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Device   Listen
noun
Device  n.  
1.
That which is devised, or formed by design; a contrivance; an invention; a project; a scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice. "His device in against Babylon, to destroy it." "Their recent device of demanding benevolences." "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty."
2.
Power of devising; invention; contrivance. "I must have instruments of my own device."
3.
(a)
An emblematic design, generally consisting of one or more figures with a motto, used apart from heraldic bearings to denote the historical situation, the ambition, or the desire of the person adopting it. See Cognizance.
(b)
Improperly, an heraldic bearing. "Knights-errant used to distinguish themselves by devices on their shields." "A banner with this strange device - Excelsior."
4.
Anything fancifully conceived.
5.
A spectacle or show. (Obs.)
6.
Opinion; decision. (Obs.)
7.
Any artifactual object designed to perform an action or process, with or without an operator in attendance.
Synonyms: Contrivance; invention; design; scheme; project; stratagem; shift. Device, Contrivance. Device implies more of inventive power, and contrivance more of skill and dexterity in execution. A device usually has reference to something worked out for exhibition or show; a contrivance usually respects the arrangement or disposition of things with reference to securing some end. Devices were worn by knights-errant on their shields; contrivances are generally used to promote the practical convenience of life. The word device is often used in a bad sense; as, a crafty device; contrivance is almost always used in a good sense; as, a useful contrivance.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Device" Quotes from Famous Books



... they met them under decided disadvantages at all points of political efficiency. The Mediterranean had ceased to be the high road of commercial enterprise and naval energy. Charles V.'s famous device of the two columns, with its motto Plus Ultra, indicated that illimitable horizons had been opened, that an age had begun in which Spain, England and Holland should dispute the sovereignty of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Italy was left, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... Mole with her faithful ferry-boats at her heels, there was scarcely a glimmer of light to be seen shorewards. Ahead of her, as she drove through the water, rolled the smoke-screen, her cloak of invisibility, wrapped about her by the small craft. This was a device of Wing-Commander Brock, R.N.A.S., "without which," acknowledges the Admiral in Command, "the operation could not have been conducted." The north-east wind moved the volume of it shoreward ahead of the ships; beyond it, the distant ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... hieroglyphics, which none understood who were not skilled in the virtue, property, and nature of the things represented by them. Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greek composed two books, and Polyphilus, in his Dream of Love, set down more. In France you have a taste of them in the device or impresa of my Lord Admiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus. But my little skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no further, therefore must I return ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... now than the haunted gallery. Fires roared up a wide chimney at either end, long rows of figures clad in armor stood on each side, one mailed hand grasping a lance, the other bearing a lighted candle, a device of Sir Jasper's. Narrow windows pierced in the thick walls let in gleams of wintry moonlight; ivy, holly, and evergreen glistened in the ruddy glow of mingled firelight and candle shine. From the arched stone roof hung ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... made to change his ways of life. He must have a new viewpoint of human nature, to start with. I thought I might arouse him through talking, and fatherly advice, but so far I could not see success following my labors. But you have hit upon an ingenious device, my boy, that promises wonderful results. We may yet make a second Jean Valjean of the despised Nick Lang; and that would be an achievement ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... aware, there is no patent device for suddenly gaining that control of the mind which will enable one to free it from an obsession such as the obsession of the plain man. The desirable end can, however, be achieved by slow degrees, and by an obvious method ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett

... to find the North Star it will be very easy to set up a sun-dial. This device is not so valuable now as standard time is universally used. If you know the difference between "sun time" and standard time, the sun-dial can be referred to with a fair amount of accuracy and many people regard it ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... The device the prince invented was, that the gentlemen should make Benedick believe that Beatrice was in love with him, and that Hero should make Beatrice believe that Benedick was in love ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... connection between every good sermon and its text is just as vital as the connection between a peach-tree and its root. Sometimes an indolent minister tries to palm off an old sermon for a pretended new one by changing the text, but this shallow device ought to expose itself as if he should decapitate a dog and undertake to clap on the head of some other animal. Intelligent audiences see through such tricks and despise them. "Be sure your sin will find you out." When a passage from the Holy Scripture has been planted as a root ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... a thought longer in the barrel. For this occasion I neglected cartouches, and loaded in the old way. I tested my bullets time and again, and weighed out the powder as if it had been gold dust. It was short range, so I made my charges small. I tried my old device of wrapping each bullet in soft wool smeared with beeswax. All this passed the midnight hours, and then I lay down for a little rest, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... still, all the post-orbits you could raise could not shorten Mr. Hazeldean's life by a day. However, dismiss that idea; we must think of some other device. Ha, Frank! you are a handsome fellow, and your expectations are great—why don't you marry some ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... roll-call could be signalled to ramblers on the shore or the hill. On the 19th of the month we hoisted with much cheering our own colours: a banner, on which some of the ladies had worked the Founder's device, the antique schoolmaster and his ring of scholars. The flags (there were three in all) were carried home with us, and the faded and tattered folds which had fought with the sou'-wester, now droop in a graceful canopy at one end ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... the Demon, more gravely, "we approach the subject of an electrical device so truly marvelous that even I am awed when I contemplate the accuracy and perfection of the natural laws which guide it and permit it to exercise its functions. Mankind has as yet conceived nothing like it, for it ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... years before the events now under narration Felix Babylon had had them newly installed with every device and patent that the ingenuity of two continents could supply. They covered nearly ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... The members bring their wives and daughters down here, put them in as pages and clerks, or divide the proceeds when they have no relatives. Every device, every imaginable chicanery, every possible scheme to break into the State money box, is legitimate in their eyes, and worthy of being patented. Public money is fair game; and yet," he said, with a change of manner, "we have the fairest, purest and most honorable legislators, take it as a whole, ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... parties. In 1881 he devised his latest war vessel, the Destroyer, the object of which he said was "simply to demonstrate the practicability of submarine artillery, unquestionably the most effective, as well as the cheapest, device for protecting the sea-ports of the Union against iron-clad ships. I do not," he continued, "seek emoluments, as I am financially independent; but I am anxious to benefit the great and liberal country which has enabled me to carry out important works which I should not have carried out on ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... Indians smoked an herb called tobacco, which grows abundantly in this land, and I have Nathaniel's word for it that one savage had a tobacco pipe nearly a yard long, with the device of a deer carved at the great end of it big enough to dash ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... Wilhelm knew there could be no escape that way. Surmising that his victim kept the middle of the street in order to baffle the man at his heels, puzzling him as to which direction the fugitive intended to bolt, Wilhelm, not to be deluded by such a device, ran close to the houses on the left, knowing that if von Brent turned to the right he would be speedily stopped by the Main. The race promised to reach a sudden conclusion, for Wilhelm was perceptibly gaining on his adversary, when coming to the first house by the river ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... known that the members of this valiant brotherhood, throughout Europe, bear their paternal shield alone, surmounted, as the badge of their profession, with the particular device of the order, that is, On a chief, gules, a cross argent. The English knights, with their paternal coat, bore also, party-per-pale, that of their mothers, with the chief of the order over ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various

... figs was once unlawful. He made a law also, concerning hurts and injuries from beasts, in which he commands the master of any dog that bit a man to deliver him up with a log about his neck four and a half feet long-a happy device for ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... birth and wealth made pretensions equal with the noblest, very quickly indeed saw that they were dejected. For when persons involve themselves in many undertakings that are at the same time hard to manage, they can discover no device for confronting the multitude and array of dangers, and give up as hopeless quite easy projects: after which their sober judgments and, contrary to what one would expect, their very opinions cause them to lose heart and they voluntarily abandon matters in hand with the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... France, showed that metal filings in a tube cohered when electric waves acted on them, and this device he termed a radio conductor; this was improved upon by Sir Oliver Lodge, who called it a coherer. In 1895, Alexander Popoff, of Russia, constructed a receiving set for the study of atmospheric electricity, and this arrangement was the earliest ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins

... device, where contemporaries are concerned, of disembowelling the victim's name, and leaving it a skeleton of consonants, is a formal concession which in effect concedes nothing. Nor is there any reason why it should; for the only valid objection to the medium of dialogue is in cases where its form might ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman

... then in reply came haunches of venison, and kegs of rare whisky, and skins of wild animals, which, all very admirable in their way, were a trifle cumbersome in a couple of moderate rooms in King street, St. James's. But here Lavender hit upon a happy device. He had long ago talked to his aunt of the mysterious potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. Lavender was informed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... an inventive person, had patented the treadmill mechanism to represent horse-racing on the stage, a device which was afterward used with such great effect in "Ben-Hur." He was so much impressed with it that he had a play written around it called "The ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... party was started at the same time into the audience. The one who was impersonating a newsboy went about crying his edition in a loud voice; while the hunter crawled along stealthily and carefully. The newsboy even adopted the well-worn device of asking those whom he solicited to buy to help him get rid of his stock. One man offered him a cent, when the price was two cents. The newsboy chaffed the would-be purchaser. He sarcastically asked him if he "didn't want ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... question were not de jure, and if we disliked the ceremonies, and were offended at them, for some other reason than their unlawfulness, for this offence they would abstain. It may be his reverend fathers return him small thanks for this device. For let some men be brought forth, acknowledging the ceremonies to be in themselves indifferent, yet offended at them for their inexpediency, whether they be weak or malicious, the Doctor thinks he should abstain ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... their canoes, but decorated them with rows of white shells (Cypraea ovula) running along the middle of the deck at the bow and stern, and also along the upper part of the outrigger. Now and then they had a figure-head with some rude device of a human figure, a dog, a bird, or something else, which had from time immemorial been the "coat-of-arms" of the particular village or district to which the canoe belonged. A chief of importance must also have one, or perhaps two, ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... book, a curious device is used — at the end of each page, on a separate line, and right-justified, appears the first word of the next page. This does not generally need comment, but at the junction of pages 212 and 213, an error occurs, in that at the bottom of page ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... all-resistless might That sprang from pain and penance rite,(814) Obedient to the master's will It moved o'er wood and towering hill, A glorious marvel well designed By Visvakarma's artist mind, Adorned with every fair device That decks the cars of Paradise. Swift moving as the master chose It flew through air or sank or rose,(815) And in its fleetness left behind The fury of the rushing wind: Meet mansion for the good and great, The holy, wise, and fortunate. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... the environment lest they interfere with proper development. Since that is not practicable, a working substitute is set up. Usually, of course, this is some idea which an adult would like to have a child acquire. Consequently, by "suggestive questioning" or some other pedagogical device, the teacher proceeds to "draw out" from the pupil what is desired. If what is desired is obtained, that is evidence that the child is unfolding properly. But as the pupil generally has no initiative ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... soundboard appears the Latin inscription Vita brevis, ars longa. A laminated parchment rose, 3-3/16" in diameter, is placed in the soundboard in the position indicated in figure 6. A typical example of this decorative device is shown in ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge

... a rather complex device, and I'm not sure—you see, if something went wrong, you might do ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox

... My faith! 'twas on only foolhardiness caused me to grant that devilish prosecutor another sight of my scarlet device. I knew what you maniacs would be after, so I came across in the Daydream,just to see if I couldn't get my share of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... displays that it possessed there was little or none, though the exits and entrances to the stage had probably some device to denote them. What they possessed in the way of properties it is more than useless to speculate, as, whatever could be said, could only be conjectural. In dressing their parts propriety in costume, and in adhering to the habits of the Indian Drama, seems to have been ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... small; but they made up in combination and influence what they lacked in numbers. It was always easy to startle the solid commercial world of Rome by the cry of "confiscation". A movement in this direction might have no limits; the socialistic device of a "re-division of land," which had so often thrown the Greek commonwealths into a ferment, was being imported into Roman politics. All the forces of respectability should be allied against this sinister innovation. It is probable that many who propagated these ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... they dreamed. To bring it in they have schemed and laboured, bled and died. They have thought to hasten its dawn by the founding of "Utopias," of "Merrie