"Keynote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... let me leave you Mary's keynote of comfort, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reflection, and ignore nearly altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entanglement of permanent alliances, and to set the highest price on those which it thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian character was, consequently, a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other States of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within The inhabitants meanwhile were united ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... interest is the Commedia. Any attempt to explain it, by narrowing that interest to politics, philosophy, the moral life, or theology itself, must prove inadequate. Theology strikes the keynote; but history, natural and metaphysical science, poetry, and art, each in their turn join in the harmony, independent, yet ministering to the whole. If from the poem itself we could be for a single moment in doubt of the reality and dominant place of religion ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... house and its occupants comes as one enters through the front door into the hall. Thus, nowhere in the entire house is it more important to strike the right keynote in furnishing and decoration. If there is no closet in the hall for wraps and umbrellas, it will be necessary to have in some obscure corner a wooden strip painted the same color as the woodwork, in which are solid brass hooks, placed low enough so that the ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... Grace For our Salvation Army lass teaches true Gospel faith: "Be saved this night, poor sinner, repent, the hour is late! Salvation is in store for thee, brother do not delay As fleeting time and sudden death for no man ever wait!" "Praise God!" the lassie's war-cry is, the keynote of her song. To the tune of "Annie Roonie" and kindred fervid lay With mandolin and banjo, marching in bold array The devil's strongholds storming, battling to victory— With banners flying, the tambourine and drum Forever has she silenced ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... no political or social existence more than the horses with which they were sent to the river to drink. In any scheme of political economy Aristotle's words, in the first book of the "Politics," were the keynote: "The science of the master reduces itself to knowing how to make use of the slave. He is the master, not because he is the owner of the man, but because he knows how to ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... smoking one of his admirable cigars and chatting with his old friend, Professor Binstead. A stranger who had only encountered Mr. Brewster in the lobby of the hotel would have been surprised at the appearance of his sitting-room, for it had none of the rugged simplicity which was the keynote of its owner's personal appearance. Daniel Brewster was a man with a hobby. He was what Parker, his valet, termed a connoozer. His educated taste in Art was one of the things which went to make the Cosmopolis different from ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... that, as in some others of the chateaux of Touraine (always excepting the colossal Chambord, which is not in Touraine), there is less vastness than one had expected, the least hospitable aspect of Blois is abundantly impressive. Here, as elsewhere, lightness and grace are the keynote; and the recesses of the windows, with their happy proportions, their sculpture and their colour, are the hollow sockets of the human ornament. They need the figure of a Francis I. to complete them, or of a Diane de Poitiers, or even of a Henry ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Single Sentence.—Of the seven or eight different kinds of lead, a quotation of a single sentence or a single paragraph is happiest if one can be found that will give the keynote of the speech or will harmonize with a declared policy of the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... Edward. I think too there is a measured music, a central time and tune, in every life. Quick, melodious natures like Ethel's never wander far from their keynote, and are therefore joyously set; while slow, irresolute people deviate far, and only come back after painful dissonances ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... condemnation of that celebrated book, written by a modern limiter of "human responsibility"—not by the ancient one, who exclaimed, "Am I my brother's keeper?" In that book, to which, by the way, the infamous Atherton Resolutions are indebted for their keynote, and grand pervading idea, we find the doctrine, that even if it were the duty of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, the North nevertheless should not seek for such abolition, unless the object of it be "ultimate within ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... transformation of Christianity was described as the great predicted apostasy, the mystery of iniquity, the work of Antichrist among mankind. Under the influence of the historic method it assumed a different aspect, and the mystery became very explicable. Hobbes had struck the keynote in a passage of profound truth as ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... in behalf of the African slave was 226:6 still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the keynote of uni- versal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledg- 226:9 ment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not 226:12 through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... audience, it was supposed, would surely hold this radical in check. Alas! they were all doomed, for once, to hear the naked truth, on every vital question of the day. Thinking this might be his only opportunity to rouse some liberal thought in conservative minds, he struck the keynote of every reform; defended labor strikes, the Nihilists of Russia, prohibition, woman suffrage, and demanded reformation in our prisons, courts of justice, and halls of legislation. On the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... rhyme was the keynote of a bachelor supper which one girl gave for her brother and a few of his friends ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... last reaped the harvest of admiration and honour which was his due. Many distinctions came to him. He was made LL.D. of Edin., a life Governor of London Univ., and had the offer of the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow. He d. in the house of his son at Venice, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The keynote of his teaching is a wise and noble optimism. His poems were collected in 2 vols. in 1896. Some vols. of his correspondence with Mrs. B. were ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... gave him a running sketch of the chance guests, Graham heard scarce half she said, so occupied was he in trying to sense his way to an understanding of her. Naturalness was her keynote, was his first judgment. In not many moments he had decided that her key-note was joy. But he was dissatisfied with both conclusions, and knew he had not put his finger on her. And then it came to him—pride. That was it! It was in her ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... of poets. No compromise can be made on this point, because upon it the whole theory of poetry depends. Neither on the formal nor on the essential sides of his art is he among the small company of the supreme. And no one understood this better than himself. He touched the keynote of his own power, though with too great modesty, when he said, "I am sensible that if there is anything good about my poetry ... it is a hurried frankness of composition which pleases soldiers, sailors, and young people of bold and active dispositions." ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... am glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote of these United States. I am glad, for one reason, that remarks such as those to which I have alluded have been uttered here. The passage of these resolutions, in spite of this opposition, led by the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... electricity must accord with the lines of your architecture and furniture. The mantelpiece is the connecting link between the architecture and the furnishing of a room. It is the architect's contribution to the furnishing, and for this reason the keynote ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... She sighed. "That is, you give the keynote, and the others take up the tune. Even Bingo—Bingo, whom I firmly believed incapable of keeping a secret in which his dearest interests were concerned longer than ten minutes—Bingo has sprung a surprise on me. I ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the French minister, and there he fell in love. The girl's mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she might visit him. Everything was discovered and he was dismissed. To this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the keynote of Voltaire: "Do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. You know what she is capable of. You have experienced it too well. Dissemble; it is your only chance. Tell her that you have forgotten me, that you hate me; then after telling her, love me ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... which it gives is the truth, obscured to all other men when it was given, that one God 'in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.' That solemn utterance is the keynote of the whole. The rest but expands it. It was a challenge and a denial for all the beliefs of the nations, the truth of which Israel was the champion and missionary. It swept the heavens and earth clear of the crowd of gods, and showed the One enthroned above, and operative in, all things. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... is shown in the very first sentence of his great work. The careful reader at once perceives that the first paragraph of the book strikes a keynote which distinguishes it from all other economic works comparable to it in importance. Marx was a great master of the art of luminous and exact definition, and nowhere is this more strikingly shown than in this opening sentence of "Capital": "The wealth ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... on the celebration in memory of the Maccabean heroes, on the days of Purim, at wedding banquets, at the love-feasts of the pious brotherhood. This fusion of melancholy and of rejoicing is the keynote of mediaeval Jewish music growing out of the grotesque contrasts of Jewish history. Yet, despite its romantic woe, it is informed with the spirit of a remote past, making it the legitimate offspring of ancient ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... stories. (See definition of "Myth" on p. 294.) Professor Max Mueller of Oxford has been the first, in his standard work "The Science of Language," clearly to define this radical difference between the two conceptions, which he has never since ceased to sound as a keynote through the long series of his works devoted to the study of the religions and mythologies of various nations. A few illustrations from the one nation with which we have as yet become familiar will help once for all to establish a thorough understanding on ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... suffering was, in the main, the result of the artificial arrangements of society, and inheriting a fortune at an early age he spent large sums in philanthropy. A poem written by him in 1773, entitled "The Dying Negro," has been described as supplying the keynote of the anti-slavery movement. His "History of Sandford and Merton," published in three volumes between the years 1783 and 1789, provided a channel through which many generations of English people have imbibed a kind of refined Rousseauism. It retains its interest for the philosophic ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... works of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of the reader co-operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the keynote, and expects his hearer ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... being democratic in our economic life, with the aristocracy of character and intelligence to lead us, we became meanly individualistic in our economics and meanly democratic in leadership. That is, we allowed individualism—the devilish doctrine of every man for himself—to be the keynote of our economic life; where, above all things, the general good and not the enrichment of the individual should be considered. For our leaders we chose energetic, common-place types, and made them represent us in the legislature; though it is in leadership above all that ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... will grant you that greed is the keynote of this place; yet even that has its interesting side. Where else do you see it so developed? Where else could you see the same emotion actuating a number of very different people in ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... A critic in the Paris World writes of this artist: "She has exquisite color sense and delights in presenting that exaltation de la vie, that love, radiance, and joy of life, which are at once the secret of the success and the keynote of the masterful canvases of Roll, in whose studio were first developed Claude Marlef's delicate qualities of truthful perception in the portraiture of woman.... Her perceptions being rapid, she has a remarkable instantaneous insight, enabling her to fix the dominant feature ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. Here, the praise of the Greek Church touches its highest note, and pours forth its most enchanting melody. "Christ is risen," and the glad response, "He is risen indeed"—these words constitute the keynote of all that is best and most beautiful in Greek worship. The Knowledge and the Wisdom of God are everywhere extolled, and the attribute of Light is continually and ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... this. If the brain of another person vibrates in unison with mine, or has at one in harmony with the keynote of my own brain, I can act upon him, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... was large, and arranged with that wonderful simplicity which Mrs. Hastings had adopted as the keynote of her New York parties. She had taken, in fact, simplicity under her wing and made a new thing of it. There were more flowers than silver, and cut glass than heavy plate. There seemed to be an almost ostentatious desire to conceal the fact that Mr. Hastings had robbed the American ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... every succeeding election till 1839, when he withdrew from the contest to become a candidate for governor. With one or two exceptions, he was the youngest member of the Nineteenth Congress. He was prominently connected with every leading question, and upon all he struck what proved to be the keynote for the action of his party. His maiden speech was in defense of the proposed amendment to the Constitution giving the choice of the President and Vice-President directly to the people. It at once placed him in the front rank of Congressional ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... nations first face each other across the council table, a nation-wide demonstration will be under way in the United States. Organized labor announces that in every town and city the workers will join with other citizens in mass-meetings and parades and that the keynote of Armistice Day should be, 'It is time to disarm.' It will help in impressing upon our own government and upon other governments that the people are weary of war-made tax burdens; that they are deeply in earnest in their demands that ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... far as possible, to unify the collection by arranging the poems so that each should set the keynote to the next, or at least bear some relation to it in mood or theme. While it is impossible, with so varied a mass of material, that such a sequence should be exact, and in one or two instances the arrangement has been disturbed by the late addition or elimination ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Perhaps the keynote to the charm of George Sand's art is given in her preface to her exquisite novel "La Derniere Aldini." Here is none of the accuracy and patience of the scientific enquirer into the "mysterious mixture" man, which we find in George Eliot's preface to "Middlemarch." Indeed ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... his part, the king wanted a general badly. He had been grievously disappointed in Sir William Howe, whose victories seemed never bringing the war any nearer to an end. Burgoyne brought forward his plan at the right moment, shrewdly touched the keynote of the king's discontent by declaring for aggressive war, smoothed every obstacle away with easy assurance, and so impressed the ministers with his capacity, that they believed they had found the very man the king wanted ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... hand, we possess a curious lyrical prelude to the play, which he put on paper on March 16, 1892. It is said to have been his habit, before setting to work on a play, to "crystallise in a poem the mood which then possessed him;" but the following is the only one of these keynote poems which has been published. I give it in the original language, with a ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... The keynote of my first book lies of course in the distinction between sensual love and romantic love. This distinction seemed to me so self-evident that I did not dwell on it at length, but applied myself chiefly to the task of proving that savages and ancient nations knew ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the Mongolian bandits Rhodes looked at him in surprise and said: "Why didn't you take it? What is the earthly use of having ideas if you haven't the money with which to carry them out?" Here you have the keynote of the whole Rhodes business policy. A project had to be carried through regardless of expense. It applied to the Cape-to-Cairo dream just as it applied to every other enterprise with ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... that in? La, la, la, la; mi, in E major, key of four sharps. By Jove, my little man! here is a fellow who sings B's and C's away up in the clouds; an E sharp, too!" he continued, with astonishment, while the singer made a hold upon the keynote an octave higher in a voice as clear as ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... entry, the heading, as it were, and keynote of all the rest, is a quotation from Novalis;—"Philosophy can bake no bread; but it can prove for us God, freedom, and immortality. Which, now, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?" The reference here given is to a German edition of Novalis, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Brantwood, in utter apathy to everything of passing interest, and if he thinks or speaks at all it would seem his sense of the injustice in things, and the doom it is under, is not yet utterly dead—his sun has not even yet gone down upon his wrath; the keynote of his wrath was, Men do the work of this world and rogues take the pay, selling for money what God has given for nothing, or what others have purchased by their life's blood; b. 1819. He died 20th ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... eclipsed by the quiet unostentatious poetry of the angel of St. Matthew. We see a girl of intense grace and refinement, winged as an angel and looking modestly downwards to the open gospel in her hands. Delicacy is the keynote pervading every detail of the relief: in her hands, arms and throat, in the soft curves of the young frame, and in the drapery itself, which suggests all that is dainty and pure—everywhere, in fact, we find charm and ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... passing face. Beauty alone would have left him cold. The impression he received was far more rich, an impression to which the circumstances of the encounter gave a peculiar emphasis. The adventure seemed a possible keynote of the future, and there was an element of vague disquiet in his hope that he might meet her again, an ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... all " [Macbeth]; cardinal point; substance, gist &c. (essence) 5; sum and substance, gravamen, head and front; important part, principal part, prominent part, essential part; half the battle; sine qua non; breath of one's nostrils &c. (life) 359;cream, salt, core, kernel, heart, nucleus; keynote, keystone; corner stone; trump card &c. (device) 626; salient points. top sawyer, first fiddle, prima donna[Sp], chief; triton among the minnows; " it" [U.S.]. V. be important &c. adj., be somebody, be something; import, signify, matter, boot, be an object; carry weight &c. (influence) 175; make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... That was the keynote of the whole Tractarian movement. A weapon was needed to smite liberalism. Nothing but a compact and powerful organisation could repel the foe. God must have provided such an organisation: a Divine society, certain of ultimate victory, must exist somewhere. Newman ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... The keynote of these books is manliness. The stories are wonderfully entertaining, and they are at the same time sound and wholesome. No boy will willingly lay down an unfinished book ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... theoretical speculation as such. The wisdom and the wise man of the book of Proverbs no more mean the theoretical philosopher than the fool and the scorner in the same book denote the one ignorant in theoretical speculation. "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." This is the keynote of the book of Proverbs, and its precepts and exhortations are practical and nothing else. That the Pentateuchal law is solely concerned with practical conduct, religious, ceremonial and moral, needs not saying. It is so absolutely ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... shows our inherent divinity and the method by which the latent becomes the actual. Instead of the ignoble belief that we can fling our sins upon another it makes personal responsibility the keynote of life. It is the ethics of self-help. It is the moral code of self-reliance. It is the ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... times of difficulty, wise counsel for moments of perplexity, a stimulant to faithfulness, a cure for the blues, exhilaration, jubilation. Everything of a depressing nature has been scrupulously ruled out. The keynote, persistently followed through all the pages, is optimistic, bright, buoyant. Trumpet calls and bugle notes are furnished in abundance, but no dirges or elegies. Large space, it will be seen, is given to ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... hinders expression."[8] If this fact is recognised (that dramatic speech is not real speech, but poetical speech, and poetical speech infused with the individual style of each individual dramatist, modulated, indeed, but true to one keynote) then it must be granted that Browning has as much right to his own style as other dramatists have to theirs, and as little right as they to be accused on that account of putting his personality into his work. But as Browning's style is very pronounced and original, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... expression) the entrance of Peter into the drawing-room of Mrs. Deane, the pale flowery wisp of a boy walking as it were into a garden of pungent spices and herbs, and of actions so alien to his own? We are given at this moment the keynote of mastery in delicate suggestion, which never fails throughout the play, tedious as it is, overdrawn on the side of ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... "that the one strongest characteristic of all the painting that has emanated from Venice is beauty and strength of color, the keynote of which seems to have been struck in the first mosaic decorations of San Marco, more than eight centuries ago. And how could it be otherwise in a city so flooded with radiance of ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... also rightly rebuking the sceptical Abbe's determination to see in it little more than a piece of precieuse mannerliness (though, indeed, the Precieuses were not yet). Yet even Sainte-Beuve has scarcely pointed out quite strongly enough how entirely this is the keynote of all Margaret's work, and especially of the Heptameron. The story therefore may be worth telling again, though it may be found in the "Cinquieme Discours" of the Vies ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... is represented by Hoelderlin characteristically as helpless, passive—"schwinden," "fallen," "blindlings von einer Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of Goethe's "Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... is in vivid contrast to Jeremiah's sorrowful attitude of retrospection. The picture brings out clearly the fact that the keynote of Daniel's prophecy is hope. Looking into his rapt face, we may imagine that this is the message he is writing: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... their message; yet from these Our songs have thrown O'er all our Austral hills and leas One sombre tone. Whence doth the mournful keynote start? From the pure depths of Nature's heart? Or from the heart of him who sings And deems his hand upon the strings ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... sounded the keynote of freedom, that reverberated all over Scotland, and down into England, and over into Holland, and at length struck the ears of William, Prince of Orange. Cameron and his Covenanted associates, having disowned the authority of King ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... to your camp just at the moment when you received your orders from headquarters. Your self-conceived plan has met with every encouragement from us. You will be placed in a unique position to achieve your final purpose. Now mark my words and do not misunderstand me. The very keynote of our progress is ruthlessness. To take even a single step forward towards the achievement of that purpose is worth the sacrifice of all the scruples and delicacies conceivable. But when a certain course of action is without profit to our purpose, I see ugliness ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but there was in him no barrier to that larger emotional sympathy which we think of as sympathy of the soul. If this poem were true, 'One Word More' would be false, quite otherwise than in that approach to exaggeration which is incidental to the poetic form. The true keynote of 'Two in the Campagna' is the pain of perpetual change, and of the conscious, though unexplained, predestination to it. Mr. Browning could have still less in common with such a state, since one ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... colors were presented to us by the Rev. Mr. French, a chaplain who brought them from the donors in New York. All this was according to the programme. Then followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected and startling, that I can scarcely believe it on recalling, though it gave the keynote to the whole day. The very moment the speaker had ceased, and just as I took and waved the flag, which now for the first time meant anything to these poor people, there suddenly arose, close beside the platform, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the greatest dissectors. Dissections were done at Rome and the cardinals attended them. Bologna at the height of its fame was in the Papal States. All this has been ignored and the supposed bull against anatomy emphasized as representing the keynote of medical and surgical history. Then there was a Papal decree forbidding the making of gold and silver. This was said to forbid chemistry or alchemy and so prevent scientific progress. The history of the medical schools of the time shows that it did no such thing. ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... photograph still more closely. It displayed a lady of twenty or thereabouts, with a weak face, small, vacant features, a feeble chin, a good-humoured, simple mouth, and a wealth of golden hair that seemed to strike a keynote. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... perfectly bred people accepted the remark in sympathetic silence. There was not even an eyebrow raised, but I fancy that Isobel's words, calmly spoken and with obvious intent, struck the keynote of her future relations with ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... happy ingenuousness of his youth undimmed by doubts of man or suspicions of woman, cannot help sympathizing with him when we see him cheated and betrayed, drinking the bitter cup of disillusion to the dregs. In "Lear" the angry brooding leads to madness; and it is only fitting that the keynote of the tragedy, struck again and again, should be ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... every kind of a meeting held in the church with religious exercises. Then Mamanowatum made his address, always good and suggestive, the keynote of which was thanksgiving and gratitude to God for the blessings of the year. When he had finished, he called on different Indians for addresses. Some of them were very good also. This is the night of all others, when Indian orators try to be humorous and witty. As a race they do not ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... but one to strike the keynote of respect and personal freedom in marriage; the other will ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... "Common Sense" struck the keynote of popular feeling, and the accusation of "treason," hurled at it from many sources, only served to advertise it. It supplied the common people with reasons, and gave statesmen arguments. The Legislature of Pennsylvania voted Paine a honorarium ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the tonic harmony of C minor; upon the primary accent of the 4th measure; it is considerably longer than any other tone in the phrase; and the keynote c is placed both at the top and at the bottom of the harmonic body. See also Ex. 15; the cadence is perfect, because the cadence-chord, on the accent of the 4th measure, is the tonic harmony of G major, with the keynote as highest and as lowest tone. It is abbreviated by rests, which ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... administration of the respective internal secretions increases the burning up of material in the body, and all of them have a higher rate of tissue combustion than their confreres, with a subthyroid or subpituitary keynote in their cell chemistry, or with insufficient interstitial cell action. Generally the latter have a very dry skin, the former a moist skin. With delayed involution ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... just as you did in the phase of personal psychic influence previously mentioned. You act precisely as if the other person were present before you, and state your commands or demands to him just as you would were he seated or standing in your presence. This is the keynote of the whole thing; the rest is simply an elaboration and stating of details of methods, etc. With the correct principle once established, you may apply the same according to your own ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... of such lines is now being introduced into this country by Mr. Arthur Koppel, of 96 Leadenhall Street, E. C. The keynote of this system is flexibility, the arrangements being such that extensions or alterations can be readily effected. In fact, the line is portable, and it is claimed also to be cheaper than the ordinary construction. The overhead conductor is employed, as can be seen ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... compelled, a few days ago, to glance through two or three little dramas of mine, wherein lies revealed the disquiet of a mind that has given itself wholly to mystery; a disquiet legitimate enough in itself, perhaps, but not so inevitable as to warrant its own complacency. The keynote of these little plays is dread of the unknown that surrounds us. I, or rather some obscure poetical feeling within me (for with the sincerest of poets a division must often be made between the instinctive feeling of their art and the thoughts of their real life), seemed to believe in ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... make their own rules for their own government, and they should also deal as a group with the infringement of their rules. This will solve the discipline problem of the Teacher. Responsibility should be the keynote of government, and the awakening of such a feeling in the ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... Prussians," was his eternal keynote, "and Prussia is all-sufficient. Our hosts follow the Prussian flag and not the tricolor; under the black and white they joyfully die for their country. The tricolor has been, since the March riots, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... especially noticeable, for 800 guests are often invited at a time. Treasures of linen and costly embroidery, silken hangings and velvet banners, gorgeous carpets and mats of finest texture, are displayed to our admiring eyes, but possession rather than enjoyment is the keynote of Eastern character, and the bales and bundles of priceless value, kept in huge cabinets of fragrant cedar-wood, seldom see the light of day. Long counting-houses are crowded with native scribes, their brown bodies naked except for sarong ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... is doing its share toward the re-education of the blind adult, has been doing it for the past thirteen years. It provides the best books available in the various types. It has over eight thousand books in circulation, and its list of borrowers numbers more than one thousand. The keynote of this department is Service, and each borrower is made to feel that his success is of vital importance to the Library, and when a new reader is added to the list, a note is usually sent, welcoming him to the family circle. For we are all like one large family circle—with ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... Britons but of Englishmen. Even if a few of the vanquished people lingered as slaves round the homesteads of their English conquerors, or a few of their household words mingled with the English tongue, doubtful exceptions such as these leave the main facts untouched. The keynote of the conquest was firmly struck. When the English invasion was stayed for a while by the civil wars of the invaders, the Briton had disappeared from the greater part of the land which had been his own; and the tongue, the religion, the laws of his English conquerors reigned ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... a book for every pastor, missionary, and devout Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. Above all, it has the keynote of ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... Legends and Ballads," and of other works. He died in 1890. All through life the voice and pen of Boyle O'Reilly were at the service of his Church, his native land, and his adopted country. Kindness was the keynote of his character. In 1896 Boston erected in his ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... The American Scholar, strike the keynote of Emerson's philosophical, poetical, and moral teachings. In fact he had, as every great teacher has, only a limited number of principles and theories to teach. These principles of life can all be enumerated in twenty words—self-reliance, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Polish is sometimes very thin. It has been suggested that Swift, who was with Pope during the composition, may have been directly responsible for some of these brutalities. At any rate, as I have said, Pope has here been working in the Swift spirit, and this gives, I think, the keynote of ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... to do, and I shall try—but it must be cautiously— to do it. You know my politics well enough to know what I mean when I say that for 'Europe' I shall be desirous now and then to read 'England.'" The closing sentence was the keynote of his policy. For years it had been customary for representatives of the powers to treat all important matters as "European questions," and England had become habituated to a diplomacy which kept English interests in the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... inimical and heretical to the opposing camps of hausfrau and of suffragist. Their intellectual forces, liberated and intensified, prey upon the more instinctive part of their natures, vexing them with unanswerable questions. So Fiammetta mistakes herself to some degree, loses her keynote, becomes embittered and perplexed. The equilibrium of soul and body is disturbed; and she fortifies herself in an obstinate idealism that cannot come to terms with the assaults of life. No single sonnet expresses absolute truth from ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... himself that she hit a man squarely in the eyes. Her beauty had that direct and almost aggressive quality that is like a challenge, and with sophisticated feminine art she had contrived that the dinner gown she chose for that evening should sound the keynote of her personality like a leitmotif in an opera. The costume was a creation of white satin, the folds caught here and there with strings of pearls. There was a single large rose of pink velvet among the draperies of the skirt; a looped girdle of blue velvet ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... endeavored to bring the moral and philosophical side of the subject to the foreground. "Slavery is wrong" was the keynote of all his speeches. To Douglas's glittering sophism that the right of the people of a Territory to have slavery or not, as they might desire, was in accordance with the principle of true popular sovereignty, he made the pointed answer: "Then true ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... difficulty with songs and exercises ranging below the pitch indicated may be overcome easily by pitching the songs, etc., a tone or two higher. If they then range too high, don't sing them, sing something else. In teaching the scale, take E or F as the keynote, and sing either one or the other of those scales first. The children must sing as softly as possible in all their singing exercises, whether songs or note drill. They should be taught to open their mouths well, ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... penitence, in work, in prayer. "Good is the rule of Bangor," said the ancient sequence, "strait, austere, holy, and just." It was this rule, with the enthusiasm which marked all classes for religion and for knowledge, which inspired S. Columban in his great work. It was a work whose keynote was sacred study and which found its harmony in monastic service. S. Columban was the type, the representative par excellence, of the Irish monk, in his high idealism, his thirst for self-sacrifice, his ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... briefly alluded to as eminently characteristic of the Sagas is their fatefulness. As we read we seem to hear the voice of Doom speaking continually. "Things will happen as they are fated": that is the keynote of them all. The Norse mind had little belief in free will, less even than we have to-day. Men and women were born with certain characters and tendencies, given to them in order that their lives should run in appointed channels, and their acts bring about an appointed end. They do not these things ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... idea, for ideas exist for ever. But what idea? There is the touchstone of all philosophy! Amid the wreck of creeds, the crash of empires, French revolutions, English reforms, Catholicism in agony, and Protestantism in convulsions, discordant Europe demands the keynote, which none can sound. If Asia be in decay, Europe is in confusion. Your repose may be death, but ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... given us here the noblest musical incarnation of the Arthurian legend which we have. It is singular, by the way, how frequently one is impelled to use the epithet "noble" in praising MacDowell's work; in reference to the "Sonata Eroica" it has an emphatic aptness, for nobility is the keynote of this music. If the work, as a whole, has not the dynamic power of the "Tragica," the weight and gravity of substance, it is both a lovelier and a more lovable work, and it is everywhere more significantly accented. He has ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... Conservation the Keynote What Neglect of Her Forests Has Cost China Forestry Lessons from Japan and Korea Conserving Individual Wealth The Essential Immorality of Waste Avoiding the Wastes of War Preserving Our Physical Stamina and Racial Strength A Lesson from China Patriotism as ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... Lavengro was indeed sensational: but not quite in the way its publisher had anticipated. Almost without exception the verdict was unfavourable. The book was attacked vigorously. The keynote of the critics was disappointment. Some reviews were purely critical, others personal and abusive, but nearly all were disapproving. "Great is our disappointment" said the Athenaeum. "We are disappointed," echoed Blackwood. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... me, Signore," he said at last, his voice echoing a sweetness, a cheerful patience that was doubtless the keynote to his nature—"it all sounds very beautiful; but, indeed, it cannot be! The great Duke Scorpa has given the matter much thought. The mine owners cannot pay the people more—there is scarcely any profit ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... harmless enough. The effects will of course vary with the individual. Just as they vary in the same individual from time to time; but it is probable that in the former case, as in the latter, a generic resemblance will obtain. With me, as with every other person of whom I have heard, the keynote of the experience is the tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical illumination. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... the keynote of this story, loyalty of the hero to his patriotic duty, loyalty of a daughter to her father, and loyalty of a lover to his sweetheart. The followers, of Mr. Harben will enjoy another of his ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... but in Berlin, home of the frump and the flour-sack figure, she was stared at, appreciatively. Her business, except for one or two unimportant side lines, had to do with two factories on whose product the Haynes-Cooper company had long had a covetous eye. Quantity, as usual, was the keynote of their demand, and Fanny's task was that of talking in six-figure terms to these conservative and over-wary foreign manufacturers. That she had successfully accomplished this, and that she had managed to impress them also with the important ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... was Potts's keynote,—power, effectiveness, accomplishment, at any and all cost. He was the spirit of the city, nay of the country itself! "Results—get results at all costs," that was the one lesson of life which he had learned from the back street, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... this fashion? and why did she take it into her head to air all sorts of independent notions that quite shocked her mother? and why was she for ever drawing plans to herself of a life that should be solitary, and yet crowded with interests—whose keynote should be sympathy for her fellow-creatures and large-hearted work among them? and, above all, why did she want to persuade herself and Michael that this was the sort of life best fitted for her? But no one could answer these questions; so complex is the machinery of feminine ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... narrow limits, to go into the details of those great debates. In them Lincoln rose above all technicalities and sophistries, and not only planted himself on eternal right, but showed marvellous political wisdom. The keynote of all his utterances was that "a house divided against itself could not stand." Yet he did not pass beyond the constitutional limit in his argument: he admitted the right of the South to a fugitive-slave law, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to be executed he always performed the office himself. Once when some one inquired why he did not delegate such a disagreeable task to one of his deputies, he is said to have replied, "Simply because it is disagreeable." It was this elevated sense of moral responsibility which formed the keynote of ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... and lowering down. The expedition with which parties were formed for service; the rapidity of the frigate's movements night and day; the hasty sleep snatched at all hours; the waking up at the report of the guns, which seemed the only keynote to the hearts of those on board, the beautiful precision of our fire, obtained by constant practice; the coolness and courage of our captain, inoculating the whole of the ship's company; the suddenness of our attacks, the gathering after the combat, the killed ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... party were supported by the Roman Catholics of the old and influential families of the kingdom; and some of the Dissenters, who were disgusted with the treatment they received from Cromwell, occasionally lent them a kind of passive aid. Taking these considerations as the keynote to the song, attempts have been made to discover the meaning which was originally attached to its leading words. It is difficult at the present time to give a clear explanation of all its points. The following, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... young man sauntered out to the barns, everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of the great herd affected ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... The keynote of Johnnie Consadine's character was aspiration. In her cabin home the wings of desire were clipped, because she must needs put her passionate young soul into the longing for food, to quiet the cravings of a healthy stomach, which generally ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... the speeches made, and they were many, not one bore any intimation of regret or of any desire to do other than march steadily ahead. Mr. Ignatz Steinhart, at the time manager of the Anglo-Californian Bank, careful, cautious, shrewd and a hard-headed financier, in his speech practically struck the keynote of the whole meeting. He ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... Newspapers, except those for Crawford, denounced the old system; legislatures passed resolutions against it; public meetings condemned it; ponderous pamphlets were hurled at it; the campaigns of Jackson and Clay, in particular, found their keynote in hostility toward it. Failing to perceive that under the changed circumstances a caucus nomination might become a liability rather than an asset, the Crawford element pushed its plans, and on February ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... they speak again the language of Mendelssohn, of Beethoven, of Chopin, of Schumann, and are worthy interpreters of their great souls. The poetry and the novels of the century are theirs; they, too, have touched the keynote of reform in religion, in politics and in social life. They fill the editors' and the professors' chairs, plead at the bar of justice, walk the wards of the hospital, and speak from the pulpit ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... and eloquent appeal with a sentence which sounds the true keynote of the regret felt by the Parsis at being merely compared with the natives when they felt themselves to be morally and intellectually their superiors. Why are they not provided with commissions in the ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... amongst these surprised one or two people, notably Mr Seymour, who, being games' master had come a good deal into contact with Stanning, and had not been favourably impressed. The fact was that the keynote of Sheen's character was a fear of giving offence. Within limits this is not a reprehensible trait in a person's character, but Sheen overdid it, and it frequently complicated his affairs. There come times when one has to choose which ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... formality of learning. In literary style the passage displays the uncertain hand of youth, and in a translation something is lost of the charm of simplicity which pervades the original. But in this passage the keynote of Dante's life ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... consent, all reference to the violence of Mr. Crawford's death was avoided, and a rigorous formality was the keynote of all the ceremonies. The servants were garbed in correct mourning, the ladies of the house refused to see anybody, and all personal callers were met by Philip Crawford or his wife, while business acquaintances were received by ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... feelings of a character simply by facial expression. There are ways of shifting the eyebrows, distending the nostrils, and exploring the lower molars with the tongue by which it is possible to denote respectively Surprise, Defiance and Doubt. Indeed, irresolution being the keynote of Hamlet's soliloquy, a clever player could to some extent indicate the whole thirty lines by a silent working of the jaw. But at the same time it would be idle to deny that he would miss the finer shades of the poet's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... was the first to scent the coming strangers. He gave vent to a low growl. It was the keynote to the canine choir, which immediately sent up a howl of discord. Forthwith from every hut there leaped armed men, anxious women, and terrified children, which latter rushed towards the cliffs or ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... think and feel and say on this keynote question of polygamy, however much they may seek to hide their sentiments behind a mask of lies, may be found in former utterances from the Church pulpit, made before the shadow of the law had fallen ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... Conference in Washington was forethought and foresight. The keynote of success in any line of life, or one of the great keynotes, must be forethought and foresight. If we, as a Nation, are to continue the wonderful growth we have had, it is forethought and foresight which must give us the ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... hostile and belligerent assembly, he faced members who were ready to support him in anything he did. The Chancellor, however, realised that he could take some of the thunder out of the opposition by making a strong statement against England. "Down with England," the popular cry, was the keynote of the Chancellor's remarks. In this one speech he succeeded in uniting for a time at least public sentiment and the political parties in ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... striking examples of Scotch music are the pibrochs and strathspeys. These compositions generally ring with a wild laughter that is almost harassing, especially when it is enhanced by the abrupt close with the fifth instead of the keynote. The ear, which has been longing for the rest, has a sense of being teased and deluded with the rollicking strain. As exponents of the cautious, cannie Scot we should think them a satire did we not know what a wild vein of Celtic wit runs through the granite foundation of his character. If it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... mannishly desires the suffrage and attends club meetings and argues, and has views—views, Aunt Bell, on the questions of the day—the woman who, as you have just succinctly said of your niece, 'believes she has a right to please herself!' There is the keynote of the modern divorce evil, Aunt Bell—she has a right to please herself. Believing no longer in God, she no longer feels bound by His commandment: 'Wives be subject to your husbands!' Why, Aunt Bell, if you can imagine ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote for these United States. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... manuscript, and set up Cide Hamete Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the chivalry-romance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho's part, but to the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he announces his intention of taking his ass with him. "About the ass," we are told, "Don Quixote ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... came up, she was saying: "And we have taken a dear old home in Georgetown. No more glare or glitter. Everything is to be subdued to the dullness of a Japanese print—pale gray and dull blue and a splash of black. This gown gives the keynote." ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... built the stronghold at Cataraqui, which was named Fort Frontenac. The vigour and the tact that he displayed on this occasion give the keynote to {73} all his relations with the Indians. Towards them he displayed the three qualities which a governor of Canada most needed—firmness, sympathy, and fair dealing. His arrogance, so conspicuous in his intercourse with equals or with refractory subordinates, disappears wholly ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... had been wrong in believing that sorrow is the keynote of life; that pain is the road of ascent, if road there be; that an implacable Nature and that only, presides over all our pitiful struggles and seekings and writes a black "Finis" to the holograph of ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... danger of that just now," interrupted Phil, "for I know where most of them are at just this minute. However, it would be nice if you would take us to your home for a minute, for I think I have the keynote to the whole business right now, and I would like to tell my discoveries to Garry and Dick, and also get some directions from you, if you will sit in our council of war and ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... side by side with certain general ideas of liberty and constitutional government, under the ultimate domination of the Emperors' despotism as introduced by Augustus, is to be found the keynote of Rome's subsequent social life. Without those things, the condition of society in the Middle Age would be inexplicable, and the feudal system could never have developed. The old Roman principle that 'order should have precedence over order, not man over man,' rules most of Europe at ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... made two barrels of money in the last ten years in oil and he is going to build an estate up on the Hudson that will make the world gasp. I hadn't put in a bid, but this idea of the judge's and Greg's, with the whole village grouped about it, has given me the keynote to win the thing from the whole bunch of American architects. He wants the village built as well as the estate. That American garden idea will bowl him over. He's progressively and rabidly American. The bids don't close until December, ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... given by the company. A little later, the writer was favored with a brief interview with the President, when the clear judgment of that far-seeing and sagacious statesman uttered through his lips the words which formed the suggestion of, and the keynote to, the judicious action of the Secretary of State afterwards. 'I fear the traitors will prove to be white elephants,' said Mr. Lincoln. 'We must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals,' he continued. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... grateful answer, pathetic not only in its grief, but even more in his frankly avowed inability to derive any consolation from the thoughts that my short note had suggested. Resignation to the inscrutable will of God was the keynote of the letter. In some far-distant future he might be permitted once more to see his beloved son, but meanwhile all was gloom ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... was discoursing on philosophy at Paris in the days of the last Bourbon king, Guizot was drawing crowded audiences to his lectures on the history of European civilisation, [Footnote: Histoire de la civilisation en Europe.] and the keynote of these lectures was Progress. He approached it with a fresh mind, unencumbered with any of the philosophical theories which had attended and helped ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... something of this same quality, this appearance of thinking that life was a matter of connoisseurship; but in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous excrescence, whereas in Mr. Osmond it was the keynote, and everything was in harmony with it. She was certainly far from understanding him completely; his meaning was not at all times obvious. It was hard to see what he meant for instance by speaking of his provincial side—which was exactly the side she would have taken him most to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... distinctive charm of its own-a reposeful atmosphere and a simplicity of form that become more and more appealing with riper acquaintance. It is a good place to come to when one is satiated with the beauties of the other courts, for restfulness is the keynote. The simple massive style of the architecture and the simple planting scheme combine to produce a spirit of calm. The ideas of energy, achievement, progress, effort-so insistently emphasized elsewhere-are left behind, and everything ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... through her association with this cultured old gentleman that Mary Louise had imbibed a certain degree of logic and philosophy unknown to many girls of fifteen. He taught her consideration for others as the keynote of happiness, yet he himself declined to mingle with his fellow men. He abhorred sulking and was always cheerful and pleasant in his home circle, yet when others approached him familiarly he resented it with a frown. He taught his granddaughter to be ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... sort of transpontine Ruritania; add a revolution fostered by the serpentine diplomats of a European power; let the American eagle issue a few screams, and there you have the environment in which The Unspeakable Perk lives and moves and has his unreal being. The keynote of SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS' story is what the Perk person would describe as a want of "pep." Even the villains turn out to be comparative gentlemen in the end, the dirty work being conveniently fastened upon some "person or persons unknown." The yarn is well enough to wile away ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... my errors, my disorders, my excesses: I began to suffer with the same intensity with which I had formerly enjoyed myself; sorrow had made of me a new man." Accordingly his later books, while still emphatically realistic, are chastened by an underlying tone of pessimism. Passion is no longer the keynote of life, but rather, as exemplified in 'Il Trionfo della Morte,' the prelude of death. Leaving Rome, where, "like the outpouring of the sewers, a flood of base desires invaded every square and cross-road, ever ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... year following the publication of the Discourses on Religion, Schleiermacher issued his Monologues. Here he gave the keynote to the century. While, only the year before, he would cultivate the feeling of dependence and turn the mind inward, in the Monologues he would lead man to a knowledge of his own power, and show how far his individuality can go upon its mission of success. Here ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... that shining throng there are none to ascribe salvation to themselves, as if they had prevailed by their own power and goodness. Nothing is said of what they have done or suffered; but the burden of every song, the keynote of every anthem, is, Salvation to our ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... happy marriage in 1804; and his calm temperament enabled him to bear an amount of abuse which might have broken the health of a more irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin converged. Cobbett's ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... forms the keynote of his art. Every opera he wrote depicts a soul in bonds. From "The Flying Dutchman" to "Parsifal" we are shown the struggle of a strong man with cruel Fate; a reaching out for liberty and light; the halting between duty and inclination; and the endless search for a woman who shall give deliverance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... the use of these in making some generalizations or arriving at some conclusions. Then there must follow a testing of these generalizations or conclusions by further experimentation. Accuracy must be the keynote of all work, accuracy in recording experiments, accuracy in observation, accuracy in drawing, which serves as a shortcut method of description. Neatness is very desireable but should never supercede thinking and understanding. If the problem has stimulated some accurate logical thinking ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald
... droning in low voices over and over again a few simple notes which harmonise with the singer's voice. When the girl began her tune again Hope sang with her, repeating "Ochone, ochone" down four notes from the octave of the keynote through the mediate to the keynote again. When she reached the end of the last line his voice rose suddenly to an unexpected seventh, which struck sharply on the ear. Prolonging the note after the girl's voice died away, he rose to his ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... Here a keynote was touched that roused the whole company. The name of Captain Kidd was like a talisman in those times, and was associated ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... real thing; you don't strike it anywhere else. You remember we had a touch of it in Algiers and I told you it came from Kansas. It's the keynote of this country." ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... the days were growing darker and the way more thorny. She was gaining only in the power of endurance; she was unconsciously developing the trait that bade fair to become the keynote of her life—fidelity. It was her absolute loyalty to her long-cherished love that prevented her from accepting invitations to go with Belle and Roger. Through all disguises she saw that the latter was a lover and not a friend, and while she had learned to respect him much more, she shrank ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... conversation at full length, Leonie, because it gives you the keynote to Fareham's character, and accounts for much that is strange in his conduct. Alas, that I must say it of so noble a man! He is an infidel! Bred in our Church, he has faith neither in the Church nor in its Divine Founder. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... "Why, the keynote of all my theology is that Christ is loveable because, and just because, he is the perfection of all that I know to be noble and generous, and loving, and tender, and true. If an angel from heaven brought me a gospel which contained doctrines that would not ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... love-sick knight who joyfully throws away his life for an hour in his lady's chamber, tears up the warrant reprieving him from execution, and accepts death to save Queen Mary's fragile reputation. But although the keynote of Mr. Swinburne's coming poetry is struck in Chastelard—the overpowering enthralment of Love, a joy to live and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... often give a clue to the feelings of a character simply by facial expression. There are ways of shifting the eyebrows, distending the nostrils, and exploring the lower molars with the tongue by which it is possible to denote respectively Surprise, Defiance and Doubt. Indeed, irresolution being the keynote of Hamlet's soliloquy, a clever player could to some extent indicate the whole thirty lines by a silent working of the jaw. But at the same time it would be idle to deny that he would miss the finer shades of the dramatist's meaning. "The insolence of office, and the spurns"—to take only one line—would ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... was the keynote of success in courtship. When the current became balanced in negative and positive qualities, the desirable equilibrium recognized by each pole as the real thrill of mutual romance, jealousy and despair would spark, blow out the ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... declared: "We have been actively engaged for a long period in producing this weapon (which is recognised as important) in adequate numbers." It seems to be true that efforts were then being made, but not true that these efforts were of long standing. "Altogether 'slowness' was the keynote throughout of the German attitude towards the tank idea." He neither appreciated their true use nor the best means of fighting them; and even when we presented him with derelict tanks, as was soon the case on the Ancre in 1916, he failed ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not easy to give any kind of real impression of India twenty-four hours after the outbreak of the mutiny. Movement was the keynote of the picture—stealthy, not-yet-quite-confident pack-movement on the one hand, concentrated here and there in blood-red eddies, and, on the other hand, swift, desperate ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... me: it was the old keynote of suppressed hopeless pain: it somehow recalled to me the image of some helpless innocent bird struggling in a fowler's net. Her eyes looked at me with ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to her boss of the household necessities and jeweled novelties. A cook book must be purchased of the latest and most approved recipes, Josie having mastered only a few of the simpler dishes, but she had always declared that the keynote to cookery was gumption and with a good recipe and plenty of that ingredient she could master even anything as intricate as ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... wishing to come back, and he says: 'But Your Lordships may be assured they will never have my consent to return until they comply [take the oath] without any reservation whatever.' [Footnote: Lawrence to Lords of Trade, December 5, 1753.] This was the keynote of all Lawrence's subsequent action. The Acadians must take the oath without reserve, or leave the country. He does not appear to have given any consideration to the fact that for forty years the Lords of Trade had, for various motives, nursed the people, ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... he said to Giuliano (Duke of Nemours): 'Let us enjoy the Papacy since God has given it us—godiamoci il Papato, poiche Dio ce l' ha dato.[2]' It was in this spirit that Leo administered the Holy See. The keynote which he struck dominated the whole society of Rome. At Agostine Chigi's banquets, prelates of the Church and Apostolic secretaries sat side by side with beautiful Imperias and smooth-cheeked singing-boys; fishes from Byzantium ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... adventure with my Lord of Essex hath left thy stomach but poorly fitted for so tough a morsel as the undoing of the 'Wisest Fool in Christendom.' Even Sir Digsby, who but now turned trembling toward the doorway, hath more spirit for the undertaking. Hath not Percy touched the keynote of our ill condition? What matters it that we writhe under the despotism of James Stuart? Wherefore are the penal laws renewed? Why hath England driven from her shores those who would serve us in our churches? Where is our Mass, ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley |
