"Chord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cusps will be c c; p p will be the bases of perpendiculars let fall from V and c on a b; and d the base of a perpendicular from the point of the cusp to the arch line. Then a b will always be a span of the arch, V p its perpendicular height, V a the chord of its side arcs, d c the depth of its cusps, c c the horizontal interval between the cusps, a c the length of the chord of the lower arc of the cusp, V c the length of the chord of the upper arc of the cusp, (whether continuous or not,) and c p the length of a perpendicular from ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... We are brought face to face with great suffering and the storm and stress of existence; and the outcome of it is to show the vanity of all human effort. Deeply moved, we are either directly prompted to disengage our will from the struggle of life, or else a chord is struck in us which echoes a ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... words touched a chord in my memory. We were once more standing, K. and I, in our workroom at Pretoria, having just finished reading the night's crop of sixty or seventy wires. K. was saying to me, "You had better go out to the Western Transvaal." I asked no question, packed up ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord,—its various tone, Each spring,—its various bias: Then at the balance let's be mute; We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But know not ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... little child is not equipped psychologically to hear complicated units. I wish some one could determine how the average four-year-old hears the harmony of a chord on the piano. Is it much except confusion? In the same way, he is not equipped to leap a span between units. I wish some one would determine the four-year-old's memory span for rhymes, for instance. The involutions, the suggestiveness so attractive to adult ears, he cannot hear. Even an adult ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... to favour. One of the most popular books of the preceding century had been Lydgate's version of Boccaccio's poems on the calamities of illustrious men, a vast monody in nine books, all harping on that single chord of the universal mutability of fortune. Lydgate's Fall of Princes had, by the time that Mary ascended the throne, existed in popular esteem for a hundred years. Its language and versification were now so antiquated ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... I do now. I feel instinctively that we are not kindred spirits; that the mysterious chord of sympathy which vibrates in the heart of a girl with the first tone of the voice of the man she is destined to love, does not exist between us. Oh, indeed, indeed, Mr Gresham, although I adore Frederic Harrison as a thinker, as much ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... the human species, the thousands and tens of thousands of every age and sex who are rendered wretched by the event, surely there is something in the heart of man that calls upon him to think! Surely there is some tender chord, tuned by the hand of the Creator, that still struggles to emit in the hearing of the soul a note of sorrowing sympathy. Let it then be heard, and let man learn to feel that the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity, and not on conquest. War involves in its progress such ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... briefest question and answer about her well-being at the commencement of it—the two had kept silence, as though conscious Faircloth's assertion of contentment struck a chord any resolution of which might imperil the simplicity of their relation. Thus far that relation showed a noble freedom from embarrassment. It might have continued to do so but for a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... burden of its theme is finished, and its exultant strains are lost in silence. They went over the whole Church service, the glorious Te Deum, the Benedictus, and the anthem for the day, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," and every delicate chord and fugue had to be repeated until the desired perfection of harmony was attained. It was really a very long and arduous study; but of all days Christmas demands good music, and they were willing to do their best. At last all were satisfied, and somewhat tired; but the organist turned to ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... come back," said the musician kindly, seeing the tears in the young fellow's eyes. "See, we will try a scale." He struck a chord. "Now, open your mouth—so—Do-o-o-o!" He sang a long note. Nino could not resist any longer, whether he had any voice or not. He blushed red and turned away, but he opened his mouth and ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... soul, the deepest chord Thrills to a strain rung from above; That strain is bound within a word, A sole, sweet word, ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... look-out for 'bargains,' I have managed to gather between three and four thousand volumes together, chiefly of a poetical nature." Now, to my apprehension, the present aspect of the matter touches a higher or deeper chord than that reached by the owner of the most splendid library in the universe; for all this Heliconian harvest signified personal search and ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... freshest of all, one he had not mentioned to his partners; the touch of Molly's lips on his as he had bade her good-by. The kiss had not been that of a child, there had been a magic in it that had thrilled some chord in Sandy that still responded to that remembrance. He never dwelt on it long, it brought a vague reaction always, stirred that strange instinct of his that had branded him as woman-shy, kept him clean. Part of it was intuitive desire for freedom of will and action, as the wild horse shies ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... friends, and yet they thought we should like that play or that book! "So long"—and yet they think one capable of certain acts or feelings which do not remotely seem to belong to one! "So long"—and yet they can't even touch one chord that responds! ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... double effect upon the mind of the recipient. It involved both happiness and despondent gloom, and unconsciously had struck a tender chord which vibrated with redoubled sadness in its ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... as they looked, at post and diagonal, eyebolt and bottom-chord, and across the gap at the swaying tip of the north cantilever. But his face showed clearly that his thoughts were not the same as their thoughts. His eyes shone like polished steel, and there was a glow in his haggard face that told of an exultance ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... in a brave endeavor To chord my harp with the sun, But the strings would slacken ever, And the task was a weary one: And so, like a child impatient And sick of a discontent, I bowed in a shower of tear-drops ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... the midst of all this bustle, Willie moped and pined. He had the same chord of delicacy running through his mind that made his body feeble and weak. He kept out of the way, and was apparently occupied in whittling and carving uncouth heads on hazel-sticks in an out-house. But he positively avoided Michael, ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson
... an American writer,(914) who has drawn from some of the same sources as the author just described, but who also owes much directly to him. In him philosophy seems to degenerate into pantheism. Nature is a vast whole, in which we are parts, vibrations of a chord, radiations of the eternal light.(915) Starting from a unitarian point of view, Christianity appears to be resolved into natural religion; and the historic view of Christianity, and the habit of considering the revelation as something long ago given, are regarded as being at the bottom of the ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... very singular," said Eliza, with such softness and deliberation that it was like a minor chord of music. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... effort made On this same bow, which he shall never bend. So they; but when the wary Hero wise Had made his hand familiar with the bow Poising it and examining—at once— As when in harp and song adept, a bard Unlab'ring strains the chord to a new lyre, The twisted entrails of a sheep below With fingers nice inserting, and above, 490 With such facility Ulysses bent His own huge bow, and with his right hand play'd The nerve, which in its quick vibration sang Clear as the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... unknown, trusting to the help of one's own right hand to exchange honest toil for honest bread and raiment. His eyes kindled to see the goodly, broad, red-cheeked fellows. Sometimes, though, he saw women, and sometimes tender women, by their side; and that sight touched the pathetic chord of his heart with a rude ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... dark. Now, would you know the means by which the musician has worked, so as to admire him to-morrow for the secrets of his craft after enjoying the results to-night? What do you suppose produces this effect of daylight—so sudden, so complicated, and so complete? It consists of a simple chord of C, constantly reiterated, varied only by the chord of 4-6. This reveals the magic of his touch. To show you the glory of light he has worked by the same means that he used to represent ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... prohibited in heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naive utterance touched a responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... players had played a wrong note; that might be the explanation. But on referring to the music, Mr. Innes discovered a better one. "From the twelfth to the fifteenth century, writers," he said, "did not consider their music as moderns do. Now we watch the effect of a chord, a combination of notes heard at the same moment, the top note of which is the tune, but the older writers used their skill in divining musical phrases which could be followed simultaneously, each one going logically ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... that has enabled him to find his way so readily to their hearts. Without seeking to represent the intensity of passion, he deals with the fresh, simple emotions of the human soul, and in his simplicity lies his power. He touches a chord that finds an echo in every heart, and his poems have a humanity in them that is irresistible. We admire the "grand old masters," but shrink abashed from their sublime measures. Longfellow is so human, he ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... most moving position. John was only a man, and the spectacle of this strange woman, to whom he had lately grown so much attached, plunged into intense emotion, awakened, apparently, by anxiety about his fate, stirred him very deeply—as it would have stirred anybody. Indeed, it struck some chord in him for which he could not quite account, and its echoes charmed and yet frightened him. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... subject of description is Monterey, which has lately assumed a peculiar interest, as one of the objects of the American invasion. The Bay of Monterey forms a segment of a circle with a chord of about eighteen miles. Monterey had always been the seat of government, though it consisted of but a few buildings. But, since the revolution of 1836, it has expanded into a population of about seven hundred souls. The town occupies a plain, bounded by a lofty ridge. The dwellings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the magic world of pantomime there is nothing to equal these effects of blue and silver.... Numberless are the caves at Capri. The so-called Green Grotto has the beauty of moss agate in its liquid floor; the Red Grotto shows a warmer chord of color; and where there is no other charm to notice, endless beauty may be found in the play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, tinted with yellow, orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, and catching tones of blue or green from the still deeps ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... father!" Here a sudden change was visible,—some chord of sorrow was touched, and it ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... as though some chord of memory had been touched, sat gazing dreamily at Mr. Wilks's horticultural collection in the window. Then he changed colour a little as a smart hat and a pretty face crossed the tiny panes. Mr. Wilks changed ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... McGregor sat on a seat by the wall with one of the two women lauded by the barber and a third one who was frail and bloodless. To him the adventure had been a failure. The swing of the dance music struck no answering chord in him. He saw the couples on the floor clasped in each other's arms, writhing and turning, swaying back and forth, looking into each other's eyes and turned aside wishing himself back in his room among ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... sun should shine in all his glory; Again, the twilight seems the fitting time. Yet sweet dark night would understand the story, So old, so new, so tender, so sublime. Wild storms should rage to chord with my desire, Yet faithful stars should shine and never ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... without the underchording of the minor? Not to human ears. For they are attuned to life as it has really come to be. And the minor chord is in real life, never quite absent; and the minor chord is in the true human heart, never wholly absent. And only the music with the minor blended in is the real music of human life. Only it can play upon the finest strings ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... and went over to the sick woman, on whose face beamed a tender smile, as Isabel spoke to her. A chord thrilled in two lives hitherto unknown to each other; but what was said Basil would not ask when the invalid had taken Isabel's hand between her own, as for adieu, and she came back to his side with swimming eyes. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a chord of pity in me, she began to play; her voice followed; dinner and dressing, the house-party and my mother's guests, were all forgotten. I remember that you looked in, your eyes touched with a suggestive and melancholy smile, and as quickly closed ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... love. We follow the devout Jacqueline Pascal to the cloister in which she buries her brilliant youth to die at thirty-five of a wounded conscience and a broken heart. Many a bruised spirit, as it turns from the gay world to the mystic devotion which touches a new chord in its jaded sensibilities, finds support and inspiration in the strong and fervid sympathy of Jacqueline Arnauld, better known as Mere Angelique of Port Royal. This profound spiritual passion was a part of the intense life of the century, which gravitated from love ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... navigators in their small vessels, getting the thick and the thin, just as we do to-day in our own sailing craft; getting well dusted at times, with the salt thick on their cheeks and decks. Taking it all round, the sea is rather a minor chord; so that these Burlington House pictures of the Argo and The Heroes, in orange and rose on a wine-red sea are not convincing. When my patron comes home I will humbly suggest Orpheus singing at the stem, a following wind, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. "Away ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... subdivided, and terminate in much-branched tendrils. The main petiole of the leaf, whilst young, moves spontaneously, and follows nearly the same irregular course and at about the same rate as the internodes. The movement to and from the stem is the most conspicuous, and I have seen the chord of a curved petiole which formed an angle of 59 degrees with the stem, in an hour afterwards making an angle of 106 degrees. The two opposite petioles do not move together, and one is sometimes so much raised as to stand close to the stem, whilst the other ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... said, with kind intent: "Why sing forever of these trivial things? For better music was your piping meant; Will you confess such earth-restricted wings? Strike some Byronic chord, sublime and deep, Find in ethereal flight the upper air, And speak to us some word that we may keep Within our ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as though a master hand had struck a chord upon ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... he had spoken yesterday had left her ears dull to this real first time of hearing love speeches, so that this seemed the second, and the words she heard, after the first little shock of realizing what they were, touched no chord that would respond. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... the through traveler the gift of an excursion through the capital. This loop swings southwardly from Baltimore to a point near Frederick, Washington being set upon it like a bead in the midst. The older road, like a mathematical chord, stretches still between the first points, but is occupied with the carrying of freight. The tourist notices the stout beams of the bridges, the new look of the sleepers, and the sheen of the double lines of fresh steel rail: he observes some heavy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... in their pathos—addresses that recalled the most glorious as well as the saddest memories of Irish history, and presented brilliant vistas of the future—addresses that touched to its fullest and most delicious vibration every chord of the Irish heart—here they were being sped over the land in an unfailing and ever welcome supply. The peasant read them to his family by the fireside when his hard day's work was done, and the fisherman, as he steered his boat ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... doubts and its faith, its sorrows and its triumphs, at each era of its existence. Wonderfully artless and correct—because all utterances which were not faithful to their time, which did not touch some sympathetic chord in their heart's souls, are pretty sure to have been swept out into wholesome oblivion, and only the most genuine and earnest left behind for posterity. The history of England indeed is the literature of England—but one very different from any school history or other now in vogue. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the homely little sermon touched a responsive chord in Arthur as nothing else had done. "You're a good fellow, Ellen," he said affectionately, "and to prove that I think so I'm going ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... not until she had seen his look change and the slightly cynical smile—the smile of one who has examined everything and believes in nothing—fade from his lips. She had touched some chord deep down within him of which he had long ago forgotten even the existence—some echoed harmony of what had been perhaps the living ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... flowers that yield honey to the bee likewise delight the bee-keeper with their perfume and the poet with their colours, and there is no adequate reason why the magic verse which strikes a responsive chord in the soul of lovers of high art, and starts a new train of ideas in the minds of serious thinkers, should thereby lose any of the healing virtues it may have heretofore possessed for the suffering souls of ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... know what I was playing, Or what I was dreaming then; But I struck one chord of music, Like the ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... his eyes; suddenly he leaped up, and a wild thought burned in his breast. But with an effort he checked himself, grasped his violin, and struck a wailing chord of lament. Then he laid his ear close to the instrument, as if he were listening to some living voice hidden there within, ran warily with the bow over the strings, and warbled, and caroled, and sang with maddening glee, and still with a shivering undercurrent ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... example of the all-around American high-school boys. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... settled there after launching the movement and found among its young intellectuals not a few disciples that have since followed in his wake. There is something about an art for art's sake that appeals to an aristocracy of birth and breeding; it touched a responsive chord in the soul of Hugo von Hofmannsthal,[A] whose earlier work distinctly shows its influence and who to that influence still owes his admirable ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... for half an hour, and then with a quick turn stretched out over splendid downs, beyond which lay a narrow glittering strip of grey sea. "There is the sea," announced Brigit, perfunctorily. It was not intrinsically beautiful, the scene, but as some chord in the human breast almost invariably vibrates in response to a view of salt water, this point was considered, at Kingsmead, to be a particularly important one, and as the motor flew on Brigit Mead wondered how many hundred times she had brought people ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... herself. This girl made more appeal to her than Eileen Creagh whom she had had with her from childhood. This girl touched some motherly chord in her which Eileen had never awakened. She wanted to stroke her dear curls, to be good to her. Yet she had been telling herself all those years, that she had no need ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... because all churches were not the same, which really means, you of course understand-"all churches are not of my denomination." And so, in spite of her regard for the printer, she could not bring herself to link her destiny with one whose eternal future was so insecure, and whose life did not chord with that which was to her, the one great keynote of the universe, the church. And then, too, does not the good book say: "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers." What could that mean if not, "Do not marry ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... appears, and presents him with a pair of white kid gloves. The illustrious conductor, having taken some time to thrust them upon a very large and red hand, leisurely takes up his baton, rises, grins upon the expectant musicians, lifts his arm, and—the first chord is struck! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... consolation which steals still, like celestial music, to the smitten heart, when every chord of earthly gladness ceases to vibrate. And it is befitting too that Jesus should utter it. He alone is qualified to do so. The words spoken to the bereaved one of Bethany are words purchased by His own atoning work. "Thy brother—thy sister—thy ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... conformity with the usages and conventions which obtained when the work was composed. One of these, as I have pointed out, was the substitution of one note for another in certain places; another, that in declamatory recitative, or recitativo parlante, the chord in the orchestra should come after the voice ("dopo la parola"). These words appear in many scores of the Italian operas, even of the present day. But when they do not, the musical director is supposed to be familiar with the custom. The following, therefore, is the authentic ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... bosses me around somethin' scandalous," Bud was wont to remark, as he rose from his labors and prepared for bed. "There I was huntin' around for that chord I lit on the other night and almost findin' it, when he has to howl like a coyote with a sore throat and spile the whole thing. I ought ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord—but in the same instant, and before Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in pale definiteness ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... in a personal interview. He sketched the great lady's combative character on a foundation of benevolence, and stressed her tolerance for open dealing, and the advantage gained by personal dealings with her—after a mauling or two. His language and his illustrations touched an old-school chord in the Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey, who hummed over the project, profoundly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heart, not for a lost love, but for the vanished dreams of girlhood. The chord he had hoped to touch remained mute. In view of the fact that she believed love to be dead between them, this method of stimulating an outworn romance seemed sentimental and insincere. Had he loved her, she might well have ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... they enter these bodies, expand and are lost; at this point, also, the little orange-coloured masses of cells have the appearance of being broken down into a finer substance. Within the cement-ducts I saw a distinct chord of rather opaque cellular matter. We shall presently see, that these gut-formed masses are ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... at hand, two hours before its time. Nothing stirred, not a vocal chord of hungry, puzzled, frightened chicken or cow. The whole region seemed to have caught its breath, to be smothered under a pall of stillness, unbroken except for some occasional distant earthquake of thunder from the inverted Switzerland of cloud ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the matter where a man knows nothing and has not been practised, there he is anxious. What matter is this? He knows not what a crowd is or what the praise of a crowd is. However, he has learned to strike the lowest chord and the highest; but what the praise of the many is, and what power it has in life, he neither knows nor has he thought about it. Hence he must of necessity tremble and grow pale. Is any man then afraid about things which ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... to thee will kindling fancy cling— Glow at thy smile, as when, in younger years, I've seen thee smiling through thy maiden tears, Like a fair floweret bent with morning dew, While sunbeams kissed its leaves of loveliest hue. Thou wert the chord and spirit of my lyre— Thy love the living voice that breathed—"aspire!"— That smoothed ambition's steep and toilsome height, And in its darkest paths was round me, light. Then, sit thee by me, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... seek its verdant, velvet sward, Oh may we hold in reverent thought The debt we owe, forgetting not The spirit passed to its reward Of one whose giant soul was fraught With true benignity—who sought To touch humanity's quick chord With fire from Heaven's altar brought, That love and zeal and being caught As inspiration from ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... instruments. One of these, which Captain Grant describes, was played by an old woman; it had seven notes, six of which were a perfect scale. Another, which had three strings, was played by a man: they were a full, harmonious chord. A third instrument called "the laced nanga" formed of dark wood, in the shape of a tray, had three crosses in the bottom, and was laced with one string, seven or eight times, over ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Lois; "but they go kindling beacons everywhere to light it up; and it is the beacons you see, and not the darkness. Now the secular poets turn that about. They deal with the brightest things they can find; but, to change the figure, they cannot keep the minor chord out ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... a sufficient number of spectators, he will do wonders, but he will not consent to perish obscurely for the sake of anything or anyone. Trochu has utterly failed in exciting enthusiasm in those under his command; he issues many proclamations, but they fail to strike the right chord. Instead of keeping up discipline by judicious severity, he endeavours to do so by lecturing like a schoolmaster. And then, since the commencement of the siege he has been unsuccessful in all his offensive movements. I am not a military man, but although ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... pressure is always perpendicular to the surface, and the ratio of lift to drift is therefore the same as that of the cosine to the sine of the angle of incidence. But in curved surfaces a very remarkable situation is found. The pressure, instead of being uniformly normal to the chord of the arc, is usually inclined considerably in front of the perpendicular. The result is that the lift is greater and the drift less than if the pressure were normal. Lilienthal was the first to ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... each step in these twilit recesses, for the fays of Brittany are not as those of other lands. Harsh things are spoken of them. They are malignant, say the forest folk. The note of Brittany is scarce a joyous one. It is bitter-sweet as a sad chord struck on an ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... And the thoughts that in him woke, Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. Therein I hear the Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls the strain. And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Its chord of penetrating passion and melancholy, again, its Titanism as we see it in Byron,—what other European poetry possesses that like the English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehement ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... a sheepish expression that the Frenchman took the proffered fingers, for there had been that in the frank avowal of confidence and friendship which smote upon a chord of honor in the man's soul that had not vibrated in response to a chivalrous impulse for so many long years that it had near atrophied ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... touches a tender chord, and discloses a gracious thought of God as Father, which softens the tremendous preceding word: 'Who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' Take both designations together, and let them work together ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... destroying are related functions, is based on the supposition that love is bound up with propagation. This is the fateful error of the modern theory of love, a rationalistic, metaphysical abstraction, which touches no corresponding chord in the human soul. To base the relationship of love and death on an association of becoming and declining is a beautiful idea, but nothing more. Modern synthetic love produces this relationship in its metaphysical perfection out ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... man—about my own age, I judged—(I shall be twenty-eight next birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. There was something about his appearance and build that struck a chord very ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... for the voice whose power Can in my heart awaken To passioned life each slumbering chord The ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... Korosko across the Nubian desert cuts off the chord of an arc made by the great westerly bend of the Nile. This chord is about 230 miles in length. Throughout this barren desert there is no water, except at the half-way station, Moorahd (from moorra, bitter); this, although salt and bitter, is relished by camels. During ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... was given to the scene by flocks of water-fowl, whose busy cry and cackle in the water, or whirring motion in the air, gave such an idea of joyousness in the brute creation as could not but strike a chord of sympathy in the heart of a man, and create a feeling of gratitude to the Maker of man and beast. Although brilliant and warm, the sun, at least during the first part of their ride, was by no means oppressive; so that ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the sweet home peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and all ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... sprinkled bright By simple singing of delight, Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained, Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained Without a break, without a fall, Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, Perennial, quavering up the chord Like myriad dews of sunny sward That trembling into fulness shine, And sparkle dropping argentine; Such wooing as the ear receives From zephyr caught in choric leaves Of aspens when their chattering net Is flushed to white ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... if thou can'st go, Waste not a thought on me; My heart and mind are a' my store, And they were dear to thee. But there is music in his gold (I ne'er sae sweet could sing), That finds a chord in every breast ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... flattered by the frequency of our united appeal to her for some answer to the marvellous riddle. We had all turned it over till we were tired of it, threshing out the question why the note he strained every chord to 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 ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... women were crying: an exaltation purely hysterical made them feel themselves lost sinners; they thrilled at John's voice, as though his words touched some strained chord in ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... all the glamour, the unexpectedness, and the mystery, there was sounding an ever-repeated chord of music, composed of the notes of youth, happiness, memory, desire, and expectation. And, thus combined, they struck the ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... struck the chord, and the girls chimed in weakly. Then, the music, strengthening their hopes as it progressed, made them more cheerful. Loudly, they brought out the ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... on the free list, and to the instinctive applause of the popular voice. Even with these humbler hands to build up his monument, the great master of music has a perpetual possession within the hearts of men, that the poet and the painter may well envy. Every chord in the human frame that answers to his strains, every tear that rises at the bidding of his cadences, every sob that struggles for an outlet at his touches of despairing tenderness, or at the thunders of his massive harmony, is a tribute to his power and his memory, enough to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... about and make his way down again. For, after a short pause, he half swung round, still keeping his eyes vaguely fixed on the artist, who continued to paint as if quite alone. But apparently some chord of curiosity had been struck in this poor and benumbed mind. For the big man wavered, then stole rather furtively forward, and fixed his sea-blue eyes on the canvas, upon which appeared the rough wall of the belfry, the narrow window, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... deep sigh, "God is punishing me perhaps for thinking too late of this just reparation. O my good and noble Sandra, you touch a chord which vibrates sadly in my heart, and you anticipate the unhappy confidence I was about to make. I feel a gloomy presentiment—and in the hour of death presentiment is prophecy—that the two sons of my nephew, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sometimes swell to a full-toned orchestra, and then for a few moments it would sink almost to a lull, all of it like the flow and ebb of the tides of a sea of melody. It was interesting to note how several voices would sometimes run into a chime when they struck the same chord. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... It breathed of deathless sorrow and mounted dying away to the heavens. Lavretsky drew himself up, and rose cold and pale with ecstasy. This music seemed to clutch his very soul, so lately shaken by the rapture of love, the music was glowing with love too. "Again!" he whispered as the last chord sounded. The old man threw him an eagle glance, struck his hand on his chest and saying deliberately in his own tongue, "This is my work, I am a great musician," he played again his marvellous composition. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... then, I have struck The chord that answers to your gloomy thoughts. Bah! on your sibyl and her prophecy! Put Guido's blood aside, and yet, I say, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... strike the lyre! Down where the chord is minor D. Of wooing thee I'll never tire. Good gracious! Why ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... young man watches her emotions with a penetrating eye, conscious that he has touched a chord in which all the milk of kindness is not ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... of sound hung over the head of an official who opens his mouth for centimes to drop there. You sing notes up into it (or rather you don't, for that is his perquisite), and they fly circling, and flock, and become a single chord stretching two octaves: till you feel that you are living inside what in the days of our youth would have been called "the sound of a ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... leaves of the manuscript music on the desks before them; sometimes the sound of a violin chord, struck to prove its correctness, broke on the air. The swish of silken skirts on the wooden floor of the gallery without announced the advent of the first guests, and gradually the room was filled by richly clad ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... this curious scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money in both pockets, "I shall soon be in better chambers than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... than wings of one dove, Than tones or colours in chord, We are one—and safe, and for ever, my love, Two thoughts in ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... expense he had incurred in getting up his large expedition. Of course I told him how disappointed I had been in not getting a sight of the Little Luta Nzige. I described how we had seen the Nile bending west where we crossed in Chopi, and then, after walking down the chord of an arc described by the river, had found it again in Madi coming from the west, whence to the south, and as far at least as Koshi, it was said to be navigable, probably continuing to be so right into the Little Luta Nzige. Should ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... cap and gown, his purple hood falling over his shoulders, entered followed by his faculty, also gowned and hooded. The students rose and remained standing until the president and faculty were seated. The organ sounded a final chord, and then the college chaplain rose and prayed—very badly. He implored the Lord to look kindly "on these young men who have come from near and far to drink from this great fount of learning, this well ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... define to himself the nature of the interest he took in Lucy Harcourt. He admired her greatly, and the self-denials and generous exertions she had made to be of use to him since Anna went away had touched a tender chord and made her ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance, And must I ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... Peter Cooper thus strikes the keynote, or, more accurately, the triple chord, of his life. For he was first of all an American, keenly aware of the opportunities offered by the free institutions of his country to individual ambition, industry, and genius, and of his own personal ability to make use of these opportunities. ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... were the columns of Knox and Hamilton at Bethulie. Here the river bends round to the south, forming an arc through Norval's Pont towards Zand Drift; and the columns therefore crossed to the right bank and marched eighty miles along the chord, only to find when they reached the Drift on February 12 that De Wet had two days previously crossed by ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... whispering behind his hand to Ram Jennings, that the young cocks would set up their hackles directly, whip out their spurs, and there would be a fight; and, in expectation of this, the men, six in number, now spread themselves into an arc, whose chord was the edge of the cliff, thus enclosing the pair so as to check any design on the part of the enemy to make a ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... I reverence, and a soul I worship, nor is there a happier being in the world this moment than Ferdinand Armine. With such a woman as you every fate must be a triumph. You have touched upon a chord of my heart that has sounded before, though in solitude. It was but the wind that played on it before; but now that tone rings with a purpose. This is glorious sympathy. Let us leave Armine to its fate. I ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... love thee for his sake, But not for his alone, For in thy heart, a chord we find, That vibrates ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... in some of the mazurkas of Chopin. He was, as Rubinstein called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Florence and Rome, at least it is more in the scenic tradition than New York Paris; and while I paced the great arcades and looked at the fourth-rate shop windows I didn't scruple to cultivate a shameless optimism. Relatively speaking, Turin touches a chord; but there is after all no reason in a large collection of shabbily-stuccoed houses, disposed in a rigidly rectangular manner, for passing a day of deep, still gaiety. The only reason, I am afraid, is the old superstition of Italy—that property in the very look of the written ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... cried a woman's voice,—clear and melodious, but, just then, with something unnatural in its chord,—"you are welcome! But you come half an hour too late, and have missed a scene which ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... remind this hero of his combats; but he also remembers his moments of love and happiness, and his soul is quieted. Then the music unfolds itself serenely, and rises with calm strength to the closing chord of triumph, which is placed like a crown of glory on the ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... that brightly polished. The period of the Romanticists marks here too the turning-point of taste; Beethoven completed the emancipation of the above-mentioned wind instruments in the symphony. The modern treatment of the piano with the introduction of the perfect chord accelerated its victory at the same time. It worked favorably for the external brilliancy of tone of this instrument, while gradually closing the ears of the dilettante and the musician to the charms of a simple ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... which is a help and pledge of final victory. We are one by our most sacred memories, by our dearest possessions, and by our most solemn tasks. Our discords are on the lower plane; when the rich, full voices speak, in whatever latitude and longitude, they chord with one another. When Uncle Remus tells Miss Sally's little boy about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, the children from the Gulf to the Lakes gather about his knees. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are claimed as comrades by all the boys between the Penobscot and the Rio Grande. Lanier's ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... the highlands of Kentucky and Tennessee to the plains of the Carolinas calling the black youths, whose hopes ran high within their bosoms, to rise and make for higher things? This clarion note, though still for the nonce, shall not become a lost chord. Its inspiring tones must again appeal to the youth to arise to their higher assertion and exertion. If you wish to reach and inspire the life of the people, the approach must be made not to the intellectual, nor yet to the feelings, as the final basis of appeal, but to ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... an undercurrent of deep passion, struck a familiar chord in Ann's mind. They were like, and yet unlike, something she had heard before. For a moment she puzzled over it, the connection eluding her. Then, all at once, it flashed over her, and she remembered how Brett Forrester had said: "The past doesn't matter to me. It's the future ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... satisfied with her discipline,' Father Oliver jerked out, and it was all he could do to check himself from further snaps at the parish priest, a great burly man who could not tell a minor from a major chord, yet was venting the opinion that good singing distracted the attention of the congregation at their prayers. He would have liked to ask him if he was to understand that bad singing tended to a devotional mood, but wishing to remain on good ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... circumstance, as old Sophy had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of two souls to each other, string by string, not without little half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the other proves to be overstrained or over-lax, but always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... it to a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the "River ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... a color scale can be established which would yield a color correlative to any musical note or chord, there still remains the matter of values to be dealt with. In the musical scale there is a practical equality of values: one note is as potent as another. In a color scale, on the other hand, each note (taken at its greatest intensity) has a positive ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the sinking and settling of the vertebrae the spinal chord may suffer from pressure and contusion as it is contained in a channel formed by the vertebrae. Aside from certain pain it may result ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... their swift eyes Turn still to him who sits to supervise. He in the midst, perched on a fallen tree, Eyes them at labour; and, guitar on knee, Now ministers alarm, now scatters joy, Now twangs a halting chord, now tweaks a boy. Thorough in all, my resolute vizier Plays both the despot and the volunteer, Exacts with fines obedience to my laws, And for his music, too, ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... outside B Mess was nearing the climax of GRIEG'S "Peer Gynt" suite. Hyldebrand just failed to perpetrate the time-worn gag of jumping through the big drum, but he contrived to make that final crashing chord sound like the last sneeze of a giant dying of hay-fever. The rest the crowd saw through a film of dust. Hyldebrand headed for the turning by the school, reached it as the gates opened to release young France, and comedy would have turned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... be more correct to say, from my point of consciousness to yours; or, to be still more accurate, to say that the intensity of my thoughts struck a sympathetic chord in yours, and vibrated through you as one consciousness. Without undue familiarity, Mr. Henley, I have found in you a responsive temperament. There are few men I can not influence, and with some ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... change. He sought, with well-practised and delicate art, To surprise from Lucile the true state of her heart; But his efforts were vain, and the woman, as ever, More adroit than the man, baffled every endeavor. When he deem'd he had touch'd on some chord in her being, At the touch it dissolved, and was gone. Ever fleeing As ever he near it advanced, when he thought To have seized, and proceeded to analyze aught Of the moral existence, the absolute soul, Light as vapor the phantom escaped ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith |
