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Instrument   /ˈɪnstrəmənt/   Listen
Instrument

verb
1.
Equip with instruments for measuring, recording, or controlling.
2.
Write an instrumental score for.  Synonym: instrumentate.
3.
Address a legal document to.



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"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books



... way to him. He wrote down the names of the conspirators she told him of having seen in Normandy, and he told her he would swiftly have them guillotined. The assurance had scarcely left his lips when in an instant she thrust the instrument of death through his heart. She repudiated the stigma of being thought a murderess, and believed that her act would be the means of saving thousands of lives. She was dragged through the streets, taken ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... the last hour these confederates wrought upon their supple instrument, and bent him to their will; and their tool in turn had all else at his mercy. Pompeius addressed the senators, and, well trained by his guardians, spoke with brutal frankness to those who had ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... full to make further suggestions. Organized into a tabloo, with the constitooshun in one hand (wich beloved instrument kivers a great deal of ground), a scar-bangled spanner in the other, and a tramplin on a bloo coat wich I stript orf uv a returned nigger solger wich wuz sick, I exultinly exclaim, "The Union ez it is is ez good ez the Union ez it ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... and some of fern-root, which serves them for bread. On, farther search, we found more shoes, and a hand, which we immediately knew to have belonged to Thomas Hill, one of our fore-castle men, it being marked T.H. with an Otaheite tattow-instrument. I went with some of the people a little way up the woods, but saw nothing else. Coming down again, there was a round spot covered with fresh earth, about four feet diameter, where something had been buried. Having no spade, we began to dig with a cutlass; and in the mean time I launched the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... of that thing. In things that move and are moved, a threefold order is found. In the first place, the end moves the agent: and the principal agent is that which acts through its form, and sometimes it does so through some instrument that acts by virtue not of its own form, but of the principal agent, and does no more than execute the action. Accordingly there are things that move themselves, not in respect of any form or end naturally inherent in them, but only in respect of the executing of the movement; the form by ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... Josh, busy at work upon an instrument or weapon which consisted of a large hook about as big as that used for meat; and this he had inserted in a strong staff of wood some four feet long, while, to secure it more tightly, he was binding the ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... 2: A stone knife was not essential to circumcision. Wherefore we do not find that an instrument of this description is required by any divine precept; nor did the Jews, as a rule, make use of such a knife for circumcision; indeed, neither do they now. Nevertheless, certain well-known circumcisions ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... desk, he fumbled amid a litter of articles useful and useless, and, extracting a battered stethoscope, shifted his chair forward until it was close to the other and stuck the tiny tubes to his ears. Still without comment he opened the rancher's shirt, applied the instrument, listened, shifted it, listened, shifted and listened the third time—slid his chair back to ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... trash that has obtained the name of education Law that the accuser should be confined at the same time Less degree of repugnance in divulging what is really criminal Money that we possess is the instrument of liberty Money we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery Necessity, the parent of industry, suggested an invention Neither the victim nor witness of any violent emotions Passed my days in languishing ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau • David Widger

... must be kept firm and unshaken by the arts of malignant men. Therefore any gift which shall be proved to have been given according to our orders by the Patrician Liberius, to you or to your mother, by written instrument (pictacium or pittacium), shall remain in full force, and you need ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... new joint or ring is added to the rattle. How often the shedding takes place depends on various circumstances and may occur an uncertain number of times each year. Such a rattle, loose-jointed as it is, is rather brittle and the tip of the sounding instrument is easily broken and lost. It will therefore be easily understood that the common notion that a rattlesnake's age can be told by the number of the rings in its rattle is absolutely erroneous. Another equally common and equally ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... think) where he declared that he could produce proof of their American origin. For myself, I had to pay two dollars and a half on some magic-lantern slides. I could have imported the lantern, had I owned one, free of charge, as a philosophical instrument used in my profession; but the courts have held, it appears, that though the lantern comes under that rubric, the slides do not. I cannot pretend to grasp the distinction, or to admire the system which necessitates it. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... devoted to one sole end—the defence of civilisation against the immoral attack of the strongest military machine in the world. And then, so to speak, as a moral entity, for my mind was full of the sights and sounds of the preceding days, and the Army appeared to me, not only as the mighty instrument for war which it already is, but as a training school for the Empire, likely to have incalculable effect upon ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the yacht naturally centred in the gradually approaching craft, which was closely scanned through the various glasses. Miss Starland stood beside her brother, her instrument leveled, while he used only his unaided eyes. After ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... better—slight, dim: but flickering still; why should you not by the warmth of your charity, give growth to the Good that is in him? The cynic, the miser, is not all self. There is a note in that sullen instrument to make all harmony yet; but it wants a patient and gentle ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... don't come to one and love one, they come to an idea, and they say 'You are my idea,' so they embrace themselves. As if I were any man's idea! As if I exist because a man has an idea of me! As if I will be betrayed by him, lend him my body as an instrument for his idea, to be a mere apparatus of his dead theory. But they are too fussy to be able to act; they are all impotent, they can't take a woman. They come to their own idea every time, and take that. They are like serpents trying to swallow ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... can I reconcile these inconsistencies? Can he, who is the tenderest, the best of friends, be also the vilest and most cruel of mankind? I have been accessory to the torture of a most beautiful female—one, too, who called on the perfect Allah to deliver her. I have been the instrument of a mean revenge on a helpless woman, and now I yet delay to inform the Cadi of the villanies of this house ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... practically all 60%, and the average excavation per pound of dynamite was 2.2 cu. yd. The contractor employed an inspector of batteries and fuses, who, using an instrument for that purpose, tested the wiring of each blast prior to firing, in order to discover any short circuits, and thus prevent the danger of leaving unexploded ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • B.F. Cresson, Jr

... or as it is called by us THE MORDACCHIA, which is a very simple contrivance to confine the tongue, and compress it between two cylinders composed of iron and wood and furnished with spikes. This horrible instrument not only wounds the tongue and occasions excessive pain, but also, from the swelling it produces; frequently places the sufferer in danger of suffocation. This torture is generally had recourse to in cases considered as blasphemy against God, the Virgin, the ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... no hurry or bustle; but our trumpeter had buckled his sword-belt and taken down his instrument from where it hung, and then stationed himself upon one of the blocks of stone in the great courtyard, watching his chiefs, and holding his instrument ready, while his eyes seemed about to start out of his head in his excitement. Everywhere it was the same. Men glided about here and there, after ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... or degrade the body. If we worship it or pamper it, when it fails us, we are engulfed and buried in its ruins; if we misuse it, and we can misuse it alike by obeying it and disregarding it, it becomes our master and tyrant, or it fails us as an instrument. We must regard it rather as our prison, serving us for shelter and security, to be kept as fair and wholesome and cleanly as may be. When we are children, we are hardly conscious of it—or rather we are hardly conscious of anything else; in youth and ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... restless legs of horses, while a yelling horde betted on them. On a heap of grass fodder in a corner of the yard an all-but-naked expert in inharmony thumped a skin tom-tom with his knuckles, while at his feet the own-blood brother to the screech-owls wailed of hell's torments on a wind instrument. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... nine in number, representing patriarchs, prophets, kings, bishops, virgins and martyrs. On the trumeau of the central gate is a fine statue of the Virgin Mary; on the sides of this trumeau are bas-reliefs representing the Fall of Man, of whose restoration Mary should be the instrument. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... player's hands, was fourteen. The lyre approximates to the familiar classic form, and the number of its strings shows that Terpander can no longer claim credit as being the inventor of the seven-stringed lyre, which was in use in Crete at least eight centuries before the date at which his instrument was mutilated by the unsympathetic judges at Sparta to put him on a level with ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... sixty-three years of age at the time of his birth—a terribly severe old man, who, almost before his son was born, had determined that he should be a lawyer. The little child knew nothing of the fate before him, he only found that he was never allowed to go near a musical instrument, much as he wanted to hear its sweet sounds, and the obstinate father even took him away from the public day-school for the simple reason that the musical gamut was taught there in addition to ordinary reading, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... truly has the Captain-General chosen for an envoy!" observed Toussaint: "a wise and an honourable man! He sees woe in the face of a woman, and makes it his instrument for discovering the secret souls of her family. Blindly bent upon this object, and having laid open, as he thinks, one heart, he reads the rest by it. But he may, with all his wisdom, and all this honour, be no less ignorant than before he saw us. So far from reading all our souls, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... to express no particular regret at the Minister's suggested policy. I presume, from the result, that I myself had overrated the influence of the Abbe over the mind of his royal pupil; that he had by no means the sway imputed to him; and that Marie Antoinette merely considered him as the necessary instrument of her private correspondence, which he ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... him,' he relates, 'that I would find some means of sending him an instrument with which he could break through the roof of his cell, and having climbed upon it, go to the wall separating his roof from mine. Breaking through that, he would find himself on my roof, which also must be broken through. That done, I would leave my cell, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... instrument of torture claimed its many victims—old men, young women, tiny children until the day when it would finally demand the head of a King and ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great instrument and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words. But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... some encroaching pagan by loud-spoken interrogations respecting a bay mare with a switch tail, or a strawberry bullock with wide horns—such ostentatious inquiry being accompanied by a furtive and vicious jabbing of evidence's horse, or evidence himself, with some suitable instrument. Yet batch after batch was withdrawn and paid for; while the red sun rose higher, and Mr. Smythe became impatient and crusty, by ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... tendeth to the setting forth of Gods glory, and the amplifying of the Christian faith, wherein hitherto princes haue not bene so diligent as their calling required. Alas, the labourers as yet are few, the haruest great, I trust God hath made you an instrument to increase the number, and to mooue men of power, to redeeme the people of Newfoundland and those parts from out of the captiuitie of that spirituall Pharao, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... not destined to remain long in doubt; for in a few minutes he hears Hermia's light laugh in the door of the wine-shop, followed by the beating of a drum, the ringing of bells, the crashing of cymbals, the notes of some other instrument sounding discordantly between whiles. And as he started to his feet, wondering what it could be all about, a blonde head stuck out past the edge of the door and peered around at the deserted cabaret. He had hardly succeeded in identifying the head as Hermia's because it wore a scarlet ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... lodgings, he heard the gay tinkle of a guitar, and an amorous duet, not altogether untunefully sung to that accompaniment; and he beheld little Lieutenant Puddock's back, with a broad scarlet and gold ribbon across it, supporting the instrument on which he was industriously thrumming, at the window, while Cluffe, who was emitting a high note, with all the tenderness he could throw into his robust countenance, and one of those involuntary distortions which in amateurs will sometimes accompany a vocal effort, caught ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... 13:5 Now there was in that place a tower of fifty cubits high, full of ashes, and it had a round instrument which on every side ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... man climbed one of these and remained on top of it for seven days to pray and commune with the gods, or in memory of Deukalion and the flood. He drew up supplies with a rope. People brought him gifts of money and he prayed for them, swinging a brazen instrument ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... Cosimo de' Medici—ever pursued by an accusing conscience and diverted only from suicide by indulging in every sensuality within his power, executed an instrument of abdication of his sovereignty, naming Don Francesco Regent of the Duchy, and retaining for himself no more than the title of ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... close. He closed his own instrument and began feverishly signalling central. "This is 101. Henry de Spain talking," he said briskly. "You just called me. Ten dollars for you, operator, if you ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... the strictest sense of the words every phase of the settlement then arrived at was a settlement in terms of cash.[Footnote: There is no doubt that the so-called Belgian loan, 1,800,000 pounds of which was paid over in cash at the beginning of 1912, was the instrument which ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... not wait to hear what Hernandez may have to say. Dropping the tarpauling, he strides up to him, and, sans ceremonie, jerks the instrument out of his fingers. Then bringing it to his ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... Christianity in its ethical relations—as an instrument of political and social reform, and a motive to philanthropy—has become more active ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the sort: it is the elements, the essence, the feeling which makes poetry if expressed. I have a passion for music, a perpetual desire to express myself in music, but as I can't sing and can't perform on any musical instrument, I can't call myself a musician. The poetic feeling that is in us and cannot be expressed remains a secret untold, a warmth in the heart, a rapture which cannot be communicated. But it cries to ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... distance—is like passing into the fields of Elysium. This was, at all events, the opinion of Stephen Welland; and Stephen must have been a good judge, for he tried the change frequently, being exceedingly fond of bicycling, and occasionally taking what he termed long spins on that remarkable instrument. ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... writ, And taught his tuneful instrument to grieve, And sang in quavers how his heart was split, Constant beneath her lattice with each eve; She mock'd his wooing with her wicked wit, And slash'd his suit so that it matched his sleeve, Till he grew silent at the vesper star, And, quite ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Nurs'd him so Tenderly and had Suckled him, was that something which was departed: and from it proceeded all those Actions by which she shew'd her Care of him, and Affection, to him, and not from this unactive Body; but that the Body was to it only as an Instrument or Tool, like his Cudgel which he had made for himself, with which he used to Fight with the Wild Beasts. So that now, all his regard to the Body was remov'd, and transferr'd to that by which the Body is governed, and by whose Power ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... was one who could truly say with him in Terence, Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. He was never an indifferent spectator of the misery or happiness of any one; and he felt either the one or the other in great proportion as he himself contributed to either. He could not, therefore, be the instrument of raising a whole family from the lowest state of wretchedness to the highest pitch of joy without conveying great felicity to himself; more perhaps than worldly men often purchase to themselves by undergoing the most ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... man grudgingly scribbled, the newcomer lounged lazily nearby, but just as the man at the key was about to begin sending, his instrument fell into a frenzied activity. Halloway thought that the other loiterers, who were really no more genuinely loitering than himself, made a poor showing of indifference, and that their attitudes betrayed their eagerness of waiting for ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... them, turn their heads, and then—ping! Let the neatest wrist win the odd trick. Very pleasant schemes of witchery and silent murder did he make as the Santa Fina drove him through the dark blue waters on his honeymoon, and at last brought him up to point out to his adoring instrument a low golden shore, a darker line of purple shadow beyond, and in the midst a white tower which gleamed like snow. "Civitavecchia, my queen among ladies! Rome beyond it; beyond that Nona—Nona and glorious ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... o'clock came and found him still pacing up and down the office of the telegraph. The operator offered him the hospitality of the private room, but this he declined. Every time the machine clicked, John's ears were on the alert, trying to catch a meaning from the instrument. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... when he reached the tavern. He went inside, saw men and women dancing in a dim light, and there was a huge, rainbow-colored musical instrument by the door which startled him by its resonance. The music was ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long

... the Toccata was a form of musical composition for the organ or harpsichord, somewhat in the free and brilliant style of the modern fantasia or capriccio; clavichord: "a keyed stringed instrument, now superseded by the pianoforte {now ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... deliberated long, and he never attacked until he had ample information. He ran risks, and great ones, but in war the nettle danger must be boldly grasped, and in Jackson's case the dangers were generally more apparent than real. Under his orders the cavalry became an admirable instrument of reconnaissance. He showed a marked sagacity for selecting scouts, both officers and privates, and his system for obtaining intelligence was well-nigh perfect. He had the rare faculty, which would ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... My brothers, where are they? Where are those who travail all over the world? Cain, what hast thou done with them? I stretch out my arms; a wave of blood separates us; in my own country I am only an anonymous instrument of assassination.... My Country! but it is you who destroy her!... My Country was the great community of mankind; you have ravaged it, for thought and liberty know not where to lay their heads in Europe today. I must ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... loppers climbed up the trunk. Tied to it by a rope collar, they cling round in the beginning with both arms, then, lifting one leg, they strike it hard with a blow of the edge of a steel instrument attached to each foot. The edge penetrates the wood, and remains stuck in it; and the man rises up as if on a step in order to strike with the steel attached to the other foot, and once more supports himself till he ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... it gingerly in his hands; it was a lichen-covered skull, with a great dent in the back of it where it had been cloven by an axe or some sharp instrument. He hove it as far as he ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... my oldest suit of clothes with the now fashionable slit-trouser leg, fastened the green bonnet to the front of the car, and wheeled it out of the tool garage. Araminta went out, saying airily that she would be back to tea. After a little trouble I induced the instrument to graze the left-hand pasture as far as the hobbled Colonel. Then, feeling that my shoulders wanted opening a bit, I went indoors and fetched a brassie-spoon. I suppose I must have been striking with unusual vehemence, but anyway, in playing a good second to the fourteenth ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various

... the girl for a long time and he observed that she appeared to be perfectly contented and happy. She had her mandolin with her, and after quite a period of abstraction she took up her instrument, and soon her splendid voice sounded clear and melodious on the still air, for it was an afternoon when nature rested under a spell, as it were; not a breath of air appeared to float amid the ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

... that bared arm, her breath held. The long square fingers closed once more with a firm grip on the instrument. "Miss Lemoris, some No. 3 gauze." Then not a sound until the thing was done, and the surgeon had turned away to cleanse his hands in the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Poland—but, of a truth, under the vassalage of the Emperor of the French! Kosciusko was not to be consoled for Poland by riches bestowed on himself, nor betrayed into compromising her birthright of national independence by the casuistry that would have made his parental sceptre the instrument ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... boy and a figure following with a sack, whether man or boy he could not say, as it was in deep shadow. He collared the boy, who was big and strong, and while he was struggling with him he was struck from behind with a life- preserver or some such instrument, which felled him to the ground, bleeding and senseless. After some time he came to, and managed to crawl home, and his wife sent off to tell me, and I despatched a man on horseback to fetch a surgeon. And Bradley is doing pretty well; there is no immediate fear for his life. Of course he has ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... self-defence. Its inspiration can be due only to a policy of expansion at the cost of others, and its aim to extend and to maintain existing Russian frontiers. As I write it is engaged not in a war of defence but in a war of invasion, and is the instrument of a policy ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement

... their tips to possess all the human senses, that time and again in their delicate touch upon the dial of a safe had mocked at human ingenuity and driven the police into impotent frenzy, this was a pitiful thing. From his pocket came a small steel instrument that was quickly and deftly inserted in the keyhole. There was a click, the door swung open, and Jimmie Dale, alias Larry the Bat, stepped outside into a back yard half a block away from the entrance to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... describes as "a petal on a harmony." He was a member of the Peabody Symphony orchestra of Baltimore, and Asger Hamerik, his director for six years, says of him: "In his hands the flute no longer remained a mere material instrument, but was transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its tones developed colors, warmth and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry. His conception of music was not reached by an analytic ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... self-respect rose from week to week, the coarse and brutal treatment of the proprietor was increased. Mr. Belcher feared that the man was getting above his business, and that, as the time approached when he might need something very different from these harmless investigations, his instrument might ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... a long 'un and a stout 'un," Ma Moll's voice had raised to a shrill cry as she described the instrument of death. Tessibel's head was now close to the hag's. Her wild terror-stricken eyes following the stick as it stirred the ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... been well) staying with me here for ten days. He is a very good Guest, inasmuch as he entertains himself with Books, and Birds'-nests, and an ancient Viol which he has brought down here: as also a Bagpipe (his favourite instrument), only leaving the 'Bag' behind: he having to supply its functions from his own lungs. But he will leave me to-morrow or next day; and with June will come my two Nieces from Lowestoft: and then the Longest Day will come, and we shall begin ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... most important decisions relative to the common cause of France and America had been suspended on account of his absence; urged him particularly on the great point of a naval superiority, reminding him, that the British Marine was the principal instrument of their power; that the efforts of the allies to reduce this force could nowhere be made with such a prospect of success as on the American coast; that it would be very easy after a decisive campaign ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... throwing-off young gentleman who, to our certain knowledge, was innocent of a note of music, and scarcely able to recognise a tune by ear, volunteer a Spanish air upon the guitar when he had previously satisfied himself that there was not such an instrument within a mile ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... question for much discussion, many growers formerly holding that to cut it meant to kill the tree. This has proved a mistake. It has been practically demonstrated that the tree thrives better with the tap root cut if properly done with a sharp instrument, making a clean cut. New growth is thereby induced, the abundance of lateral roots feed the tree more satisfactorily and the trees come into bearing from two to three years earlier than would otherwise be ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various

... and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy had been one of Tommy's hobbies in boyhood. In a moment he was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... mistress of the house may be tormented. Some, who were sensible that the company were anxious for their performance, chose to be "quite out of voice," till they had been pressed and flattered into acquiescence; one sweet bashful creature must absolutely be forced to the instrument, as a new speaker of the House of Commons was formerly dragged to the chair. Then the instrument was not what one young lady was used to; the lights were so placed that another who was near-sighted could not see a note—another could not endure ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... Indies and Cathay and Cipango, to the great glory and enrichment of these Sovereigns and the passing thereby of Spain ahead of Portugal, and likewise and above all to the great glory of Christ and of Holy Church. He will do this, having seen it clear for many years that it is to be done, and he the instrument. And for the finding by going westward of the said India and all the gain of the world and the Kingdom of God and of our Sovereigns the King Don Ferdinand and the Queen Dona Isabella, he ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... Bible that lay on the leaf of her sewing machine. Two steps, and I had it stowed in my hip pocket, and was back innocently eating ... the taking of the Bible was providential. I believe that it served as the main instrument, later on, in saving me from ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... took up a violin, and raising the instrument to his shoulder, he began. He played at first very slowly. Caillette, with her arms folded—she had long before renounced the balancing pole—advanced up the rope. She knelt, and remained absolutely motionless. Then there came a peremptory summons from the violin. She arose and extended ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... feel the steadily-growing pull of his mindless enemy in the distant sky. Floating and kicking his way over to the Tele-screen, he quickly switched the instrument on. Rotating the control dials, he brought the blinding white image of the onrushing solar disk into perfect focus. Automatically he adjusted the two superimposed polaroid filters until the proper amount of light was transmitted to his viewing screen. They really built ships and filters these ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara

... is first focused on the deeper notes. A gradual rise in pitch is noticeable in the lines from instrument ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... favorite record, with John Philip Sousa leading his own band. One reason Jerry liked this particular march was because he had shaken bells to it in the rhythm band at school. Next summer Jerry was going to take lessons playing a horn. He had already picked out the instrument he wanted to learn to play, a giant tuba in Kitt's music store downtown. By fall he would be ready to play ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... now know what they have got, and are further than ever from yielding any part of it. In the house of almost every Norwegian farmer, one sees the constitution, with the facsimile autographs of its signers, framed and conspicuously hung up. The reproach has been made, that it is not an original instrument—that it is merely a translation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, a copy of the French Constitution of 1791, &c.; but it is none the worse for that. Its framers at least had the wisdom to produce the right thing at the right time, and by ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... accordance with the wishes of a large number of the Milanese; and they called the First Consul their Savior, since he had delivered them from the yoke of the Austrians. There was, however, a party who detested equally these changes, the French army which was the instrument of them, and the young chief who was the author. In this party figured a celebrated artist, the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... My fears are infinite, my hopes few, my anguish intolerable!—For the love of God, brother, do not rob the world of two people who were born to be its light and pride! Do not be this diabolic instrument of passion and error! If they still have being, restore them to the human race.—You know not the wrong you do!—'Tis heinous, 'tis hateful wickedness! Can a mind like yours feel no momentary remorse, no glow of returning virtue, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... to a typewriter in a corner of his office, and seated herself at the musicless instrument. Her heart pit-a-patted as fast as her fingers, but she drew up the letter in a handsome style while he sat and stared at her and mused upon the strange radiance she brought into the office in ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... at Athens a great number of beautiful girls; Praxiteles designed them all, one after another; then from all these diverse types of beauty, each one of which had its defects, he formed a single faultless beauty and created Venus. The first man who created a musical instrument and who gave to that art its rules and its laws, had for a long time listened to the murmuring of reeds and the singing of birds. Thus the poets who understand life, after having known much of love, more or less transitory, after having felt that sublime ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... and into it he had fastened a cheap brass stickpin, much as Gray wore his. During the meal he watched how the guest used his knife and fork and made awkward attempts to do likewise, but a table fork was an instrument which, heretofore, Buddy had looked upon as a weapon of pure offense, like a whaler's harpoon, and conveniently designed either for spearing edibles beyond his reach or for retrieving fragments of meat lurking between his back teeth. He even did some hasty manicuring under the edge ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... in the burning air and was dried up. To while away the time Yegorushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear, and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without noticing how he came there. His uncle and Father Christopher were sound asleep; their sleep would be sure ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... scraping off the fleshy portion as nimbly as a carpenter shaves a board with his plane, Winona, at five years of age, stands upon a corner of the great hide and industriously scrapes away with her tiny instrument. When the mother stops to sharpen her tool, the little woman always sharpens hers also. Perhaps there is water to be fetched in bags made from the dried pericardium of an animal; the girl brings some in a smaller water-bag. When her mother goes for ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... United States! Pausing here in the long catalogue of our foreign possessions, let our fancied observer turn back his eye towards the little island that owns them; will he not be filled with wonder, possibly with a conviction that Great Britain is destined by Almighty God to be the instrument of effecting His sublime but hidden purposes with reference to humanity? Assume, however, our observer to be actuated by a hostile and jealous spirit, and to regard our foreign possessions, and the national greatness derived from them, as only nominal and apparent—to insinuate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... ice, as well known to him now as the track of the game to the hunter; the peculiar lines, furrows, and grooves; the polished surfaces, the roches moutonnees; the rocks, whether hard or soft, cut to one level, as by a rigid instrument; the unstratified drift and the distribution of loose material in relation to the ancient glacier beds,—all agreed with what he already knew of glacial action. He visited the famous "roads of Glen Roy" in the Grampian ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... and in its exercise at the bidding of love there need be anything that is not holy, is to arraign the Creator. Sex love abused and misunderstood has indeed strewn the world with tragedies and disease. But sex love is going to remain. Not until we have learnt to make it an instrument for the perfection of life and the heightening of vitality can we hope to reach the life which the love of God designed for us; and to that we shall not attain until we have dared to acquire knowledge and through ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray

... degrees, or its grandfather has broken his leg, nobody thinks of the doctor except as a healer and saviour. He may be hungry, weary, sleepy, run down by several successive nights disturbed by that instrument of torture, the night bell; but who ever thinks of this in the face of sudden sickness or accident? We think no more of the condition of a doctor attending a case than of the condition of a fireman at a fire. In other occupations night-work is specially recognized and provided ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... than not of an evening when Sir Nigel went to bed. Here Borkins saw his life's opportunity of getting even. He knew, too, of Miss Brellier's revolver—must have known, else why should this particular instrument be used upon this particular night, in place of the usual type of revolver which Brellier's guards carried, and by which poor Collins undoubtedly met his death? So we will take it that he knew of this little instrument here, and upon hearing of Wynne's proposed investigations, he dashed ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... to sounds is clearly betrayed all through the romantic narrative of the Cremona Violin, where the instrument is a symbol of the human heart. Those who, in the old days before the Germans began their career of wholesale robbery and murder, used to hear Mozart's operas in the little rococo Residenz-Theater in Munich, will enjoy reminiscently ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... taken for granted as an instrument of policy. It is employed by civilized nations and empires as a means of expansion. Wars of independence and restitution follow conquest, dismemberment and annexation. Civilized nations and empires prepare for war and wage war as a ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... quotations from various poems—none of them, I think, from his own; but, however this may have been, the music seemed to intoxicate him. The words began to thrill me with the spell of his own recitation of them. Here at last I realized the veritable genius who had made the English language a new instrument of passion. Here at last was the singer for whose songs my ears were shells which still murmured with such lines as I had first furtively read by the gaslight of the Brighton theater. My own appreciation as a listener more and more encouraged him. If he began a quotation ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... stronger effort to perform this simple act with a pure heart, than to achieve many and many a deed to which the doubtful trumpet blown by Fame has lustily resounded. Doubtful, because from its long hovering over scenes of violence, the smoke and steam of death have clogged the keys of that brave instrument; and it is not always that its notes are either ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... speaking of Satan. Jesus upon one occasion, because Peter was remonstrating with him concerning his death, said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Christ did not mean to say that Peter was the devil, but he addressed him as Satan, because the devil was using him as an instrument to persuade the Savior to escape the death he came here to endure for all. So Satan and the devil spoken of in Rev. 20:2 does not refer to the personal devil, the prince of evil spirits, but to some great power antagonistical to gospel light and truth as revealed ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... The instrument hung in a corner of the room, and with very little delay, Mills's servant was rung up. His master had not yet returned, but he had said that he should very ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... of the petitioners should receive, making two hundred acres the least and six hundred the most that anyone should obtain. Five men were appointed as trustees, to divide and distribute the land as directed. The same instrument incorporated the tract into a township, to be called Argyle, and should have a supervisor, treasurer, collector, two assessors, two overseers of highways, two overseers of the poor and six constables, to be elected annually by the inhabitants on the first day of ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... wanted. The ships which should have been thus employed were then required for more pressing services; and the bloody Corsican was thus enabled to reach Europe in safety; there to become the guilty instrument of a wider-spreading destruction than any with which the world had ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... colony, and was the first direct blow aimed against English domination. Power such as was asked for, he said, had already cost one king of England his head and another his throne. Writs of assistance were open to intolerable abuse; were the instrument of arbitrary power and destructive of the fundamental principles of law. Reason and the constitution were against them. "No act of Parliament can establish such a writ: an act of Parliament against the constitution is void!" These ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... when her most gracious Majesty the Queen shall have become acquainted with the service you have gratuitously rendered to so many of her brave soldiers, her generous heart will thank you. For you have been an instrument in the hands of the Almighty to preserve many a gallant heart to the empire, to fight and win her battles, if ever again war may become a necessity. Please to accept this from your ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... beyond the range of fallible mortals," said the Lady de Tilly. "In the sudden crash of all his hopes he would not utter a word of invective against your brother. His heart tells him that Le Gardeur has been made the senseless instrument of others ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... of contributors contained the most distinguished names in all countries. Its purpose, as Page explained it, was "to provoke discussion about subjects of contemporary interest, in which the magazine is not a partisan, but merely the instrument." In the highest sense, that is, its purpose was journalistic; practically everything that it printed was related to the thought and the action of the time. So insistent was Page on this programme that his pages were not "closed" until a week ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... family come to realize what an asset to their career this "Genius" might be. They had humored him in his strange whim to devote his life to fiddling; money had been spent on him freely—he brought home with him a famous Cremona instrument for which three thousand dollars had been paid. But now it was dawning upon them that this was an "ugly duckling"; he was to make his debut in the metropolis, where an overwhelming triumph was expected; and then he would ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... seen without a diligent study of the Old Testament as well as the New. Whoever neglects the former, will want breadth and comprehensiveness of Christian culture. All profound Christian writers have been well versed in "the whole instrument of each Testament," as Tertullian calls the two parts of revelation. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... is charmed by the melodies, on which his opinion is worth something and mine is not! and I can't "read them out of a printed book" without an instrument. But—we are equally charmed ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... surged up the recollection of that word which had paralyzed all around, and myself with them. The thought that I must share the anguish did not restrain me from my revenge. With a tremendous effort I got my voice, though the instrument pressed upon my lips. I know not what I articulated save 'God,' whether it was a curse or a blessing. I had been swung out into the middle of the hall, and hung amid the crowd, exposed to all their observations, when I succeeded in ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... as any one the value of the slapstick as a mirth-provoking instrument. (All hail to the slapstick! it was well known at the Mermaid Tavern, we'll warrant.) But he prefers the rapier. Probably his Savage Portraits, splendidly truculent and slashing sonnets, are among the finest pieces he ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... then referred to the supineness of the Ambassadors of the Powers at Constantinople, and continued: "The concert of Europe is an august and useful instrument, but it has not usually succeeded in dealing with the Eastern question, which has arrived at a period when it is necessary to strengthen the hands of the Government by an expression of national opinion. I believe that the continued presence of the Ambassadors at Constantinople has operated as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... which she was not to forget. Before she reached the door he remembered two more things she was not to forget. The telephone rang, and, still talking, he walked briskly around a sofa, avoided a table and an armchair, and without fumbling picked up the instrument. What he heard was apparently very good news. He laughed delightedly, saying: "That's fine! ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... however, went and opened the piano for her. Then old Mr. Rockharrt arose, went to the instrument slowly and deliberately, put his youngest son aside, wheeled up the music stool, seated ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... wrote them out at my request whenever they "came" to her. Writers on Spiritualism have described the process so frequently, that it is unnecessary for me to dwell upon it at length. The influences took her unawares in the usual manner. In the usual manner her arm—to all appearance the passive instrument of some unseen, powerful agency—jerked and glided over the paper, writing in curious, scrawly characters, never in her own neat little old-fashioned hand, messages of which, on coming out from the "trance" state, she would have-no memory; of many of ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... like a beautiful instrument of music he tells the people that God has not forgotten them; that the scattered exiles will be brought back to the home land; that the ruined city, Jerusalem, will be rebuilt and made more lovely ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... family who were at Rawul Pindee. It told of deep-sea soundings and investigations into the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers for her to send to them—a very improving letter, but a good deal like a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her aunt no trouble, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... me. Yonder is a lute, which makes me believe that the lady understands playing upon it; and if you can prevail with her to play but one tune, I shall go away perfectly satisfied; for a lute, sir, is an instrument I am ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Irish loathe murder as much as any people in the world; but in the circumstances before us, it often happens that the Irishman is not a free agent—very far from it: on the contrary, he is frequently made the instrument of a system, to which he must become either an ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... at Sea.—A trireme, then is an heroic fighting instrument. She goes into battle prepared literally to do or die. If her side is once crushed, she fills with water instantly, and the enemy will be too busy and too inhumane to do anything but cheer lustily when they see the water covered with struggling wretches. But the trireme ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... prevented my design: Gito, his grief growing to a rage, made a great out-cry, and forcing me on the bed, "You're mistaken," said he, "Encolpius, if you fancy it possible for you to dye before me: I was first in the design, and had not surviv'd my choice of Ascyltos; if I had met with an instrument of death: But had not you come to my relief in the bath, I had resolv'd to throw my self out of the window: And that you may know how ready death is to wait those that desire it: see—I've got ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... skin taken off any part of his mouth. What has been sucked into the mouth should be immediately spit out again. But if those who are near have sufficient nerve for the operation, and a suitable instrument, they should cut out the central part bitten, and then bathe the wound for some time with warm water, to make it bleed freely. The wound should afterwards be rubbed with a stick of lunar caustic, or, what is better, a solution of this—60 grains of lunar caustic dissolved ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the Irish clergy, he said, Swift was a man of great parts, and the instrument of much good to his country[393].—Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine imagination; but Usher, he said, was the great luminary of the Irish church; and a greater, he added, no church could boast of; at least in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... undefended citadel, and established guard upon its deserted outposts. I tottered to the window which I had left—I shrouded myself in the folds of the curtain, and as the strains rose, renewed and regular, I struggled to keep in my breath, listening eagerly, as if the complaining instrument could actually give utterance to the cruel mystery which I equally dreaded and desired ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... with alternate layers of sand between. Perhaps the purpose was to render them more easy to work to the desired finish.[216] Catlin describes another process of making arrowheads which required two workmen. One held the stone in his left hand and placed a chisel-like instrument at the proper point. The second man struck the blow. Both sang during the operation. The blows were in the rhythm of the music, and a quick "rebounding" stroke was said to be essential to good success.[217] A "lad" in Michigan ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... now settled in favour of the smaller sum. If you stipulate for performance in favour of one in your power, all benefit under the contract is taken by yourself, for your words are as the words of your son, as his words are as yours, in all cases in which he is merely an instrument of ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... During the period of its power the extraordinary commission for the suppression of the counter revolution, which was the instrument of the terror, executed about 1,500 persons in Petrograd, 500 in Moscow, and 3,000 in the remainder of the country—5,000 in all Russia. These figures agree with those which were brought back from Russia by Maj. Wardwell, and inasmuch as I have checked them ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... almost invidious to call a poet minor. Yet there is no doubt that minor poetry can be good in its way, just as major poetry can be good in its way. "If he [Locker] was a minor poet he was at least [why 'at least'?] a master of the instrument he touched, which cannot," writes Mr Coulson Kernahan in the Nineteenth Century for October 1895, "be said of all who would be accounted major." Locker was not of those, in his own opinion, ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... that was suspended to his neck, and looked at me as though I could no longer doubt his capability. I then sent for a German horn from my cabin. This was a polished cow's horn, fitted with brass, which I think had cost a shilling. I begged the old rain-maker's acceptance of this instrument, which might be perhaps superior ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... on his fiddle. It might have appeared strange that in the intervals between the recitations and the music the abrupt notes of a French horn were wafted, now and then, from the artists' room; but this instrument was not used, nevertheless. It afterward came out that the amateur who had offered to perform on it had been seized with a panic at the moment when he should have made his appearance before the audience. So at last, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... out to be a veritable Deed, engrossed on parchment, embossed with a ten-shilling stamp, and duly calling itself an INDENTURE, in fourteenth century capitals. So much I saw as I held it up for the prisoner to read over. The illegally legal instrument is still in existence, with its unpunctuated jargon about "hereditaments" and "fee simple," its "and whereas the said Daniel Levy" in every other line, and its eventual plain provision for "the said sum of L15,000 to remain ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... ticket was found trod into the bloody mud, scarcely legible, and Sturk's cocked hat, the leaf and crown cut through with a blow of some blunt instrument. His sword they had found by his side ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... frantic ringing. Through the receiver she could hear only the sweep of the rain and the harsh crackle of the wind. Sometimes praying, sometimes fainting, and sometimes despairing, she stood clinging to the instrument, ringing and pounding upon it like one frenzied. Lance looked at her in amazement. "Why, God a'mighty, Dicksie, what's ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... hour; but now she did not choose to leave the room. She would quit the piano, and, flinging herself into a chair, declare that she wanted to see how Hilda stood it. As Hilda seated herself and wrought out elaborate combinations from the instrument, she would listen attentively, and when it was over she would give expression to some despairing words ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... great instrument for the ascertainment of truth in physical science, answers this question for us. In the head of the lobster there lies a small mass of that peculiar tissue which is known as nervous substance. Cords of similar matter connect this brain of the lobster, directly or indirectly, with ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... requisite of civilized living; because, indeed, the very first step in social advance must be economic; because the industrial monopoly with which slavery encompassed black men has fallen shattered before the trumpet-blast of white labor and eager competition; and, finally, because no instrument of moral education is more effective upon the mass of mankind than cheerful and intelligent work. These ideas powerfully voiced, together with an unusually magnanimous attitude toward the white South, have set the man who toiled doggedly up from slavery, upon a hill apart. These ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... called OLD NOLL—in accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a certain paper which was handed to him, called 'the Instrument,' to summon a Parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members, in the election of which neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share. He had also pledged himself that this Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... gravitation, and to relieve the brain as well as the eye. Dr. De Wecker made two endeavors to accomplish this object, but he tried to feel his way to the optic nerve without the aid of sight, and to incise the sheath by means of an instrument carrying a concealed knife, capable of being projected by means of a spring. The risks of failure, and, still more, the risks of inflicting irreparable injury upon the nerve, were such that he only attempted his operation in two well nigh ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various

... their good. Do thou. therefore, with thy brothers fearlessly dwell on this summit of the mountain. And, O Pandava, be thou not angry with Bhima. These Yakshas and Rakshasas had already been slain by Destiny: thy brother hath been the instrument merely. And it is not necessary to feel shame for the act of impudence that hath been committed. This destruction of the Rakshasas had been foreseen by the gods. I entertain no anger towards Bhimasena. Rather, O foremost of the Bharata ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the fiddlers are the ministers of the devil; for, as when hogs are strayed, if the hogs'-herd call one, all assemble together, so the devil calleth one woman to sing in the dance, or to play on some instrument, and presently all ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... much had his faith in that person depended upon respect for his confident daring, and so thoroughly fearless was Morton's own nature) he felt himself greatly shaken in his allegiance to the chief, by recollecting the effect produced on his valour by a single glance from the instrument of law. He had not yet lived long enough to be aware that men are sometimes the Representatives of Things; that what the scytale was to the Spartan hero, a sheriff's writ often is to a Waterloo medallist: that a Bow Street runner ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... misunderstand them when quoted rightly! For instance, we "wait for something to turn up, like Micawber," careless or ignorant of the fact that Micawber worked harder than all the rest put together for the leading characters' sakes; he was the chief or only instrument in straightening out of the sadly mixed state of things—and he held his tongue till the time came. Moreover—and "Put a pin in that spot, young man," as Dr "Yark" used to say—when there came a turn in the tide of the affairs of Micawber, he took it at the flood, and it led on to fortune. ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... the arm that delivered you is not shortened that it cannot save. For, Odalite, whatever the instrument might have been, it was the hand of ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony; Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips, And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... dressing-gown does not button all the way down, he put over his knees while breakfasting in winter. Yes, he admitted with pleasure that he was "well served". Before eating he opened the piano—a modern instrument concealed in an ingeniously confected Regency case—and played with taste a ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... (called chromatic aberration) telescope glasses were made small and of very long focus: some of them so long that they had no tube, all of them egregiously cumbrous. Yet it was with such instruments that all the early discoveries were made. With such an instrument, for instance, Huyghens discovered the real shape ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... not of a mould to resist plain speaking like this, and when not supported by the presence of those who made him their tool and instrument, he seldom managed to make way against the vehemence of Clarendon's rebukes. It could hardly be pleasant for a monarch to be told that what he designs is base ingratitude; that his throne is in danger; the reputation of his Court in evil ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... presence of mind. He felt the pulse of the masked lady; not that he gave it a single thought, but under cover of that medical action he could reflect, and he did reflect on his own situation. In none of the shameful and criminal intrigues in which superior force had compelled him to act as a blind instrument, had precautions been taken with such mystery as in this case. Though his death had often been threatened as a means of assuring the secrecy of enterprises in which he had taken part against his will, his life had never been so endangered as at ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... No instrument man ever made— None ever can be found— No matter when or where 'tis played, Will yield so rich a sound As that which falls from human tongue When heart speaks unto heart, Nor are its mysteries among The hidden things of art; A tyro on life's winding road ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite



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