"Set in motion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... placed it at first but for his expectation of McDowell and his desire to connect with him. Everything not transportable, including millions of rations and hundreds of tons of ammunition, had to be destroyed. Five thousand loaded wagons, 2,500 head of cattle, and the reserve artillery were then set in motion toward the James, protected by the army ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... they had each other. It was a rare and beautiful thing to feel like that. And beyond that sorrowful vision of what she lacked to achieve any real and enduring happiness, there loomed also a self-torturing conviction that she herself had set in motion those forces which now threatened ruin for ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... should. Come to my room at the Merchants' House to-morrow night, and you shall find it ready for your inspection. I suppose the sooner the ball's set in motion the better?" he added as they moved slowly on down ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... full of anxiety for the officers and crew of the stranded Dewey. Several times during the morning the ship's engines were set in motion and valiant efforts made to drag the ship off the shoal. But each succeeding effort availed nothing, except to eat up the precious electrical energy ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... have performed some great intellectual achievement, if Saint Simon had never been born, is certain. It is hardly less certain that the great achievement which he did actually perform was originally set in motion by Saint Simon's conversation, though it was afterwards directly filiated with the fertile speculations of Turgot and Condorcet. Comte thought almost as meanly of Plato as he did of Saint Simon, and he considered Aristotle the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... marvellous had been aggravated by his recent troubles. Also the belief that all men's hands were against him never slumbered, but for this disposition there may well have been some justification. Scarcely had he settled in Bologna before an intrigue was set in motion against him. "After the events aforesaid, and after I had gone to teach in Bologna, my adversaries, by a trick, managed to deprive me of the use of a class-room, that is to say they allotted to me an hour just about the time ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... it is either misled, or desirous to mislead. However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation. Such vigilance exceeds the powers of man. And when it attempts to create and set in motion so many complicated springs, it must submit to a very imperfect result, or ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... be no doubt," he says, "that this hypothesis is true, but unless I can prove it from experience, men will not, I fear, be induced even to reflect upon it calmly, so persuaded are they that it is by the mind only that their bodies are set in motion. And yet what body can or cannot do no one has yet determined; body, i.e., by the law of its own nature, and without assistance from mind. No one has so probed the human frame as to have detected all its functions and exhausted ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... backward on some concealed pivot, forming a gaping opening right across the body of the Ganapati. And, as the opening gradually widened, by some devilish contrivance the hammer of a gong concealed within the idol was set in motion, and there resulted a loud continuous clanging din that could have been heard at a far distance. Instinctively I thrust my fingers in my ears to shut out the infernal noise. But after a time the clangor ceased, and now I observed that the elephant head ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... pretended to discuss. They admired him, oh vastly! He was amazing, a genius of the first water, the legitimate successor of Byron and Shelley, to say nothing of Keats; he might easily surpass them all in a few years. In short they rehearsed all the stock phrases which the critics had set in motion years ago and which had been drifting about ever since for the use of those unequal to the exertion of making their own opinions, or afraid of not thinking with the elect. Had Warner been falsely appraised by the ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... he naively believed that England, for an injury to one of her citizens, was always ready to declare war against the whole world. At the bottom of his soul there had lain a hope that in behalf of Rawlinson's daughter, after the unsuccessful pursuit, formidable English hosts would be set in motion even as far as Khartum and farther. Now he became convinced that Khartum and that whole region was in the hands of the Mahdi, and that the Egyptian Government and England were thinking rather of preserving Egypt from further ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... are three legs joined together, and kicking in different directions. This uncouth device is not an invention of the Manxmen, for it is found on some very ancient coins,—Greek, I believe; but at any rate it is now the device of our subject Island of Man, and, like that set in motion, and nothing else, was the object that approached me, only it had a head where the three legs were joined, and a voice came out of the head to this effect, 'Oh missis, you hab to take me out of dis here bird field, me no able to run after birds, and ebery night me lick because me no run after dem.' ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on the discovery that you have been acting on the principles of inductive and deductive philosophy during the same period. Probably there is not one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though differing of course in degree, as that which a scientific man goes through in tracing the causes of ...
— The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.—The Origination Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... was it that had led up to the cataclysm? What was it that had turned the Metal Monster upon itself? What disharmony had crept into that supernal order to set in motion the ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... not so much the free institutions of the country that the South Carolina Senator was disturbed about as some others. He perhaps felt that the friends of slavery had set in motion a train of events whose result was beyond their ken. Mr. Palfrey, of Massachusetts, a few days later said with as much sagacity as wit that "Mr. Calhoun thought that he could set fire to a barrel of gunpowder and extinguish it when half consumed." In his anxiety ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... finger, while she kissed my breasts and lips passionately. I soon began again to experience the delicious sensation I have spoken of before; rivers of pleasure permeated through my system. My breasts bounded up and down—my buttocks were set in motion from the effect of her caressing finger, my thighs were stretched widely apart, and my whole body was under the exquisite influence of her scientific manipulations. At last the acme came, a convulsive shivering seized me, I gave two or ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... began to question; this With her was rare: and Adeline, who as yet Thought her predictions went not much amiss, Began to dread she'd thaw to a coquette— So very difficult, they say, it is To keep extremes from meeting, when once set In motion; but she here too much refined— Aurora's spirit was ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... air, once set in motion by the human voice, cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. Their quickly-attenuated force soon becomes inaudible to human ears. But the waves of air thus raised perambulate the surface of earth and ocean, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... could not be until the later autumn, Mrs. Carey had decided, for although most of the living rooms could be finished, Cousin Ann's expensive improvements were not to be set in motion until Bill Harmon heard from Mr. Hamilton that his tenants were not to be disturbed for ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... terminated the onslaught. Buchanan, who was over hasty with military display on most occasions, made a requisition for volunteers to march against New Sestros. But the troops were never set in motion. In the many years of my residence in the colonial neighborhood, this was the only occasion that menaced our ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; while the car on which she is borne (which itself denotes the Church) is drawn by a mystical figure, in which we cannot fail to see a symbol of the second Person of the Trinity. If it be objected that the salvation of Dante is a small matter about which to set in motion so stupendous a machinery, we may answer that, in the first place, his own salvation does not seem unimportant to the man himself; and further, which is of more weight, that Dante himself is here no ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... of this information Merrington turned to his office telephone, and, receiver in hand, bellowed forth peremptory instructions which set in motion the far-reaching organization of Scotland Yard for the capture of a fugitive from justice. Nepcote's description was circulated to police stations, detectives were told off to keep an eye on outgoing trains and the docks, and the entrances to the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... and mental conditions of one or more of the persons present a force is exhibited sufficient to set in motion heavy substances, without the employment of any muscular force, and without contact or material connection of any kind between such substances and the body of any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... happened about this time, that set in motion influences of great moment, the effects of which are still to be felt and seen. Robert Davis' sister in Michigan was a regular subscriber to a religious journal. At this time she felt led to send this paper ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... formed the road, and to which they are fitted, being so constructed as to slide along without any danger of hitching or becoming displaced, on the same principle as a thing sliding on a concave groove. The carriage was set in motion by a mere push, and, having received, this impetus, rolled with us down an inclined plane into a tunnel, which forms the entrance to the railroad. This tunnel is four hundred yards long (I believe), and will be lighted by gas. At the end of it we emerged from darkness, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... brought word to me that her father had given the commands that would set in motion the machinery of the temple. A messenger was on his way in search of me to summon me to Ko-tan's presence. To have refused the priesthood once it was offered me by the king would have been to have affronted the temple and the gods—that ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sculptor of our New England vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sunshine; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a circumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice. To speak frankly, the cider-making is the more picturesque sight of the two, and the new, sweet cider an infinitely better drink than the ordinary, unripe Tuscan wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands upon thousands ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rise, imports increase, as it is a better place in which to sell. The opposite effect is produced on exports, and thus in a short time the national credits and debits are again brought into equilibrium. A slight movement of money in either direction is enough to influence prices and set in motion forces to counteract a further flow of money. Decade after decade the circulating medium of leading countries changes very slightly in amount, and the fluctuations in its amounts during periods of so-called "favorable balance of trade" and of "unfavorable ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... effort he makes towards self-improvement is a useless one, every aspiration is routed, the natural affections crave in vain for an object to fasten upon, and where an artificial atavistic process is set in motion so powerful as to defy the resistance of all in time. This is no imaginary picture, a man is a man, and one of the cruellest tortures to submit him to is to deprive him absolutely of hope and make good his evil because it requires an effort which is useless, and evil ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... variously estimated at from forty to fifty tons, and its bulk at from 500 to 700 cubic feet. It is almost perfectly round, much resembling a huge orange, and so nicely balanced on a table of stone as to be easily set in motion by a single man, providing the operator exerts his strength on the north or south sides. On either of the other sides the combined strength of forty elephants would not be sufficient to cause the least oscillation. Although it is easily rocked, we are assured that ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... sincerity, he felt, as the train rolled away, as one might feel who, after a long sojourn in an alien land, at last takes ship for home. The mere act of leaving New York, after the severance of all compelling ties, seemed to set in motion old currents of feeling, which, moving slowly at the start, gathered momentum as the miles rolled by, until his heart leaped forward to the old Southern town which was his destination, and he soon felt himself chafing impatiently at any delay that ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... party ten in number were safely landed on the ledge. We left a couple of men to haul us up on our return, and proceeded on our way, groping along the brink of the yawning chasm. Every now and then loose stones set in motion by our feet would slip into this bottomless pit, and we could hear them bounding down from ledge to ledge, smashing themselves into a thousand fragments, till the echoes so often repeated were like the independent file-firing of a battalion of infantry. Sometimes the ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... approached unnoticed, held out an object which seemed to be a rifle. Owing to his being seated Furneaux's eyes were on a level with it, and he could see more clearly than the others. He struck a match; then there could be no doubt that the policeman had actually picked up the weapon which had set in motion so many and ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... important feature of the internal organism is the sound-post, which serves many purposes. It is the medium by which the vibratory powers of the instrument are set in motion; it gives support to the right side of the belly, it transmits vibrations, and regulates both the power and quality of tone. The terms used for this vital factor of a Violin on the Continent at once ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... shale slopes and shoots, within five hundred yards of the line of sangars crowning the opposite side of the river bank, and totally devoid of any sort or description of cover for some two miles; it could also be swept by avalanches of stones set in motion by a few men placed on the heights ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio, and it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the complete household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he founded at Milan, not a secret society, but an association in which all the best patriots were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: 'I ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the telegraph penetrates: therefore the telegraphic operators often act as its purveyors. It is for their interest to send something; and their judgment of what is important is not only biased, but is formed by purely local standards. Our news, therefore, is largely set in motion by telegraphic operators, by agents trained to regard only the accidental, the startling, the abnormal, as news; it is picked up by sharp prowlers about town, whose pay depends upon finding something, who are looking for something spicy and sensational, or which may ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and muscular motion. When an impression was made upon any part of the external surface of the body, whether it was occasioned by heat, or mechanical impulse, they supposed, that the ether in the extremities of the nerves was set in motion. This motion, from the energy of the ether, is communicated along the nerves to the brain, and there produces such a change as occasions a consciousness of the original impression, and a reference in the mind to the place where it was made. Next they supposed, that the action ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... by the thought of being so close to the higher powers as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here he was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny, obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out into the corridor and met—coming out of the door of the Emperor's room by which Dolgorukov ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... without its household paraphernalia, but then it requires a slight addition of furniture and utensils to settle for years in a strange place. The settlement of a European family requires a thousand et ceteras and months of installation, but then it is set in motion for the new world with a few ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... move up and down within its prison-house, and the paddles by means of which the beroe dances along its ocean-path were distinctly visible. These paddles are nothing more or less than cilia of a peculiar kind, ranged in eight bands upon the surface of the body. They are set in motion at the will of the animal, and their incessant strokes propel it swiftly through the water. By stopping some of its paddles, and keeping others in play, the beroe can change its course at pleasure, and so wander 'at its own sweet will,' through the trackless ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... though there was not the slightest need, for no one was in sight, and the rattle and whirr of machinery set in motion by a huge water-wheel, whose splashings echoed from the vast, wall-like sides of the lovely fern-hung glen in which it was placed, would have drowned ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... had evidently been separated for some time by shallow fissures from the adjoining rock, for the surfaces of the fissures were discoloured by fumarolic action. Immediately after the earthquake a cloud of dust was seen to rise from the spots; the masses, already detached laterally, were merely set in motion by the shock; and they continued to slide down during the following days either through the action of the after-shocks or of ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... probably, would think ought not to be given, lest it should be the cause of involving thousands of others of their citizens in the same condition. The moment I have money, the business shall be set in motion. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... devoting his marvellous skill and incomparable daring to the elucidation of the new case with which the Criminal Investigation Department had entrusted him in Paris, things were marching at Beaulieu, where the whole machinery of the law was being set in motion for the discovery and arrest of ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... his principal advisers around him; they met close by here (where the council is to take place this afternoon), for he well knew the importance of the news. It was not only, you see, the immense numbers of the wood-pigeons and the impossibility of resisting their march, were they once set in motion, but he had to consider that there was a considerable population of pigeons in our midst who might turn traitors, and he was by no means sure of the allegiance of various other tribes, who were ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... the widespread and far-reaching influences set in motion by the eruptions of Vesuvius it should be noted that Father Odenbach of St. Ignatius' college in Cleveland, O., the noted authority on seismic disturbances, reported that his microseismograph, the most delicate ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... some who despised the orders which the others obeyed, and lay unmoved, each in the spot where he had chanced to lie down. Then towards the mirk of night the heavy hanging machine was set in motion by the doers of the treachery. Loosened from the knots of its fastening, it fell violently on the ground, and slew those beneath it. Thereupon those who had the charge of committing the crime brought in a light, that they might learn clearly what had happened, and saw that Ebb, on ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... did not come in contact with the road, and when the patient old horse was set in motion the vehicle ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... sound of the tuba rang through the air, and the first twelve chariots were led into the starting-sheds. A few minutes later a machine was set in motion by which a bronze eagle was made to rise with outspread wings high into the air, from an altar in front of the carceres; this was the signal for the chariots to come forth from their boxes. They took up their positions close behind a broad chalk line, traced on the ground ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the struggle on both sides was for life." For a prince or commonwealth, when attacking another State, will be content to rid themselves of those only who are at the head of affairs; but an entire people, set in motion in the manner described, must destroy all who oppose them, since their object is to subsist on that whereon those whom they ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... place for me," he said, as he heard of some new innovation on old customs, as having taken place in the vicinity. But when a favorite haunt by a small stream was taken possession of, the trees felled, the brooklet dammed, and a factory set in motion, he for a moment seemed astounded, his eye wandered inquiringly from one member of his family to another, and finally rested upon Howe, as though expecting him to provide some remedy to ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... Sandricourt's chateau. The names of this flower of chivalry have been faithfully registered, and they were such as instantly to throw a spark into the heart of every lover of arms! The world of fashion, that is, the chivalric world, were set in motion. Four bodies of assailants soon collected, each consisting of ten combatants. The herald of Orleans having examined the arms of these gentlemen, and satisfied himself of their ancient lineage and their military renown, admitted their claims to the proffered honour. Sandricourt ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... course, for service with the English," the rajah said, "and it would have been set in motion, as soon as the negotiations ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... ascendeth the vault of Pure Reason is a Bethlehem star; be sure a Messias is born for it on the Earth; the new sign lit up in the heaven of Vision is a new power set in motion among men; and, do what the Herods will, Earth's incense, myrrh, yea, even its gold, must gather to the feet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... planes which were still in the building in all the belligerent countries were no longer necessary. Almost immediately, therefore, the placing of new contracts was halted by the various governments, enlistments stopped, and plans set in motion for the new requirements. ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... displaying its fine points and favourable aspects in his addresses to English audiences, has at length had the uncommon courage to discuss family affairs, and to teach Boston and New York what "weaknesses and perils there may be in the practical working of a system never before set in motion under such favourable circumstances, nor on so grand a scale." He is emboldened to say firmly and aloud, despite the storming of false and hollow self-praise, that American civilisation, so strong on the material side, is sadly wanting on the other, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... morning, which necessitated the (p. 084) moving up of the guns once more, and the same thing continued day after day. The enemy was slowly and relentlessly pressed back without a pause or breathing space, and once this gigantic force was set in motion it was exceedingly difficult to stop it, as our opponents were soon to find out ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... was for the present in the face of enemies who had to be encountered with more material weapons. Marius had formed an army barely in time to save Italy from being totally overwhelmed. A vast migratory wave of population had been set in motion behind the Rhine and the Danube. The German forests were uncultivated. The hunting and pasture grounds were too strait for the numbers crowded into them, and two enormous hordes were rolling westward ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... she gave no signs of misgivings, but calmly set in motion the machinery which had filled the ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... disquieting. What did they want with gamekeepers now? Who would ever shoot at Tallyn again? With impatience she felt herself entangled in the endless machinery of wealth and the pleasures of wealth, so easy to set in motion, and so difficult to stop, even when all the savor has gone out of it. She was a tired, broken woman, with an invalid son; and the management of her great property, in which her capacities and abilities had taken for so long ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... written, and the hermit set sail with them from Joppa. Arriving in Italy he presented the documents to the pope, Urban II, a pupil and protege of Gregory VII, urging his holiness to use his authority, as the head of Christendom, to set in motion a scheme for regaining the birthplace of Christ. Enthusiasm is contagious, and the pope appears to have caught it instantly from one whose zeal was so unbounded. Giving the Hermit full powers, he sent him abroad to preach the holy war. Peter departed, going from town to town, and from village ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the close engagement foot to foot, and the looks of the enemy, darting fire through their ardour for the fight. Their front line was driven in, and confusion spread to the reserve troops, and the cavalry occasioned alarm on their part: the ranks were then broken in many places, every thing was set in motion, and the line seemed as it were fluctuating. Then when, the foremost having fallen, each saw that death was about to reach himself, they turn their backs. The Roman followed close on them; and as long as they went off armed and in bodies, the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... her thoughts as well as she could before tea was over and the evening task of preparation,—the gulfs and straits, the predicates and noun sentences, rule of three, common denominators, and all the dry-as-dust machinery was set in motion again. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... their way with gun and ax, nearly everything that happened was the result of chance rather than of calculation. A personal quarrel between traders and an Indian, a jug of whisky, a keg of gunpowder, the exchange of guns for furs, personal treachery, or a flash of bad temper often set in motion destructive forces of the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... face she evidently couldn't. Instead of it even—as a woman reads another—she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone and for the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention to my slighted charms. She didn't know—no one knew—how proud I had been to serve him and to stick to our terms; yet she nonetheless took the measure, I think, of the warning I ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... round, hover about; shift, slide, glide; roll, roll on; flow, stream, run, drift, sweep along; wander &c. (deviate) 279; walk &c. 266; change one's place, shift one's place, change one's quarters, shift one's quarters; dodge; keep going, keep moving; put in motion, set in motion; move; impel &c. 276; propel &c. 284; render movable, mobilize. Adj. moving &c. v.; in motion; transitional; motory[obs3], motive; shifting, movable, mobile, mercurial, unquiet; restless &c. (changeable) 149; nomadic &c. 266; erratic &c. 279. Adv. under way; on the move, on the wing, on the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... gold, or in some form in which they could not increase, expand, or change in any way until she gave them leave. Then she would live for a week or two, as she used to live, without thought of increment or responsibilities, until she was ready to begin the life of a rich woman and to set in motion the currents of ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... to resist her mute command. What was it? He saw her wish streaming from her eyes. Despair! Despair! Despair! There is no hope for thee, wretched earthworm! No abode but the abysmal House of Satan! Despair, and you will be welcomed! By a violent act of volition, set in motion by his fingers fumbling a small gold cross he wore as a watch-guard, the heady fumes of ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... profits shared the upward movement; luxurious spending overflowed; prices advanced all round; the recklessness of a prosperous time bubbled over; and this subsidiary over-consumption immensely enlarged the waste of the national capital set in motion by the expenditure on the railways themselves. Onward still pressed the gale; foreign nations were carried away by its force. They poured their goods into America, so over-powering was the attraction of high prices. They supplied materials ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... soda lye could therefore be raised by 47 deg. Cent, before boiling took place, but, as dilution, consequent upon absorption of steam would take place, a boiling point could only be reached less than 218 deg. Cent., but more than 153 deg. Cent. The engine was then set in motion at 100 revolutions per minute. The steam passing through the engine reached the soda vessel with a temperature of 100 deg. Cent.; the temperature of the soda lye began to rise almost immediately, but ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... there had been a desperate conflict; that the duke was slain with several of his gentlemen; and that the King, wounded as he was, had seized and held the Castle of Zenda. All of which talk made, as may be supposed, a mighty excitement: and the wires were set in motion, and the tidings came to Strelsau only just after orders had been sent thither to parade the troops and overawe the dissatisfied quarters of the town with a display ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... did not understand roused in Jude a brutish desire to overcome this something that threatened. For a moment he decided to rush from the house and leave the thing to work out its own way; but second thought brought with it his plans, which must be set in motion at once. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... incoherencies of poets, the declamation of elocutionists, the inarticulate wanderings of the Japanese, the confused mutterings of the Cherokee, the guttural bellowing of the German university professor, all in the name of the Million-Dollar Fair. Money to the extent of hundreds of thousands was set in motion. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... magnificence of the thunderstorm and the earthquake and the divine manifestation; and this was the purpose of it all—'He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.' The whole energy of the divine nature is set in motion and comes swooping down from highest heaven to the trembling earth. And of that fact the one end is one poor man's cry, and the other end is his deliverance. The moving spring of the divine manifestation was an individual's prayer; the aim of it was the individual's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... magnificent engraving has been communicated. Box after box of books has come from him in unmeasured profusion. It would be endless to recapitulate the objects of his friendly contribution. They are referred to emphatically because they have especially served to set in motion that system of exchange, without which nothing can be completely deserving of the name of a collection. That Mr. Vattemare does not weary in his efforts needed no new proof. As lately as the 9th ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... which he sought to supplement the information and impressions which had been the result of the meeting. "Please believe me, the political life of an entire people—particularly when that people is scattered throughout the entire world—can be set in motion only with imponderables floating high in the air. Do you know what the German Reich sprang from? From dreams, songs, fantasies, and gold-black bands worn by students. And that in a brief period of time. What? You do not understand imponderables? And what is religion? ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... set in motion new political machinery. The "Gazette of the United States" became the recognized mouthpiece of the Federalists, and the "National Gazette," edited by Philip Freneau, translating clerk in Jefferson's department, began to attack Hamilton and other leading ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... thought was thus seething and moving restlessly before the wave of ideas set in motion by these various independent philosophers, another group of causes in another field was rendering smooth the path beforehand for the future champion of the amended evolutionism. Geology on the one hand and astronomy ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... wave-elements. The complex wave is thus analyzed into its constituents. Now when two tones, which we will for clearness suppose to be simple, unaccompanied by partial tones, sounding together, have vibration rates in simple ratios to each other, the air- waves set in motion do not interfere with each other, but combine into a complex but homogeneous wave. If they have to each other a complicated ratio, such as 500:504, the air- waves will not only not coalesce, but four times in the second the through of one wave will meet the crest of the ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I lay senseless, white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor soon came, and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came back slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in motion. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the first State to do so, applied the initiative and referendum, each to be set in motion by five per cent. of the voters, to general statutory legislation. Wisconsin provided for registering the names of legislative lobbyists, with various particulars touching their employment. The names of their ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... in the East of such a colossal kingdom as the ambition of Antiochus proposed to itself. Just as soon as intelligence was carried to Italy that the Syrian king was leading his army into Greece, the legions of the republic were set in motion. Some reverses caused Antiochus to retreat in haste across the Hellespont into Asia, whither he was followed by the Romans, led by ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... brethren to Serampore, Calcutta, and Patna, had soon withdrawn them, and one of them became the Company's botanist in Madras—Dr. Heyne. Carey practically stood alone at the first, while he unconsciously set in motion the double revolution, which was to convert the Anglo-Indian influence on England from corrupting heathenism to aggressive missionary zeal, and to change the Bengal of Cornwallis into the India of Bentinck, with ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... For to the nerves or tissues, or whatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich man's desires, there is a whole army of limbs seen and unseen attachable; he may be reckoned by his horse-power, by the number of foot-pounds which he has money enough to set in motion. Who, then, will deny that a man whose will represents the motive power of a thousand horses is a being very different from the one who is equivalent but to the power of a ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... struck and cherished secret designs on the stage. They were extremely friendly for the sake of plying Anne with questions about her art. At first Anne's position among her classmates was rather difficult to define. After the ball which Elfreda had set in motion had rolled itself to a standstill for want of more gossip to keep it going, Grace saw with secret trepidation that despite the loyalty of a few, Anne ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... gone half-way up the stairs which led to her own rooms, when she was held at the place by the sound of all the bells of the house, which had been set in motion by a furious hand. She bent over the balusters to listen. The servants were rushing about; the vestibule resounded with hurried steps; and she distinguished the imperious voice of M. Ernest, the count's valet, who ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... I made, in connection with that piece of mechanism. The keeper of the church was very anxious it should be shown; partly for the honour of the establishment and the town; and partly, perhaps, because of his deriving a percentage from the additional consideration. However that may be, it was set in motion, and thereupon a host of little doors flew open, and innumerable little figures staggered out of them, and jerked themselves back again, with that special unsteadiness of purpose, and hitching in the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... of the solace of song, filled in the time by gazing at the toiler's back-hair. It set in motion a train of thought—an express train bound for the Land of Yesterday. It recalled days in the woods, evenings on the lawn. It recalled sunshine—storm. Plenty of storm. Minor tempests that burst from a clear ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... measured by the material. Who can tell wherein true and permanent influence abides? Who can estimate the power of spiritual agencies? It is common to speak of enlarged spheres of usefulness; but a clergyman in a humble parish may set in motion ideas which will have more effect on the age in which he lives, and on succeeding times, than by any splendid position in a large and populous city. God seeth not as man seeth. To fill the sphere which Providence appoints is the true wisdom; to discharge trusts faithfully and live exalted ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... before us. Her body, still warm, seemed quivering with the instinct of life; but the eyes were not the eyes of Desiree. I closed them, and arranged the tangled mass of hair as well as possible over her shoulders. As I did so the air, set in motion by my hand, caused some of the golden strands to tremble gently across her lips; and Harry bent forward with a painful eagerness, thinking that ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... Richardson and Fielding set in motion two currents, of sentimentalism and realism, respectively, which flowed vigorously in the novel during the next generation, and indeed (since they are of the essence of life), have continued, with various modifications, down to our own time. Of the succeeding realists the most ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... necessary through a knowledge of positions, facts, and arguments, scattered over the history of the colonies. But, when our Independence had been established and recognized, constitutions had been framed, and the governments of the states and nation set in motion, the beauty and harmony of our political system seemed to render continued attention to political principles and the rights of individual men unnecessary. Hence, we may anticipate the judgment of impartial history in the admission that public attention was gradually given to contests ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... follow two directions that cross each other at right angles. When the seismograph has been arranged according to such directions, no matter from what part the first horizontal shock comes, one of the four pendulums will be set in motion. If, after the first undulation in one direction, another occurs in the opposite, the pendulum facing the first will in its turn begin to move; and if other undulations make themselves felt in diametrically opposite directions, the other ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... down town to a great unhomelike-looking building, and slides in at the door. He steps up to a wall, and asks permission to see John Milton. He waits in a kind of vague, unsatisfied fashion, but he feels that machinery is being set in motion. While it is being set in motion, he sits down before the wall on one of the seats or pews where a large audience of other comfortless and lonely-looking people are. He feels the great, heartless building gathering itself together, going after John Milton for ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Lake Scott saw that the warrant for Del Norte was placed in the proper hands and the machinery of the law set in motion. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... the men of Bute were again on board their galley, and when Kenric and his companions, together with young Harald of Islay, had come down from the high rock of the castle, the long oars were set in motion and the gallant ship swept down the Clyde, making the bay of ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... is not near so old as VANHOVE; but the decay of his person is such that, when he plays, he seems a skeleton bestirring itself, or that is set in motion. It is a misfortune for him that his physical means betray his talents. MONVEL is a man of genius. Thus gifted, it is not astonishing that he has a just diction, and is not deficient in intelligence. Some persons doubt whether he has ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... school, and made no attempt, I understand, to bring the church into contact with the masses. You will say that such a church is a poor place in which to attempt a different work. I do not necessarily think so. The Church of Christ is, in itself, I believe, a powerful engine to set in motion against all evil. I have great faith in the membership of almost any church in this country to accomplish wonderful things for humanity. And I am going to Milton with that faith very strong in me. I feel as if a very great ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... set in motion, the rollers first attenuated and then delivered the cotton to the spindle carriage. The latter, by the action of the hand and knee, was made to recede from the rollers just about as fast as the cotton was delivered to the spindles, ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... built flour-mills in a valley near the banks of the Patapsco River. Banneker watched the mills go up; and, when the machinery was set in motion, looked on with interest, as he had a splendid opportunity of observing new principles of mechanism. He made many visits to the mills, and became acquainted with their proprietors; and, till the day of his death, he found in the Ellicotts kind ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... arts," writes Captain Gronow, "much finesse, and a host of intrigues were set in motion to get an invitation to Almack's. Very often persons whose rank and fortunes entitled them to the entree anywhere, were excluded by the cliqueism of the Lady patronesses; for the female government of Almack's ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... as if in acquiescence, and Neil never suspected what was passing in her mind, nor dreamed that a tide was set in motion which would take Bessie away from ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... Carlstadt—adventuress, detective by disposition, and a sort of smiling prostitute and hireling, who was at the same time a highly presentable and experienced individual. Needless to say, Cowperwood knew nothing of these minor proceedings, though a genial nod from him in the beginning had set in motion the whole machinery ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... pitch for common ears should invariably insist on addressing itself to the angels. Being, as it were, ourselves the angels we had only a limited quarrel in each case with the event; but its inconsequent character, given the forces set in motion, was peculiarly baffling. It was like an interminable sum that wouldn't come straight; nobody had the time to handle so many figures. Limbert gathered, to make his pudding, dry bones and dead husks; how then was one to formulate the law that made the dish ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... was lifted only far enough to show a long, low waste of gray-green, with a tuft or two of trees and a few shadowy individuals, which the stage-hands had evidently set in motion for the benefit ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... have so far studied—weathering, streams, underground waters, glaciers, winds, and the ocean—all work upon the earth from without, and all are set in motion by an energy external to the earth, namely, the radiant energy of the sun. All, too, have a common tendency to reduce the inequalities of the earth's surface by leveling the lands and strewing their ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... thump! It backward swung, And set in motion by the blow, Swayed menacingly to and fro. "Ha! you will fight! A quarrelsome chap, I knew you were! You'll get a rap! I'll crack your skull!" A headlong jump; Another and ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... were the slam of a heavy iron door, the echoes of which seemed to go searching into every cranny of the multitudinous garrets. Florimel gave a shriek, and laying hold of Malcolm, clung to him in terror. A sympathetic tremor, set in motion by her cry, went vibrating through the fisherman's powerful frame, and, almost involuntarily, he clasped her close. With wide eyes they stood staring down the long passage, of which, by the poor light they carried, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... knowing it, the actress took on from moment to moment the heart-trials of the woman of the play. In a subconscious way even as he read, Douglass analyzed and understood her power. Hers was a soul of swift and subtle sympathy. A word, a mere inflection, was sufficient to set in motion the most complicate and obscure conceptions in her brain, permitting her to comprehend with equal clarity the Egyptian queen of pleasure and the austere devotee to whom joy is a snare. From time to time she uttered little exclamations of pleasure, and at the end of each act motioned ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... was still talking when Miss Salisbury brought back Lily by the hand, red-eyed and still sniffling, to stumble over her pleas for pardon. And then, the storm having abated, there were instant preparations for departure set in motion. And Mr. Kimball and his associates helped them into their vehicles, Miss Clemcy's beautiful old lace showing off finely on the great porch ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... was clear, the sea calm, the crowd of spectators enormous. Napoleon and Josephine, going down from the terrace in the garden of the Palazzo Doria, entered a large round temple, magnificently decorated, which was at once set in motion as if by magic, and transported by many oars to the middle of the harbor. Four rafts, covered with shrubbery, resembling floating islands, then drew up to the temple. The sovereigns were thus, in open sea, enclosed in a vast garden with trees, flowers, statues, and fountains. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... writings of an aggressive, and exceedingly malignant, character; in many places Elizabeth was again designated as illegitimate, a usurper, no longer as Queen. On this the repressive system, which had been already set in motion in consequence of Pope Pius V's bull, was made more stringent; this is what has brought on the Queen's government the charge of cruelty. The Catholics too began to compose their martyrologies. One of the first priests whose execution they describe, Cuthbert Mayne, was ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... they become as hard and severe as if they were cut in stone." Such happiness is one of the virtues which people of all classes and ages, the world over, admire and enjoy. "We do not know what ripples of healing are set in motion," says Henry Drummond, "when we simply smile on one another. Christianity wants nothing so much in the ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... sitting in her box Varinka, with such a fan, beaming and happy, and beside her Byelikov, a little bent figure, looking as though he had been extracted from his house by pincers. I would give an evening party, and the ladies would insist on my inviting Byelikov and Varinka. In short, the machine was set in motion. It appeared that Varinka was not averse to matrimony. She had not a very cheerful life with her brother; they could do nothing but quarrel and scold one another from morning till night. Here is a scene, for instance. Kovalenko would be ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and next morning Protopopoff was called from Petrograd and informed by the Empress of what had occurred. Later the Minister came to the room wherein I was writing at the monk's dictation, and promised that the whole of the machinery of the Secret Police should be set in motion to discover the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... gate is attached an immense screw, which stands perpendicularly, twenty feet long and ten inches in diameter. At its upper end, it passes through a matrix-worm in the centre of a large cog-wheel, lying horizontally The whole is set in motion by the slightest turning of a handle; and here I saw the application of the Turpin Wheel I spoke of before—no engine or complication, but a wheel fifteen feet in diameter, fixed horizontally, submerged in the stream, receiving the falling waters, and thus rapidly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... never set in motion than the army I command, sir. They are our stark fighters—men who individually or in the mass can be depended on for any feat of arms in the power of mortals to accomplish. I know them from experience. They will blanch at nothing—yet they ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... The boat, set in motion by his stepping into it, swung out to the full length of its rope. The sun was shining almost level across the water. It was a very still evening, and the reflections of the trees and of the house were as distinct as the house and the trees themselves. And the water was unusually ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... Marduk-nasir, say, thus saith Ammi-zaduga: A sheep-shearing will take place in the House of the New Year's Festival. On receipt of this note, take the sheep ... and the sheep which are sealed, which thou shall set in motion, and come to Babylon. Delay not, reach Babylon on ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... the engine of the dirigible, which had hovered stationary above the galleon during the men's talk, was once more set in motion and the big air-ship drove off at ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was a loud rush. Great waves, set in motion by the crumbling iceberg, with white crests that were frightful to look upon, came tearing out of the obscurity, and, perceiving the danger of my situation, I ran from it as fast as I could run. And I was just in time; for the waves broke up the ice where I had ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... The fact that Buckner was in town was not altogether surprising, and his maudlin comments need not necessarily be seriously considered. In addition to the commission he intrusted to young Riley, Gorham also set in motion the wheels of his own secret-service department, feeling confident that he would soon learn all the facts. The conduct of the current business of the Companies, complex as it had now become, appeared to be advancing steadily along the lines ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... also mighty sentinels erected amid this surging, striving throng of humanity to serve to guide man in the road to a higher and better life? These peaks of the Rockies may crumble and pass away, but a force for good once set in motion never loses its force. It is eternal. To beautify, to strengthen, to adorn and to expand our order and more fully present its magnificence to the world, we have the department of Patriarchs Militant. It depicts as gallant a band as ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... the police is secured, and the officers of a dozen of the shrewdest private detective bureaus are put in possession of the few facts that have been ascertained. In a hundred directions public and private sleuths are set in motion. But their untiring efforts are unavailing. They have to combat a more adroit, more nervy and more intelligent force than they have ever before been brought ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... deeming the negroes already sufficiently overawed to render unlikely any further trouble from that source. Several of the ringleaders had indeed begun to exert themselves to prevent further disorder, or any loss of property, the possibility of which had become apparent; but those who set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards. The baser element of the white population, recruited from the wharves and the saloons, was ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had been marching to the field of battle. By-the-bye, it was two of our own volunteer lads that were playing that day before them, Rory Skirl the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... of our Army and the pursers of our Navy may under like pretenses apply to their own use moneys appropriated to set in motion the public force, and in time of war leave the country without defense. This measure resorted to by the bank is disorganizing and revolutionary, and if generally resorted to by private citizens in like cases would fill the land ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope—thirty-five degrees in some places—made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse thrilled every nerve and made absolute exhaustion impossible. I seemed to be walking and wallowing in a cloud; but, holding steadily onward, by half-past ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... snatched his confession at an unguarded moment. He had not meant to tell her so much—so soon. As he thought over the wheels he had set in motion their possible course staggered him, and he found himself arguing against ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... guessed, he had no means of divining; nor could he predicate, from what he knew of the man, to what use his inferences might be put. The very qualities that had made Flamel a useful adviser made him the most dangerous of accomplices. Glennard felt himself agrope among alien forces that his own act had set in motion.... ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... can then decide in every act of their daily life; they decide to take or not to take; they decide to accompany the rhythm of a song with movement; they decide to check every motor impulse when they desire silence. The constant work which builds up their personality is all set in motion by decisions; and this takes the place of the primitive state of chaos, in which, on the other hand, actions were the outcome of impulses. A voluntary life develops gradually within them; and doubt and timidity disappear, ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... plots and counter-plots, also of a new great army of invasion that was about to set sail from Kiel. Evidently the Germans must have more men if they were to ride safely on this furious American avalanche that they had set in motion, if they were to tame the fiery American volcano that was smouldering ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... set in motion a good many other things; for the younger members, who had more time at their disposal, began to conceive a passion for performing helpful acts, and they ferreted out cases of distress which were often far beyond their power to ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... worshippers at that stage of life. Hero worshipping, however, is apt to get us into trouble, for our heroes fail us in time. The one perfect hero who never fails us is Christ. He alone never disappoints, and to love Him is to have all the nobler chords in our beings set in motion. We are sure to despair of ever becoming worthy of Him. But no leader of men was ever so willing to take us as we are and make the best of us. To be near Him may mean being made to feel deeply ashamed. In His ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... of stone rolled into the valleys, crushing all before them. The houses were shaken to the foundation, and tottered as though they would have fallen; the walls were split asunder, the floors gave way, the doors opened or closed violently, without being touched. The church bells, set in motion by the swaying of the belfries, tolled mournfully to the accompaniment of the wild cries of terrified animals and the shrill screams of equally frightened children. The convulsion of the water was not less fearful than that of the land. The ice, five or six feet in depth, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... was not governed by such considerations of prudence, but determined, at all hazards, to strike the Turks before they had time to reorganize and recuperate. The army was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold, the deep snow, the natural ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... spoilt children they buy everything they fancy: toys, pins, ribbons, flowers. And then they prettily offer each other presents, with childish little smiles. For instance, Campanule buys for Chrysantheme an ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some invisible machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame. In return, Chrysantheme gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings that change at will from butterflies fluttering round cherry-blossoms, to outlandish monsters pursuing each other across black ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... a whirlwind is a column of air which turns upon its own axis, and which advances comparatively slowly, for, as a rule, a person can keep up with it at a walking pace. This whirling column of air is both caused and set in motion ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... utterly as if the earth had swallowed her up. Indeed, I often thought of that in the weeks and months of weary search that followed. For there was absolutely no trace to be found of the child, though the tardy police machinery was set in motion and worked to the uttermost. It was not until two years later, when we had long given up the quest, that little Yette was found by the merest accident in the turning over of the affairs of an orphan asylum. Some one had picked her up in the street and brought her in. She could not ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... allegiance. He therefore, as soon as affairs in Babylonia ceased to occupy him, marched the full force of the empire towards the west, and proclaimed his intention of crushing the Phoenician revolt, and punishing the audacious rebel who had so long defied the might of Assyria. The army which he set in motion must have numbered more than 200,000 men;[14148] its chariots were numerous,[14149] its siege-train ample and well provided.[14150] Such terror did it inspire among those against whom it was directed that Elulaeus ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... and the man of business of the bridegroom, were occupied in determining about the settlements, and it was left to Ottilie, with those under her, to take care that all this crowd of people were properly provided for. Gamekeepers and gardeners, fishermen and shopdealers, were set in motion, Luciana always showing herself like the blazing nucleus of a comet with its long tail trailing behind it. The ordinary amusements of the parties soon became too insipid for her taste. Hardly would she leave the old people in peace at the card-table. Whoever ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... side of it!" he cried. "Do you imagine that you can stop this huge machine that Waterman has set in motion?" ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... written matter was searched for a clue to the missing child. Peter was engaged in long consultations with detectives, and lawyers were running up goodly bills, and British Consuls were making investigations abroad. A whole train of inquiries was set in motion, and pens and tongues were busy. The powerful hand of the law stretched itself out in secret to this country and to that, only to be met with a baffling failure to hold or to discover anything. Money was spent lavishly, and ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... thing? The memory of the lesson which is remembered, in the sense of learned by heart, has ALL the marks of a habit. Like a habit, it is acquired by the repetition of the same effort. Like every habitual bodily exercise, it is stored up in a mechanism which is set in motion as a whole by an initial impulse, in a closed system of automatic movements, which succeed each other in the same order and together take the same length of time. The memory of each several reading, on the contrary, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... African desert are alike indebted to our looms. The produce of our factories has preceded even our most enterprising travellers.(2*) The cotton of India is conveyed by British ships round half our planet, to be woven by British skill in the factories of Lancashire: it is again set in motion by British capital; and, transported to the very plains whereon it grew, is repurchased by the lords of the soil which gave it birth, at a cheaper price than that at which their coarser machinery enables them ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... or left. Toward the head of the balloon, in a position corresponding to that of the fins of a fish, are placed light wings, capable of a rapid motion, which constitute the motive power. In the model these are set in motion by machinery; but in the working machine human power is proposed. A framework of hollow iron is placed horizontally around the balloon to which it is attached by cords; this furnishes the fixed point to which are attached the cords which move the rudders; and from it is suspended the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... amusing himself with his favourite by-play, wood-carving. He held a few solemn state councils, at which he appeared to determine all things and was actually guided by Artabanus and Mardonius. Now, at last, all the colossal machinery which was to crush down Hellas was being set in motion. Glaucon learned how futile was Themistocles's hope of succour to Athens from the Sicilian Greeks, for,—thanks to Mardonius's indefatigable diplomacy,—it was arranged that the Phoenicians of Carthage should launch a powerful armament against the Sicilians, the same moment Xerxes descended ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... farther, making fast to a large berg or a field. They were compelled to proceed north, however, in consequence of the pack having become fixed towards, the south, and thus rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be again set in motion. Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance of the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been forced into the strait by the late gales would be released, and open up a passage. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... now gains either sufficient intensity to attract consciousness to itself and arouse the foreconscious, which is quite independent of the time or profundity of sleep, or, its intensity being insufficient it must wait until it meets the attention which is set in motion immediately before awakening. Most dreams seem to operate with relatively slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the awakening. This, however, explains the fact that we regularly perceive something dreamt on being suddenly aroused from a sound sleep. Here, as well as in ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... a combined movement in society, which history, perhaps, will be summoned to notice, is that which, in our own days, has applied itself to the abatement of intemperance. Naturally, or by any direct process, the machinery set in motion would seem irrelevant to the object: if one hundred men unite to elevate the standard of temperance, they can do this with effect only by improvements in their own separate cases: each individual, for such an effort of ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... and minds of the least credulous and least mystic of men, can surely not be beneficial. It reduces our morality to the level of the insect which, perched on a falling rock, imagines that the rock has been set in motion on its own special behalf. Are we wise in allowing certain errors and falsehoods to remain active within us? There may have been some in the past which, for a moment, were helpful; but, this moment over, men found themselves once again face to face with the truth, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... knarred and crooked cedar knees; Brought from regions far away, From Pascagoula's sunny bay, And the banks of the roaring Roanoke! Ah! what a wondrous thing it is To note how many wheels of toil One thought, one word, can set in motion! There's not a ship that sails the ocean, But every climate, every soil, Must bring its tribute, great ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... to it may suffice. Works which every critic can now see to be relatively modern were ascribed to Moses, David, or Daniel; intricate laws and ordinances that had never been practised—could never be practised—were represented as ancient institutions; a whole new way of thinking and acting was set in motion on the assumption that it was old. Yet, so far as is known, no one in or out of Palestine ever saw through the illusion for over two thousand years. It was reserved for nineteenth-century scholars to draw aside the veil hiding the ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... unmistakable—or it ought to be. My friend, my very dear friend, Wetherell, my toils are closing on you. My arrangements are perfecting themselves admirably. Presently, when all is complete, I shall press the lever, the machinery will be set in motion, and you will find yourself being slowly but surely ground into powder. Then you will hand over what I want, and be sorry you thought ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... become my duty to say that so soon as a soldier of the United States shall be set in motion, by whatever direction, to act against the people of this State in aid of the charter government I shall call for that aid to oppose all such force, which, I am fully authorized to say, will be immediately and most cheerfully tendered to the service of the people ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... shook her head, tried to concentrate her attention, and failed. In vain did she repeat: "But I've been through this sort of thing before." She had never been through it; the big machinery, as opposed to the little, had been set in motion, and the idea that Mr. Wilcox loved, obsessed her before she came to love ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... escape from the influences of his time, and, just as much as his lesser contemporaries, Milton has his place in literary history and derives from the great original impulse which set in motion all the enterprises of the century. He is the last and greatest figure in the English Renaissance. The new passion for art and letters which in its earnest fumbling beginnings gave us the prose of Cheke and Ascham and ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... the two great contending forces that were set in motion by the departure of Baron Giesl, the Austro-Hungarian Minister, from Belgrade, on July 25, 1914. On the same day the Prince Regent Alexander signed a decree ordering the general mobilization of the Serbian army. Three days later, on July ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various |
