"Midas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who change everything that comes under their hands to gold, but to this privilege of Midas they join sometimes his ears!—J. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... you gold is the only thing for which I have any respect. But a man must perceive and understand the secret of this magic power. He who strives for wealth only to possess it is a heartless fool, and his fate will be that of Midas—he will starve in the midst of his treasures. But he who strives for wealth for the purpose of giving, he will discover that money is the fountain of happiness; and in his hands the dead metal is transformed into ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... said. "Do you not think I understand and know you—and your quaint English ways? But imagine how silly it is. I am quite aware that you have ample money to provide me with a feast of Midas—all of gold—if necessary, and you shall some day, if you really wish. But to stop over paltry sums of francs, to destroy the thread of our conversation and thoughts—to make it all banal and everyday! That is what I won't have. Dmitry ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... hunchbacked witches on broom-sticks and ready for flight, for the leaves, waxen, oily, inert, hung limp and listless from the sticks that pointed like needles to the north to keep the stalks inclined as much as possible from the sun. Even they had taken on the Midas touch of gold, for all green and gold that world of blue-grass was—all green and gold, except for the shaggy unkempt fields where the king of weeds had tented the year before and turned them over to his camp followers—ragweed, ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... service of an odious ostentation. But so it has. Alas! The thought of Father Christmas trudging through the snow to the homes of gentle and simple alike (forgive that stupid, snobbish phrase) was agreeable. But Father Christmas in red plush breeches, lounging on the doorstep of Sir Gorgius Midas—one averts one's eyes. ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... to look back on the fatal and universal prevalence of Gold-worship recorded in the history of our race, from the period when Midas became its victim, and the boy chased the rainbow to find the pot of treasure at its foot, to the days when the alchemist offered his all a burnt-sacrifice on the altar; until we reach the present time, when, although the manner of its worship has changed, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... dreams, aspirant to hero's fame! I craved their wonder; I had won their laughter. I had prayed for popularity; it had been granted to me—in this guise. Were the gods still the heartless practical jokers poor Midas had found them? ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... men continued to fish up plate, bullion, and dollars, as plentifully as ever, till their provisions grew short. Then, as they could not feed upon gold and silver any more than old King Midas could, they found it necessary to go in search of better sustenance. Phips resolved to return to England. He arrived there in 1687, and was received with great joy by the Duke of Albemarle and other English lords who had fitted out the vessel. Well ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... blessings, in the far-off days, Like Midas, Mynwy's monarch touched the earth, Wrought golden plenty where once reigned a dearth, And raised an empire he ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... dumped the wealth out on the table - stacks of genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls, everything portable and tangible all heaped up and topped off with piles of counterfeits awaiting the magic touch of this Midas to turn them into ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... efforts of imagination"; and that, "as a series of lines," "Comus" "may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it." But he makes peevish objections to its dramatic probability, finds its dialogues and soliloquies tedious, and unmindful of the fate of Midas, solemnly pronounces the songs—"Sweet Echo" and "Sabrina fair"—"harsh in their diction and not very musical in their numbers"! Of the sonnets he says: "They deserve not any particular criticism; for of the best it can only ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king), 70 His very minister who spied them first, (Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... all that. But Big Lars is on the crest of his wave; he has the Midas touch; everything he lays his hands on turns to gold. He believes ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... great delight have we For to be held stable and eke secre,* *discreet And in one purpose steadfastly to dwell, And not bewray* a thing that men us tell. *give away But that tale is not worth a rake-stele.* *rake-handle Pardie, we women canne nothing hele,* *hide Witness on Midas; will ye hear the tale? Ovid, amonges other thinges smale* *small Saith, Midas had, under his longe hairs, Growing upon his head two ass's ears; The whiche vice he hid, as best he might, Full subtlely from every ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in everything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said to projectors, 'Now, what ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the dreaming states of the brain in one point—that whatsoever I happened to call up and to trace by a voluntary act upon the darkness was very apt to transfer itself to my dreams, so that I feared to exercise this faculty; for, as Midas turned all things to gold that yet baffled his hopes and defrauded his human desires, so whatsoever things capable of being visually represented I did but think of in the darkness, immediately shaped themselves into phantoms of the eye; and ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... wealth and luxury. The magnificence of Pelops imparts lustre even to the brilliant dreams of the mythologist. The name of Croesus, King of Lydia, whom I have already had occasion to mention, goes as a proverb for his enormous riches. Midas, King of Phrygia, had such abundance of the precious metals, that he was said by the poets to have the power of turning whatever he touched into gold. The tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was the same with the Greek colonies which were ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... my own in wanting means, or a prince to back me and supply me with the requisites, for prosecuting the science of alchemy; but for which want alone I should now be rolling in gold, and richer than ever was Midas, Crassus, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the harbour, and have set up their easels on every spot that is not already occupied by a fish barrel or an auctioneer or a man with a knife in his teeth preparing to gut a dogfish. The town has lost its head. It has become Midas for the day. Every time it opens its mouth a herring comes out. A doom of herrings has come upon us. The smell rises to heaven. It is as though we were breathing fish-scales. Even the pretty blue overalls of the children have become spotted. Everywhere barrels and boxes have been piled high. We ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... it, began to flow with such great volume of water that the horsemen became unable to pass over. So the brothers, having come to another region of Macedonia, took up their dwelling near the so-called gardens of Midas the son of Gordias, where roses grow wild which have each one sixty petals and excel all others in perfume. In these gardens too Silenos was captured, as is reported by the Macedonians: and above the gardens is situated a mountain ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... The caller laughed and waved his hand in dismissal of the topic. "Well, Mr. Corliss," he went on, shifting to a brisker tone, "I have come to make my fortune, too. You are Midas. Am I of sufficient importance ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... on historic ground. To our right, on the Owas, a tributary of the Sakaria, was the little village of Istanas, where stood the ancient seat of Midas, the Phrygian king, and where Alexander the Great cut with his sword the Gordian knot to prove his right to the rulership of the world. On the plain, over which we were now skimming, the great Tatar, Timur, fought the memorable battle with Bajazet I., which resulted in the capture ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... veils. But with Seltanetta he enjoyed conversations and tales, to his, as well as her, heart's content. The merest trifle which had the slightest connexion with the other, could not be passed over without a minute description, without abundant repetitions and exclamations. Love, like Midas, transforms every thing it touches into gold, and, alas! often perishes, like Midas, for want of finding some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... whose tuneful and well measur'd song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas' ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth air could'st humour best our tongue. ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... knew anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined—Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, rather than submit to be saddled ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch; If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much— Too grateful for the blessing lent Of simple tastes ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... is beautiful and dances well is, of course, the ideal ballroom belle. But—this for encouragement—these qualities can in a measure at least be acquired. All things being more or less equal, the girl who dances best has the most partners. Let a daughter of Venus or the heiress of Midas dance badly, and she ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Midas' treasury better you presented Him that owns not a slave nor any coffer, 5 Ere you suffer his alien ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... change the name, as you must change, And of a stone be called Weeping-cross: Because it standeth cross of Cynthia's way, One of whose names is sacred Trivia. And after penance thus perform'd you pass In like set order, not as Midas did, To wash his gold off into Tagus' stream; But to the Well of knowledge, Helicon; Where, purged of your present maladies, Which are not few, nor slender, you become Such as you fain would seem, and then return, Offering your service to great ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... February, when the very air effervesces an ozone intensely exhilarating—of a nature half spring, half winter—to make one long to cut capers. The buildings are a blazing mass of royal purple and golden yellow, and national flags, bunting and decorations that laugh in the glint of the Midas sun. The streets a crush of jesters and maskers, Jim Crows and clowns, ballet girls and Mephistos, Indians and monkeys; of wild and sudden flashes of music, of glittering pageants and comic ones, of befeathered and belled horses. A madding dream of color and melody ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... remain. Whoever this person may be, he deserves, for such a judgment of Midas, that "the nail" which Mr. Bowles has "hit in the head," should he driven through his own ears; I am sure that they ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... for so short a while you will have but the patience to lend me an ear; yet not such a one as you are wont to hearken with to your reverend preachers, but as you listen withal to mountebanks, buffoons, and merry-andrews; in short, such as formerly were fastened to Midas, as a punishment for his affront to the god Pan. For I am now in a humour to act awhile the sophist, yet not of that sort who undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over school boys, and teach a more than womanish knack of brawling; but in ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... suppose he must represent the reeds. You know the story of King Midas's barber, who found out that his royal master had the ears of an ass beneath his hyacinthine curls. So the barber, in default of a Mr. Wynne, went to the reeds that grew on the shores of a neighbouring lake, and whispered to them, "King Midas has the ears ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... dawn, men from the Old World had journeyed there. There are two very old fragments of knowledge which indicate at least the possibility of a Western World of which the ancients had knowledge. There is a fragment, preserved from the fourth century before Christ, of a conversation between Silenus and Midas, King of Phrygia, in which Silenus correctly describes the Old World—Europe, Asia, and Africa—as being surrounded by the sea, but also describes, far to the west of it, a huge island, which had ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich that it would have taken ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... sign which marked out his duty, aided his faith, and determined his action. The sign which I seek is somewhat similar. Money is not everything. It is not by any means the main thing. Midas, with all his millions, could no more do the work than he could win the battle of Waterloo, or hold the Pass of Thermopylae. But the millions of Midas are capable of accomplishing great and mighty things, if they be sent about doing good under the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Cf. Poebel, Hist. Texts, p. 51 f. With the god's apparent subterfuge in the third of these supposed versions Sir James Frazer (Ancient Stories of a Great Flood, p. 15) not inaptly compares the well-known story of King Midas's servant, who, unable to keep the secret of the king's deformity to himself, whispered it into a hole in the ground, with the result that the reeds which grew up there by their rustling in the wind proclaimed it to the world (Ovid, Metamorphoses, ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... operation, prejudicial to her industry, knowledge, and power. It would seem that the acquisition of the more precious metals, which may be likened to the power of converting every thing that is touched into gold, is to nations what it was to Midas,—a source of evil instead of good. Spain, having substituted the artificial stimulus of her American mines in the place of the natural and nutritive food of real industry, on which she fed during the dominion of the Moors, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Heraclidae; and with a new dynasty seems to have commenced a new and less Asiatic policy. Gyges, supported by the oracle of Delphi, was the first barbarian, except one of the many Phrygian kings claiming the name of Midas, who made votive offerings to that Grecian shrine. From his time this motley tribe, the link between Hellas and the East, came into frequent collision with the Grecian colonies. Gyges himself made war with Miletus and Smyrna, and even captured Colophon. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that even his pigs of lead, By crossing with some by Midas bred, Made a perfect mine of his piggery. And as for cattle, one yearling bull Was worth all Smithfield-market full Of the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... many forms. When the old Puritan saw a man going to the gallows, "There," he said, "but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford". When the rich man, entering his club, sees some wretched tatterdemalion, slouching on the pavement, there, he may say, goes Sir Gorgius Midas, but for—what? I am here and he there, he may say, because I was the son of a successful stock-jobber, and he the son of some deserted mother at the workhouse. That is the cause, but is it a reason? Suppose, as is likely enough, that Lazarus ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... sepulcher. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee; Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man: but thou, though meager lead, Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught, Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence; And here choose I: joy be ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... allegory of the 'Triumph of Riches,' and the 'Triumph of Poverty,' and of his portrait sketches. In the 'Triumph of Riches,' Plutus, an old man bent double, drives in a car, drawn by four white horses; before him, Fortune, blind, scatters money. The car is followed by Croesus, Midas, and other noted misers and spendthrifts—for Cleopatra, the only woman present, is included in the group. In the 'Triumph of Poverty,' Poverty is an old woman in squalor and rags, who is seated in a shattered vehicle, drawn by asses and oxen, and guided by Hope ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... long, dark corridors of Whitehall, was known to no one save those two. For Elizabeth had a strong, masculine soul; she needed no confidant to share her secrets; and Thomas Seymour had feared even, like the immortal hair-dresser of King Midas, to dig a hole and utter his secret therein; for he knew very well that, if the reed grew up and repeated his words, he might, for these words, lay his head ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... sung, when Midas' Ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) 70 His very Minister who spy'd them first, (Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! you deal ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... some gloss, is ordained for all our prayers so long as the day lasts, but when the night comes, we take up a contrary sound instead. Then we rehearse Pygmalion,[1] whom his gluttonous longing for gold made a traitor and thief and parricide; and the wretchedness of the avaricious Midas which followed on his greedy demand, at which men must always laugh. Then of the foolish Achan each one recalls how he stole the spoils, so that the anger of Joshua seems still to sting him, here.[2] Then we accuse Sapphira ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... subdued the Pisidians who made head against him, and conquered the Phrygians, at whose chief city Gordium, which is said to be the seat of the ancient Midas, he saw the famous chariot fastened with cords made of the rind of the cornel-tree, about which the inhabitants had a tradition, that for him who should untie it, was reserved the empire of the world. Most authors tell the story of Alexander, finding himself unable to untie the knot, the ends ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... to Canada. Canada contributes not a dime to England. Though a tariff against alien lands and trade concessions to her colonies would bring such prosperity to those colonies as Midas could not dream, England confers no trade favor to her colonial children. There have been times, indeed, when she discriminated against them by embargoes on cattle or boundary concessions to cement peace with foreign powers. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... punishment of the attempt upon thy life—for dear repose of conscience, may all the gods forbid it should ever prove to have been an accident!—the family were seized and summarily disposed of, and their property confiscated. And inasmuch, O my Midas! as the action had the approval of our Caesar, who was as just as he was wise—be there flowers upon his altars forever!—there should be no shame in referring to the sums which were realized to us ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... twine to the ankle of every bird, then liberate them. Some are certain to fly into the crater and try to scrape the glue off in the sand. Then," I added, triumphantly, "all we have to do is to haul in our birds and detach the wealth of Midas from their ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... was not pious or admirable, but possessed with the disease of building, and turned everything into bricks and mortar, just as it is said Midas turned things into gold. So ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... (Loud and prolonged applause; the word "thousand" preceding the word "dollars" and itself preceded by any numeral from one to one million, inclusive, being invariably provocative of acclaim in a subscription meeting of representative citizens.) Mr. Douglas took pride in nominating that Midas of Medicine, Dr. Surtaine. (More and louder applause.) The Reverend Dr. Wales, of Dr. Surtaine's church, sonorously seconded the nomination. So did Hollis Myers, of the Security Power Products Company. So, a trifle grumpily, did Elias M. Pierce. Also Col. Parker, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... riches; if prosperity come, he will not enter poor into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and satisfaction. Etre et pas avoir—to be, not to possess—that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a time there lived a very rich King whose name was Midas, and he had a little daughter whom he loved very dearly. This King was fonder of gold than of anything else in the whole world: or if he did love anything better, it was the one little daughter who played so merrily beside ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... this, That he and Poverty should always kiss. And to this day is every scholar poor; Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor. Likewise the angry Sisters thus deluded, To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded That Midas' brood shall sit in honour's chair, To which the Muses' sons are only heir; And fruitful wits, that in aspiring are, Shall discontent run into regions far; And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy But be surprised with ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... embraced the religion of their sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes gratified the ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... during that summer a very advantageous option in a part of Africa on the Transvaal frontier, rumoured to be auriferous. Now, whether it was auriferous or not before, the mere fact that Charles had secured some claim on it naturally made it so; for no man had ever the genuine Midas-touch to a greater degree than Charles Vandrift: whatever he handles turns at once to gold, if not to diamonds. Therefore, as soon as my brother-in-law had obtained this option from the native vendor (a most respected chief, ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... mourn'd the sordid fate To that melodious lyre assign'd, Beneath a tutor who so late With Midas and his rout combined By spiteful clamour to confound That very lyre's enchanting sound, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... joyously in the sunlight. He gave a little cry of delight as he let them run in a shining stream from hollowed hand to hollowed hand, and contemplated their jingle and glitter with the delight of a new Midas. But the first thought that welled up in his heart to welcome this strange wealth ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... from certain financial anxieties, if not financial needs; while his neighbor, who is neither very learned nor able, nor yet in any wise remarkable in his moral development, is living much after the fashion of Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold. But is gold the test ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... before Tmolus, to play, their followers came with them, to hear, and one of those who came with Pan was a mortal named Midas. ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... had watered the horses at a little creek that was already skimmed with ice, and unwrapped a package of sandwiches on his knee and offered me one, I broke loose. Silence may be golden, but even old King Midas got too big a dose of gold, once upon a time, ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... purse. The necessity of spending the entire week's earnings is obvious, and to assist him in doing so seems to be the only visible means of support of half the people of the town. The dance-house and the gambling-saloon, flaunting their gaudy attractions, own him for the hour their king. His Midas touch is all-powerful. I must confess, with all my admiration for his character, that his tastes are low. I know that the civilization of the East would bore him immeasurably, and that he considers Colt, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... not trust these secrets to the earth, E'er since she brought forth reeds, whose babbling noise Told all the world of Midas' ass's ears. [She whispers him in the ear.] Dost ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us in dollars and cents, we are not on the road ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... roll of the billows of the mountains and canyons wedged in between is redolent of memories of the argonauts and emigrants. Yonder are Yuba, Dutch Flat, the North Fork, the South Fork (of the American River), Colfax, Gold Run, Midas, Blue Canyon, Emigrant Gap, Grass Valley, Michigan Bluff, Grizzly Gulch, Alpha, Omega, Eagle Bird, Red Dog, Chips Flat, Quaker Hill and You Bet. Can you not see these camps, alive with rough-handed, full-bearded, sun-browned, stalwart men, and hear the clang of hammer upon drill, the shock of ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... butter. Member of society (child). Memnon. Memory. "Men-women." Mercury. Mere-patrie (la). "Merry Month" (May). Messages. Messenger-bird. Messerin. Metamorphoses. Metempsychosis. [Greek: Maetris]. Metropolis. Midas. Midnight. Midsummer. Milk. "Milk and Honey." Milk-tree. Milky Way. Mimicry. Mind-goddess. Minds (children's). (parents'). Minerva. Miniatures. "Ministering Children's League." Miracles. Mishosha. Mississippi. Mistress. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... indeed. Genealogy is not my science. If you should claim to descend in a direct line from King Midas I would ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... man who frets at worldly strife Grows sallow, sour, and thin; Give us the lad whose happy life Is one perpetual grin: He, Midas-like, turns all to gold,— He smiles, when others sigh, Enjoys alike the hot and cold, And laughs through ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... erhitzet durch ein glas, Vermeinet mehr reichtum zu haben, Dan Midas und Crsus besass; Ja grosser frsten gunst und gaben, 10 Dienst mpter, glck und herrlichkeit Tritt ich zu grund ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... wooded by-ways of this despised domain that Challis Wrandall and Sara, the earthly daughter of Midas, met and loved and defied all things supernal, for matches are made in heaven. Their marriage did not open the gates of Nineveh. Sebastian Gooch's paradise was more completely ostracised than it was before the disaster. The Wrandalls spoke of it as ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... was gone from Merrihew's heart. Since Kitty evinced a desire to avoid him, the world grew charmless; and the fortune of Midas, cast at his feet, would not have warmed him. On the way over to the hotel, however, he whistled bravely and jingled the golden largess in his pockets. He bade good night to Hillard and sought his room. Here he emptied his ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... the shore about two miles from Granite House, Herbert and Neb were fortunate enough to capture a magnificent specimen of the order of chelonia. It was a turtle of the species Midas, the edible green turtle, so called from the color both of its ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... glad enough, both of them, if I drew out now! But I won't do it! It is mine, all mine, and I am going to find it! They shall have their shares, as I promised them: ten per cent each. And I, Sir Midas, will not be suspected then of falling in love with you as I am doing because you are ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... Ireland that I can defend him no longer. Lord Anglesea assured me that the story of applying Piso out of Tacitus(22) to Lord Treasurer's being wounded is true. I believe the Duke of Beaufort will be admitted to our Society next meeting. To-day I published the Fable of Midas,(23) a poem, printed in a loose half-sheet of paper. I know not how it will sell; but it passed wonderfully at our Society to-night; and Mr. Secretary read it before me the other night to Lord Treasurer, at Lord Masham's, where they equally approved of it. Tell ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... turn'dst To me for comment, is the general theme Of all our prayers: but when it darkens, then A different strain we utter, then record Pygmalion, whom his gluttonous thirst of gold Made traitor, robber, parricide: the woes Of Midas, which his greedy wish ensued, Mark'd for derision to all future times: And the fond Achan, how he stole the prey, That yet he seems by Joshua's ire pursued. Sapphira with her husband next, we blame; And praise the forefeet, that with furious ramp Spurn'd Heliodorus. All the mountain ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... not mistaken. The engraving was of the eight-hundred-ton yacht Idalia, belonging to "that prince of good fellows, Midas of the money market, and society's pink ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the father of Midas (q. v.), who was proclaimed king of Phrygia because he happened, in response to the decree of an oracle, to be the first to ride into Gordium during a particular assembly of the people; he rode into the city on a waggon, to which the yoke was attached by the Gordian ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the water of the sea there is gold—about 400 tons in a cubic mile—in very much of the soil, some in all Philadelphia clay, in the Pactolian sands of every river where Midas has bathed, and in many rocks of the earth. But it is so fine and so mixed with other substances that in many cases it cannot be seen. Look at the ore from a mine that is giving its owners millions of dollars. ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... sense of this passage is far from being certain; I have followed the interpretation proposed, with some variations, by Pinches, by Haupt, and by Jensen. The stratagem at once recalls the history of King Midas, and the talking reeds which knew the secret of his ass's ears. In the version of Berossus, it is Kronos who plays the part here assigned to Ea in regard ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "and containeth of gold ten pounds to the hundredweight. Moreover—" He sifted down upon the dark wood beside the stones a thimbleful of dull yellow grains. "The sands of Pactolus, gentlemen! Sure 'twas in no Grecian river that King Midas bathed himself!" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... ever; Palamedes, Odysseus, Nestor, and a few other conversational shades, keep him company. His legs, by the way, were still puffy and swollen from the poison. Good Diogenes pitches close to Sardanapalus, Midas, and other specimens of magnificence. The sound of their lamentations and better-day memories keeps him in laughter and spirits; he is generally stretched on his back roaring out a noisy song which drowns lamentations; it annoys them, and they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... wisdom of Midas, who could turn rags and rusty nails into gold, even as thou dost," said Nello, "and he had also something of the ass about him. But where is thy ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... tales about old King Midas have a thruppence worth of truth in them, it might be his father's meanness ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... crushed with horror at such a crime. He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to recommend ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... power To Midas given of old To touch a flower And leave the petals gold I then might touch thy face, Delightful boy, And leave a ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... beget children as useless as themselves, being persuaded that it was an injury both to the community and to the infirm person himself that he continue in the world, even though he were richer than Midas. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... which concealed nothing and evaded nothing became to him at first a small annoyance, and then a constantly aggravated irritation. His star of Destiny rode at its zenith. Every venture turned under his Midas hand to gold and increased power. He mounted to succeeding heights until it seemed that like Alexander he must soon brood over the smallness of the world's opportunity. Colossal mergers grouped themselves into structures of stupendous strength. His pride ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... ministers; senators, with embassies in prospect, laugh at instructions; representatives think they have made a good bargain when they exchange the barren approval of constituencies for the smile of one whom a lucky death, perhaps, has converted into the Presidential Midas of the moment; and in a nation of adventurers, success is too easily allowed to sanctify a speculation by which a man sells his pitiful self for a better price than even a Jew could get for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... the morning was still. In this realm at least, a heritage from his mother, seemingly untrodden by the foot of man, the woman at his side was his. From Holdfast over the spruces to Sawanec in the blue distance he was lord, a domain the wealth of which could not be reckoned in the coin of Midas. He turned to her as they flew down the slope, and she averted her face, perchance perceiving in that look a possession from which a woman shrinks; and her remark, startlingly indicative of the accord between them, lent a no less startling reality ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Greece, had one very droll legend. Midas, king of the Bryges, at the foot of Mount Bermion, had a most beautiful garden, full of all kinds of fruit. This was often stolen, until he watched, and found the thief was old Silenus, the tutor of Bacchus. Thereupon he filled with wine the fount where Silenus was used to drink ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bids us attain perfection, not by striving to do dazzling deeds, but by making our experience divine; it tells us that the Christian hero will ennoble the humblest field of labor; that nothing is mean which can be performed as duty; but that religious virtue, like the touch of Midas, converts the humblest call ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... coarse and pungent sentence the sort of homage which Parisian ladies would have been willing to pay to Law if he had so desired. St. Simon, the mere litterateur and diplomatist, kept his head almost alone, and was not to be dazzled. Since the fable of Midas, he said, he had not heard of any one having the power to turn all he touched into gold, and he did not believe that virtue was given to M. Law. There is no doubt that Law was a man of great ability as a financier, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... hours our fishing proceeded energetically but without bringing up any rarities. Our dragnet was filled with Midas abalone, harp shells, obelisk snails, and especially the finest hammer shells I had seen to that day. We also gathered in a few sea cucumbers, some pearl oysters, and a dozen small turtles that we ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... says he, relate, "that having wrapped his cloak about his neck, he ordered his servant to fix his knees against his buttocks, and not to leave twisting till he had strangled him." Others say, that, in imitation of Themistocles and Midas, he drank bull's blood. Livy tells us, that Hannibal drank a poison which he always carried about him; and taking the cup into his hands, cried, "Let us ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such, Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch; About as fat as a chancel rat, and lo! despite my will, In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... house we were informed was an old miser whose passion for accumulating wealth reduced him into almost as unfortunate a state as Midas, who, according to the fable, having obtained the long-desired power of turning every thing he touched to gold, was starved by the immediate transmutation of all food into that metal the instant it touched his lips. The late possessor of the house I am speaking of, when he was about fifty years ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... twenty-four, and fairly good-looking, and not as conceited as men generally are at that age. Personally, I prefer them older, but he evidently approves of me, and that is soothing to the feelings. Julias, surnamed "Midas," is only twelve, and a most amusing character. I asked Lorna and Wallace how he got his nickname, as we sat together over a fire in the old schoolroom the first night. They laughed, and Wallace said—(of course, I call him Dr Wallace, really, ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... considerable number of Diptera, or two-winged flies, that closely resemble wasps and bees, and no doubt derive much benefit from the wholesome dread which those insects excite. The Midas dives, and other species of large Brazilian flies, have dark wings and metallic blue elongate bodies, resembling the large stinging Sphegidae of the same country; and a very large fly of the genus Asilus has black-banded ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... Midas treads a wearier measure: All he touches turns to gold: If there be no taste of pleasure, What's the use of wealth untold? What's the joy his fingers hold, When he's forced to thirst for aye?— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... have an old record of the existence of large double Roses in Asia by Herodotus, who tells us, that in a part of Macedonia were the so-called gardens of Midas, in which grew native Roses, each one having sixty petals, and of a scent surpassing all others ("Hist.," ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... a story told of Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom; namely, that he informed him(74) that never to have been born, was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the next best thing was, to die very soon; which very ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... been and will be overcome by money. The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George in like ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... from the petals; the air is full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape clusters; the grass is burning hot beneath the naked feet in sunshine, and cool as water in the shade. Diving from this overhanging beam,—for Ovid evidently meant that Midas to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch, If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them MUCH, - Too grateful for the blessing lent Of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... behold Whose walls are glass, whose gates are gold, Whose turrets, risen in an hour, Dazzle between the sun and shower, Whose sole inhabitants are kings Six cubits high with gryphon's wings And beard and mien more glorious Than Midas or Assaracus; Though priests in many a hill-top fane Lift anguished hands—and lift in vain— Toward the sun's shaft dancing through The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue; Though 'cross the stars nightly arise ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... this be said of the discourse of Lysias? See whether you can find any more connexion in his words than in the epitaph which is said by some to have been inscribed on the grave of Midas the Phrygian. ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... exquisite and costly decoration! what gold and glass! what Sevres and Dresden! But the more I admired the beautiful works of art, the more I thought of the enthusiasm and devotion of the artist, the more I was touched by the grace and delicacy of color and form around me; and the more I heard Midas talk, the more clearly I saw that he did not see, or feel, or understand anything of the real value and significance of his own entourage. The more beautiful it was, the more plainly it displayed his total want of ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... libations, or maintaining a cautious reserve. The whispered opinions of false philosophers will soon be loudly echoed by the popular voice, which is less timid, because it is more honest. Even thus did Midas laboriously conceal the deformity of his head; but his barber, who saw him without disguise, whispered his secret in the earth, and when the winds arose, the voices of a thousand reeds proclaimed to the world, 'King Midas hath ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... and fresh; glades yet unsear'd by hand Of Midas-finger'd Autumn, massy-green; Bird-haunted nooks between, Where feathery ferns, a fairy palmglove, stand, An English-Eastern band:— While e'en the stealthy squirrel o'er the grass Beside me to the beech-clump dares to pass:— In this still precinct of ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Frontal, Fr., a frontlet, or forehead band.—Cotgrave. A frontlet is mentioned as part of a woman's dress in Lyly's "Midas," 1592: "Hoods, frontlets, wires, cauls, curling-irons, periwigs, bodkins, fillets, hair laces, ribbons, rolls, knotstrings, glasses," &c. See also Mr Steevens's note on "King ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... apartments of Demosthenes. Yours excel them in space and altitude; your ornaments are equally chaste and beautiful, with more variety and invention, more airiness and light. But why, among the Loves and Graces, does Apollo flay Marsyas?—and why may not the tiara still cover the ears of Midas? Cannot you, who detest kings and courtiers, keep away from them? If I must be with them, let me be in good humour and good spirits. If I will tread upon a Persian carpet, let it at least be in ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... large brown eyes to mark her horror, and Allen, made a gesture of exaggerated sympathy, which his sister took for more earnest than it was, and she said, scornfully, "I should like to see him literally rolling in gold. It must be like Midas. Do you mean that he sleeps on it, Jessie? ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and you bring up all sorts of fish. In England if you go into educated society, you are likely to meet almost exclusively educated people—or at least people with the stamp of educated manners. Sir Gorgius Midas is not of course inexorably barred from the society of duchesses. Her Grace of Pentonville must have met him frequently. But in America the duchesses have to rub shoulders with him every day. And—which is worth noting—their husbands also ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... for engravers, and etched a Judgment of Midas. Round the room of a tavern in Drury Lane, where was held a club of virtuosi, he painted a Bacchanalian procession, and presented the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... who rode in the wagon with Gordius was Midas. After his father Gordius died, Midas was chosen King of Phrygia. He was kind and just to the people, as Gordius must have been, or they would not have chosen his son Midas to be ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... topaz success. I sparkled, blazed, and people complimented profusely (criticizing sotto voce), and envied openly; and when I bowed myself out at last, I felt like Sir Peter Teazle on quitting Lady Sneerwell's: 'I leave my character behind me.' Mamma was charmed with me, and Mr. Silas Midas looked proud possession, as if he had in his vest pocket a bill of sale to every pound of my white flesh,—and Mr. Erle Palma smiled as benignly as some cast-iron statue of Pluto, freshly painted white, and glistening ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Beneath thy Midas touch life's sullen grays Are thrilled to sudden gold; as some far gleam From wings of Helios athwart thy dream Irradiates for thee earth's darksome ways. Wild woodland voices ripple thro' thy lays; Sweet silvern murmurs from some deep-delled spring, Brook, tree and flower and each insensate ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... a pound of chopped meat and a package of macaroni, and to be counting Hunt's pennies—remembering those days when he had been a personage to head waiters, and had had his table reserved, and with a careless Midas's gesture had left a dollar, or five, or ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... called apo tou pesein, from falling; inventing a tale that the statue fell from heaven; others affirm that Ilus, the son of Tros, king of Dardania, gave the place this name, which Theopompus says it received not from this, but from Midas, formerly a most powerful ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... where titles were held only by physical possession of the premises? During the long winter of their absence, ice had held their treasure inviolate, but with the warming summer the jewel they had fought for so wearily would lie naked and exposed to the first comer. The Midas lay in the valley of the richest creek, where men had schemed and fought and slain for the right to inches. It was the fruit of cheerless, barren years of toil, and if they could not guard it—they knew ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... parts of his body, by choice or preference; which is that which denominates him free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether freedom were free, he would be suspected not to understand well what he said; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who, knowing that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches, should demand ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... in spite of his jest, that his innate goodness was the Midas like touch, and that he bore in his own heart the "philosopher's stone," transforming all ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... very instructive for us. It is true that there seems to be an exception in the case of a small family of South American apes. The small silky apes (Arctopitheca or Hapalidae), which include the tamarin (Midas) and the brush-monkey (Jacchus), have only five molars in each half of the jaw (instead of six), and so seem to be nearer to the eastern apes. But it is found, on closer examination, that they have three premolars, like all the western apes, and that only the last ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... of his'n!" How could Mrs. Saggs speak of them so? They were heroic, effectual fingers. Theirs was something far greater than the Midas touch—they transmuted the smallest service ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the son of Gyges had saved out of the wide, weltering wreck of his wealth, and had concealed in his boots? Royal palms were not wholly free from pruritus even then. Why has this silly world still persisted in putting long ears upon Midas? I do not know whether he sang better or worse than Apollo; and I am sure it is much better, and bespeaks more sense, to play the flute ill than to play it well. Depend upon it, his Majesty of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Juventian youths the flowret fair Not of these only, but of all that were Or shall be, coming in the coming years, Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears) On him that owns nor slave nor money-chest 5 Than thou shouldst suffer by his love possest. "What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest, "Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest My words disdain ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... sickness, and who was happy away from home? What would she have given to him who should have revealed the truth? But the rushes round the ownerless island did not chatter like the reeds to which King Midas's barber trusted his secret. Athalie was consumed with envy, while she vainly sought for a key to the riddle. At home and in public, Timar and Timea presented the exemplary picture of a happy marriage. He heaped on his wife expensive ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... have known me twenty-five years, and you know that I am a man of my word. If ever a malevolent word from you regarding my wife should come to my ears, I shall elongate yours to such a degree that those of King Midas will ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... of a green-house in Reggie's artistically ordered room. It was larger too than on the occasion of Geoffrey's visit; for the folding doors which led into a further apartment were thrown open. Two big fires were blazing; and old gold screens, glittering like Midas's treasury, warded off the draught from the windows. The air was heavy with fumes of incense still rising from a huge brass brazier, full of glowing charcoal and grey sand, placed in the middle of the floor. In one corner stood the Buddha table twinkling ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... often based)—an idea that is profoundly moral even if the tales are immoral. It is what may be called the flaw in the deed: the idea that, if I take my advantage to the full, I shall hear of something to my disadvantage. Thus Midas fell into a fallacy about the currency; and soon had reason to become something more than a Bimetallist. Thus Macbeth had a fallacy about forestry; he could not see the trees for the wood. He forgot ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... his heel and stepped back into the waiting-room. Mr. Ross nudged a brother lieutenant and whispered, "By gad! that's awkward for Midas!" The two subalterns who had taken the wrong turn at the top of the stairs reappeared there just as the rescuer shot past them on his way back, and stood staring, first after his disappearing form, and then at each other. Miss Travers, with wonder and ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... consisted were full of meat. There was no descriptive reporting; but what could be more expressive than the announcement of a marriage in such terms as these:—"On Tuesday se'n-night, Squire Brown of Bumpkin Hall was married to Miss Matilda Midas of Halifax, a handsome young lady with ten thousand pounds to her dowry"? We are much more florid nowadays, but by no means so precise. The leader-writer did not spread himself abroad a hundred years ago. Indeed, soon after the Leeds Mercury gave up discussing the amiable weakness ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Pollybel, Catilius, Matilius, and Patilius, Cinalene, Hinalene and Linalene, Bess, Chess, Hess and Zess, Didas, Fidas and Midas, Linalene, Winalene and Zinalene, Dillius, Millius and Fillius, Hestor, Lestor and Nestor, Are all ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... for the cardinal, I knew well enough that the better the stanzas were written, the more disposed he would be to sign them. All I wanted was clearness, so difficult to obtain in poetry, while a little doubtful darkness would have been accounted sublime by my new Midas. But, although I wanted to please him, the cardinal was only a secondary consideration, and the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... may be hoped, will equally succeed in that wonderful Australasia where our colonists now have the shaping of their destinies in their own hands, amid the yet unexplored amplitude of a land where "in the softest and sweetest air, and in an unexhausted soil, the fable of Midas is reversed; food does not turn to gold, but the gold with which the land is teeming converts itself into farms and vineyards, into flocks and herds, into crops of wild luxuriance, into cities whose ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... the Spanish treasure—"hard food for Midas"—that threw its jaundiced glory about the cradle of George the Fourth; what is that to the promise of plenty, augured by the natal day of our present Prince? Comes he not on the ninth of November? Is not his advent glorified by the aromatic clouds of the Lord ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... ignorance of Sir Midas Pyle, or as Lord Fitz-Fulke, with his delightful imitation of the East London accent, called him, Sir "Myde His Pyle," as he leaned back on his divan in the Grand Cairo Hotel. He was the vulgar ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the Mississippi to the Pacific, and to exploiting the hitherto neglected or unknown natural resources of the country. Every year science furnished new methods of converting nature's products into man's wealth. Chemistry, the doubtful science, Midas-like, turned into gold every thing that it touched. There were not native workers enough, and so a steady stream of foreign immigrants flocked over from abroad. They came at first to better their own fortunes by sharing in the unlimited American ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... retouch." All my demurs but double his attacks; At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks." Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door, Sir, let me see your works and you no more. 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king), His very minister who spied them first (Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my face? ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... from our maladjustments: If we are denied power, influence, or love by society or by individuals, we can obtain these desiderata in our dreams. We can possess in dreams the things which we cannot have by day. In sleep the poor man becomes a Midas, the ugly woman handsome, the childless woman surrounded by children, and those who in daily life live upon a crust in their dreams dine like princes (after living upon canned goods for two months in the Dry Tortugas, the burden of my every dream was food). Where the wished-for things ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... careless verse, And Midas ears relent not at my moan! In some far land will I my griefs rehearse, 'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan! England adieu! the soil that brought me forth! Adieu unkind where ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Unknown, mystic Felicity Sangrael of childish quest much sought, aethereal "Real Tea" Thy faintest tint of yellow on the milk and water pale Like Midas' stain on Pactolus, gives joy ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... about his neck, he commanded his servant to set his knee against his back, and not to cease twisting and pulling it, till he had completely strangled him. Others say, he drank bull's blood, after the example of Themistocles and Midas. Livy writes that he had poison in readiness, which he mixed for the purpose, and that taking the cup into his hand, "Let us ease," said he, "the Romans of their continual dread and care, who think it long and tedious to await the death of a hated old man. Yet Titus ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... as long as those of Midas, Or stand out salient from either side as A close-cropped ARRY's, at right angles set To his flat jowl, we cannot settle, yet; But in one thing, at least, a score they'll chalk— They will not hear the stuff their ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... wanted to use it. It became a drug in her markets; it could not lawfully be exported, and no {431} amount of it would purchase much honest labor from an indolent population fed on fantasies of wealth. The modern King Midas, on whose dominions the sun never set, was cursed with a singular and to him inexplicable need of everything that money was supposed to buy. His armies mutinied, his ships rotted, and never could his increasing ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells |
