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More "Invent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Death from the same pamphlet as that from which I drew the criticisms on Dean Alford's notes. I know of no other English work, indeed, in which whatever can be said against us upon this all-important head has been put forward, and was therefore compelled to draw from this source, or to invent the arguments for our opponents, which would have subjected me to the accusation of stating them in such way as should best suit my own purpose. The reader, however, must now feel that since there can be no other position taken but one or other of the two alluded to above, and since the one ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... it is given over to a criticism of Isaachson's Hamlet. First of all, says the reviewer, Isaachson labors under the delusion that every line is cryptic, embodying a secret. This leads him to forget the volume of the part and to invent all sorts of fanciful interpretations for details. Thus he loses the unity of the character. Things are hurried through to a conclusion and the fine transitions are lost. For example, "Oh, that this too, too ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... as I have to invent so many pretexts for coming here; for if M. Ferrand ever suspected that I knew a quack, he being so devout and scrupulous, you can judge ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... just as the calf will butt before his horns protrude. Men began to apply different sounds to denote different things, just as brute beasts will do to express different passions, as any one must have noticed in the cases of dogs and horses and birds. No one man set out to invent speech. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins, to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced such complications of custom, right, privilege, claim, that no one could say definitely how much a suitor was actually bound to pay at each stage of a suit. The fees had an equally bad influence ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... for granted that what I have said already hath plainly proved the falsity of both these narrations; for had there been any real truth at the bottom, it was impossible they should so greatly disagree about the particulars. But for those that invent lies, what they write will easily give us very different accounts, while they forge what they please out of their own heads. Now Manetho says that the king's desire of seeing the gods was the origin of the ejection of the polluted people; but Cheremon feigns ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... tale, now, there must be a fact," I said. "There is some bit of history concealed there. The common people never invent: they distort." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... astonished at what makes them fall in love. Often it suffices for a man 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
... spot to anticipate and make known their wants for the coming winter. This, if my memory serves me, they wholly failed to do: and, the Duke of Newcastle's staff being in truth very little competent, Herbert strained himself morning, noon, and night to invent wants for the army, and according to his best judgment or conjecture to supply them. So was laden the great steamer which went to the bottom in the harbour of Balaclava. And so came Herbert to be abused for his good deeds.—Autobiographic Note, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... somebody can invent something better. I hate races, where a fellow has nothing to do with himself when he can't afford to bet. I don't mean to take to cards for the next ten years. I have never been up in a balloon. Spooning is good fun, but it comes to an end so soon one way or another. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Could prayse Heywood now: or tell how long, Falstaffe from cracking Nuts hath kept the throng: But for a Fletcher, I must take an Age, And scarce invent the Title for one Page. Gods must create new Spheres, that should expresse The sev'rall Accents, Fletcher, of thy Dresse: The Penne of Fates should only write thy Praise: And all Elizium for thee turne to Bayes. Thou feltst no pangs of Poetry, such as they. Who the Heav'ns ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... Every boy and girl knows the verses comparing the print of cat's-feet on snow to plum-flowers, [6] and that comparing the impression of bokkuri on snow to the Japanese character for the number 'two.' These were thoughts of old, old poets; and it would be very hard to invent prettier ones. Artistic power in composition is chiefly shown by the correct memorising and clever ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... half heard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more precious than all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vast superstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece of empty folly such as children or savages might invent? ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... had been a college student he had been trying to get the things required by our people produced in our own country. There are plenty of date trees in our district. He tried to invent an apparatus for extracting the juice and boiling it into sugar and treacle. I heard that it was a great success, only it extracted more money than juice. After a while he came to the conclusion that ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... American stories. I will begin with an anecdote of the mullah Nazr-Eddin, a mythical, or at any rate an historically unknown, individual, whose personality the mountaineers use as a sort of peg upon which to hang all the floating jokes and absurd stories which they from time to time hear or invent, just as Americans use the traditional Irishman to give a modern stamp to a joke which perhaps is as old as the Pyramids. The mountaineers originally borrowed this lay figure of Nazr-Eddin from the Turks, but they have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... say that, or do you invent it?" Le Gardeur was almost choking with angry feelings. Emeric cared little what he said, drunk ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was set up as a national standard of right, nowhere prescribed the belief that God is without body, or even without form or figure, but only ordained that the Jews should believe in His existence and worship Him alone: it forbade them to invent or fashion any likeness of the Deity, but this was to insure purity of service; because, never having seen God, they could not by means of images recall the likeness of God, but only the likeness of some created thing which might ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... exclaimed, with the most comforting sympathy. "You have had a run of bad luck and no mistake! We must invent something. You can't read and you can't sew—how about knitting? Suppose we knit a scarf in school colours for Dick, or a jumper for yourself to wear when you are better? I could get wool in the village. That would do to begin with, till I think of ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... the others could not amuse themselves, and wanted me to tell them a story. They do not like old stories too often, and it is rather difficult to invent new ones. Sometimes we do it by turns. We sit in a circle and one of us begins, and the next must add something, and so we go on. But that way does not make a good plot. My head was so full of the Book of Paradise that afternoon that I could not think of a story, but I said I would ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the learned monk who did invent the lock say that he feared that the king's servants, having such bad memories, would mayhap forget the right letters; so perchance, thought I, he had on this account devised some way to aid their ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... observation and common sense have never been wanting at any period, and it is from those sources that such maxims and opinions arise. Any man who had travelled, first through Italy and Spain, and then through England and America, would be very likely to invent sumptuary laws, if he had never heard of such a thing before. In the application of sumptuary laws, as a device, for preventing decline, the traveller might, perhaps, be very whimsical; sometimes forbidding what would never be attempted; ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... helped him, because I was curious to see how Arthur Dillon would stand the test of direct pursuit. They could discover nothing. As fast as a trace of me showed it vanished into thin air. There was nothing to do but invent a suit which would bring my mother, Monsignor, and myself into court, and have us declare under oath who is Arthur Dillon. I blocked that game perfectly. Messalina has her divorce from Horace Endicott, and is married to her lover. There will be no further search ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... her declaration concerning the birth of Malcolm, had the mind of Mrs Catanach been exercised to the utmost to invent some mode of undoing her own testimony. She would have had no scruples, no sense of moral disgust, in eating every one of her words; but a magistrate and a lawyer had both been present at the uttering of them, and she feared the risk. Malcolm's behaviour to her after his father's death had ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... "Atheism," said he, "is aristocratic. The idea of a great being who watches over oppressed innocence, and who punishes triumphant guilt, is and always will be popular. If God did not exist, it would behoove man to invent him." Accordingly Robespierre offered in the Convention the following resolution: "The French people acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul." The decree was adopted, and the churches that had been converted into ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... so inclined by nature that no one desires to see another have as much as himself, and each one acquires as much as he can; the other may fare as best he can. And yet we pretend to be godly, know how to adorn ourselves most finely and conceal our rascality, resort to and invent adroit devices and deceitful artifices (such as now are daily most ingeniously contrived) as though they were derived from the law codes; yea, we even dare impertinently to refer to it, and boast of it, and will ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... confidante the milliner, Madame Bertier, to devise some new ball- dress, some new fichu, some new ornament for her robes; then could Leonard, for this queen with her wondrous blond hair, tax all the wealth of his science and of his imagination; to invent continually new coiffures and new head-dresses wherewith to adorn the beautiful head of the Queen Marie Antoinette, on whose towering curls clustered tufts of white plumes; or else diminutive men-of-war unfurled the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... unaccountably felt the influence of those very superstitious fears and terrors which I was so anxious to combat in my fellow-travellers. I then soliloquized to myself, "What a poor creature is man, how weak, how miserable! how exposed to every whim and folly which a credulous mind can invent!" Thus soliloquizing, I got within the mysterious precincts of the Great Mountain Rock, in the course of three-quarters of an hour. I had, however, still more fear of the living than the dead, and said to myself mechanically aloud, "Man has more to fear from ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... ipecacuanha, and similar medicines. It ought, therefore, to be given in something palatable, and capable of causing it to be retained by the— mind— in what physicians call a pleasant vehicle. This we have endeavoured to invent— and if we have disguised the flavour of the drugs without destroying their virtues, we shall have entirely accomplished our design. There are a few particularly nasty pills, draughts, and boluses, which we could find no means of sweetening; and with which, on that account, we have not attempted ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... there might see me," Rodolphe resumed, "then I should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... to be the most gifted player that Jock and Mhor had ever met. There seemed no end to the games he could invent, and he played with a zest that ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... Muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou thyself dost ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... am doubly surprised at your correspondent's error. That James Payn should have borrowed from me is already a strange conception. The author of LOST SIR MASSINGBERD and BY PROXY may be trusted to invent his own stories. The author of A GRAPE FROM A THORN knows enough, in his own right, of the humorous and pathetic ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was among people who had towns, cities, settled communities, and the appliances and accumulations of civilized life. Doubtless some of the Spaniards exaggerated and romanced for effect in Spain, but they did not invent either the city of Mexico or the kingdom of Montezuma. We can see clearly that the Mexicans were a civilized people, that Montezuma's city of Mexico was larger than the present city, and that an important empire was substantially conquered when ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... head wind than at Trafalgar? Johnson has anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they arise in the first words that occur, and, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the proper care and exertion; when, to my astonishment and vexation, going into his rooms about a month before an examination, I found that, instead of getting up his subjects, like a reasonable man, he was absolutely endeavouring to invent some new method for proving something which had been proved before in a hundred ways. Over this he had wasted two days, and from that moment I saw it was useless to waste any more of my time and patience in urging a scholar so indocile for ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... exists no manner of doubt. As for the '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 of ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... pretensions, and it was obvious that the king's desire for the establishment of the Catholic religion must have been very lively to enable him to invent or accept ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 9) [whose judgments are meer fathers of their garments] Who have no other use of their faculties, than to invent ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Now, Susie, invent a nice cluster of titles for the book and send them to me to choose from, to Hotel de l'Arno, Florence. I must get that out before the day of judgment, if I can. I'm so glad of your sweet flatteries ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... the feelings which possessed the average man in regard to the Jesuits from the middle of the last century till a relatively short time ago. All the really great work done by the Society of Jesus seemed to have been forgotten, and every vulgar fable which it was possible to invent to their prejudice found ready acceptance upon every side. Nothing was too absurd to be believed. From the calumnies of the Jansenists to the follies of Eugene Sue the mass of accusation, invective, and innuendo kept on increasing in intensity. Indiscriminate abuse ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. "Art sure it is not a dream, Nantauquas?" I said. "I think that Opechancanough would not lift a finger to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent." ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... cannot stand for long the purgatory of seeing the elevation of a great public benefactor. The less competent the critics, the more merciless they are in their declamation and intrigue. They hint at faults, and if this is too ineffective, they invent them. Men in prominent public positions rarely escape the vituperation of the professional scandalmonger. These creatures exist everywhere. Their vanity is only equal to their incompetency in all matters that count. Their capacity consists in knowing the kind of diversion ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... 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 ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... 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 a single vote might wreck it—women, be it remembered, ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... 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 ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... fully obtained with me, that I never thought it worth the Enquiry, how they came to invent such Extravagant Stories: Nor should I now, but upon the Occasion of Dissecting this Animal: For observing that 'tis call'd even to this day in the Indian or Malabar Language, Orang-Outang, i.e. a Man of the Woods, or Wild-men; ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... debarred from active service, but the War Office would no doubt test his capabilities of health and brain either in Whitehall or at the Ministere de la Guerre. Eric could count on seeing him almost any day—in England, or, if he could invent a mission, in Paris. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... for much, but they are good for something. They invent or keep in circulation those conversational blank checks or counters just spoken of, which intellectual capitalists may sometimes find it worth their while to borrow of them. They are useful, too, in keeping up the standard of dress, which, but for them, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Jack; "men are to be carried about from place to place like flocks of sheep; perhaps they will invent steam dogs as well to run after stragglers, and bring them into the fold by the calf of the leg. Your new mode of going a-pleasuring may be a very excellent thing in its way, Willis; but it would not ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At length, he stammered out, "You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... humanly, and only later when the limitations of manhood seem exhausted should His Deity be adduced as welcome surplusage. The supernatural is a reflex of the heart; each sustains and neither can exist without the other. If the transcendent and supernal had no objective existence, we should have to invent and teach it or dwarf the life of feeling and sentiment. Whatever else religion is, therefore, it is the supremest poetry of the soul, reflecting like nothing else all that is deepest, most generic and racial in it. Theology should be reduced to a minimum, but nothing denied where wanted. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Parliament; and citizens of the United States knew that their country had been subjected in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons to every form of misrepresentation, to every insult which malice could invent, to every humiliation which insolence and arrogance could inflict. The most distant generation of Americans will never be able to read the Parliamentary reports from 1861 to 1865 without indignation. Discussions ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... objected to their breaking his windows; others said that the Doctor and Davies would now have it out. Davies had often said the Doctor was a Babylonish trafficker in works, an Alexander the copper-smith; and they wondered what names the other would invent. All were amazed how he dared venture among them, as they wanted something on which to accuse him to ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... strange reasoners? As soon as they can not guess the natural causes of things, they invent causes, which they call supernatural; they imagine them spirits, occult causes, inexplicable agents, or rather words much more obscure than the things which they attempt to explain. Let us remain in nature when we desire to understand its phenomena; let us ignore the causes ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... They scold us for what we do, but so rarely tell us what we ought to do. Tell me how to talk to my baby, and I am willing to try. It is not as if I took a personal pride in the phrase: "Did ums." I did not even invent it. I found it, so to speak, when I got here, and my experience is that it soothes the Child. When he is howling, and I say "Did ums" with sympathetic intonation, he stops crying. Possibly enough it is astonishment at the ineptitude of the ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... "that before I can tell you what I think of your eyes, we shall have to invent some ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... peculiar constructions of our own philosophical times; ages of genius had passed away, and they left no other record than their works; no preconcerted theory described the workings of the imagination to be without imagination, nor did they venture to teach how to invent invention. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... a quiet chuckle. "Nor anybody else—because there's no such rose in England. I shall have to go to some of these learned parsons in the Close to invent me a Latin name for this—it's the result of careful experiments in grafting—took me three years to get at it. And see how it blooms,—scores ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... it's bosh. The doctors must invent something, or else what are they paid for? There's one comes to us every day. Comes,— talks a ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... backe, commaunding me to stay, Boasting that shee doth still direct the way, Els senceles loue could neuer once indite. Loue, growing angry, vexed at the spleene, And scorning Reasons maymed Argument, Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent Where shee with Loue conuersing hath not beene. Reason, reproched with this coy disdaine, Dispighteth Loue, and laugheth at her folly, And Loue, contemning Reasons reason wholy, Thought her in weight too light by many a graine. Reason, put back, doth ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... are rarely any startling "effects," but gradual evolutions. Nothing happens by accident; and, the premises once granted, nothing happens but what was quite sure to happen, following those premises. We novelists do not "make up" our stories; they make themselves. Nor do human beings invent their own lives; they do but use up the materials given to them—some well, some ill; some wisely, some foolishly; but, in the main, the dictum of the Preacher is not far from the truth, "All things ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and it's impossible to figure down to anything as fine as ounces or even quarter-pounds on such a balancer. Yet my babies, I'm afraid, are not gaining as they ought. Poppsy is especially fretful of late. Why can't somebody invent children without colic, anyway? I have a feeling that I ought to run on low gear for a while. But that's a luxury ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... showing that Lydia was not at Bath on Christmas Eve. We will tell her nothing, so she can suspect as much as she likes; if we do speak freely she will spread the gossip, and if we don't, she will invent worse facts; so in either case it doesn't matter. What is it you have ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... social mechanism is false, for evil prevails, and to a melancholy extent. If the former be true, then there is no hope of a better state of things, for every means of repression and constraint that human ingenuity could invent has been applied to regulate their action; but all in vain—they have remained unchanged, and in the eyes of the moralist as perverse as ever. If, however, the latter be true—that is, if the social mechanism be false—then there is a chance for a better future; for our incoherent ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... telling the story of some one else, and it was "all in the day's work" that he should have triumphed over his persecutors in a way more complete, more dramatic than any author of romance would dare invent for his hero. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... invent the country," said George. "That was Columbus. But I shall be delighted to consider any improvements you may suggest and lay them ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... important not to let it out, their stock of matches being limited. They then went down to the beach to search for more shell-fish, while Mr Shobbrok remained at the camp to watch the fire. He and the doctor put their heads together to invent various traps, with which they hoped to catch some of the numerous birds flitting about the woods, or any of the smaller ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... to be old, To take in sail:— The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: "No more! No farther shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... no necessary central figure, without comment, and with absolute concealment of any motive. I believe the three writers followed their instincts, without an analytic argument as to the method, as the great painter follows his when he puts an idea upon canvas. He may invent a theory about it afterwards; if he does not, some one else will invent it for him. There are degrees of art. One painter will put in unnecessary accessories, another will exhibit his sympathy too openly, the technique or the composition of another can be criticised. But the question ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... repeated at intervals ever since—Jefferson replied philosophically: "Whether I gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned neither to book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before." O wise young man, and fundamentally Anglo-Saxon young man, to turn his back, in that crisis, to the devil of mere cleverness, and stick to recognized ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... place, the Gentleman tells us how proper the care was that the chief priests took. I agree perfectly with him. Human policy could not invent a more proper method to guard against and prevent all fraud. They delivered the sepulchre, with the dead body in it, to a company of Roman soldiers, who had orders from their officer to watch the sepulchre. Their ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... tis possible to invent an Instrument that shall have a quite contrary Effect to those Martial ones now in use: An Instrument that shall sink the Spirits, and shake the Nerves, and curdle the Blood, and inspire Despair, and Cowardice ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Kashiku, who, notwithstanding her distress, was obliged to invent an answer, "I felt so dull all alone here, that I asked an old woman from next door to come in and drink a cup of wine with me, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... there was very little chance that he would know anything of what had occurred. It was a fortunate chance that the next day was Sunday, and there would be no morning paper to enlighten him as to the doings in Hampshire. They had only to invent some plausible excuse for their wish to accompany him, and get him to drop them upon the Spanish coast. Once out of sight of England and on the broad ocean, what detective ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... quality properly called extravagance or vice. Johnson's tenacity of old acquaintance introduced him into the Club, where he made himself so disagreeable, especially, as it seems, by rudeness to Burke, that he found it expedient to invent a pretext for resignation. Johnson called him a "very unclubable man," and may perhaps have intended him in the quaint description: "I really believe him to be an honest man at the bottom; though, to be sure, he is rather penurious, and he is somewhat ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... genuine message, all these elements of creative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great amount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the teaching and the example of every possible past or present art, exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something, anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... old," she said to herself, "and if I do not choose a husband soon, I shall never get one! I know that either of those men would gladly marry me to-morrow, but I cannot decide between them. I must invent some way to find out which of them is the best, and ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... The children, who were to be utterly undone with their father, were intirely innocent; and as for Amelia herself, though he thought he had most convincing proofs of very blameable levity, yet his former friendship and affection to her were busy to invent every excuse, till, by very heavily loading the husband, they lightened the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the assistance of his father, removed all the weapons from the walls. After Telemachus had retired to his chamber, Penelope came down, and sitting upon her ivory throne conversed with the beggar, questioning him about his story until he was driven to invent tales that seemed like truth, and asking about her husband while the tears ran down her fair cheeks. By a great effort Ulysses kept his tears from falling as he beheld his wife weeping over him; he assured her that ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... of goods, with the object of saving labor, and of gaining time for the production of further wealth, looking to the gratification of higher wants. Such a common interest spurs all to bend their thoughts towards simplifying and quickening the process of labor. The ambition to invent and discover is stimulated to the highest pitch: each will seek to outdo the other ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... favourable, not extraordinarily high. He was recognised as a past-master of the verse roman d'aventures in octosyllabic couplet, who probably took his heterogeneous materials wherever he found them; "did not invent much" (as Thackeray says of Smollett), but treated whatever he did treat in a singularly light and pleasant manner, not indeed free from the somewhat undistinguished fluency to which this "light and lewed" couplet, as Chaucer calls it, is liable, and showing no strong grasp either of character or ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... small Bugis state, we came to suspect that the memory of his mother (of whom he spoke with enthusiasm) mingled somehow in his mind with the image he tried to form for himself of the far-off Queen whom he called Great, Invincible, Pious, and Fortunate. We had to invent details at last to satisfy his craving curiosity; and our loyalty must be pardoned, for we tried to make them fit for his august and resplendent ideal. We talked. The night slipped over us, over the still schooner, over the sleeping land, and over the sleepless sea that thundered amongst ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... the office routine without understanding the business, like all the other sons; and the firm would go on by its own momentum until the real Undershaft—probably an Italian or a German—would invent a new ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... energy and effort were used with the object of averting wars by smoothing away difficulties and removing causes of friction between the nations as there is effort and persistency on the other side to aggravate, and even invent, conditions likely to cause mutual irritation, distrust, and dislike, much good would accrue. Nations depend largely for their prosperity upon their trade with other nations, and peace is the greatest interest to all; yet the actions of some noisy and hysterical sections ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... flattered him in every way in words, but in reality never thought of anything except by what means she might get rid of Katoma. With the Prince, without the tutor, there'd be no difficulty in settling matters! she said to herself. But whatever slanders she might invent, Prince Ivan never would allow himself to be influenced by what she said, but always felt sorry for his tutor. At the end of a year he said to ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... out. This, Mab said, was absurd, and, in fact, she was heartily tired of the whole thing before the Owl had explained to her half-a-dozen ingenious structures. She said that inanimate objects had no business to be so clever, and that, if the mechanicians did not take care, they would shortly invent machines that would conspire together to assassinate them, and then ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... school of archaeology, still very much in general favor, that all these identities are to be explained as the natural result of the innate tendencies of untutored men, on their evolutionary rise, at certain cultural stages, to imagine the same myths and invent the same rites. From this as a principle I wholly dissent; it simply does not meet the facts. There are of course many facts to which it does apply, such as those that both Chinese and Americans made paper, tanned leather, made feather ornaments, used star and flower names ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... writer of history proposes to himself an original method. The English and French confess to general principles of historical composition, their viewpoint being more nearly that of cosmopolitan or national culture. Among us, each labors to invent a purely individual point of view; instead of writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... just the sort of canard which the gentry on the other side of the frontier would invent to keep things quiet. Who are the Englishmen ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... brains to invent some plan or other by which to set Judie at work and keep her at ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... dining room, living room, and den, she fixed them on me with rather a mischievous twinkle, as she said, "You shall gather and arrange the flowers for the house; and always have plenty of them, but never a withered or dropsical blossom among them all. You shall also invent new ways for arranging them, new combinations, new effects, the only restriction being that you shall not put vases where the water will drip on books, or make the house look like the show window of a wholesale florist. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... does to a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them. Though a very clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent. The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem., and there is no similar instance of a 'motive' which is taken from Xenophon in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... set her wits to work, and was ingenious enough to invent an arrangement of small straps about the saddle, by which a great deal could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass. Here she now spread out and fastened a plain dark walking-dress and a few other trifles of apparel. Worm opened the gate for ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... that noble little army, (standing army we call it!) on which the State prides itself not a little, and spends no end of money. For ourselves, (if the reader but permit us,) we have long admired this little Spartan force, saying all the good things of it our prosy brain could invent, and in the kindest manner recommending its uniform good character as a model for our very respectable society to fashion after. Indeed, we have, in the very best nature of a modern historian, endeavored to enlighten the barbarian world outside of South Carolina as to the terrible consequences ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... move in conversation by the very principle of interruption? And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually on the fret to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented before my time, 'non interrumpunt at interrupturiunt.' You can't talk in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a right to do by Magna Charta, it is quite out of the question when ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... examined. But having a hearty dislike to the strict discipline of which I had heard, I went to Nordhausen, and had myself examined to be received into that school. I then went home, but never told my father a word of all this deception till the day before my departure, which obliged me to invent a whole chain of lies. He was then very angry; but at last, through my entreaties and persuasion, he gave way and allowed me to go. ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... place we had 8 coulours. Who would not shake att the sight of so many men, women, and children armed with all sorte of Instruments: staves, hand Irons, heelskins wherein they putt halfe a score [of] bullets? Others had brands, rods of thorne, and all suchlike that the Crueltie could invent to putt their Prisoners to greater torments. Heere, no help, no remedy. We must passe this dangerous passage in our extremity without helpe. He that is the fearfullest, or that is observed to stay the last, getts nothing by it butt more blowes, and putt him ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... me the explanation of these words? A. Beauty to adorn; Divinity, that Masonry is of divine origin; Wisdom, a quality to invent; Power, to destroy the profane and unworthy brethren; Honor, is an indispensable quality in a Mason, that he may support himself in his engagements with respectability; Glory, that a good Mason is on an equality with the greatest prince; ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... continually spies upon all religious and charitable institutions in Rome, and does not hesitate to invent stories of crime outright when it fails to detect one of those little flaws which its press magnifies to ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... St. Julian, that I am busy to torment myself, that I invent a thousand imaginary misfortunes. And is this to torment myself to address my friend in these poor lines? Is this to deceive myself with unreal evils? Even while Matilda cherishes the fond idea of pouring out her complaints ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... invention.... But of all his injuries to Aesop, that which can least be forgiven him is the making such a monster of him for ugliness,—an abuse that has found credit so universally that all the modern painters since the time of Planudes have drawn him in the worst shapes and features that fancy could invent. 'Twas an old tradition among the Greeks that Aesop revived again and lived a second life. Should he revive once more and see the picture before the book that carries his name, could he think it drawn for himself?—or for the monkey, or some strange beast ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... spite of all, I loved Zerbino, the rogue! I decided to wait until evening, but it was impossible to remain inactive. If we were doing something I thought we might not feel the pangs of hunger so keenly. If I could invent something to distract us, we might, for the time being, forget that we were so ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... But he considers her my wife, and she is sacred. I have the fullest faith in his word, and I experience a positive relief, a real joy, at finding my staunch Yves of bygone days. How could I have so succumbed to the demeaning influence of my surroundings as to suspect him even, and invent for myself ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... thou 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 ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... another, to prevent the seamen from being washed overboard. Sometimes these breast-works were made of skins or wicker-work, and in bad weather were raised to a considerable height above the bulwarks. It is said that Anacharsis, upwards of 500 B.C., if he did not invent, greatly improved the form of anchors, which were already made of iron. The anchor had generally two flukes or teeth, and was then called bidens; but sometimes it had only one. We use the same terms ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... observed; "especially when you know that one little clip on either wing would upset us like a stone. Excuse me, if you please. I'll never be fully happy when flying until we invent some sort of little parachute that in case of a drop will give a fellow a chance for ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... Play with all the impatient haste one ought to do, who would be vindicated from the most unjust and silly aspersion, Woman could invent to cast on Woman; and which only my being a Woman has procured me; That it was Baudy, the least and most Excusable fault in the Men writers, to whose Plays they all crowd, as if they came to no other end than to hear what they condemn in this: but from a Woman it was unnaturall: ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... abundant examples of contrivances of this kind; and, having noted them, we end by not knowing which most to wonder at—the obstinacy of the Egyptians in not seeking to discover the natural laws of perspective, or the inexhaustible wealth of resource which enabled them to invent so many false relations between the various ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... Confederate officer who was trying to escape in the disguise of a clergyman and that he had therefore tried to arrest him. He could, of course, give no grounds for the accusation, still questions might be asked which would be impossible for him to answer; and, however plausible a story he might invent, the lawyer whom the fellow would doubtless employ to defend him might suggest that the truth of his statements might be easily tested by the dispatch of a telegram, in which case he would be placed in a most awkward situation. It was better to run the risk of trouble with the fellow ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the creations of her fancy, and strove by them to throw a soft illusion around the rough facts of their daily life. The mystery surrounding him furnished her not meagrely with material for her imagination; she could invent nothing that seemed to herself incredible; her fairy tales were not more wonderful than facts as she beheld them. She taught the boy songs; she gave him language. The clothes he wore, bought with her own money, fashioned by her own hands, were such as became the beauty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... restaurants and food purveyors invent palate tickling food to tease the human to eat, and hotels and restaurants are mostly patronized by people who do not have much physical work to do; the consequence is they eat ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... is!" broke in a new voice. "Bless my overshoes, but he is a smart lad! A wonderful lad, that's what! Why, bless my necktie, there isn't anything he can't invent; from a button-hook to a ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... mechanics, entitle us. I have heard a man exclaim, after contemplating the structure and uses of a house-clock, "Is it not fitting that such as we should be slaves to people who have the ingenuity to invent, and the skill to construct, so wonderful a machine as this?" "The sun," he added, "is a machine of this nature." "But who winds it up?" said his companion. "Who but Allah," he replied. This admiration of our superior attainments is however ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... shall be yours—with alligators at last to abolish the last traces of you! Do you like snakes, Ganesha? Do you like a madhouse in the dark? I think not. Therefore, Ganesha, you shall be left to yourself to think a little while. Think keenly! Invent a means of finding Athelstan and I will let you go free for his sake. But—fail—to think—of a successful plan—Ganesha—and you shall suffer in every atom of your big body! ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... coming out from England to assume official duties, you must take a larger view of your dignities than the clubs are accustomed to admit. For the sex that does not hunt jackals it is easier—you have only to be a little frivolous and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the impression that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of these things is perennial, and the ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... can't fly, and he can't invent things, and he'll never be the man in any career that Eagle will," I reminded her. "You know this as well as I do. That's why you're waiting. Don't you think you'd better explain your true state of mind to me, if you don't want me to work ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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
... there are many instances of cruelty. But they say a man who is known to illtreat his negroes is hated by all the rest of the community. They declare that Yankees make the worst masters when they settle in the South; and all seem to be perfectly aware that slavery, which they did not invent, but which they inherited from us (English), is and always will be the great bar to the sympathy of the civilised world. I have heard these words ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Friday,' Vida said slyly as her sister was preparing to leave the house, 'you'd invent some errand to take you out of the contaminated air of ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... letters marked 'missing' or 'can't be found.' Folks used to come in gay and go away with a letter just crumpled up in a hand. And now it's all over—and up you come right gallant and happy. Here comes old Granny Lamb tottering along. I'd invent a letter from that brute if I could. I tell you, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... speeches of its orators which have come down to us) no less remarkable for the native intelligence of its population than for the wide extent of their information, owing to the activity of their publishers in diffusing all that they could invent, beg, borrow, or steal. Nor were they less noted for their perfect freedom from all restraints in thought, or speech, or deed; except, to be sure, the beneficent and wise influence of the majority, exerted, in case of need, through an institution known as "tarring and feathering," ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... continued, "several times the same day, under any pretext I could invent—to gather an orange, or other fruit—to pluck a rose—to frighten away mischievous birds—to catch the unobstructed breeze, or sit in a cooler shade; in which artifices I played a part that had before been foreign to my nature. I was disappointed, however, in my wishes. I thought, indeed, I once ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband invent something? He does nothing but tell lies ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... teach me by your intervention how to become a good patriot in his sense—that is to say, to hate Russia, and to turn away from this alliance, for the sake of which I have been insulted. It was policy that induced the Emperor Napoleon to invent these calumnies, and it was policy again that induced your uncle to have you communicate them to me. This is a consolation; for, as it is, I am suffering only for the sake of my people, and you made me a martyr of the German cause. But I will bear all without complaining, however ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... papers had not been a 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... a great fuss about discovering the beat way to teach children to read. They invent "bureaux" [Footnote: Translator's note.—The "bureau" was a sort of case containing letters to be put together to form words. It was a favourite device for the teaching of reading and gave its name to a special method, called the bureau-method, of learning to read.] and cards, they turn ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... beautiful sights are offered to the eyes of man by the all-powerful hands of the Creator! And how often have I remarked that the works of nature are far superior to those that men tire themselves to erect and invent! ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... fuchsias or scarlet geraniums? Then to look out into the light through flowers—is not that poetry? And to break the force of the sunbeams by the tender resistance of green leaves? If you can train a nasturtium round the window, or some sweet-peas, then you have the most beautiful frame you can invent for the picture without, whether it be the busy crowd, or a distant landscape, or trees with their lights and shades, or the changes of the passing clouds. Any one may thus look through flowers for the price of an old song. And what a pure taste and refinement does it not ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... he was rather wild, scorned to invent a lie to explain where the money came from, as perhaps some of his companions might have done ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... to read in the life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, that his lordship's court enemies, "hard put to it to find, or invent, something tending to the diminution of his character," took advantage of his going to see a rhinoceros, to circulate a foolish story of him, which much annoyed him. It was in the reign of James II. his biographer thus records it. The rhinoceros, referred to, was the first ever brought to ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... of delight. Rise, sing to God the thoughts that fill thy brain, Thy buried pleasures and thy long-past pain. Come, with a kiss, where unknown regions gleam, Awake the mingling echoes of thy days, Sing of thy folly, glory, joy and praise, Be all an unpremeditated dream! Let us invent a realm where one forgets, Come, we are all alone, the world is ours. Green Scotland tawny Italy offsets; Lo, Greece my mother, with her honeyed flowers, Argos and Pteleon with its shrines and groves, Celestial Messa populous with doves; And Pelion with ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... to sell goods is a talent, my dear Miss Harris, just like the power to invent machinery or to rule a city, or—or—to keep a set of books. Don't you agree with me, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... and boyish work; but it has a certain likeness for the worse to the crudest work of Shakespeare. It is difficult to say to what depths of bad taste the writer of certain passages in Venus and Adonis could not fall before his genius or his judgment was full-grown. To invent an earlier play on the subject and imagine this scene a surviving fragment, a floating waif of that imaginary wreck, would in my opinion be an uncritical mode of evading the question at issue. It must be regarded as the last ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... needs invent Heaven if it had not been revealed to us; there are some things that fall so bitterly ill on this side Time! As for the Major, I have long since forgiven him. He broke the news to the poor Colonel's daughter: I am told he did it kindly; and sure, nobody could have done it without tears! His share ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... voice returned,— "So soon made happy? Hadst thou learned What God accounteth happiness, Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess What hell may be his punishment For those who doubt if God invent Better than they. Let such men rest Content with what they judged the best. Let the unjust usurp at will: The filthy shall be filthy still: Miser, there waits the gold for thee! Hater, indulge thine ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... don't expect you'd admit anything's happenin' until a boat begins to turn flip-flops. Do you know, Rupert, there's times when you make me sad in the spine. Honest, now, you didn't invent ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... from table Timea asked her husband to go with her to the office. Michael began to think what he could invent when she should ask him about his journey. But she never referred to it even remotely. She placed two chairs at the desk, and laid her hand on the open day-book. "Here, sir, is the account of your business since the time when you gave over ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... fulfild: As Mars in threescore yeares doth run his spheare. So, since the winged god his planet cleare Began in me to move, one yeare is spent; The which doth longer unto me appeare, Then al those fourty which my life out-went. Then, by that count which lovers books invent, The spheare of Cupid fourty yeares containes, Which I have wasted in long languishment, That seem'd the longer for my greater paines. But let my Loves fayre planet short her wayes This yeare ensuing, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... he was all the time inventin' things. Well, now he's got set that he can invent a machine so as you can see the dead. I mean spirits. Well, of course he's crazy. Josh says he's crazy as a bluefish. But what's troublin' him now is that he can't finish his machine. He says that if he ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... be very silly of you. I should lose a day, that's all. Whereas you would lose all the days that remain to you to live. But no, the hiding-place is too good. A fellow doesn't invent a thing like that for fun. Come on, Sebastiani. You shall have the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... the dark part of the evening before tea-time, and the boys, sitting idly round the fire, were in an apt mood for folly and mischief. They began a vehement discussion about Paton's demerits, and called him every hard name they could invent. Walter took little part in this, for he was smarting too severely under the sense of oppression to find relief in mere abuse; but, from his flashing eyes and the dark scowl that sat so ill on his face it was evident that a bad spirit had obtained ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... and I had had a hard time at the office, for it seemed that my patient forbearing way of receiving all the fault-finding made Mr Dempster go home at night to invent unpleasant things to say, till, as I had listened, it had seemed as if my blood boiled, and a hot ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... ineffectual, as to the ends thereof: then he tried another way, which was, to stir up the minds of the ignorant and malicious to load me with slanders and reproaches: now therefore I may say, that what the devil could devise, and his instruments invent, was whirled up and down the country against me, thinking, as I said, that by that means they should make my ministry ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... 17: Scouts can readily invent a whistle code of their own. The Western Indians used whistles of bone, in war, and the United States Army can ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... answer; and drew against the innocent a sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued edicts, written, if I may use the expression, with a poniard; and ordered the judges to employ all their skill to invent new modes of punishment. Euseb. Vit Constant. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... six feet high is a mile off, it says that he is only six inches high. The eye can see nothing of the vast microscopic living world which lies within six inches of the eyeball, and so we have had to invent a microscope to make up for this serious deficiency. But what would the Russian Witte not have given if he could have telegraphed to St. Petersburg that he had actually SEEN the Japanese Komura while they were talking about making peace at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and that ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... South has refused to accept immigration as a means of supplying our demands for labor. The farmers stand up and howl about preserving the pure blood of the South and invent all sorts of reasons for prohibiting the immigration of the same classes of people who have been making the North and East rich for years; the same classes that build the eighth wonder of the world—the Middle West. Now, if we are going ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... which 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 ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... said Moses gently. "And if you take my advice, you never will have. If you have no secrets, my dear, they will never be found out. If you tell your little designs, your best friends will be satisfied, and will not invent less creditable ones ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... appears on your table. And, in general, the more you can do without the employment of butter that has been subjected to the influence of heat, the better. The woman of modern times is not a "leech;" but she might often keep the "leech" from the door, if she would give herself the trouble to invent innocent sauces. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... coerce, constrain, require, necessitate, occasion, oblige; create, construct, fabricate manufacture, compose, invent, prepare, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... dish or scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do not fear to hope. Can poet's brain More than the Father's heart rich good invent? Each time we smell the autumn's dying scent, We know the primrose time will come again; Not more we hope, nor less would soothe our pain. Be bounteous in thy faith, for not mis-spent Is confidence unto the Father lent: Thy ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... he must forget, and invent some tale for Adrienne. Again he opened his eyes and trembled in spite of himself, as he saw, on both sides of the cab, workmen slowly trudging along the sidewalks with their hands in their pockets, their noses red, a wretched worn-out silk scarf about their necks and swinging on their arms ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... movements and to have the War Department Bulletin read to him. It was pathetic to see the little girl, night and day, bent over her map of Germany, sticking in pins with little flags on them, and trying hard to invent to the last detail a successful campaign: Bazaine advancing on Berlin, Frossard penetrating Bavaria, and Mac Mahon ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... my regret that my father did not either uniformly keep to the true Erewhonian names, as in the cases of Senoj Nosnibor, Ydgrun, Thims, &c.—names which occur constantly in Erewhon—or else invariably invent a name, as he did whenever he considered the true name impossible. My poor mother's name, for example, was really Nna Haras, and Mahaina's Enaj Ysteb, which he dared not face. He, therefore, gave these characters the first names that euphony suggested, without any attempt at ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... set of actions half seen and words half heard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more precious than all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vast superstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece of empty folly such as children or savages might invent? ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... saturnine mouth drooped in ever so faint a grin as his keen eyes fixed themselves for a moment full upon the other's face. Laurence had forgotten the tell-tale imprint left in the centre of his forehead by the muzzle. "So? See here, Stanninghame, don't be at the trouble to invent any more sick old lies, but put the thing away. It might go off. Don't mind me; I've been ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... God must invent some scheme by which to make it possible for him to save these lost and fallen men. If you read the parable of the Prodigal Son as Jesus has so tenderly, touchingly, beautifully outlined it for us, you will see that ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... man. He was very rich. He had a little girl with sick bones. She had to sit in a wheel chair all day long and be pushed around by a Black Woman. He asked our Aunt Esta to invent a Game for her. The little ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... afternoon. But before night everybody knew he had come home, and next morning they were all at him in due order. No sooner was he seated in his workshop, studying the lines of a new machine he was trying to invent, than he was startled from intense thought into the attitude of Hogarth's enraged musician by cries of "Mr. Hope! Mr. Hope! Mr. Hope!" and there was a little lot of eager applicants. First a gypsy boy with long black curls and continuous genuflections, and a fiddle, and doleful ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... feed he enjoys so well as a young lamb. Coyotes seem to know when the lambs 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 ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... an indictable offence—to say nothing of altering his appearance. As for the money"—he made a little gesture of contempt—"well, do you think it would pay us to cheat you? There is always the chance that a gentleman who can invent things like this explosive and the Lyndon-Marwood torpedo may have other equally ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... hypothesis of evolution, repeats the remarkable words of the "Coming of Age of the Origin of Species," that] "the paleontological discoveries of the last decade are so completely in accordance with the requirements of this hypothesis that, if it had not existed, the paleontologist would have had to invent it." ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... who built under Foscari, in 1424 (remember my date for the decline of Venice, 1418), was obliged to follow the principal forms of the older palace. But he had not the wit to invent new capitals in the same style; he therefore clumsily copied the old ones. The palace has seventeen main arches on the sea faade, eighteen on the Piazzetta side, which in all are of course carried by thirty-six pillars; and these pillars I shall always number from right ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... error.. Suits of conditions unperformed.. To Hocus for dedimus protestatem.. To ditto for a capias ad computandum.. To Frog's new tenants per account to Hocus, for audita querelas.. On the said account for writs of ejectment and distringas.. To Esquire South's quota for a return of a non est invent and nulla habet bona.. To —— for a pardon in forma pauperis.. To Jack for a melius inquirendum upon a felo-de-se.. To coach-hire.. For treats to juries ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... summoned by three or four. The most elaborate dinner, served in the most gorgeous china, is sometimes spoiled by the Draconian regulation that it must be devoured between the unholy hours of twelve and two, or have all its courses brought on the table at once. Though the Americans invent the most delicate forms of machinery, their hoop-iron knives, silver plated for facility in cleaning, are hardly calculated to tackle anything harder than butter, and compel the beef-eater to return to the tearing methods of his remotest ancestors. The waiter sometimes rivals ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of the public that constitute our audiences demand action, tricks—or at least tricky and novel touches here and there—in your dancing entertainment. The old stuff doesn't "get over" with you any more. So we invent new things that present what you are bound to like, and the eccentric and acrobatic toe dances ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... perceived that so new and important a scheme of reform would require more violent means to carry it into effect, and, just as in plays supernatural machinery is resorted to where ordinary human means would fail to produce the wished-for termination, even so did Lysander invent oracular responses and prophecies and bring them to bear on the minds of his countrymen, feeling that he would gain but little by pronouncing Kleon's oration, unless the Spartans had previously, by superstition ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... obligations to Italy for painting and sculpture, to France for mathematical science, popular comedy, and the culture of the salon, to the Jews for finance, and to other nations for those town amusements which we are so slow to invent for ourselves, we shall still not have exhausted or even adequately illustrated the multifarious influences shed on every department of Roman life by the newly transplanted genius of Hellas. It was not that ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... speak in the Temple to that crowd. But the humble fisherman had been filled with the Spirit, who is the Strengthener, and the fear of man was dead in him. If we had never heard of Pentecost, we should need to invent something of the sort to make intelligible the transformation of these timid folk, the first disciples, into heroes. A dead Christ, lying in an unknown grave, could never have inspired His crushed followers with such courage, insight, and elastic confidence and gladness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... himself out, propped upon his elbows to listen whole-heartedly, fixing his great luminous eyes on Mary's face. Mary wished he wouldn't look at her so. She felt she could make a better job of the ghost story if Walter were not looking at her. She could put on several frills and invent a few artistic details to enhance the horror. As it was, she had to stick to the bare truth—or what had been told ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... looking man, somewhat consequential in his manners, was an imposing figure in the eyes of this youth, new to city ways, and he was much impressed with the emphatic assurance that a fortune was in store for the man who would invent a sewing-machine. He was the more struck with it because he had already amused himself with inventing some slight improvements, and recently he had caught from Davis the habit of meditating new devices. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... have had more highly-developed instincts, which enabled them to avoid or use poisons; but the late Archbishop Whately has proved, that wholly untaught savages never could invent anything, or even subsist at all. Abundant corroboration of his arguments is met with in this country, where the natives require but little in the way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... Makrobiotic, invented the term "geistige Onanie," to express the filling and heating of the imagination with voluptuous images, without unchastity of body; and in 1844, Kaan, in his Psychopathia Sexualis, used, but did not invent, the term "onania psychica." Gustav Jaeger, in his Entdeckung der Seele, proposed "monosexual idiosyncrasy," to indicate the most animal forms of masturbation taking place without any correlative imaginative element, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... seek or invent them," said Mrs. Scherman, with grave, innocent eyes and lifted brows. "I didn't name myself, in the first place; did I? Sinsie had to be Sinsie; and then—how am I accountable for the blessed luck that gave me for best friends dear old Marmaduke ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... excuse," does not here mean to invent an excuse, and falsely state, as a reason, that which is, in point of fact, not the motive of the act. To make excuse, both in the original Greek ([Greek: paraiteisthai]) and in the English translation, signifies simply to ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Meldon, "that you're telling me a pack of lies from start to finish. There's not a judge in the world would say the words you're putting into that one's mouth. It isn't the way judges talk, nor the least like it. You oughtn't to try and invent things, Callaghan. You can't do it. You haven't got any faculty for dramatic probability in characterisation. That story of yours wouldn't go down with Major Kent, and what's the good of your offering ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... engines, all sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make anything a body wanted—anything in the world, it didn't make any difference what; and if there wasn't any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, I could invent one—and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I became head superintendent; had a couple of thousand men ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a gift as intelligence. If they perceive its animal basis they cannot conceive its ideal affinities or understand what is meant by calling it divine; if they perceive its ideality and see the immortal essences that swim into its ken, they hotly deny that it is an animal faculty, and invent ultramundane places and bodiless persons in which it is to reside; as if those celestial substances could be, in respect to thought, any less material than matter or, in respect to vision and life, any less instrumental than bodily organs. It never occurs to them that if nature ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... and microscopes make the law of nature? What did the first law-giver think when, seeking for the corner-stone in the social edifice, angered doubtless by some idle importunity, he struck the tables of brass and felt in his bowels the yearning for a law of retaliation? Did he, then, invent justice? And the first who plucked the fruit planted by his neighbor and who fled cowering under his mantle, did he invent shame? And he who, having overtaken that same thief who had robbed him of the product of his toil, forgave him his sin, and, instead of raising his hand to smite him, ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... ter wot a mare as was runnin' leader in Daly's 'bus used ter do," began another, stirred by that rivalry which makes talkers magnify and invent to cap a story; but he stopped suddenly as two ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... worship me on that account. I assure you, madam, the merest mediocrities can discover the most surprising facts about the physical universe as soon as they are civilized enough to have time to study these things, and to invent instruments and apparatus for research. But what is the consequence? Their discoveries discredit the simple stories of our religion. At first we had no idea of astronomical space. We believed the sky to be only the ceiling of a room as large as the earth, ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... of her father Alexius Comnenus, Emperor of Constantinople who died A.D. 1118, informs us that the game of chess which she calls Zatrikion was introduced by the Arabians into Greece, The Arabians had it from the Persians, who say that they themselves did not invent it, but that they received it from the Indians, who brought it into Persia in the time of the Great Chosroes, who reigned in Persia 48 years, and died A.D. 576, he was contemporary with the Emperor ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... material to express desire there must also be a world composed of desire stuff. Carrying our argument to its logical conclusion, we also hold that unless a World of Thought provides a reservoir of mind stuff upon which we may draw, it would be impossible for us to think and invent the things which we see in even ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... a very strong interest in the revelation. The essential point, however, to be observed, is that it is the real truth in respect to the subject that the world are now interested in knowing. Were a romance writer to invent a tale in respect to the origin of writing, however ingenious and entertaining it might be in its details, it would excite in the learned world at the present day no ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... question. Did you invent this Turkish cabinet, the secret staircases and halls, and the mysterious language of the bells, for the sole purpose of relating to me here the history of our past feelings ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... a hitherto indomitable pride had upheld her to face it so far as was necessary to secure her independence; both of which—pride and shame—prevented her from appearing where it was unnecessary, and especially in church. I could do nothing more than wait for a favourable opportunity. I could invent no way of reaching her yet; for I had soon found that kindness to her boy was regarded rather in the light of an insult to her. I should have been greatly puzzled to account for his being such a sweet ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... The average man, whom one knows superficially, is a formula, or seems to live the life of a formula. That is why we find him dull. The characters who interest us in history and literature, on the other hand, are perpetually giving the lie to the formulae we invent, and are bound to invent, for them. They give us pleasure not by confirming us, but by surprising us. It seems to me absurd, then, to regard Walpole's air of indifference as the only real thing about him and to question his ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... "Invent one," she insisted swiftly. "Leave here before ten o'clock. Don't let anything keep you. And destroy that piece of paper in ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Museum, and was gradually becoming convalescent after a terrible attack of gout, which had left both her arms useless for many months. During this time they were strapped to her sides, and she had to invent a machine to turn over the pages of her book. But the bracing influence of her mind on those around her was unimpaired. In the years which followed, the habit of correspondence grew up between them, strengthening, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... are resolved to be lords— Of expurging even troublesome parish records. What think ye of scissors? depend on't no heir Of a Shamdos should go unsupplied with a pair, As whate'er else the learned in such lore may invent, Your scissors does wonders in proving descent. Yes, poets may sing of those terrible shears With which Atropos snips off both bumpkins and peers, But they're naught to that weapon which shines in the hands Of some would-be Patricians, when proudly he stands ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in large ideas and painted splendid canvases; it was necessary for him to invent a style which should be capable of sustained and lofty dignity, which should be ornate enough to maintain the interest of the reader and charm him and at the same time not so ornate as to give an air of meretricious decoration to what was largely ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... characteristics, circumstances, position and life of the house-owner and his family. This is the true mission of the decorator, although it is not always so understood. What is called business talent may lead him to invent schemes of costliness which relate far more to his own profit than to the wishes or ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... therefore (thinking him to be an exorable as well as an Omniscient, and Omnipotent Being) were hereby on These occasions taught to deprecate his Vengeance, and implore his Mercy: And hence the more Guilty and Fearful came to invent Attonements, Expiations, Penances and Purgations, with all that various Train of Ceremonies which attended those Things; Naturally imagining that the Divine Nature resembled their own; and thence ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... advance of the age," said Miss Archer; "and what with that and the telephone, and that dreadful phonograph that bottles up all one says and disgorges at inconvenient times, we will soon be able to do everything by electricity; who knows but some genius will invent something for the especial use of lovers? something, for instance, to carry in their pockets, so when they are far away from each other, and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they will have only to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful lovers ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... I don't believe he can invent anything that will go ahead of our craft, even if he is my own father, and the best one in the world," said Tom, half jokingly. "Well, I got the bolts, now let's get to work. I'm anxious for ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... dozen of the bunches of fire: he had also put out the lives of the six, silly, little things who carried them. For a few swift pressures of his mighty feet had squeezed out their breath and destroyed their power to invent mischief with which to ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... 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 in ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... did not know how the bull came to be killed behind his house, and, in spite of all the Maharajah's hints, would not invent a story to account for it. The Maharajah could have accounted for it fifty times over, if it had happened to him. Besides, Dr. Roberts freely admitted having breakfasted upon beefsteak, and didn't know where it had come from! ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... most tortured Florent was his inability to invent a reason for leaving the house. During a week he kept on revolving in his mind a sentence expressing his resolve to take his meals elsewhere, but could not bring himself to utter it. Indeed, this man of tender nature lived in such a world of illusions that he ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... what might be done, he answered that if any one could find out or invent any new effective means to keep the birds from the fruit, the fruit-growers would be very thankful for it; but that no such invention could be looked for from those who are engaged on the soil; that it must come from those who do not dig and sweat, but sit still ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... father, the cavalry captain, and even the dreaded teacher looked approvingly on. It was after that episode of no avail for even the sturdiest of their schoolmates to seek to belittle the Cranston fame. Louis, the elder, could not invent a whopper so big as to tax the credulity of the school. Buffalo Bill was "starring it" with his theatrical company through the States that spring, playing some blood-curdling, scalp-taking; hair-raising border drama which all boys eager strove to see, and when ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... and truly humanising anxiety to assuage the horrors of what is perhaps the most frightful idea that has ever corroded human character, the idea of eternal punishment? We could in part have pardoned Condorcet if he had striven to invent ever so fanciful origins for opinions and belief in his solicitude for the credit of humanity. As it is, he distorts the history of religion only to humanity's discredit. How, if the people were always predisposed to virtue, were priests, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... sent me that story?" he asked. "It was M. Raoul; and he travelled across from Plymouth in the ship with this M. Benest, who happened to get his exchange at about the same time. It was clever of him to worm out the story—if, indeed, he did not invent it. But that young man has genius ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she was as dark as her present ladyship is fair. Wherever she went, I tell you, the women were ready to cry for spite and envy of her good looks—and they would say anything against her they could invent. That's the way they go on sometimes in ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... him on the field of slaughter. I will telegraph pages. I will refurbish my military vocabulary, and speak of deploying and massing and throwing out advance guards, and that sort of thing. I will move detachments and advance brigades, and invent strategy. We will have desperate fighting in the columns of the Argus, whatever there is on the fields of Canada. But to a man who has seen real war this opra-bouffe masquerade of fighting——I don't want to say anything harsh, but ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... prison till after dark, when I had two miles to walk in returning to the house. Oh, how many times have I returned from that dreary prison at nine o'clock at night, solitary and worn out with fatigue and anxiety, and endeavoured to invent some new scheme for the release ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... buildings that have been destroyed in the neighborhood of our camps. Every means is resorted to which Yankee ingenuity can devise to make our soldier-homes as comfortable and convenient as possible. Punch says, "that a Yankee baby will creep out of his cradle, take a survey of it, invent an improved style and apply for a patent, before he is six months old," and this he said some time ago; what he would say now, we cannot tell. If a house has been abandoned by its inmates anywhere within our lines, it is taken as prima facie evidence ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... condition—character it cannot be termed—of Archibald Malmaison himself. This being the case, it follows that the greater part of the objections above insisted upon fall to the ground. What goes on inside a man must needs be accepted as it is revealed to us: to invent psychological attributes does not lie within the province of a romancer. His skill and power are confined to so selecting and arranging the incidents as to provide his psychological data with the freest ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... trophies, it is discovered that B and Mrs. A are old flames, while each finds a mistaken reason to suspect that A and Mrs. B have also met years before, and at least dallied with courtship. Thus while their spouses alternately rage with suspicion and invent devices to conceal their own defaults, A and Mrs. B sit innocently nursing their illusions and their symbolical flitches. The situation holds plenty of comedy, and the main motive begins to explain itself. Now then for anagnorisis, comic peripeteia, division ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Nevertheless, so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... and eye over its edges and open the book—"at the very exact spot." He proposed to follow this business up with a quite Germanic thoroughness. "Presently," he said, "I must study the machinery by which the edges of books are cut. It is possible I may have to invent these also." This was the double-barrelled scheme of Herr Heinrich's career. And along it he was to go, and incidentally develop his large vague heart that was at present so ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Theophan. Chronograph. p. 314. This defect, if it really existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the Arabs to invent or borrow.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... "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
... on a bit of greasy paper in a bad light, may easily think of this transfer of fractions as a dangerous and terrifying process. It is, for a properly trained man, the easiest, exactest job conceivable. The Cash Register people will invent machines to do it for you while you wait. What happens, then, is that every candidate with more than a quota, beginning with the top candidate, sheds a traction of each vote he has received, down the list, and the next ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... and fell. It was very easy for her to invent "dleams" for "deah littoo Mophez" lying in his bulrush ark among the flags at the river's edge. And, wholly regardless of geography, she transported him to the Amber, where the flags were almost in bloom at that moment, such local colour adding ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... the three temptations. The statement of those three questions was itself the miracle. If it were possible to imagine simply for the sake of argument that those three questions of the dread spirit had perished utterly from the books, and that we had to restore them and to invent them anew, and to do so had gathered together all the wise men of the earth—rulers, chief priests, learned men, philosophers, poets—and had set them the task to invent three questions, such as would not only fit the occasion, but express in three words, three human phrases, the whole ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cause for saying, as you are wont to do, that this wise man of ours is nowhere to be found; we do not invent him as an unreal glory of the human race, or conceive a mighty shadow of an untruth, but we have displayed and will display him just as we sketch him, tho he may perhaps be uncommon, and only one appears at long intervals; for what is great and transcends the common ordinary ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... however, supplied it with embellishments more suo, and seems to have taken it from an original fuller than our text as is shown by sundry poetical and other passages which he apparently did not invent. Lane (vol. ii. chap. 12), noting that its chief and best portion is an historical anecdote related as a fact, is inclined to think that it is not a genuine tale of The Nights. He finds it in Al-Ishaki who finished his history about the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Romeo, and of Imogen's words when Posthumus leaves her. Throughout the play Henry is the poet's favourite, and in the gentle King's lament for Gloster's death we find a peculiarity of Shakespeare's art. It was a part of the cunning of his exquisite sensibility to invent a new word whenever he was deeply moved, the intensity of feeling clothing itself aptly in a novel epithet or image. A hundred examples of this might be given, such as "The multitudinous seas incarnadine"; and so we find here "paly lips." ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... 