserved especial notice; it was at once vigorous, fresh, faithful, and unpretending, the management of the distance most ingenious, and the painting of the foreground, with the single exception of Mr. Mulready's above noticed, unquestionably the best in the room. I have before had occasion to notice a picture by this artist, "A Hayfield in a Shower," exhibited in the British Institution in ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... it would end. Scenes, characters, and situations were taken at random, impromptu, and the plot and the moral came of itself as it were, with no plan on the part of the story-teller. Seryozha was very fond of this improvisation, and the prosecutor noticed that the simpler and the less ingenious the plot, the stronger the impression it ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... ingenious son of Erin," the other continued. "Although he did not speak a word of French, with the likeableness that seems to have been the chief note of the Irish character then, and which they have never lost, Walton speedily became popular in the little French village. This was ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... guard of European soldiers, maintained at its expence. The inhabitants of the island are of middle stature, and of black complexions, being all extremely lazy and given to thieving; yet some of them are very ingenious, and have a singular art of working up the cloves while green into a variety of curious toys, as small ships or houses, crowns, and such like, which are annually sent to Europe as presents, and are much esteemed. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the Pontifical cope. Giuseppe fumed and fretted while the Holy Father put on his spectacles to examine the great silver vase which was to receive the droppings from his table, its richly chased handles and its festoons of acanthus leaves, and its ingenious masks; and its fellow which was to stand in his cupboard and hold water, and had a beautiful design representing St. Ambrogio on horseback routing the Arians. And when one of the jewellers had been dismissed, laden with ducats ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Ferdinand lived untroubled, and his digestion improved on his light diet of roots and herbs, and his loving-kindness was infinite, because he could not now be angry with the pitiable creatures haled before him, when he considered what lengthy and ingenious torments awaited every one of them, either in hell or purgatory, while Ferdinand would be playing a gold ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... in use, chalk, lime, marl, fuller's earth, clay, sand, sea-weed, river-weed, oyster shells, fish, dung, ashes, soot, salt, rags, hair, malt dust, bones, horns, and the bark of trees. Of the oyster shells Worlidge says, 'I am credibly informed that an ingenious gentleman living near the seaside laid on his lands great quantities, which made his neighbours laugh at him (as usually they do at anything besides their own clownish road or custom of ignorance),' and after ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... received from him. Now, Middleton may have communicated to Eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as, for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that was still kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. Of course, that will not do. It must be some very ingenious and artificially natural thing, an artistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of such a man as Eldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to be applied to his own requirements and purposes. I do not at present see in the least how ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Joe's sly remark about it doing me good to be out in the open, or the difficulty of getting a conveyance, but I decided to walk to my hotel. Taxis of course disappeared with gasoline, but ingenious men, unwilling to be pauperized by accepting the dole, had devised rickshaws and bicycle carriages which were the only means of local transportation. The night was clear and cold, the stars gleaming in distant purity, but all around, the offensive ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... was secretly tormented by the painful anxiety to know where I was to sleep. One dark, ill-smelling room was all the house contained, except a shed used as a kitchen, and I could not see how the most ingenious hostess could make two guests of different sexes comfortable, however much ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... it is that of the bravest and most ingenious of the sons of the Penguins. If thou art willing to follow me, I ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... 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, than is permissable in English oratory, and encouraging pantomimic gesture, for greater force and ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... obtaining the various articles of food, are resorted to by the natives, some of these are very simple; some exceedingly ingenious; whilst others require great tact and skill; and not a few exercise to their fullest extent those qualities, which they possess so greatly, and prize so highly, such as quickness of sight, readiness of hand, caution in arranging plans, judgment ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... attaches to the key (No. 5962 in the case on the L. as we enter) which was made by Louis XVI. The following room contains specimens of the goldsmith's art. 5104 is a curious sixteenth-century model of a ship in gilded bronze, with figures of Charles V. and his court on the deck: it has an ingenious mechanism for discharging toy cannon. 5299, is a set of chessmen in rock crystal; 4988, the face of an altar, rich gold repousse work, was given by the Emperor, Henry II., to Bale Cathedral. The glass case in the centre holds ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Head is about to publish his scholarly and ingenious essay upon "The Discoverer of Shakespeare." Mr. Head is as enthusiastic a Shakespeare student as we have in the West, and his enthusiasm is tempered by a certain reverence which has led him to view with dismay, if not with horror, the exploits of latter-day iconoclasts, who would fain convince ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... we owe a description of a method of reducing fever that is not only ingenious, but, in the light of our recently introduced bathing methods for fever, is a little startling. In his book on "Fevers and Urines," Afflacius suggests that when the patient's fever makes him very restless, and especially if it is warm weather, a sort of shower bath should be given to him. ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... explanations may apparently seem, in many cases they can only be regarded as ingenious theories based on the most probable theories which the science of comparative folk-lore may have suggested. In analysing, too, the evidence for determining the possible association of ideas which induced our primitive forefathers to form those ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... It was ingenious, and, so far, quite clear. But two things badly puzzled the inquirer; the little window down behind the chair, and the fact that all the arrangements for raising and lowering the lights were situated not in the narrow chamber in which Kazmah's chair stood, and in which Sir Lucien had ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... as was observed in the dialogue just given, that the state of affairs on this property was absolutely fearful. The framework of society was nearly broken up, for such was the heartless rapacity and cruelty—such the multiplied and ingenious devices by which he harassed and robbed the tenantry, or wreaked his personal vengeance on all who were obnoxious to him or his son, that it was actually impossible matters could proceed much longer in a peaceable state. If the reader ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to a high temperature in a convenient fire box, the water which has been pumped into it, by a feed pump fastened to one of its extremities, is instantly changed into steam and escapes at the other end at a pressure and in a state of dryness depending on the working conditions of the apparatus. The ingenious and really original and novel idea in this invention is this flattened tube, which constitutes an actual capillary boiler inside of which the water squeezed in between its walls cannot assume its spheroidal state, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv'd thee of!—Hold off the earth awhile, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: [Leaps into the grave.] Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, Till of this flat a mountain ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... has befallen more than once. What shall we say of omens, warnings, forebodings? What of the most curious runs of luck; the most whimsical freaks of fortune; the unaccountable things that happen round us daily, and no one marvels at them, till he reads of them in print? Even as Macpherson, ingenious, if not ingenuous, gathered Ossian from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives' tongues; even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
