"Discordant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subject of the ruins, remains, and discoveries. They have all different systems, which they support with great vehemence and obstinacy, and perhaps ingenuity, but the ignorant and curious traveller is only perplexed with their noisy and discordant assertions. They will insist upon knowing everything, whereas there are many things here which are so doubtful, that they can only conjecture about them; but when once they have published a theory they will not hear of its being erroneous, and oppose any fresh discovery ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... for exinde. Well, need I give any more instances? Cannot we see easily from whence it arises that we say cum illis, but we do not say cum nobis, but nobiscum? because if it were said in the other way, the letters would clash in a discordant manner; as they would have clashed a minute ago if I had not put autem between them. This is the origin of our saying mecum and tecum, not cum me, and cum te, so that they too might ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... she taught the duties performed by her own nuns, and herself took part in carrying wood for the fires, keeping clean the chapel and other parts of the abbey, washing the clothes, digging up the garden, and singing the chants, for she had been shocked by the discordant and irreverent manner in which the services were conducted. She even allowed her novices to wait on the older nuns, replacing ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... she had long considered her future settled and had no desire to change it. At the age of seventeen they celebrated their wedding, and their life together, which began with that moment, was never marred by a single discordant note. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... in my tent with the bandmaster of my regiment, a German named Sauer, when we were saluted with the sound of distant music, the most discordant I have ever heard. The bandmaster jumped up from his seat, exclaiming: "Mein Gott! vat is dat? No regiment in camp can play such vile music," and closing his ears immediately, rushed out of ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... in the 'Annales de Chimie et de Physique', t. viii., p. 167. In consequence of the discordant views of Lame, Becquerel, and Peltier, it is difficult to come to a conclusion regarding the cause of the specific distribution of electricity in clouds, some of which have a positive, and others a negative tension. The negative electricity of the air, which ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... husband, has the initiative and the responsibility for the conjugal life. He is the minstrel who will produce harmony or cacophony by his hand and his bow. The wife, from this point of view, is really the many-stringed instrument who will give out harmonious or discordant sounds, according as she is well or ill handled" (Guyot, Breviaire, pp. 99, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... scraper making a discordant sound with his violin, a friend observed, "If your instrument could speak, it would address you in the words of Hamlet: "Though you can fret me, you cannot play ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... the worse, by many degrees. It would be absurd to expect much cheerfulness here; a hoarse roar breaks out now and then at some coarse practical joke; but a frank, honest laugh—never. Yet I do wish that imprisoned discontent would vent itself otherwise than in discordant, dismal howling. At this minute a cracked voice ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... this lofty headland, which they at length arrived at, the sea-birds flew forth in myriads from the ledges and caverns, where, for ages past, in storm and sunshine, in winter and summer, they have roosted undisturbed, wheeling and circling with discordant cries round the stranger, as if to inquire why she had thus come to intrude on their domain. The Spanish seamen, accustomed chiefly to southern climes, gazed with superstitious wonder at the frowning cliff and the screeching birds, and fully believed that ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... It startlingly waked the dead city to discordant life. Groanings and howlings and clashings, as of Tophet, were echoed and re-echoed from every temple, every shrine; an orgy of demoniac sounds; blurred in transit through the empty rooms beneath; ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... dulcet notes of a poem written years ago, which were wont to edify the court with a strain that would sound inharmonious there to-day. What would De Montespan and De Maintenon say to such discordant lines as these?" And Louvois began ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... a beautiful instrument like this should have a discordant note in it that no one seems to be able to explain away?" she asked, as they stood together near the window, ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... church; taciturn and with head low or talking in a whisper, all toddling alongside the wall—as people from church generally do,—that I must confess I was glad when I left this place of oppressive sanctity and returned to Isfahan. Somehow, Julfa impresses one as a discordant note in Persian harmony—although a very fine and pleasing note ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... spectator. Swept and garnished, it has no warmth of historical or religious associations; it is devoid of human sentiment. The choice of painters to decorate the interior was an amazing act of official insensibility. The most discordant artistic temperaments were let loose on the devoted building. Puvis de Chavannes, the only painter among them who has grasped the limitation of mural art, has painted with restraint and noble simplicity incidents ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... reading of canon law had never been questioned in Rome itself; the man spoke with immense authority. But there was no triumph in his bearing as he tuned the atmosphere of that august assembly into absolute harmony, conquering every discordant note—only a further lowering of the quiet voice, which seemed to utter, unchallenged, the conclusions ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... of duties, I beg leave to say that in the performance of that most delicate operation moderate counsels would seem to be the wisest. The Government under which it is our happiness to live owes its existence to the spirit of compromise which prevailed among its framers; jarring and discordant opinions could only have been reconciled by that noble spirit of patriotism which prompted conciliation and resulted in harmony. In the same spirit the compromise bill, as it is commonly called, was adopted at the session of 1833. While the people of no ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... side-walk, many of them professing the most hopeless blindness, but with eyes keen enough to tell the difference between the coins tossed into their hats. The "Bowery Bands," as the little street musicians are called, are out in force, and you can hear their discordant strains ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... over yet, and it will not terminate, I think, without an improvement in the present condition of affairs. The proposed help from France must become a reality of no ordinary proportion, else the discordant factions will achieve dire results. Tell me," he said, suddenly changing the topic of conversation, "were you in attendance at ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... looked out of the window. Not a soul was in sight. The store and the bar, with their closed shutters, looked as if they had not been opened for a century. A brindled cow stood in the middle of the street, jangling a discordant bell, and lowing dolefully. He rose, went down-stairs, walked aimlessly about in the stable, and then went up the street towards Bradley's. He wondered if Harriet had returned, but as he passed the hotel he had not the ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Persia" seemed peculiarly affected by his master's song, which he accompanied by a long-drawn howl of woe; and, before the imperial virtuoso had concluded, a discordant cry sounded for a short time from the street, in imitation of the squeaking of young pigs. It arose from the crowd who were waiting round the Serapeum to see Caesar drive to the Circus; and Caracalla ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the next theme, which is Love, Alexander sinks into a slumber, from which, however, a change in the music to discordant strains arouses him to feelings of revenge, as the singer draws a picture of the Furies, and of the Greeks "that in battle were slain." Then it was that Alexander, instigated by Thais, a celebrated Athenian beauty who accompanied ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... peacock's plumes adorn, Yet horror screams from his discordant throat. Rise, sons of harmony, and hail the morn, While warbling larks on russet pinions float; Or seek, at noon, the woodland scene remote, Where the grey linnets carol from the hill. O let them ne'er, with artificial note, To please a tyrant, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... moral revolt against the sale of indulgences, it touched no deep and durable principle. It merely substituted an infallible Bible for an infallible Church. Differences of opinion crept into the Protestant fold, but that was an accident, arising from the varied and discordant nature of the Bible itself. Every new Protestant sect had to fight as strenuously for its right to exist as ever Martin Luther fought against the Catholic Church. Protestantism, in short, was one priesthood saying to another priesthood "We are right and you are wrong." The Catholic ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... the mob with a perfect hurricane of indignant outcries and yells. But he heeded them not, but calmly pursued his task. Above him wheeled the two ravens, who had never quitted the place since daybreak, uttering their discordant cries. When all was done, he descended a few steps, and, taking a black hood from his girdle to place over the head of his victim, called out in a voice which had little human in its tone, "I wait ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... them, when they departed. They had roused the multitude of eider-ducks, and other sea-fowl, which thronged the islet, and which now, being roused, began their night-feeding and flying, though at an earlier hour than usual. When their discordant cries were left so far behind as to be softened by distance, the flapping of wings and swash of water, as the fowl plunged in, still made ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... NANETTE crosses to fireplace and shovels ashes into a pail. POTIN is heard outside, singing, in loud and discordant ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye
... topic of discussion to devote a chapter to an institution which has ceased to exist for forty years. But no one can fully comprehend the social and political character of the diverse and conflicting nationalities and discordant elements that for three hundred years constituted the Spanish empire without fully understanding the character and workings of the Inquisition, which, from "the Council of the Supreme" in Spain, extended, with its complicated ramifications, through all the provinces, and penetrated every social organization ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... yerself, guv'nor!' said one of the passengers to him when he made a particularly discordant sound. They drove along eastwards, and as the hour grew later the streets became more filled and the traffic greater. At last they got on the road to Chingford, and caught up numbers of other vehicles going in the same direction—donkey-shays, ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... of The Marriage of the Virgin in the Raczynski Gallery, Berlin, has just those "disturbing surroundings" which the painter dreaded. It is crowded among discordant works, and is hung so high that I had to ask for a ladder to examine its quality and condition. The oil pigments remain sound save some small surface cracks. The size is about 6 feet by 4 feet. The modest price paid by the ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... talking, with a deep and abiding sense of awe at the change (Muriel more conscious than ever now of how deep was her interest in Felix Thurstan, who represented for her all that was dearest and best in England), a curious noise, as of a discordant drum or tom-tom, beaten in a sort of recurrent tune, was heard toward the hills; and at its very first sound both the Shadows, flinging themselves upon their faces with every sign of terror, endeavored to hide themselves under the native mats with which the bare ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... world, had it been at my disposal, to have been safely at home; and it was only the dread of being laughed at, which prevented me from begging my brothers to take me there. And when darkness had entirely settled over the earth, and the night-owls set up their discordant screams, my fears reached a climax. I had never before listened to their hideous noise, and had not the slightest idea of what it was. I had often heard old hunters speak of a wild animal, called the catamount, which they allowed had been seen in the Canadian forests during the early settlement ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... fuerit was the extreme form to which men advanced in such cases. And this scrupulous feeling, originally founded on the supposed efficacy of words, prevails to this day. It is a feeling undoubtedly supported by good taste, which strongly impresses upon us all the discordant tone of all impassioned subjects, (death, religion, &c.,) with the common key of ordinary conversation. But good taste is not in itself sufficient to account for a scrupulousness so general and so austere. In the lowest classes there is a shuddering recoil still felt from uttering coarsely and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... (1840) he took his mother to live with him Aux jardies. This he regarded as an additional burden. Her continual harassing him for the money he still owed her, her nervous and discordant disposition, her constant intrigues to force him to marry, and her numerous little acts that placed him in positions beneath the dignity of an author's standing were an incessant source ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... garden once more: and, to escape that horrid discordant voice, we hurried indoors, and found ourselves in the library—Uggug blubbering, the Professor standing by with a bewildered air, and my Lady, with her arms clasped round her son's neck, repeating, over and over again, "and did they give him nasty lessons ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... came a swift change in the even drone of their engine,—a jarring, discordant note, slight but unmistakable, and a ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... held over him, and felt the impact of the crowd of orchard-folk, that was mixed at random with the musicians. The latter, paying more attention to where they stepped than to their instruments, played a rather discordant march. Guns, meanwhile, continued to blaze away. The wild cheering for San Bernardo and his sisters went on; and, framed in a red nimbus of torch-light, greeted at every street-corner by a new fusillade, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... orchestral conductor—of discovering the follies, faults, and crimes he commits. If they clearly perceive certain defects of execution, not he, but his victims, are in such cases made responsible. If he has caused the chorus-singers to fail in taking up a point in a finale, if he has allowed a discordant wavering to take place between the choir and the orchestra, or between the extreme sides of the instrumental body, if he has absurdly hurried a movement, or allowed it to linger unduly, if he has interrupted a singer before the end of a phrase, they exclaim: "The singers are ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... "Darn him, why does he go off and leave her in this way? Not but what it is all right so far as I am concerned; only—" Then, wordlessly, his god must have accused him, for he winced. "I am not, not in the least!" he said. The denial confessed him to himself, and there was an angry bang of discordant octaves. The two girls ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... revale, An' mourn for their holy praste all in Kilmainham Jail." These ballads are anonymous, but the talented author of "Dirty little England" stands revealed by internal evidence. The voices which chanted these melodies were discordant, but the people around listened with reverential awe, from time to time making excited comments in Irish. Altogether Tuam is a depressing kind of place, and but for the enterprise of a few Protestants, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... which such preparations were made, ended almost before it began. The ministry, on the meeting of parliament, found themselves with a discontented House of Commons, and discordant counsels among themselves. The anti-papal manifesto was the secret cause of this evil state, but the prime minister, to avoid such a mortifying admission, took advantage of two unfavourable divisions on ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... sufferings inflicted upon Russian soldiers by the blindness, incompetence, and corruption of the bureaucratic Tsardom. Confident in the successes which the heroism of its troops had won over the discordant forces of the Hapsburg Empire and those which Germany could spare from the Western front, it had neglected to perform any of the promises it had made to conciliate the inhabitants of Poland and Galicia, and had even failed to take the commonest military precautions ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... have been sharp enough to distinguish the voice of a single man amid the clash of arms and war-cries, the shrieks of women, the wails of the wounded, the discordant grunting of the camels, the blasts of horns and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the danger of a great body of the people becoming accustomed to government by military power, and sought to end it by the speediest practicable means. As he expressed it, "We must begin and mould from disorganized and discordant elements: nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... its enemies. Then I'm enough the creature of habit to want to go on in a service; I'm schooled to that thing of the collectivity. But I'll be happier in a service that—despite the weak spots in it—is in harmony with the big collectivity—rather than hopelessly discordant with it. And perhaps it needs some more or less disinterested fellows to help fight for it," he added with a touch of embarrassment, as if fearing to ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... say," said the lady, with a discordant laugh, "that you believe, because YOU didn't go there and break the news, that nobody else will? That he won't hear of it from the ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... romantic walks upon the sea-shore, of evening strolls by moonlight, through dell and dingle, are reduced to a short promenade through an alley of bathing-boxes, amidst a screaming population of nursery-maids and sick children, with a thorough-bass of "Fresh shrimps!" discordant enough to frighten the very fish from the shores. There is no peace, no quiet, no romance, no poetry, no love.' Alas, that most of all was wanting! For, after all, what is it which lights up the heart, save the flame of a mutual attachment? ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... could never have occasioned such feelings in the present life, and which heredity does not account for? Is it merely an absurd, irrational, fancy or feeling; is it the result of natures inharmonious and discordant; is it remnants of inherited ancestral feelings toward similar individuals hated, loved or feared; is it a telepathic sensing of certain elements in the other; or is it a manifestation of the feelings ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... the direction of their adversaries, would knock them together violently. The thin man, especially, worked with great gusto. With much effort he succeeded in producing a ferocious, hoarse chest-note that maddened the whole irritated pack. As serious as an orchestra leader, he would absorb the discordant harmony, and direct and strengthen its emission; but when the brutes were let loose and the howling band tore one another to pieces, he would be in a frenzy of enthusiasm and delight. He would applaud and bark and stamp his ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... the potency of sounds than we are to-day. Study in occult writings the magic pronunciation of Aum, Amitabha, Allah, of certain chants and spirit-invoking incantations of old, and one draws a conception of the powers of friendly sounds and the injurious effects of discordant sounds, such as we ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... to them my plans for gathering samples of the weed. Florence tucked her stillthreaded needle between her teeth and inspected the current pair of socks critically. Joe walked over to the piano and struck several discordant notes. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... We dimly discover the precarious position of Wallenstein; the plots which threaten him, which he is meditating: we trace the leading qualities of the principal officers; and form a high estimate of the potent spirit which, binds this fierce discordant mass together, and seems to be the object of universal reverence ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... national books," "the law, and the prophecies, and the rest of the books," according to the three-fold division already considered. Chap. 18, No. 4. Josephus, in the passage already referred to (against Apion, 1. 8), says: "We have not among us innumerable books discordant and contrary to each other, but only two-and-twenty, containing the history of all time, which are justly believed to be divine. And of these five belong to Moses, which contain the laws and the transmission of human genealogy to the time of his ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... of Jerusalem to her fourth husband, Amalric of Lusignan (Amalric II.). The reign of Amalric I. was occupied by the Egyptian problem. It became a question between Amalric and Nureddin, which of the two should control the discordant viziers, who vied with one another for the control of the decadent caliphs of Egypt. The acquisition of Egypt had been an object of the Franks since the days of Baldwin I. (and indeed of Godfrey himself, who had promised to cede Jerusalem to the patriarch Dagobert as ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of troops now assembled within its walls, amounting to full thirteen hundred, composed, as they were, of the most discordant materials, gave great uneasiness to Hernando Pizarro. For there were enemies glaring on each other and on him with deadly though smothered rancor, and friends, if not so dangerous, not the less troublesome from their craving ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the Delameres," cried Glenville to Thornton, as we all lounged down one afternoon, not long after our arrival, to the parade, where the little discordant German band was playing. "Looking for you, too, I ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... green, or lawn, before a farm-house window, crossing the road to do so. Four together were screeching in an elm close to the road, and since then I have seen others with acorns, while walking there. Indeed, this autumn it is not possible to go far without hearing their discordant and unmistakable cry. They were never scarce here, but are unusually numerous this season, and in the scattered trees of hedgerows their ways can be better observed than in the close covert of copses ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... Rome; that there would be distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear for looking after the things that should be coming on the earth; that the people like the waves of the sea should be roaring, uttering their discordant voices in the thunder of protest and bitter discontent, breaking the bonds of old customs and lashing the times with lawlessness and unprecedented crime; in face of the warning of the Apostle Paul that in the last days, that is to say in the closing hours of this ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... from the sea, Caesar reached the boundaries of the kingdom of Cassibelaunus, now the head of the whole Britannic Confederacy; but until the discordant populations became united by a sense of their common danger, an aggressive and ambitious warrior, involved in continuous hostilities with the populations around. His name is evidently compound. The termination, -belaunus, or -belinus, we ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... whistling gaily past the door. The merry air, the buoyant step, were strangely not discordant; nor was the sunshine, falling over the foot ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... sit on the bedside: as he did, with his arms folded, ready to resume operations if necessary. In this posture he remained for some time, watching his little fire, and listlessly listening to the discordant jangling of innumerable church-bells, clamorously calling the citizens to their devotions. The current of thoughts passing through his mind, was something like ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... jarred on my turbulence of spirit. For the first time a woman's voice lingered in my ears after her speech was done, a woman's smile played as the fitful summer's lightning before my eyes. Oh, fool, fool! What place had women in a soldier's life. What a discordant harmony would one angel create amid the rough denizens of Biloxi. So I reasoned, forgetful that reasons never yet ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... unveiled within the next few days. I was glad to be in time—not knowing in how terribly good time I was—for the ceremony. Not since my early childhood had I seen the unveiling of a statue; and on that occasion I had struck a discordant note by weeping bitterly. I dare say you know that statue of William Harvey which stands on the Leas at Folkestone. You say you were present at the unveiling? Well, I was the child who cried. I had been told that William Harvey was a great ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... happiness of the people, the jewels set in his majesty's crown were intermixed with sharp, piercing thorns. This is plainly observable in the previous pages, wherein the difficulties which had beset his various administrations, and which chiefly arose from the discordant passions of their members, are historically narrated. Burke rightly observes:—"Our constitution stands on a nice equipoise, with steep precipices and deep waters on all sides of it: in removing it from a dangerous leaning toward one side, there may be a risk ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... intention of the party to whom the oath is taken. Whoso swears binds himself in virtue of the words, not according to the sense he retains in his own mind, but in the sense according to which he perceives that they are understood by him to whom the oath is made. When the mind of the one is discordant with the mind of the other, if this happens by deceit or cheat of the party swearing, he is bound to observe the oath according to the right sense (sana mente) of the party receiving it; but, when the discrepancy in the sense comes of misunderstanding, without deceit of the party swearing, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... return, among the trees about the Capitol. Returning, the female always had her beak loaded with building material, while the male, carrying nothing, seemed to act as her escort, flying a little above and in advance of her, and uttering now and then his husky, discordant note. As I tossed a lump of earth up at them, the frightened mother bird dropped her mortar, and the pair scurried away, much put out. Later they avenged themselves by pilfering ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... When Ruey spoke in that way, Philip knew she meant it, and he sighed at the prospect of discordant breakfasts through a series of experiments. A text about "A dinner of herbs" floated through his mind as he walked ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... which guards one unkempt zone, Where vines, and weeds, and scrub-oaks intertwine Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, The tangled blackberry, crossed and recrossed, weaves A prickly network of ensanguined leaves; Hard by, with coral beads, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... the street he came across a Gentlemen's Outfitters, in whose windows coloured neckties screamed, and fancy shirts raised their discordant voices with Gent's summer waistcoats and those panama hats, adored in the year of this story by the river ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... with a chorus of drunken apprentices and riotous boys, to the spot where the humpbacked tinker had dragged his passive burden. The foul green pond near Master Sancroft's hostel reflected the glare of torches; six of the tymbesteres, leaping and wheeling, with doggerel song and discordant music, gave the signal for the ordeal of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... year to heavy year, nor lute Nor love's guitar is heard. By marshy bank Girt with tall yellow reeds and dwarf bamboos I dwell. Night long and day no stir, no sound, Only the lurking cuckoo's blood-stained note, The gibbon's mournful wail. Hill songs I have, And village pipes with their discordant twang. But now I listen to thy lute methinks The gods were parents to thy music. Sit And sing to us again, while I engrave Thy story on my tablets!" Gratefully (For long she had been standing) the lute girl Sat down and passed into another song, ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... azure neck, or to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. All creatures worship man, and all mankind One Lord, one Father. Error has no place; That creeping pestilence is driven away; The breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not; the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. One song employs all nations; and all cry 'Worthy the Lamb, for He was ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... many masses, is, alone, sufficient to refute the notion. They can not, either, be projectiles from terrestrial volcanoes, because coincident volcanic activity has not been observed, and aerolites descend thousands of miles apart from the nearest volcano, and their substances are discordant with any known volcanic product. Laplace suggested their projection from lunar volcanoes. It has been calculated that a projectile leaving the lunar surface, where there is no atmospheric resistance, with a velocity of 7771 feet in the first second, would be carried beyond the point ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... few intervening years passed happily enough, briging Lorraine to her thirty-first birthday and Hal to her twenty-fifth, without any further upheavals to strike a discordant note across the daily round, except such inevitable trials as Lorraine continued to meet through her mother, and Hal through her devotion to a non-comprehending brother. Only, while they had each other and their work, such difficulties were not hard to cope with; ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... these lessons men awake To know they cannot bind Discordant will's in one, and make An aggregate ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... above.]—I expressly gave him to understand that I considered myself out of the running—having already received more than I had any right to expect. And when he has gone out of his way to do honour to science, it is stupid of "Nature" to strike the discordant note. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... snow, and on the streams a thick coating of ice; but the pines were green in the woodlands, and the air—though sharp and nipping—still breathed of spring and hope. The land was fair to see in its winter garb. Man alone was the discordant note ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... scorn of our misery that I regard the extent of it. I do not want to believe that this holy country, that this cherished race, all of whose chords I feel vibrate in me, both harmonious and discordant,—whose qualities and whose defects I love in spite of everything, all of whose good or bad responsibilities I consent to accept rather than to detach myself from them through disdain; no, I do not want to believe that my country ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... passion-tossed prelude. The "Grail" subject distorted, the "Spear" motive thrust in discordant, the "Faith and Love" theme fluttering like a wounded dove in pain, fierce bursts of passion, wild shocks of uncontrolled misery, mingling with the "carnal joy" music of Klingsor's magic garden and the shuddering might of ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... enemies. Great in so many things, there were circumstances when he could show himself unutterably small, and he seldom practised consistency. Frank by nature, he was an adept at dissimulation when he thought that his personal interest required it. But he could "face the music," however discordant, and, unfortunately for him as well as for his memory, ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... very near the British camp without exciting the least alarm. But while they were arranging their forces into separate columns, in order to commence the assault, a loud and increasing clamour among the Welsh announced that they were at length aware of their danger. The shrill and discordant cries by which they endeavoured to assemble their men, each under the banner of his chief, resounded from their leaguer. But these rallying shouts were soon converted into screams, and clamours of horror and dismay, when the thundering charge of the barbed horses and heavily ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Baptized, when they Fast, and Pray, and give Almes: And so Baptisme for the Dead, and Prayer of the Dead, is the same thing. But this is a Metaphor, of which there is no example, neither in the Scripture, nor in any other use of language; and which is also discordant to the harmony, and scope of the Scripture. The word Baptisme is used (Mar. 10. 38. & Luk. 12. 59.) for being Dipped in ones own bloud, as Christ was upon the Cross, and as most of the Apostles were, for giving testimony of him. But it is hard to say, that Prayer, Fasting, and Almes, have any similitude ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... a hundred yards or so from shore, the little boat Lady Jane lay side up on the sea. To it clung a young girl, well above water; near her appeared the head of a young man, a swimmer. So far, so good. But there was something wrong about this swimmer, something grossly discordant in his position in the picture. It developed upon close examination that the interval between him and the overturned boat was not decreasing. It was widening indeed; widening quite steadily.... Yes, there it was; ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... rent the air. Swish—clash! the blows came faster; her ear could no longer separate them. The thud of the falling axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster, heavier and heavier,—they blended into a discordant roar that closed around her like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar's great charger followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her foam-flecked horse, Randalin followed the son ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... degenerate state, that her empire was an unreal empire, and that it would collapse before the first serious attack. It would break up because it was not based upon force, because it lacked organisation, because it was a medley of disconnected and discordant fragments, worshipping an undisciplined freedom. That it should ever have come into being was one of the paradoxes of history; for it was manifestly not due to straightforward brute force, like the German ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... faith. It was an exercise of faith to suppose that many would understand the sense of his best work, or that any could be exhilarated by the dreary chronicling of his worst. "But," as he says, "the gods do not hear any rude or discordant sound, as we learn from the echo; and I know that the nature towards which I launch these sounds is so rich that it will modulate anew and wonderfully ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and elegance, that have made the English tavern a classic type of comfort. It seems this house with its high repute, was the inheritance of two sisters from their mother, of whom we were told an anecdote which may be apocryphal, but which certainly would not be discordant with the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. The old lady finished her patriarchal days serenely, and when she was dying, begged that the order of her house might be in no wise disturbed by the event of her decease, but that 'the gentlemen would play their evening game of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he-togs." They came out; Paul in an old gray suit and soft white shirt; Babbitt in khaki shirt and vast and flapping khaki trousers. It was excessively new khaki; his rimless spectacles belonged to a city office; and his face was not tanned but a city pink. He made a discordant noise in the place. But with infinite satisfaction he slapped his legs and crowed, "Say, this is ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... but it is surmounted by an ogival arch, flanked by two trumpeting children and with a central medallion of God the Father. This topmost tier may have been a subsequent addition. It overweights the whole monument, introduces a discordant architectural motive, and is decorated by inferior sculpture. The Madonna in the lunette is also poor, and the curtain looks as if it were made of lead. But the lower portion of the tomb compensates for the faults above. The caryatides, the bas-relief of the Assumption, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... recollection—many of them used to make rude shoes of plaited bark, called lapty, but these are being rapidly supplanted by leather boots. These occupations do not prevent an almost incessant hum of talk, frequent discordant attempts to sing in chorus, and occasional quarrels requiring the energetic interference of the old woman who controls the proceedings. To amuse her noisy flock she sometimes relates to them, for the hundredth time, one of those wonderful old stories that ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... agency had given this hard fact its force? A gleeful chuckle followed by a discordant crow dissipated doubt-the stone had been dislodged by an industrious scrub fowl raking on the brink of the ravine. A sense of fellowship with the harsh-voiced bird manifested itself. A transient sensation of relief—I ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... loud expressions of approval, and a solemn "Amen" to this intrepid plan of campaign. Lawyer Brodie, who was present, arose under a thunder of discordant notes—"Copperhead!" "Traitor!" "Dough-face!" "We don't want to hear from rebel sympathizers! Out with him!" and other more opprobrious taunts. Now, Brodie was Boone's counsel, and had been identified with ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... (Greek), 'the bourgeoisie.' (d) The translator has also to provide expressions for philosophical terms of very indefinite meaning in the more definite language of modern philosophy. And he must not allow discordant elements to enter into the work. For example, in translating Plato, it would equally be an anachronism to intrude on him the feeling and spirit of the Jewish or Christian Scriptures or the technical terms of the Hegelian ...
— Charmides • Plato
... Dr. Johnson was a Tory and Church of England man: and as he had not much leisure to be informed of Dr. Johnson's great merits by reading his works, he had a partial and unfavourable notion of him, founded on his supposed political tenets; which were so discordant to his own, that instead of speaking of him with that respect to which he was entitled, he used to call him 'a Jacobite fellow.' Knowing all this, I should not have ventured to bring them together, had not my father, out of kindness to me, desired me to invite Dr. Johnson ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... to desperation as he was, this voice seemed unnaturally loud, and discordant with Camille's mood; a sudden trumpet from ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... swore to accomplish the duties of his profession; and education, example, and the public opinion, were the inviolable guardians of his oath. As the champion of God and the ladies, (I blush to unite such discordant names,) he devoted himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the distressed; to practise courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise the allurements of ease and safety; and to vindicate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... waning when they left the house. As Captain Raymond and his family drove into the heart of the town on their way home, their attention was attracted by the loud ringing of a hand-bell, followed now and again by noisy vociferation, in a discordant, man's voice. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... of the number was a babe, some five or six months old; she was lying in a creaky old cradle, which squeaked when rocked as if uttering a discordant protest. She was a poor, pallid, little thing, that scarcely seemed to have strength to utter her low moan of pain, as she lay famishing for the nourishment which the now starved mother was unable to supply. The next older was barely able to toddle ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... much that Nils burned to express; but the fiddle refused to obey him, and screeched something utterly discordant, as it seemed, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Canadian in the area, summoned us to supper. This sumptuous repast was served on a rough table in one of the lower apartments of the fort, and consisted of cakes of bread and dried buffalo meat—an excellent thing for strengthening the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... a long time before a compromise between the discordant elements could be reached. To declare the country a centralized nation was to destroy the traditions of a century and a half: to leave it an assemblage of States, each claiming independence and sovereignty, was to throw away the results of ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Knight full readily guessed. He blew a blast which rung through the vaulted cave, echoing away till the sounds were lost in the distance, while it made the very earth rock and tremble. Scarcely had the echoes of the magic horn died away than a terrifically loud, discordant, hollow voice, proceeding out of the very depths of the cavern, inquired:—"Mortal, what want you here?" Sir Albert briefly told his errand, and said that he had brought gifts which he desired to offer to the famous ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... harsh sounds, possibly owing to the prominence of brass instruments in our military bands, the only European music with which they are familiar. Moreover, we must take into account that the scales and chords, which make the harmonies so pleasant to Western ears, sound just as discordant to Eastern nations as their musical combinations do ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and anxiety have become habitual likewise lives a discordant life. He looks out of a joyless present, back on a past devoid of interest, and forward into a future ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... sagacity and dexterity." Were I to send them to such schools as the interior parts of our settlements afford at present, what can they learn there? How could I support them there? What must become of me; am I to proceed on my voyage, and leave them? That I never could submit to. Instead of the perpetual discordant noise of disputes so common among us, instead of those scolding scenes, frequent in every house, they will observe nothing but silence at home and abroad: a singular appearance of peace and concord are the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... with Miss Goff. Suddenly a horrible noise caused a general start and pause. Mr. Jack, the eminent composer, had opened the piano-forte, and was illustrating some points in a musical composition under discussion by making discordant sounds with his voice, accompanied by a few chords. Cashel laughed aloud in derision as he made his way towards the door through the crowd, which was now pressing round the pianoforte at which Madame Szczymplica had just come to the assistance of Jack. Near the door, and in a corner remote ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Marks well each rapid hour that flies, While hope, exulting, wildly rolls The highest, such as filled the souls Of Jason and his comrades bold, Who sought the famous fleece of gold. Upon the trampled grasses beat Impatient steeds with restless feet; The dins of harsh, discordant cries Above the thrilling thousands rise; Shrilly the scattered children call, And soft the words of women fall, While men with voices hushed and weak Their low commands expectant speak; Till suddenly a mighty cry, A shout of warning, ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller |
