"Devising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hobson's selection, most unnatural and forced, to choose want of all that makes life sweet and dear; to choose gaunt babes, with pinched and livid lips—unlovely, not unloved; and these iniquitous decrees are most scrutable, are surely of man's devising and not of God's. Or we invent a fire-new science, known as Eugenics, to treat the disease by new naming of symptoms: and prattle of the well born, when we mean well fed; or the degenerate, when we might more ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... sitting in solitary wretchedness, ruminating on wants she knows not how to supply—namely, clothes and food for her children on the morrow, and on debts which she has no means of discharging. But where is he who should be sharing her cares, bidding her be of good cheer, and devising with her some means of alleviating their mutual distress? Where is the father of the sleeping babes, the husband of the watchful wife? Go to the public-house; you will see him there with a host of his companions, of like character and circumstances, smoking, drinking, singing, blaspheming, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... aggravate the evil and retard, possibly for generations, the recovery of the country from the losses sustained during the war." With these weighty words the Committee brushes aside a host of schemes that have been urged for putting everything right by devising new machinery for the manufacture of new credit. That new credits will be needed for industry after war is obvious, but what else are our banks for, if not to provide it? They can only be set free to provide ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... with almost superhuman irritability of temper, and he had a genius fertile in devising means of giving scope to its restless energies. I have heard that it was one of his obstinate fancies, when addressing a letter to a friend of the male sex, instead of using the ordinary prefix of Mr or the affix ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... for vigilance, that the garrison could not reasonably complain of the services required of them; the perpetual watch, and numerous guards; the occupations which Knight and Squire seemed never weary of devising for the purpose of keeping them separate, and their instant prohibition of any attempt at the riotous festivity which was their only consolation for the want of active exercises. They grew heartily weary, and fiercely impatient of restraint, and though the firm, calm, steady strictness of ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Bread, and the Constitution of '93 "; and it is a notable coincidence that in that winter of 1795-6, while the socialists were secretly plotting to seize the kingdom of heaven by violence, Paine was devising his plan of relief by taxing inheritances of land, anticipating by a hundred years the English budget of Sir William Harcourt. Babeuf having failed in his socialist, and Pichegru in his royalist, plot, their blows were yet fatal: there still remained in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth, could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties, capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... professional avocations, Ericsson was industriously occupied in devising new applications of the Calorie-Engine, when the attempted secession of the Southern States plunged the country into the existing war and struck a blow at all the arts of peace. Ills whole heart and mind were given at once to the support of the Union. Liberal in all his ideas, he is warmly attached ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... blaming her in his mind for so devising to contrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed neglect. But what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the contest a fresh congress was assembled at Chatillon, for the purpose of devising measures for the conclusion of the war without further bloodshed. The whole of ancient France was offered to Napoleon on condition of his restraining his ambition within her limits and of keeping peace, but he refused to cede a foot of land, and resolved ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Mrs. Jewkes and all the Servants were frighted out of their Wits, thinking I had run away; and not devising how they should answer it to their Master. They searched all the likeliest Places they could think of for me, and at last saw my Petticoat floating in the Pond. Then they got a Drag-Net, imagining I was drowned, and intending to drag me out; but at last Moll ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... outnumbered the British in the air, had more eyes to see with; something had to be done; so rifles were carried by the British and a finer sport than shooting ducks came into vogue. This quickly led to the carrying of machine guns. Ingenuity in devising sights to compensate for the speed of our own machines and to gauge a proper deflection according to the speed and angle of approach of the enemy machine, soon decreased the advantage the enemy aviators ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... waited an opportunity to effect, what she intended for a master-stroke of policy in the disposal of Grace. Like all other managers, she thought no one equal to herself in devising ways and means, and was unwilling to leave anything to nature. Grace had invariably thwarted all her schemes by her obstinacy; and as she thought young Moseley really attached to her, she determined by a bold stroke to ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married woman's hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the Duchess's heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have had her otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising obstacles; was he not gradually triumphing over them? Did not every victory won swell the meagre sum of lovers' intimacies long denied, and at last conceded with every sign of love? Still, he had had such leisure to taste the full sweetness of every small successive conquest on which a lover ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... devoured his share of the breakfast. His comrades imitated him, and then drank a cup of boiling coffee, which somewhat restored their spirits. Then Jean Cornbutte decided energetically that they should at once set about devising ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... time Ansell's inventive brain was busy. He was devising a new scheme for money-making, and concocting an alluring prospectus of a venture into which he hoped one "mug," or even two, might put money, and thus form "the original syndicate," which in turn would supply ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... fashioned on the same pattern," said the hermit, "but with one or two alterations of my own devising, and an improvement—as I think— founded on what I have myself seen, when travelling with the Eskimos ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Of Hellas won, by perils of the deep Unscathed, but for Athena Daughter of Zeus The Thunderer, and her indignation's wrath. When nigh Euboea's windy heights they drew, She rose, in anger unappeasable Against the Locrian king, devising doom Crushing and pitiless, and drew nigh to Zeus Lord of the Gods, and spake to him apart In wrath that in her breast would not be pent: "Zeus, Father, unendurable of Gods Is men's presumption! They reck not of thee, Of none of the Blessed reck they, forasmuch ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... But a woman, more subtle and devious in her processes of mind, senses the dramatic effect that the spectacle of her suffering makes upon the spectators, already filled with compassion for her feebleness. She would thus much rather be praised for facing pain with a martyr's fortitude than for devising some means of getting rid of it the first thought of a man. No woman could have invented chloroform, nor, for that matter, alcohol. Both drugs offer an escape from situations and experiences that, even in aggravated forms, women relish. The woman who drinks as men drink—that ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... requirements of the Constitution, that he should take care that the laws be faithfully executed, attempt to prevent the execution of an act entitled, "An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices," passed March 2,1867, by unlawfully devising and contriving, and attempting to devise and contrive, means by which he should prevent Edwin M. Stanton from forthwith resuming the functions of the office of Secretary for the Department of War, notwithstanding the refusal of the Senate to concur in the suspension therefore made by said Andrew ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... say, in terms a little blunt, "This scheme that you are advertising Was all along a private stunt Of WILSON'S singular devising; His game we weren't allowed to know; Under a misty smile he masked it; We never gave him leave to go (He ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... fool!" he would say to himself in angry rebuke, but even while he was reproaching himself, his mind was devising an excuse for his behaviour. "We're really too young," he would add. "It's silly of me to think of this sort of thing at all, and Mary's still ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... with famine, sword and fire. Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the fitting and successful execution of such a task. At every step he shows the skill and readiness of a master workman; and it will be fortunate for the country if he shall be selected as superintendent of the tenth census under a law of his own devising. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... senses. From these few observations you may see, that we know better than the men whether it be well or ill with them; if they are cold towards their wives, it is ill with them, but if they are warm towards them, it is well; therefore wives are continually devising means whereby the men may become warm and not cold towards them; and these means they devise with a sagacity inscrutable to the men." As they said this, the dove was heard to make a sort of moaning; and immediately the wives said, "This is a token to us that we have a ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... had seen Tommy she had smiled at him sweetly and said, "Good morning." From that moment Tommy was her devoted slave. Nobody had ever spoken like that to him before; nobody had ever smiled so at him. Tommy would have given his useless little life for Bessie, and thenceforth the time he was not devising mischief he spent in bringing little pleasures into her life. It was Tommy's delight to bring that smile to her pale little face and a look of pleasure into her big, patient blue eyes. The other boys on the street tried to tease Bessie at first and shouted "Cripple!" after her when she limped ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for women and children you need not even dream of excusing yourself to me. These English are no better than Armenians. It is necessary to extirpate them, and the younger you catch them the less time they have for devising wickedness against the Chosen of Allah. As for women, they need hardly be taken into account. In all these matters I know by your actions that you agree. You must proceed on your noble course until the last of these infidels is swept away ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... He had intelligence enough to understand that the established order made earning an honest living hard work; saw thousands living well without labor apparently, other thousands robbing under cover of legal technicalities; a legal profession living by devising statutes to punish crimes and prosecuting the criminals thus manufactured; often living better yet by teaching criminals to escape the penalties which their law imposed. He saw reform schools which instructed such children as he had been to become such ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... with which we were at war. Out of the flux of transition the new institutions were forming more definitely and taking on the appearance and attributes of permanence. The oligarchs had succeeded in devising a governmental machine, as intricate as it was vast, that worked—and this despite all our ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... success... "Plans for effective co-operation were fully arranged between the cavalry commanders of both armies," wrote our Commander-in-Chief in his despatch. I can imagine those gallant old gentlemen devising their plans, with grave courtesy, over large maps, and A. D. C.'s clicking heels in attendance, and an air of immense wisdom and most cheerful assurance governing the proceedings in the salon of a ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... which belong to so terrible a picture of frenzy and guilt, consider also the physical circumstances and condition of the criminal at the time,—severe illness, intense labor of the brain, poverty bordering upon famine, the mind preternaturally at work devising schemes and excuses to arrive at the means for ends ardently desired. And all this duly considered, the reader may see the crime bodying itself out from the shades and chimeras of a horrible hallucination,—the awful dream of a brief but delirious and convulsed disease. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a page from one of those so-called Directories which small grafters go about devising in small cities and out-on-the-edge communities, in which the pictures of the leading citizens are printed for a consideration. The page had been folded across the center; it ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... discovery. He was not such, however, but the ablest of practical mechanics with some business ability. Mr. Kloman's ambition had been to be in the office, where he was worse than useless, rather than in the mill devising and running new machinery, where he was without a peer. We had some difficulty in placing him in his proper position and keeping him there, which may have led him to seek an outlet elsewhere. He was perhaps flattered by men who were well ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... after having entrusted to a Joint Committee, by a decisive vote, the task of devising means for securing for the Prayer Book "increased flexibility of use," should have thought it necessary subsequently to take up with this compromise of a compromise (for such the proposal to amend the Ratification ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... bright a feature in her character, she engaged with zeal in a scheme for rescuing the native women, who (as her observation led her to believe) impede the progress of improvement, from the indolence in which they are educated, by devising employments for them suited to their taste and capacity. The concluding chapter of this volume contains some very sound and salutary reflections upon ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... Tim proved himself one of the best workmen of the party. I suspect that had all possessed regular tools others might have excelled him, but his talent consisted in employing our very imperfect instruments, and in devising new methods of getting through the work. He was especially an adept at splitting trees. No sooner was one felled than he would set to work to scrape off the bark at the upper part, and to run deep and straight lines down ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... before the slow march of the icy boundary, until the only regions capable of habitation would lie within the tropics. In such a struggle between man and destiny science would be pressed to the uttermost, in the devising of means to counteract the slow diminution of the solar heat and the gradual disappearance of air and water. By that time the axial rotation of our globe might possibly have been slowed down to such an extent that one side alone of its surface ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... of mine, and though she may not be as good a companion as a boy would be for you, I am sure when you once get to know her you will find her a very good substitute. You see, not having had much to do with boys, I am not very good at devising amusement for you. I can only say that if there is anything you would like to do while you are here you have only to tell me, and if it be possible I will put you ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... the past one hundred years of American industry. The fact that this foundation was not built of mutual confidence, real justice, constructive good will is what makes the task of necessary reconstruction so extremely difficult. Countless persons might be capable of devising the mechanical approach to peace and prosperity—courts of arbitration, boards of representation, and the like. But how bring about a change of heart ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... types, for all of which a duty was provided in action. This was also a survival of galley warfare, and rapidly disappeared with the advance of the sailing man-of-war, never to be revived, unless perhaps it be returning in the immediate future, and we are to see torpedo craft of the latest devising taking the place and function of the barcas, with their axes and augers, and armoured cruisers those of the naos ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... these endless attempts to cure the natural results of the system, is there not need of a radical reconstruction? Various attempts have been made, divers proposals are offered, in the hope of curing the causes of present maladies and devising a juster system. Many of these are doubtless impracticable, or tend to work more hardship than amelioration. But each proposal, of any plausibility, has a right to a hearing if it offers to end the great wrongs of contemporary industry; we must be very confident that it will not work before ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... some subject on sanitation was discussed according to a program decided upon the previous day. Some countries had already had experiences with certain epidemics, which were quite unknown as yet to the other allied countries; in such a case the experience gained by one country in devising ways and means of stamping out an epidemic would be of great interest and practical value ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... has accepted, under proper reserve as to its policy in foreign territories, the invitation of the Government of Belgium to take part in an international congress, which opened at Brussels on the 16th of November, for the purpose of devising measures to promote the abolition of the slave trade in Africa and to prevent the shipment of slaves by sea. Our interest in the extinction of this crime against humanity in the regions where it yet survives has been increased by the results ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... student of methods of WORTHINGTON EVANS, Mrs. Gummidge of Parliamentary life, not yet recovered from depression as he sits below Gangway "thinking of the old 'un" (MASTERMAN). The Major has of late displayed much industry in devising abstruse conundrums designed to bring to light dark places in working of Insurance Act. In MASTERMAN'S enforced and regretted absence, duty of replying to this class of Question on behalf of Minister undertaken by WEDGWOOD BENN, whose sprightly though ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... dread tribunal. There was no appeal from its decisions, and if a taint of heresy, or of what it was pleased to call heresy, was detected in any book, the doom of its author was sealed, and the ingenuity of the age was well-nigh exhausted in devising methods for administering the largest amount of torture before death ended ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... mother very sincerely religious. I went through much mental difficulty and distress at the time, as there had been no express renunciation [by her] of the ancestral creed, and I absurdly busied myself with devising this or that religious test as ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Addison now busied himself devising a "table;" and in this matter he was assisted by the labors of the previous party of deer-hunters who had left a large board behind them, to be set on forked stakes, driven into the ground; there were also two rough benches ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... asking him, if the Duke of York was to appoint him, how he could extricate himself out of his difficulties and leave the Bench, he answered, 'All was settled on that score; that in consequence of the services he had rendered Lord Cochrane and Mr. C. Johnstone, in devising, whereby they had and could realize large sums by means of the funds or stocks, Lord Cochrane was his friend, and had told him a day or two ago, that for those services his Lordship had, unknown to him (De Berenger) ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... a public speaker he was earnest, animated and eloquent, and was gladly welcomed in the pulpit and in the meetings of Associations and Conferences. His leading characteristic was that of an organizer. He was perpetually devising plans for active work and was diligent and untiring in his efforts to carry them out. He was a man of prayer and of faith in God, which sustained him in his constant labors, in his days of trial and in his sickness and death. At his own request his mortal remains rest ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... bolster Europe's trade position and its political and economic power. Because of the great differences in per capita income among member states (from $7,000 to $69,000) and historic national animosities, the EU faces difficulties in devising and enforcing common policies. For example, since 2003 Germany and France have flouted the member states' treaty obligation to prevent their national budgets from running more than a 3% deficit. In 2004 and 2007, the EU admitted 10 and two countries, respectively, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... hieroglyphic was by devising some conventional mark or symbol to suggest the initial sound of the name to be recorded. Such a mark or character would be a "letter," in fact; and thus the prehistoric alphabets were arrived at, not only among the early ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... has been at one time conjectured to be the Woden of the Scythians; at another the prophet Daniel, whom Nebuchadnezzar had created master of the astrologers, or chief priest of the Magi, as the title is rendered in the Septuagint—[Greek: Archonta Magoi]. An antiquarian of Wales, in devising a pedigree for the Oymri, has imported ancestors for the ancient Britons from Ceylon; and a writer in the Asiatic Researches, in 1807, as a preamble to the proof that the binomial theorem was familiar to the Hindus, has traced Western civilisation to an irruption of philosophers from India, identified ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... aspect of a sailor under fire, and was imagining himself taking the whole storm of Fort Constantine as he led an American squadron into the Bay of Sevastopol. Tom did not know what the preacher said, but was devising the method of his interview with Greenhithe. Matty did know. Dear girl! she knew very well. And with every well-rounded sentence of the sermon she was more determined as to the method of her appeal to Mrs. Gilbert, the widow of ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... of a provision in the Constitution by an amendment which will restore to the South in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this government. There will be no difficulty in devising such a provision,—one that will protect the South, and which at the same time will improve and strengthen the government instead of impairing and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... take a delight in devising various foregrounds to the white cone. I once saw a book of a hundred pictures of Fujiyama, each with a new foreground. Now the holy mountain was seen between the boughs of Japanese cedars, now between the tall trunks of trees, and again beneath their crowns. Once more it appeared above a foaming ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... women were alone on the island with their dead, and with no canoe by which they could return to the distant mainland. But Indian women are quick at devising plans to meet emergencies, and so Astumastao speedily resolved on a plan to bring help to them. What she did was this. She cut a long pole from a clump of tall, slender trees which grew near their wigwam, and then securely ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... productive, or at least sufficiently so to meet all our liabilities and provide for the extinguishment of the debt within a reasonable time. One of the advantages attending this great debt and modifying its certain evils and burdens, will be the necessity of devising a stable revenue system, intended solely to provide means for sustaining the Government and meeting the public obligations. Periodical changes, often depending on party ascendency and popular elections, have hitherto marked the financial ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Harry, hardly able to refrain from shouting. "Captain Dynamite is not in any dungeon cell, Miss Juanita, and if I am not mistaken he is already devising some plan with Gomez ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... superfluity of provision. It was his fixed theory that to feed an Indian was better than to fight one. He showed his passengers the need of surplus foods, if he had an idea he would be visited by his Red Friends, who may have been his foes, but for his cunning in devising entertainment and hospitality for them. The menus of these luncheons consisted chiefly of buffalo sausage, bacon, venison, coffee and canned fruits. He carried the sausage ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... of property to be attended to. He had a considerable fortune, all his separate possession; his wife had brought him nothing. He now felt sufficiently clear-minded to dispose of his estate intelligently. He drew his will—a holographic instrument—devising his wealth to various ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... before him, like motes dancing in a sunbeam, the huge organism of modern society, which requires for its existence and for its development the maintenance of credit and of order. Burke's imagination led him to look out over the whole land: the legislator devising new laws, the judge expounding and enforcing old ones, the merchant despatching his goods and extending his credit, the banker advancing the money of his customers upon the credit of the merchant, the frugal man slowly accumulating the store which is to support him ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Mottled in devising, Singing as though never sang Bird in close till now— Sharp are the javelins Of death that are seeking, Seeking even simple birds On ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... say, or to see Fechter and Miss Kate Terry in the Duke's Motto, or Robson in Shylock, or the Porter's Knot, or whatever was good. Then on the way home to Southampton Row Barty would buy a big lobster, and Leah would make a salad of it, with innovations of her own devising which were much appreciated; and then we would feast, and afterwards Leah would mull some claret in a silver saucepan, and then we (Barty and I) would drink and smoke and chat of pleasant things till it was very late indeed and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... for months—half a year, perhaps—drinking lemonade and putting up with their raillery. And then he would begin with ginger-ale; and then it would come to beer; and then to whiskey. He was always devising new plans to control himself; always persuading himself that he had solved the problem. He would not drink in the morning; he would not drink until after dinner; he would not drink alone—and so on without end. His whole life was drink, and all his thoughts were of drink—the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... again, and under the eyes of his guard, but he had accomplished his purpose. Captain Phips was quick to realize the danger, and called about him those who were still in the ship. They all agreed to stand by him. By good fortune the gunner was among them. The energetic captain lost no time in devising what was to be done. During the work on the ship the provisions had been taken ashore and placed in a tent, where several pieces of artillery were mounted to defend them, in case the Spaniards, to whom the island belonged, should appear. Quickly but quietly these ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... now seen how the Temple or First Degree was instituted in counties; how the various elements of treason were collected together and detailed for their special service of educating the ignorant, manufacturing materials and munitions of war, and devising plots to burn, plunder, and pillage unsuspecting cities; how each member was singled out according to his fitness for certain duties, which he performed without their character coming even to his fellow members of the same degree; and ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... point the difficulties of devising an interpretation, consistent at once with facts and with the text ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... riches merely surpassing those of any citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time; or busying himself with political intrigues; or aiming at ministerial power, or purchasing increase of nobility, or devising gorgeous architectural piles; or collecting large specimens of Virtu; or playing the munificent patron of Letters and Art; or endowing and bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of charity. But, for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession of the young heir, these ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... short skirt a mimic whirlwind of her own. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she seemed absorbed in anxious thought, which thought had its origin in one of the commonest causes of human perplexity—the need of money, and the impossibility of devising a scheme by which to procure any. It was but a few weeks since her father had died, leaving behind him such a scanty provision for his widow and child that only by the utmost care and coaxing were they able from the first to ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... It was claimed for him that, any time between twelve and sixteen years of age, he could have swam across the Hellespont. Here, as well as elsewhere, his inventive genius was devising ways to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... perspiration he lay, wondering, scheming, devising all sorts of means of escape from his present surroundings, when he became suddenly aware of a tall dark figure in the cell,—a figure muffled nearly to its eyes, which had entered with such stealthy ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... travelled through the northwestern frontiers of the United States, and gained much valuable information which he laid before the Government. As he was a man of delicate constitution, we cannot but admire his indomitable spirit in ever devising new projects of usefulness to his fellow men. It was impossible for him ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the golden rule. Not less than twenty thousand pounds sterling would all my Negroes produce if sold at public auction to-morrow. I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favor; nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery. Great powers oppose me—the laws and customs of my country, my own and the avarice of my countrymen. What will my children say ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... asleep, devising wonderful plans, as usual, for the entire world, not merely a tiny section of it. The saviour spirit was ever in his heart. It failed to realise itself because the mind was unequal to the strain of wise construction; but it ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... quoth Amyas. "I have been devising brave deeds; and see in the distance enchanters to be bound, dragons choked, empires ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... that the fundamental scales of Hue, Value, and Chroma must be established by scientific measures, not by personal bias. This system is unique in the possession of such scales, made possible by the devising of special instruments for the measurement of color, and can therefore be trusted as a permanent basis ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... by no means so delicate: they effaced armorial bearings with their usual hot-headed eagerness; and a few years after they had torn down the coats-of- arms of the gentry, the heroes of Malta and Egypt were busy devising heraldry for themselves, and were wild to be barons and ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by the Mehrikans that day. Nofli-zon-mee, a little craft with a pointed prow, jammed holes in nearly a score of monster ships, and the waters closed over them. There figured also a long and narrow boat of Mehrikan devising, the Yankyd-Oodl. This astonishing machine sailed to and fro among the foreign ships upsetting all traditions. Much glory befell her ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... time the gale showed no signs of abating. It was a good trial to our tempers, at all events. Grampus vowed that there was some old witch in Halifax who must have taken a spite to us and was resolved to keep us out of the harbour as long as she could. He was devising all sorts of plans for exorcising her, but none seemed likely to prove satisfactory. In the morning, the weather moderating a little, I stood to the westward under close-reefed mainsail and double-reefed foresail, and by the evening reached at length the mouth of the harbour. "There's ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... allow. A good solder! the question arises, Was he equally good as a commander? It must be admitted that, as far as was compatible with his quality of temper, he was; none more so. Capable to a singular degree of devising how his army was to get supplies, and of actually getting them, he was also capable of impressing upon those about him that Clearchus must be obeyed; and that he brought about by the very hardness ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... slavery, found expression, increasing in intensity as the war was prolonged. While it was evident to most persons that one of the results of the insurrection would be, in some way or form, the emancipation of the slaves, there was no person who seemed capable of devising a constitutional, practical plan for its accomplishment, except by subjugation and violence. To these the President was unwilling to resort; yet the necessity of doing something that did not transcend the law, was morally right, and would tend to the ultimate freedom of the slaves was felt ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... in the cabin. Villona played a waltz for Farley and Riviere, Farley acting as cavalier and Riviere as lady. Then an impromptu square dance, the men devising original figures. What merriment! Jimmy took his part with a will; this was seeing life, at least. Then Farley got out of breath and cried "Stop!" A man brought in a light supper, and the young men sat down to it for form's sake. They drank, however: it was Bohemian. They ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... name of the logician Willard van Orman Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement. Here ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... conversation, would have liked to consult Cousin Betty; but there was no time for that. Poor Adeline, incapable of imagining a patch, of pinning a rosebud in the very middle of her bosom, of devising the tricks of the toilet intended to resuscitate the ardors of exhausted nature, was merely well dressed. A woman is not a courtesan for ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... moment, just to observe the similarity of sentiment of two great men, quite unknown to each other; one of whom (Mr. Steele) was concerned in preparing Negro-slaves for freedom, and the other (Toussaint) in devising the best mode of managing them after they had been suddenly ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... without covering before the doors and in the unsheltered streets, and possessing so far his mother's nature as being ever the companion of want. Yet, sharing also that of his father, he is forever scheming to obtain things good and beautiful; he is fearless, vehement, and strong; always devising some new contrivance; strictly cautious and full of inventive resource; a philosopher through his whole existence, a powerful ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... People's Penny Pictures;" while on his own account he ran successively "The Terrific Penny Magazine," "The Ghost," "The Lover," "The Gallery of Terrors," "The Figaro Monthly Newspaper," "The Figaro Caricature Gallery," and "The Comic Magazine." But in spite of all this ingenuity in title-devising, and of all this dogged perseverance—though one can hardly call it seriousness—not one of these journals obtained public support. As a matter of fact, they were the journalistic wild oats of a born journalist and ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... a wight Sits up all night Ill-natur'd jokes devising, And all his wiles Are met with smiles It's ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... it. The duties of these officers, however, being chiefly of a bureau character, allowing them little opportunity for active external supervision, it has been deemed necessary to select for heads of the staffs, officers particularly qualified to assist the commander in devising strategical plans, organizing, and moving troops, etc.; competent to oversee and direct the proceedings of the various staff departments; untrammelled with any exclusive routine of duty, and able in any emergency, when the commander may be absent, to give necessary ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Monica would complete her twenty-first year; the elders, full of affection for the sister, who so notably surpassed them in beauty of person, talked much about her as the time approached, devising how to procure her a little pleasure on her birthday. Virginia thought a suitable present would be a copy ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... was behind his age in dress, he was in advance of it in sentiment. In his breast the milk of human kindness never curdled, and his intelligent mind was ever actively employed in devising ways and means to alleviate the sufferings of humanity, and to change the hearts of evil doers. His comprehensive kindness included the brute creation as well as mankind, in the circle of his ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... directed, will be smaller than that done by the abuse inseparably connected with police power. In the case of atavistic criminality, prevention does not mean handcuffing of the man who is about to commit a crime, but devising such economic and educational measures in the family and administration as will eliminate the causes of crime or attenuate them, precisely because punishment is less ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... instead of building hospitals, set some bright young architects and sanitarians to devising such suitable housing conditions for city and suburbs as will obviate the necessity for hospitals. Any lover of his kind, any one who longs for fame, could find both it and the blessing of the homeless by this means, and in the end get a fair ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... brought in by the Supreme Legislative Council of India. Tods was an English baby of six, and he mixed on friendly terms with Indians in the bazaar and with members of the Supreme Legislative Council. The Council was at this time devising a new scheme of land tenure which aimed at "safeguarding the interests" of a few hundred thousand cultivators of the Punjab. The Bill was beautiful on paper; and the Legal Member, who knew Tods, was settling the "minor details." The weak part of the business was that European ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... scales so different that their music was generally displeasing to us. But we explained this by saying that our scale was natural and right and that the others were antiquated, barbaric and wrong. Now we are opening our arms to the exotic scales and devising a few of our own. We have the tonal and the semi-tonal scales and we are trying to make use of the Chinese, Arabic and Hindu modes. We are producing results that sound very odd to ears that are attuned to the old-fashioned music, but our eclecticism here as elsewhere is cracking the shell ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... the tens of thousands of homeless people the soldiers forced as many as were needed to go to work for the common good, putting up shelters, erecting tents, devising store-houses, and, above all, creating the necessary sanitary appliances and safeguards to prevent the outbreak ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... he to get through that fortnight? He decided that he would not get through it at all. He kept himself awake devising schemes for his liberation; he would find some business to take him up to town to-morrow; or, if he could not find it, he would invent it; he would send himself a telegram. And then, against his will, his mind began running on Miss Tancred. As he had been possessed by the ideal, so now he ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... most brilliant of all Europe, had their source in the King's love of splendor and profusion. It was to please him that his courtiers and favorites staked fortunes at the gaming tables, outran each other in devising costly dresses, contrived novel equipages and unique dwellings. In his superb Court he found all the elements required to satisfy his pride, and glorify his reign. The Sun King was the most profligate host in all history. Determined to outdo the fabulous luxury of the ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... Vintoquiam escaped with the other five. Limahon, now finding himself with a fleet of ninety-five vessels, manned by a numerous and bold following (all of whom knew that execution awaited them if taken), grew bolder and lost every atom of fear, devising new atrocities; and he not only attacked and plundered large cities, but seized ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... will, I am sure, join me in approving the facility with which the major regained his stock of courage, (lost when entering Tarpaulin Cove,) on hearing that the politicians of New York had determined on making him a hero of no mean parts, and were devising a grand programme for our reception. And this consoling news I read to him from that very enterprising and extremely reliable journal, the New York Herald, a copy of which I got of the parson, who was its Tarpaulin Cove correspondent, and admired ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... description of the greatest variety of mechanical movements published in any language. This work covers nearly the whole range of the practical and inventive field, and is of much value to inventors, draughtsmen, mechanics, machinists, engineers and all others interested in any way in the devising and operation of mechanical work of ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... it; and when Kitty resolved to profit no longer by Fanny's wardrobe, she had won the hardest part of the battle in behalf of perfect truth towards Mr. Arbuton. She did not, indeed, stop with this, but lay awake, devising schemes by which she should disabuse him of his errors about her, and persuade him that she ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... by his dark machinery, played desperately upon the feelings of Lady Aphrodite; and more than once had she despatched rapid notes to her admirer for counsel and for consolation. The Duke was more skilful in soothing her griefs than in devising expedients for their removal. He treated the threatened as a distant evil! and wiped away her tears in a manner which is almost an ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... the purpose of making Mrs. Quirk happy, devising a hundred means to accomplish this. In the house she interested the old lady in reading, with fancy work, and, above all, with the ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... smaller places that day and I made some sales, but all the while I was displaying my samples, quoting prices, arguing, cajoling, explaining, jesting, the background of my brain never ceased bothering about Huntington and devising ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Rignano, and Semon taking its proper place as a vera causa of that variation which Natural Selection must find before it can act, and recognised as the basis of a rational theory of the development of the individual and of the race. The organism is essentially purposive: the impossibility of devising any adequate accounts of organic form and function without taking account of the psychical side is most strenuously asserted. And with our regret that past misunderstandings should be so prominent in Butler's works, it was very pleasant to hear Francis ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... all over the walls and worked up through the shaft holes to the mill stones and thus wet the flour. This necessitated the constant presence of Indian women to carry away the meal to dry storerooms at the Mission where it was bolted by a hand process of their own devising. On this account the mill was abandoned, and for several years the whole of the meal for the Mission was ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... in happy care, New plans for paradise devising, 10 Just as the moon, with pensive stare, O'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... devising the death Of his King, heard "the very stones prate of his whereabouts;" So this shocking bad wife heard a voice all her life Crying "Murder!" resound from the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... former times the fancy of dialists seems to have run riot in devising elaborate surfaces on which the dial was to be traced. Sometimes the shadow was received on a cone, sometimes on a cylinder, or on a sphere, or on a combination of these. A universal dial was constructed of a figure ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... was sent to school, more for the purpose of being kept out of mischief than to learn anything. Much of my time was spent in trapping quails, which were very plentiful. I greatly enjoyed studying the habits of the little birds, and in devising traps to take them in. I was most successful with the common figure "4" trap which I could build myself. Thus I think it was that I acquired my love for hunting. I visited the quail traps twice a day, morning and evening, and as I had now become quite a good rider I was allowed to ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... longer, Jimmie Dale stood under the street lamp, his mind in a lightning-quick way cataloguing every point in her letter, viewing every point from a myriad angles, constructing, devising, mapping out a plan to dove-tail into them—and then Jimmie Dale swung on a downtown bus. There was neither time nor occasion to go home now—that marvellous little kit of burglar's tools that peeped from their tiny pockets in that curious leather undervest, and that reposed now ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... it seemed, intend to avail himself of these whispers. His mind was intent on devising some falsehood by which he should obtain for himself just one other year of life, and his expectant son-in-law purposed to prevent him. I hardly knew as I turned it all in my mind, which of the two was the more sordid; but I think that my sympathies ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... is terribly true. In devising brainless amusements; in pursuing them with enormous vigor, and taking them with eager seriousness, our English people are the wonder of the world. They always were. And it is just as well; for otherwise their sensuality would become morbid and ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... parcellaire laborer, we should see something monstrous happen: the laborers employed at disagreeable tasks would become like those Romans, gorged with the wealth of the world, whose brutalized minds became incapable of devising new pleasures. Well-being without education stupefies people and makes them insolent: this was noticed in the most ancient times. Incrassatus est, et recalcitravit, says Deuteronomy. For the rest, the parcellaire laborer has judged himself: he is content, provided he has bread, a pallet to sleep ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... turned over my entire scientific resources to Miss Francis, making all my research laboratories subordinate to her, subject only to a prudent check, exercised by a governing board of practical businessmen. The government cooperated wholeheartedly and thousands worked night and day devising possible variants of the basic compound and means of applying it under all conditions. It was a race between the Grass and the conquerors of the Grass; there was no doubt as to the outcome; the only ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... o'clock on the 20th, and, as we expected, found the rebels awaiting us in a position, which the citizens of the valley assured us could be held by Early's army against one hundred thousand men. The position was indeed a formidable one, but nothing daunted our spirited leader set about devising a ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... engaged in devising and experimenting with an engine very similar to this some years before, but Otto & Langen, no doubt, worked quite independently. Barsanti's engine never became a commercial article; while Otto & Langen's firm, it ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... the affrighted Simla, "let not mine eyes behold a ruin so great!" and she fell senseless into the arms of Haim Hachuel. Thus did these unhappy parents lament their loss, losing sight of their sorrow only in the vain hope of devising some plan for the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... given a period of fair trial before extensive changes are made in it. Even further reductions should be cautiously undertaken and put into effect gradually. If the attempt is made through temporary rates to reduce the shock of the trade adjustments, of the "dumping" after the war, then the devising and administration of such measures should be delegated to an expert, disinterested, permanent tariff board. The task is to prevent temporary "unfair competition" and sudden changes, rather than to raise permanent barriers to ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... which it spread, driving the defenseless settlers from their homes and causing desolation and ruin on every side, rendered it necessary for the governor to call an extra session of the legislature for the purpose of devising means to arm and equip volunteers, and assist the homeless refugees in procuring places of shelter where they would be safe from molestation by these dusky warriors. Could anything be more terrible than Gov. Ramsey's picture of the ravages of these outlaws in his message to the ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... from the kitchen-range an iron trivet whose legs will supply a solid foundation for the engine which I am devising. This is a coarse network made of strips of raffia, a fairly accurate imitation of that of the couch-grass. The very irregular meshes are nowhere wide enough to admit of the passage of the creature to be buried, which this time is a Mole. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... after her return she was sitting at her dressing-table when a letter was handed her bearing the Washington post-mark. Her maid was devising a new coiffure, and she was grumbling at the result. She glanced at the handwriting, pushed the letter aside, and commanded the maid to arrange her hair in the simple fashion that suited her best. After the woman had fixed ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... according to his own thought and plan. If it were to be acceptable—a sweet savour unto the LORD—it must be an offering in every respect such as GOD had appointed. We cannot become acceptable to GOD in ways of our own devising; from beginning to end it must be, "Not my will, but Thine, ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... Devising no modern Sybaris, where all possible good of life may follow from the unaided operation of a perfect social and industrial organization, I propose to confine myself to the simple question of the best practical development of village life for farmers. The village or its ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... the two girls were occupied during their leisure time in devising new schemes for the furtherance of the good work they had originated, and were so kept free from the morbid and unhealthy train of thought into which girls of their age with nothing better to interest them are so apt to fall. And thus ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... has developed into an institution which it is believed will be of great value to the Navy in teaching the science of war, as well as in stimulating professional zeal in the Navy, and it will be especially useful in the devising of plans for the utilization in case of necessity of all the naval ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... point of view. You would be shunned for one demented. Your goods would rot upon your shelves; for the simple reason that the natives would have no means of buying them. No, Miss Elliston, you must take their fur until such time as you succeed in devising some other means by which these people may earn ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... studious of supernatural things, imputes the whole of this conduct to thin potations, and the not drinking largely of good and excellent sherris; and so little doubt does he seem to entertain of the Cowardice and ill disposition of this youth, that he stands devising causes, and casting about for an hypothesis on which the whole may be physically explained and accounted for;—but I shall leave him and Doctor Cadogan to settle that point ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... religious thinkers seem to imagine that they have found some relief by devising the formula that God's plan is to "co-operate with man," and in those modern advances which I have freely admitted they see indications of this co-operation. This new formula is not a whit better than the other phrases ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe |
