"Theme" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theme for your photoplay, then, constantly bear in mind the great truth that, no matter how original, how interesting, or how cleverly constructed your plot may be, it will be sadly lacking unless it contains a goodly percentage of one or both ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... turn; and as thereby you are now rested, I judge that 'tis meet to revert to our accustomed rule. Wherefore I ordain that for to-morrow you do each of you take thought how you may discourse of the ensuing theme: to wit, of such as in matters of love, or otherwise, have done something with liberality or magnificence. By the telling, and (still more) by the doing of such things, your spirits will assuredly be duly attuned and animated to emprise high and noble; whereby ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... back again. After remaining some time, however, we came to the conclusion that we had come upon a foolish errand, and had just risen to go, when an exquisite strain of very soft music came from the organ. We listened spell-bound, rooted to the spot. The theme was simple, almost Gregorian in its character, but handled in a most masterly way. Such playing I had never before heard; it was the very ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... presented. In a Balcony, the one drama in Men and Women, has but a fragment of a plot, but in intensity, reality, and passion it excels most of Browning's dramas, and, in spite of its long speeches, has proved effective on the stage.[5] In variety of theme, subject-matter, and verse-form, the poems of Men and Women defy classification. Whatever page one turns, there is something novel, stimulating, captivating. All of Browning's Florentine interests are represented here—his love of old pictures and little-known music, his delight in Florence, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... is worthy of his theme, and is the only one I recall by any of our well-known poets upon the much-loved mayflower or arbutus. There is a little poem upon this subject by an unknown author that also has the right flavor. I recall ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... made an exit while I was giving The Happy Little Cripple—a recitation I had prepared with particular enthusiasm and satisfaction. It fulfilled, as few poems do, all the requirements of length, climax and those many necessary features for a recitation. The subject was a theme of real pathos, beautified by the cheer and optimism of the little sufferer. Consequently when this couple left the hall I was very anxious to know the reason and asked a friend to find out. He learned that they had a little hunch-back child of their own. After this experience ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... for liturgical purposes, and it was several centuries before "Corde natus" was adopted into the cycle of Latin hymns. Its elaborate rhetoric is very unlike the severity of "Veni, redemptor gentium," but again the note is purely theological; the Incarnation as a world-event is its theme. It sings the Birth of Him ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... it fell in with my humour for a space to foist the man's personality upon you as yours and call you scientific—that most abusive word. But here he is, indisputably, with me in Utopia, and lapsing from our high speculative theme into halting but intimate confidences. He declares he has not come to Utopia to meet again with ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... fugue goes rolling on, From Maine to utmost Oregon; The factory-wheels a rhythmus hum; From brawling parties concords come;— All this I hear, or seem to hear; But when, enchanted, I draw near To fix in notes the various theme, Life seems a whiff of kitchen-steam, History a Swiss street-singer's thrum, And I, that would have fashioned words To mate that music's rich accords, By rash approaches startle thee, Thou mutablest Perversity! The world drones on its old tum-tum, But thou hast ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Wit and Wisdom! that, my lads; I'll none but that; the theme is very good, And may maintain a liberal argument: To marry wit to wisdom, asks some cunning; Many have wit, that may come short of wisdom. We'll see how Master poet plays his part, And whether wit or wisdom grace his art.— Go, make him drink, and all his ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... to stop. My heart is so full that it seems as if I could spend the day on this theme. But I must stop, and, in conclusion I say, first to the church, accept frankly the responsibility which God throws on you in the persons of these young men. You are the appointed agency, the proper agency, and the only agency to save and restrain and protect them. You cannot shirk ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... a set of golfers at a summer hotel than you do like farmers," began Neil Chase, still harping on the theme which seemed to cause him so much unrest, as the party ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... Clerk, chief clerk to the Jury Court, Edinburgh, when he first learned it, now nearly thirty years ago, from a passenger in the mail-coach. With Mr. Clerk's consent, I gave the story at that time to poor Mat Lewis, who published it with a ghost-ballad which he adjusted on the same theme. From the minuteness of the original detail, however, the narrative is better calculated for prose than verse; and more especially as the friend to whom it was originally communicated is one of the most accurate, intelligent, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... cause dilutes the sectarian ego, dissolves village caste, makes neighbor acquainted with neighbor, and liberates a vast amount of human love which otherwise would remain hermetically sealed. Gossip is only the lack of a worthy theme. A town library supplies topics for talk, and the books there supply ten thousand more. To accept a Carnegie library means to take on an obligation. Achievement always stands for responsibility. "Is it possible that you are nervous?" asked the man of Abraham Lincoln when the orator ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... all intermediate steps are omitted, and the result is linked immediately to the first Cause. God Himself is the theme, and trust in Him ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... poured out a glass of water. Her hand trembled as she drank. Widdowson fell into gloomy abstraction. Later, as they lay side by side, he wished to renew the theme, but Monica would not talk; she declared herself too sleepy, turned her back to him, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the theme of his reflections on the route from the Hotel de Montgeron to that of Eugenic Gontie's, with whom he was engaged to dine with some of her friends, invited to celebrate her success of ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... her man (ladies are very apt to fathom their male acquaintance—too apt, I think); and, to pin him to the only medical theme which interested her, seized the opportunity while he was in actual contact with Julia's wrist, and rapidly enumerated her symptoms, and also told him what Mr. Osmond had said ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... found to be compounds or derivatives in the other languages from which they have come to us. To show the composition, origin, and literal sense of these, is also a part, and a highly useful part, of this general inquiry, or theme of instruction. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... did act, behind the scenes. Ministerial exertions were also paralysed by another cause. A prevalent notion existed that there was a mysterious power about the court which worked to the detriment of the public good. This was a constant theme of invective among the opposition, and, it would seem, not without good reason. But there was another cause of obstruction to the measures formed by government. This was found in the democratical spirit, which now universally prevailed. Courted by the aristocracy, who ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... question, by whom? I, for one, would far sooner in the long run trust the people at large than I would the few, who in everything which relates to Government are as little instructed as the many and more difficult to move. The very fickleness of the multitude, the theme of such constant declamation, is so far good that it proves a susceptibility to impressions to which men hedged round by impregnable ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... useful?" Gregory asked, waiving the question of maternal cravings. He had vexed Miss Scrotton a good deal, but the theme was one upon which she could not resist enlarging; anything connected with Madame von Marwitz was for her of ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... not the only celebrated poet who made the Purgatory of St. Patrick the subject of his song. Four centuries before the great Spanish dramatist was born, a most elaborate and very lengthy poem was written on the same attractive theme by Marie de France, the first woman, as M. de Roquefort says,who ever wrote French verse, the Sappho of her age.* Nor was Marie herself the only minstrel of that early time who yielded to the fascination of this legend. Two anonymous Trouveres of a little later ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... "And I have a theme to finish," added Dave. "Let us do all the studying we can," he went on. "Then, if it clears off, we'll have so ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... sunshine and air. She recalled drearily the clock-like revolutions of the year which brought bull-fights, races, rodeos, church celebrations; her mother's anecdotes of the Indians; her father's manifold interests, ever the theme of his tongue; Reinaldo's grandiloquent accounts of his exploits and intentions; Prudencia's infinite nothings. She hated the balls of which she was La Favorita, the everlasting serenades, the whole life of pleasure which made that period of California ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... reported by Boswell, had thrown out in conversation, proposed to Cowper the Mediterranean for a topic. 'He replied, "Unless I were a better historian than I am, there would be no proportion between the theme and my ability. It seems, indeed, not to be so properly a subject for one poem, as for a dozen."' Southey's Cowper, iii. 15, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... offered on the commons during holidays, without let or hindrance, the drunkard's glass to the crowds thronging by extemporized booths and bars. Shocking as was the excesses of this period "nothing comparatively was heard on the subject of intemperance—it was seldom a theme for the essayist—the newspapers scarcely acknowledged its existence, excepting occasionally in connection with some catastrophes or crimes—the Christian and patriot, while they perceived its ravages, formed no plans for its overthrow—and it did not occur to any that a paper devoted mainly ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... again, Annixter, pretending to look over the new cheese press, asking about details of her work. When this had happened on that previous occasion, ending with Annixter's attempt to kiss her, Hilma had been talkative enough, chattering on from one subject to another, never at a loss for a theme. But this last time was a veritable ordeal. No sooner had Annixter appeared than her heart leaped and quivered like that of the hound-harried doe. Her speech failed her. Throughout the whole brief interview she had been miserably tongue-tied, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... her graduation she did a thing for which Winnebago felt itself justified in calling her different. Each member of the graduating class was allowed to choose a theme for a thesis. Fanny Brandeis called hers "A Piece of Paper." On Winnebago's Fox River were located a number of the largest and most important paper mills in the country. There were mills in which paper was made of wood fiber, and others in which ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... year. That precious intangible, the initiative, is becoming ours. Our policy, not limited to mere reaction against crises provoked by others, is free to develop along lines of our choice not only abroad, but also at home. As a major theme for American policy during the coming year, let our joint determination be to hold this new ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... bitter and telling popular satire against the new monarchy. When a comedian ventured on a republican allusion, he was saluted with the loudest applause. The praise of Cato formed the fashionable theme of oppositional pamphleteers, and their writings found a public all the more grateful because even literature was no longer free. Caesar indeed combated the republicans even now on their own field; he himself ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the spirit, he soon entered into the flesh, and there he ended. If by an effort of his hearer his attention was diverted from himself, it would with all the quickness of an elastic bow rebound to his favourite theme. Out of the sphere of his own "poor body," as he used to call it, he was no more at home in conversation than a fish wriggling on ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... pithy analysis of character, I enlarged upon my theme. "He rebukes MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he'll never do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, to account for profanity, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... those rocks—she is actually with thee, Ab Gwilym; but she is not long with thee, for a storm comes on, and thunder shatters the rocks—Morfydd flees! Quite right, Ab Gwilym; thou hadst no need of her, a better theme for song is the voice of the Lord—the rock shatterer—than the frail wife of the Bwa Bach. Go to, Ab Gwilym, thou wast a wiser and a better man than thou wouldst fain ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... they are not so; and if they are, even though that happiness may be the creation of a delusion, I like to leave them so. I, therefore, encouraged Mr Pridhomme to pour all his raptures into, what he thought, an approving ear, and Jemima was the theme, until he left me at the door of the hotel at which I was to dine with Captain Reud. Whatever the reader may think of Jemima, I was, at this period, perfectly innocent myself, though not wholly ignorant. I should have deemed Miss Jemima's osculatory art as the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... theme that has detained me so long, I would fain take a parting survey of all the various characteristics of modern society, and appreciate at last the general influence to be exercised by the principle of equality upon the fate of mankind; but I am stopped by the difficulty of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the Crusaders, of the homage paid to the heroes of the Cross at the courts they visited, of the adventures of their life, and the exciting spirit that animated their war. In fact, neither minstrel nor priest suffered the theme to grow cold; and the fame of those who had gone forth to the holy strife gave at once emulation and discontent to ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by the convenient phrase "economy of means."[3] By originality is meant something new in plot, point, outcome, or character. (See Introduction III for a discussion of these terms.) Ingenuity suggests cleverness in handling the theme. The short-story also is impressionistic because it leaves to the reader the reconstruction from hints of much of ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... the resolutions were interminable. It was not thought that full justice was done to the subject, if every point of interest or dissatisfaction in this prolific theme was not condensed into a resolution. Accordingly the Akron Convention presented, discussed, and adopted fifteen resolutions. At Salem, the previous year, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... upon thoughts of death. And while her face took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seemed to be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla: "This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... references is very marked and equally natural. The whole address down to verse 27 inclusive is of that nature, and the same theme recurs in verse 31, is caught up again in verse 33, and continues thence to the end. That abundance of allusions to himself is characteristic of the Apostle, even in his letters; much more is it to be looked for in such an outpouring of his heart to trusted friends, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... necessity of confession—is so powerfully presented to us that we forget all question of originality until our memory of the fascinating pages has cooled down. Then we may recall the resemblance of theme in the recent novel entitled "The Silence of Dean Maitland," while we find the prototype of both these books in "The Scarlet Letter" of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has handled the problem with a subtlety and haunting weirdness to which neither of the English ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... ALL THE CRACK. The fashionable theme, the go. The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant language, to signify the art and mystery ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... mouth to mouth. Yes. Fat Taskinar! He was known well enough! His corpulence had been the theme of many an article in the journals of ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... note-paper directed to Dudley Venner, Esq., and all too scanty to hold that incredible expansion of the famous three words which a woman was born to say,—that perpetual miracle which astonishes all the go-betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a woman's infinite variations on the theme, "I love you." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... began, as we have seen, in the reign of George III., when the Whig ascendancy in Parliament had passed. But the Whigs did nothing during their long lease of power to bring democracy nearer, and were entirely contemptuous of popular aspirations. At the very time when the democratic idea was the theme of philosophers, and was to be seen expressed in the constitution of the revolted American colonies, and in the French Revolution, England remained under an aristocracy, governed first by Whigs, and then by Tories. It is true democracy ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... hotly discussing the events of the previous day. Pyotr Stepanovitch talked more than anyone and made them listen to him. He was always considered among us as a "chatterbox of a student with a screw loose," but now he talked of Yulia Mihailovna, and in the general excitement the theme was an enthralling one. As one who had recently been her intimate and confidential friend, he disclosed many new and unexpected details concerning her; incidentally (and of course unguardedly) he repeated some of her own remarks about persons known to all in the town, and thereby piqued ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... theme, Miss Willoughby, accompanied by Miss Blossom, had joined Merton in the outer room. Miss Blossom, being clad in white, with her blue eyes and apple-blossom complexion, looked like the month of May. But Merton could not but be struck by Miss Willoughby. She was tall and dark, with ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... of the chaplain from a whaling ship who is said to have wandered into an encampment of the Eskimos. He told the people of heaven with all its glories, and it meant nothing to these children of the North; they were not interested in his story. But when he changed his theme and spoke of hell, with its everlasting fires which needed no replenishing, they cried, "Where is it? Tell us that we may go"; and big and little, they clambered over ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... verse Deal boldly with substantial things—in truth And sanctity of passion speak of these, That justice may be done, obeisance paid Where it is due. Thus haply shall I teach Inspire, through unadulterated ears Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope; my theme No other than the very heart of man, As found among the best of those who live, Not unexalted by religious faith, Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few In Nature's presence: thence may I ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... no man of ability would attempt to unwind the tangle of Bigot's dishonesty during a critical war. Montcalm wrote home complaints in cipher. The French government bided its time, and Bigot tightened his vampire suckers on the lifeblood of the dying nation. The whole era is a theme for the allegory ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... circumstance, at all events, as detailed by Alley, was one which in this instance justified their sagacity. Roberts and she had met, precisely as Alley said, three or four times at Lady Gourlay's and the Dean's, where their several attractions were, in fact, the theme of some observation. Those long, conscious glances, however, which, on the subject of love are such traitors to the heart, by disclosing its most secret operations, had sufficiently well told them the state of everything ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... This evening the theme of the discourse was a phrase of Chateaubriand's: "The tiger kills and sleeps; man kills and is sleepless." On listening to the discussion, Saniel said to himself that it was truly a pity not to be able to reply to all this rhetoric by a simple fact of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sufficient ingenuity to construct a plausible defence of a sentiment which, however adapted to supply a theme for eloquent declamation, is not to be found in Scripture. "It must be admitted," says he, "that Mary would have been involved in the general ruin of mankind, had not the merciful Physician who heals our diseases determined to imbue her beforehand ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;— I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... THEME no poet gladly sung, Fair to old and foul to young; Scorn not thou the love of parts, And the articles of arts. Grandeur of the perfect sphere Thanks the atoms ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in the court-house of Albert Lea, October 9, 10. On the first evening Mrs. Chapman Catt was the speaker, her theme being A True Democracy. The Rev. Ida C. Hultin of Illinois lectured on The Crowning Race. Miss Laura A. Gregg and Miss Helen L. Kimber, both of Kansas, national organizers, gave reports of county conventions conducted by them throughout Minnesota, with the assistance of Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... almost the last of their profession, hanged at about the same spot. I find that Mr. Paine has printed this piece, in Buried Treasure, but I know no other that so well illustrates its particular aspect of our theme.] ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... and only appeared radiant on the field of battle. So that the Duke de Nemours was not the only rival with whom Conde had to contend for the favours of that beauty for whom Louis XIV. in his boyish amusements had shown a preference, and which has furnished a theme for some agreeable trifling to the sparkling muse of Benserade. An abbe, named Cambiac, in the service of the house of Conde, balanced for some time the passion to which Nemours had given birth in the bosom ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... veracity—the veracity which is faithful to the spirit and gambols only with the letter. The humor of that work lies in its sympathetic and creative insight quite as much as in the broad good-humor and imaginative whimsicality with which the author handles his theme. The caricature of a true artist gives a better likeness than ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... in which this great theme is treated we need say little; no living writer is so well qualified to do it justice as Captain Mahan, and certainly the true significance of the tremendous events of these momentous years has never been more luminously ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... deeds is the conquest of Vritra, the dragon dwelling in a mountain fastness amidst the waters, where Indra, accompanied by the troop of Maruts, or storm-gods, slew the monster with his bolt and set free the waters, or recovered the hidden kine. Our poets sing endless variations on this theme, and sometimes speak of Indra repeating the exploit for the benefit of his worshippers, which is as much as to say that they, or at least some of them, think ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... his own lips that the perils of the way made him see the poetry of it all, and he said to himself that here was the theme for that great epic, which would be the chef d'oeuvre of his literary life. It is to be written in blank verse, with the hymns and secular songs he sang at each stop given in an appendix, and he confidently hopes that it will stand out as something conspicuous and distinct against ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... has attempted in these volumes to present in a judicial spirit a chapter of our Revolutionary history which usually bears the most of passion in its recital,—believing, as he does, that impartiality is identical with charity, in dealing with his theme. The first edition of his work, in a single volume, has been before the public seventeen years. The zeal and fidelity of his labor have been well appreciated. So far as his purpose has involved a plea or an apology ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... the Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, which abounds in plenty ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... searching and complete analysis of an abstract theme of which I know. It sums the subject up like an essay by Herbert Spencer, and disposes of the case once and forever. It is so learned that only a sophomore could have written it, and we quite forgive the author when we are told that it was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... encouragement for you to labor and pray, my friends, because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has been the theme of prophecy. "Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall stretch forth her hands unto God." And is she not now doing so? Are not the Christian negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer for deliverance, just as the Israelites did when their redemption was drawing ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... in the course of their talk he mentioned, as the merest matter of fact, the visit of the famous beauty to his home. Kauhi pooh-poohed this. He was sure of the girl's death. Mahana adroitly kept the conversation on this theme until Kauhi lost his temper, confessed that he had killed Kaha for faithlessness, and swore that the woman whom Mahana sheltered was a spirit or an impostor. He would wager his life that it was so. ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... depict in his mysterious hierarch of the powers of nature. "It was the Staubach and the Jungfrau, and something else," not the influence of Faust on a receptive listener, which called up a new theme, and struck out a fresh well-spring of the imagination. The motif of Manfred is remorse—eternal suffering for inexpiable crime. The sufferer is for ever buoyed up with the hope that there is relief ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... another. If we listen attentively, however, to a number of songs, we shall detect in all of them a theme, as it is termed by musicians, of which the different individuals of the species warble their respective variations. Every song is, technically speaking, a fantasia constructed upon this theme, from which none of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... next theme must be popular report, to which very great attention must be paid. But what I have said throughout the foregoing discourse applies also to the diffusion of a favourable report: the reputation for eloquence; the favour of ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... works, in which the characters of scholars and beauties is delineated their allusions are again repeatedly of Wen Chuen, their theme in every page of Tzu Chien; a thousand volumes present no diversity; and a thousand characters are but a counterpart of each other. What is more, these works, throughout all their pages, cannot help bordering on extreme licence. The authors, however, had ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Sometimes a Tertullian voices this abdication of the reasoning faculty defiantly—certum est quia impossibile est; but more often perhaps the same position {26} is expressed in the spirit of Tennyson's well-known lines, which, indeed, bear directly upon our immediate theme:— ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Gombert himself dispelled her fear that his composition would be purely secular in character, and Wolf upheld him by singing to the musical princess, to the accompaniment of the lute, snatches of the principal theme of the Benedictio, which had impressed itself upon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wife," she said, fixing her whole attention upon the stilled actor, and softening the quality of her voice until it was again low and musical. "Ray, my friend, courtship is the text from which the whole sermon of married life takes its theme. Do not let ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... criticisms may help us with their side lights. A critic in "The Edinburgh Review" for January, 1861, thinks that "Mr. Motley has not always been successful in keeping the graphic variety of his details subordinate to the main theme of his work." Still, he excuses the fault, as he accounts it, in consideration of the new light thrown on various obscure points of ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... basis of moral instruction in the public school," was the interesting theme of an address it was the privilege of the author to deliver at a teachers' institute forty years ago, when engaged in teaching in central Pennsylvania. The conviction then became indelibly impressed, that the Bible is really the basis of the American public school system. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... giving daily lessons, and the limited income of the family required the strictest economy. The dependence was upon the small salary of Professor Stowe, and the few dollars she could earn by an occasional newspaper or magazine article. But the theme burned in her mind, and finally took this shape: at least she would write some sketches and show the Christian world what slavery really was, and what the system was that they were defending. She wanted to do this with entire fairness, showing ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... seat in the vicinity) to Cruikston Castle, the country is rich, and the scenery delightful. The castle itself might be the subject of volumes, as it has been the theme of many a poet, and the subject of many a painter's pencil. Its name is known all over the world, or may be so, from the circumstance of its once having been the residence of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Lord Darnly; and though the famed yew-tree ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... that a woman who has been O.K.'d by a government physician one day may contract a disease and spread it the very next day. You can depend upon it that if she has done so she will evade the examination next time in order not to interfere with her trade profits. So, there you are. This is an ugly theme, but ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... Upon this theme he continued to preach for half an hour. The alcalde snored, and Maria Clara nodded, for the poor child could no longer keep from sleeping, since she had no more paintings or images to study, nor anything else to amuse her. On Ibarra the words and allusions made no more impression, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... himself down on Tennelly's couch when he got back to the dormitory. Bill Ward was deep in a book under the drop-light, and Tennelly was supposed to be finishing a theme ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... jest than it could Thomas Hood. When nothing else was left him to joke upon, when he could no longer seek fun in the city streets, or visit the Tower of London and call it "a sweet boon," his own shattered self suggested a theme for jesting. He commenced this paper "On Health." The purport of it, I believe, was to ridicule doctors generally; for Artemus was bitterly sarcastic on his medical attendants, and he had some good reasons for being so. A few weeks before he died, a German physician ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... thousand dollar American prize play. From thousands of manuscripts submitted to Mr. Ames of the Little Theatre, Miss Brown's was chosen as being the most notable, both in theme and characterisation. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... overwhelmed in her turn by Amy's vehemence, stood silent for an instant, and then replied, "Why, God ha' mercy, woman! I see thou canst talk fast enough when the theme likes thee. Nay, tell me, woman," she continued, for to the impulse of curiosity was now added that of an undefined jealousy that some deception had been practised on her—"tell me, woman,—for by God's day, I WILL know,—whose wife or whose paramour art thou? Speak out, and be speedy: ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... camp the day after the capture of Illora, and advanced thus far to receive the queen and escort her over the borders. The queen received the marques with distinguished honor, for he was esteemed the mirror of chivalry. His actions in this war had become the theme of every tongue, and many hesitated not to compare him in prowess with ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Lorimer was writing his sermon for the last Sunday in Advent. His theme was eternal punishment and one which he considered worthy of his utmost eloquence. There was nothing mythical or allegorical in that subject in the opinion of the Reverend Stephen. He believed in it most firmly, and the belief afforded ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... L'Ouverture, a full-blooded negro, who had made himself master of Santo Domingo and had thus planted himself squarely in the searoad to Louisiana. The story of this "gilded African," as Bonaparte contemptuously dubbed him, cannot be told in these pages, because it involves no less a theme than the history of the French Revolution in this island, once the most thriving among the colonial possessions of France in the West Indies. The great plantations of French Santo Domingo (the western part of the island) had supplied half of Europe with sugar, coffee, and cotton; three-fourths ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... incongruous patchwork of wood, leather, metal, paper, paint and mortar, thrown together in some of the thousand and one fantastic fashions that spring up in a day, run their little course, and speedily return to the dust they have spent their short lives in collecting. I am afraid to dwell on this theme lest I should lie awake all night in a fever ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... that is it. That is the way to talk under the new regime. It is favor, and oblige, and education, and monsieur, and madame, now. What child's play to call this a country—a government! I would not be surprised"—jumping to his next position on this ever-recurring first of the month theme—"I would not be surprised if Pompey has failed to find the letter in the box. How do I know that the mail has not been tampered with? From day to day I expect to hear it. What is to prevent? Who is to interpose? The ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... American Literature." In revising them for publication a briefer title has seemed desirable, and I have therefore availed myself of Jefferson's phrase "The American Mind," as suggesting, more accurately perhaps than the original title, the real theme of discussion. ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... have while I sense in you a momentary outwardness. The gifts of the heart are too sacred to be laid before a closed door. Your mood, I know, will pass, and tomorrow we shall have this bond between us. I wait, for it can be said but once: I cannot commune magically twice on the same theme with you. I do not propose we should be opportunists, nor lay down a formula; but to be skillful in action we must work with and comprehend the ebb and flow of power. Mystery and gloom, dark blue and starshine, doubt and feebleness alternate with the clear and shining, opal skies and sunglow, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... experiment upon their own families and should never fail to enlarge upon their theme. If need be, they can prepare the matter for a short address or a ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... plenty o' birds," remarked Mowat, with the absent air of a man whose mind is running on some other theme. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... grave and national considerations that were involved in these investigations. The principles of political institutions, the rival claims of the two Houses of Parliament, the authority of the Established Church, the demands of religious sects, were, after a long lapse of years, anew the theme of public discussion. Men were attracted to a writer who traced the origin of the anti-monarchical principle in modern Europe; treated of the arts of insurgency; gave them, at the same time, a critical history of the Puritans, and a treatise on the genius of the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... generations unborn in Australian climes, even to the realms of the rising sun (the greek: anatolai haedlioio,) must in every age draw perennial streams of intellectual life, we feel that the little accidents of birth and social condition are so unspeakably below the grandeur of the theme, are so irrelevant and disproportioned to the real interest at issue, so incommensurable with any of its relations, that a biographer of Shakspeare at once denounces himself as below his subject if ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... devised. Nevertheless serious technical faults and shortcomings may coexist with great merits of composition and expression. So it is in this relief of Seti. The design is stamped with unusual refinement and grace. The theme is hackneyed enough, but its treatment here raises it above the level ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... Xaquixaguana, both died within a year after Pizarro. Hinojosa was assassinated but two years later in La Plata; and his old comrade Valdivia, after a series of brilliant exploits in Chili, which furnished her most glorious theme to the epic Muse of Castile, was cut off by the invincible warriors of Arauco. The Manes of Pizarro ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... life, founded on facts as they existed some years ago in the District of Columbia. The theme is the maternal love and splendid courage of ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... never be deficient in courtiers. Delay not—and send me to the Bastile with my friend; for, if you did not know how to listen to the Comte de la Fere, whose voice is the sweetest and noblest in all the world when honor is the theme; if you do not know how to listen to D'Artagnan, the frankest and honestest voice of sincerity, you are a bad king, and to-morrow will be a poor king. And learn from me, sire, that bad kings are hated by their people, and poor kings are driven ignominiously away.' That is what ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... condensed by the work of ages into meteorites and from meteorites into worlds—and these went on rolling in their appointed orbits, for what reason nobody knew, but then nobody cared! And Love—the key-note of the theme to which I had set my mistaken life in tune—Love was only a graceful word used to politely define the low but very general sentiment of coarse animal attraction—in short, poetry such as mine was altogether absurd and out ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... for a while. Garstin had said most. He had been more agreeable than usual, and had explained to Arabian, rather as one explains to a child, that a worker in an art is sometimes baffled for a time, a writer by his theme, a musician by his floating and perhaps half-nebulous conception, a painter by his subject. Then he must wait, cursing perhaps, damning his own impotence, dreading its continuance. But there is nothing else to be ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... his daughters Mr. Flack was frequently the theme, though introduced much more by the young ladies than by himself, and especially by Delia, who announced at an early period that she knew what he wanted and that it wasn't in the least what SHE wanted. She amplified this statement very soon—at least as regards ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... and progress of culture and civilization in their various constituents is the theme of history. It does not limit its attention to a particular fraction of a people, to the exclusion of the rest. Governments and rulers, and the public doings of states,—such as foreign wars, and the struggles of rival dynasties,—naturally ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... by this time lost in his own reflections. These girls had supplied an all-sufficient theme; whether they slept or wakened was no affair of his. He had somewhat to argue for himself about extreme unction, priestly intervention, confession, absolution,—something to say to himself about Leclerc, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... narrative which differs from all others. It differs from tragedy in its subject matter in this way, that tragedy in the beginning is admirable and quiet, in its ending or catastrophe foul and horrible ... Comedy on the other hand, begins with adverse conditions, but its theme has a happy termination. Likewise they differ in their style of language, for tragedy is lofty and sublime, comedy ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... different. There was one subject in which each took the deepest interest, and about which each had something to say. Frederick Dalton's health was precious to each, and each felt anxiety about his condition. This formed a theme about which they ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the Mill's study incident formed the only theme of conversation that morning. Previously the sudden elevation to the first fifteen of Barry, who was popular in the house, at the expense of Rand-Brown, who was unpopular, had given Seymour's something to talk about. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... world, yea, and things that are not," may provide matter for good talk, if only the right people are engaged in the enterprise. I know a man who can make a description of the weather as entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the threadbare theme of the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a discreet woman play the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... how deeply! and yet I can say, and do say, it is good for me that I was afflicted. But I meant not to speak so much of myself, and you must forgive the intrusion. Self, you know, is ever an attractive theme. I have called this morning to try and interest you in a poor woman who lives next door to me. She is very ill, and I am afraid will die. She has two children, almost babes—sweet little things—and if the mother is taken they will be left without a home or a friend, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... lady described his conduct in leaving her alone and unprotected in a London hotel, to the neglect of his affectionate assurances and the shame and confusion of herself, in language which did no more than justice to the theme. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... half in fact, the thread of an occult idea runs through this weird theme. You cannot, even at the end, be quite sure whether the author has been making fun of you or not. Perhaps, if the truth were told, he could not quite tell you himself. The tale all hangs about one of a group of friends ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... his own young pity in the solitudes of Fawley. But in a moment the man roused himself: the sad expression was gone. Had the girl's merry laugh again chased it away? But Lionel's attention was now drawn from Darrell himself to the observations murmured round him, of which Darrell was the theme. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... written during the war. But owing to the fact that several managers politely declined to produce it, it has not appeared on any stage. Now, perhaps, its theme is more timely, more likely to receive the attention it deserves, when the smoke of battle has somewhat cleared. Even when the struggle with Germany and her allies was in progress it was quite apparent ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was one of the first tragic operas to command great success, notwithstanding its dreadful theme and its light music, which is half French, half Italian. It is in some respects the predecessor of Verdi's operas, Rigoletto, Trovatore etc., which have till now held their own in many theatres because the subject is interesting and the music may well entertain us for an evening, {186} though ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... carry thoughts so sweet. The sun, with beaming rays, had scarcely shone Ere everywhere the joyous news had flown; At every fireside they were known, By every hearth, in converse keen, The busking was the theme. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... of all others. To think what particular thing it is that we wish to remember, is in fact to have remembered it already. It is an obstruse and difficult inquiry, into which it is not necessary now to enter. A more important inquiry, and one connected directly with our present theme, relates to the different kinds of memory, and their connection severally ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... dais distant, near it by my wish I seem; Homage to your Ring I render, and I make your praise my theme." ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... fear he would never have another. Marcus was a sprightly letter-writer, and must have been a quick observer, and Fronto's gentle claims that he made the man are worthy of consideration. As a literary exercise the daily theme, prompted by love, can never be improved upon. The way to learn to write is to write. And Pronto, who resorted to many little tricks in order to get his pupil to express himself, was a teacher whose ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... desire was strong enough in him to divert him from his course for an hour, save by his own initiative. His mother's letter had changed it all. A few hours before he had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the same theme was here. Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its spoiled child and favourite. He had not learned yet the arts of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... day in the public room of this inn, ruminating over a beefsteak and a pint of port, when my imagination kindled up with ancient and heroic images. I had long wanted a theme and a hero; both suddenly broke upon my mind; I determined to write a poem on the history of Jack Straw. I was so full of my subject that I was fearful of being anticipated. I wondered that none of the poets of the day, in their researches after ruffian ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Mr Jevons, the butler from The Manor, so far descended from his pedestal as to volunteer "a comic item" in the shape of a recitation, bearing chiefly, it would appear, on the execution of a pig. The last remnant of stiffness vanished before this inspiring theme, and the audience roared applause as one man, whereupon Mr Jevons bashfully hid his face, and ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the tenantry are invariably the most independent and contented. On the estates of the Earl of Gosford, and other proprietors in the north, under the able superintendence of Mr Blacker, (whose conduct is the theme of universal approbation,) no leases are given until the tenant shows, by his industry and his exertions, that he deserves one; and then, after he has for some years cultivated his farm in a proper manner, and is taught to estimate the value of an improved system, he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... great intellect sinks to the level of an ordinary one, as soon as it is interrupted and disturbed, its attention distracted and drawn off from the matter in hand; for its superiority depends upon its power of concentration—of bringing all its strength to bear upon one theme, in the same way as a concave mirror collects into one point all the rays of light that strike upon it. Noisy interruption is a hindrance to this concentration. That is why distinguished minds have always shown such an extreme dislike to disturbance in any form, as something that breaks in upon and ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... further still, how I deal with the theme of the German character,—'Moral obligations such as no nation had ever yet made the standard of conduct, are laid down by the ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... vanity than to a desire to find favour with Lord Hunsdon. But she was seldom far from Anne Percy, whose propinquity he could enjoy even if debarred communion. And Lady Mary frequently made Anne the theme of her remarks, in entertaining the poet; whose covert admiration she too detected and encouraged, although not without resentment. Miss Percy was undeniably handsome and high-born, but alas, quite lacking in fashion, in style, in ton. Not that Lady Mary despaired of her. If she could ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... North, these sympathizers found themselves in a sort of cul-de-sac when Richmond had been taken. Lee had yielded, Johnston was yielding, and the very same "butcher" Grant, "ruthless" Sherman, and "Yahoo" Lincoln, whose savageries and imbecilities had been the theme of annual moral-pointing, were reading the world a lesson of moderation and self-forgetfulness in victory, such as almost seemed to shrink from the plentitude of a triumph which was a humiliation to some of their countrymen. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... again, I was seized with a sort of fury: I pounced upon all the toccatas and fugues that I had hammered out, as well as a beautiful copy of forty-five variations of a canonical theme that the organist had written and done me the honour of presenting to me,—all these I threw into the fire, and laughed with spiteful glee as the double counterpoint smoked and crackled. Then I sat down at the piano and tried ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... such portentous aspect of affairs, may now be worth giving. It is not now to Jordan that he writes, gayly unbosoming himself, as in the First War,—poor Jordan lies languishing, these many months; consumptive, too evidently dying:—Not to Jordan, this time; nor is the theme "GLOIRE" ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Athelney," the fisherman said, "a good hiding-place truly; for, as you see, it rises high over the surrounding country, which is always swampy from the waters of the Parrot and Theme, and at high tides the salt water of the sea fills all these waterways, and the trees rise from a broad sheet of sea. No Dane has ever yet set foot among these marshes; and were there but provisions to keep them alive, a ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... is impossible to express the admiration and enthusiasm which your late despatches have excited in the breasts of all ranks of people. You are now the theme of every conversation, the toast of every table, the hero of every woman, and the boast of every Englishman. When Dumaresq waited on Lord St. Vincent, his lordship squeezed his hand in the greatest rapture, exclaiming, "I knew it,—I knew ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... was the spiritual story of a young Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same adoration of ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... ancestral portraits of knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were placed masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation after generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection had become the theme of connoisseurs and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... festering wound on an otherwise healthy body: the immorality of France is like a scrofulous taint that poisons the whole life-current. One gets weary and heartsick with the old eternal song, the everlasting theme, which is sung and told and dramatized and written about and painted—that flies in your face at every corner and stares up at you from every inch of printed paper, every square of colored canvas, in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... to bestow so many upon him; but Miss Milbourne had already turned to her neighbor on the other side and plunged into conversation. "Is it not strange that Egypt should be waking from her sleep of centuries?" she said; and—while the gentleman whom she addressed took up the theme readily—Mrs. Lancaster rose and sauntered round the group to where Victor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... not dwell further upon a tolerably obvious theme. I must pass to the more serious literature. The Wit had not the smallest notion that his attitude disqualified him for succession in the loftiest poetical endeavour. He thinks that his critical keenness will enable him to surpass the old models. He ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... mountain of books that have been written about Jesus Christ. Not only have the writers written about him above every other figure in history, but in like degree the artists have painted him and the musicians have sung about him. He is the most fertile theme of all literature and art, and the gifts that genius have heaped about his feet are an incomparable testimony to the adoration that ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... upon you to contrast Nature and Fortune, you could not have chosen a happier theme upon which to descant, for both have made a trial of their strength on the subject of your Memoirs. What Nature did, you had the evidence of your own eyes to vouch for, but what was done by Fortune, you know only from hearsay; and hearsay, I need not tell you, ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... crossed the floor to where the master-tuner sat, and squatting down beside him began picking up tuning forks and striking one against the other. Each time he did that some city sound or other distinguished itself for a moment, exactly as the theme appears in music; only some of the vibrations seemed to jar against others instead of blending with them, and when that happened the ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... fugitive question or two, offered indifferently at first, then with shy persistence and curiosity, knowing nothing of the senseless form flung face downward across the sheets in a room close by. And thereafter the murmured burden of the theme was Siward, until one, heavy eyed, turned from the white dawn silvering the windows, sighed, and fell asleep; and one lay silent, head half buried in its tangled gold, wide awake, thinking vague thoughts that had no ending, no beginning. And at last a rosy bar of light fell across the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... himself placed at the outset of his western career, and it is difficult to see how anything short of actual experience could have made his error manifest. The purity of his life was proverbial, and was the theme of comment among his survivors for years after his death. He foresaw that his adopted country was destined for a glorious future. "The flourishing cities and towns of this Dominion," says one of has eulogists, "are enduring monuments to his foresight; and the waters of the beautiful lake that bears ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... His hold on her hand relaxed. He was thinking of a new theme. When he laughed in turn it startled her. She had never heard ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... And now to my theme, "Should the Country Roadsides be Planted and Why." The present high cost of living, and in fact the cost of living at any time is a fruitful and serious problem. Our vast natural resources during the century gone, of forests, of game, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... preparation pregnant with the future, the remote correspondence, the questions, as it were, which to a deep musical sense are asked in one passage, and answered in another; the iteration and ingemination of a given effect, moving through subtile variations that sometimes disguise the theme, sometimes fitfully reveal it, sometimes throw it out tumultuously to the daylight,—these and ten thousand forms of self-conflicting musical passion—what room could they find, what opening, for utterance, in so limited a field as ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Warkworth entered into it, but already invested with the passionless and sexless beauty of a world where—whether it be to us poetry or reality—"they neither marry nor are given in marriage." Her warm and living thoughts spent themselves on one theme only—the redressing of a spiritual balance. She was no longer a beggar to her husband; she had the wherewithal to give. She had been the mere recipient, burdened with debts beyond her ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... foresight of this diplomatist—who had actually gone to China in the Long Vacation, and of his own initiative and out of his own head had evolved these concessions, which were soon to be ratified by a special commission which was coming from China—was a theme on which Mr. Parkinson Chenney spoke with the greatest eloquence. And everybody listened respectfully, because he ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... most incomparable delight it is so to melancholise and build castles in the air.' Religious considerations have little to do with Burton's melancholy, and remorse or fear apparently nothing. Hence his book, although its theme be sadness, never shadows the spirit, but, on the contrary, from his dark, Lethean poppies, his readers are made to extract an element of joyful excitement, and the anatomy, and the cure, of the evil, are ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... most of his attention to a bound volume of music which he has open. He is a young man of twenty-two, with wavy auburn hair; wears old corduroy trousers and a grey flannel shirt, open at the throat. He stirs the fire, then takes violin and plays the Nibelung theme ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... and had he spoken to her of their future life and mutual duties, how she would have kindled to the theme! She would have knelt at his feet on the floor of the carriage, and, looking up into his face, would have promised him to do her best,—her best,—her very best. And with what an eagerness of inward resolution would she have ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... upon your lute you will weave a theme Which the world will harken and know; For every note of the song will teem With a great soul's overflow— You will speak the meaning within a dream And the pain ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... about?" The wife, not being ready of speech, to rid herself of the embarrassment, resorts to the mimic art, and, without opening her mouth, tells with simple gestures all that is in her mind. Bringing her right hand to her heart, with a corresponding glance of the eyes she shows that the theme is to be love. For emphasis also she curves the whole upper part of her body towards him, to exhibit the intensity of her passion. To complete the mimic story, she makes with her left hand the sign ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... now pass on from this curiously attractive theme of Celtic calligraphy to its contemporary styles of France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, only remarking by the way that no other style of its time had so marked an influence on the local scriptoria into which it was introduced as this same Celtic of Ireland. It ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... heard his complete vindication, and listened with ardour to the praises which Louise heaped on her gallant protector. On the other hand, the minstrel, who felt the superiority of Catharine's station and character, willingly dwelt upon a theme which seemed to please her, and recorded her gratitude to the stout smith in the little song of "Bold and True," which was ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott |
