"Chord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in my brain—something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... it in the English language. Thelma!" And he lingered on the pronunciation of the strange word with a curious sensation of pleasure. "There is something mysteriously suggestive about the sound of it; like a chord of music played softly in the distance. Now, can I get through this door, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... green plain turned to a dull soft hue as the twilight crept over it, ever darker and more misty. In the gardens of the palace the birds in thousands sang together in chorus, as only Eastern birds do sing at sunrise and at nightfall, and their voices sounded like one strong, sweet, high chord, unbroken and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... eagerly scanning the rough country to the south, and expectant any moment of an attack from that direction. He and his men, as well as the horses, mules, and teamsters, are fairly tired out when at nightfall they park the wagons in a big semicircle, with the broad river forming a shining chord to the arc of white canvas. All the live-stock are safely herded within the enclosure; a few reliable soldiers are posted well out to the south and east, to guard against surprise, and the veteran Sergeant Clancy is put in command of the sentries. The captain gives strict injunctions as to ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... ever seen in this land of contemptuous youth. I hailed these picturesque groups and masses with the feelings of a European, to whom ruins are like a sort of relations. In my country, ruins are like a minor chord in music, here they are like a discord; they are not the relics of time, but the results of violence; they recall no valuable memories of a remote past, and are mere encumbrances to the busy present. Evidently they are out of place in America, except ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Leslie laughed. Anne's laughter was silver and Leslie's golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect chord in music. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... him, pulling his hair and twitching his cloak. And they mocked his music, singing, "Blind boy, blind boy! Where are you going, blind boy!" Then it is said that a wonderful thing happened. Herve was sorry because they were so cruel and unkind, and he struck a strange chord of music on his harp and sang ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... another's; as well compare a summer valley with the white clouds sailing over it; each is to be enjoyed in its own way. But Cornelia's loveliness carried with it a peculiar quality, which not only gratified the eye, but went further, and seemed to touch a vital chord in the beholder, jarring throughout his being with a sweet distribution of effect, and causing heart and voice to vibrate. It made Bressant conscious in every fibre that he was man and she woman. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... suspected more than her aunt knew of the true cause of her agitation. A similar motive for grief made her acute. Sylvia, mourning alone of a Sabbath night upon her hair-cloth sofa, struck an old chord of her own heart. Charlotte dared not say a word to comfort her directly. She condoled with her for the fifteen-years-old loss of her mother, and did not allude to Richard Alger; but going home she said to ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... there be a guardian spirit, which deigns to flit through this wayward world, to cheer the stricken breast, and purify feelings, whose every chord vibrates to the touch of woe; surely such presides, and throws a sunny halo, on the group, that blood has united—on which family love has shed its genial influence—and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... usages and conventions which obtained when the work was composed. One of these, as I have pointed out, was the substitution of one note for another in certain places; another, that in declamatory recitative, or recitativo parlante, the chord in the orchestra should come after the voice ("dopo la parola"). These words appear in many scores of the Italian operas, even of the present day. But when they do not, the musical director is supposed to be familiar with ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... bad one. As to the wife—oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them—for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah—no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... pianissimo, and stole through the room like the fluttering breath of a soft sea wind. I had always been an excellent waltzer, and my step had fitted in with that of Nina as harmoniously as the two notes of a perfect chord. She found it so on this occasion, and glanced up with a look of gratified surprise as I bore her lightly with languorous, dreamlike ease of movement through the glittering ranks of our guests, who watched us admiringly as we circled the room two ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the window again, and looked out. His aunt's words touched a chord in his heart, which vibrated strongly. To live with her, in any capacity whatever—assuredly that would be the highest attainable good. To draw from her gentle presence that bliss of absolute rest and ease which he had never ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone that breaks at night Its tale of ruin tells. Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... influence and was greatly prejudiced against her, but he has left a striking testimony to the favourable impression which her tact and good sense made upon him when he first came into contact with her. She possessed to a high degree the power of choosing the right moment and striking the true chord, and she appears to have been an excellent judge not only of the feelings of large bodies of men, but also of the individual characters of those with whom she dealt. She had a style of writing which was eminently characteristic and eminently feminine, and it is easy to trace the letters ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... should shine in all his glory; Again, the twilight seems the fitting time. Yet sweet dark night would understand the story, So old, so new, so tender, so sublime. Wild storms should rage to chord with my desire, Yet faithful stars should shine and never ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... whose birth the sister powers of Art Propitious view'd, and from his genial star Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind, Than his attemper'd bosom must preserve The seal of Nature. There alone unchanged, Her form remains. The balmy walks of May There breathe perennial sweets; the trembling chord Resounds for ever in the abstracted ear, 370 Melodious; and the virgin's radiant eye, Superior to disease, to grief, and time, Shines with unbating lustre. Thus at length Endow'd with all that nature can bestow, The child of Fancy oft in silence bends O'er ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells: The chord alone that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... the occupants of the howdahs, this was a final chord from the band, for the huge beasts were thoroughly startled, and the lookers-on noted that similar uneasiness was being displayed by the nine great elephants that appertained to Rajah Hamet's force, these in particular showing a disposition to turn tail ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... Lessing touched a chord which vibrated throughout the land. While in charge of the celebrated Library at Wolfenbuettel he met with a manuscript production of Reimarus, bearing the title of Vindication of the Rational Worshipers ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... she got into the habit of going to church, and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial abb. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience, his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the stuff martyrs ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Harmony is the use of combined sounds. These may be either dissonant, inharmonious in relation to each other, or harmonious, agreeable. All points of repose in a harmonized piece of music must be consonant; or, to say it differently, the combined sound (chord) standing at the beginning or end of a musical phrase must be harmonious. All the elements in it must bear consonant relations to all the others. Between the points of repose the combined sounds may ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... The chord of her voice told him of the gulf she had sunk in during the night. The thought of her endurance became ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... happened in an instant. Some chord in him, numbed till then, had begun to throb. It was as if he had awakened from a dream, or returned to consciousness after being stunned. There was something in the sight of her, standing there so cool and neat and composed, so typically American, a sort of goddess of America, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... if circuses were prohibited in heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naive utterance touched a responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures who jumped over flags and through balloons; how ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... common chord in music like a portion of the Mediterranean?—Because it's the E G & C ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... used for a filler, but this must not be taken in derogation, for it is filler chosen with the good taste that characterizes the choice of all the other contributions. In spite of its simplicity and its brevity, it plays with the deft touch of mastery on that chord of pathos that always vibrates to the thought of Time's ceaseless and inevitable surge. From every point of view the whole journal is a ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... 4th space, is orange; note D, 1st space below, violet; note F, 4th space above clef, ambergris. To make a proper bouquet, therefore the different odors must be harmonized, just the same as the notes of a musical chord are selected. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Fritsche was suddenly so affable and what it all meant. For all that Emilie did not come back and he was beginning to lose patience and feel bored when all at once he heard through the wall the sounds of a guitar. First there was the sound of one chord, then a second and a third and a fourth—the sound continually growing louder and fuller. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was surprised: Emilie certainly had a guitar but it only had three strings: he had not yet bought her any new ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... exclaimed rapturously, when his entertainer at length raised his fingers from the key-board. Whereupon Lance began to play and sing "Hail, Columbia." Johnson stood still and silent as a statue now, the stirring strains touched an altogether different chord of his memory, and for an instant something suspiciously like a tear glistened ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... region,—then in the cup of hot coffee that I had drunk in the restaurant, which might possibly have been poisonous;—finally, it occurred to me that the hoof-beats of the horses were tuned to a very saddening minor chord. The coachman in his hurry had forgotten to take bells with him, and in order to avoid violating police regulations he had borrowed at the inn another peal, and my sad state dated from the moment I heard it. I banished the sound and immediately ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... bent listlessly over the harp she had been playing as she spoke, her fingers touching a chord or two that seemed in unison with her thoughts. The two girls, Gerty Keane and she, who were seldom separate now, by day or night, sat in Flora's boudoir, which had two great windows opening on to a balcony and overlooking the grand old gardens of Grantley Hall, Suffolk. Grant ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... backward through the story of four hundred industries to their beginning in the 'four,' and remember that each new door had opened because some women toiled and strove; for all these the exercises were a part of a great thanksgiving paean, each phase of progress striking its own chord, and finding each its echo in the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... new knowledge we have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones, so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting upon this tastature of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern, and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles—they changed the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know—that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four dead eyes glaring at him he looked round and ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... from any one of them. He admits that their poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood of our race, he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of God brooding over the face of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even of the natural man. He feels that in these human principles there were some faint adumbrations of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... country men and women said their prayers aloud, and the refrain of "Namu Amida Butsu" seemed perpetually in one's ears. As the conclusion of the service approached, the voices of the choir, the priests, and the congregation increased in strength and volume, and ceased suddenly in a final chord of supplication. For a few moments there was stillness over the bowed heads of the congregation, and then the priests rose and the crowd began to stream down the great flight of steps. In the streets ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... different tells us they are used with different aims from those of Debussy. Emerson is definite in that his art is based on something stronger than the amusing or at its best the beguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuous chord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may float, if the wind blows in that direction, through a voluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy's fondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmosphere from his own voluptuous cheeks. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... health of his Hon. Friend to whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were involved, to gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a responding chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the sincere language, of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible, consistently with the respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... for the ring of thy gold, oh my Queen, and the last chord-tone from my harp mingled in mystical unity and made a sound unheard before on earth. And the spirit of that sound, which is of money and of music, is the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thousand fond presages. I answered in the affirmative; and we met by accident at the ball. I could nut behold him without emotion: when he accosted me, his well-known voice made my heart vibrate, like a musical chord, when its unison is struck. All the ideas of our past love, which the lapse of time and absence had enfeebled and lulled to sleep, now awoke, and were reinspired by his appearance; so that his artful excuses ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... close touch with nature, and though he had read much, his thoughts had something of the pristine purity and vigour of the land he dwelt in, and were in a fashion musical; but now and then the girl venturing overfar chanced upon a chord that rang harsh and discordant, and shrinking a little recognized, she fancied, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they have gone," he said. "Good riddance! ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... thoughts were a dark, minor chord in the general light-hearted chatter, for he cordially hated the whole blooming business of automobiles, golf, and bridge. He was the raven at the feast. Everybody seemed to be talking to somebody else. Only he was alone. He wondered why he had not been a better "mixer." ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... the branches of the climbing rose. Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers lining the path that led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the breath of the morning air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high chord of ecstasy that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that hour, James Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his neck, stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle. His back ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... effected by the colour of Turner. It should be remembered that he appeared at a time when coldness of tone was almost a fashion in painting. The chilliness of the shadows of Lawrence and his followers was remarkable. Turner raised the chord of colour a whole octave, if it is permissible to say so, illustrating one art by the terms of another. Mr. Ruskin ascribes to him the discovery of the scarlet shadow. It was in truth less a new discovery than the re-awakening ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... line by a quadrant. But we took our dividers, and found your d—n'd metre, In each single verse, took up a diameter. But how, Mr. Sheridan, came you to venture George, Dan, Dean, and Nim, to place in the centre?[1] 'Twill appear to your cost, you are fairly trepann'd, For the chord of your circle is now in their hand. The chord, or the radius, it matters not whether, By which your jade Pegasus, fix'd in a tether, As his betters are used, shall be lash'd round the ring, Three fellows with whips, and the Dean holds the string. Will Hancock ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may have appeared to her as ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... yourself; let no desire to oblige me endanger a life that is precious to—to—so many." The words were nearly stifled by her emotions, for the other had touched a chord that thrilled to ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the profoundest cunning. He believes easily in powers of light and darkness, yet is a sceptic all the while. Stirling knew this; but he could not know just when, if ever, the young charlatan Cheschapah would succeed in cheating the older chiefs; just when, if ever, he would strike the chord of their superstition. Till then they would reason that the white man was more comfortable as a friend than as a foe, that rations and gifts of clothes and farming implements were better than battles and prisons. Once ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... black brook which dropped from stone to stone beneath the shadow of our Rattlesnake Rocks, the air seemed at first as silent above me as the earth below. The buzz of summer sounds had not begun. Sometimes a bee hummed by with a long swift thrill like a chord of music; sometimes a breeze came resounding up the forest like an approaching locomotive, and then died utterly away. Then, at length, a Veery's delicious note rose in a fountain of liquid melody from beneath me; and when it was ended, the clear, calm, interrupted chant of the Wood-Thrush fell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of ranges of seats was seventeen, divided into wedges by six flights of steps, and in stalls by lines yet visible upon the stone. The upper tiers were approached by vomitories and by a subterranean corridor. The orchestra formed an arc the chord of which was indicated by a marble ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... unquiet crew; Adjust their staring kilts; and their swift eyes Turn still to him who sits to supervise. He in the midst, perched on a fallen tree, Eyes them at labour; and, guitar on knee, Now ministers alarm, now scatters joy, Now twangs a halting chord, now tweaks a boy. Thorough in all, my resolute vizier Plays both the despot and the volunteer, Exacts with fines obedience to my laws, And for his music, too, ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chord, and she looked up almost indignantly. "You ought to be manly enough to keep straight by yourself, you ought never to have sunk as you have done. There can be no excuse ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... mother slipped from her life, the mental conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a great deal and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of his being, vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music of Christopher Gluck—the effect of a pure fine chord. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... between them. Maria and her brother both burst into tears; but Agnes's affection rose above the mood of ordinary grief. The confidence that her beloved sister's tenderness for her would enable her to touch a chord in a heart so utterly her own as Jane's was, assumed upon this occasion the character of a wild but mournful enthusiasm, that was much more expressive of her attachment than could be the loudest and most ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... miles from our Pacific coast. Yet if a line be drawn from the point of our territory nearest Asia to the Southern boundary of California, that line being the chord of which our Pacific coast is the bow, Hawaii will fall this side of it. Held by a great Nation with whom we were at war, it would be a most formidable and valuable base of supplies. We had sustained a peculiar relation to ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... touched some finer chord of Mary's nature, or perhaps Mary had done her day's allowance of backing; whatever the case was, she indulged no further caprice that afternoon beyond shying vigorously at a heavily loaded tin-pedler's wagon, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... commanding eminences on either flank, where far-reaching batteries could be posted, were great advantages. It covered the principal roads to Washington and Baltimore, and its convex shape, enabling troops to reinforce with celerity any point of the line from the centre, or by moving along the chord of this arc, was probably the cause of our final success. The enemy, on the contrary, having a concave order of battle, was obliged to move troops much longer distances to support any part of his line, and could not communicate orders rapidly, nor ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... due south. The river makes a long bend to E.N.E., and this morning's march formed the chord of the arc. Halted; again delayed for the day, as we are not far from the capital, and a messenger must be sent to the king for instructions before we proceed. I never saw such abject cowardice as the redoubted Kamrasi exhibits. Debono's vakeel having made a razzia upon his frontier ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... he brought about the very last thing he intended with his music—stopped the flirtation's immediate progress. Maga seemed to take to Fred's unchastened harmony with all the wildness that possessed her. Some chord he struck, or likelier, some abandoned succession of them touched off her magazine of poetry. And so ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... raccoons are well-known denizens of trees, and both furnish famous country sports, especially in the South. ''Possum up de gum-tree, cooney in de hollow,' is a line from a negro ditty that touches a deep chord in the African heart. The former is found not infrequently in this region, but the Hudson seems to be the eastern boundary of ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... been standing all the while eagerly absorbing her every word and gesture. The overwhelming reality of Sowinska's grief, so simple and strong, had called forth a responsive chord in ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... briefest question and answer about her well-being at the commencement of it—the two had kept silence, as though conscious Faircloth's assertion of contentment struck a chord any resolution of which might imperil the simplicity of their relation. Thus far that relation showed a noble freedom from embarrassment. It might have continued to do so but for a hazardous ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... forms the chord of a semi-circle, whilst a continuation, not planted, is the segment, which turning round the walls of the city extends along the beach of the bay, giving a fine view of the shipping ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... away down here in this old southern State, as she stands nearing the border land of another world, recompensed the great pioneer for much that she had borne when life was young and audiences, as she said, less sympathetic. Mrs. Merrick's remarks, also, touched a deep chord and roused the audience to a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... and a certain suspense of judgment—quite unlike her familiar attitude of mind—always marked her agreement in hopes for his future. The old woman of the world interpreted this by her own lights. At moments it vexed her, for she did not like to be mystified; at others, it touched a chord of sympathy in some very obscure corner of her being. And, as no practical problem could be put before her without her wishing to solve it autocratically, Lady Ogram soon formed a project with regard to these two persons, a project which took firmer consistence, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... time, however, Mrs. Donovan's mother and two sisters, who had some hours previously been sent for, just arrived, a circumstance which once more touched the newly awakened chord of the mother's heart, and gave her that confidence which the presence of "one's own blood," as the people expressed it, always communicates upon such occasions. After having kissed and admired the babe, and bedewed its face with the warm tears of affection, they piously ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... voluntary contribution, but a tax. Nothing is unforced and spontaneous. There is a want of elasticity and motion. The story does not "give an echo to the seat where love is throned." The heart does not answer of itself like a chord in music. The fancy does not run on before the writer with breathless expectation, but is dragged along with an infinite number of pins and wheels, like those with which the Lilliputians dragged Gulliver pinioned to the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... their world is in another hemisphere. We want to love them, and we love, remember, and are glad to meet them again, but they feel that we are unfamiliar, and, because we have grown different outwardly, they seem to miss some chord that used to ring. Richard, I— ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... which the tendencies shall no longer oppose, but serve each other to a common end. It demands that we shall not pursue broken ends, but great and comprehensive purposes, in which soul and body may unite like notes in a harmonious chord. That were indeed a way of peace and pleasure, that were indeed a heaven upon earth. It does not demand, however, or, to speak in measure, it does not demand of me, that I should starve my appetites for no purpose under heaven but as a purpose in itself; or, in a weak despair, pluck ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain! To-day I will be a boy again; 20 The mind's pursuing element, Like a bow slackened and unbent, In some dark corner shall be leant. The robin sings, as of old, from the limb! The catbird croons in the lilac bush! 25 Through the dim arbor, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... an incredulous voice, for Fern's sweet unselfishness and bright content made the sunshine of their humble home. There seemed no chord of fretfulness in the girl's nature; her pure health and buoyant spirits found no cause for complaint. Nea lived her youth again in her child, and she often thanked Heaven even in her desolate moments for this one blessing that had ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... voice at last, and wheezed out a flat something, distantly akin to what it ought to be, would not have known that it was destined for no common touch, but one that smote, though gently as an angel's hand, upon the deepest chord within thee! And if a friendly glance—aye, even though it were as guileless as thine own, Dear Tom—could have but pierced the twilight of that evening, when, in a voice well tempered to the time, sad, sweet, and low, yet hopeful, she first sang to the altered instrument, and wondered ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... lady had the grace of one born to the instrument. As she took the sticks in her hands and struck a chord upon the outstretched strings, her face assumed a new expression; so far, we must confess, there had been much "naivete" in it, now she felt at ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... scarcely looked at the bride during the ceremony. At last, the minister, in conclusion, announced the twain to be husband and wife. I saw Wallingford give a slight start as if a tensely strung chord of feeling had been jarred. A moment more and the spell was broken! Every lineament of his countenance showed this. The stern aspect gave way—light trembled over the softening features—the body stood more erect as if a great pressure had ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... overwrought, In summer time when skies are hot We seek its verdant, velvet sward, Oh may we hold in reverent thought The debt we owe, forgetting not The spirit passed to its reward Of one whose giant soul was fraught With true benignity—who sought To touch humanity's quick chord With fire from Heaven's altar brought, That love and zeal and being caught As inspiration ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... his hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb of the left hand; but the general effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. Small details ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... undone more than two years of resolve. She had heard herself, as it were in a dream, promising that this man might come. She had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed, afraid. Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control. It was self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this woman's fence of speech with him. "Surely," ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... to suffering, oppressed, and tormented souls, who can endow even dumb misery with speech. Nobody can approach him in the colours of late autumn, in the indescribably touching joy of a last, a very last, and all too short gladness; he knows of a chord which expresses those secret and weird midnight hours of the soul, when cause and effect seem to have fallen asunder, and at every moment something may spring out of nonentity. He is happiest of all when creating from out the nethermost depths of human ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... historical romance. It re-tells a chapter in the life of the Jewish people at the time of the prophet Isaiah. The poet could not exercise any choice as to his subject—it was forced upon him inevitably. In order to be sure of touching a responsive chord in his people, it was necessary to carry the action twenty-five centuries back. A Jewish novel based on contemporaneous life would have been incongruous both with truth and with the spirit ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... Challenged him to lead up to her desired stormy scene Could we—we might be friends Death is always next door Desire of it destroyed it Detestable feminine storms enveloping men weak enough Distaste for all exercise once pleasurable Divided lovers in presence Enthusiasm struck and tightened the loose chord of scepticism Exult in imagination of an escape up to the moment of capture Greatest of men; who have to learn from the loss of the woman He gave a slight sign of restiveness, and was allowed to go He had gone, and the day lived again for both of them I look on the back ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... night, and chiselled shadow: be the tomb That speaks him famous graven with signs of doom Intrenched inevitably in lines athwart, As on some thunder-blasted Titan's brow His record of rebellion. Not the day Shall strike forth music from so stern a chord, Touching this marble: darkness, none knows how, And stars impenetrable of midnight, may. So looms the likeness of thy soul, ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... dost thou hear them ring? what a grief is this Thus to be deaf, and lose such harmony. Wretched Auditus, now shalt thou never hear The pleasing changes that a well-tun'd chord Of trolling bells will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... associate themselves with the hero whose story he is telling. At times a storm will remind this hero of his combats; but he also remembers his moments of love and happiness, and his soul is quieted. Then the music unfolds itself serenely, and rises with calm strength to the closing chord of triumph, which is placed like a crown of glory on ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... kept the candle in his hand. Barbara had made no offer to take it back; she feared the trembling of her hand might betray her. Wrought up to a pitch of suspense at which every nerve quivered like a tense chord, she yet by a desperate effort controlled her features and steadied her step, but she felt she could not keep her fingers from trembling. Colonel Jeff's comrade remained as before, standing in the open doorway, while the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a cloud swooping darkly across the heaven of my thoughts, came the suggestive question: "Is it all true? Was Christ indeed Divine—or is it all a myth, a fable—an imposture?" Unconsciously I struck a discordant chord on the organ—a faint tremor shook me, and I ceased playing. An uncomfortable sensation came over me, as of some invisible presence being near me and approaching softly, slowly, yet always more closely; and I hurriedly ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... thy heart a need That mine can not fulfill? One chord that any other hand Could better wake, or still? Speak now—lest at some future day My whole life wither ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... When we arrived there one October afternoon the sun was setting amid flying clouds and watery yellow spaces of pure sky, with a wind blowing soft and humid from the sea. Long after he had sunk below the hills, a fading chord of golden and rose-coloured tints burned on the city. The cathedral bell-tower was glistening with recent rain, and we could see right through its lancet windows to the clear blue heavens beyond. Then, as the day descended into evening, the autumn trees assumed that wonderful effect of luminousness ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... this simple letter touched an answering chord in my heart. I scarcely knew how to answer it. At last a brilliant thought struck me. I would show it to my tame Hussar-Captain, SHABRACK. That gallant son of Mars is not only a good sportsman, but he has, in common ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... proper step to take and the proper appeal. If we cannot reach the people in this way, why, there are other courses to pursue. We should not despair. If we fail in accomplishing our ends in one manner, we must try other plans, and finally we may be able to touch the right chord. (Dennis S. ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... Michael Stanley sent the following letter to the Committee of the Prison Association: "When I read the account of the venerable Friend Hopper's death, I could not help weeping. It touched a tender chord in my heart, when I came to the account of his being the prisoner's friend. My soul responded to that; for I had realized it. About six years ago, I was one of those who got good advice from 'the old man.' I carried it out, and met with great success. I was fatherless, motherless, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... farmhand quartettes do in the rural melodrama outside the old homestead in harvest time. Oh! I tell you it's a truly rural octette. Listen to that exhibition bass voice of Jimmy Sands and that wandering tenor of Tommy Whiteing, and as the last chord dies away (over the fields ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... thirty-two conductors only; this arrangement has been adopted to avoid the heating from the Foucault currents, which, with 11/2 in. conductors, would have been very considerable. The bars are coupled at the ends of the core across a certain chord and are insulated. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... day Jo followed, and managed, when it was needed, that the herd should keep the great circle, of which the wagon cut a small chord. At sundown he came to Verde Crossing, and there was Charley with a fresh horse and food, and Jo went on in the same calm, dogged way. All the evening he followed, and far into the night, for the wild herd was now getting somewhat used to the presence of the harmless ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... about it; the old thing was so upsetting, and—and it was so hard to get it out." Phillis would not have told for worlds how utterly she had broken down over that task of hers; how the stranger's sympathy had touched so painful a chord that, before she knew what she was doing, she had laid her head down on the counter and was crying like a baby,—all the more that she had so bravely pent up her feelings all these days that she might ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... finger of God seemed freshly to have touched her face. It was simple and harmonious as a chord of music, yet inexhaustible in its variety. It recalled no other face, yet might be seen in it the germs of a mighty nation, that should begin from her and among a myriad resemblances evolve no perfect ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the joy of freedom. And how? As does the string that is bound to the harp. When the harp is truly strung, when there is not the slightest laxity in the strength of the bond, then only does music result; and the string transcending itself in its melody finds at every chord its true freedom. It is because it is bound by such hard and fast rules on the one side that it can find this range of freedom in music on the other. While the string was not true, it was indeed merely bound; but a loosening of its bondage would ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... her discipline,' Father Oliver jerked out, and it was all he could do to check himself from further snaps at the parish priest, a great burly man who could not tell a minor from a major chord, yet was venting the opinion that good singing distracted the attention of the congregation at their prayers. He would have liked to ask him if he was to understand that bad singing tended to a devotional mood, but wishing to remain on good terms with his superior, he said nothing and ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... sympathetically. His speech and general appearance struck a long-dormant chord; but in her mind was no recognition ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... himself (which his references in almost any connection were wont to be) as of the person or the occasion evoked. I had reached my sixteenth year when she died, and as my only remembered grandparent she touches the chord of attachment to a particular vibration. She represented for us in our generation the only English blood—that of both her own parents—flowing in our veins; I confess that out of that association, for reasons and reasons, I feel her image most beneficently bend. We were, as to three parts, of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... me in that little cathedral town would be most difficult to describe. After the hurry, rattle, and fever of the city, the rare weeks spent here were infinitely peaceful. They were full of a quaint sense of childhood, with sometimes a deeper chord touched—the giant and spiritual things childhood has dreams of. The little room I slept in had opposite its window the great grey cathedral wall; it was only in the evening that the sunlight crept round ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... intimacy must have died a natural death. But we found a common ground of sympathy in our revolt against the subserviency in modern life of romance to matter-of-fact considerations. He harped upon this string, and awoke a corresponding chord in my breast. His ideas were a correlation of the dreams of my girlhood. I felt that I was understood. There was such a thing as the love I had imagined; Mr. Dale had pondered over it, fathomed it, and could talk about it. Not ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... impression. A passing cloud left the room for a few moments in darkness, but, as the beams shone out full and clear once more, that shadowy figure seemed to gather substance, and I felt as if some unknown force were compelling my attention and chaining my every sense in a mute endeavor to establish some chord of connection between me and the dim spirit world which floats forever round us. Now waxing, now waning, the vision grew, till I fancied I caught a glint of armor. For an instant a wild imploring glance met my own, and a transparent finger pointed to the richly-carved paneling ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... or the finest flow of elocution. He was a soldier himself, and partook in all the feelings of the soldier, his joys, his hopes, and his disappointments. He was not raised by rank and education above sympathy with the humblest of his followers. Every chord in their bosoms vibrated with the same pulsations as his own, and the conviction of this gave him a mastery over them. "Lead on," they shouted, as he finished his brief but animating address, "lead on wherever you think best. We will follow with good-will, and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... needs no long successions of verbal protection by inspiration; it is self-protected; first, internally, by the complex power which belongs to the Christian system of involving its own integrations, in the same way as a musical chord involves its own successions of sound, and its own resolutions; secondly, in an external and obvious way, it is protected by its prodigious iteration, and secret presupposed in all varieties of form. Consequently, as the peril connected with language is thus effectually barred, the call for any ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey |
