He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore.
So don't get nervous when you reread this quote and see inimitable contrivance or adjusting the focus, or correction of spherical and chromatic aberration.
He finds the product of his scheming less satisfying than the work that went into its contrivance; his whole career, he reflects, “has been an education in hypocrisy”.
'And this, ' said she, 'is the end of all his friend's anxious circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! The happiest, wisest, most reasonable end! '