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 his ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... began to appear to her somewhat in the light of a wild-goose chase. Anyhow she had not given Pia the smallest hint as to why she was coming. Naturally she could not possibly have done that. She had still to invent some tangible excuse for her sudden desire to visit Woodleigh again. Sick of London greyness would be quite good enough, though certainly not entirely true. But possibly a slight deviation from truth would be excusable under the circumstances. And she was sick of London greyness. The fog ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... for the natural phenomenon exactly these titanic symbols, if these had not had for them a special psychic value, and therefore touched them closely. If any one should object that they would not have "chosen" them (because they did not purposely invent allegories, as was formerly thought), I should raise the contrary question: Who has chosen them? I will stick to the word "choose" for a choice has taken place. But the powers that arranged this choice lived and still live in the soul ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... Luneville, and Commercy; and once upon a time, in the third of these chateaux, the chef had a chere amie named Madeleine. There was to be a fete, and the lover of Madeleine was racking his tired brain to invent some new dainty for it. "I have thought of something which can make you famous," announced the young woman, who was a budding genius as a cook. "But, mon cher, it is my secret. Even to you I will not give it for nothing. I will sell it at ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... life is oft a dreary void, A rack of pleasures, where we must invent A something wherewithal to be annoyed. Bards may sing what they please about Content; Contented, when translated, means but cloyed; And hence arise the woes of Sentiment, Blue-devils—and Blue-stockings—and Romances Reduced ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... doth run his spheare. So, since the winged god his planet cleare Began in me to move, one yeare is spent; The which doth longer unto me appeare, Then al those fourty which my life out-went. Then, by that count which lovers books invent, The spheare of Cupid fourty yeares containes, Which I have wasted in long languishment, That seem'd the longer for my greater paines. But let my Loves fayre planet short her wayes This yeare ensuing, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... his person, and cabals among his subjects; yet was an attempt made upon his life by a man, who though placed in the lowest sphere of fortune, had resolution to face the greatest dangers, and enthusiasm sufficient to sustain, without shrinking, all the tortures which the cruelty of man could invent, or his crimes render necessary. The name of this fanatic was Robert Francis Damien, born in the suburb of St. Catharine, in the city of Arras. He had lived in the service of several families, whence ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... time in his life that a woman's behavior need not be the logical indicator of her deepest feelings, and, enriched with this joyful discovery, inspired with new hope, he had returned, but had not dared at once to seek the Parsonage, until he could invent some plausible reason for his return; but his imagination was very poor, and he had found none, except that he ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... of ashes. He faltered a moment, then took refuge in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth was bound to ring more false than any lie he could invent. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... were all very indifferent—which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well, and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man, for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent illnesses for her, she could make no figure ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... see the use of underselling them. Cotton-cloth is already two-pence a yard or lower; and yet bare backs were never more numerous among us. Let inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving how cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided among us. Let inventive men consider, Whether the Secret of this Universe, and of Man's Life there, does, after all, as we rashly fancy it, consist in making money? ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... forms which have played no unimportant part in the history of the English people. In one shape or another the assembly of freemen for purposes of local legislation has always existed. The Puritans who colonized New England, therefore, did not invent the town-meeting. They were familiar already with the proceedings of the vestry-meeting and the manorial courts, but they were severed now from church and from aristocracy. So they had but to discard the ecclesiastical and ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... may say, though to some it may seem an extravagance, I have never been able to invent the terms that would sufficiently express my admiration of that picture,—I mean, of its color; though as a whole it is admirable for its composition, for the fewness of the objects admitted, for the simplicity and naturalness of the arrangement. But the charm is in the color of the flesh, of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... more and more appropriated the tales of the Greek mythology, linking them to their own deities. Of the early worship peculiar to the Romans, we know but little. But certain traits always belonged to the Roman religion. Their mood was too prosaic to invent a theogony, to originate stories of the births, loves, and romantic adventures of the gods, such as the Greek fancy devised. The Roman myths were heroic, not religious: they related to the deeds of valiant men. Their deities were, in the first place, much more abstract, less vividly conceived, less ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... cutting trees!—me, the most honest woman in the village. To hunt me like vermin! I'd like to see you lose your cursed eyes, for then we'd have peace. You are birds of ill-omen, the whole of you; you invent shameful stories to stir up strife ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... always divided into twelve equal parts. Omitting details, therefore,—not for fear of the trouble, but lest I should prove tiresome by writing too much,—I will state by whom the different classes and designs of dials have been invented. For I cannot invent new kinds myself at this late day, nor do I think that I ought to display the inventions of others as my own. Hence, I will mention those that have come down to us, and by ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... but in practical knowledge, which is imperfect without the knowledge of singulars, in which operations exist, as is said Ethic. vi, 7. Hence for prudence are required the remembrance of past things, knowledge of present things, and foresight of future things, as Tully says (De Invent. ii). Therefore, since Christ had the fulness of prudence by the gift of counsel, He consequently knew all singular things—present, past, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... another, to whose hands they had been recklessly confided in New York and London, failed, or made away with the proceeds of sales. The system had utterly failed; there was nothing to do but repeal it, stop work upon the visionary roads, and endeavor to invent some means of paying the enormous debt. This work taxed the energies of the Legislature in 1839, and for some years after. It was a dismal and disheartening task. Blue Monday had come after these years of intoxication, and a crushing debt rested upon a people who had been deceiving ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... choose one of the following subjects:— 1. The Stuart kings were arbitrary rulers. 2. The climate of our country is changing. 3. Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. 4. The American Indians have been unjustly treated by the whites. 5. Nations have their periods of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Whoever can invent 'em!— How splendid the prospectus seems, With int'rest cent. per centum His shares the holder, startled, sees At eighty below par: I dawdle to my club at ease, And ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... is a maxim of the law, that the judges respond to the question of law, and juries only to the question of fact. The answer to this objection is, that, since Magna Carta, judges have had more than six centuries in which to invent and promulgate pretended maxims to suit themselves; and this is one of them. Instead of expressing the law, it expresses nothing but the ambitious and lawless will of the judges themselves, and of ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... I were cruel enough to buy my own life at the expense of one of my children's, what excuse could I invent to bring ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous
... flummery, pickles, syrups, sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without exhausting ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... brief silence, during which Aramis never removed his eyes from Baisemeaux for a moment. The latter seemed only half decided to disturb himself thus in the middle of supper, and it was clear he was trying to invent some pretext, whether good or bad, for delay, at any rate till after dessert. And it appeared also that he had hit ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... father did not hold the same opinion, Baron. But, believe me, you are wrong to run down cookery. For myself, the only immortality I desire is to invent a new sauce. I have never had time enough to think seriously about it, but I feel it is in me, I ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... the same time, the company, now thoroughly inflamed with wine, and possessed by the spirit of mockery, determined that a symbol should be added to the livery, by which the universal contempt for Granvelle should be expressed. The proposition was hailed with acclamation, but who should invent the hieroglyphical costume? All were reckless and ready enough, but ingenuity of device was required. At last it was determined to decide the question by hazard. Amid shouts of hilarity, the dice were thrown. Those men were staking ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... own game all the virtuosi of Europe. His originality in this bejewelled work caused Hummel to admire and Kalkbrenner to wonder. The supple fingers of the young man from Warsaw made quick work of existing technical difficulties. He needs must invent some of his own, and when Schumann saw the pages of op. 2 he uttered his historical cry. Today we wonder somewhat at his enthusiasm. It is the old story—a generation seeks to know, a generation comprehends and enjoys, and ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... her own account may be believed, she did not invent it. After her death, as I have read in Florentius of Buda, there was found a statement of the manner in which she came by it, written in her own hand, on a fly-leaf of her breviary, to the following effect:—Being afflicted with a grievous disorder ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... matter which had been in dispute. A notable defect is due to the idea that a body can only revolve about another body or a point, as if rigidly connected with it, so that, in order to keep the earth's axis in a constant direction in space, he has to invent a third motion. His discussion of precession, which he rightly attributes to a slow motion of the earth's axis, is marred by the idea that the precession is variable. With all its defects, partly due to reliance on bad observations, the work showed a great advance ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... looking up with a wondering expression of countenance. "I don't understand how, w'en a good thing is found out, it ain't made the most of at once! I never could discover exactly what Mr Bremer's plan was, so I'm tryin' to invent one." ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... and, moreover, he could never hear the names of either of the Wringhims mentioned without getting into a quandary of disgust and anger; and all that he would deign to say of them was, to call them by all the opprobrious names he could invent. ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... prayer. He wondered how he or any one had ever made such a fierce taboo of a wisp of aromatic leaves kindled in a tiny parcel. Such strange things people choose for their tests of virtue—tests that have nothing whatever to do with the case, whether savage or civilized folk invent them. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... excessively vulgar and excessively shallow English idea that the artist's profession is not, and cannot be, a liberal one. We respect a physician, and call him a gentleman, because he can give us a purge and clean out our stomachs; but we do not call an artist a gentleman, whom we expect to invent for us the face of Christ. When we have made that primary mistake, all other mistakes in education are trivial in comparison. The very notion of an art academy should be, a body of teachers of the youth who are to be the guides of the nation through its senses; and that is a very important ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
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