"Chord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touched some secret chord—though what it was he was too busy to inquire. The girl drew herself up proudly, blushing ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... tease him, contradict him, and make him listen to long pieces of scientific music as she played them on the piano, when she knew he always said that music to him was nothing but a disagreeable noise; she would laugh at his thanks when a final chord, struck with her utmost force, roused him from a brief slumber; in short, it amused her to prove that this coarse, rough man was to her alone no object of fear. She would have done better ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... her half bare arm, she brushed aside a portiere and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind the curtains and ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... weird impressiveness of the scene there could be no doubt. It even touched some unfamiliar chord in the soul of Nicol Brinn. The effect of such an interview upon an imaginative, highly strung temperament, could be well imagined. It was perhaps theatrical, but that by such means great ends had already been achieved he knew to ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... chord, and the girls chimed in weakly. Then, the music, strengthening their hopes as it progressed, made them more cheerful. Loudly, they brought out the words of ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... that good old man once more." 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
... conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting, in the Portraits,—these are the characteristics, and that in a surpassing degree, of the Causeries. The whole arrangement, too, is different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. The papers at once acquired a popularity which of course had never attended the earlier ones. "He has not the time to make them bad," was the praise accorded by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... from hence is the gentle hill Carambis, on the north, opposite to which, at a distance of 2,500 furlongs, is the Criu-Metopon, a promontory of Taurica. From this spot the whole of the sea-coast, beginning at the river Halys, is like the chord of an ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... upon the Town Square, and across it to the Mayoralty. The square had once been the Franciscans' burial-ground, and was really no square at all, but a semicircle. The townspeople called it Mount Folly. The chord of the arc was formed by a large Assize Hall, with a broad flight of granite steps, and a cannon planted on either side of the steps. The children used to climb about these cannons, and Taffy had picked out his first letters from the words Sevastopol and Russian ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... importance. Knowledge is not forthcoming as to just when or by whom such application was made. If this was an Arabic innovation, it was perhaps the most important one with which that nation is to be credited. Another mathematical improvement was the introduction into trigonometry of the sine—the half-chord of the double arc—instead of the chord of the arc itself which the Greek astronomers had employed. This improvement was due to the famous Albategnius, whose work in other fields we ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... concern us, but also in the perfectly disinterested judgments we form of the events of history or of the characters in fiction and poetry. Great exhibitions of heroism and self-sacrifice touch a genuine chord of enthusiasm. The affections of the domestic circle are the rule and not the exception; patriotism can elicit great outbursts of purely unselfish generosity and induce multitudes to risk or sacrifice their lives for causes which are quite other than their own selfish interests. Human ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... particularly affected by it, owing to the leven of prejudice that the beliefs and ideas of the past have left in the mind of modern man. The cause of female suffrage is one sure to strike a sympathetic chord in every unprejudiced man, because it represents the cause of the weak who, deprived of the means to defend themselves, are compelled to throw themselves upon the mercy of ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... few paces with an energetic, as if soldierly, stride; he bowed a second time after which he straightened as a chord and, looking straight into the Mahdi's ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... is," continued the O'Kelly, "that I'm such a healthy beggar; it don't give her a chance. If I were only a chronic invalid, now, there's nothing that woman would not do to make me happy. As it is—" The O'Kelly struck a chord. We ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased. With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies. How soft the music of those village bells Falling at intervals upon the ear ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... classical design of the pavement is uniform throughout, but the higher and lower portions are distinguished by separate inscriptions, one across the chord of the apse, the other along the step immediately within the railing. These inscriptions ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... to widen the gulf between him and his fellow-man, whose sword was never drawn in defence of the right? Genius! The very word is instinct with nobility and heartiness. Genius clasps hands with true souls everywhere: it wakes the chord of brotherhood in rude hearts in hovels, and quickens the pulses under the purple and ermine of palaces. It has a smile for childhood and a reverent tone for white-haired age. Its clasp takes in the frail flower bending from slender stems and the stars in their ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... interposes. The young man watches her emotions with a penetrating eye, conscious that he has touched a chord in which all the milk of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... address was given in the newspaper as Old Change, so at once I resolved to see him. Although I could not recall the details of our previous meeting, if, indeed, he should turn out to be the same person, yet the mere sight of the name had produced a mental pleasure, as a chance chord struck may bring a grateful harmony to the mind. I determined to get my credentials from Mr. White if possible, for his recommendation would in truth be much more valuable than that of the gruff old nobleman to whom I had first applied, because, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Ivanhoe, by Sir ARTHUR S. SULLIVAN, Mus. Doc. From what our Musical Critic has seen of the score, he is able to wink his eye wisely but not too well, and to hint that as Mr. Guppy says, "There are chords"; and to make these chords in combination, the strings are admirably fitted. There is one chord (will it be recognised as belonging to Box?) which— But, as Sir ARTHUR says, "Where will be the surprise, if your Musical Critic tells everything beforehand?" He is right, quite right, and, thank goodness, he is quite well, and not ; but the Composer is in the playfullest of humours, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... creative power. When he is thoroughly satisfied that he can produce the effect at will, he abandons it for something newer and a little higher. The boy who discovers, without being told, that the dominant chord, followed by the tonic, produces a certain musical effect, is doing something that for him is on a par with Wagner's searching the piano for those marvellous effects of his that are often ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... embers; fan into a flame; foster, heat, warm, foment, raise to a fever heat; keep up, keep the pot boiling; revive, rekindle; rake up, rip up. stir the feelings, play on the feelings, come home to the feelings; touch a string, touch a chord, touch the soul, touch the heart; go to one's heart, penetrate, pierce, go through one, touch to the quick; possess the soul, pervade the soul, penetrate the soul, imbrue the soul, absorb the soul, affect the soul, disturb the soul. absorb, rivet the attention; sink into ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... it to a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the "River ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... 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 ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... I complained of you just now that you never looked at the Byzantine font in the temple of St. John. The sacristan generally will not let you. He takes you to a particular spot on the floor, and sings a musical chord. The chord returns in prolonged echo from the chapel roof, as if the building were all one ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... so dark as to be barely perceptible, while a peculiar somber fragrance pervaded the atmosphere. The music rapidly ran the gamut to the limit of audibility and, in the same tempo, the lights traversed the visible spectrum and disappeared. Then came a crashing chord and a vivid flare of blended light; ushering in an indescribable symphony of sound and color, accompanied by a slower succession of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... his ear, than his whole frame was agitated; his heart throbbed so violently that its beating could be seen; and so great was his excitement, that it was necessary instantly to stop the music. Some chord of feeling had been struck; perchance he was reminded, for a moment, of his desert home, and of the friends from whom he had been ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... he slowed his steps, enchanted by the thunder of the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash of the wheels on the cobbles. And then there was a new, delightful chord in the uproar—the musical clanging of a gong and a great shining juggernaut belching fire and smoke, that people were hurrying ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... be suited to the trials of a minister's life. But finding that Henry was firm in his opinion that this sound general principle did not in the least apply to this particular case, the professor proceeded to touch the tenderest chord in the young man's heart. He told him that it would be ungenerous, and in some sense dishonorable, for him to take a woman delicately brought up into the poverty and trial incident to a minister's life. If you understood, sir, how ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... begin to sing a song, you go on and on to the end without thinking about it at all. It is the theme that carries you. Well, a human life is made like a song,—it carries itself along. You do not stop to think why. It can't stop in the middle, on one chord, for long. Yours now is resting, on a chord of happiness. But soon it will go on again. You want it to. Life in the Forest, though, isn't like that. Here it is music without any theme, like the music we dance to. Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmm. But there is ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... to live again, it must be exquisite to die pushing the eager breast against the sword. In the flush of strength to face the sharp pain joyously, and laugh in the last glance of the sun—if only to live again, now on earth, were possible. So subtle is the chord of life that sometimes to watch troops marching in rhythmic order, undulating along the column as the feet are lifted, brings tears in my eyes. Yet could I have in my own heart all the passion, the love and joy, burned ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... of the old woman with her magnificent dark eyes and deep metallic voice, and her evident knowledge of the king's habits, were too much for the menial—a chord of superstition had been touched; it vibrated, and he was quelled. Humbly but quickly he ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... the mere fact that an acquaintance was in danger and distress would scarcely have sufficed to cause me to sacrifice, or at least to greatly complicate, my own chances of escape in order to promote hers simply because that acquaintance was of the other sex. But Emma had touched a new chord in my nature, and I felt, whether I liked it or not, that whatever I could do for myself I must do for her also. So I ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... this misuse of analogy. Feeling, imagination, instinct are too many for her; and any mood, from fun to earnest, from nonsense to sublimity, may hear a responsive note when this chord is touched. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... is," Amarinth said softly to Mrs. Windsor, as Lord Reggie ranged the little boys before him, and prepared to strike a chord upon the piano. "There is nothing in the world worth having except youth, youth with its perfect sins, sins with the dew upon them like red roses—youth with its purple passions and its wild and wonderful tears. The world worships youth, for the world is very old and grey ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... if she should appeal to him some day, in some celebrated spot—in Italy, say, in the evening; in Venice, in a gondola, by moonlight—if she should be a little clever about it and touch the right chord, perhaps he would fold her in his arms and tell her that he forgave her. Catherine was immensely struck with this conception of the affair, which seemed eminently worthy of her lover's brilliant intellect; ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... chord died into silence, but the woman lingered, dreaming over the keys. Firelight from the end of the room brought red- gold gleams into the dusky softness of her hair and shadowed her profile upon the opposite wall. No answering flash ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... Plato in his Commonwealth, discoursing of the faculties of the soul, has very well compared the symphony of reason and of the irascible and the concupiscent faculties to the harmony of the middle, lowest, and highest chord, (See "Republic," iv. p. 443.) some ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... affection, which is sometimes a less intense, at other times a more intense, feeling than the emotions aroused during courtship. The process may be compared to a modulation in music, in which some of the tones in a chord are retained while others are displaced by new ones. Such modulations are delightful, and the new harmony may be as beautiful as the old. A visitor to Wordsworth's ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been since the days of the dear old doll, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... that slowly she became taut and rigid almost as he, with wide eyes gazing into the night. He had struck a hidden chord; struck it ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... The poet and the philosopher, the painter and the sculptor, rank as high through pen, pencil, and chisel, as the warrior by his blade and his bloody exploits. Art, in the North, finds no existence, and strikes no sympathizing chord in the bosoms of the sturdy Northmen. Art, to be perfect, requires a distinctness of conception, and an assimilation to human nature in its subjects, entirely at variance with the dim, mysterious character of the Scandinavian imagination. Painting is a thing utterly unknown, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... seated on a huge stone beneath a fig-tree, looking on that mingling of light and motion which we call the Sea. From time to time the sail of a fisherman's boat, or the smoke which hung like drapery above the pipe of a steamer, rose above the chord of the arc which formed the gulf, and afforded a relief to the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... incomprehensible feint of strangeness. But her dying eyes searching the face close to them discover in it no glimmer of feeling. Her heart-broken murmur: "Siegfried.... knows me not?" touches no chord. The hero is for handing her over with all convenient haste to her proper guardian. "Gunther, your wife is ailing!" As Gunther comes, he rouses her: "Awake, woman! Here is your husband!" Because her senses seem clouded and she a moment before ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... cents in the box office for me," Gorry interpreted, forcibly, while the band belched forth a chord like the groan of a dying monster, calling them ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... gather all the ages in my song And send them singing up the heights to thee! Chord by aeonian chord the stars prolong Their passionate echoes to Eternity: Earth wakes, and one orchestral symphony Sweeps o'er the quivering harp-strings of mankind; Grief modulates into heaven, hate drowns in love, No strife now but of love in that great sea Of song! I dream! I dream! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... made with enthusiasm and interest, and does it thus at once strike a responsive chord ...
— A Guide to Methods and Observation in History - Studies in High School Observation • Calvin Olin Davis
... long! The artistic temperament is not merely artistic perception, with which it is so often confounded. You may be steeped to the lips in that temperament, and yet not be able to arrange flowers with deftness, draw a volute, or strike a true chord. And you may be able to do all these, and yet be dead in heart and cold in brain—a mere curly-wigged poodle doing its clever tricks with dexterity, and obedient to the hand that feeds it. The artistic temperament is not this, but something far ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and dark. Now, would you know the means by which the musician has worked, so as to admire him to-morrow for the secrets of his craft after enjoying the results to-night? What do you suppose produces this effect of daylight—so sudden, so complicated, and so complete? It consists of a simple chord of C, constantly reiterated, varied only by the chord of 4-6. This reveals the magic of his touch. To show you the glory of light he has worked by the same means that he used to represent darkness ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... our less giddy island there rose, amidst hours of business in Scotland and of idleness in England, three troubadours of quite different temper. Different also themselves, but not opponent; forming a perfect chord, and adverse all the three of them alike to the French musicians, in this main point—that while the Ca ira and Marseillaise were essentially songs of blame and wrath, the British bards wrote, virtually, always songs of praise, though by no means psalmody in the ancient keys. On the contrary, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... as warmly as his troublesome impediment permitted, and said that he would himself write to the Count de Gramont. Then, bending over his friend, took his hot, unquiet hand, and spoke to him again and again. His voice failed to touch any chord of memory and cause it to vibrate in recognition. Maurice was muttering the same word over and over; Gaston hardly needed to bow his head to catch the imperfect sound; he knew, before he heard distinctly, that it was ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... disguise; if this were an exhibition of woman's wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... one dove, Than tones or colours in chord, We are one—and safe, and for ever, my love, Two thoughts in the heart of ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... inspire,—as, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." The instructive maxim opens a vista of truth to the intellect, as when Goethe said, "A man need not be an architect in order to live in a house." The inspiring maxim strikes a martial chord in the soul, as when Alexander said to his Greeks, shrinking at the sight of the multitudinous host of Persians, "One butcher does not fear many sheep." The evil of self-ignorance is, that it permits men to choose as their favorite and guiding maxims those adages ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... FEEL) so exactly alike on some points that there can be no discussion between us? Your words on this paper express my thoughts. Well-argued it is,—clear, logical,—but vast is the hiatus of omission; harsh the consequent jar on every finer chord of the soul. What is this hiatus? I think I know; and, knowing, I will venture to say. I think the writer forgets there is such a thing as self-sacrificing love and disinterested devotion. When I first read the paper, I thought ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... except through the medium of my own mind and that of his father. The subject interested him, and he gave much serious thought to it, questioning me closely at some of our interviews, as if dissatisfied with the idea conveyed to him. Our discussions, however, had reached some slumbering chord in him, which, once touched, stirred his blood with its vibrations. I do not think his isolation could have lasted much longer, for he became restless and eager to see ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... am happy, my father!" Here a sudden change was visible,—some chord of sorrow was touched, and it vibrated ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a trace of anger or animosity, and the grave, kind tones made some way in the winding avenues leading to Royston's heart. Besides this, the last word struck the chord of the misgiving that had haunted him ever since he proposed the flight, and had already made him half repent it. But the fortress did not ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... chord in every human heart that has a sigh in it if touched aright. When the artist finds the key-note which that chord will answer to—in the dullest as in the highest—then ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... first comes upon it clad in spring and summer verdure. The rippling Vire at its very feet gives at once the note; it not only binds and enwraps it like the setting of a precious stone, but adds that one feature which, lacking, would be a chord misplaced. Perhaps no other cathedral in all France, with regard to its bijou setting, certainly no other so accessible to the English tourist, has more dainty charm than this not very grand, but graceful, church at St. Lo. Its towers, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... morbid feeling would vanish if the chord of sympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my persuasions were vain, the mind could not be bent from its natural inclination. Shelley shrunk instinctively from portraying human passion, with its mixture ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... wisdom and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance, And must ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... a familiar chord in my memory, but I could not put a name to its owner. The girl looked at me with eyes grown suddenly horror-stricken. I noticed that her face had taken on the hue ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... pathos exclaimed, "How striking the resemblance! and who could not recognise the expression of majesty and gentleness, that——" "Fudge!" cried the king. Conscience had probably something to do with the abruptness of the exclamation. The old chamberlain had unwittingly touched a tender chord; every allusion to the queen appearing like a tacit reproach to the august and widowed spouse. "That portrait," added the king, "is too flattering, the queen was far from handsome"; then, as if inwardly repentant of his harshness, he rose from ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... 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 strangers, and were more ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... perpendicular to it. Then the measuring wedge is introduced until a stoppage occurs through the contact of the buttons with the sides of the tube. Finally, their distance apart is read on the scale. Such distance apart will be the measure of a diameter or a chord of the tube's section, according as the buttons have been kept in the diametral plane or moved out of it. In order that the operator shall not be obliged to watch the position of the line of calibrating buttons in obtaining the diameter, the following ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... characteristic manner a lonely tramp at night, with the grotesque streaks of the moonlight breaking quaintly into the pedestrian's contemplative mood. The music is curiously lonely and suggestive of a quiet moonlight night in the country. Particularly lovable are the soft, characteristic chord progressions, followed by lonely silence, on the second page, just before the opening melody returns. The piece ends with the moon kissing ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... great tracts of our lives through which we have passed mechanically, and which seem to have left no trace on the mirror of our consciousness, we still, all of us, have experiences which make that all-recovering memory credible. Some passing association, a look, a touch, an odour, a sun-set sky, a chord of music will bring before us some trivial long-forgotten incident or emotion, as the chance thrust of a boat-hook will draw to the surface by its hair, a long-drowned corpse. If we are, as assuredly we are, writing with invisible ink our whole life's history on the pages of our own minds, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... allegorical style, the quaint and grotesque imagery in which Dante delighted, must have touched an answering chord in the hearts of scholars like Philip Sidney and ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Giles. Sally was not so sure about Lavinia. The slim girl was now a woman. She carried herself with an air. She had exchanged her shabby garments for clothes of a fashionable cut which she knew how to wear. Still, some chord in Sally's memory was stirred and she advanced into the shop with a puzzled ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... can impart, because it is a produce neither of hand nor brain, but of the player's individual soul. Desmond's fingers were unpractised, but he gave every note its true value; and he played slowly, as though composing each chord as it came, or building it up from memory. It was almost as if he were thinking aloud; and Honor had just decided that she really had no business to be overhearing his thoughts, when an apprehensive "woof" from the Aberdeen brought them suddenly ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... 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 declares, you are out of ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord of the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. A dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the senses; the equatorial zone of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... be taught a fault; but the womanly love and devotion, and unselfishness, are all there, writ in clear and uncompromising characters. The first and last acts were decidedly the best; in the latter especially Miss Anderson touched a true pathetic chord, and fairly elicited the pity and sympathy of the audience. With a gentle wonder and true dignity she meets the gradual dropping away of her illusion, the crumbling of her unreasoning faith, the cruel stings when her spiritual nature is misunderstood, and her actions misinterpreted. ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... night I saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of a fool! Comfort? Comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... occurs. Those who perform on the violin use the same notes as in our division, and they tune the instrument by fifths to a great nicety. They are fond of playing the octave, but scarcely use any other chord. The Sumatran tunes very much resemble, to my ear, those of the native Irish, and have usually, like them, a flat third: the same has been observed of the music of Bengal, and probably it will be found that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... an artist—not in a week, a month, a year—Art exacts of its votaries no less service than a lifetime. But in her girl's soul the right chord had been touched, which began to vibrate unto noble music—the true seed had been sown, which day by day grew ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... words, the little child is not equipped psychologically to hear complicated units. I wish some one could determine how the average four-year-old hears the harmony of a chord on the piano. Is it much except confusion? In the same way, he is not equipped to leap a span between units. I wish some one would determine the four-year-old's memory span for rhymes, for instance. ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... with pathos and charm, the look, the attitude from which all formality had fled and only the natural grace remained, all were of the sort which sways without virtue and rouses in both weak and strong an answering chord of sympathy. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... As Venice herself, by type of constitution and historical development, remained sequestered from the rest of Italy, so her painters demand separate treatment.[235] It is enough, therefore, for the present to remember that without the note they utter the chord of the Renaissance ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... the name suddenly gave me the clue so long wanting. It aroused within me a sense of impending evil regarding the very man of whom we were speaking. The sound of the name seemed to strike the sympathetic chord within my brain, and I at once became cognisant that the unaccountable presage of impending misfortune was connected with that rather incongruous household down ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... 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 ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... replied: "Because you never pay any attention to the arpeggio, dear. It doesn't begin on the chord. It begins on the G flat. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... she said at last, her smooth voice vibrating as if he had touched some chord of passion which was usually hushed to silence, "I should know better what you mean. You deal too much in hints and insinuations. You have said things of this sort before. I ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... introduced into music by the chord of the dominant seventh, the invention of which is attributed to Monteverde. However, Palestrina had already employed that chord in his "Adoremus," but probably without understanding its importance or divining ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... struck a superstitious chord in Jonah, and he went out of his way to find a plan for relieving the old man without showing his hand. He consulted his solicitors, and then an advertisement in the morning papers offered a reward to anyone giving the whereabouts of Hans Paasch, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... no time to waste in vain speculations. My whole being was still vibrating to those magic syllables, "secret drawer;" and that particular chord had been touched that never fails to thrill responsive to such words as CAVE, TRAP-DOOR, SLIDING-PANEL, BULLION, INGOTS, or SPANISH DOLLARS. For, besides its own special bliss, who ever heard of a secret drawer with nothing in it? And oh, I did want money so badly! ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... his mountain ideals, and more, were caught and kept enshrined—visions still, and of mightier peaks and ampler valleys, romantically "tost" and sublimely "lost," as he had so often written in his favourite rhymes. In the vignettes to Rogers' "Italy," Turner had touched the chord for which John Ruskin had been feeling all these years. No wonder that he took Turner for his leader and master, and fondly tried to copy the wonderful "Alps at Daybreak" to begin with, and then to imitate this new-found magic art with his own subjects ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... in the days of his innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham, was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring the subversion of all his hopes, the crushing of all his social vanity, and the utter overthrow of his pride, smarting in each separate I that exists ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... prophecies which they have foretold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation—take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds —struggle with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground—let the night-OWL send forth its screams from the stubborn oak—let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... occasionally in Decamps, whose oriental landscapes and figures, far less important intellectually, far less magistrales in conception, have at times, one may say perhaps without being too fanciful, a truly symphonic quality that renders them unique. "The Suicide" is like a chord on a violin. But it is when we come to speak of the "Fontainebleau Group," in especial, I think, that the aesthetic susceptibility characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth century feels, to borrow M. Taine's introduction to his lectures ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... timber, en moanin', en groanin', en sweekin', kyars my 'memb'ance back ter ole times, en 'min's me er po' Sandy." The pathetic intonation with which he lengthened out the "po' Sandy" touched a responsive chord in our ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... painting in this respect is a chord—a momentary expression fixed in material media. A melody of light requires succession just as the melody in music. The restless colors of the opal comprise a light melody like the songs of birds. The gorgeous splendor of the sunset ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... important a part in our Christian organs and organizations today. The music, whoever plays, is bound to be thin when the tops of "Instant Obedience" and "Fiery Valor" are missing or unused, and without them to play the "Lost Chord" of Heroism is ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... the pet of the mining town. There was not a man in the place, no matter how rough his ways, nor how dark had been his past, who was not made the better by her presence. She touched a responsive chord in every heart. She awoke tones that had been silent for years, and stirred into life resolves that had lain dormant for a generation. When the weather grew milder with the approach of spring, she flitted like a bird from cabin to cabin, equally at ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... German oracles in its support, the cause cannot be put aside. Even in the midst of war, Philosophy will be heard, especially when she speaks words of concurring authority that touch a chord in every heart. Leibnitz, Kant, and Fichte, a mighty triumvirate of intelligence, unite in testimony. As Germany, beyond any other nation, has given to the idea of Organized Peace the warrant of philosophy, it only remains now that she should insist ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... sounds that we cannot hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire tree-top—the tops of several trees— and all in full song. Suddenly—in a moment—at absolutely the same instant—all spring into the air and fly away. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... right chord, and, after a momentary and half-convulsive sob, she rose quietly, and said, "Tell me what to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the maiden, in tones as soft and tremulous as the lightly-touched chord of some musical instrument, as she threw back her veil, and disclosed a beauty of features and sweetness of countenance that at once raised a buzz of admiration through ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... wheels over the cobbles seems to wake an agonized chord in every bosom. To-day this dread visitation descends on Jacques; but who can tell—so the neighbors say to themselves—when the same fate may strike some other household now happily unconscious! All along the narrow way sorrow-drooped heads protrude in rows; from every casement dangle ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... found in the Gospel, that it passed over them without even rousing their intellect, and so vanished without doing any hurt. Tuned to the truth by obedience, no falsehood they heard from the pulpit partisans of God could make a chord vibrate in response. Dawtie indeed heard nothing but the good that was mingled with the falsehood, and shone like a ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... always the chord Of the Overword, Dominant, pleading, sure, No truth too small to save and make endure. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... building, building yet, Where dawn and midnight mingled and woke no birds, In the last courses, building past his knowledge A wall that swung—for towers can have no tops, No chord can mete the universal segment, Earth has not basis. Yet the yielding sky, Invincible vacancy, was there discovered— Though piled-up bricks should pulp the sappy balks, Weight generate a secrecy of heat, Cankerous charring, crevices' fronds ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... same Time that these Buboes appeared, severals towards the Decline of this Fever complained of a Pain all along the Spermatic Chord; and soon after a Swelling of the Testicle appeared[22]. However, this Complaint was not peculiar to those who had the Fever; for others recovering from Fluxes, and other Disorders, were likewise affected with such Swellings. I did not observe any Symptom of this Kind in Fevers while I was ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... may be found in some of the mazurkas of Chopin. He was, as Rubinstein called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and others have gone farther ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Mrs. Embury whose volume of verse, "Love's Token Flowers," was just out and being warmly praised; and George P. Morris, Willis's partner in the Mirror, whose "Woodman, Spare that Tree!" and "We were Boys Together," had (touching a human chord) made him popular. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... deep vivid vermilion-red, upon dark cold green? Look at the hip-loaded rose-briar burning in the last rays of a red October sunset! You get physical pleasure from the sight; the eye seems to vibrate to the harmony as the ear enjoys a chord struck upon the strings. Therefore do not fear. But mind, it must be in nature's actual colour, not merely "green" and "red": for I once saw the head of a celebrated tragic actress painted by a Dutch artist who, to make it as deathly as he could, had ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... all was still. No light shone upon the tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world crib, I unwittingly pressed some secret spring which straight swung ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... "It will do him no harm, and may cool his peppery blood some!" had been the keeper's decision. So the door was left open, and Last Bull entered or refrained, according to his whim. It was noticed, however,—and this struck a chord of answering sympathy in the plainsman's imaginative temperament,—that, though on ordinary nights he might come in and stay with the herd under shelter, on nights of driving storm, if the tempest blew from the west or northwest, Last Bull was sure to be out ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... full tone, rose, and hoarsely trailed off into silence again. Then the accompanist glanced over his shoulder, and struck a ringing chord while he waited for a sign. There was a curious stirring in the audience. The girl in the shimmering dress stood quite still for a moment with a spot of crimson in her cheek and a half-dazed look in her eyes. Then, turning swiftly, she moved ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... became a more and more sensible deficiency, till at last the instinct of the multitude filled it up in this amazing manner." When Theodore Parker, in his morning prayer on a beautiful summer Sunday, addressed the All-loving as "Our Father and our Mother," he struck a chord which will one day vibrate through the heart of universal humanity. It was a thought worth infinitely more than all the creeds ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... I pretended to enjoy in the hope of pleasing her. Over this we talked more like old and well proven friends than mere acquaintances of ten days' standing. Just once or twice the mysterious chord which marred the girl's charming conversation was touched. She immediately changed the subject on observing my distress. I say distress, for a weaker word would not fittingly describe the emotion I felt whenever she blundered into the pseudo-scientific nonsense which was her brother's favourite affectation. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... record of its doubts and its faith, its sorrows and its triumphs, at each era of its existence. Wonderfully artless and correct—because all utterances which were not faithful to their time, which did not touch some sympathetic chord in their heart's souls, are pretty sure to have been swept out into wholesome oblivion, and only the most genuine and earnest left behind for posterity. The history of England indeed is the literature ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... another string: "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of knowledge in every community where it exists; slavery, then, must be abolished before this prediction can be fulfiled. The last chord I shall touch, will be this, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... radiant air! O, do you remember—" and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burned within him. In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last, that chord hitherto dormant and unsuspected. The mere chatter of these southern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and through with it; what would one moment of the real ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... The electric chord in Isaura's heart was touched. Who cannot conceive what the young writer feels, especially the young woman-writer, when hearing the first cheery note of praise from the lips of a writer of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lights on the ancient altar, and the muffled roll of an organ broke into sonorous waves, like reverberations of far-away thunder; and why was it, tell me, that the universal glory thrilled me only as a sensuous chord of color, but in the dark corner consecrated to the worship of our God, my soul expanded, as if a holy finger touched it, and I fell on my knees, and prayed? Each of us comes into this world dowered with the behest to make desperate war against that indissoluble 'Triple Alliance, the World, the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the 9th, 11th, or the 99th, but a lens far 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. And so he is an ascetic! There is a distance ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... peasant tasks, and have encouraged peasant ignorance—ignorance being the mainspring of contentment, and contentment the bed-rock of happiness; but it is all to no purpose. A note from the other world will strike upon the chord of my being, and the spirit which has been dozing within me awakens and fiercely beats at its bars, demanding some nobler thought, some higher aspiration, some wider action, a more saturnalian pleasure, something more than the peasant life ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... as the local poet. Encouraged by the generous applause, he announced that he would recite some lines 'he 'ad wrote on the great storm which committed such 'avoc on hour pier.' There were local descriptions, and local names, which always touched the true chord. Notably an allusion to a virtuous magnate ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... interests which it was necessary to conciliate, asked Jefferson to see the governor of Maryland, so that that State might be brought into the undertaking, and referred to the danger of being anticipated and beaten by New York, a chord of local pride which he continued to touch most adroitly as the business proceeded. Very characteristically, too, he took pains to call attention to the fact that by his ownership of land he had a personal interest in the enterprise. He looked far beyond his own lands, but ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... was no time for the indulgence of sentiment; she knew that duty must be done, even though every chord of her heart quivered with agony. After much consideration and earnest prayer, she had concluded to let him go, and the thought of sending him away from her, and all he loved, among entire strangers, was what made her so sorrowful. She strove to calm herself by the reflection, that she had done ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... soul, my lord, is fashioned—like the lyre. Strike one chord suddenly, and others vibrate. Your name abruptly mentioned, casual words Of comment on your deeds, praise from your uncle, News from the armies, talk of your return, A word let fall touching your youthful passion, Suffused her cheek, call'd to her drooping eye A momentary ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... fathers, and for their weeping mothers too. My father did not forget in his art the note he found in beautiful Florence, though it was too sad to introduce by a definite exposition, and falls upon the ear, in "Monte Beni," like a wordless minor chord. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... grandfather and grandmother, to the bright little children, who read the advent of some impending calamity in the gloomy countenances and bitter words of their parents. The passion for the possession of land is the chord on which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates with 'the deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an improving landlord it is generally touched so cunningly, that its most exquisite torture cannot easily be proved to be a grievance. He presents an alternative to the tenant; he does ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... the Arch; and in saying, the Angle of Contact hath some magnitude, his meaning is, that the Arch of a Circle hath some crookedness, or, is a crooked line: and that, of equal Arches, That is the more crooked, whose chord is shortest: which I think none will deny; (for who ever doubted, but that a circular Arch is crooked? or, that, of such Arches, equal in length, That is the more crooked, whose ends by bowing are brought nearest together?) ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... his arm partly released its clasp. Oceaxe turned around to gaze at him. Whether or not she was satisfied with what she saw, she uttered a low laugh, like a peculiar chord. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... 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
... wet and clinging clothes. As he struggled to his feet a stab of pain shot through his left hand, and up through his forearm. It was so keen and penetrating that he surmised, in his blank and unreasoning haste, that he must have torn a chord or broken a bone in his wrist. But on a matter like that, he felt, he could now waste ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... incessant pain came a ripening of the man's character. Frohman developed a great admiration for Lincoln. Often he would ask Gillette to read him the famous "Gettysburg Address." Simple, haunting melodies like "The Lost Chord" took hold of him. Marie Doro was frequently summoned to play it for him on the piano. Although his courage did not falter, he looked upon men and events with a larger ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... on a given chord the angle subtended by it at the centre of the circle is double the angle subtended by it at the circumference; ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... the memorizing takes place. The music is before me on the piano; I forget to turn the pages, and thus find I know the piece. In playing with orchestra I know the parts of all instruments, unless it be just a simple chord accompaniment; it would not interest me to play with orchestra and not know the music in this way. On one occasion I was engaged to play the Sgambatti concerto, which I had not played for some time. I tried it over on the piano and found I could ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... was their disorder. The visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard, felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady, without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... to chiefs 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 show that still ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... Alaska, he wanted to be still wealthier. It was a big game he was playing in, and he liked it better than any other game. In a way, the part he played was creative. He was doing something. And at no time, striking another chord of his nature, could he take the joy in a million-dollar Eldorado dump that was at all equivalent to the joy he took in watching his two sawmills working and the big down river log-rafts swinging ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... level voice mingled with the clouded red of the room, and again a prophetic chord of ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... From the first chord of the Grieg concerto to the finale of the Chopin ballade, Ruth had sat tensely on the edge of her chair. She had dreaded the beginning of this hour. What would happen to her? Would her soul be shaken, twisted, hypnotized?—as it had been those other times? Music—that ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... pink cliffs glowed, the fairest marvel that the eye beheld—and this in a land of wonders. And soon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the colours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those cliffs was to me as some chord of music that a master's hand had launched from the violin, and which carries to Heaven or Faery the tremulous ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... there was no doubt of the fact: the thing was a piano. There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossible that it should be—there the thing impudently stood. Gideon threw open the keyboard and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the room. 'Is there anything wrong with me?' he thought, with a pang; and drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravish silence, now with sparkling arpeggios, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the single tone of color gradually leads to the comprehension of the full chord; the recognition of single colors leads to the recognition of shades and their harmonious connections: thus, step by step, the capacity of comprehending nature in its beauty and ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... leader, in a speech of five minutes duration, and in his most oratorical style, dwelt on Mr. Gladstone's fervid sympathy for the oppressed people of all races, and touched a chord which stirred the House. As Mr. Dillon had spoken for Ireland, so Mr. Abel Thomas followed as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... me around somethin' scandalous," Bud was wont to remark, as he rose from his labors and prepared for bed. "There I was huntin' around for that chord I lit on the other night and almost findin' it, when he has to howl like a coyote with a sore throat and spile the whole thing. I ought to ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... chord that was to sound loud and long; for what else than this thought of all the senses meeting in union inspired the music drama of Wagner?—only one of his points of kinship, as we shall see, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... fine example of the all-around American high-school boys. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord of sympathy ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... the elbow that pressed against hers, and the ecstasy of her child's voice still trilling on the black silence, Lilly was conscious of movement. The gray silhouette marching down the aisle of gloom. A group up about the piano. Another chord struck out. Zoe's voice ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... in a series of fierce denunciations in the House of Representatives; Mr. Adams alone stood gallantly by the man who had dared to take vigorous measures upon his own sole responsibility. His career touched a kindred chord in Adams's own independent and courageous character, and perhaps for the only time in his life the Secretary of State became almost sophistical in the arguments by which he endeavored to sustain the impetuous warrior against an adverse Cabinet. The authority ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the greatest secret—the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... the secret of their own sensations, she ran down to the tree and peered on tiptoe at the embedded volume. On a blank page stood pencilled: "This is the last fruit of the tree. Come not to gather more." There was no meaning for her in that sentimental chord but she must have got some glimpse of a meaning; for now, as in an agony, her lips fashioned the words: "If I forget his face I may as well die;" and she wandered on, striving more and more vainly to call up his features. The—"Does he think of me?" and—"What ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a chord in my memory, and I looked out. The man who had put the question, and who was now being directed on his way—by Maignan, my equerry, as it chanced had his back to me, and I could see only that he was young, shabbily dressed, and with the air of a workman carried a small frail of tools ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... the midst of all this bustle, Willie moped and pined. He had the same chord of delicacy running through his mind that made his body feeble and weak. He kept out of the way, and was apparently occupied in whittling and carving uncouth heads on hazel-sticks in an out-house. But he positively avoided Michael, and shrunk away ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell |
