"Invent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dreamers make no confidences; they shrivel up into themselves and are caught away on the four winds of heaven. Politics drive them mad; gossip fails to interest them; the sorrows they create have no remedy save the joys that they invent; they are natural only when alone, and talk ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... surprise. Never in that teacher's experience had he taught a more brilliant pupil. Miss Thompson looked with interest at the algebra papers. If this had not come up, she thought, Miss Leece would certainly have managed to find a flaw somewhere, even if she had had to invent one. But under the circumstances, it was more to that wily woman's purpose to give Anne her due. For Miss Leece knew that a perfect examination paper would tell more against the young ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... be it remembered, is virtually the age. It is for him the studious think, the imaginative invent, the tuneful sing: beyond him there is no appeal but to the future. He is superstitious, as we have seen, but his gods are few and traditional. He determines to make a stand somewhere; and it is necessary for him to do so, if he would not encumber his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... heart is still more susceptible of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men's wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amusement—our youths both fell in love: if passions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can invent? ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... the gods have laid Of time to come the event; And laugh to see the fools afraid Of what the knaves invent.—SEDLEY, from Lycophron. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they don't last long, and, even with the most frivolous, are not occupations that satisfy the whole mind and heart, in which there is generally an aspiration after something useful. It is not vanity alone that makes a man of the mode invent a new bit or give his name to a new kind of carriage; it is the influence of that mystic yearning after utility, which is one of the master-ties between ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hate them, and accuse them of all that it may please any maniac or liar to invent about them. Yet you demand of the Jews that they should help you, when you stand in need of help. You, Jew-haters, serve somebody or something, but truly it is not God, it is not the cause of goodness that you are serving. In your blindness ...
— The Shield • Various
... that he could not tell him his name and, blushing, began to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for concealing it, but the Frenchman ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to ride past them at the head of a company of artillery, or show himself at a ball in tight clothes. Sometimes a mere turn of the head, a melancholy attitude, makes them suppose a man's whole life; they'll invent a romance to match the hero—who is often a mere brute, but the marriage is made. Watch the Chevalier de Valois: study him; copy his manners; see with what ease he presents himself; he never puts on a stiff air, as you do. Talk a little more; one would really ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... behind in the race of competition, but to proceed in a different way. 'It is all very well,' thought he, 'to talk of principles and theories; but with the requisite apparatus, the human figure may be measured as accurately as a block of stone;' and accordingly he set to work, not to invent a theory, but to construct a machine. This machine, though exhibited some time ago in the School of Arts, and received with great favour, we happened not to hear of till a few days ago; but a visit to our neighbour puts it now in our power to report that his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... scenario for you. But before I could finish it I had come back to London; and now it is all up with the scenario: in England I can do nothing but talk. I therefore now send you the thing as far as I scribbled it; and I leave you to invent what escapades you please for the hero, and to devise some sensational means of getting him back to heaven again, unless you prefer to end with the millennium in ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... a dear little innocent baby. Of course, I can quite understand. And does she suppose I'll ruffle her pretty little feathers? No, not I. I'd rather invent a new cradle song for you, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... them, that the books, the ballads, the barber's shops, the theatres are full of, were really and truly ladies of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that glorify and have glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that they may pass for lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so; and so it suffices me to think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair and virtuous; and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one will ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "I shall invent some means of consolation for him," she replied. "I like dancing among the bright flowers. Why should we not have everything gay and bright and ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... wandering. Looked too long at the portrait. [Laughs] What a business! Educated people go and invent all sorts of machines and medicines, but there hasn't yet been a man wise enough to invent a medicine against the female sex.... They try to cure every sort of disease, and it never occurs to them that more people die of women than of ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... ignorance of his straitened circumstances; she was not to be distressed by knowledge of his distress, nor could he tolerate the suggestion of seeming to play for her sympathy. It was necessary, then, to invent a motive to excuse his return to 9, Frognall Street. I believe he chose to exaggerate the inquisitiveness of his nature and threw in for good measure a desire to recover a prized trinket of no particular moment, esteemed for its associations, and so forth. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... all about it," coaxed the Chief Factor, well knowing that if he were once started there would be on his part little need of urging in order to extract from the old tripper all he knew, or could invent to ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... grew outrageous in his demands upon the Devil, and put him to all sorts of absurd and ridiculous tasks; but they were all punctually performed, until Simon could invent no new ones, and the Devil sat all day with his hands in ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long and tedious siege. Every method which love could suggest, or art invent, was adopted. I was sometimes ready to despair, under an idea that her resolution was unconquerable, her virtue impregnable. Indeed, I should have given over the pursuit long ago, but for the hopes of success I entertained from her parleying with me, and, in reliance ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... that two or three hundred years ago we did things we wouldn't do now. Times have changed in all sorts of ways. But we never set out like a Caesar or a Napoleon or a Bismarck to invent an empire. It all came about quite naturally. Anybody else could have done the same. But nobody else thought of it—at the time. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... muggy blackness that shuts down on India in the rains, Warrington walked alone, swinging a lantern and chuckling to himself as he reflected what D Squadron would be likely to invent as a reason for the smell that walked with him. For he meant to wake D Squadron and ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... ponderosity, which cannot be adequately calculated for here, where the largest machine for conveying weights does not exceed sixteen arrobes, or 400lb. This enormous plant will require twenty men at least to place it upon the vehicle, with the aid of such levers as our Indians can invent. It grows in the deep ravines of our loftiest mountains, amongst huge stones; the finest plants are inaccessible to wheeled vehicles, and even on horseback it is difficult to reach them. I shall pack ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... ignoble saying, "If there were not a God it would be necessary to invent Him," we shall say nothing. It is the expression of the unclean scepticism of those conservatives who look upon religion merely as a means of government and whose interest it is that in the other life there shall be a hell for ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... Persian rugs are generally floral; and in some districts, especially Fars, the women weavers invent the designs, varying them every two or three years. The Mohammedan religion does not allow any direct representation of animal forms; consequently rugs woven under its influence take floral, geometric, and vegetable forms. The Shiah sect of Moslems, ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... the Government for its new coastguard service. 'I don't deny,' he said, 'it's an improvement on anything we've seen yet under the Customs, or would be, if there was any real smuggling left to grapple with. But the "trade" has been dwindling now for these thirty years, and to invent this fire-new service to suppress what's dying of its own accord is an infernal waste of public money.' 'I doubt,' Sir John demurred, 'if smuggling be quite so near death's door as you fancy. Hey, doctor—in Polpeor now?' The doctor opined that very little smuggling ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... almost incredible the torture to which they will sometimes put their prisoners; and the adult captives will endure it without a tear or a groan. In spite of all their sufferings, which the love of cruelty and revenge can invent and inflict upon them, they continue to chaunt their death song with a firm voice; considering that to die like a man, courting pain rather than flinching from it, is the noblest triumph of the warrior. In going to war, some time ago, a Sioux chief cut a piece of flesh from his thigh, ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... friendly spirit; that his goings out and his comings in would be watched; and that in every society, however little disposed to be censorious, there would always be found some prone, where an opening afforded, to exaggerate and even invent stories against him, and to put an uncharitable construction on the most innocent acts. He therefore, from the first, laid down strict, not to say severe rules for his guidance. He imposed a degree of restraint and self-denial upon his own ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... mouths of his antagonists, and swell with triumph when he has refuted them. He may riot in gratuitous assertions, confident that no man will contradict him; he may exercise perfect free-will in logic, and invent illustrative experience; he may give an evangelical edition of history with the inconvenient facts omitted:—all this he may do with impunity, certain that those of his hearers who are not sympathizing ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... that fluttered slowly and heavily to the earth, where they lay like the foundation of the superstructure that was about to follow. Faster and faster they fell—wonderful multitudes of delicate crystals, adhering in shapes of beauty which outvied all that jeweller could invent or execute of ethereal, starry forms, structures of evanescent yet prodigal loveliness—till the whole air was obscured by them, and night came on, hastened by an hour, from the gathering of their white darkness. In the morning, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... cantered on into the pass while the main body of his command moved leisurely after him towards the natural fastness. It must have been from places on the great South African tableland such as this that Rider Haggard drew his inspirations to invent the hidden kingdoms of Central Africa—charming rock-bound empires familiar to us all. How many will there be who have trekked through and through the new British colonies, and not been struck with the many mountain-locked valleys which abound! Valleys ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... because our streets and highways are lined and shaded with equally expensive kinds, although they are absolutely worthless for any other purpose than shade or shelter, yielding nothing in the way of food for either man or beast. Can any one invent a reasonable excuse for planting miles and miles of roadside trees of such kinds as elm, maple, ash, willow, cottonwood and many other similar kinds, where shellbark hickory, walnut, butternut, pecan and chestnut would thrive just as well, cost no more, and yet yield bushels of delicious ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... unwelcome intruder? I would at that moment have given a year of my life for the loan of a steel trap, or any trap that would take rats; but since the loan of a trap was out of the question, I set my brains to work to invent some contrivance that would enable me to rid myself of my unpleasant neighbour: neighbour I might call him, for I knew that his house was not far off—perhaps at that moment he had his den not three feet from my face—likely enough, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... tourists you must have enough people to make romances and tragedies,— without loss of life, of course,—merely catastrophes of broken hearts, and hair-breadth escapes, and mammoth fishing and shooting achievements, such as men know how to invent,"—it was delightful to hear her voice soften to an amusing suggestiveness, "and broken bridges and land-slides, with many other things which you can supply, Dr. Marmion. No, I am afraid that Viking is too humdrum ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it a contempt for everything which it can not understand; skepticism becomes the synonym for intelligence; men no longer repeat; they doubt; they dissect; they sneer; they reject; they invent. If the myth survives this treatment, the poets take it up and make it their stock in trade: they decorate it in a masquerade of frippery and finery, feathers and furbelows, like a clown dressed for a ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes, for he must be forced to invent ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Rome, Antioch, Carthage, Alexandria, and all the chief cities were searched for Christians. If they would not throw a handful of incense on the idol's altar or disown Christ, they were given over to all the horrid torments cruel ingenuity could invent, in the hope of subduing their constancy. Some fell, but the greater number were firm, and witnessed a glorious confession before, in 251, Decius and his son were both slain ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to free themselves and their coadjutors flout all transient weakness towards their cause and treachery towards one another; and, lastly, that these men, having, amidst all their ignorance, originality enough to invent the most pure and sublime system of morality which the world has ever listened to, had, amidst all their conscious villany, the effrontery to preach it, and, which is more extraordinary, the inconsistency to ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... said Chaffery, "who believe in Darwin and doubt Moses. Now, I hold myself better than they—analogous perhaps, but better—for I do at least invent something of the tricks ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... into the vacant lot behind it. His common sense had foretold just this result to his experiment, so he was not in the least disappointed; but he had considered it his duty to try the only expedient his ingenuity could invent. For if—by a miracle—the little gun had discharged the shot with force; Bobby might—by a miracle—be permitted to participate with it in the Shoot; and might—by a miracle—win the Flobert himself. Bobby was no fool. He marked the necessity of three miracles; and he did not in the least expect ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... writing up my journal, etc. I had managed hitherto to keep my mind employed. I had also tasked my ability to the utmost to constantly invent some occupation for the men, but my resources of this nature were now all exhausted; and on Friday night I stretched myself on the sand, not to sleep, but to brood, throughout the weary ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... evidently bewildered and annoyed by this passionate appeal which he did not understand. He demanded an explanation, and the ready-witted native was obliged to invent some plausible excuse. Yet when he raised his face to Jenks there was the look of a hunted ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... outward appearances of sentiment and affection, unloved had not in any way embittered Abigail's remarkably joyous temperament made up for it in some measure by getting all the fun and excitement out of life which she could discover therein, or invent through the medium of her ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be shlaughtered now, And I 'll invent the plan, forgetting pity; The shacrificing of a sinless cow Is cruel in the kindesht-hearted ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... them. She pledged her word on every point, and this was the second time that her liaison with Ulick had obliged her to lie, deliberately in so many words. Nor did the lying even end there. He wanted her to stay, to dine with him; she had to invent ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... "To-morrow I shall send down a clerk with a cheque for a hundred, and he'll draw out the original sum and return it to the Anglo-Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as Morris can't touch a penny of it without forgery, it will do no harm to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Eckmuhl (Marshal Davoust) was appointed Governor-General of that place on the union of the Hanse Towns with the Empire. From that period I was constantly occupied in contending against the persecutions and denunciations which he racked his imagination to invent. I cannot help attributing to those persecutions the Emperor's coolness towards me on my arrival in Paris. But as Davoust's calumnies were devoid of proof, he resorted to a scheme by which a certain appearance of probability might supply the place ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... said Jarley, shortly. "Goes is sometimes a synonym for stays. When I feel stronger I may invent a new language, which will have fewer absurdities than English as ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... in the course of a brilliant career of forty years we have never seen only six cans of peaches that were worth the powder to blast them open. A man that will invent a can opener that will split open one of these pale, sickly, hard hearted canned peaches, that swim around in a pint of slippery elm juice in a tin can, has got a fortune. And they have got to canning pumpkin, and charging money ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... feeling with which it is clothed in your own mind except by a touch of imaginative color, then use a figure of speech, if one flashes itself on your mind. If you add it deliberately as adornment of your speech, it will strike a false note; if you laboriously invent it the effort will show. Unless your thought and your eagerness for your subject flow naturally and inevitably into an image, it is better to stick to plain speech, for any suggestion of insincerity is fatal to the ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... which the princess penetrating, said: "I see you take me to be mad to order such a dish, which one may say with certainty was never made. I know this as well as you; but I am not mad, and give you these orders with the most perfect recollection. You must invent and do the best you can, and bring me back what pearls are left." The cook could make no reply, but took the box and retired; and afterward the princess gave directions to all the domestics to have everything in order, both in the house and gardens, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... experimentally and practically by doing it! That invention hath invented and found out all the sin and misery under which the world groans. It is a poor invention to devise misery and torment to the creature. This was the height of folly and madness, for a happy creature to invent how to make itself miserable and all others. Indeed, he intended another thing—to be more happy, but pride and ambition got a deserved fall, the result of all is ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the window of the Tuscan Ambassador's great villa, with the face of a man concerning whom legend has also found much to invent and little to say that is true, a man of whom modern science has rightly made a hero, but whom prejudice and ignorance have wrongly crowned as a martyr—Galileo Galilei. Tradition represents him as languishing, laden with chains, in the more or less mythical prisons of the Inquisition; history ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... not so easy to invent, as to improve the inventions of others. The alterations Thespis made in tragedy, gave room for AEschylus to make new and more considerable of his own. He was born at Athens, in the first year of the sixtieth Olympiad. He took upon him the profession of arms, at a time when ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... could not move about as he would, he would invent, make fancy serve him instead of experience. We thus owe something to the staying and restraining forces in him, and a wise "laying-to"—for his works, which are, in large part, finely-healthy, objective, and in almost everything unlike the work of an invalid, yet, in some ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... from the school, To please in method, and invent by rule; 10 His studious patience and laborious art, By regular approach essay'd the heart: Cold Approbation gave the lingering bays, For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise; A mortal born, he ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... purposeful games rather than exercises are to be commended. There is indeed no comparison for a moment possible between Nature's method of exercise, which is obtained through play, and the ridiculous and empty parodies of it which men invent. The truth is that Nature is aiming at one thing, and man at another. Man's aim, for reasons already exploded, is the acquirement of strength; Nature's is the acquirement of skill. It is really nervous development that Nature is ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... impatient when they are waiting for the accomplishment of any event they have set their hearts upon. The prince, therefore, to make the time seem short to him, proposed as a kind of merry pastime that they should invent some artful scheme to make Benedick and Beatrice fall in love with each other. Claudio entered with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and Leonato promised them his assistance, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... be the results of an action. I did it for the best. I thought the Indians would enjoy a visit to Europe as much as did the two lads I brought over on my first voyage. They were too old, however, and seem to have been rooted to the soil. I am afraid we shall have to invent a way of explaining their absence should we return to Hochelaga. Would it not be well to marry them to noble ladies, and give them dukedoms ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... the Christians of worshipping an ass, and they did not invent this reproach, but it came from the Samaritan Jews, who, figuring the data of the Kabalah in regard to the Divinity by Egyptian symbols, also represented the Intelligence by the figure of the Magical Star adored under the name of Remphan, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... appearance of being an honest, native combination. All such primitive terms for larger numbers must, however, be received with caution. Savages are sometimes eager to display a knowledge they do not possess, and have been known to invent numeral words on the spot for the sake of carrying their scales to as high a limit as possible. The Choctaw words for million and billion are obvious attempts to incorporate the corresponding English terms into their own language.[136] ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... reform the state of religion in his native city, Mecca, and to put down the idolatry which prevailed there. [Sidenote: Flight to Medina.] The opposition which the false prophet encountered from his fellow-citizens did not hinder him from making many converts to the religion he was beginning to invent for himself and for them, until at length (A.D. 622) an insurrection, caused by the preaching and success of Mahomet, obliged him to fly for his life from Mecca, and take refuge at Yatreb ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... lose myself if I think of you so much. What would life have without you in it? The sun would drop from my heavens. I see only by you! you have kissed me on the eyes. You are more to me than my own poor brain could ever have devised: had I started to invent Paradise, I could not have invented you. But perhaps you have invented me: I am something new to myself since I saw you first. God bless you ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... the gendarmes are there, and if they are not, we shall be safe for the present. They will, I hope, fancying that you made your way back to the house of Madame La Roche, have gone off there. We must hope for the best, and I will try and invent some reason for wishing to purchase food. The kind lady supplied me with money, so that I shall have no difficulty on ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... proprietor's name should have been changed from Downing to "Duster" it would be difficult to say; but as long as his customers came furnished with ready money and good appetites, the probability is that the former would have been quite content to serve them under any nickname which they chose to invent. ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... Tully (De Invent. ii, 53) it belongs to religion to offer God worship and ceremonial rites. But he who takes a vow does not yet offer something to God, but only promises it. Therefore, a vow is not an ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... strange and startling, and the inevitable result was that the Record reporters endeavoured to make everything strange and startling, to play up the outre details at the expense of the rest of the story, and even, I fear, to invent such ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... "Shakespeare did not invent his plots. He was not interested in plots." So far is this from the truth that the amount of pains and skill spent by him in working over any one of his best comedies or tragedies would more than suffice for the construction of a very good ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... sound basis for moral development. Having started with the false idea of the special creation of the soul, which brings it into the world free from personal responsibility, it became a necessity to invent a special salvation to give any semblance ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... keep Vyse on, of course: there were other communications that the secretary could attend to. And, if necessary, Betton would invent an occupation: he cursed his stupidity in having betrayed the fact that his ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... of that other man was also subject, for reasons which will appear presently, to the gravest suspicion. James, if himself guilty of the plot, had to invent a story to excuse himself; the other man had to adopt the version of the King, to save his own life from the gibbet. On the other hand, James, if innocent, could not easily have a credible story to tell. If the Master was sane, it ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... shouldst not be employ'd. Go to my brother, he's in his chamber now, Undressing, and preparing for his rest; Find out some means to keep him up awhile: Tell him a pretty story, that may please His ear; invent a tale, no matter what: If he should ask of me, tell him I'm gone To bed, and sent you there to know his pleasure, Whether he'll hunt to-morrow. But do not leave him till he's in his bed; Or, if he chance to walk again this way, Follow, ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... advantageous mode of vesting the money in Law's scheme, which was just then broached, and offered his services to travel express to Paris for the purpose. But Bucklaw had so far derived wisdom from adversity, that he would listen to no proposal which Craigengelt could invent, which had the slightest tendency to risk his newly-acquired independence. He that had once eat pease-bannocks, drank sour wine, and slept in the secret chamber at Wolf's Crag, would, he said, prize good cheer and a soft bed as long as he lived, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... opinion, the exercise of the reasoning powers is absolutely sinful—l'homme qui raisonne est l'homme qui peche. Franklin, on the other hand, in a familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the cupidity of the indolent and avaricious Mussulmans. These latter, whenever a long drought had destroyed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... and the sea was at its foot, and their terrified, short gallop ended there. The last thing the demons would have done would have been to banish themselves, as the death of the swine did banish them, from their new shelter. There is no need, then, to invent justifications for Christ's destroying the herd, for He did not destroy it. No doubt, keeping swine was a breach of Jewish law; no doubt the two demoniacs and the bystanders would be more convinced of the reality of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... said the young man, thoughtfully, as he laid out his little pieces of mechanism on the table; "this is an attempt to invent a means of producing musical ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... The new buildings therefore arose with their foundations some feet above the original level of the Romano-British city. So complete was the gap between the destroyed Durovernum and the Saxon town which eventually grew up that men had had time to forget the old name, and, finding it necessary to invent one, called it Cantwarabyrig, which meant the city of the men of Kent. This title reveals the fact that the new settlers had by this time fixed their limits in Kent, and that they had found this site at the junction of all the Roman roads the most convenient ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... before, and fearing if these Englishmen got good vent for their commodities, that they would become residents and so daily increase, which would be no small loss and hindrance to them, they presently set about to invent subtle devices to hinder them. To which end, they went immediately to the captain of Ormus, who was then Don Gonzalo de Menezes[440], saying that these Englishmen were heretics come to spy the country, and that they ought to be examined and punished as enemies, for a warning to others. Being friendly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... in my previous volumes, so also in this, I have omitted a few passages which appeared to me to be either antiquated or no longer of any general interest. For convenience' sake I have divided the original chapters into sections, which I have had to name; and I have also had to invent a title which should express their real scope. The reader will find that it is not so much Ethics and Politics that are here treated, as human nature itself in ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... be completely ferae naturae and not men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the Chinese that with the failure to invent new limbs a civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants; and among savage tribes we observe that few implements involve a state of things scarcely human at all. Such tribes only advance pari passu with the creatures upon ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... 'old uncials' they are (as usual) hopelessly at variance on the subject. In an easy sentence of only 9 words,—which however Tischendorf exhibits in conformity with no known Codex, while Tregelles and Alford blindly follow Cod. B,—they have contrived to invent five 'various readings,' as may be seen at foot[26]. Shall we wonder more at the badness of the Codexes to which we are just now invited to pin our faith; or at the infatuation ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... responded that worthy; "a reg'lar traverse, and about the most in-and-out bit of carcumvention as the ingenuity o' man could invent. Let's set about it at once, my lad; and by the time as we've cleared up a bit, and made things comfortable, it'll be time to see about ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... all, let it be clearly understood that an "impression on the mind" does not mean a piece of manufacture. The way in which most artists proceed to "invent," as they call it, a picture, is this: they choose their subject, for the most part, well, with a sufficient quantity of towers, mountains, ruined cottages, and other materials, to be generally interesting; then they fix on some object for a principal ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... every fierce taunt which she could invent against his treachery and his crime; and asked him, how he came to dream that the wife of a Christian Spaniard would condescend to become the mistress of a heathen savage; hoping, unhappy lady, to exasperate him into killing her on the spot. But in vain; she only prolonged thereby her own misery. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... write about. Yet I did not see anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals a large parcel of a valuable commodity—so people say. It's either true or untrue; and in any case it has no value in itself. To invent a circumstantial account of the robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents not running that way I did not think that the game was worth the candle. It was only when it dawned upon me that the purloiner of the treasure need not ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... this marriage is such a bugbear to me! much might be if we could invent but any way ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... her father, he is rich, and will not send you empty away. Tell him that you heard her voice out in the street, and with the help of a worthy old man—that am I—rescued her from any peril you may invent. If he asks you where the heroic deed was done, name any house you please, only not this. Your best plan is to lay it all on the shoulders of Hananja, the thaumaturgist; we have owed him a grudge this many a day. However, I was not to teach you any lesson, for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Every time he batted he made a home run. He even made initiative suggestions for schemes which were more or less amalgamated with reason and insanity. It is said that he was first at the dances, and first in the hearts of the ladies. It is certain he was the first to invent the sewerage system idea; and the patents were applied for before the ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... exceeded four hundred thousand. They had but few weapons of offense or defense, and knew not the use of the bow and arrow. Being a peaceful race and having no wild animals to contend with, their ingenuity had never been taxed to invent weapons of warfare against man or beast. The natives were at once subjected by the new-comers, who reduced them gradually to an actual state of slavery, and proving hard task-masters, the poor overworked creatures died ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... give the errand-boy such a written message, that he could not lose it on the way, nor mistake it when he arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, as he deserves, thanks him for something he did not invent. For this he probably cares very little; nor do I care more. But the public does not thank him for what he did originate,—this invaluable and simple alphabet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, and see every hour how the public might use it, if it chose, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... was distinguished at the time as Euphuism. One of his main peculiarities stands in using, for images and illustrations, certain imaginary products of a sort of artificial nature, which he got up especially for that purpose; as if he could invent better materials for poetic imagery than ancient Nature had furnished! Still, it is not unlikely that we owe to him somewhat of the polish and flexibility of the Shakespearian dramatic diction: that he could have helped the Poet in any thing beyond mere diction ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... just before I get asleep; but they're all lost for the want of a trap; an intellectual figgery four. I wish we could find out the way of sprinkling salt on their tails, and make 'em wait till we want to use 'em. Why can't some of the meaner souls invent an idea-catcher for the use of genius? I'm sure they'd find it profitable, for I wouldn't mind owing a man twenty ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... raised, 'Wherein does the indefinable distinction of one differ from the mysterious and peculiar communication of the other?' or 'How does it appear that there is any difference?' there is no living man, I am quite sure, who can invent ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... we shan't play any baby games like 'Snap,' or 'Hunt the Slipper,'" answered Guy loftily. "I think I'm going to invent a game specially ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... do doubt that those who invent anything noteworthy occupy the greatest share of the attention of historians, The reason for this is that original inventors are more noticed and excite more wonder, because new things always possess a greater charm than improvements subsequently ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... to allude to; but to the French judges in the time of the trial of the rehabilitation, the fact of Joan of Arc being proved to have been incontestably a virgin was of the highest interest. It was reserved for a countryman of Joan of Arc's (Du Bellay) to invent a legend to disprove the fact; and to the everlasting shame of French literature, Voltaire adopted the lying calumny in his licentious ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... to a thin fanaticism. There followed, in the train of the nobler thinkers and orators, the "Fool Reformers,''—sundry long-haired men and short-haired women, who thought it their duty to stir good Christian people with blasphemy, to deluge the founders of the Republic with blackguardism, and to invent ever more and more ingenious ways for driving every sober-minded man and woman out of the anti-slavery fold. More than once in those days I hung my head in disgust as I listened to these people, and wondered, for the moment, whether, after all, even ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Louis Napoleon, of France, from an operation for the removal of a stone, at the hands of surgeons renowned for their skill, gave new impetus to the efforts of surgeons to invent some method that would be less dangerous than that which has been heretofore commonly employed. The cutting operations have been the rule. Of these the operation by median-section is the safest, and is most commonly employed for the removal of stones that are not ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... that the other would not venture to do as he demanded. He may have expected him to invent some handy excuse for not complying; but then the other had already laid the foundation for a reasonable sense of disappointment in case no watch was forthcoming when the locker was opened; since he said he hoped he might have forgotten it when dressing, and not lost it on the way home ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... time, and I cannot invent the experiments," replied the professor, impatiently. "I have a great mind to advise Carvel to put her into an asylum, and have done with all this sort ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... my whole principle of life! Yours! I tell you that I think at moments I would rather have your hate than the lukewarm sentiment you bear to me, and honour by the name of affection.' Pretty phrase! I have no affection for you! Give me not that sickly word; but try with me, Julia, to invent some expression that has never filtered a paltry meaning through the lips of another! Affection! why, that is a sister's word, a girl's word to her pet squirrel! Never was it made for that ruby and most ripe mouth! Shall I come to your house this evening? Your mother has asked ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could find some scheme, invent some plot, to get me out of the trouble I am in, I should think myself indebted to you for more ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... martyrs despised death, having peace with God by Jesus Christ, scorning the most cruel torments that men and hell could devise and invent! but Jesus Christ could not do so, as he was a sacrifice for sin; he died for us, he was made a curse for us. O, my brethren, Christ died many deaths at once; he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... conciliate his wrath with his affectionateness, and his severity with his consideration of circumstances and his own mistrust of himself. He was, of all men holding strong opinions, one of the most curiously and unexpectedly tolerant, wherever he could contrive to invent an excuse for tolerance, or where long habitual confidence was weighed against disturbing appearances. Sir John Coleridge touches this in the following extract, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... then be consentaneous with the interests of the majority, and so they ought to be. The probability is much greater, that the larger states will disagree, than that they will combine. I defy the wit of man to invent a possible case, or to suggest any one thing on earth, which shall be for the interests of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and which will not also be for the interest of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... from agoraphobia cannot bring himself to cross alone an open field or square. The sufferer from claustrophobia will invent any excuse to avoid an elevator or the theatre. When a certain lady was asked if she disliked to go to the theatre or church, she answered, "Not at all, but of course I like to have one foot in the aisle; I suppose ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... greatest dramatists asserts itself not only in their thoughts but even in the mere form of their plays. It is the lesser men who invent new tricks of technique and startle the public with innovations. Moliere merely perfected the type of Italian comedy that his public long had known. Shakespeare quietly adopted the forms that lesser men had made the crowd familiar with. He imitated Lyly ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... it, and I am sure that at the galleys you will invent some refined elegance in the manner of carrying your chain, that will become the fashion in the yard, and will be called a la Saint Remy," said the old man, with bitter irony; then he added, "and Saint Remy is ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... taken into the German language lately, but Germans use it when we should use "hobby." "It is my sport," says an artist when he shows you furniture of his own design. He means that his business in life is to paint pictures, but his pleasure is to invent beautiful chairs and tables. When the talk turns on the absurd extreme to which the Marthas of Germany carry their housekeeping zeal, a German friend will turn to you in defence of his countrywomen. "It is their 'sport,'" says he, and you understand his ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... assistance, and I have promised to both the influence of my art. But the presents of Prince Iphicrates, and the promises which he has made, by far exceed all that the other could do. Therefore, it is Iphicrates who will profit by all I can invent, and as his ambition will owe everything to me, our future is sure. I will go and take my time to confirm the princess in her error, and, the better to prepossess her mind, skilfully show her the agreement of the words of Venus with the predictions of the celestial signs which I told her ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... from the running expenses. In case anything did happen they had the one hundred dollars for immediate use. Now that was gone, and Mrs. Hampton had no idea how it was to be replaced. She must raise the amount some way, or else invent some plausible excuse as to what she had done with it. And the sum of sixty dollars was needed the next day, in the morning, too, so it could go to the city by the afternoon mail. After she had racked her brain in vain for some method of ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... between Lisbellaw and Tempo. It was removed thence when peace was restored, and again placed in some one of the neighboring chapels, when, as before in Aughalurcher, the oaths were administered with all the superstition that a depraved imagination could, invent, as "that their thighs might rot off," "that they ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... and well. He did not think there would be any great difficulty in getting away and bringing us horses. The lleranos were still allowed to come and go pretty much as they liked, and if awkward questions were asked it would be easy to invent excuses. The best time to get away would be immediately after nightfall, when most of the foraging parties would have returned to camp and the men be ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... and her eyes were bright with happiness—the happiness of loving and being loved. It made her cousins so angry they could have killed her in their jealous spite, for it lacked but two weeks to the wedding now, and it seemed as if nothing that spite or malice could invent had any power to break off the ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... transitions—because, if anything could finally break away from its origin and environment, that would be a real thing—something not merging away indistinguishably with the surrounding. So all attempt to be original; all attempt to invent something that is more than mere extension or modification of the preceding, is positivism—or that if one could conceive of a device to catch flies, positively different from, or unrelated to, all other devices—up he'd shoot to heaven, or the Positive ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... Impersonal, nameless—I only do know one of your names. I'd like to christen you myself—let me see, what ought you to be called? I've got it. Eve! (With a gesture towards the wings.) Trumpets! (The funeral march is heard again.) There it is again! Now I must invent your age, for I don't know how old you are. From now on you are thirty-four—so you were born in sixty-four. (Pause.) Now your character, for I don't know that either. I shall give you a good character, your voice reminds me of my ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... your escort, if you have no objection to accompany us, and it is not too far for you," said Mrs. Coleman (who evidently considered me in the last stage of a decline), trotting into the breakfast-room where I was lounging, book in hand, over the fire, wondering what possible pretext I could invent ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... more letters from bark, and, covering the smooth surface with ink, pressed them upon parchment, thus getting a better impression, though still blurred and imperfect. He then cut letters from wood instead of bark, and managed to invent himself a better and thicker ink, which did not blur the page. Next, he cut letters from lead, and then from pewter. Every hour was absorbed in the work of making possible the art of printing. His simple-minded neighbors thought he had lost his mind, and some of the more superstitious ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... not a flattering idea:—to know she was in Paris, where, in all probability, she had come to seek him, and to have the intelligence of it from herself, had all the effect on him that the most raptured fancy can invent. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... that the mere content of language is intimately related to culture. A society that has no knowledge of theosophy need have no name for it; aborigines that had never seen or heard of a horse were compelled to invent or borrow a word for the animal when they made his acquaintance. In the sense that the vocabulary of a language more or less faithfully reflects the culture whose purposes it serves it is perfectly true that the history ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... from the Building this new mechanism contrived with such hopeful care, and at a cost of two dollars and twenty-five cents taken from the Oriole's treasury. What he wished Henry to believe was that for some good reason, which Herbert had not yet been able to invent, it would be better to show Florence a little politeness. He had a desperate hope that he might find some diplomatic way to prevail on Henry to be as subservient to Florence as she had seemed to demand, and he was determined to touch any extremity of unveracity, rather than permit the details ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... showing, he adapted into his narrative, very subtly, circumstances which were entirely false. If, as Mr. Pollock holds, Prance was astute enough to make a consistent patchwork of fact and lie, how can it be argued that, with the information at his command, he could not invent a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... pluck that rose, and carry it up the mountain-side into the temple where the King sat, and would give it to Him; and then He would touch me with his sceptre, and let me through into a garden full of flowers. There was no garden in the hymn; I suppose the "rose" made me invent one. But ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... Being begotten in adultery, they stand in connection with the prophet only through the mother; as soon as he has rejected the mother, he has nothing further to do with them.—The supposition that Gomer had died, is evidently the result of an embarrassment which finds itself compelled to invent such fictions.—Finally,—Several interpreters, after the example of Augustine, suppose that no marriage at all is here spoken of, but only a certain kindness which the prophet should manifest to some woman, in ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... tell a story that way," said Bryan simply. "I could never invent a story, though all the characters, heroes and princess, were to come and sit beside me so that I could describe them as they really were. My stories come like living creatures into my mind; and I can ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... their questions, I was compelled to say that children are not born in the Earth as with them. Upon this I was assailed with a whole battery of inquiries, which at first I tried to avoid; but, at last, I was compelled, in the vaguest manner I could invent, to make some approach to the subject in question. Immediately a dim notion of what I meant, seemed to dawn in the minds of most of the women. Some of them folded their great wings all around them, as they generally do when in the least offended, and stood erect and motionless. One spread out ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... as he often concluded these talks. "I must invent something,—that's about what I must do. Zzzz. Some convenience. Something people want.... Strike out.... You can't think, George, of anything everybody wants and hasn't got? I mean something you could turn out retail under ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... I were you. After all, it is a hospitable invitation, and you cannot invent any reasonable excuse for refusing to stay at least one night. The horses are worn out, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... success attained by Lycurgus we do not know; but of the success of the moderns we do know, by some one hundred and fifty years of recurring disaster. There are some steeds that cannot be ridden; they are so fractious and intractable, that, put whom you will upon their back, he is thrown, and invent what snaffle or breaking-bit you may, they will not be held to an equable or moderate pace. And of this sort, judging by the past attempts, is Paper Money. All the ingenuity and efforts of the most skillful trainers of the Old World, and of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... promised not to write to him. But Dorothy's father had kept his word, so she could but do the same. Behind, in the sweltering city, in full charge for six weeks was Tom Brainard. His authority included permission to invent and use any new labels or trade-marks he ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... rather disagreeable but for Gowing (who seems to have taken to Lupin) suggesting they should invent games. Lupin said: "Let's play 'monkeys.'" He then led Gowing all round the room, and brought him in front of the looking-glass. I must confess I laughed heartily at this. I was a little vexed at everybody ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... man I had come to see; and here was a chance of getting speech with him and without the awkwardness of asking it through a servant, perhaps of having to invent an excuse for my visit. Without more ado, therefore, I made bold to lift the latch of the gate ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... beaten; the deepened sense of moral obligation, the added power of conscience, the altogether new altruistic sense which makes the misery and degradation of others cling to us like a garment we cannot shake off, a sense of others' woes for which we have had to invent a new word? Lord Shaftesbury's legislation does not date so very far back; and yet when his Bill for delivering women and children from working in our mines was hanging in the balance, and the loss of ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... out.'' After she has told a lie she never thinks about it again one way or another. Her conscience does not trouble her in the matter. She does not tell lies for what she gets out of it, nor does it give her any particular pleasure to fool people. She does not invent her stories, but at the time of talking to people she simply says untrue things without any thought beforehand and without any consideration afterward. To one officer she flung the challenge, "Oh, I'm clever, you'll find that out.'' After ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... deluded by a glittering sophistry, which will soon attempt to persuade you, that: 'A presumption which necessarily arises from circumstances,—is very often more convincing and more satisfactory than any other kind of evidence; it is not within the reach and compass of human abilities to invent a train of circumstances, which shall be so connected together as to amount to a proof of guilt, without affording opportunities of contradicting a great part, if not all, of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... same characters so often! "Here," said one, "is that archdeacon whom we have had in every novel he has ever written." "And here," said the other, "is the old duke whom he has talked about till everybody is tired of him. If I could not invent new characters, I would not write novels at all." Then one of them fell foul of Mrs. Proudie. It was impossible for me not to hear their words, and almost impossible to hear them and be quiet. I got up, and standing between them, I acknowledged myself to be the culprit. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... point in Pestalozzi's career. He was soon chosen assistant teacher at Burgdorf. His experience at Stanz, without books and without appliances, had compelled him to invent methods of interesting the children. He was thus brought to the use of objects, and here we have the beginning of practical object teaching. It was not long, however, before the head master of the school became jealous of ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... was one important object which even his foresight does not appear to have contemplated. Lord Bacon did not foresee that the English language would one day be capable of embalming all that philosophy can discover, or poetry can invent; that his country would at length possess a national literature of its own, and that it would exult in classical compositions, which might be appreciated with the finest models of antiquity. His taste ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... a phenomenon. But I believe that morality is a real thing, for all that; and that our conceptions of it get clearer, as the world goes on. It is something outside of us—a law of nature if you like—which we are learning; not merely a thing which we invent for our convenience. But that is too big a business to ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to him just as they were and by what they were. He saw them, in that fashion, as disponibles, saw them subject to the chances, the complications of existence, and saw them vividly, but then had to find for them the right relations, those that would most bring them out; to imagine, to invent and select and piece together the situations most useful and favourable to the sense of the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to produce ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the most excellent musicians, vocal and instrumental, with variety of scenes painted and contrived with no lesse art of perspective, and machines for flying in the aire, and other wonderful motions; taken together it is one of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit of man can invent. The history was Hercules in Lydia. The sceanes changed thirteen times. The famous voices, Anna Rencia, a Roman and reputed the best treble of women; but there was a Eunuch who in my opinion surpassed her; also a Genoise that in my judgment sung an incomparable base. They held us ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... about the genius of the family—the fourth brother—who wanted to invent something new and original? He tried to build a lofty storey himself, but it fell to pieces, and he fell with it and broke his neck. However, he had a splendid funeral, with the city flags and music in the procession; flowers were strewn on the pavement, and three orations ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... we could do something for that capital old Professor. Couldn't we invent a rich relation, who shall obligingly die out there in Germany, and leave him a tidy little fortune?" said Laurie, when they began to pace up and down the long drawing room, arm in arm, as they were fond of doing, in memory of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... represents was the ruling force in the hour of its production; and to the spirit of a household, a community, a kingdom, or an age, that individuality is the key. There is, too, in a genuine portrait an internal evidence of its authenticity. No artist ever was great enough to invent the combination of lines, curves, and planes which composes the face of a man. There is the accumulated significance of a lifetime,—subtile traces of failures or of victories wrought years ago. How these will manifest themselves, no experience can point out, no intuition can foresee or imagine. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... in order to take them off again! Surely, something less medieval, more ingenious, more modern than this could be devised—if symbolism is to be indulged in at all! Can you devise it, O sceptical one, revelling in disillusion? Can you invent a symbol more natural and graceful than the symbol of the Tree? Perhaps you would have a shop-counter, and shelves behind it, so as to instill early into the youthful mind that this is a planet of commerce! Perhaps you would abolish the doggerel ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... come and they make ready to raid the flocks. You'd think folks would be bright enough to catch 'em, but there ain't wit enough in the world to get ahead of them. They're the cutest! The tricks a coyote will invent, sir, pass belief. In spite of the fact this pasture is fenced with coyote-proof wire the creatures manage to get in—goodness ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... seeming malignity of the children would tax belief, were it not so familiar a fact in children; and notable also was their histrionic ability. They were excited by the sensation they aroused, and vain of it; they were willing to do what they could to prolong it. But they hardly needed to invent anything; more than was necessary was suggested to them by questions and comments. They were quick to take hints, and improve upon them. Sarah Good, Martha Cory, Rebecca Nourse, and all the rest, must be their victims; but God will forgive the children, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne |
