"Tool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... changelings, know by rote The clarion watchword of each Grecian school And follow none, the flawless sword which smote The pagan Hydra is an effete tool Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now Shall scale the august ancient heights and to ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... voyage in order to keep him in view, and worm as many secrets as possible from him. When Cressley spoke of his superstition with regard to the turret room, it immediately occurred to Wickham to utilize the room for his destruction. Murdock proved a ready tool in the hands of the rogues. They offered him an enormous bribe. And then the three between them evolved the intricate and subtle details of the crime. It was arranged that Murdock was to commit the ghastly deed, and for this purpose he was ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... mountains and they had brought their prisoner here. But the existence of the prospect hole at the foot of the Devil's Slide was unknown to him. From the convict's revenge he had hitherto saved Luck. Blackwell was his tool rather than his confederate, but he was uneasily aware that if the man yielded to the elemental desire to kill his enemy the law, would hold him, Cass Fendrick, ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... your—of such a thing. If you have no decency, I have. I'm sorry I spoke, but—if you DARE to do such a thing I shall warn Mr. O'Neil that you are a spy." She turned a glance of loathing on Gordon. "I see," she said, quietly. "You used me as a tool. You lied about your feeling toward him. You meant harm to him all the time." She faced ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Tom answered, rooting in the engine tool chest by the aid of the flashlight and hauling out a pair of ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... oligarchies had their own work, as we now know. They were imposing a fashioning yoke; they were making the human nature which after times employ. They were at their labours, we have entered into these labours. And to the unconscious imitation which was their principal tool, no impediment was so formidable as foreign intercourse. Men imitate what is before their eyes, if it is before their eyes alone, but they do not imitate it if it is only one among many present things—one competitor among ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... was only a tool in his hands, as you suggest, for some mysterious purposes which nobody can understand or guess at, how do you account for her ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... remained clouded, but the wind fell off to a calm which lasted for several hours. I took the opportunity to set to work on the sledge, sawing it in halves with a pocket tool. A mast was made out of one of the rails of the discarded half of the sledge and a spar was cut from the other rail. The sledge-meter, very much battered, was still serviceable. Lastly, the load was cut down to a minimum by the elimination of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... than one trade, as is indicated by the enseigne which is affixed, on a short pole, above their tool-box. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... they were gone, he began to search the place for a tool which would fairly suit his purpose. Presently he found a large butcher's knife, with which they cut up the carcasses; and with this he set to work to dig a hole in the ground, close to the wall of the hut. The bottom log was only sunk a few inches in the soil, and ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... steeple, and served the priest yonder, by name Rochecliffe, I was not farther from the straight road than when, after long reading, I at length found one blind guide after another, all burners of bricks in Egypt. I left them one by one, the poor tool Harrison being the last; and by my own unassisted strength, I have struggled forward to the broad and blessed light, whereof thou ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... educated up to a certain point, able to write a good hand, and express himself grammatically, but thinking more of his dress and his spurious English than of any learning or accomplishment, and the unreasoning tool of his official superiors. He had been checkmated by Coristine, and felt terribly disappointed at the failure of his mission; but the thought that he had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... furnish the government with sufficient proofs against you without any risk to ourselves, for we have many partisans who are still in office. Weigh now well all you have heard, and be assured, that although we despise you, and use you only as our tool, we will have faithful and diligent service; if not, your life ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... praise the poet when the intellect had the upper hand. But surely poets have made it clear enough that the intellect is not the distinctive characteristic of the poet. To be intelligent is merely to be human. Intelligence is only a tool, poets have repeatedly insisted, in their quarrel with philosophers. In proportion as one is intelligent within one's own field, one excels, poets would admit. If one is intelligent with respect to fisticuffs one is likely to become a good prize-fighter, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... of the spectroscope by Bunsen and Kirchhoff in 1859 provided a new tool which could establish the purity of substances already known and lead to the discovery of others. Thus, helium was discovered in the sun's spectrum by Jansen and isolated from uranite ...
— A Brief History of Element Discovery, Synthesis, and Analysis • Glen W. Watson
... and brighter things further on, has but fired the zeal within us, and there is no way of satisfying this burning zeal save the feasting on the coveted goal—the riches and beauties of wisdom. One writer says: "As long as one's mind is shrouded in ignorance he is but the tool of others, and the victim of foolishness and gross absurdities. He will never experience those pleasures which come from a well-directed train of thought and which is akin to the dignity of a high nature. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the sweep of the main range of the Green Mountains. The kitchen doorway afforded a view of Mount Marcy and the Adirondacks never to be forgotten. It was the ancestral home with all the proper attributes, horse barn, woodshed, tool houses, and a large hay barn. Father's dream for forty years was to recapture it and settle down to the cultivation of rustic essays instead of its unyielding clay soil. However, he was first and last a newspaper man and his ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... any cost. Young men like Mark Sullivan, John Treacy, and myself, all of Hudson County, representing the liberal wing of our party, were bitterly opposed to this effort. We suspected that the "Old Gang" was up to its old trick of foisting upon the Democrats of the state a tool which they could use for their own advantage, who, under the name of the Democratic party, would do the bidding of the corporate interests which had, under both the "regular" organizations, Democratic ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... It is rarely one meets with books printed in this country, before the year 1600, struck off in such a manner. This copy, which is secured from 'winter and rough weather' by a stout coat of skilfully-tool'd morocco, is probably unique.——Weever's Funeral Monuments; 1631, folio. Mr. Samuel Lysons informs me that he has a copy of this work upon large paper. I never saw, or heard of, another similar one.——Sanford's Genealogical History; 1707, folio. At the sale ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... pushing past his wife, took his stand in the pew beside the orphan who had lived beneath his roof, whom during many years he had cursed upon occasion and sometimes struck, and whom he had latterly made his tool, "Never mind him, Audrey, my girl," he said, and put an unsteady hand upon her shoulder. "You're a good child; they ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... cover three and four times the actual distance in order to keep to the lanes and alleys whose shelter he dared not leave; but he was spurred on now by a sort of grim, unholy joy. He knew now who had murdered the Magpie, and why; he knew now who was making a tool, a cat's-paw of the Gray Seal; he knew now who had so cynically elected him, if caught, as a substitute for the other to the electric chair. It was Virat! Frenchy Virat, the suave, sleek gambler, confidence man and crook! Well, the game was of Virat's ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... persuasions, your representations heightened the evil, strengthened me in my sinful course. You saw my folly, and worked on it, by sowing the seeds of mistrust and dislike towards my parents. I was a passive tool in your hands, and you endeavoured to mould me according to your notions of happiness. I thank you for all the interest you have thus endeavoured to prove for me. You cannot regret withdrawing it, now I ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... The 17c also exhibits a small peculiarity of engraving. A colored line projects upwards into the uncolored oval band above the space between OS of POSTAGE. This was evidently caused by an accidental touch of the engraver's tool on the die for it is quite distinct on every specimen we ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... highly suggestible state wherein the individual can direct suggestions to himself. It is a powerful tool in any therapeutic process, and highly motivated subjects can parallel the success of hetero-hypnosis through their own efforts. Self-hypnosis can be used as a palliative agent and can even afford lasting results in many areas of the ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... occurred to him that if this negro could come and go so handily to the outside of this underground prison, there must be a stairway somewhere near, and though he could not enlarge the slit to get at it that way, it might be possible to burrow a passage under the wall itself. For a tool, he had spied a broken crock lying on the floor, and with the idea once in his head, he was not long in putting it to practical effect. He squatted just underneath the slit, and began to quarry the earth at the foot of the wall ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Power switch is recessed into the front of the Expansion Interface to prevent accidental loss of power. Activate the switch with the eraser-end of a pencil or small tool of ...
— Radio Shack TRS-80 Expansion Interface: Operator's Manual - Catalog Numbers: 26-1140, 26-1141, 26-1142 • Anonymous
... a parable. A few strokes of irony and wit, an epigram or two infallibly placed where it would distract attention from a weak point in the argument, and the thing was complete. By such means Chesterton developed the use of a veritable Excalibur of controversy, a tool of great might in political journalism. These methods, pursued a few years longer, taught him a craftsmanship he could employ for purely romantic ends. How he employed it, and the opinions which he sought to uphold by its means will be the subjects of the following chapters. Chesterton sallied ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... Miss Vrain scornfully. "You did not ask that Dr. Jorce the questions you should have done. Go up to London now, Lucian, see him at Hampstead, and find out if Ferruci was at his house at eight o'clock on Christmas Eve. Then I shall believe him guiltless; till then, I hold him but the creature and tool of Lydia." ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... bends closely over his work. She lies across the table opposite, watching his movements intently. He fumbles for a tool.) ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbours; but such as I can do ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... shimmering mist of worlds that do not serve me nor care for me? I swear daily that I am not living and that I will not and cannot live underneath a universe ... with a little horizon or teacup of space set down over me. The whole sky is the tool of my daily life. It belongs to me and I to it. I have said to the heavens that they shall hourly minister to me—to the uses of my spirit and the needs of my body. When I, or my spirit, would move a little I swing out on stars. In the ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... will receive a conveyance of property, knowing it to be illusive and fraudulent, is as wicked as the principal; and as much meaner, as the tool and subordinate of villany is meaner than ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... magnificently: no less than fifty-two thousand pounds a-year are granted in reversion! Young Martin,(274) Who is older than I am, is named my successor; but I intend he shall wait some years: if they had a mind to serve me, they could not have selected a fitter tool to set my character in a fair light by the comparison. Lord Bute's son has the reversion of an auditor of the imprest; this is all he has done ostensibly for his family, but the great things bestowed on the most ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... square of canvas beside him held the implements necessary to his work, set out in methodical order, and as he cleaned, and oiled and polished assiduously without raising his eyes his deft fingers selected unerringly the tool he required. The weapon appeared already speckless, but for some time he continued to rub vigorously, handling it with almost affectionate care as if loth to put it down; at last with a grunt of demur he reluctantly laid aside the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... contest shrinking, The draught of failure drinking, In trickery's quicksand sinking, Pulls he not others down? Will PLON-PLON stand securely, The COMTE pose proudly, purely, Whilst slowly but most surely Their tool must choke or drown? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... end of Murray Frobisher, and a mighty unpleasant end it promises to be. No escape possible either," he went on, carefully making a tour of the apartment, and at intervals tapping on the walls with an iron tool which he had picked up, in an endeavour to obtain some idea of their thickness, and so to judge as to the possibility of digging himself out, if he were left alone long enough. But the results were disheartening, to say the least of it. Every spot where he tapped ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... soul that nothing could ever shake it. Ezra was wrong when he set this down as deliberate hypocrisy. Blind strength of will and self-conceit were at the bottom of his actions, but he would have been astonished and indignant had he been accused of simulating piety or of using it as a tool. To him the firm of Girdlestone was the very representation of religion in the commercial world, and as such must be upheld by every ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Jasper is nothing to me; I use him as a tool, not you. If I threaten, it is to keep you from Octavia, who cannot forgive the past and love you for yourself, as I have done all these miserable months. You say I know but half the truth. Tell me the whole and I will ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... came, the employment of the servants, and the urgency of general danger. I should have done the same if the flames that seemed to extend as they proceeded, and already surmounted the house, had reached this very apartment. I snatched a tool suitable for the purpose, threw myself upon the ground, and applied with eagerness to a magazine which inclosed all for which my heart panted. After two or three efforts, in which the energy of uncontrollable passion was added to my ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... each end, with a saddle-back lid. Some are in human form, but barbarous in style, the heads being surmounted by a pudding-shaped imitation of the ancient Egyptian head-dress, and the features indicated by two or three strokes of the modelling tool or the thumb. Two little lumps of clay stuck awkwardly upon the breast indicate the coffin of a woman. Even in these last days of Egyptian civilisation, it was only the coarsest objects which were left of the natural hue of the baked clay. As of old, the surfaces were, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... thought than done. Jacob had left his coat hanging near the tool-house while he went to dinner, and he always carried matches in his pipe-pocket. Lady Bird knew that. She put her hand in and drew one out, feeling guilty, for one of Nursey's chief maxims was, "Never touch matches, Lady Bird; ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Constitution, the club is the Constitution"? Where were the women politicians then, and why did they not exercise the power of their vote? But they did. They helped to defeat the most fair-minded and liberal man, Governor Waite. The latter had to make way for the tool of the mine kings, Governor Peabody, the enemy of labor, the Tsar of Colorado. "Certainly male suffrage could have done nothing worse." Granted. Wherein, then, are the advantages to woman and society from woman suffrage? ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... on the Technique of Painting there was little said of copper-plate engraving, since it was enough at that time to describe the method of engraving silver with the burin, which is a square tool of iron, cut on the slant, with a sharp point, I shall use the occasion of this Life to say as much on that subject as I may consider to be sufficient. The beginning of print-engraving, then, came from the Florentine Maso Finiguerra, about the year of our salvation 1460; for of all the ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... dragged to the light, if he is made to realize the exact nature of his career, how can I end my story? It is evident that my hero possesses little insight and less firmness of character. He is not a hero; he is merely a tool. In, let us say, eight cases out of ten, his curve is already plotted. It leads downward—not necessarily along the villain's path, but ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... would throw it overboard, knowing how precious a tool it is," declared Mr. Farnum, glancing about him bewildered. "It was hardly possible to mislay such a thing by accident. Where on earth ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... youthful ardor. I believe I owe something of my good fortune this time also to my enemies and enviers. For it is quite true, as the newspaper said, that my removal or recall was demanded from the King, not only by our Camarilla and its tool, the ministry, but by more than "flesh and blood," that high demoniacal power, which would willingly crush Prussia and Germany in its unholy embrace. It has come to an avowed struggle. As yet the King has held fast to me as king and friend. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... in the new problem. When it came to the mere matter of securing a tool for digging the hard gravel, both Ab and Oak were easily at home. The cave dwellers, haunting the river side for centuries, had learned how to deal with gravel, and when Ab returned to the scene the next day he brought with him a sturdy oaken stave ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... shy man, whose cheek flushed on the slightest occasion; he spoke in public not without embarrassment, and generally was angular, stiff, and awkward in intercourse. With all his haughty obstinacy he was— as indeed persons ordinarily are, who make a display of their independence—a pliant tool in the hands of men who knew how to manage him, especially of his freedmen and clients, by whom he had no fear of being controlled. For nothing was he less qualified than for a statesman. Uncertain as to his aims, unskilful in the choice of his means, alike ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... only two wheels, were built entirely of wood, and each was dragged by a single horse. Some carried the travellers' tents, cooking utensils, a tool-chest, and additional axletrees, their arms and ammunition, together with their clothes, spare blankets, and waterproofs. The other carts were laden with stores of all sorts for the forts ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... Yarrow's character, and shrewd people who had known them began to talk of this shadow of a woman who went about with him,—a quadroon, they said,—and hinted strongly that it was she who had been the vital power of the partnership, and Yarrow but the well-chosen tool. There are no means of knowing the truth of the conjecture, for Yarrow escaped: she followed him, but is dead, so their secret is safe. Fraud, however, was but one half of his story. Soule gave like a prince,—secretly, with a woman-like, anxious helpfulness, a passionate eagerness, as if the pain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... was Governor of Virginia. Weak in intellect, grovelling in his tastes, often drunk, rarely sober, at times making such beastly exhibition of himself that the Richmond press pronounced him a public nuisance, he was a fit tool of the Secession conspirators. Ready to do what he could to commit the State to overt acts against the United States Government, on the evening after the passage of the Ordinance he issued orders to the State militia around Winchester to seize ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... The church feud and the schism between the two Popes offered the most favorable opportunity for intrigues and claims. Paulus, by his cleverness, his zeal, and his eloquence, won the favor of the Pope, who discerned in him a useful tool. Thus he became successively Archdeacon of Trevinjo, Canon of Seville, Bishop of Cartagena, Chancellor of Castile, and Privy Councillor to King Henry III. of Spain. With tongue and pen he attacked ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... those ardent desires, this bold, obstinate pursuit—all this was not love! Money—that was what his soul yearned for! She could not satisfy his desire and make him happy. The poor girl had been nothing but the blind tool of a robber, of the murderer of her aged benefactress! She wept bitter tears of agonized repentance. Hermann gazed at her in silence; his heart, too, was a prey to violent emotion, but neither the tears of the poor girl, nor the wonderful charm of her beauty, enhanced by her grief, could ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... Singh took out his fountain-pen and executed the stroke of genius that made what followed possible. Without Abraham I do not know what he would have done. I can not imagine. Yet I feel sure he would have contrived something. He made use of Abraham as the best tool available, and that is no proof he could not have done as well by other means. I have learned this: that Ranjoor Singh, with that faith of his in God, can do anything. Anything. He is a true man, and God puts thoughts ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... a stronger time, When thou shalt be a tool of skill, And steadfast purpose, to fulfil A higher ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... to one side, and took up a tool and a bit of leather with a pretence of working, hoping to be out of sight, and yet to be able to look at the little white-beavered fairy, for whom my fancy was in no way abated. But her keen-eyed sister saw me still, and her next remark ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was the sum of it? Just this, I think, and nothing more—that, as Saduko and the others were Mameena's tools, and as all of them and their passions were Zikali's tools, so he himself was the tool of some unseen Power that used him and us to accomplish its design. Which, I suppose, is fatalism, or, in other words, all these things happened because they must happen. A poor conclusion to reach after so much thought and striving, and not complimentary to man and his boasted ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... full of words: one can choose as he fancies, As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool; Just think! all the poems and plays and romances Were drawn out of this, like the fish from ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... provided. However, it was with extreme satisfaction that he discovered in his pocket an excellent knife, whose leather case had kept it from the sea-water. This knife, with blade, gimlet, hook, and saw, was a valuable instrument under the circumstances. But besides this tool, Godfrey and his companion had only their two hands; and as the hands of the professor had never been used except in playing his fiddle, and making his gestures, Godfrey concluded that he would have to ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... the easy fruition of desire which is possible in tropical and sub-tropical latitudes does away with the idea of necessity as the mother of invention in those parts of the world it becomes difficult to see how tool-using man, who is generally supposed to have originated somewhere in the warm belts, came to take the first and the most difficult steps in the upward progress where there was so little, if any, ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... eyes wherever we turned, and we had hard work to make the place fit for human habitation; and even then we preferred the tent. I felt quite at a loss how to guard the farm for the future; but seeing a bottle of the poisonous gum of the euphorbia in the tool chest, I devised a plan for the destruction of the apes which succeeded beyond ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... pupil a good-humored poke with the end of his stick. "Go back to your yacht," he said. "All the little discretion you have got in that flighty head of yours is left on board in your tool-chest. How that lad will end," pursued the rector, when he was left by himself, "is more than any human being can say. I almost wish I had never taken the responsibility of him ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... proved their unskilfulness on Louis Philippe; but Orsini showed him that he had to elect between the Pope and the Austrians on one side, and the Carbonari on the other. He has chosen the alliance of the Carbonari. He has made himself their tool, and will ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... prove interesting to all, especially to boys, for whose particular edification we now write. Boys, of all creatures in this world, are passionately fond of boats and ships; they make them of every shape and size, with every sort of tool, and hack and cut their fingers in the operation, as we know from early personal experience. They sail them, and wet their garments in so doing, to the well-known sorrow of all right-minded mammas. ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... of just such a man as Jean Jacques, whom she could never see any more, for he had paid with his life the penalty of the conspiracy in which her father, standing now behind her on the leaky Antoine, had been a tool, and an evil tool. Here in Jean Jacques was the same ruddy brown face, black restless eye, and young, silken, brown beard. Also there was an air of certainty and universal comprehension, and though assertion and vanity were apparent, there was no self-consciousness. The ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... one gigantic cheer for IRON, tough and true, the weapon, the tool, and the engine of all civilization,—it seemed as if the uproar would never cease until Father Iron himself heard the call in his smithy away under the magnetic pole, and came clanking up, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... of fortune mingle with the stock-brokers, who, resplendent in attire, and haughty of demeanor, fill the thousand offices of speculation. They disdain the meaner element, as they tool their drags over the Cliff Road to bathe in champagne, and listen to the tawdry Phrynes and bedraggled Aspasias who share their ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... voice to the dark foreboding that had instantly seized upon him, and in a swift vision he saw the end of all that simple, fortunate existence which he had lived without once reflecting it could ever end. He mechanically picked up a tool from the table, and laid it down again. Then he seated himself on the low bench between the windows. It was Margaret's favorite place; it was not four days since she sat there reading to him. Already it appeared long ago,—years ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sinner is sometimes well treated and his life prolonged for one of the following reasons: To give him time to repent, as in the case of Manasseh; that he may beget a righteous son, like Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah; to use him as God's tool to punish others more wicked than he—witness the rle of Assyria as Isaiah describes it in chapter ten of his prophecies; for the sake of the righteous who is closely related to him, as Lot was saved for the sake of Abraham; ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... end nothing so effectually contributed as did the trial of Sacheverel, who was used as an instrument and tool to wind and turn the passions of the vulgar. Having been presented to a benefice in North Wales, he went in procession to that country with all the pomp and magnificence of a sovereign prince. He was sumptuously entertained by the university of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... tale he once did hear ye ingenious Margrette of Navarre relate, about a maid, which being like to suffer rape by an olde archbishoppe, did smartly contrive a device to save her maidenhedde, and said to him, First, my lord, I prithee, take out thy holy tool and piss before me; which doing, lo his member felle, and would not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you not shared my disgust at the hateful want of feeling manifested by this family, who, as soon as their son is acquitted, throw you aside as a mere tool that has served ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... when they are easily controlled and corrected. If the young do not make themselves the masters of their passions, appetites, and habits, these will soon become their masters, and make them their tool and bond-men through ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... they had so long afflicted the natives of India. It might be said of the other taxes that, in one form or another, they affected every branch of industry and every necessary of life. They affected even the tools of trade, and were sometimes equal in amount to the sum for which the tool itself could be purchased in ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... be defined as a place where Man is passive and the rest of Nature active. Till quite recently Nature had her own sanctuaries, where man either did not go at all or only as a tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But now, in this machinery age, there is no place left where man cannot go with overwhelming forces at his command. He can strangle to death all the nobler ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... long further reduced to thirty-five. These States constituted themselves into a new German Confederation, with a Federal Assembly, meeting at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The new Federal Council, or Assembly, however, soon revealed itself as but the tool of the princes and ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... of passive and absolute obedience, the principal tool in the hands of the Jesuits, as summed up in these terrible words of the dying Loyola—that every member of the order should be in the hands of his superiors as a dead ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... It is very amusing to watch the practice of the little boys who are going to be dentists. In Japan the dentist of the people fetches out an aching tooth with thumb and finger, and will pluck it out as surely as any tool can do the work, so his pupils learn their trade by trying to pull nails out of a board. They begin with tin-tacks, and go on until they can, with thumb and finger, pluck out a nail firmly ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... first thing I says to myself was: 'I wonder,' I says, 'what size auger them murderin' scoundrels is likely to use? Because if I only knowed that, I could make my plugs to fit the holes.' Then the next thing I thought was that prob'ly they wouldn't remember to bring a tool aboard with 'em, and that they'd hunt for some'at of the sort aboard here. So I goes to my cabin, gets out a inch and a half auger, a chisel, a hammer and some nails, and places 'em on the tarpaulin of the fore-hatch, where anybody going for'ard couldn't help seein' of 'em; and ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... the whole,' continues our eloquent Professor, 'Man is a Tool-using Animal (Handthierendes Thier). Weak in himself, and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... years, covered close, and laid up in a dry warm room. In the year 1796, lord William Murray obtained a patent for manufacturing starch from horse-chesnuts. The method was to take the horse-chesnuts out of the outward green prickly husk, and either by hand, with a knife or tool, or else with a mill adapted for the purpose, the brown rind was carefully removed, leaving the chesnuts perfectly white, and without the smallest speck. In this state the nuts were rasped or ground to a pulp ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... agreed with that. He hoped that Weeks would decide to hold out—at least until they had a better idea of what the future would be. No tool or weapon he saw in the assembly about them was forceful enough to penetrate the shell of the Queen. And there were sufficient supplies on board to keep Weeks and his charges going for at least a week. Since Tau had shown signs of coming ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... precisely the exact expression used, M'riar," said Uncle Mo, who was doing something with a tool-box at the door that opened on the front-garden that opened on the Court. Dolly was holding his tools, by permission—only not chisels or gouges, or gimlets, or bradawls, or anything with an edge to it—and the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... understand that this rider was to employ also the arm of civil power to aid him in the deadly work. How strikingly this represents the historical facts of the case! In all truly Roman Catholic countries the civil governments were only a cipher or tool in the hands of the church, and the ecclesiastics were the real rulers of the kingdom. But whenever any dark work of persecution was to be performed, the wild beast was let loose to accomplish the result. When charged, however, with the bloody ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... as of old, the man or woman who has a special gift of voice or pen or brush or sculptor's tool or command of instrument or ability to compose music or to write literature fit to live forever, or build temples that command wonder and admiration, or who in some form of creative activity makes his mark upon history, who is most often spoken ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... mechanic's coveralls on over his street suit and a tool box slung under one arm. He carried a little black metal can at arm's length, trying to get as far from it as possible. Coleman shouted ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... and equal both in length and breadth; each of which dimensions was fifty cubits. The figure it was built in was a square, and it had corners like horns; and the passage up to it was by an insensible acclivity. It was formed without any iron tool, nor did any such iron tool so much as touch it at any time. There was also a wall of partition, about a cubit in height, made of fine stones, and so as to be grateful to the sight; this encompassed the holy house and the altar, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... are themselves far from common. Moreover, a critical reading of this history suggests that the apparent control over the sexual impulse by reason is merely a superficial phenomenon. Here, as ever, reason is but a tool in the hands of the passions. The apparent causes are really the results; we are witnessing the gradual emergence of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... me that made him remember, for he said he surely had seen me with one of you boys several times. And so he confessed, begging me to get word to you, so that if the unknown schemer did find a tool to carry out his evil plots you ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... against him, and for that same reason could not be used as an argument in favor of premeditation; now, this is precisely the case in question. This weapon was neither a sword, bayonet, nor stiletto, nothing that the fertile imagination of the public prosecutor could imagine; it was a simple tool used by the accused in his profession, the presence of which in his pocket is as easily understood as that of a snuff-box in the pocket of my neighbor, the notary, who takes twenty pinches of snuff a minute. Gentlemen, this weapon was a ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... began to jump round it with shouts of triumph. Selina looked on grimly, with knitted brow; she was not yet fully satisfied. "Can't you get any more sticks?" she said presently. "Go and hunt about. Get some old hampers and matting and things out of the tool-house. Smash up that old cucumber frame Edward shoved you into, the day we were playing scouts and Mohicans. Stop a bit! Hooray! I know. You ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... cargoes. This is a bark procured from some particular trees, of which the bunut and ibu are the most common. When they prepare to take it the outer rind is first torn or cut away; the inner, which affords the material, is then marked out with a prang, pateel, or other tool, to the size required, which is usually three cubits by one; it is afterwards beaten for some time with a heavy stick to loosen it from the stem, and being peeled off is laid in the sun to dry, care being taken to prevent its warping. The thicker or thinner sorts of the same species of kulitkayu ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... can cover the holdings of several, it is foolish for each to hire a man. If a fire threatens several tracts, it is better to share the expense of labor hired to put it out. The same is true of building trails, buying tool supplies, etc. This has led to the forming of associations which at a minimum cost to each member accomplish the many tasks of finding suitable men, having them authorized by the State, supervising and supplying them, paying emergency expense, opening trails, etc. Each ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... got into trouble—characteristic trouble. In a quarrel with a construction boss named Smith, Larry accused Smith of being the crooked tool of the crooked commissioners who had forced Neale to quit his job. Smith grew hot and profane. The cowboy promptly slapped his face. Then Smith, like the fool he was, went after his gun. He ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... labour. Simplicity is the leading feature in all their contrivances that relate to the arts and manufactures. The tools of every artificer are of a construction the most simple that it should seem possible to make them, and yet each tool is so contrived as to answer several purposes. Thus, the bellows of the blacksmith, which is nothing more than a hollow cylinder of wood, with a valvular piston, beside blowing the fire, serves for his seat when set on end, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... that every breath or rumour created the greatest trepidation. Within a fortnight after the City had signified its assent to the last loan the nation was suddenly surprised by some words let drop by Dr. Tonge, the weak and credulous rector of St. Michael's, Wood Street, and the tool of the infamous Titus Oates. A Popish plot was, he said, on foot and the king's life in danger, in proof of which he produced documentary evidence. Oates, the prime mover in starting the idea of a plot, was ready in the most shameless way with depositions to corroborate all that Tonge had ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... selected, and came from a valuable gun, given in all probability to a game-keeper. Moreover, the owner of this weapon never missed his aim; there was between him and his gun the same intimate acquaintance that there is between a workman and his tool. If the muzzle must be raised or lowered the merest fraction in its aim, because it carries just an atom above or below the range, the poacher knows it; he obeys the rule and never misses. An officer ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... being so rapidly thinned and whitened by the struggles and anxieties of his ambition. "My God!" he cried out, "how I am punished! When I started in my public career, I looked forward and saw just this time,—when I should be the helpless tool in the hands of the power I sold myself to. Governor!" He almost shouted the word, rising and pacing the floor again. "Governor!"—and he laughed ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... plants. Weeds are a blessing to the lazy man, but I don't like to have it overdone. Don't let the soil bake after a rain. Keep the cultivator running. In garden work a steel tooth rake is a splendid garden tool. ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... knives—can be used as a knife sharpener. Put up in small packages convenient to carry in your bicycle tool-bag; ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 1, 1897 Vol. 1. No. 21 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... iniquitous measures and principles. In your early political training, you have been swayed by interest and popular favor, and in most cases at the expense of truth, just as you now are, in your mad vindication of Romanism. A tool for others to work with, till you have found yourself in a condition to use such tools as you yourself have been, you are now a trimmer and weathercock, leading on men of less sense than yourself, to such distinction as interest and ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... trees are cut into lengths of four feet, and trimmed both as to branches and bark. An iron tool called a frow, which is not unlike a butcher's cleaver, is then used to split the log into thin strips, one edge of which is four or five times thicker than ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... should be received and accounted for by a receiver, who, by way of concession to his feelings, was to be appointed by himself. The Earl, who rarely lacked shrewdness, looked round for the most suitable person to fill this delicate post—for a man who should be as clay in his hands; and such a "tool" he thought he had found in his steward, Mr John Johnson, who had known him since boyhood, and who had never thwarted him even in his maddest caprices. Mr Johnson was duly appointed receiver; but the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... his modeling tool up to the handle into the clay. "Say it outright! You have been a great fool to believe ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... father, "and if, as I judge from your last words; you are the tool of others, you shall be protected, and if deserving, or even repentant, shall be cared for: but stay," said he, pouring out a glass of wine, "you are greatly agitated, take this and then sit down. Now, if you will tell the truth, you may dismiss your fears, and by making ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... any man of his time wielded greater power in secret than he. Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places, where his ways were laid, he watched and plotted and spied for his master, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... then, casting my craft free, he stood away to the eastward, without firing a shot at my vessel, seeming content with the mischief he had already done me. Believing that he would at once go back to Spain, denounce the marquis, and proclaim me as his tool, I dared not return to Cadiz. I therefore sailed for the West Indies, and employed myself in an occupation which I found tolerably lucrative, seeing that all the transactions were for ready money, though it must ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... give their houses, which are no more than stakes driven into the ground, covered over with deer or other skins. Here, observing that our hero was grievously hurt by his collar, this good king immediately set himself about freeing him from it; but, as he had no proper tool for that purpose, he was at a great loss how to execute it; but at last, taking the steel of Mr. Carew's tinder-box, he jagged it into a kind of saw, with which he cut off his collar, but not without much labour, his majesty sweating heartily at the work. He then carried him into ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... he traversed the passages of the hotel, felt his anger rousing up within him. He was indignant to think that yonder old gentleman whom he was about to meet, should have made him such a tool and puppet, and so compromised his honor and good name. The old fellow's hand was very cold and shaky when Arthur took it. He was coughing; he was grumbling over the fire; Frosch could not bring his dressing-gown or arrange ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looking for it," he said. "I was struck by the fact that the knife which, by its size and weight, was a seaman's handy tool, had also been used for the repeated sharpening of a blue pencil. When I saw those indications I went through the motion and came to the conclusion that the marks were on the wrong side. Then I tried with my left hand and accounted for it. The blue pencil made me suspicious. I ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... who smiled at you with lips but seemed always to be looking at some hell over your shoulder. He also promoted companies, and the Comte de Verneuil, an Anglo-French financier, stood ever by his elbow, using him as his tool and dupe and drawer in general of chestnuts from the fire. The Comte wanted to marry Joanna, "which was absurd, seeing that I was his rival," ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... its desires. If re-eligible (and this is more especially true at the present day, when political morality is relaxed, and when great men are rare), the President of the United States becomes an easy tool in the hands of the majority. He adopts its likings and its animosities, he hastens to anticipate its wishes, he forestalls its complaints, he yields to its idlest cravings, and instead of guiding it, as the legislature ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... friend," he said, "you have been very useful to me. But I must confess that you are no longer a tool equal to the task. I dismiss you. I thank you cordially for your efforts. They are worthless. You see that crowd gathering yonder? They have come to see Lord Nick prepare you for a hole in the ground. And make no ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... we made an attempt to get up another rail; but the enemy, as usual, were too quick for us. We had no tool for this purpose except a wedge-pointed iron bar. Two or three bent iron claws for pulling out spikes would have given us such incontestable superiority that, down to almost the last of our run, we ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... place with nothing to indicate its selection as a bobbin for threads of destiny. The sun was just coming into the sky above the low-lying hills to the east when the President's special steamed into the siding. From the group, clustered about the tool-shed and awaiting its arrival, a broad-shouldered young man in the flannel shirt and legging boots of a railway engineer separated himself and hurried forward. He waved his hand as he recognized ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the beer, and his fate was sealed. He was now a tool in Matthew's hands. On some pretense the young hypocrite excused himself from playing a game of billiards as he had at first proposed, and induced Fred to follow him into the street, knowing it was not safe for him to remain longer in the ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... is too much air, the flame will burn with a loud roaring noise, and is liable to fire back. The nipple should then be opened out with a small reamer—the tang of a small file, ground to a long taper point, makes an admirable tool for this purpose. Whether the burner is of the ordinary bunsen type, or the ring or stove type, the above remarks apply, as in every case the flow of gas is governed by the size of the orifice through ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... limited capacity, no doubt," Goil said dryly. "And he apparently does a lot of jobs around here he's not expected to do. A check of your tool cribs and equipment storage shows that Maloon has had his hands on just about everything you have available at one time or another since he has been here. Mr. Maloon is a very busy man during his ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... little boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's fancy. Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i. e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... with ardour towards the enemy's fort, crying out aloud several times, Vive le Roi, as if already masters of the place; which, doubtless, they imagined to carry sword in hand; for in the whole army there was not a single iron tool to remove the earth, and ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... awakened the enmity of men whose feuds were blood-feuds, and the Rizzio conspirators were not likely to forgive the upstart youth whose inconstancy had foiled their plan for Mary's fall, and whose treachery had involved them in exile. Darnley had proved useless even as a tool for the nobles, he had offended Mary and disgusted everybody in Scotland, and there were many who were willing to do without him. At this point a new tool was ready to the hands of the discontented barons. ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... excessively handsome. This naturally brought a large number of women to the trial, and when the prisoner appeared, there was a low hum of admiration and surprise. Fanfar's companion, the man of whom Fanfar had made, it was said, a tool, excited neither admiration nor sympathy. Fanfar looked at him once and ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... had occasion to make me several visits. 2. Sometimes they would find, upon arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and talk—always by the hour. 3. I do not know but it is a habit to have something wanted at the shop. 4. They seemed ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... about law is the outside of the books where it is laid down—there all is simple; inside all is complex. The interlacing lines of the binder's patterns find no place on the covers; but intricacies abound inside, where any line is easier found than a straight one. Nor gold leaf nor tool is employed without, but within how many fallacies are enveloped in glozing words; the gold leaf has its representative in "legal fiction;" and as for "tooling" ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... through all provinces of Mind and Imagination, onwards to the outmost confines of articulate Being,—Ubi homines sunt modi sunt! There are modes wherever there are men. It is the deepest law of man's nature; whereby man is a craftsman and 'tool-using animal;' not the slave of Impulse, Chance, and Brute Nature, but in some measure their lord. Twenty-five millions of men, suddenly stript bare of their modi, and dancing them down in that manner, are ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the first usurper. He had poisoned the young Raja of Beejanuggur, son of Sheoroy, and made his infant brother a tool to his designs, by degrees overthrowing the ancient nobility, and at length establishing his own absolute ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... was reached, which opened into the garden itself. This was laid out with an eye less to beauty than to usefulness. In the centre was a patch of grass, lying between two pear trees; the rest of the ground was planted with the various requisites of the kitchen, and in one corner was a well. In the tool house were kept several Windsor chairs; two of these were now brought forth and placed on the grass between the pear trees. But Jessie was not disposed to apply herself on the instant to the books ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... our message sent to him, The dark Dictator's tool— Whatever happens, sink or swim, We ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... the construction of barns and outbuildings, by practical writers. Chapters are devoted to the economic erection and use of barns, grain barns, horse barns, cattle barns, sheep barns, cornhouses, smokehouses, icehouses, pig pens, granaries, etc. There are likewise chapters on birdhouses, doghouses, tool sheds, ventilators, roofs and roofing, doors and fastenings, workshops, poultry houses, manure sheds, barnyards, root pits, etc. 235 pages. 5 x 7 ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... tool-shed, which was close to the rabbits' dwelling-place. She did not like to watch the window, but was too anxious to be able to go and help Francie with her gardening, or to play with Lewis, who was wandering aimlessly about. 'Father,' ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... be admitted, cannot the following law be established, that every machine should be so designed and constructed that when once made true it will so remain, regardless of wear and all external influences to which it is liable to be subjected? One tool maker says that it is right, and another that it cannot be done. No matter whether it can or cannot, is it not the thing wanted, and if so, is it not an object worth striving for? One tool maker says that all machine tools, engines, and machinery should set on solid ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various |
