"Keynote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meeting was held. Langdon, Phelan, Mayor Taylor pleaded for order. "Let us see to it," said the last, "that no matter who else breaks the law, we shall uphold it." This became the keynote of the meeting. Rudolph Spreckels, who arrived late, was ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... calls it 'the good ordering of the mind') is the keynote of technical control. Together with the principle of relaxation it provides the player with the most effective means of establishing precise and sensitive cooeperation between mental and physical processes. Muscular ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... Oktoberlied, written in the political gloom and uncertainty of the fall of 1848. While realizing fully its inherent tragic elements, Storm loved and glorified life and thirstily drank in its beauty to the very last. This is the keynote ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... make frequent excursions to Liverpool, and to act as his American friend's guide and cicerone to many places in England which would otherwise have been unknown to him. My father enjoyed these trips immensely; Bennoch's companionship gave the right keynote and atmosphere to the sights they saw. A real Englishman owns his country, and does the honors of it to a visitor as if it were his private estate. Discussions of politics and of the principles of government never arose between these two, as they did between my father and Bright; ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... have constantly applied to his pictures in the course of our survey, and see how they bear out this statement—epithets such as romantic, fantastic, picturesque, gay, or again, delicate, refined, sensitive, serene, and the like; these bear witness to qualities of mind where the keynote is invariably exquisite feeling. Giorgione was, in fact, what is commonly called a poet-painter, gifted with the artistic temperament to an extraordinary degree, essentially impulsive, a man of moods. It is inevitable that such a man produces work of varying merit; inequality must be a characteristic ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... wondering if she really liked visiting, and recalling the delightful Christmas visit at Uncle Winthrop's. The indefinable something that she came to understand was not only leisure and refinement, but the certain harmonious satisfactions that make up the keynote of life from whence melody diffuses ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... The American Scholar, strike the keynote of Emerson's philosophical, poetical, and moral teachings. In fact he had, as every great teacher has, only a limited number of principles and theories to teach. These principles of life can all be enumerated in twenty words—self-reliance, culture, intellectual and moral independence, the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... had surmised, the keynote of Tom's nature was that he was easily led, and therein rested the possibilities of great good or evil. The little confidential chats with his mother were a strong safeguard to him, and laid the foundation of the true principles by which he should be guided; but, as he mingled more ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... the highest place in their periodical literature, and, therefore, may be fairly quoted as striking the keynote for the chorus of public opinion. Surely it is nationality rather than patriotism which leads it thus to speak in scorn of the successful efforts of enlightened nations to win from every corner of the earth the riches which nature has ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... The keynote of her being throughout this last winter was one of unwonted seriousness. A certain startling intensity of thought and feeling showed itself every now and then. It was painfully evident that she was under a severe strain, both physical and mental. Again and again, as spring ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... imposing confidence about every conceivable subject, from a play or a picture to a sermon or a metaphysical essay. It is the utter indifference to subject-matter, joined with the vulgar unscrupulousness of pretentious ignorance, that strikes the keynote of our existing criticism. Men write without taking the trouble to ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... much alone, alone with my thoughts. Often when all was quiet I knew she was sitting there beyond the curtain, sitting thinking, just as I was thinking. Quiet was the keynote of our life, quiet and sunshine. That little cabin might have been a hundred miles from the gold-born city, it was so quiet. Here drifted no echo of its abandoned gaiety, its glory of demoralisation. How sweet she looked in her ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... intrusion on the sacred ground of Gigadibs and the Germans, if I venture to indicate a touch inserted by Shakespeare for no other perceptible or conceivable purpose than to obviate by anticipation the indomitable and ineradicable fallacy of criticism which would find the keynote of Hamlet's character in the quality of irresolution. I may observe at once that the misconception involved in such a reading of the riddle ought to have been evident even without this episodical stroke of illustration. In ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... taste is with the idle laughers, and still inclines to follow them. It may be shown by an analysis of Wycherley's Plain Dealer, a coarse prose adaption of the Misanthrope, stuffed with lumps of realism in a vulgarized theme to hit the mark of English appetite, that we have in it the keynote of the Comedy of our stage. It is Moliere travestied, with the hoof to his foot and hair on the pointed tip of his ear. And how difficult it is for writers to disentangle themselves from bad traditions is noticeable when we find Goldsmith, who had grave command of the Comic in narrative, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and, if possible, with east windows, that the morning sun may gladden the breakfast hour with its cheering rays. Let plants, flowers, birds, and pictures have a place in its appointments, that the association with things bright and beautiful may help to set the keynote of our own lives in cheerful accord. A dark, gloomy, ill-ventilated room brings depression of spirits, and will make the most elaborate meal unsatisfactory; while the plainest meal may seem almost a feast when served amid attractive ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... The keynote was struck at once in the Quarterly Review by Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was guilty of "a tendency to limit God's glory in creation"; that "the principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"; that it "contradicts the revealed ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Bishops,) was Protestant in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in State was conciliation and compromise. So the Church of England was to a great extent a compromise, retaining as much as the people would bear of external form and ritual, for the sake of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... The keynote of all these attacks upon the effort to secure honesty in business and in politics, is expressed in a recent speech, in which the speaker stated that prosperity had been checked by the effort for the "moral regeneration of the business world," an effort ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... which to couch the ultimatum of determined men.'[10] They give expression, at least, to a conviction which has grown more clear and articulate with the advance of thought—the conviction of the dignity and worth of the individual. This thought was the keynote of the Reformation. The Enlightenment, with its appeal to reason, as alike in all men, gave support to the idea of equality. Descartes claimed it as the philosophical basis of man's nature. Rousseau and Montesquieu were among its most valiant champions. Kant made it the point ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... Prototype. — N. prototype, original, model, pattern, precedent, standard, ideal, reference, scantling, type; archetype, antitype[obs3]; protoplast, module, exemplar, example, ensample[obs3], paradigm; lay-figure. text, copy, design; fugleman[obs3], keynote. die, mold; matrix, last, plasm[obs3]; proplasm[obs3], protoplasm; mint; seal, punch, intaglio, negative; stamp. V. be an example, be a role model, set an example; set a copy. Phr. a precedent embalms a principle [Disraeli]; exempla ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a book for every pastor, missionary, and devout Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. Above all, it has the keynote of sincerity and humility. ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... The keynote of the Salariki character was a wary independence. The only form of government they would tolerate was a family-clan organization. Feuds and deadly duels between individuals and clans were the accepted way of life and every male who reached adulthood ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... forgotten in the clear, homely arguments, and in the glow kindled in every heart; nor did they know that the speech spoken in their hearing would be read and pondered by half a million voters within a month. Richard H. Dana pronounced it "the keynote of the new party."[464] But though sown in fruitful soil, insufficient time was to elapse before election for such arguments to root and blossom; and when the votes were counted in November, the Know-Nothings had polled 146,001, the Republicans 135,962, the Softs 90,518, and the Hards ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the fact by which he is most likely to be remembered by the casual reader. It is a good brief form to use in writing about most men and women. Model II is better if the subject is remarkable for many achievements. Its structure is as follows: (1) A keynote sentence; (2), (3), (4) three illustrations of the fact stated in (1); (5) dates. The same principles apply to notices of living people. In writing use one model or the other; do not deviate from them, unless you first find a better model, and can persuade ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... arose in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Of these, the most important was the Cistercian, founded in 1098 A.D. at Citeaux, not far from Cluny. The keynote of Cistercian life was the return to a literal obedience of St. Benedict's Rule. Hence the members of the order lived in the utmost simplicity, cooking their own meager repasts and wearing coarse woolen garments woven from the fleeces of their own sheep. The ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... of them be proud of the skill he hath in his craft, because he thereby seemeth to gain something for the monastery, let him be removed from it and not exercise it again, unless, after humbling himself, the abbot shall permit him." Craft without graft was the keynote of ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... concluding stanza of the last rondeau—indeed, of the last poem in the collection, and the high, serene temper displayed in these lines serves at once as keynote and keystone to the book. The very lightness and slightness of so much of the work, its careless moods and casual fancies, seem to suggest a nature that is not primarily interested in art—a nature, like Sordello's, passionately enamoured of life, one to which lyre and lute ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... you and I have got in a lifetime. Give you my word, Grig, when he was off his chump in the fever, he raved like a poet, and an orator, and he was only an ordinary sportsman when he left home in the spring! Cleopatra, he called her one day, and I fancy that was the keynote—she must have been one of those exceptional women we read ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... mood lead us? To no height of truth, I think. Katherine Tingley gave us a keynote for the literature of the future and the grandest things it should utter,—for the life, the art, the poetry of a coming time that shall be Theosophical, that is, lit with the splendor and beauty of the Soul—when she spoke ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... glance that these are the delicious poetical tropics. Do you desire to create an ideal paradise, a la Bernardin de St. Pierre, where idyllic Virginies die of pure modesty rather than appear before the eyes of their beloved but unwedded Pauls in a lace-bedraped peignoir?—then you strike the keynote by sticking in the middle distance a hut or cottage, overshadowed by the broad and graceful foliage of the picturesque banana. ('Hut' is a poor and chilly word for these glowing descriptions, far inferior to the pretty and high-sounding original chaumiere.) That is how we do the tropics ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... that may be briefly alluded to as eminently characteristic of the Sagas is their fatefulness. As we read we seem to hear the voice of Doom speaking continually. "Things will happen as they are fated": that is the keynote of them all. The Norse mind had little belief in free will, less even than we have to-day. Men and women were born with certain characters and tendencies, given to them in order that their lives should run in appointed channels, and their acts bring about an appointed ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... introduced in the Amen in order to exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music, and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on her ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Is any healthily intelligent and progressive human being ever the same for many weeks together? Change—readjustment—is the keynote of life; the very breath of it. When you can accuse me of not changing I shall know that I have fallen into the sere and withered leaf past redemption. And now that I have expiated myself—(probably to your more complete confusion!)—we'll have a short canter to blow away cobwebs. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... of Holy Scripture read at the beginning of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, are so called, and are intended to strike the keynote of the service to follow. Originally the Daily Services began with the Lord's Prayer, but in 1552 the Sentences, with the Exhortation, Confession and absolution were prefixed to Morning Prayer; they were not placed in the Evening Prayer ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... the whispering sound of yonder pine-tree," so, Theocritus, with that sweet word [Greek text], didst thou begin and strike the keynote of thy songs. "Sweet," and didst thou find aught of sweet, when thou, like thy Daphnis, didst "go down the stream, when the whirling wave closed over the man the Muses loved, the man not hated of the Nymphs"? ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... not give her much time to develop her objections. He met her half way and stated them for her, and overwhelmed her with sympathy and understanding. She had been "too literal." "Too literal" was his keynote. He was a little astonished at the liberality of his own views. He had been getting along now for some years without looking into his own opinions too closely and he was by no means prepared to discover ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... This gives the keynote of his writings in the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' He frankly recognises the necessity, and therefore does not discuss the advisability, of a large extension of the franchise. He protests only against the view, which ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the universe and chafes at the limitations it is forced to recognise. Mill, a master, not to say a pedant, of introspection, recognised with amazement the "intense self-consciousness" of this poet, and self-consciousness is the keynote which persists through all its changing harmonies. It is the self-consciousness of a soul compelled by quick and eager senses and vivid intelligence to recognise a host of outer realities not itself, which it constantly strives to bring ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... is content in the feeling that it is at harmony with the All. The sense of Beauty, however expressed, when keenly experienced, has a tendency to lift us out of our consciousness of separateness into another plane of mind in which the keynote is Unity. The higher the human feeling, the nearer is the conscious ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of a house and its occupants comes as one enters through the front door into the hall. Thus, nowhere in the entire house is it more important to strike the right keynote in furnishing and decoration. If there is no closet in the hall for wraps and umbrellas, it will be necessary to have in some obscure corner a wooden strip painted the same color as the woodwork, in which are solid brass hooks, placed low enough so that the young members of the family ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... of view the first verse strikes the keynote of the whole. In the beginning "Elohim [11] created the heaven and the earth." Heaven and earth were not primitive existences from which the gods proceeded, as the Gentiles taught; on the contrary, ...
— Mr. Gladstone and Genesis - Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the keynote to Howard Frayberg's instructions: "Excitement! Sex! Mystery!" Frayberg cared little for inspiration or beauty. "I imagine," he said casually, "that you celebrate a number of interesting festivals? Colorful dancing? ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... abroad where American bankers usually carry large balances is another circumstance which often depresses the exchange market sharply. "Trouble in the Balkans" and "trouble over the Moroccan situation" are two bugbears which have for years back furnished the keynote for many swoops downward in the exchange market, and for years after this book is published will probably continue to do so. Money on deposit at a point several thousand miles away is naturally very sensitive, and the least suspicion of financial trouble is sufficient to cause its withdrawal. ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... not easy to point to a better piece of dramatic exposition than the scenes which precede the appearance of Johanna in the French army. The Prologue is perhaps a trifle too long, but serves admirably to give the tragic keynote, by picturing the shepherd-girl of Dom Remi leading a life apart from that of her family, given to strange brooding, and at last receiving the sign from Heaven, which she prophetically feels to be the call of death. And then the desperate plight of France; the helpless ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... dog on shore was the first to scent the coming strangers. He gave vent to a low growl. It was the keynote to the canine choir, which immediately sent up a howl of discord. Forthwith from every hut there leaped armed men, anxious women, and terrified children, which latter rushed towards the cliffs or took ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... learning. In literary style the passage displays the uncertain hand of youth, and in a translation something is lost of the charm of simplicity which pervades the original. But in this passage the keynote of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... And let me leave you Mary's keynote of comfort, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He will ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the abstract notion of equal citizenship as contained in the Declaration, and only then proceeding to search for the remedies which would square reality with the idea. Hence it was that the aspiration toward equal citizenship became the keynote of labor's earliest political movement. The issue was drawn primarily between the rich and the poor, not between the functional classes, employers and employes. While the workmen took good care to exclude from their ranks ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... distinctive charm of its own-a reposeful atmosphere and a simplicity of form that become more and more appealing with riper acquaintance. It is a good place to come to when one is satiated with the beauties of the other courts, for restfulness is the keynote. The simple massive style of the architecture and the simple planting scheme combine to produce a spirit of calm. The ideas of energy, achievement, progress, effort-so insistently emphasized elsewhere-are left behind, and everything breathes a sense of peace and orderliness, of ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... was furnished as a sitting room, but some of its appointments were obviously importations. Its keynote was orientalism, not of that sensuous yet grossly masculine character which surrounds the wealthy Eastern esthete but quite markedly feminine. There were an extraordinary number of cushions, and many bowls and vases containing hyacinths. What other strange appointments were ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... in this gallery by his well-known portrait of the dancer Nijinski. A certain Oriental splendor of colour is the keynote of this canvas, which is much more carelessly painted than most of Blanche's very clever older portraits. On the opposite wall Caro-Delvaille shows his dexterity in the portrait of a lady. The lady is a rather unimportant adjunct to the painting and ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... "lead" of a newspaper "story." All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the magazine story is more often near the end of the article ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. Here, the praise of the Greek Church touches its highest note, and pours forth its most enchanting melody. "Christ is risen," and the glad response, "He is risen indeed"—these words constitute the keynote of all that is best and most beautiful in Greek worship. The Knowledge and the Wisdom of God are everywhere extolled, and the attribute of Light is continually and ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... reaped the harvest of admiration and honour which was his due. Many distinctions came to him. He was made LL.D. of Edin., a life Governor of London Univ., and had the offer of the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow. He d. in the house of his son at Venice, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The keynote of his teaching is a wise and noble optimism. His poems were collected in 2 vols. in 1896. Some vols. of his correspondence with Mrs. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... stream of human activity flowing past. Many gloriously clad specimens passed in and out of the portals, socially sacred as in the quiet Fifth Avenue clubs, profane as in the roaring, taxi-bordered "athletic" foundations; but there seemed to the anxious observer no keynote, no homogeneous character wherefrom to build as on a sure foundation. Lacking knowledge, his instinct could find no starting-point; he was bewildered in vision and in mind. Just off the corner of the quietest ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hinders expression."[8] If this fact is recognised (that dramatic speech is not real speech, but poetical speech, and poetical speech infused with the individual style of each individual dramatist, modulated, indeed, but true to one keynote) then it must be granted that Browning has as much right to his own style as other dramatists have to theirs, and as little right as they to be accused on that account of putting his personality into his ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... discouragements—untrained men, lack of material, faulty support—but was ready and eager to meet the enemy in the hour of need. If it is a sound axiom never to despise the enemy, it is nevertheless true that excessive prudence has lost many an action. Farragut's motto has been the keynote of the success of all the great sea-captains, "L'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... are near relations. To this fact of crucial importance for our argument we shall return later. But from the outset it should be borne in mind that in these two Greek words, dromenon and drama, in their exact meaning, their relation and their distinction, we have the keynote and ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote for ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... which we think of as sympathy of the soul. If this poem were true, 'One Word More' would be false, quite otherwise than in that approach to exaggeration which is incidental to the poetic form. The true keynote of 'Two in the Campagna' is the pain of perpetual change, and of the conscious, though unexplained, predestination to it. Mr. Browning could have still less in common with such a state, since one of the qualities for which he was most ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... are the handiwork of God, here discover it: and perceive the Presence and the Power, and are ashamed and overawed. Thus our land works its marvel in the sensitive soul. I have sometimes thought that in the waste is sounded the great keynote of life—with which true hearts ever seek ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... A and B[flat], which sound in time fell definitely to A, leaving the mystery of the half-tone unsolved. This addition of the third would thus fall in with the law of harmonics again. First we have the keynote; next in importance comes the fifth; and last of all the third. Thus again is the absence of the major seventh in our primitive scale perfectly logical; we may search in vain in our list of harmonics for the tone which forms ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... regions. But, contrary to the common opinion, the tropics, hoary shams, are not remarkable for the abundance or beauty of their flowers. Quite otherwise, indeed: an unrelieved green strikes the keynote of equatorial forests. This is my own experience, and it is borne out (which is far more important) by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who has seen a wider range of the untouched tropics, in all four ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... except those for Crawford, denounced the old system; legislatures passed resolutions against it; public meetings condemned it; ponderous pamphlets were hurled at it; the campaigns of Jackson and Clay, in particular, found their keynote in hostility toward it. Failing to perceive that under the changed circumstances a caucus nomination might become a liability rather than an asset, the Crawford element pushed its plans, and on February 14, 1824, a caucus—destined to be the ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... conditions made it impossible for the sinner to know that his sins had been taken away. It was here that the Lutheran Reformation pointed the way to a return to the simplicity of the Gospel by its Scriptural definition of justification. Sola fide, by faith alone, was the keynote of the Reformation. Be sure that you bring back sola was Luther's admonition to his friends, who went to Augsburg while he ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... The keynote of these books is manliness. The stories are wonderfully entertaining, and they are at the same time sound and wholesome. No boy will willingly lay down an ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... America and in England. I found them simple where I had thought of them as the reverse, and now, after meeting others in various parts of the country, even in complex and composite New York, I should say that simplicity is the keynote of the American character. It is in his simplicity that the American differs most from the European. Such simplicity is perfectly consistent with the impatience, the desire for novelty, for brevity, of the American people. We think of them as always wishing to reduce life to formulae, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... at every succeeding election till 1839, when he withdrew from the contest to become a candidate for governor. With one or two exceptions, he was the youngest member of the Nineteenth Congress. He was prominently connected with every leading question, and upon all he struck what proved to be the keynote for the action of his party. His maiden speech was in defense of the proposed amendment to the Constitution giving the choice of the President and Vice-President directly to the people. It at once placed him in the front ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... more of the limousines, yachts and chefs than any other three types combined, and gets more for his money out of them than others do. The keynote of his nature is personal enjoyment. His senses of touch and taste ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Ashton's special care, and she took great pains to make it the keynote of the school-life for the day. So far in the term, what she said had its bearing on the immediate duties before them; but this morning she had felt the need of meeting the cases of homesickness ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... but one to strike the keynote of respect and personal freedom in marriage; the other ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... overpowered with a sense of insignificance utterly foreign to her previous experience. But now she discovered with an agreeable sensation of surprise she could vibrate to such a keynote. And while she communed with this pleasant discovery the car sped down a straight stretch and around a corner and stopped short to unload sacks of mail at a weather-beaten yellow edifice, its windows ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... keynote of his failure was sounded in his last words, "my own world." He had never felt, or tried to feel, that this narrow sphere was his own world. It was some lower level to which he had come with good tidings and honest intentions but, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The keynote of my first book lies of course in the distinction between sensual love and romantic love. This distinction seemed to me so self-evident that I did not dwell on it at length, but applied myself chiefly to the task of proving that savages and ancient nations knew only one kind, being strangers to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... herself conferred that honor upon them when she considered them worthy. No one had ever voiced her belief that she was ready, although Nyoda knew how each one had coveted the title. She was able to read Agony clearly, and knew that the keynote of her life was ambition. She was pretty certain that Agony wanted to be a Torch Bearer because it was the highest rank to which a Camp Fire Girl could aspire, and she wanted to be on the top. As yet she had ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... Edward. I think too there is a measured music, a central time and tune, in every life. Quick, melodious natures like Ethel's never wander far from their keynote, and are therefore joyously set; while slow, irresolute people deviate far, and only come back after painful dissonances ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... broad. They looked with interest at the first houses, one on each side of the way. And here again they were met by the sharp contrast which was evidently to be the keynote of Amara. The house on the left was European, built of white stone, clean, attractive, but uninteresting, with stout white pillars of plaster supporting an arcade that afforded shade from the sun, windows with green blinds, and an open doorway showing a little hall, on the floor ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Daily Call and the Chronicle, gave up large space to the services, debates and other features of the Convention, and they were always complimentary in their comments on individuals as well as on receptions and sermons and addresses. The keynote of the Convention was struck by the Right Rev. Benjamin Wistar Morris, D.D., Bishop of Oregon, in his sermon based on St. Luke, chapter v, verse 4:—"Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... Christian Science church erected in Boston strikes a keynote of definite attention. This church is in the fashionable Back Bay between Commonwealth and Huntington avenues. It is one of the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique structure in any city. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, as it is officially called, is termed by its founders ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... gave him a running sketch of the chance guests, Graham heard scarce half she said, so occupied was he in trying to sense his way to an understanding of her. Naturalness was her keynote, was his first judgment. In not many moments he had decided that her key-note was joy. But he was dissatisfied with both conclusions, and knew he had not put his finger on her. And then it came to him—pride. That ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... noble boy, whose guardians, a Presbyterian earl and a Roman cardinal, quarrelled for his soul and for his acres, is an immense satire from first to last. In Disraeli's own words, used in another sense, the keynote of Lothair is "mockery blended with Ionian splendour." Never had he mocked so dauntlessly, never had his fancy been more exuberant, and those who criticise the magnificence must realise that it was intentional. It was thus ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... asserts itself exultingly on the celebration in memory of the Maccabean heroes, on the days of Purim, at wedding banquets, at the love-feasts of the pious brotherhood. This fusion of melancholy and of rejoicing is the keynote of mediaeval Jewish music growing out of the grotesque contrasts of Jewish history. Yet, despite its romantic woe, it is informed with the spirit of a remote past, making it the legitimate offspring of ancient Hebrew music, whose characteristics, to be sure, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... short letter we find the keynote of all our subsequent troubles. The complete and almost absurd confidence of the British, supported as it was by valour without wisdom or activity, was a "voice" and nothing more. Deeply have we suffered since those words were written, for an arrogant under-estimation ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... cultured scientists were merely indulging in a bit of fun, from much of which they were necessarily barred while in the class room. But a sharp look at the faces of the men who were at the head of an expedition, conducting a mysterious search, showed the boys that earnestness was the keynote. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... all in a somewhat lengthened series of designations for good people. They are these: 'the righteous'—'them that are of a broken heart'—'such as be of a contrite spirit'—'His servants,' and then, lastly, comes, as basis of all, as, so to speak, the keynote of all, 'none of them that trust in Him.' That is to say—righteousness, true and blessed pulverising of the obstinate insensibility of self alienated from God, true and blessed consciousness of sin, joyful surrender ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Nazi propaganda has been demonstrated repeatedly during the past decade. That its keynote was set by Hitler himself becomes evident upon an examination of his statements on foreign policy over a period of years. Not only has his policy been marked by a series of shifts and turns, so that ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... of blood in the bird beats toward flight and song. In a conscious being this movement toward perfection must take a conscious form. This conscious form is happiness,—the satisfaction of the vital impulse,—the rhythm of the inward life,—the melody of a heart that has found its keynote. To say that all men long for this is simply to confess that all men are human, and that their thoughts and feelings are an essential part of their life. Virtue means a completed manhood. The joyful welfare ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... were pressing the young secretary for his answer, and one of them anxiously repeated the keynote, "An examination which prejudiced ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... articulated a program that included the following statement: "It is proposed to publish a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge." This keynote of basic research has been adhered to over the years in the issuance of thousands of titles in serial publications under the Smithsonian imprint, commencing with Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge in 1848 and continuing with ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... keynote of his mood. He felt as if he trod on air—as if he had but to walk boldly forward and every obstacle must give way. The door of No. 13 was open, and a boy who had brought a telegram was turning away from it. Hurrying in with eager eyes and his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... trestles a number of glasses, half filled with raw potato-spirit, gave the keynote to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the tonic harmony of C minor; upon the primary accent of the 4th measure; it is considerably longer than any other tone in the phrase; and the keynote c is placed both at the top and at the bottom of the harmonic body. See also Ex. 15; the cadence is perfect, because the cadence-chord, on the accent of the 4th measure, is the tonic harmony of G major, with the keynote as highest and as ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... and influential families of the kingdom; and some of the Dissenters, who were disgusted with the treatment they received from Cromwell, occasionally lent them a kind of passive aid. Taking these considerations as the keynote to the song, attempts have been made to discover the meaning which was originally attached to its leading words. It is difficult at the present time to give a clear explanation of all its points. The following, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... struck the keynote of the whole subject of recreation. The word comes from re-create. It means the refreshment of the strength and spirits by some diversion. The great difficulty with most people is that the recreation they take is really a burden to them; when, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... young or old, that heard it. And she went to him, through the air it seemed; but, quick as she was, another was as quick; the mother had seen him first, and she was there. Christie saw nothing. With another cry, the very keynote of her great and loving heart, she flung her arms round—Mrs. Gatty, who was on the same ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Notman, Keene Valley; 12th, Miss Lucy C. Watson, Utica. Under all of these chairmen came the 150 assembly district leaders and under these the 5,524 election district captains. From the first it was realized that organization was the keynote to success and that to be effective it must extend into every polling precinct of the State. Mrs. Catt had no superior in organizing ability. The plan followed the lines of the political parties and was already in use ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Forest, I felt so very disinclined to believe this statement that I consulted a Russian, who is very much alive, and received the opinion that, if Mr. WALPOLE has not succeeded in drawing the real average Russian, he has given us a type whose faults and virtues sound the keynote of the situation as it is to-day. Such an opinion is worth a thousand times more than any judgment of mine, and I am glad of the opportunity to record it. From a literary point of view it seems to me that Mr. WALPOLE, in allowing Durward to tell the tale, has created innumerable difficulties ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... the physician should observe the action of the larynx and feel if there are no spasmodic movements and if the flexibility is satisfactory. The action of the larynx can be exercised and improved by singing seconds, thirds, etc. The keynote always may be sung on oo; the second, third, etc., ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... headquarters. Your self-conceived plan has met with every encouragement from us. You will be placed in a unique position to achieve your final purpose. Now mark my words and do not misunderstand me. The very keynote of our progress is ruthlessness. To take even a single step forward towards the achievement of that purpose is worth the sacrifice of all the scruples and delicacies conceivable. But when a certain course of action is without profit to our purpose, I see ugliness ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was enough! Her beauty dazzled and overcame me. The melting languor of her large limpid eyes stole into my veins—I forgot all but her. I was in that high delirium of passion in which love, and love only, seems the keynote of creation. I touched the topmost peak of the height of joy—the days were feasts of fairy-land, the nights dreams of rapture! No; I never tired! My wife's beauty never palled upon me; she grew fairer with each day of possession. I never saw ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... solitude was as much the keynote of his existence as of that of his father and mother, many eyes were concentrated upon the development, spiritual and mental, of Ivan Gregoriev. Upon him had been fastened the hopes even of the Gregoriev serfs, who were as devoted to him and to his mother as they ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... "The keynote to this volume is found in the antagonism between the progressive tendencies of the human mind and the pretensions of ecclesiastical authority, as developed in the history of modern science. No previous writer has treated the subject from this point of view, and the present ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... 1874. He is the author of "Songs from the Southern Seas," "Songs, Legends and Ballads," and of other works. He died in 1890. All through life the voice and pen of Boyle O'Reilly were at the service of his Church, his native land, and his adopted country. Kindness was the keynote of his character. In 1896 Boston erected in his honor ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... of that service that leads to greatness. The keynote of that service is found in the words: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to give his life for many." The cross is the symbol of a service that is faithful, even ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... results, 4) and the use of these in making some generalizations or arriving at some conclusions. Then there must follow a testing of these generalizations or conclusions by further experimentation. Accuracy must be the keynote of all work, accuracy in recording experiments, accuracy in observation, accuracy in drawing, which serves as a shortcut method of description. Neatness is very desireable but should never supercede ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald
... cheery face and a pleasant word for all about you. Some one has said that the first hour of the day is the critical one. Happy is the person who can wake with a song, or who can at least hold back the fears and the grumbles until a thought of gladness has established itself as the keynote of ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... poor wretch to sit beside his pictures and collect an alms. And there is great joy in destroying that which men are too coarse to appreciate, in feeling that they have in their power that which, something tells them, belongs to a refinement they cannot attain. That was the keynote of the excesses of the French Revolution, for nothing arouses the fury of the unclean so much as cleanliness, and a man has been killed before now for daring to wash his hands. And it is this elemental love ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... passage was standing a girl, tall and sleepy-eyed. She wore a picture-hat and a costume the keynote of which was a certain aggressive attractiveness. There was no room for doubt as to which particular brand of scent was her favourite at ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and helpfulness on every page. It teaches the doctrine that no limits can be placed on one's career if he has once learned the alphabet and has push; that there are no barriers that can say to aspiring talent, "Thus far, and no farther." Encouragement is its keynote; it aims to arouse to honorable exertion those who are drifting without aim, to awaken dormant ambitions in those who have grown discouraged ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden |
