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Instrument   /ˈɪnstrəmənt/   Listen
Instrument

noun
1.
A device that requires skill for proper use.
2.
The means whereby some act is accomplished.  Synonym: tool.  "Science has given us new tools to fight disease"
3.
A person used by another to gain an end.  Synonyms: cat's-paw, pawn.
4.
(law) a document that states some contractual relationship or grants some right.  Synonyms: legal document, legal instrument, official document.
5.
The semantic role of the entity (usually inanimate) that the agent uses to perform an action or start a process.  Synonym: instrumental role.
6.
Any of various devices or contrivances that can be used to produce musical tones or sounds.  Synonym: musical instrument.



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"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books



... could to secure the adoption of the instrument by the people; and when that end was happily achieved he joined his voice to the unanimous cry with which the American nation nominated George Washington as the only possible candidate for the presidency. He said: "General Washington is the man whom all our ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... in a general way that this word, which occurs not seldom in Scripture and in the Liturgy, means affliction, sorrow, anguish; but it is quite worth our while to know how it means this, and to question 'tribulation' a little closer. It is derived from the Latin 'tribulum,' which was the threshing instrument or harrow, whereby the Roman husbandman separated the corn from the husks; and 'tribulatio' in its primary signification was the act of this separation. But some Latin writer of the Christian Church appropriated the word and image for the setting forth of a ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... hotel, anxious for any diversion out of the ordinary, came flocking to the scene as the strains of the barrel organ reached their ears, and the bear, in a clumsy fashion, began to dance to the music of the ear-piercing instrument. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... no thought of a new form of government, or of a new code of laws, but rather of the redress of present and practical grievances. Not a new constitution, but good government in conformity with the old one, was the essential object. Naturally enough, therefore, the instrument was based, in most of its important provisions, upon the charter granted by Henry I. in 1100, even as that instrument was based, in the main, upon the righteous laws of Edward the Confessor. After like manner, the Charter of 1215 became, in its turn, the foundation ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... think that when the Maker set up this strange instrument we call ourselves, and strung it for service, He selected of the heavy chords so few, and of the lighter ones so many! Some muffled ones there are; some slow and solemn sounds swell sadly forth at intervals, ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... read the will, but as that instrument made no mention of Eric's desire that his daughter should reside with her guardian, she was not aware of that fact; and feeling well nigh certain that it would rouse her anger and opposition, ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... do I greatly care," said he, and laughed, but with a laugh that jarred on her. "That which I did I must have done, no matter whom it was a question of saving. I am but an instrument in ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... China could not accede, being hampered by her alliance with the reactionary party at Seoul; consequently, Japan undertook the execution of the task alone. As a first step in that direction, the Japanese got possession of the person of the Corean ruler, and compelled him to act as the instrument of his captors. The initial document which he was constrained to sign was an order that the Chinese troops, who had come at his invitation, should leave the country. The seizure of the king's person, which occurred on July ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... a pretty prospect it was for such a suitor, (in forma pauperis,) if he should happen to be nonsuited—to be "put to his election, whether to be whipped or pay the costs."[5] Thus reasoned within himself that astute person, Mr. Frankpledge; and at length satisfied himself that he had framed an instrument which would "meet the case"—that "would hold water." To the best of my recollection, it was a BOND, conditioned to pay the sum of ten thousand pounds to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, within two months of Titmouse's being put into possession of the rents and profits ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... of the divine Presence is experienced, but it is a Presence outside the worshipper; it is accompanied with a deliberate surrender of the will to God, and a feeling on the part of the man that he becomes an instrument of the divine Will; this he carries with him into outer life, and, undirected by love and the illuminated reason, it often lands the half-developed Mystic into fanaticism and cruelty; no one who has read Oliver Cromwell's letters can deny ...
— The Basis of Morality • Annie Besant

... and also to every company in a regiment (and which therefore was easy to borrow during the campaign), proved most useful to us in getting ranges roughly. To get a range over 5,000 yards one has to use the double base with this instrument, and ranges may then be found up to 10,000 yards, and, with practised observers, fairly correctly. At any rate it is most useful to have something to start on when you get up into position. This instrument is extremely small and portable and should be supplied ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne

... of the new Constitution, and to reproduce the instrument, divided upon topics and into chapters ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... Bush—a raw youth, frightened but resolved; and how I lived through those first months of mental terror, now appalled by the fate of our Captain Nathan Hale, now burning with a high purpose and buoyed up by pride that his Excellency should have found in me a fit instrument for ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... a promise, because the promise is likely to be broken, and because its breach would suit their purposes. Through all William's policy a strong regard for formal right as he chose to understand formal right, is not only found in company with much practical wrong, but is made the direct instrument of carrying out that wrong. Never was trap more cunningly laid than that in which William now entangled Harold. Never was greater wrong done without the breach of any formal precept of right. William and Lanfranc ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... large room, and round the walls of this they stretched their three miles of wire, until the room was encircled by lines of wire, one above another, but nowhere touching. At one end of this wire was placed a telegraphic instrument, and at the other, another; and with great anxiety, although with strong faith in the success of their work, Mr. Vail sent to Mr. Morse the first real telegraphic message, which ran thus: "A patient waiter is ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... The little instrument seemed, in fact, trying to control itself. Its movements became less wild and large; the zigzags began to shape themselves into something like characters. Jackson's wasted face gave no token of interest; Whitwell laid half ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the most notable are the verbal manifestations, as they are mostly irrepressible, and can alone always be resorted to. While relieving the feelings, they can also become a most powerful, as they are often the only, instrument of reward and punishment. Their power of giving to moral sentiments greater precision, and of acting upon conduct like authoritative precepts, is seen in greatest force when they proceed from, bodies of men, whether they are regarded as signs of material consequences or not. He ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... pieces of apparatus. Q shows a stout wire or strip of 2 or 3 thicknesses of tin. Suppose we have an apparatus, as, for example, an electric bell, which we want to have ring when someone at a distance desires to call us. If we use a telephone or telegraph instrument we shall want to cut the bell out of the circuit as soon as we hear the call and are ready to talk. Suppose the current comes to us through the wire, A, Fig. 22. It can pass by the wire, C, through the bell and back to X. If we wanted simply to have the bell ring, the current could pass directly ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John

... a Mysterious Way: how the finished Miss Avery appears as the Instrument of Providence; how Sharlee sees her Idol of Many Years go toppling in the Dust, and how it is her Turn to meditate in the Still ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... time he went over his little eight-by-ten prison. He examined the chair as though it were some instrument of the Inquisition. He pulled the bed to pieces and handled every inch of the frame. He emptied every compartment of the queer hanging cabinet that had been stuffed with books and miscellanies; he examined ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... starting bomb boomed out. The crowd yelled, and the drummer of the band pounded his instrument furiously. Above the uproar sounded the sharp, crackerlike report of the motors. As more power was applied they roared like batteries ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... purchased more considerable articles, which she sold with so much judgment, that she laid the foundation of a system of business, that she has ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and success. She wrote to London, formed connections, and, in short, became the only ostensible instrument of that house, both at home and abroad. Who is he in this country, and who is a citizen of Nantucket or Boston, who does not know Aunt Kesiah? I must tell you that she is the wife of Mr. C——n, a very respectable man, who, well pleased with all her schemes, trusts to her judgment, and relies ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... in his boat almost on the instant. The doctor, guessing that possibly the call might be for him, was waiting at the ladder with his instrument-bag in case he should be needed. Formalities were unnecessary, so that when the boat pulled alongside and Eric, looking up, saw the doctor at the rail ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... bad taste, and secondly by an inner weakness that limits his capacity for it, and especially his capacity to throw off the prejudices and superstitions of his race, culture anytime. The cell, said Haeckel, does not act, it reacts—and what is the instrument of reflection and speculation save a congeries of cells? At the moment of the contemporary metaphysician's loftiest flight, when he is most gratefully warmed by the feeling that he is far above all the ordinary airlanes and has absolutely novel concept by the tail, he is suddenly pulled ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... mediate on behalf of the colonists. An interview with the native Chiefs was without much difficulty procured, their warriors having dispersed, and themselves being overwhelmed with vexation and shame. After a little show of affected reluctance, they were easily induced to sign an instrument by which they became bound to observe an unlimited truce, and to refer all their future differences with the settlers to the arbitration of the Governor of Sierra Leone. It is scarcely necessary to remark that having no real grievances to submit, they never had recourse to this provisionary ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... Thought comes to him slowly, and only after long seemingly unmeditative watching, and when it comes, (and he had the same character in matters of business) it is spoken without hesitation and never changed. His conversation was not an experimental thing, an instrument of research, and this made him silent; while his essays recall events, on which one feels that he pronounces no judgment even in the depth of his own mind, because the labour of Life itself had not yet brought ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... Germain, where we shall probably remain for another week. You know, madame, how fond his Majesty is of the Louis Treize Belvedere, and the telescope erected by this monarch,—one of the best ever made hitherto. As if by inspiration, the King turned this instrument to the left towards that distant bend which the Seine makes round the verge of the Chatou woods. His Majesty, who observes every thing, noticed two bathers in the river, who apparently were trying to teach their much younger companion, a lad of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... and that, as was too well known, at the bidding of haughty, unscrupulous women, the Empress Theodora and her friend Antonina, wife of Belisarius. Verily, the time had come for a great reform at the Lateran; the time had come, and perhaps the divine instrument was not far to seek. Whereupon Petronilla murmured ardently, and the ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... thoroughly congenial errand. It was her delight to be, in any way, the instrument of the wide-spread benevolence and varied Christian ministrations of her beloved employer. Nor was it an insignificant service which she therein performed. Her tender companionship had been of scarcely less benefit to the crippled girl than the almost daily rides which ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... glasses, bric-a-brac and family mementos of various kinds. On the wall above hang family photographs. Between the oven and the door that leads to the outer hall stands an old-fashioned grand piano and an embroidered piano-stool. The keyboard of the instrument is turned toward the tile oven. Above the piano there are glass cases containing a collection of butterflies. In the foreground, to the right, a brightly polished roller-top desk of oak with a simple chair. Several such chairs are set against ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... he, "my good friend, look here. I have this little instrument, and I'm a dead shot. I don't intend to be humbugged. If any one of you dare to make a movement I'll put a bullet through you. And you, you scoundrel, stand where you are, or you'll get the first bullet. You've ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... bands burst at once on our arrival, into the peculiar airs of their several chiefs; the horns flourished their defiances, with the beating of innumerable drums and metal instruments, and then yielded for a while to the soft harmonious breathings of their long flutes, with which a pleasing instrument, like a bagpipe without the drone, was happily blended. At least a hundred large umbrellas or canopies, which could shelter thirty persons, were sprung up and down by the bearers with brilliant effect, being made of scarlet, yellow, and the most showy cloths and silks, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... of the rattlesnake, and abounding as it does in all parts of the continent, it is less dreaded than many other serpents. It is, in the first place, very sluggish in its habits; and it is happily compelled to bear about it an instrument which gives notice of its approach and intention of biting. The South American rattlesnake— the Boaquira crotalus horridus—has the rattle placed at the end of the tail. It consists of several dry, hard, bony processes, so shaped that the tip of each upper bone runs within ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... go out to different parts of the satellite and make geological tests," announced Connel. "We'll pair off, two to a jet boat. Astro and Roger, Alfie and Mr. Shinny, Tom and myself. This is a simple test." He held up a delicate instrument and a vial full of colorless liquid. "You simply pour a little of this liquid, about a spoonful, on the ground, wait about five minutes, and then stick the end of this into the spot where you poured the liquid." He held up a two-foot steel shaft a quarter inch in diameter, fastened to a clock-face ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell

... 1918, this fleet, designed as the great instrument for conquest of world empire, and in its prime perhaps as efficient a war force as was ever set afloat, steamed silently through two long lines of British and Allied battleships assembled off the Firth of Forth, and the German flags at the mainmasts went down at sunset ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... Miss Miller had given the desired information, and then Alice said "good-bye" to her, frantically working the receiver hook of her instrument up and down to call the attention of the main ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope

... efforts have been rewarded. The armistice is signed. The troops of the Entente to whom the armies of the American Republic have nobly come to join themselves, have vanquished the most powerful instrument of conquest that a nation could forge—the haughty German Army acknowledges itself conquered. However hard our conditions are, the enemy government has ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... the power of a Scottish knight, who, though he served in the English army, did not choose to be the instrument of putting Bruce into their hands, and allowed him to escape. The conquerors executed their prisoners with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... 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

... the implementation of human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law; to act as an instrument of early warning, conflict prevention, and crisis management; and to serve as a framework for conventional arms control and confidence ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... need not tell you much more. I came back by road for greater secrecy, and did not arrive in Porthstone till eleven at night. I was not tired. Some superhuman power had taken possession of me, and in all I did I felt as if I were but a passive instrument in its hands. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... blessing rest also upon thee, my son," he said. "In days past thou hast been used as an instrument of evil, and hast been forced to do the devil's own work. Now God, in His mercy, has given thee work to do for Him, whereby thou mayest in some sort make atonement for the past, and show by thy faith and piety that thou art no longer a ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Christian clergy, sole depositaries of all lights to lighten their age, and sole possessors of any idea of opposing the conquerors with arguments other than those of brute force, or of employing towards the vanquished any instrument of subjection other than violence, became the connecting link between the nation of the conquerors and the nation of the conquered, and, in the name of one and the same divine law, enjoined obedience on the subjects, and, in the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... his Duchess. Flamineo might have used it; or the disguised friars, who made the deathbed of Bracciano hideous, might have plunged it in the Duke's heart after mocking his eyes with the figure of the suffering Christ. To imagine such an instrument of moral terror mingled with material violence, lay within the scope of Webster's sinister and powerful genius. But unless he had seen it with his eyes, what poet would have ventured to devise the thing and display it even in the dumb show of a tragedy? Fact is more wonderful than romance. No ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... which surely had not been bestowed upon a poor ignorant peasant girl merely for her own personal gratification. For the last time I took in mine the hand marked with a sign so worthy of our utmost veneration, the hand which was as a spiritual instrument in the instant recognition of whatever was holy, that it might be honoured even in a grain of sand—the charitable industrious hand, which had so often fed the hungry and clothed the naked—this hand was now cold and lifeless. A great favour had been withdrawn from earth, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... scape-goat of the atonement—those who looked on and helped not, bear themselves now as if they had been borne down by violence; and while I looked that they should shout applause on me, because of the victory of Worcester, whereof the Lord had made me the poor instrument, they look aside to say, 'Ha! ha! the King-killer, the Parricide—soon shall his place be made desolate.'—Truly it is a great thing, Gilbert Pearson, to be lifted above the multitude; but when one feeleth that his exaltation is rather hailed with hate and scorn than with love and reverence—in ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... doubted. The work was not to commence until the spring, when I was to be given a trial. I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune. I studied the mode of leveling. I saw a man on the Hocking canal operate his instrument, take the rear sight from the level of the water in the canal, then by a succession of levels backwards and forwards carry his level to the objective point. Then the man was kind enough to show me how, by simple addition and subtraction, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... nowhere. I called aloud, but the wind whistling in the ropes overpowered my voice. I left the tiller and got the fog horn. But, alas! I had never practised blowing that instrument, and try as I would, I could get no more than a feeble grunt ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... he worked as cautiously as possible, each movement of the instrument across the iron produced a harsh, grating sound that froze his blood with terror. What if someone should overhear this noise? And it seemed to him impossible for it to escape notice, since he could plainly distinguish ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... the one hand, and in the manufacture of the standard on the other. M. Benoit rightly points out that a kind of competition has been set up between the standard destined to represent the unit with its subdivisions and multiples and the instrument charged with observing it, comparable, up to a certain point, with that which in another order of ideas goes on between the ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... out of that limbo that Jimmy had spoken of as the margin of the unforeseeable, that the blind instrument of Fate appeared. He was a country lawyer from down-state, who, for a client of his own, had retained Rodney to defend a will that presented complexities in the matter of perpetuities and contingent remainders utterly beyond his own powers. He'd been in Chicago three or four days, spending an hour ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... dentist places over your mouth when laughing-gas is to be administered. 'Laughing-gas, no laughing matter'—the irrelevant and idiotic embryo of a pun dangled itself for an instant in my brain. What other horrible thing would come out of the bag? Perhaps some gleaming instrument?... He closed the bag with a snap, laid it beside him. He took off his top-hat, laid that beside him. I was surprised (I know not why) to see that he was bald. There was a gleaming high light on his bald, round ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... the second or first in some other respect. But in any particular line this sequence is followed. The primitive man picks up whatever he can find available for his use. His successor in the next stage of culture shapes and develops this crude instrument until it becomes more suitable for his purpose. But in the course of time man often finds that he can make something new which is better than anything in nature or naturally produced. The savage discovers. The barbarian improves. The civilized man invents. ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... Commerce with the Department of Labor and other related agencies, I think we can create a more economical, efficient, and streamlined instrument that will better serve ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... willow-twigs being drawn through the holes. Another way is to draw the rod through two pieces of iron joined together, and with one end thrust into the ground to make it stand upright. The willow-peeler sits down before his instrument and merely thrusts the rod between the two pieces of iron and draws it out again. This proceeding scrapes the bark off one end, and then he turns it and fits it in the other way; so that by a simple process ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... warrant, under my father's hand, [Footnote: It may be as well to remark here, that much of the business which is now entirely entrusted to police magistrates was then carried on by the secretaries of state and high official persons; and a "secretary's warrant" was an instrument of very dangerous and extensive power.] to assist you in apprehending any of the participators in this business. Do you think anything can be ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... Austrian principle of the division of Galicia were to be carried through, the form of so doing would be of great importance. Baron Burian advised that a clause referring to this should be inserted, not in the instrument of peace itself, but in a secret annexe. This form was, in his, Burian's, view, the only possible means of diminishing the serious consequences of the steps which the Austrian Government wished ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... Miss McIvor a song. Waverly eagerly brought the harp of Flora from a small recess, and as he placed it before her, whispered something in a low tone, which for a moment crimsoned the brow of the maiden, then coldly bowing to him, she drew the instrument toward her, and warbled a wild and spirited Highland air, her eyes flashing, and her bosom heaving with the exciting theme ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... evidence on the spot to show that for two years he has been guilty of illegal practices. That he has introduced into the prison an unlawful instrument of torture. That during his whole period of office he has fabricated partial, colored and false reports of his actions in the prison, and also of their consequences; that he has suppressed all mention of no less than seven attempts at suicide, and has given a false color, both ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... stretched over the section of a hollow tree, and usually so constructed as to have two tones, made an instrument of extraordinary use in communication as well as in music. By a system long anticipating the Morse code the Africans employed this "telegraph drum" in sending messages from village to village for long distances and with great speed. Differences of speech were ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... leaned back and took up Bruce's desk telephone, and soon was talking to the prosecuting attorney. After a moment he held out the instrument to the editor. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... clear-sighted Dom Miguel Forjas now perceived. To do him full justice, he had feared for some time that the unreasonable conduct of his Government might ultimately bring about some such desperate situation. But it was not for him to voice those fears. He was the servant of that Government, the "mere instrument and mouthpiece ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... for two or three minutes. Marcella entered silently, and came towards him without a smile; he saw that she read his face eagerly, if not with a light of triumph in her eyes. The expression might signify that she rejoiced at having been an instrument of his discomfiture; perhaps it was nothing more than gladness at ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... right plank, he took the auger, and crawling beneath the store, set to work boring a hole up through the floor. Presently the auger broke through, coming with a thump against the bottom of the barrel above, when Tom withdrew the instrument, and taking out his knife ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... Kenge, "it is a will of later date than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's handwriting. It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks of fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!" ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... not act so heedlessly as that your principles of caution shall blame me. I will attempt to get from him some promise that he will not make himself an active instrument against me. Perchance, too, as Bannerworth Hall, which he is sure to visit, wears such an air of desertion, I may be able to persuade him that the Bannerworth family, as well as his uncle, have left ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... few words Alice had let drop about Hester and Philip, and by degrees she approached the subject again, and had the idea then started confirmed by Alice, who had no scruple in using the past experience of her own, of her daughter's, or of any one's life, as an instrument to prove the vanity of setting the heart ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... real geniuses, all thought we would in time be able to talk to those a thousand miles away without media. Now, if we can make an instrument so wonderful that we can send wireless messages a thousand miles, is there any reason why we should not through mental control transmit messages from one person to another? The wireless message should not be as easy to ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont

... afflicted with some malady of the eyes. Histiaeus told him that if he would put himself under his charge he could effect a cure. It would be necessary, he said, that the man should have his head shaved and scarified; that is, punctured with a sharp instrument, previously dipped in some medicinal compound. Then, after some further applications should have been made, it would be necessary for the patient to go to Ionia, in Asia Minor, where there was a physician who ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... by its founder at Berlin from about 1820 to 1830, contemporary with that of Schleiermacher; and the learned theologian Marheinecke(806) is the name best known of those who applied it to theology. It was regarded at that time as an instrument of orthodoxy.(807) It had the advantage over the old rationalism, in that while using similarity of method in seeking to explain mysteries, it did not pare them down, but absorbed them in principles of philosophy; and over the school of Schleiermacher, in that it was less subjective, ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of oppression, and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... like all other charlatans of this sort, assumed a theatrical magnificence, and an air of science calculated to deceive the vulgar. His best instrument of deception was the phantasmagoria; and as, by means of this abuse of the science of optics, he called up shades which were asked for, and almost always recognised, his correspondence with the other world was a thing proved by the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... an inestimable treasure to me. It will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects are somewhat brighter. My poor dear, dearest sister, the unhappy and unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judgments on our house, is restored to her senses, to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has past, awful to her mind and impressive (as it must be to the end of life), but tempered with religious resignation and the reasonings of a ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... - the telephones in this system are radio transceivers, with each instrument having its own private radio frequency and sufficient radiated power to reach the booster station in its area (cell), from which the telephone signal is fed to a ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... finished," Gaston replied, tuning up the fiddle. "And then what?" he said, placing the instrument. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... around him, reproved his attendant, in a sharp tone, for unnecessarily exposing the blade of some ferocious-looking instrument to the dew, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... on the way back. In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a loss; for if the right word did not come he halted not, but eked out the measure with a peculiar musical sound meaning nothing at all. He accompanied his recitations on the sansa, an instrument figured in the woodcut, the nine iron keys of which are played with the thumbs, while the fingers pass behind to hold it. The hollow end and ornaments face the breast of the player. Persons of a musical turn, if too poor to buy a sansa, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... force of circumstances made her the instrument of law and order her chief aim was to win the people to Christ, and all her efforts were directed to that end. It was for souls she was always hungering, and the lack of conversions was her greatest sorrow. Nevertheless she was making progress. The people were becoming familiar with the name ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... instant I informed you that if your Ministers, after fully considering the objections urged to the proposed contract with Mr R.G. Reid for the sale and operation of the Government railways and other purposes, still pressed for your signature to that instrument, you would not be constitutionally justified in refusing to follow their advice, as the responsibility for the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... reverted to the girl herself for the nth time. She was Canadian, her hands were useful, there were tiny blood-blisters on the left thumb and index finger, and the skin was roughened and torn minutely, evidently by some sharp instrument. What instrument? He answered the question almost before he had voiced it. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... in its force as an argument to refute objections against revelation, but in its positive effect as a philosophy,(492) opening up a grand view of the divine government, and giving an explanation of revealed doctrines, by using analogy as the instrument for adjusting them into the scheme of the universe.(493) He seems himself to have taken a broad view of God's dealings in the moral world, analogous to that which the recent physical discoveries of his time had exhibited in the natural. In the same manner as Newton in his Principia had, by an ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... (which since first telling of the 'Tower of Babel' story has somewhat fallen from grace as a symptom of unity among mankind), or rather, subsuming it as one of the most essential exhibitions of rationality, and indeed its chief instrument, we come to Man's unity as a creature possessed of reason, and expressing this reasoning habit in specific modes of living, under whatever external surroundings. These being almost infinitely various, it is not always easy to compare examples ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... English representative of Moliere's Tartuffe. He makes religious cant the instrument of gain, luxurious living, and sensual indulgence. His overreaching and dishonorable conduct towards lady Lambert and her daughter gets thoroughly exposed, and at last he is arrested as a swindler.—I. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... With this latter exception, Alick Nulty was the, only individual aware of it, and from whom the knowledge of it could come. Kitty, therefore, by her over-anxiety to exculpate herself from a charge which had not been made, became the unconscious instrument I of disclosing the fact of her having left ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... lies in the fact that they are not purely animal, but, since they belong to man, are always impregnated with reason. It is reason that gives to them their moral worth, and it is because man must always put his self into every desire or impulse that it becomes the instrument either ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... son!" thought the count, hesitating to give him the instrument, "if this is my son, I ought still less to hesitate at this sacrifice." The door of the cabinet was broken in with a ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... and of sensation. All that perturbation of emotion that had before convulsed him he discovered to have disappeared, and in its stead a benumbed and blinded intelligence alone remained to him. As he stood in the presence of this second death, of which he had been as innocent and as unwilling an instrument as he had of the first, he could observe no signs either of remorse or of horror within him. He picked up his hat, which had fallen upon the floor in the first encounter, and, brushing away the dust with the cuff of his coat sleeve with extraordinary care, adjusted ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle

... with a slender, tapering blade. Small, sharp-pointed instrument used for making eyelet holes ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... without farre trauel, euery man might for his money haue syder and cheese his bellyfull, nor did he sell his cheese by the way onely, or his syder by the great, but abast himselfe with his owne hands, to take a shoomakers knife (a homely instrument for such a high personage to touch) and cut it out equally like a true iusticiarie, in little pennyworthes, that it woulde doo a man good for to looke vpon. So likewise of his syder, the pore man might ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... soldier was awakened. God can speak in loudest tones, as at Phillippi. He can bring His people out without anyone knowing, till they tell the tale themselves. It has often been the case, that some gentle, quiet preacher has been the instrument of deliverance to the Lord's chosen ones. There has been a revolution in nature. What a blessed change! How the chains of winter have fallen off, and that surly east-wind jailer been ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... notable day in Iberville's life, one could have looked through the window of a low stone house in Notre Dame Street, Montreal, one could have seen a priest joyously playing a violin; though even in Europe, Maggini and Stradivarius were but little known, and the instrument itself was often called an ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... bandaged the cadet's raw wrists. Admittedly feeling better, Tom turned to the master switch and found it missing. For a second panic seized him, until he remembered that Major Connel had hidden it. He felt under the pilot's chair and breathed easier, pulling out the vital instrument. ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... hypothetical worlds—occupied the entire center table. Most of it was merely a Horsten psychomat, but glittering crystalline and glassy was the prism of Iceland spar, the polarizing agent that was the heart of the instrument. ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... The instrument with which the executioner was busying himself, and which is perhaps unknown to our readers, was a species of whip, with a handle about two feet long. A plaited leather thong, about four feet long and two inches broad, was attached to this handle, this thong terminating ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... while his companion, at the risk of his own life, sliding, slipping, tumbling among the rafters of the bridge, had dropped close to the prostrate body, and then sprung to his feet. It was too late; the instrument of death was upon them. A moment more, and the train had passed ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... our physical and intellectual, and moral faculties (and the same may be said of the whole creation which we see around us) is not only calculated to answer the proper end of its being, by its subserviency to some purpose of solid usefulness, but to be the instrument of administering pleasure. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... intrusted with the management of the property, and who had the writings in his possession, determining, by one bold stroke, to strip Darnford of the succession,] had planned his confinement; and [as soon as he had taken the measures he judged most conducive to his object, this ruffian, together with his instrument,] the keeper of the private mad-house, left the kingdom. Darnford, who still pursued his enquiries, at last discovered that they had fixed their place ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... This little instrument you see Strapped on his back, shaped like a V, Is a "Dumb Jockey" meant to train The horse to bear the ...
— A Horse Book • Mary Tourtel

... This instrument, now preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, has had an engaging history. Built in England in 1700, it was first used in the colonial church at Port Royal and from thence was acquired for Alexandria. After considerable service at ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... and restored me to confidence in the establishment. I am at a loss to explain how my faith should have been confirmed afterwards by coming upon a guillotine—an awful instrument in the likeness of a straw-cutter, with a decapitated wooden figure under its blade—which the custodian confessed to be a modern improvement placed there by Signor P——. Yet my credulity was so strengthened by his candor, that I accepted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... accepted method was good enough for him, and he laid his paint upon the canvas as anybody else had done before him, and as many of our present-day painters would do well to do after him—if only they had the genius in them to "make the instrument speak." The impressions created on our mind by Turner's earlier pictures are not conveyed by dots, cubes, streaks, or any device save that of pigment laid upon the canvas in such a manner as seemed to the artist to reproduce what he ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... imagine—forgive me—one more injurious to the country, nor one more revolting to myself; and I do positively affirm, that I would sooner feed my poodle on paunch and liver, instead of cream and fricassee, than be an instrument in the hands of men like Lincoln and Lesborough; who talk much, who perform nothing—who join ignorance of every principle of legislation to indifference for every benefit to the people:—who are full of 'wise saws,' ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... note 2); and for "the expression," "music breathing from her face," compare Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, Part II. sect, ix., Works, 1835, ii. 106, "And sure there is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of any instrument;" and Lovelace's ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... a really successful balloon ascent: the balloon ran out four miles of thread before it was released, and the instrument fell without a parachute. The searchers followed the clue about 2 1/2 miles to the north, when it turned and came back parallel to itself, and only about 30 yards distant from it. The instrument was found undamaged and with the record ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... old frankness and friendliness of voice, and the same old note like the music of a reed instrument. Samson felt so comforted and reassured that he ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... eyes, as he observed, were better than his, I could not by any means equal him in representing visible objects. I said, the difference between us in this respect was as that between a man who has a bad instrument, but plays well on it, and a man who has a good instrument, on which he ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... of Hanover, as elector of Hanover, is an arbitrary prince; his electoral army is the instrument of that power; as king of Great Britain he is a restrained monarch. And though I don't suspect his majesty, and I dare say the hearts of the British soldiery are as yet free and untainted, yet I fear that too long ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... one who sees this somewhat out-of-the-way name imagine it is anything very dreadful. It is merely that of an instrument for measuring ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... omitted to inform his stepdaughter that the instrument just executed would, upon her wedding-day, become so much waste paper, an omission that was not in harmony with the practical and careful habits ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... The instrument was worked in the following manner. Should a devout person desire to keep a Lady Fast, he or she repaired to the church to determine by the aid of the wheel which of the days or anniversaries should be observed. Thereupon the sexton took the wheel, which ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... came to this part of his narrative, Miss Theo, who was seated by a harpsichord, turned round and dashed off the tune on the instrument, whilst all the little company broke out into the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Rue d'Enfer, and at No. 34 is the Hotel de Vendome, at present the royal School of Mines; this noble mansion was erected in 1707 by the Carthusian monks, but being purchased by the Duchess of Vendome was called after her. Every description of tool or instrument used in mining will here be found, and perhaps the extensive mineralogical collection is unrivalled anywhere in Europe, and arranged in the most scientific manner by M. Hauey, with a ticket attached to each explanatory ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... of the Christian unlawfulness of slavery. "My employer," says he, "having a Negro woman, sold her, and desired me to write a bill of sale, the man being waiting who bought her. The thing was sudden, and though the thought of writing an instrument of slavery for one of my fellow-creatures made me feel uneasy, yet I remembered I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our society, who ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... Cross has the lower limb considerably longer than the other three. "It is doubtless most nearly the shape of the very instrument on which Christ suffered, {56} and is therefore most suitable to symbolize the Atonement and to express suffering." When it is placed on steps it is called a "Calvary cross." The steps are generally three in number, ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... such as she had known in her youth (for by her account there was as great a deterioration in bones and sinews as in the other implements of husbandry), was enough to make the very inventor break his machine. She would even take up her favourite instrument, and thrash the air herself by way of illustrating her argument, and, to say truth, few men in these degenerate days could have matched the stout, brawny, muscular limb which Mrs. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... in dry Weather, when they are half ripe, as I have explained in the above Preliminaries, pick them and bruise them in a Tub, with a wooden Mallet, or other such like Instrument, for no Metal is proper; then take about the quantity of a Peck of the bruised Goosberries, put them into a Bag made of Horse-Hair, and press them as much as possible, without breaking the Kernels: repeat this ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... of the United States Supreme Court gave little opportunity to test his real ability as a jurist. The views expressed by him pending the adoption and ratification of the Federal Constitution characterised his judicial interpretation of that instrument, and he lived long enough to see his doctrine well established that "government proceeds directly from the people, and is ordained and established in the name of the people." His distinguishing trait as chief justice was the capacity to confront, wisely and successfully, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... one so round, Sissy dropped beneath the piano, and, whipping off her apron, proceeded to wipe the dust from the back legs of the instrument with it. This done, she rammed the apron up between the wall and the piano, and was seated, breathless, but with a bit of very dirty white embroidery in her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... was transferred to Mrs. Rowson's school to be finished. Doris and Eudora still attended Miss Parker's. But Madam Royall had treated the girls to the new instrument coming into vogue, the pianoforte. It's tone was so much richer and deeper than the old spinet. She liked it very much herself. Doris was quite wild over it. Madam Royal begged that she might be allowed to take lessons on it with the girls. Uncle Winthrop said in a year or ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... whole, it is maintained, requires revision. Property in this condition of things ceases, it is urged, to be essentially an institution by which each man can secure to himself the fruits of his own labour, and becomes an instrument whereby the owner can command the labour of others on terms which he is in general able to dictate. This tendency is held to be undesirable, and to be capable of a remedy through a concerted series of fiscal, industrial, and social measures which ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... represent the Saxon line, being the grandson of Henry I., and son of Matilda, niece of Edgar Atheling. In the mean time, as has been seen, the English language had been formed, the chief element of which was Saxon. This was a strong instrument of political rights, for community of language tended to an amalgamation of the Norman and Saxon peoples. With regard to the Church in England, the insulation from Rome had impaired the influence of the Papacy. The misdeeds and arrogance of the clergy had arrayed both people and monarch against ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... tap root in planting seedlings has been a 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 ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various

... had, at one of his visits to Buenos Ayres, purchased a piano, saying nothing of what he had done upon his return; and the delight of the girls and their mother, when the instrument arrived in a bullock-cart, was unbounded. From that time the girls practised almost incessantly; indeed, as Charley remarked, it was as bad as living in the house with ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... say. It was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he "didn't say cards once" during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... species, and some seventy or eighty individuals. Also in the same deposit were hearthstones, and works of art, flint knives, projectiles, sling-stones, and chips. Many of the bones of the extinct herbivora were streaked, as if the flesh had been scraped off them by a flint instrument, and others were split open, as if for the purpose of extracting the marrow. Inside the grotto were two or three feet of made earth mixed with human and a few animal bones of extinct and recent species. None of them, however, burnt or gnawed; and ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... and straightway we are in Seville—Seville, after Pentonville! Count Alma-viva, lordly, gallant, and gay beneath his disguise, twangs his guitar, and what sounds issue from it! For every instrument that was ever invented is ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... shaking her head determinedly from side to side as if to escape some invisible annoying object. It seemed as if some mocking sprite in the instrument were laboring to make her every harmony a discord, and Serviss keenly ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... it locked and the mule safe enough within. Nor—though they looked—could they find any trace of the palmer—not even a footstep, since the ground was frostbound. Only on examining the door of the stable they discovered that an attempt had been made to lift the lock with some sharp instrument. ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... his tanned cheeks. A fuzzy beaver hat barely covered the bald spot on his head. The reins were looped around his neck. Between his hands, huge as hams, moaned and sucked and suffled and droned a much-patched accordion. The instrument lamented like a tortured animal as he pulled it out and squatted it together. To its accompaniment, the old man sang over and over some words that he had fitted to the tune of "Old ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... representation of these horses while performing, it was necessary that it be done by process called instantaneous photographing. You are aware that birds and insects are taken by means of an instrument named the "photographic revolver," which is aimed at them. Recently an American, Mr. Muybridge, has been able to photograph horses while galloping or trotting, by his "battery of cameras," and a book on "the Horse in Motion" has for its subject this instantaneous ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... then, he need not look about for works not enjoined upon him. He need not covet those wrought in prominence and by the aid of great gifts of God—of unusual attainments. Let him confine himself to his own sphere; let him serve God in his vocation, remembering that God makes him, too, his instrument in his ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... Henslow at this time, and referring to a form of the instrument devised by his friend, Darwin says: "I am very glad to say I think the clinometer will answer admirably. I put all the tables in my bedroom at every conceivable angle and direction. I will venture to say that I have measured them as accurately as any ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... his well-studied masterpiece he plays; Loyola, Luther, Calvin he inspires, And kindles with infernal flames their fires, Sends their forerunner (conscious of th'event) Printing, his most pernicious instrument! Wild controversy then, which long had slept, Into the press from ruin'd cloisters leap'd; No longer by implicit faith we err, Whilst every man's his own interpreter; 150 No more conducted now by Aaron's rod, Lay-elders from ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... preservation; and the Scythian slave whetting the knife, is represented exactly in the same position as this celebrated masterpiece. The slave is not naked; but it is easier to get rid of this difficulty than to suppose the knife in the hand of the Florentine statue an instrument for shaving, which it must be, if, as Lanzi supposes, the man is no other than the barber of Julius Caesar. Winckelmann, illustrating a bas-relief of the same subject, follows the opinion of Leonard Agostini, and his authority might have been ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... rapidly shaken, these hollow quills strike against each other and produce, as I heard in the presence of Mr. Bartlett, a peculiar continuous sound. We can, I think, understand why porcupines have been provided, through the modification of their protective spines, with this special sound-producing instrument. They are nocturnal animals, and if they scented or heard a prowling beast of prey, it would be a great advantage to them in the dark to give warning to their enemy what they were, and that they were furnished with dangerous spines. They would thus escape being attacked. ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin



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