Englands," by many a promising, but disappointing device. There is but one man who can tell them how it must come—how indeed it will come—and he is the man who has sat at the feet of Jesus Christ; who has seen His arms extended wide upon the Cross and learned ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... principle, true enough, but you couldn't see that on the machine. Part of it, you see, is a Horsten psychomat (stolen from one of my ideas, by the way) and you, the user, become part of the device. Your own mind is necessary to furnish the background. For instance, if George Washington could have used the mechanism after the signing of peace, he could have seen what you suggest. We can't. You can't even see what would have happened ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... are like a blank check, which the will undertakes to fill out. But whatever the will writes upon it, is written in letters that will never be effaced. Action, action, always action,—this is the remorseless but unchanging device of such a woman. Whether she seeks for a place in society, or is ambitious for artistic culture, or addicts herself to sport, or organizes "classes," as they say, for reading Browning, Emerson, or Shakespeare, with her friends; whether she travels to Europe, India, or Japan, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... are made of the casuarina, and are powerful weapons. The hand part is indented, and has a small knob, by which the firmness of the grasp is much assisted; and the heavy end is usually carved with some device: One had the form of a parrot's head, with a ruff round the neck; and was not ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... as quickly seized on as the first, for the sun was the regent's device, and as we have said, Madame de Maine was well known for her predilection ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... at school, he was told in class one day to describe a perfect courser, and he sacrificed his hope of obtaining a premium by describing a horse which on perceiving the whip threw down his master. He adopted on his arms the device, "Cur non?"—"Why not?" Before landing in America in 1777 he wrote to his wife: "I but offer my services to that interesting republic from motives of the purest kind, unmixed with ambition or private views: her happiness and my ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell

... embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with. Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and behavior can hardly become easy unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination—which of course need not mean anything deep or serious. This was the way in which Rosamond and Lydgate slid gracefully into ease, and made their intercourse lively again. Visitors came and went ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... Hadminster on his return from Oxford, but much earlier than the omnibus usually lumbered into Bayford, he astonished Sophy, who was lying on the sofa in the morning-room, by marching in with a free and easy step, and a loose coat of the most novel device. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... loose tongue, I know how thou art prompted. Satan's cunning device thou art, to sap My heart with chatter'd fears. How easy it is For a stiff mind to hold itself upright Against the cords of devilish suggestion Tackled about it, though kept downward strained With sly, masterful winches made of fear. Yea, when the mind is warned what engines mean To ply it into grovelling, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... take & cause to be taken royally Horses and other Things, and Beasts out of their Wains Carts and Houses, saying & devising that they be to ride on hasty Messages & Business, where of Truth they be in no wise privy of any Business or Message, but only in Deceit & Subtilty, by such Colour and Device to take Horses, and the said Horses hastily to ride & evil entreat, having no Manner of Conscience or Compassion in this Behalf, so that the said Horses become all spoiled and foundered, paying ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... treaty was opposed was the new English settlement of Wellington, where the settlers stigmatised it as "a device to amuse the savages," and proceeded to set up a rival government of their own. Henry Williams went once more therefore to Port Nicholson, and succeeded in getting the treaty signed by the chiefs of that place. Thus supported, Hobson now felt himself strong ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... he hearkened, intent, to the exultation of chiming bells ringing for a new feast in a new land. He would cover pages with the analysis of these marvels, tracking the suggestion concealed beneath the words, and yet glowing like the golden threads in a robe of samite, or like that device of the old binders by which a vivid picture appeared on the shut edges of a book. He tried to imitate this art, to summon even the faint shadow of the great effect, rewriting a page of Hawthorne, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... which was a general search warrant issued to revenue officers, was an ancient device hateful to a people who cherished the spirit of personal independence and who had made actual gains in the practice of civil liberty. To allow a "minion of the law" to enter a man's house and search his papers and premises, was too much for the emotions of people who had fled to America ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... strange, is not incredible, will appear from this anecdote. Some obscure Greek, who was a litigant, had an altercation with him, in which he called out, "You are an old fool." [493] It is certain that a Roman knight, who was prosecuted by an impotent device of his enemies on a false charge of abominable obscenity with women, observing that common strumpets were summoned against him and allowed to give evidence, upbraided Claudius in very harsh and severe terms with his folly ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... colored glass set in a leaden frame. Between the door and the window to the left stood an immense bookcase of Renaissance style, on the pediment of which, in letters of gold, was the world "Thibermesnil," and, below it, the proud family device: "Fais ce que veulx" (Do what thou wishest). When the guests had lighted their cigars, Devanne resumed ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... accidents have occurred through the slipping of the pocket-knife that it seems strange such a simple device as this should not have been thought ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... money in enterprises with certified futures. When he was not engaged in declining a gold mine in Colorado, worth five million dollars, marked down to four hundred and fifty, he was avoiding a guileless inventor who offered to sacrifice the secrets of a marvelous device for three hundred dollars, or denying the report that he had been tendered the presidency of the First ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... Albert had replied manfully and distinctly to the menaces of the King and to the pathetic suggestions made by Villeroy to Pecquius as to a device for sending back the Princess. Her stay at Brussels being the chief cause of the impending war, it would be better, he said, to procure a divorce or to induce the Constable to obtain the consent of the Prince to the return of his wife to her father's house. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... up the phone on the desk. It was a blank-vision device, of course; many office intercoms were. She dialed, waited and then said, "Sir Lewis, please." Another second went by. Then she spoke again. "Sir Lewis," she said, "this is Lou, at the front desk. There's a man here named Malone, who ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Merchants' Khan, a place of moneyed men; and when shown the hostelry they hired three magazines and on receiving the keys[FN264] they laid up therein all their goods and gear. They abode in the Khan till they were rested, when the Wazir applied himself to devise a device for the Prince,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... days, and only less than half audible, if, indeed, I ever said anything. But I was on my guard, and my father went away home without knowing, and I don't believe 'Rene quite knows now. It was your father who spotted the thing first. Had he told you, to put you up to the hand-shaking device?" ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... the terrible thought occurred to him that he had not been dubbed a knight and by the laws of chivalry was not entitled to engage in combat with any one who bore that rank, and further, even if he were already a knight, he was obliged as a novice to wear plain armor, without device of any kind. So much was he perturbed by these reflections that he was within an ace of giving up his whole design, and would have done so but for a happy inspiration, which saved mankind from so dire a calamity. Many of the heroes of his books of chivalry had got themselves dubbed knight by the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... Premier was angrily denounced for hanging on to office), than Punch displayed a huge placard across the front of his offices inscribed, "Why is Punch like the late Government? Because it is JUST OUT!!" And no device of the sort, or other artifice that could be suggested to the resourceful minds in Punch's cabinet, was left untried. Things were against Punch. It was not only that the public was neglectful, unappreciative. There was prejudice to ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... states that the Kaiser had been waiting and hoping for a peaceful answer from Russia. The Bavarian authorities could not have taken so serious a step without an order from the Highest War Lord, which leads to the conclusion that it was a device to get military ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... been on duty all day, obtained a leave of absence till the following morning, and, availing himself of his old device to save time and strength, went to a livery stable near the station-house and obtained a hack by payment of double the usual fare. Mounting the box with the driver, and avoiding crowds, he was borne rapidly ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... the angel knew that imps were never over nice In swearing at their master's call to prop each foul device, He felt perplex'd, because the case look'd really rather shady, And so declared, "I daren't decide till I consult ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... blocks, this device might be made very effectual. When the Apiarian perceives that a hive is being robbed, let him shut up the entrance: before dusk he can open it and allow the robbers to go home, and then: put in a small piece of musk: the entrance ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... The dreams—" he came back to the subject—"Yes, the dreams were—are—important. We had their warning from the start. Lorry was the First-In Scout who charted Warlock, and he is a good man. I guess I can break secret now to tell you that his ship was equipped with a new experimental device which recorded—well, you might call it an "emanation"—a radiation so faint its source could not be traced. And it registered whenever Lorry had one of those dreams. Unfortunately, the machine was very new, very much in the untested stage, and its performance when checked ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... knotted trunks Eucalyptian, Seemed carved like weird columns Egyptian; With curious device, quaint ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... and shackle-bolt [Footnote: These are terms in heraldry. Ivanhoe means that, since he is a prisoner, fetters and shackles would be good device for his shield.] azure," said Ivanhoe; "I know not who may bear the device, but well I ween it might now be mine own. Canst ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... heights to which the spirit of the great founder of the commonwealth was destined to soar, but denounced the great principle of religious liberty for all consciences as godless. He was now twenty-eight years of age, having been born in the same year with his friend Louis of Nassau. His device, "Repos ailleurs," finely typified the restless, agitated and laborious life to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... deposit box in the Commercial National is already sealed until a court orders it opened. The bills you took this morning were all marked, so that is merely additional proof, if we needed it. You surely didn't think that such a transparent device as changing your name from 'James Collier' to 'John Collyer' and signing with your left hand instead of your right would fool the secret service, did you? Remember, your old Bureau records showed you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... a simple device consisting of two hooks placed on an iron bar, from the centre of which another bar depends which is also ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 46, September 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... to himself. "A pretty device! And that scoundrel's money did n't lie comfortably in the pocket of a gentleman." He waved his hand to Guillaume and was about to turn away, when the driver came up to him and spoke in a cautious whisper, first looking over ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... weapons that he has always brought to bear. First and foremost was the force of his personality, for he swept England with a tidal wave of impassioned eloquence. Second, he unloosed as never before the reservoirs of ink, for he used every device of newspaper and pamphlet to drive home his message. He even printed his creed in Gaelic, Welsh and Erse. Third, he employed his kinship with the people to the fullest extent. The Commoner won. As the great ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... only one of the significant ways in which Indians painted their faces. The marks always meant as much to other Indians as the device on a knight's shield ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... indeed the excellency of her second life, the beauty of her aspirations, the loftiness of her aims, but he felt deeply the want of that unity in hope and purpose which had existed between them. He felt, at times, indignant, as if something had been taken from himself. Therefore, he strove by many a device to lure her into the path he was treading. He was very selfish in this, but he was unconscious of it. He would have climbed precipices, traversed continents, braved the ocean in its wrath, to have rescued her from physical danger, but, like many others, thoughtless as himself, he did ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... this feeling, he threw himself again upon his wheel, but then stupefied himself completely; the device he had tried to keep himself before the Virgin at least was used up. When he wished to abstract himself and to bring up a recollection of Memling, he could not succeed, and his lip-prayers, wearying ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... learned in the course of a few days enough about her habits of life and her character to know that what Bernabo had told him was rather less than the truth. So, recognising that his enterprise was hopeless, he cast about for some device whereby he might cover his defeat; and having got speech of a poor woman, who was much in the lady's house, as also in her favour, he bribed her (other means failing) to convey him in a chest, which he had had made for the purpose, not only into the house but into ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt: and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing. I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... pretty new device is this Evadne? What do you tie me to you by my love? This is a quaint one: Come my dear and kiss me; I'le be thy Mars to bed my Queen of Love: Let us be caught together, that the Gods may see, ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... very unique and costly appearance: Royal Arms and crowns in ormolu, with pendants of curious device in pure crystal; three hundred and sixty-four ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... here is the significance of the form—the symphony did not languish, but blossomed to new and varied flower. Liszt turned back to the symphony from his new-fangled device for his two greatest works. It has, indeed, been charged that the symphony was accepted by the Romantic masters in the spirit of a challenge. Mendelssohn and even Schumann are not entirely free from such a suspicion. Nevertheless it remains true that all of them ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... processional in his work. The simple illustration of this sort is "The Procession of Life;" here he marshals mankind, as with the power of a magician's rod, in hordes. In "The New Adam and Eve" he reviews society in its institutions and its garniture of civilization; and the conception is a happy device by which to obtain the requisite distance and wholeness for a single point of view. "Earth's Holocaust," though superficially different, is a variant of the same theme, presenting the product of life in masses; its inclusion of ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... you to say Mass for his soul. Will you do so now next time you say a black Mass? This is a wretched letter, and it doesn't succeed in the least in expressing what I owe to you and what I already owe to Father Rowley. I used to think that the Sacred Heart was a rather material device for attracting the multitude, but I'm beginning to realize in the atmosphere of St. Agnes' that it is a gloriously simple devotion and that it is human nature's attempt to express the inexpressible. I'll write to you again next week. Please ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... drawn a pot of Orchids, by the side of which, was a beautiful maiden in a phoenix-crown and cloudy mantle (bridal dress); and to this picture was appended this device: ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... he will operate by trick and device. He will bribe someone whom you consider your best friend to aid him, and already you have ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... the vicar to himself, trying by that simple device to trot out his thoughts on what the choir ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... by an advertisement published in the news-papers, that they might send to the banker of the institution any sums for that purpose they might think proper, under any feigned name, or under any motto or other device; and that not only a receipt would be given to the bearer, for the amount, without and questions being asked him, but, for greater security, a public acknowledgement of the receipt of the sum would be published by the banker, with ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... a telepathy-detecting device had been invented somehow shocked his sense of propriety, and his notions of privacy. It wasn't decent, that ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... carried out to its full extent the most important invention that mankind has ever made—money. Money is a device for simplifying life by providing a means of measuring our desires, and gratifying a number of them ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... premature baldness of the National Assembly. They produced this old-fashioned formal folly, though it had been so abundantly exposed in the Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon,—if to reasonable men it had wanted any arguments to display its mischief and insufficiency. A device of the same kind was tried in my memory by Louis the Fifteenth, but it answered at no time. However, the necessities of ruinous wars were some excuse for desperate projects. The deliberations of calamity are rarely wise. But here was a season for disposition and providence. It was in a time ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... litigants, or the suspected parties, to handle hot iron, plunge their arms into boiling liquid, or be thrown into water deep enough to drown them; and if they underwent such treatment without injury, she held them innocent. Another device was the oath. The parties went to the Church altar and swore their innocence or the justice of their cause. But all these methods gave room for chicane. Kings and knights protested that the oath led to indiscriminate perjury, that if the priests' hands were tickled ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... "done her in," as it "did in" every woman, one by one. And she saw herself going down the years, powdering a little more, painting a little more, touching up her hair, till it was all artifice, holding on by every little device—and all, to what end? To see his face get colder and colder, hear his voice more and more constrained to gentleness; and know that underneath, aversion was growing with the thought 'You are keeping me ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... then King Marsilie, "Shew the device, how Rollant slain may be." Answers him Guenes: "That will I soon make clear The King will cross by the good pass of Size, A guard he'll set behind him, in the rear; His nephew there, count Rollant, that rich peer, And Oliver, in whom he well ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... looked in so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so vast nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he awoke with a start, to remember that his last ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ferryman and his grandson, a boy about ten years old. When the boat reached the opposite shore the big dog was licking the hands and face of the cooing child, but growled and barked viciously at the people who were approaching him. No one dared go near him. They tried every device, but no, he could not be ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter

... lying awake in the night, is surprised by the entrance of Aristides, who informs him that the Persian fleet had completely surrounded them. Themistocles tells him that this was effected by a device of his own, to prevent the Greeks from deserting the Straits, and sends him to Eurybiades, calls a council in the morning, in which it is resolved to attack the enemy, and the whole fleet move forward in order of battle.—Scene, the Grecian camp on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... to the fair they would make an incision in some secret part of the skin, through which they would blow the creature up till his flesh looked fat and plump, and then they would apply a strong sticking plaster to prevent the air escaping. Wolfgang Franz says they make use of another device with an eel. Grellmann says of the Spanish Gipsies in his day that dancing was another means of getting something; they generally practised dancing when they were begging, particularly if men were about the streets. Their dances were ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... as if to ascertain by the sense of smell the nature of the threatened danger. As this strange sound is generally mingled with the bellowing and ordinary trumpeting of the herd, it is in all probability a device resorted to, not alone for warning their companions of some approaching peril, but also for the additional purpose ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... betrayed. And if Zanella had to fly from Rieka because, as the Nationalist paper put it, he could not stand up against the vehement indignation of so many of the citizens, yet he and his party have triumphed. "Fiume or Death," used to be the device dear to d'Annunzio. He placarded the long-suffering walls with it, and it was on the lapels of the coats of his adherents. "Fiume must belong to Italy or be blown up," cried the poet. But, strange to say, a majority of the inhabitants ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... went on, pursing his lips reflectively, "were not without merit. That was recognized. Nobody enjoys the idea of euthanasia as a security device. Many of us feel—I do—that it's still preferable to the degree of brain-washing required to produce significant alterations in a personality type of ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz

... sealed orders, to be opened only in mid-Atlantic; and when he does open them, he finds, to his unspeakable horror, a simple command to shoot the poet at once. He obeys; and the "frightfulness" is doubled by the fact that a rather clumsy device of his to spare the wife the sight of the husband's death is defeated by the still greater clumsiness of a subordinate. She goes mad; and, as expiation, he takes charge of her, shifts from navy to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... that Guiche had entered, returned to the prince, whom he found splendidly dressed and radiant with joy, as with good looks. "I am told," he exclaimed, "that the king has taken the sun as his device; really, monseigneur, it is you whom this device ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... alone with the king. "Well!" said he, approaching the young prince, who interrogated him with his look. "Well, my master! If you had not the device which belongs to your sun, I would recommend you one which M. Conrart should translate into Latin, 'Mild with the lowly; rough ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... the Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863. This was not a general and complete emancipation of all slaves, it was primarily a military device, a war measure, freeing the slaves of those who were in actual and armed rebellion at the time. It was intended to weaken the belligerent powers of the rebels, and a notice of the plan was furnished more than three months in advance, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... but before they had well begun the spades had to be flung down again and the rifles snatched to repel another fierce assault. This time a storm of bombs, hand grenades, rifle grenades, and every other fiendish device of high-explosives, preceded the attack. The trench was racked and rent and torn, sections were solidly blown in, and other sections were flung out bodily in yawning crevasses and craters. From end to ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... Their obviously selfish device of seating a minor on the throne and replacing him as soon as he reached years of discretion, had been gradually invested by the Fujiwara with an element of spurious altruism. They had suggested the principle that the tenure of sovereign power should not be exercised exclusively. Go-Sanjo ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... certain Eton boy, translating for his sins a part of the INLAND VOYAGE into Latin elegiacs; and from the hour I saw it, or rather a friend of mine, the admirable Jenkin, saw and recognised its absurd appropriateness, I took it for my device in life. I am going for thirty now; and unless I can snatch a little rest before long, I have, I may tell you in confidence, no hope of seeing thirty-one. My health began to break last winter, and has given me but fitful times since then. This pleurisy, though ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "the Father" through "the Son," and that He is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of the Divine glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24). The Gospel of "the Word made flesh" is not the meaningless cant of some petty sect nor yet the cunning device of priestcraft, though it has been distorted in both these directions; but it can give a reason for itself, and is founded upon the deepest laws of the threefold constitution of man, embracing the whole man, body, soul and spirit. It ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward

... to me: I weare not worth the name of him that serv'd you To loose my glorious hope for want of such A thinne device. In your thought wish me prosper, And I am fortifide against the power Of fate to seperate us; and when thou art Within the amorous circle of my armes, We will make lawes to love; teach him new motion Or chaine[247] him with the cordage of his haire, Like a tame thing, to walke, and watch our ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... his perch; he must clamber down, comment upon the pebble in the door (which he regarded as an ingenious but unsafe device), help John with the portmanteau, and enliven matters with a flow of speech, and especially of questions, which ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... appeared on the stage. King James was singularly partial to young men who were distinguished for personal attractions. By an extraordinary accident this person, Robert Carr by name, in the midst of a court-spectacle, just when it was his cue to present a buckler with a device to the king, was thrown from his horse, and broke his leg. This was enough: James naturally became interested in the misfortune, attached himself to Carr, and even favoured him again and again with a royal visit during his cure. Presently the young man became an exclusive favourite; and no honours ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... Commission for Monk and Six other Documents.—Broken-spiritedness of the Republican Leaders, but formidable Residue of Republicanism in the Army: Monk's Measures for Paralysing the same: Successful Device of Charges; Montague's Fleet in Motion: Escape of Lambert from the Tower: His Rendezvous in Northamptonshire: Gathering of a Wreck of the Republicans round him: Dick Ingoldsby sent to crush him: The Encounter near Daventry, April ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... cunning at splitting Hairs, and making distinctions, might perhaps furnish them with some mediums between Loyalty and Disloyalty; they apply'd themselves with great dilligence to these Men, and they by deep Study, and long Search, either found or made the quaintest Device for them ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting search for and development of new antisubmarine devices is revealed, and above all the length of time necessary to put into operation any new device, and this when time is the most precious element, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... never be one graven by art or man's device. It is one more noble, more lasting far. It is to be found in the life God enabled him to live, and the work God honoured him to do. It is to be seen in the plans he devised, in the institutions he founded, in the people he moulded anew, when the old church had confessedly failed ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... over three thousand barristers members of these Inns, and the best known is probably Lincoln's Inn, which is named after De Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who died in 1312, and had his house on its site, his device, the lion rampant, being adopted by the Inn. The ancient gatehouse, which opens from Chancery Lane, is nearly four hundred years old. The Inn has an old hall dating from 1506, and also a fine modern hall, the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... of the human animal, but an artificial device, 2; analogy between the Costumes of the body and the Customs of the spirit, 25; Decoration the first purpose of Clothes, 28; what Clothes have done for us, and what they threaten to do, 30, 43; fantastic garbs of the Middle Ages, 34; a simple ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... The device worked wonders. Relieved from the disturbing sight of the precipice and the rushing water, and hearing Tom's hearty voice behind him, cheering him on, Fred went forward manfully; and he was quite surprised to feel his outstretched wrist ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the device began to work; but when it did, the silver quarters fairly showered into the young ladies' circle. Old and young rushed eagerly to the front to exchange coins for kisses. The show lasted only a short time, when the curtain ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... Gears. Crown Wheel. Grooved Friction Gearing. A Valve which Closes by the Water Pressure. Cone Pulleys. Universal Joint. Trammel for Making Ellipses. Escapements. Simple Device to Prevent a Wheel or Shaft from Turning Back. Racks and Pinions. Mutilated Gears. Simple Shaft Coupling. Clutches. Ball and Socket Joints. Tripping Devices. Anchor Bolt. Lazy Tongs. Disk Shears. Wabble Saw. Crank Motion by a Slotted Yoke. Continuous ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... with a ruff about his neck and enormous rosettes on his shoes, who stood on a pedestal at old Mrs. Peevy's garden gate, offering an imitation tobacco-plant, free of charge, as it were, to any one who would take the trouble of carrying it home. This bold device was intended to call attention to the fact that Mrs. Peevy kept a tobacco-shop in the front parlor of her little cottage behind the hollyhock bushes, the announcement being backed up by the spectacle of three pipes arranged in a tripod ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl

... of the Dragon, by means which in A.V. and the Greek appear inadequate, does not come under this head, since the Aramaic explains it by iron teeth concealed in the ball (v. 27), an intelligible and practical device. ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... the ends of the corbels under these quatrefoils, but the southernmost is broken away. A similar arcade runs along the southern wall of the Lady Chapel, but there is none on the north side. The two main corbel-tables at the east end show the arms of England and France and the bishop's device of three "torteaux." Under these, at a short distance from the ground, are two smaller windows, which give light to the Lady Chapel crypt. The panelling dates from about 1490, and is ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... unhappily. The heavy power and control circlet was unnecessary in the Residence, for amplifiers installed in the building took care of all requirements. But outside, in the village and fields, a portable source of power and control was indispensable and this heavy gold cap was the best device he had been able ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole

... clay; and would fall to pieces upon a shock which need not be violent. Great Britain, if her energies were properly called forth and directed, might (as we have already maintained) give this shock. 'Magna parvis obscurantur' was the appropriate motto (the device a Sun Eclipsed) when Lord Peterborough, with a handful of men opposed to fortified cities and large armies, brought a great part of Spain to acknowledge a sovereign of the House of Austria. We have now a vast ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... the usual type, an iron plate, which had been cast in a mould, so that the device—two Z letters—formed a depression in the smooth surface of the iron plate. On the outer edge was a circle, so that when the brand was heated, and pressed on the hide of a steer, calf or maverick it would burn the ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... stone, are chiselled out some armorial bearings; probably the devices worn by the lord of the castle on his shield. We find a tiger couchant, for example, not ungracefully executed; a gate or portcullis, I believe in heraldry an honourable device; with the fragments of what have evidently been other symbols, though time has laid on them his defacing fingers so effectually that you ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... send electric waves across the Atlantic. He found, however, that waves in order to traverse three thousand miles and retain sufficient energy on their arrival to affect a telephonic wave-detecting device must be generated by ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet, If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat The bitter harvest of our own device And half a century's moral cowardice. As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, And Kranach painted by his Luther's side, And through the war-march of the Puritan The silver stream of Marvell's music ran, So let the household melodies be sung, The pleasant ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... thoughts; no; I will not go to Florence. As I always distrust first impulses, which so often run reason to a standstill, I had recourse to a favorite device of mine. I asked myself: What would Lampron advise? And at once I conjured up his melancholy, noble face, and heard his answer: "Come back, my ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... can do almost better than any crystalline material, may be seen in the mouldings so characteristic of Lombard architecture. Geometrical patterns of the rarest and most fanciful device; scrolls of acanthus foliage, and traceries of tendrils; Cupids swinging in festoons of vines; angels joining hands in dance, with fluttering skirts and windy hair, and mouths that symbol singing; grave faces of old men and beautiful ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Elisabeth's interposition. Then at once we get stuff on a high level. The culmination is reached in a series of melodies hardly to be matched for pathetic beauty; the orchestra seems to throb with emotion—a device which Wagner often employed extensively in the Ring—the chorus join in, and a wondrous effect is obtained. The ensemble is the last piece of this description Wagner was destined to write. It is pure emotion, and not dramatic—that is, not theatrical—and its warrant is that ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... Secretary of State, re-affirmed in a diplomatic paper of marked ability. When the necessity came to retreat, Mr. Buchanan was anxious that the duty of publicly lowering the colors should not be left to him. His device, therefore, shifted the burden from his own shoulders, and placed it on the broader ones of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... Our own generation, which was sedulously enticed into nature study by books crammed with the "pathetic fallacy," has become suspicious of everything akin to "nature faking." It has learned that this device has been a trick employed by a crafty pedagogy for the sake of appealing to unimaginative children. Vergil was probably far from being conscious of any such purpose. As a Roman he simply gave expression to a mode of viewing nature that still seemed natural to most Greeks and Romans. The Roman ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... Juve, I should never have expected you to invoke Fantomas! Why, Fantomas is the too obvious subterfuge, the cheapest device for investing a case with mock honours. Between you and me, you know perfectly well that Fantomas is merely a legal fiction—a lawyers' joke. Fantomas has ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... executed about a month from this time. The bagatelle for which he was confined was robbery and murder by the following strange device. In concert with two others, he hired a large house in an unfrequented part of the town, to which place he would order tradesmen to convey valuable articles, which were to be paid for on delivery; those who attended paid for their credulity with the loss of their lives and property. Two or three ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... poison of your kisses, has advanced three years in shrewdness, artfulness, and experience. She has convinced the old man, not only that she had no share in our trick, but that she hates our goings-on, and will meet with scorn every device on your part to approach her. In his excessive delight the old man was too hasty, and swore that if he could do anything to please his adored Marianna he would do it immediately, she had only to give utterance to her wish. Whereupon Marianna modestly asked for nothing except ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... necessary to prevent the booty being taken possession of by some other member of the same species as the hunter. Spiders are specially liable to this danger, because their victims are noisy when caught. Hudson has described an ingenious device made use of by a species of Pholcus—a quiet inoffensive Spider found in Buenos Ayres—to escape this risk. This spider, though large, is a weak creature, and possesses little venom to despatch a fly quickly. The task of killing ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... "Consternation" ceased playing, all lights went out on the American squadron, and then on the flagship appeared from mast to mast a device with the Union Jack in the corner, a great red cross dividing the flag into three white squares. As this illumination flashed out the American band struck up the British national anthem, and the ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... province it is to guard the Negro culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them, when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to him. The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a lawyer's cast off gown and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... dressed during the day, carrying a number of dirty golf-balls in their hands, and towels in their pockets and sponges up their sleeves, and issue later fully dressed with clean white golf-balls in their hands. It is generally thought, however, that this device is just a little—I mean it's not exactly—you know ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... nearer home: when the wars fell out between Shaddai and Diabolus, if at any time I saw any of the town of Mansoul afraid of destruction, I often used, by some way, device, invention, or other, to labour to bring them to peace again. Wherefore, since I have been always a man of so virtuous a temper as some say a peace-maker is, and if a peace-maker be so deserving a man as some have been bold to attest he is, then let me, gentlemen, be accounted by ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... his steps and enter the parlor. Then he went his way and passed into Mr. Wentworth's garden. That civilizing process to which he had suggested that Clifford should be subjected appeared to have come on of itself. Felix was very sure, at least, that Mr. Wentworth had not adopted his ingenious device for stimulating the young man's aesthetic consciousness. "Doubtless he supposes," he said to himself, after the conversation that has been narrated, "that I desire, out of fraternal benevolence, to procure for Eugenia the amusement of a flirtation—or, as he probably ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... with walls and houses, when they do such deeds as these, and wrap themselves in darkness—aye, they have many a device to hide themselves. Another may shut his door and station one before his chamber to say, if any comes, He has gone forth! he is not at leisure! But the true Cynic will have none of these things; instead of them, he must wrap himself in Modesty: else he will ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... "is a device for automatically regulating the balance, or 'trim' as you call it, of the ship when she is floating in the air. You will readily understand that when freed of air, and thus deprived of weight, as it were, the most trifling matter will suffice to derange her equilibrium; one of us, walking from side ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... body. But would any number of men have dreamed of resorting to such an expedient? To three or four, the limbs of the corpse would have afforded not only a sufficient, but the best possible hold. The device is that of a single individual; and this brings us to the fact that 'between the thicket and the river, the rails of the fences were found taken down, and the ground bore evident traces of some heavy burden having ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... The simple device of talking plain, matter-of-fact English about a thing has a value that we are growing to appreciate more and more every day. It is only too easy for an undercurrent of ill to make headway under cover of a false name, a false silence, or misleading speech. The fact that syphilis is a disease spread ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... obdurate, Kano turned the full force of his discontent on Ume-ko. She endured in silence the incessant railing. Each new device urged by the distracted Kano she carried out with scrupulous care, though even with the performance of it she knew hopelessness to be involved. For hours she remained away from home, hidden in a neighbor's house or in the temple on the hill, it being Kano's thought that perhaps, ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... their brags they are wont to make of their purgatory, though we know it is not a thing so very late risen amongst them, yet is it no better than a blockish and an old wives' device. Augustine, indeed, sometime saith, there is such a certain place: sometime he denieth not, but there may be such a one; sometime he doubteth; sometime again he utterly denieth it to be, and thinketh that men are therein deceived by a certain ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... to remain with us, without the future emperor of Germany, whose reign, I hope I may be allowed to pray, is yet for some years postponed. Or is this a happy device of the future emperor's father to remind me, on my wedding-day, that I am growing old enough to begin to think of the day of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... it eagerly all over. The fly-leaf bore no inscription, but up in one corner, in faded red ink, was something that looked like a monogram with a device underneath. I would have examined it at once but that Etienne was anxious to read me a little of the Latin which he had picked out with infinite patience, I should think. I promised to help him a little occasionally, but told him that he was not looking ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... unknown device of setting up a man of straw in order to knock him down has not been followed in this chapter, a single piece of evidence out of many may be cited. H. Koerting in his justly well reputed Geschichte des Franz. Romans im XVII. Jahrh. (Oppeln u. Leipzig, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... corn laws is a contemptible device of manufacturing selfishness. It means low wages. Do you suppose the great Manchester cotton lords care one straw for their hands? Not they! They will face a revolution for repeal because it will enable them to grind an ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... siege to Troy, and Troy held out against every device. On both sides the lives of many heroes were spent, and they were forced to acknowledge each other ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... be good to us," said Terence, "if it isn't the King's own drum he has." And sure enough, on the head of it gleamed the royal arms of England, and on the other side, as we turned it over, the device of a regiment. They flung the sling about my neck, and the next day, when the little army drew up for parade among the stumps, there I was at the end of the line, and prouder than any man in the ranks. And Colonel Clark coming to my end of the line paused and smiled and patted me kindly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... please, sah," interrupted the old man. "I want ax your device. I got a little money—not much, but jes' a little" (here he pulled from one of his capacious pockets a stocking filled half-way up the leg with something that must have been heavy, judging by the care he took in handling it),—"an' I'm that skeared of havin' it in de house dat ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... people, on the other hand, are the ultimate judges, both of measures and of men. This mutual action and reaction constitutes the responsible leadership, which is one of the fundamental principles underlying the device of representation. To it we have already traced the virtue of representation as a social force, capable of moulding national character and of appealing to the ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... implies a treacherous enmity on the part of God, to create man weak and unstable, and to pit his weakness against tyrannous desires; to allow his will to do evil to be stronger than his power to do right, is a satanical device. One must not sacrifice the truth to the desire for simplicity and effective statement. The truth is intricate and obscure, and to pretend that it is plain and obvious is mere hypocrisy. The strength of Calvinism is ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of my device, and satisfied that the danger was over for that day (it being well on to twelve o'clock), I said a few words more to the doctor, who had followed me into the room, and then prepared to take my departure. But the young lady was more agile than I. Saying something about a very pressing ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... consult together what shall be most convenient and beneficial for the company; and such orders as they shall determine, to be written by the secretary of the company, in a book to be provided for that purpose; and no inferior person to infringe or break any such order or device, but to observe the same exactly, upon such reasonable pain as the agents shall ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... the complex vision which gives objective reality to what is outside our individual soul insists that this objective reality extends beyond the limited circle of our consciousness. The device by which the logical reason "rounds off" the conception of continuity by the conception of totality is the device of the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... at the waters of the Rhine with her half-closed, serpent-like eyes, sought for some device which should enable her to return to Stuttgart. In the first place, she loved power; in the second, she loved Eberhard Ludwig; in the third, she yearned to outwit her enemy Johanna Elizabetha and her opposers generally. Then she longed once more to defy the Duchess-mother, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... it will leave seven spaces of the original color, and of course give thirteen apparent stripes; hence the idea of their being all intended to represent the old thirteen states. My opinion, is, that this was the origin of the stripes. Mr. Jefferson's quartered shield for a seal device was seized upon as a national emblem, that was put upon the flag. We have now the stars as well as the stripes. When each of these was adopted I cannot say; but the flag, as it now is, was designed by Captain Reid, as I tell ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... are some surprises regarding who is related to whom, a device which Kingston uses ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... creamy-white and burning colour of the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs into glowing relief, while by a convention the satyrs are of a deep, tawny complexion. On a roll of music is stamped the rollicking device, "Chi boit et ne reboit, ne sceais que boir soit." The purple fruit hangs ripened from the vines, its crimson juice shines like a jewel in crystal goblets and drips in streams over rosy limbs. The influence of such pictures ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps



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