"Self-acting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which, he affirms, is a much less shocking method of neutralizing the vital spark than the vulgar butchery of twisting and sticking. He has lost three of his fingers, through incautiously handling a self-acting rat-trap of his own construction; and had his left eye blown out, while investigating the exact interval between ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... boat's floor, thus passing through the space between the deck and the floor, and, of course, hermetically closed to it. In some boats the tubes are kept open, but in the self-righting boats they are fitted with self-acting valves, which open downwards only, so that they will allow any water shipped to pass through them, whilst none can pass upwards. Papa explained that, as the deck is placed above the water-line, any water resting on it will be above the outside level of the ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... I had done the same. I should have been far wiser, I know now, if I had bought one of those ready-made, self-acting, fool- proof medicine chests such as are favoured by fourth-rate ship- masters. In such a chest each bottle has a number. On the inside of the lid is placed a simple table of directions: No. 1, toothache; No. ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... EVANS'S SELF-ACTING KITCHEN RANGES continue to maintain their superiority over all others, for roasting, boiling, steaming, and baking, in the best and most economical manner, and yield a constant supply of hot water, with the addition of a HOT PLATE ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... sack had already cost eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, as I instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the cheaper article. Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a victim to high civilization and the Paddies. There we are, twelve miles out from Boston, in a country villa so convenient that every part of it might almost do its own work,—everything arranged in the most convenient, contiguous, self-adjusting, self-acting, patent-right, perfective manner,—and yet I tell you Marianne will die of that house. It will yet be recorded on her tombstone, 'Died of conveniences.' For myself, what I languish for is a log-cabin, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe |
