"Keyed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the same popular delight, and with even greater respect on the part of the critics. Even the formidable Jeffrey, who was supposed to dine off slaughtered authors as the Giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" dined off young Englishmen, keyed his voice to unwonted praise. The influx of tourists into the Trossachs, where the scene of the poem was laid, was so great as seriously to embarrass the mail coaches, until at last the posting charges had to be raised in order to diminish ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... egg train or something, and there won't be any news worth having until to-morrow, I suppose. This is only the morning after our night rush from Great Barrington. I hardly slept, and neither did Jack, but we are both keyed up with excitement, guessing why Peter Storm is in New York. I don't know just when he can get back, or whether he'll come here, or go straight to Kidd's Pines—or to his lodgings. But Jack and I shall motor over early ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... instant it seemed as if they were about to break for cover; and when they approached us there was a strained, expectant expression on each tanned face, a wariness in their actions that looked unnatural to me. The nearer they came the more did I feel keyed up for some emergency. I can't explain why; that's something that I don't think will bear logical analysis. Who can explain the sixth sense that warns a night-herder of a stampede a moment before the herd jumps off the bed-ground? But that is how I felt—and immediately ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the verge of waking, but it was not until dawn that the cry of "Sail-ho!" sent them all hurrying to their clothes. Ordinarily officers of the U.S. Navy do not scuttle on deck like a crowd of curious schoolgirls, but all hands had been keyed to a high pitch over the elusive light, and the bet with Edwards now served as an excuse for the betrayal of unusual eagerness. Hence the quarter-deck was soon alive with men who were wont to be deep ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep, so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a big ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... a trifle angry with myself by this time, but it only left me well keyed. My bird fell dead inside of Orme's. A murmur of applause ran down the line. "Silence in the ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... the casual interest of the feature story that now inspired Jimmy Hale, on his way the following morning with his friends to the camp of Isaac Higginbotham. Jimmy's vivid imagination was keyed to its highest pitch. Decidedly this trip to Canada seemed very much worth while, even to a star reporter. What McCall had intimated the day before whetted his appetite. He thrilled at the thought that he was on the scene where a big story might be in the very making. ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... eyes and ears and nostrils keyed for the hunt. He descended until he was not more than a hundred yards above the creek, and he no longer sought out the easiest trail, but the rough and broken places. He travelled slowly and in a zigzag fashion, stealing cautiously around great masses of boulders, sniffing ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... night in camp on the mountains, Mike never rested a minute, but moved silently from one place to another, with senses keyed for some sign of the rascals. However, that first night passed quietly away. His extra men spent the evening in smoking and playing cards, then they rolled up in their blankets and snored ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... her window a long-drawn cry. She recognized it—the high-keyed, monotonous cry of a man who often hurried past with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. Now it startled her. It filled her ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... the treatment, not the subject, is the crux of originality. Of her longer books, Alcidamie, the first, has been spoken of. The Amours des Grandes Hommes and Cleonice ou le Roman Galant belong to the "keyed" Heroics; while the Journal Amoureux, which runs to nearly five hundred pages, has Diane de Poitiers for its chief heroine. Lastly, Carmente (or, as it was reprinted, Carmante) is a sort of mixed pastoral, with Theocritus himself introduced, after ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... epithets meant merely that Subrosa was objecting to the crupper. A sudden stamping testified that Belle had approached Rosa with the bridle. A high-keyed, musical voice chanting man-size words of an intimidating nature followed which proved that the harnessing was progressing as well as could be expected. Then came a lull, and the meadow lark tilted forward expectantly, his head turned ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... while religious faith to live at all must lay hold upon reality. But there does spring from naturalism a positive religion, whose fundamental motives are those of service, wonder, and renunciation: service of humanity in the present, wonder at the natural truth, and renunciation of a universe keyed ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... wilderness before them, their courage gave way, and they said: "We migrated, expecting freedom, and now we are not even free from the cares of subsistence; we are not, as out leader promised, the happiest, but in truth the most unfortunate of men. After our leader's words had keyed us to the highest pitch of expectation, and had filled out ears with vain hopes, he tortures us with famine and does not provide even the necessary food. With the name of a new settlement he has deceived this great multitude; after he had succeeded in leading us from a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... rustle of movement. And presently another, this time closer. Every sense in him was alert, keyed up to closest attention. He knew that some one, for some sinister purpose, had come into this apartment and been trapped here ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... Professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had risen to his feet and his eyes glowed ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... or the place lowly, or both, there will be a cheery eager using of the highest powers keyed to their best pitch. If higher up, a steady remembering that there can be no power save as the Spirit controls, and a praying to be kept from the dizziness which unaccustomed height is apt to produce. Large quantities of paper and ink will be saved. For many letters of application ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... to our advantage that we'd acted without hesitation, and I don't think we'd have been able to do that except that we'd been all set to kill each other when he dropped in. Our muscles and nerves and minds were keyed for instant ruthless attack. And some "civilized" people still say that the urge to ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... on Chestnut Street was one of a pair—a large solid square of brick—with two identical oval white porticoes and rows of windows keyed in white stone. Within the staircase swept up to a slender pillared opening, through which Lacy, calmly dressing, waved a deliberate hand. Mrs. Saltonstone was seated by the tall gilt framed mirror on a low marble ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of the hymn-books, always gladly yielding to the more potent excitement of their own "spirituals." By these they could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the Apocalypse. I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... eat. This thought brought relaxation from the great physical strain and mental anxiety that had spurred him to activity and keyed his nerves to a high pitch since leaving his snow cavern early in the morning, and with the relaxation he was overcome by emotion. Tears sprang to his eyes, and suddenly he ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... encouraged him in this, and from beginning with clapping bones it was not long before he learned to play on the guitar, banjo, violin, and flute. On the Christmas when he was seven years old he was given a small one-keyed flute, and from that time on the flute became his favorite instrument. When he grew to manhood he became first flutist in the Baltimore orchestra. So passionately fond was he of music that he could scarcely decide between that and poetry ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... brave, but as always with the primitive, the darkness held infinite terrors for her. Not alone the terrors of the known but more frightful ones as well—those of the unknown. She had passed through much this night and her nerves were keyed to the highest pitch—raw, taut nerves, they were, ready to react in an exaggerated form ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this. His mood was keyed to tragedy. But he returned her half-serious, half-mocking smile with one as enigmatic, shook hands with grave formality, and surveyed with mild interest a modest heap of bank-notes of small denominations that lay on the table, catching the room's high lights. Following ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... pace nor the climbing bothered Lennon. But between the burning heat and his very natural excitement over Carmena's stealthy bearing at the turns, he became keyed to ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... to do this. Life will arrange itself, and at last I shall be able to live as others live." This borrowed purpose might last the day out, and she would plunge into a dozen matters; or it might wear off in an hour or two. Then back she went the next day to be keyed ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... was in full flower, at the high tide of his life, overspilling with vigor and virility. When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism at the contact. Every part, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium or adjustment. To sights and sounds and events which required action, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as a husky dog could leap to defend from attack or to attack, ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... things, still it changes her. She is less woman, less—whatever you choose to call it. A coarser touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... doctor, very gentle and easy. "Quite so! I fancied myself that Mr. Harden came along with the idea of making a speech either for or against." And he grinned at Billy Harden in a way that seemed to make him wild, though he tried not to show it. Somehow the doctor seemed to be all keyed up, instead of scared, like a feller that's had jest enough to drink to give him a ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... gentleman, whose eyes had been kept close during the greater part of the time which had passed, suddenly leaned forward; the "congregation" followed his example in a crack, and for ten minutes they prayed, the elderly gentleman leading the way in a rather high-keyed voice, which he singularly modulated. But there was not much of "the old Foxian orgasm" manifested by him; he was serene, did not shake, was not agonised. He finished as he began without any warning; the general assemblage was seated in a second; and for seven minutes there was another reign of ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... just the tension of town life. I know that I seem to get keyed up as soon as I come into the town. There are so many things here, and many of them are so artificial that I seem unable to relax as I do out there where there are just frogs, and moon, and chickens, and cows. When I am here I seem to have a sort of craze for things. The shop-windows ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... cruel monotony. Afflicted by the wind and the darkness, the correspondent sat with nerves keyed high waiting to hear the pickets open fire on a night attack. He was so unaccountably sure that there would be a tumult and panic of this kind at some time of the night that he prevented himself from getting a reasonable amount of rest. He could hear the soldiers breathing in sleep all about him. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... more modern date than the building itself, led upward to a stone gallery which ran all round the wall, with doors communicating with the apartments above. The hall ceiling, two storeys above the pavement, was of stone, groined; the ribs of the groins boldly moulded, and massively keyed in the centre with a stone of considerable size, boldly carved with the representation of a dragon or griffin coiled into a circle. Over the great fireplace hung a trophy of rusty and dinted armour, surmounted by another trophy of faded and dusty silken ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... into an age of spiritual conflict, he dedicated his gift to the service of Heaven, and he became, like Heine, a valiant soldier in the war for {152} liberation. He was the poet of a cause, and his song was keyed to ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... looked at his watch. It was close to midnight. In that hour his nerves had been keyed to a tension that was almost at the breaking point. Not a sound came from off the Barren or from out of the scrub timber that did not hold a mental and physical shock for him. He believed that Bram and his pack would come up ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... republican institutions; hateful in the sight of God, and ever abhorrent to all honest men. He hated slavery. He hated truckling, obsequious, cringing hypocrites. He put his feelings into vigorous English, and keyed his deeds and actions to the sublime notes of charity that filled his heart and adorned a long and eminently useful life. He gave shelter to the majestic and heroic John Brown. His door was—like the heavenly gates—ajar to every fugitive from slavery, and his fiery earnestness ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... that night Shorty, strolling down Main Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to attract the attention of others on the street. Then came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows and brought the inhabitants ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the Advocate office. When I left him after our third talk, I was definitely re-engaged as a member of his staff, at a salary of six hundred pounds per annum, having promised to take up my duties with him in one month from that date. Every nerve in my body had been keyed to the attainment of this result, and I was grateful, and not a little flattered by its achievement. I was still a poor man; but this salary, with the few hundred pounds I might hope to add to it in a year, by means of independent literary work, would ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... in a fireman's existence to encourage it. Day and night he leads a kind of hair-trigger life, that feeds naturally upon excitement, even if only as a relief from the irksome idling in quarters. Try as they may to give him enough to do there, the time hangs heavily upon his hands, keyed up as he is, and need be, to adventurous deeds at shortest notice. He falls to grumbling and quarrelling, and the necessity becomes imperative of holding him to the strictest discipline, under which he chafes impatiently. "They nag like a lot of old women," said Department Chief Bonner ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... very active circulation. She rustled, she swooped, she darted, she was as if on springs. "Well, she feels her oats," commented Little O'Grady. He looked at her again. No, what moved her was not vainglory, not a restless sense of triumph. She was keyed up to the most racking pitch of anxious expectation. She looked whither Eudoxia and Roscoe Orlando and all the others had looked, but with an intensified expression, and Little O'Grady almost felt as if challenged to solve some obscure yet ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... keyed-up for the rapids, and about six miles down we encounter the Brule, the first one, and take it square in mid-channel. We ship a little water, but pass through it all too soon, for the compelling grandeur of the Brule grips ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Eunice, after a long lapse in this high-keyed conversation. But there was no answer, and, looking again, they saw that Cricket's head was down on her arm, which was stretched ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... seem to be pretty well agreed," Charley said, trying in vain to shake off the vague feeling of impending evil, that had suddenly settled over him. "Speaking for myself, I feel too keyed up and anxious to do anything much until we get this thing over with. I move we get all our gear into shape and try to plan some way to get the plume birds hereafter without killing. That will take us until dark, I guess. Then let's quietly take ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... example, a note makes 240 complete vibrations a second while traveling 1,120 feet; if we divide 1,120 by 240 we shall get 4.66 as the wave length of this note. So it is the pitch to which a note is keyed that helps determine its distance; and the force employed to start the note sent out through the magnetic field. That is why a message projected into the ether from a high-power station carries a greater distance than one sent from ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... mail in the basket on the hall table," he said in high-keyed endeavour to express withering contempt. "If it had been for me, Jarvis would have brought it to me later. I seldom carry my reading glasses ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... (Pampanga), Pagsanjan (La Laguna), near Calamba in the same province, in Naig (Cavite), in Camarines Province, and a few other places, an attempt to improve upon the current system by employing an ingenious wooden mechanical apparatus worked by buffaloes. It consisted of a vertical shaft on which was keyed a bevel-wheel revolving horizontally and geared into a bevel pinion fixed upon a horizontal shaft. In this shaft were adjusted pins, which, at each revolution, caught the corresponding pins in vertical sliding columns. These columns (five or ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... orchestra of eighty five men Was keyed to an extraordinary patriotic pitch For these were patriotic concerts, Supported by the leading patriots of the town, (Including a Bulgarian merchant, an Austrian physician and a German lawyer), And all the musicians were getting union ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... more propitious for studying this curious phenomenon, than behind the scenes of a theatre, the last few nights before a first performance. The whole company is keyed up to a point of mutual admiration that they are far from feeling generally. "The piece is charming and sure to be a success." The author and the interpreters of his thoughts are in complete communion. ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... way for an author to feel about a play one week before the opening," Mr. Vandeford assured her, with a laugh keyed to match her declaration. "It shows an entire sympathy with the ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... waiting followed, with the men keyed up to concert pitch, so to speak, and eager for the word to come that would send them out of the trenches and against the ranks of ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... trying his own hand on it. And finally he did, and took a boyish satisfaction in his ability to manipulate the gears. Oh, perhaps it made him a little more short of breath, and he found that his nerves were more highly keyed than in the old time days,—anyhow he came home tired, ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... reading"—but it has been my experience, and that of many of my co-workers. I find, that the relief from the high tension of our trade comes from the change in the character of what we read, rather than in "something else," such as physical recreation. Fiction relaxes where "news" has keyed up. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart one was required to set it in motion. While others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the vis inertiae, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fiber. He walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing than a vacant man is likely to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... have such a natural dramatic story sense, and to this Susan Glaspell has added an increasing reticence in the portrayal of her characters. In these two stories you will not find the slightest sentimentalization of her subject matter, nor is it keyed so tightly as some of her previous work. "A Jury of Her Peers" is one of the better folk stories of the year, sharing that distinction with "The Excursion" by Miss Babcock and the two stories by Francis Buzzell, of which I have ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... amusing, his nerves excited till anything quieter than lower Broadway hurts his ears, all passion and brilliance spent on business, dinners here and there, with people who all have their ax to grind, too, and are keyed up to it by rows and rows of cocktails. He drew him without mercy, and he had every wife there either wincing or laughing, with the truth of what he said. He was quite eloquent." She paused, she laughed softly, she turned her eyes upon him. "Then, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Robin! . . . After a few Words, they retired to theire Books; and my Husband, taking my Hand, sayd in his kindliest Manner,—"And now I leave my sweete Moll to the pleasant Companie of her own goode and innocent Thoughtes; and, if she needs more, here are both stringed and keyed Instruments, and Books both of the older and modern Time, soe that she will not find the Hours hang heavie." Methoughte how much more I should like a Ride upon Clover than all the Books that ever were penned; for the Door no sooner closed upon Mr. Milton than it seemed as tho' he had taken ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... he did go away, heading for his room. He keyed open the door and strolled over to the phone, where a message had already been dropped into the receiver slot. He picked it ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... that Holman had stopped abruptly at the same moment as I did choked back the cold fear that had rushed upon me. I was not insane! Holman was listening too! I seemed to feel that the tiny thread of sound which had set my pulses beating madly had also keyed him ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... a minute! What's all the rush?" Bud's voice and his long legs pursued, and presently he overtook her and halted her by the simple expedient of grasping her shoulder firmly. The high-keyed howling ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and Bud, peering under the rolled edge of the red stocking cap, felt his ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... presently died away. She fumbled excitedly with her key, threw open the door, and groped her way across the unlighted hall. She encountered the telephone table prematurely, clutched it, and laughed a high-keyed, strange ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... Brent and Flint, already keyed to the highest pitch, leaped to their feet with an exclamation ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... his mental process was keyed to the highest pitch of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. He had never quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed anger. There had been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his manner in ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... very suggestive one. It is, sympsonesosin, from which our word "symphony" comes. If two shall accord {150} or symphonize in what they ask, they have the promise of being heard. But, as in tuning an organ all the notes must be keyed to the standard pitch, else harmony were impossible, so in prayer. It is not enough that two disciples agree with each other; they must both accord with a Third—the righteous and holy Lord—before in the scriptural sense they can agree in intercession. There may be agreement which is in most sinful ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... puzzled hesitation. One way of approach is set beside another for choice, and a third contrived for better choice. Still the puzzle persists, all because the one precisely right way might seem—shall we say intense, high keyed, clamorous? Yet if one way is the only right way, why pause? Courage! Slightly dazed, though certain, let us be on, into the shrill thick of it. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... discussion of physical hygiene for the student, we cannot stress too much the value of relaxation. The life of a student is a trying one. It exercises chiefly the higher brain centres and keeps the organism keyed up to a high pitch. These centres become fatigued easily and ought to be rested occasionally. Therefore, the student should relax at intervals, and engage in something remote from study. To forget ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... kind of calm 'n' dazed like 'n' altogether peaceful 'n' happy he looked up at her. 'N' he says, quite placid 'n' contented, 'Can't you get some water out o' the pond?' he says. 'Out o' the pond!' says Hannah, high-keyed like,—Gran'ma Mullins says Hannah always went high-keyed easy,—'out o' that muddy, swampy, slimy, marshy, cow-churned pond,' says Hannah, 'out o' that nasty, dirty, filthy, green pond,' says Hannah, gettin' high-keyeder 'n' high-keyeder. 'I can get it clean for you,' says Rufus, a-openin' the Dead ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... service-door and paused behind the bronze gate. There was no light behind him, and the gloom and intervening strips of metal rendered his figure indistinct. Lanyard's high-keyed perceptions had none the less been instant to remark that slight movement and the accompanying change in the texture of the ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... came and walked toward it. Just off an old drain I found an overturned wagon with a loophole cut through the backboard. There were footprints in the drain, and the grass was pressed down where a body had been lying. For five nights I lay in wait, my hopes keyed up to the highest point of expectation. At last to me was to fall the good fortune of capturing a spy—perhaps to end the leakage of information of our plans that we knew the Germans were getting. But on ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... at himself, yet his speech was not bravado, but the honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... eyes flashed. She seemed keyed up to carry through something she had planned to do, something hard. She arose and stood by the table, ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... were too drunk to know what they were doing, and they were hourly growing more so. Many were gambling and drinking in the salon or dining room and others came from the liquor store on shore a few rods away. The voices of the women were keyed to the highest pitch as they shouted with laughter at the rough jokes or losing games of the men, while red-faced, perspiring waiters hurried back and forth with trays laden with bottles and glasses. Now and then ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... name, and most emphatically no address, but he "arranged things" for people, and appeared to thrive upon it in a scrambling, fugitive manner. The other two people were Mr. and Mrs. Dawes. Mr. Dawes was an entirely negative person, but Mrs. Dawes shone by virtue of a high, whining, insistent voice, keyed to within ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... described above may be replaced by a system consisting of two drums having several channels to receive as many saws, or two corresponding series of channeled pulleys, b b (Fig. 4), independent of each other, but keyed to the same axles, i i. When the pulleys have been properly spaced by means of keys, the whole affair is rendered solid by a bolt, g. The extremity of the axles forms a nut into which pass vertical screws, c c. These latter are connected above with cone-wheels, l ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... missed Quarrier once to-day when he had been keyed to the encounter. Was he going to miss him again through sheer terror? Besides, was not Quarrier a coward? Besides, was it not his own money? Had he not been vilely swindled by a pretended friend? Urging, lashing himself into a heavy, shuffling motion, he emerged from the porte-cochere ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the grey mist enveloped them silently, chillingly. Joe drew a long wail from the fog-horn and in response a similar but higher-keyed wail came through the fog from the Follow Me. And at the same moment the other members of the ship's company stuck inquiring heads ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... witnessed the tents begin to glow and the campfires kindle until the valley became hooped about as if by a million giant fireflies. Five nights had I strayed, like a lost soul, through an unreal wilderness, harkening to the drone of stories told in an unfamiliar tongue, to the minor-keyed dirges of an unknown race, to the thumping of countless moccasined feet in the measures of queer dances. The odors of a savage people had begun to pall on me, and the sound of a strange language to annoy; I longed for another white man, for a ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... adopting equal temperament, but more has been gained. To a sensitive ear, the sharp thirds and fourths, the flat fifths and other discordant intervals of our modern keyed instrument, are a constant source of pain; but the average organist has become so accustomed to the defect that he ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... brothers we see what Minor[20] well enough calls the hot and cold passions. Karl is a hotspur whose emotions are always keyed up to the highest pitch; he is never calm and is incapable of sober reasoning. His boiling blood and his insensate ambition are his only oracles. We may say that his motives are lofty, but in trying to set the world right and make ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Bonbright's room, keyed up to eruption, but he did not erupt. Nobody was there to ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... and financial gains, there are the intangibles. Chief of these is that indescribable something, country peace. All the family responds to it. It is impossible to maintain the highly-keyed, nervous tension that characterizes city life when the domestic scene is surrounded by open fields or an occasional bit of woodland. The placid calm soothes frayed nerves and works wonders in restoring balance and perspective toward family and business problems. The harassed ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... the thing, as Garry knew, that taxed Brian's patience to the utmost, plunged him into grotesque dilemmas and kept him keyed to an abnormal alertness of memory. Always his sense of loyalty revolted at the notion of denying any tale ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... tremendously keyed up; and yet—curiously I didn't care which of these things happened. It was rather as if I were in a theatre, watching an act of a play that might end in one of several ways, neither one ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... which distinguishes this Exposition above all others in America or Europe rests on two outstanding facts: the substantial unity of its architectural scheme, and its harmony of color, keyed to Nature's coloring of the landscape in which it is placed. The site furnished the clue to the plan; co-operation made possible the great success with which it ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... later, and the room was echoing to the rattle of knives and forks and a conversation which, though lighter than before, was still fitful and rather feverish in its rapid change of topic. It was the talk of men keyed to an unbearable state of anticipation. Sergius presently called Irina to sing Marie's song of the stirrup-cup from "The Boyar"; and fourteen hands applauded wildly as she smilingly climbed upon her chair, and, holding the replenished glass in her right hand, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... keyed up to the point of working miracles, of accomplishing the impossible. Johnny was happy, a little awed at his own temerity, wholly absorbed in his determination to handle that airplane just as well as Bland or any other living man could handle it. He kept reminding ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... whom literary perfection and musical nicety could not touch—and the first two lines, at least, are good hymn-writing. Few of the best sacred lyrics have been sung with purer sentiment and more affectionate fervor than "The Sweet By-and-By." To any company keyed to sympathy by time, place, and condition, the feeling of the song brings ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... and tension seemed to abate. He had been keyed to so high a pitch that his pulses grew gentler through very lack of force, and with the relaxation came a clearer view. He saw the sinking red sun through the banks of smoke, and in fancy he already felt the cool darkness ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all the Men wanted to hear Rag Time played by Josephine, the Life-Saver. Josephine had to yield, and the Men all clustered around her to give their Moral Support. After one or two Selections, they felt sufficiently Keyed to begin to hit up those low-down Songs about Baby and Chickens and Razors. No one paid any Attention to the Lady President, who was off in a Corner holding an Indignation Meeting with the Secretary ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... anywhere be found in any other county than that of Devon. With a Devonshire lane it could not presume to vie, having little of the glorious garniture of fern, and nothing of the crystal brook that leaps at every corner; no arches of tall ash, keyed with dog-rose, and not much of honeysuckle, and a sight of other wants which people feel who have lived in the plenitude of everything. But in spite of all that, the lane was very ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... was not planning anything connected with Henry Wilson, who lived on the other side of the pond and was the only chum he possessed. After the chores were done, he lingered a little while around the barns, getting his courage keyed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... once there set in a reaction, as was natural under the circumstances. The Khaki Boys had been keyed up to such a high pitch through the battle, the attack on the hill, the subsequent shelling of it, and their own dangerous position after the collapse of the building, that now their ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... hour or more afterward, they sat around the blazing fire they had made, discussing eagerly ways and means for the morrow's search. All of them were keyed up to the highest pitch. They had no definite plans except to hunt and dig until their strength gave out, but there was not one of them, even including cautious Bill, who did not feel sure that ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... feet of snow, as I came out of my door three crows were perched in an apple tree but a few rods away. One of them uttered a peculiar caw as they saw me, but they did not fly away. It was not the usual high-keyed note of alarm. It may have meant "Look out!" yet it seemed to me like the asking of alms: "Here we are, three hungry neighbors of yours; give us food." So I brought out the entrails and legs of a chicken, and ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... of the biting, ironic, scornful fans—pealed up a howl of delight. It lasted for a full minute. Then, as quiet ensued, some boy blew a blast of one of those infernal little instruments of pipe and rubber balloon, and over the field wailed out a shrill, high-keyed cry, an excellent imitation of a baby. Whereupon the whole audience roared, and in discomfiture Reddy Clammer went in search of ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... as fast as they had been when he was young, but they were better educated. Also, he was already keyed-up. Almost as it started, the flurry in the leaves stopped with the roar of his rifle. Fired like that, the heavy gun just about took his hand off, but he did not notice it at the moment. He came erect in a quick scramble, jacking ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... the 6.28 back to Potter's Bar. I lay back in my corner with closed eyes, recalling the events of that wonderful afternoon in the darkened, scented room. It had been a strange, almost overwhelming experience. I had been keyed up to a point of tension which was almost unendurable, while my friend gazed and murmured into the glass ball. These glimpses into the occult are really too much for my system; they wring my nerves. I could have screamed ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... the foreman, like himself was stationed somewhere off there in the blackness, sitting on his pony as immovable as a statue, his straining eyes peering into the night, his ears keyed to catch ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... wrapt myself and went forth in the storm to watch and listen for aught of her return. I passed some little distance within the confines of the forest, and was soon put upon my guard by the approaching tramp of horses' feet, and then, low-keyed voices, and in very truth I thought my lady was come; instead, three horsemen came within a few feet of my hiding and one said,—'We are even now hard by the Castle courtyard; 'tis possible the lackeys are waiting for the beauty who is perchance now started ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the boys, "cannot be run on the low gear. You must keep her keyed up. Relax when the store is empty, but when you go to meet a customer put on the tension—take a brace—get spring into your step—learn to bunch your vitality and get it across. But ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown
... wings and go one of these days," observed Archie Allaire to Rita Tevis, who was posing as Psyche for one of his clever, thinly brushed, high-keyed studies very much after the manner and palette of Chaplin when they resembled neither Chartrain nor Zier, nor any other artist temporarily in vogue. For he was an adaptable man, facile, adroit, a master navigator in trimming ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... whenever Charlotte could bring her work into the sitting-room, she sat facing the glass door. She was not exactly happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate tension, and if the shadow of a cloud passed, even if a red leaf fell outside, she looked out expectantly ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... were keyed to the breaking point. With a shriek he sprang toward an adjoining room, but the ape-man was upon his back while his leap was yet but half completed. Iron fingers sought his throat—the great coward squealed like a stuck ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Strained, every faculty keyed up to its highest tension, he crouched there against the safe. Again and again his fingers rubbed over the rough carpet, and again the sweat beads oozed out upon his forehead with the strain—and then there came ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... several sets of these make-and-break or intermittent currents start their corresponding strings to answering. In this way one could send several messages at once, each message being toned to a different pitch. All that would be necessary would be to have differently keyed interrupters. This was the principle of the harmonic telegraph at which Mr. Bell was toiling outside the hours of his regular work and through which he hoped to make himself rich and famous. His intention was to break ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... no enticing forests. The mountain-sides are all hard rock and rugged precipices. And the summits are of ice or with edges sharp and keen direct from Nature's workshop. But the sight, though it awes us, does not depress us or deter us. We are keyed up by high anticipation when we arrive on the threshold of this secluded region, and a fierce joy seizes us as we first set eyes on these mountains. We know we have before us one of the great sights of the world—something unique and apart, ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... to go again. To go again might deepen my impression—might better register the thrill. But then it might not be just the same. I would be keyed to such expectancy that I might be disappointed. Persons in the seats behind me might whisper. And just as Chenal got to the "Amour sacre de la patrie" some one might cough. I am confident that something of the sort would surely ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... all awry by a paralytic shock, who was feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... door and for several minutes Mary played a tattoo on her machine. Then she keyed down quietly and, setting her transmitter at its maximum, she turned ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... clawing hands. But he had lost time, and the warriors had gained. One was very near, and if he should lay hands upon him Henry knew that he could not escape. Even if the warrior were able to hold him only a half minute the others then would be at hand. But he was still keyed up to the great tension with which he had started down the line. His effort, instead of reaching the zenith, was still increasing, and, turning sideways as he ran, he hurled the stick back into the face of the warrior who was so near. The Wyandot ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not a hint of their grim companioning could he see or hear. He felt it merely in the creeping of his skin, the elemental stirring of the hair at the back of his neck. From moment to moment he expected the swift attack, the battle for his life. But he was keyed up to it. It was not fear that made his nerves tingle, but the tense, trembling excitement of the situation. Even against these strange, hidden forces of the forest, his spirit felt sure of victory. He felt as if his rifle would go up and speak, almost of itself, unerringly ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... accidents I invented my Safety Foundry Ladle. I applied a screw wheel, keyed to the trunnion of the ladle, which was acted on by an endless screw attached to the sling of the ladle; and by this means one man could move the largest ladle on its axis, and pour out its molten contents with the most perfect ease and safety. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... of the talk is by people who ought to know better. The Village is, to be sure, entirely unconventional and incurably romantic and dramatic in its tastes. It is appallingly honest, dangerously young in spirit and it is rather too intense sometimes, keyed up unduly with ambition and emotion and the eagerness of living. But wicked? Not a ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... architecture was the excavated rock, not the column, as was the case with the Greeks. The wall replaced the excavated rock after a time, but without wholly losing its character. There is nothing that leads us to believe that the Phoenicians knew how to construct a keyed vault. The monolithic principle which dominated the Phoenician and Syrian art, even after it had taken Greek art for its model, is the exact contrary of the Hellenic style. Greek architecture starts from the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... especially happy day and I was so keyed up with enjoyment that I couldn't go to sleep right away, but lay looking out at the flowers and the waves. Mother went through to see that Max was all right and then came back to kiss me. She closed the door into his room, but left open the ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... he sought the presence of the girl whose soul was keyed up to almost a passion of self-sacrifice. His mind belittled the cause for which her idolized father was, at that moment, perilling his life, and to which her dearest friends had consecrated themselves. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... on advancing as though anxious to get the job over with, now that they had keyed their courage up ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... too tensely keyed and strung, A broken music, weirdly incomplete: Here a proud mind, self-baffled and self-stung, Lies coiled ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Ruckers in 1591, survives. Long instruments, resembling the grand piano in shape, are called harpsichords. Of course it is understood that both types of virginals as well as the spinet and the harpsichord were keyed chordophones employing the plucking action ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... their top-hats genteelly resting in the hollows of their left arms, and without and beyond the station in the space usually filled by closed and open cabs was a swarm of automobiles. Then while our spirits were keyed to the highest pitch, the Queen of Spain descended from the train, wearing a long black satin cloak and a large black hat, very blond and beautiful beyond the report of her pictures. By each hand she led one of her two pretty ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... after her daughter's retreating figure, and then her lips came together firmly. She untied the ribbons of the loose gown of lace and silk, in which she had keyed herself up by degrees to face the requirements of luncheon and the afternoon's diversions, and donned a conventional dress, in which she composed herself by the window to watch for the doctor's buggy. There ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... feet outside the cave. "It was him!" He clambered over the circle of stones and backed away, eyeing the entrance as though he expected to see the Hopi emerge at any moment. He crouched behind a boulder, his pulses racing. He was keyed to a high tension of expectancy. In fact, he was in a decidedly receptive mood for that which immediately happened. He noticed that his horse, a hundred yards or so up the valley, was circling the cedar and pulling back on the reins. He wondered ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... day, followin' glimpsin' that flea-bitten cayouse at Tramperos. But the mules can't think or talk of nothin' else. It arouses their religious enthoosiasm to highest pitch; even the cynic Jerry gets half-way keyed up over it. I looks for trouble that night; an' partic'lar I pegs out Jerry plenty deep and strong. The rest is hobbled, all except Tom. Gray mare or not, I'll gamble the outfit Tom wouldn't abandon Jerry, let the indoocement be ever ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... that, if he could accurately gauge the progress of his invisible antagonist, he could crash him and go down with him to death. If he could get close enough to feel his prop-wash! A wild chance, but Dick's mind was keyed up to desperation. He shot like an arrow toward the scene, with a view to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... mouth hole and six finger holes extemporized at the side. With this he sought the woods to emulate the trills and cadences of the song birds." Santa Claus's gift one year took the form of a small, yellow, one-keyed flute, on which simple instrument he would "practice with the passion of a virtuoso." Like Schumann, he organized an orchestra among his friends and young playmates. Simultaneously he was receiving his first initiation into the joy of literature. He would frequently retire from playing with his ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... at the window, and saw her sorting and arranging the family mending, busy over piles of stockings and shirts, while on the table beside her lay her open Bible, and she was singing to herself, in a low, sweet undertone, one of the favorite minor-keyed melodies ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... from their landing-port on the coast of Gaul to Placentia: ten miles a day was despicable marching even for lazy and soft-muscled recruits; any legionaries should make fifteen, miles at day under any conditions, earnest men keyed up to hurry should have made twenty and might often march twenty-five miles between camps. These blatherskites were on fire with high resolve, by their talk, yet had loafed along for a thousand miles, camping early, sleeping long after sunrise, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... are," he told her. "When you lived under a daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now you are getting more normal. Life is a thing ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... mill, Mr. Metcalf had not exchanged a dozen sentences with her. She saw him daily, almost hourly. He was everywhere present about the great buildings. In no department was anybody sure of the time of his appearance, yet not one was overlooked. This kept the operators keyed to an expectancy which brought out from them their best, for the approbation of this observant 'boss' meant much to each. Yet he rarely spoke in a harsh tone to any, nor had any ever heard him utter an oath. This, in itself, gave him a distinction from all other mill superintendents ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the critter looks like, one of them old-fashioned hoop-skirts; there was nothin' to them but framework and a hollow inside, and that's all there is to that horse.—Well, Jerry he'll drive up and come in to the paper counter, his eyes shinin' and his nerves all keyed up and one hand shoved down into his britches pocket. He'll stand and look over the papers on the counter, readin' as much of every one as he can for nothin', and then by and by that hand'll come out of his pocket with a cent in ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... felt that longing of his, so vital, so passionate, creating the picture it desired. Always before, when the thought had flashed into her mind, "He is beginning to love me," she had thrust it away, shutting her mind against it. But that was before her spirit was keyed to the high music of river and forest in the Yosemite Valley. Since then she had passed from the twilight of little society shams and convenient, conventional self-deceivings into the glory where only ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... as twenty keys were brought to act on a few strings, commanding often three octaves. Guido d'Arezzo, the famous sight-reading music teacher of the eleventh century, advised his pupils to "exercise the hand in the use of the monochord," showing his knowledge of the keyboard. The keyed monochord gained the name clavichord. Its box-like case was first placed on a table, later on its own stand, and increased in elegance. Not until the eighteenth century was each key provided ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... graceful exterior, and looked much like an Ambassador Extraordinary from Versailles. He messed with the Lieutenants in the Ward-room, where he had a state-room, elegantly furnished as the private cabinet of Pelham. His cot-boy used to entertain the sailors with all manner of stories about the silver-keyed flutes and flageolets, fine oil paintings, morocco bound volumes, Chinese chess-men, gold shirt-buttons, enamelled pencil cases, extraordinary fine French boots with soles no thicker than a sheet of scented note-paper, embroidered ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... chasm now, broken only by the distant murmur of running water, a strange, chilling stillness in which the young hunters could hear the excited beating of their own hearts. To Roderick the minutes passed like so many hours. His ears were keyed to the highest tension of expectancy, his eyes stared into the gloom beyond them until they ached with his efforts to see. At every instant he expected to hear again that terrible scream, this time very near, and he prepared himself to meet it. But the seconds passed, ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... We seem no longer that eager, inquisitive, jealous, fiery people which we have been formerly, and which we have been a very short time ago."[8] England was the country of Tom Jones, hearty and healthy, but animated by no high principles and keyed to no noble actions. It needed the danger of the Napoleonic wars to bring out once more the sturdy manliness of the nation. Through all the earlier reign of George III there was, to be sure, a remainder of the old high-minded spirit. Chatham and Rockingham, Burke, Barre, and others, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... brutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon would their aghast ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... be it known, can hope to catch grasshoppers with any degree of success. It requires an individual nimble of mind and body, whose nerves are keyed to a tension, who is dominated by a mood which refuses to recognize the perils of snakes, cactus, and prairie-dog holes; forgetful of self and dignity, inured to ridicule. Such a one is ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... the faint wash of paddles which he was the first on board to hear. In fact, it was Jerry's low growl and neck-rippling of hair that had keyed Van Horn to hear. Pulling the stick of dynamite out from the twist of his loin cloth and glancing at the cigar to be certain it was alight, he rose to his feet with leisurely swiftness and with leisurely ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... "ought to." In the case of music it has happily been at last recognized that if you have not an "ear" you cannot care for it, but two generations ago, owing to the unfortunate cheapness and popularity of keyed instruments, it was widely held that one half of humanity, the feminine half, "ought" to play the piano. This "ought" is, of course, like most social "oughts," a very complex product, but its ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... upon his heels, his every sense upon the alert, his nerves keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was life! For the instant he forgot his resolutions of a few minutes past to hasten to the coast at some other point than that at which he had landed and make his way immediately back to London. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... secret of his pride and faith in Ken. It was this, perhaps, as much as anything, which kept Ken keyed up. For Ken was really pitching better ball than he knew how to pitch. He would have broken his arm for Worry; he believed absolutely in what the coach told him; he did not think of ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... and Medora Phillips turned a studious glance on her companion. Carolyn was conceivably in a state of mind—keyed up to an all-inclusive appreciation. Did that foreshadow further verse?—a rustic rhapsody, a provincial pantoum? But Medora withheld question. Much as she would have enjoyed a well-consolidated ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... receded be observed that the lowest course stones was laid on a bronze foundation, that keyed in wide bronze grooves. There was oil enough in the grooves to have greased a ship's ways and there neither squeak nor tremor as the tons ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... loose rocks down the hill behind him. He had no expectation of coming upon Peppajee—unless Peppajee deliberately put himself in his way—and so there was no need of caution. He stopped once, and stood long minutes with his head turned to catch the faint sound of high-keyed laughter and talk which drifted up to him. If he went higher, he thought, he might get a glimpse of them—of her, to tell his thought honestly. Whereupon he forgot all about finding and expostulating with Peppajee, and thought ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... you must," he countered, and because he had keyed himself for this combat of wills he spoke more categorically than he realized. "At first thought, of course, you would feel that you couldn't. But your ability to stand a long siege will depend on conserving your strength. You are human and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... "Fire! Fire!" These were the same ominous words she had heard Thanksgiving night, only they seemed now more alarming, more threatening. Who could be so foolish, so ill-advised as to scream those agitating words in a roomful of girls and boys already keyed up to a high pitch of excitement? Anne turned ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... Pitti Palace, which depicts a young Augustinian monk as he plays on a keyed instrument, having on one side of him a youthful cavalier in a plumed hat, on the other a bareheaded clerk holding a bass-viol, was, until Morelli arose, almost universally looked upon as one of the most typical Giorgiones.[31] The most gifted of the purely aesthetic ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... I'll have to—if we're not to move into the house," said Lois in a high-keyed voice, with those tiresome tears coming, as usual, to her eyes. She felt inexpressibly hurt, disappointed, fooled. "I thought you said you were having so many orders lately. Does the money all have to 'go back into the business,'" she quoted sardonically, "as usual? I think there ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... business. It cannot be regarded as accidental that this characteristic of mind is found so commonly among successful men during the years of their most fruitful labor. According to the American ideal, the man who is sure to succeed is the one who is continuously 'keyed up to concert pitch'—who is ever alert and is always giving attention to his business ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... primitive colors of the spectroscope. But modulation, in the modern sense of a free shifting of the centre of gravity to any one of the twelve semitones of our chromatic scale, was not developed and accepted until after the acoustical reforms of Rameau, and the system of tuning keyed instruments embodied in that work called the Well-tempered Clavichord of Sebastian Bach. Both these men published their discoveries about the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Eric, keyed to a wild and excited perception, saw the captain of the steamer in the water, a few feet away, and swam to him. He found him conscious but unable to swim, the jerk from the breeches-buoy having twisted ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... pardon," he said, his voice keyed to a curious inflection. "I was under the impression that you had—that, in fact, you changed a cheque for L200 made payable ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest |
