"Keynote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from 1888 to 1890, a sort of calm despair seems to have settled down upon De Maupassant's attitude toward life. Psychologically acute as ever, and as perfect in style and sincerity as before, we miss the note of anger. Fatality is the keynote, and yet, sounding low, we detect a genuine subtone of sorrow. Was it a prescience of 1893? So much work to be done, so much work demanded of him, the world of Paris, in all its brilliant and attractive phases, at his feet, and yet—inevitable, ever ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... whose voices, raised in emphatic protest, were drowned in the drone of "Peace! Peace is the thing to work for. Compromise, consideration, courtesy, these three are the keys of rule." They failed to realize that cowardice was their real keynote, and that the threefold method that they vaunted was quite useless without ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote for these United States. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... talk with ye," said the Virginian, slowly, "because comin' from over thar whar he's been dwelling at, ye kin kinderly give me facts thet ther Commonwealth would love ter know," and that utterance sounded the keynote of the attitude Turk meant to ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... paper on March 16, 1892. It is said to have been his habit, before setting to work on a play, to "crystallise in a poem the mood which then possessed him;" but the following is the only one of these keynote poems which has been published. I give it in the original language, with ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... The keynote of these books is manliness. The stories are wonderfully entertaining, and they are at the same time sound and wholesome. No boy will willingly lay down an unfinished ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... that may be briefly alluded to as eminently characteristic of the Sagas is their fatefulness. As we read we seem to hear the voice of Doom speaking continually. "Things will happen as they are fated": that is the keynote of them all. The Norse mind had little belief in free will, less even than we have to-day. Men and women were born with certain characters and tendencies, given to them in order that their lives should run in appointed channels, and their acts bring about an appointed end. They do not these ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... whispering sound of yonder pine-tree," so, Theocritus, with that sweet word [Greek text], didst thou begin and strike the keynote of thy songs. "Sweet," and didst thou find aught of sweet, when thou, like thy Daphnis, didst "go down the stream, when the whirling wave closed over the man the Muses loved, the man not hated of the Nymphs"? ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... at the magnificent fables of King Arthur and his times which exercised so great an influence on the English mind, and were in fact, although originally Celtic, so thoroughly adopted and naturalised by the Saxon, as to reappear under different forms in every age, and form the keynote of most of our fictions, from Geoffrey of Monmouth and the medieval ballads, up to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and at last Milton and Blackmore. This series of legends will, I think, as we trace its development, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... others, and in giving pleasure and love to them. As yet she fails to comprehend the Christ-like character which is so lovely an acquisition, and the higher service to which we are destined by following Him in all things. Love is the keynote, and, if she try, in so doing is the happiest and truest life ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... The keynote of her being throughout this last winter was one of unwonted seriousness. A certain startling intensity of thought and feeling showed itself every now and then. It was painfully evident that she was under a severe strain, both physical and mental. Again and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... strike the keynote of what I cannot help considering the partiality of Americans for the Entente powers. It is the idea that "in the western area of conflict, at least, there is an armed clash between the representatives of dynastic institutions and bureaucratic rule on the one hand with ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... barrels of money in the last ten years in oil and he is going to build an estate up on the Hudson that will make the world gasp. I hadn't put in a bid, but this idea of the judge's and Greg's, with the whole village grouped about it, has given me the keynote to win the thing from the whole bunch of American architects. He wants the village built as well as the estate. That American garden idea will bowl him over. He's progressively and rabidly American. The bids don't close until December, so I'll ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... jurisdiction of its Bishops,) was Protestant in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in State was conciliation and compromise. So the Church of England was to a great extent a compromise, retaining as much as the people would bear of external form and ritual, for the sake ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... as human work may be. It is a romance of death with a setting of profound gloom, and is wrought out as a highly imaginative study in fear—a symphony in which every touch blends into a perfect unity of effect. "Ligeia," perhaps standing next, incorporating "The Conqueror Worm" as its keynote, portrays the terrific struggle of a woman's will against death. "The Masque of the Red Death," a tale of the Spirit of Pestilence and of Death victorious over human selfishness and power, is a splendid study in somber color. "The Assignation," a romance of Venice, is also ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... own to herself that she holds no dominion over a man, that it is only too perfectly clear that the impulse of loving is all on her side and that she has neither anything to expect nor anything to fear from him, since indifference is the keynote of his attitude to her, she will all the more readily believe that he loves elsewhere, worthily or unworthily the same to her. A woman is not a noble object in such a situation. All trusting feminine instincts, all sweet emotions of hope, all sentiment, all passion even, retreat and fall away from ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... instances, and that the total sum was nearer L7,000,000 than L4,000000, while the entire cost of poor-law relief in the United Kingdom was only L8,000,000. Having dwelt upon the evils of misdirected charity, she said the keynote of General Booth's scheme, and what, as it seemed to her, gave her great hope of its being to some extent a success, was the amount of personal devotion and energy which it called for and which she believed the Salvation Army was prepared ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... Henceforth I will devote myself to the only real powers which can enlighten us. Yet there is humiliation in failure after so many years of study. It is folly to follow a partial truth of which we miss the keynote, though we sometimes ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... into them. He never lied. With him the truth was instinctive, masterful; it was the keynote of his religion. "Yes," he said. "You are a spiritual hindrance. I am a human man—you are a sensual woman. You have determined to do everything in your power to keep me ever mindful of the fact. Because I love Margaret Lampton and I do not love you, you have ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... would result in a Constituent Assembly, and would free them from the responsibility of concluding peace on terms rather than accept which they proudly asserted a few weeks ago they would all die. The keynote of the situation is given by the organs of public opinion, which until now have teemed with articles calling upon the population of the capital to bury itself beneath its ruins, and thus by a heroic sacrifice to serve as an example to the whole of France. To-day they say, "It appears ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... sacrifice is the keynote—meaning thereby surrender, control, and stimulus of the corporeal frame, surrender to God, in regard to the impressions which we allow to be made upon our senses, to the indulgence which we grant to our appetites, and the satisfaction ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... in greater joy of living for millions of people, there are even greater riches. Other men of the past and present, in every phase of activity, have demonstrated that such an utter abandonment to one's tasks is the keynote of efficiency and achievement. But such abandonment is impossible to the man who is doing work into which he cannot throw his best and greatest powers—which claims only his ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'[14] In the same strain Isaiah exclaimed, 'Bring no more vain oblations, but wash you and make you clean.'[15] And so also Habakkuk has affirmed in words which became the keynote of Paul's theology and the watchword of the Reformation—'The just shall live ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... the first part of the musette copied (from memory, so I hope there's nothing wrong). Is it not angelic? But it ought, of course, to have the gavotte before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which they adjusted their hopes, fears, and aspirations to the new conditions, strikes the keynote of their respective characters. "Job," looking down upon the world from the tranquil heights of genius, is manful, calm, resigned. "Koheleth," shuddering at the gloom that envelops and the pain that convulses all living beings, ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... The keynote of neurasthenia is increased liability to fatigue. The tired feeling that comes on with a minimum of exertion, worse on arising than on going to bed, is its distinguishing mark. Sleep, which should remove the fatigue of the day, does not; the victim takes half of his day ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... another aspect, they are important because they disclose how liberty, self-government, republicanism, and many of the constitutional principles by which Americans now live were gradually developed as the colonies grew towards independence. The keynote to all these early contests was what may be called the fundamental principle of colonial constitutional law or, at any rate, of constitutional practice, namely, that the Governor, whether royal or proprietary, must ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... Catholics of the old and influential families of the kingdom; and some of the Dissenters, who were disgusted with the treatment they received from Cromwell, occasionally lent them a kind of passive aid. Taking these considerations as the keynote to the song, attempts have been made to discover the meaning which was originally attached to its leading words. It is difficult at the present time to give a clear explanation of all its points. The following, however, is consistent throughout, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... we shall presently return, for it is the keynote of all modern advance in theological knowledge, so far as that is not concerned with questions of literature, history, archaeology, and textual criticism. But we are concerned to notice now, that this recovered ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... of Kensett, with brown shadows and artificial high-lights, but study of nature soon cured these mannerisms, and he grew steadily in skill and power, until he succeeded in imparting to his pictures the deep, grave and sobering sentiment, which is the keynote of his work. His coast views, with their swirl and almost audible thunder of billow, are considered his ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... him it was of no consequence who were parties to the case, or what the political effect of a decision would be; he inquired only what were the facts in the matter and what the law bearing upon them. The keynote of his character in this respect may be known from an extract taken from his charge to the grand jury in the Winter term of 1856, in which it was expected a case would come before that body of alleged impropriety ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... letter we find the keynote of all our subsequent troubles. The complete and almost absurd confidence of the British, supported as it was by valour without wisdom or activity, was a "voice" and nothing more. Deeply have we suffered since those words were written, for an arrogant under-estimation ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... first presentation to the public this letter was connected with Browne's Christian Morals; but its proper and sympathetic collocation would be rather with the Urn-Burial, of which it is a kind of prelude, or strikes the keynote. He is writing in a very complex situation—to a friend, upon occasion of the death of a common friend. The deceased apparently had been little known to Browne himself till his recent visits, while the intimate friend to whom he is writing had been absent at the time; and the leading motive ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... sighed. "That is, you give the keynote, and the others take up the tune. Even Bingo—Bingo, whom I firmly believed incapable of keeping a secret in which his dearest interests were concerned longer than ten minutes—Bingo has sprung a surprise on me. I shall end by falling in love with my own ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... ago, to glance through two or three little dramas of mine, wherein lies revealed the disquiet of a mind that has given itself wholly to mystery; a disquiet legitimate enough in itself, perhaps, but not so inevitable as to warrant its own complacency. The keynote of these little plays is dread of the unknown that surrounds us. I, or rather some obscure poetical feeling within me (for with the sincerest of poets a division must often be made between the instinctive feeling of their art and the thoughts of their real life), seemed to believe in a species ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... The keynote of the Salariki character was a wary independence. The only form of government they would tolerate was a family-clan organization. Feuds and deadly duels between individuals and clans were the accepted way of life and every male who reached adulthood went ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... aristocratic sentiment which has moulded the institutions of England. An aristocracy respects the rights of individuals, but an aristocracy identifies right with privilege, and is based on the belief in the inequality of men and of classes. Privilege is the keynote of English constitutionalism; the respect for privileges has preserved English freedom, but it has made England slower than any other civilized country to adopt ideas of equality. This love of privilege ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... point abroad where American bankers usually carry large balances is another circumstance which often depresses the exchange market sharply. "Trouble in the Balkans" and "trouble over the Moroccan situation" are two bugbears which have for years back furnished the keynote for many swoops downward in the exchange market, and for years after this book is published will probably continue to do so. Money on deposit at a point several thousand miles away is naturally very sensitive, and the ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... sensitive to inner inconsistency or discord, and mixture and confusion grow intolerable. All the mind's objects and occupations must be ordered with reference to the special spiritual excitement which is now its keynote. Whatever is unspiritual taints the pure water of the soul and is repugnant. Mixed with this exaltation of the moral sensibilities there is also an ardor of sacrifice, for the beloved deity's sake, of everything unworthy of him. Sometimes ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... just here accidentally touched the piano with his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks around here know?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... to declare himself. She was interested in him and his marvellous beauty, as she might have been in some fascinating panther or leopard—for some undefinable reason she shrank from him, even whilst she admired. The keynote of her nature, a warm 'precipitance of soul,' as Coleridge happily writes it, which Manston had so directly pounced upon at their very first interview, gave her now a tremulous sense of being in some ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... placed his Oktoberlied, written in the political gloom and uncertainty of the fall of 1848. While realizing fully its inherent tragic elements, Storm loved and glorified life and thirstily drank in its beauty to the very last. This is the keynote of ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... still more closely. It displayed a lady of twenty or thereabouts, with a weak face, small, vacant features, a feeble chin, a good-humoured, simple mouth, and a wealth of golden hair that seemed to strike a keynote. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... years of age upwards, contempt for the masters was the keynote of all conversation about them. The Latin master, a little, insignificant-looking man, but a very good teacher, was said to be so disgracefully enfeebled by debauchery that an active boy could throw him without the least difficulty. The Natural History ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the characteristic virtues of the later age. It is a mistake to suppose, as some have done, that such pieces as Le Crapaud, Apres la Bataille, and Les Pauvres Gens have no connexion with any epoch. In Hugo's view, that tenderness for the weak and the defenceless which is their keynote was the peculiar mark of the age in which he lived, and a foretaste of the glory that was to come. For the great purpose which his reading of human history reveals to him is the increase of the love of man to man, the widening of the bounds of liberty, the growth of brotherly feeling. Suffering ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... surmised, the keynote of Tom's nature was that he was easily led, and therein rested the possibilities of great good or evil. The little confidential chats with his mother were a strong safeguard to him, and laid the foundation ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story." All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the magazine story is more often near the end of the article ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... Above all other virtues I particularly prize. I never join in merriment—I don't see joke or jape any— I never tolerate familiarity in shape any— This, joined with an extravagant respect for tuppence-ha'penny, A keynote to my character ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... His heroes, little folk, artisans or rustics, bureaucrats or shopkeepers, prostitutes or rakes, he places them in faintly colored, but well-defined surroundings. And, immediately, the simplified landscape gives the keynote ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... year following the publication of the Discourses on Religion, Schleiermacher issued his Monologues. Here he gave the keynote to the century. While, only the year before, he would cultivate the feeling of dependence and turn the mind inward, in the Monologues he would lead man to a knowledge of his own power, and show how far his individuality can go upon its mission of success. Here he lauds independence. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... reception, especially as its operation was limited to five years. It passed the second reading by a majority of 299 to 20 on May 9, notwithstanding a violent protest from De Lacy Evans, an ultra-radical, who had displaced Hobhouse at Westminster. The keynote of the radical agitation which followed was given by his declaration that "the cessation of out-door relief would lead to a revolution in the country," and by Cobbett's denunciation of the "poor man robbery ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... was standing a girl, tall and sleepy-eyed. She wore a picture-hat and a costume the keynote of which was a certain aggressive attractiveness. There was no room for doubt as to which particular brand of scent was her ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... workmen, and of a good faith that everyone acknowledges and admires in their commercial dealings; in no country that is or was, has the commandment 'Honor thy father and thy mother', been so religiously obeyed, or so fully and without exception given effect to, and it is in fact the keynote of their family, social, official and national life, and because it is so their days are long in the land God ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... crisis came. The hymn and psalm were announced. The pitch-pipe rightly adjusted gave the proper keynote, and the clerk essayed to sing. But from some cause matters were not harmonious and none attempted to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... shows our inherent divinity and the method by which the latent becomes the actual. Instead of the ignoble belief that we can fling our sins upon another it makes personal responsibility the keynote of life. It is the ethics of self-help. It is the moral code of self-reliance. It is the religion ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... the foundation of the "Wesley Guild," of which the President of Conference is the head, with four vice-presidents, two being laymen. The guild is "a union of the young people of a congregation. Its keynote is comradeship, and its aim is to encourage the young people of our Church in the highest aims of life." The story of its origin may ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... that art and ritual are near relations. To this fact of crucial importance for our argument we shall return later. But from the outset it should be borne in mind that in these two Greek words, dromenon and drama, in their exact meaning, their relation and their distinction, we have the keynote and clue ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... deems just and generous; and when Papua comes to erect statues to her great leaders, those of these two patriots must surely occupy the highest places, as champions of the liberties of the weak. The noble policy of Macgregor is still, and let us hope it long may be, the keynote of the administration in Papua, which to-day is being ably carried forward under the great governor's disciple, the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... Mr. Richardson has struck the keynote to a certain extent, we must put them near ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... it to himself that she hit a man squarely in the eyes. Her beauty had that direct and almost aggressive quality that is like a challenge, and with sophisticated feminine art she had contrived that the dinner gown she chose for that evening should sound the keynote of her personality like a leitmotif in an opera. The costume was a creation of white satin, the folds caught here and there with strings of pearls. There was a single large rose of pink velvet among the draperies of the skirt; a looped girdle of blue velvet was the only other splash of color. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... your orders from headquarters. Your self-conceived plan has met with every encouragement from us. You will be placed in a unique position to achieve your final purpose. Now mark my words and do not misunderstand me. The very keynote of our progress is ruthlessness. To take even a single step forward towards the achievement of that purpose is worth the sacrifice of all the scruples and delicacies conceivable. But when a certain course of action is without profit to our purpose, I see ugliness in ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... declined in use, like all things chivalrous, in an age deafened by the clamour of industrial strife; an age grown blind to the beauty of service, that, in defiance of "progress," still remains the keynote of an Indian ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... way than in former years. But this must not be construed as meaning that the different companies are simply looking about for new ways to spend money. On the contrary, economy—sensible economy—is becoming more and more the keynote of film production. In every department, unnecessary expense is done away with. This applies to both the purchasing and the producing of photoplays. Better prices are being paid, yes; but stories calling for what appears to be unnecessarily expensive settings or costuming are usually ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... plausible reading of his life which explains it by his connection with such public men as Montalembert, De Decker, and Mr. Gladstone is profoundly untrue; and those who deem him a liberal in any scientific use of the term, miss the keynote of his work. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... partings on the lonely shore. Tears flow; ladies sigh; voices choke; hearts break; children die; lovers prove untrue. It was tragic, and I confess I could have wept myself—not at the songs, for they were stupid enough,—but to think of the grey lugubrious life whose keynote was all too truly struck ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Westward," The Excursion, and a score of lesser poems. Joy and sorrow, not of princes or heroes, but "in widest commonalty spread," are his themes; and the hidden purpose of many of his poems is to show that the keynote of all life is happiness,—not an occasional thing, the result of chance or circumstance, but a heroic thing, to be won, as one would win any other success, by ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... for every pastor, missionary, and devout Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. Above all, it has the keynote of sincerity ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... ends his long and eloquent appeal with a sentence which sounds the true keynote of the regret felt by the Parsis at being merely compared with the natives when they felt themselves to be morally and intellectually their superiors. Why are they not provided with commissions in the army like the Germans and other Europeans? [86] Then only will they feel completely ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... of the household necessities and jeweled novelties. A cook book must be purchased of the latest and most approved recipes, Josie having mastered only a few of the simpler dishes, but she had always declared that the keynote to cookery was gumption and with a good recipe and plenty of that ingredient she could master even anything as intricate ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... 'White Doe of Rylstone.' There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem. Emily, the heroine, is ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... when the church lost the vision of her Master's face on Olives, and let other sounds crowd out of her ears the sound of His voice, were stagnant ages. They are commonly spoken of in history as the dark ages. "Go" is the ringing keynote of the Christian life, whether in a ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... was enjoying life was Pringle of the School House. The keynote of Pringle's character was superiority. At an early period of his life—he was still unable to speak at the time—his grandmother had died. This is probably the sole reason why he had never taught that relative to suck eggs. Had she lived, her education ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... brightness there are no words, into any depth and any hue of Tyrian crimson and Byzantine purple. These with full blue breathed between them at the zenith, and green blue nearer the horizon, form the scales and chords of color possible to the morning and evening sky in pure and fine weather; the keynote of the opposition being vermilion against green blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height and acme of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where their ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... is also Paul's text for this Epistle, and that it differs from the condensed summary of which I have been speaking only as a bud with its petals closed differs from one with them expanded in their beauty. And now, if you will take the words of my text as being the keynote of this letter, and read over its first eight chapters, what is the Apostle talking about when he in them fulfils his purpose and preaches 'the Gospel' to them that are at Rome also? Here is, in the briefest possible ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... gas and electricity must accord with the lines of your architecture and furniture. The mantelpiece is the connecting link between the architecture and the furnishing of a room. It is the architect's contribution to the furnishing, and for this reason the keynote for the decorator. ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... my will by the power of the Spirit, and I find it trying to sneak down and step into active control again to-morrow through some sly, subtle suggestion which it hopes may get past the vigilance of my sentinel. That word daily becomes, of necessity, my constant keynote—a daily conflict, a daily sleepless vigilance, and, thank ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... principally concerns itself with the desire of the worker to express in his work whatever impulse for beauty may be his. There is no surer way of feeling the pressure of present economic conditions. The value of applied esthetics is as a medicine to stir up social unrest and discontent. Its keynote is self-expression, and it is when men and women begin to think and act for themselves that they most keenly feel social and economic restrictions, and are made to suffer under them. But if suffering is necessary to growth, let us have it and have it over with by all means. No sane being ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... and exercises ranging below the pitch indicated may be overcome easily by pitching the songs, etc., a tone or two higher. If they then range too high, don't sing them, sing something else. In teaching the scale, take E or F as the keynote, and sing either one or the other of those scales first. The children must sing as softly as possible in all their singing exercises, whether songs or note drill. They should be taught to open their mouths well, to sit or stand erect as ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... aristocracy with the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The divine spark had disappeared. The spiritual nature had given way to the sensual. Ambition and pleasure were enthroned in the seats of justice and humanity. Selfishness was the keynote of aristocratic life. And with this fact kept in view, the short-sightedness of royalty in the presence of the rising tide of intelligent discontent is by no means strange. Indifferent to the fate of the masses in any struggle that might be precipitated, guided by none of the higher ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... properly, by Mr. Ruskin between the old and the new approach, does truly, in a manner, shine across the green lap of the lagoon like a mighty causeway of marble; then the plunge into the station, which would be exactly similar to every other plunge save for one little fact—that the keynote of the great medley of voices borne back from the exit is not ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... lot o' work puttin' up the lights," said the man at sight of some building superbly illuminated. This was the keynote of his being. All his fife he had worked, and the whole objective universe, as well as his own soul, he could express in terms only of work. "Coronations is some good," he went on. "They give work ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... sentiment been re-echoed by millions of men and women acquainted with grief and affliction? The early Christians did not exactly live lives of luxury or even security, sheltered from contact with tragedy and horror; yet the keynote of primitive Christianity is the note of joy, while the background of early Christian experience is a radiant conviction of the Divine benevolence. And when we remember that the same holds true of so many eminently spiritual souls in all ages, who have combined a keen sensitiveness to evil ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... continual lament on the subject of racing had given Crane a keynote for his line of action. It was the day following her scoring of the tolerant husband that Crane revisited Ringwood full ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... will be seen that the desire to get out of the country at once is the keynote of the British policy. Every act, whether of war or administration, is intended to be final. Every despatch is directed to breaking the connection between the two countries and winding up the severed strings. But responsibilities which had been lightly assumed clung like the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... is, I place this essay before the rest, partly because with the exception of a similarly-brief essay on "Use and Beauty", it came first in order of time, but chiefly because it came first in order of thought, and struck the keynote of all that ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... fell into a long silence: for she was a practised observer of men and things, and the face before her compelled attention. The keynote of the whole was vigour: not mere impetuosity, though that was present also, but a sustained, indwelling vigour, that ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... of happy anticipation is in vivid contrast to Jeremiah's sorrowful attitude of retrospection. The picture brings out clearly the fact that the keynote of Daniel's prophecy is hope. Looking into his rapt face, we may imagine that this is the message he is writing: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters. Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the progressive revelation ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... Conservation the Keynote What Neglect of Her Forests Has Cost China Forestry Lessons from Japan and Korea Conserving Individual Wealth The Essential Immorality of Waste Avoiding the Wastes of War Preserving Our Physical Stamina and Racial Strength A Lesson from China Patriotism as a Moral Force The Coming ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... Driscoll finally gathered the meaning of the decree. It was the keynote to the Imperialist hopes. Its cause was the flight of Juarez across the border. Maximilian was surcharged anew with enthusiasm. Even the United States must now recognize his empire, he believed. And confounding flurry with activity, as ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... qui n’est pas indispensable est nuisible,” a phrase which is often on Carolus-Duran’s lips, may be taken as the keynote of his work, where one finds a noble simplicity of line and color scheme, an elimination of useless detail, a contempt for tricks to enforce an effect, and above all a comprehension and mastery of light, vitality, and texture—those three unities ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... such difficulty, I felt irresistibly attracted by the long-sustained pure fifths with which the first phrase opens: these chords, which, as I related above, had played such a supernatural part in my childish impressions of music, seemed in this case to form the spiritual keynote of my own life. This, I thought, must surely contain the secret of all secrets, and accordingly the first thing to be done was to make the score my own by a process of laborious copying. I well remember that on one occasion the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... in the course of our survey, and see how they bear out this statement—epithets such as romantic, fantastic, picturesque, gay, or again, delicate, refined, sensitive, serene, and the like; these bear witness to qualities of mind where the keynote is invariably exquisite feeling. Giorgione was, in fact, what is commonly called a poet-painter, gifted with the artistic temperament to an extraordinary degree, essentially impulsive, a man of moods. It ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote of these United States. I am glad, for one reason, that remarks such as those to which I have alluded have been uttered here. The passage of these resolutions, in spite of this opposition, led by the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... a few such trifling exceptions, the tone toward the skipper is universally one of earnest respect and sympathy, the keynote of every ballad being the frank, unconscious heroism of this "gude Sir Patrick Spens." In regard to the foundation for the story, Scott maintains that "the king's daughter of Noroway" was Margaret, known ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... is, however, one among many delights appealing to the senses. This smouldering heat, this tragic passion in which youth revels, looking back already with discontent, yet forward also with unquenchable yearning, is the keynote of the Giorgionesque and the early Titianesque male portraiture. It is summed up by the Antonio Broccardo of the first, by the Jeune Homme au Gant of the second. Altogether other, and less due to a reaction from physical ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... hinders expression."[8] If this fact is recognised (that dramatic speech is not real speech, but poetical speech, and poetical speech infused with the individual style of each individual dramatist, modulated, indeed, but true to one keynote) then it must be granted that Browning has as much right to his own style as other dramatists have to theirs, and as little right as they to be accused on that account of putting his personality into his work. But as Browning's style is very pronounced and original, it is more ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... strongly expressed sentiment of the world being filled with so many knaves that it was dangerous, and all but destructive of truth, to believe in honesty, we have the keynote to the whole of the Annals; and the last six books are marked by a universal cynical disbelief in human honesty; for from the first character, Asiaticus, who is accused of every kind of corruption and abomination (XI. 2), down to Egnatius, with his ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... around the table. Mr. Watling winked at me; I nodded, but said nothing. The banker was not a man to listen to superfluous words. The keynote of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... support—but was ready and eager to meet the enemy in the hour of need. If it is a sound axiom never to despise the enemy, it is nevertheless true that excessive prudence has lost many an action. Farragut's motto has been the keynote of the success of all the great sea-captains, "L'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... insight of Marx is shown in the very first sentence of his great work. The careful reader at once perceives that the first paragraph of the book strikes a keynote which distinguishes it from all other economic works comparable to it in importance. Marx was a great master of the art of luminous and exact definition, and nowhere is this more strikingly shown than ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... be selfish to leave. Is it not right, though, and of necessity, that we think first of self?" He paused, then boldly sounded the keynote ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... was his eternal keynote, "and Prussia is all-sufficient. Our hosts follow the Prussian flag and not the tricolor; under the black and white they joyfully die for their country. The tricolor has been, since the March riots, recognized as the color of their opponents. The accents of ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... The keynote was struck at once in the Quarterly Review by Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was guilty of "a tendency to limit God's glory in creation"; that "the principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"; that it ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Testament. Even in the psalms, which are perhaps the most spiritual and beautiful section, the psalmist, amid much that is noble, sings of the fearsome things which his God will do to his enemies. "They shall go down alive into hell." There is the keynote of this ancient document—a document which advocates massacre, condones polygamy, accepts slavery, and orders the burning of so-called witches. Its Mosaic provisions have long been laid aside. We do not consider ourselves accursed ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... propaganda has been demonstrated repeatedly during the past decade. That its keynote was set by Hitler himself becomes evident upon an examination of his statements on foreign policy over a period of years. Not only has his policy been marked by a series of shifts and turns, so that the policy of one year was frequently canceled ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... have at once the keynote, the principal factor of the change; the man is looking at everything from an absolutely new point of view, entirely outside of anything that he has ever imagined before. He has no longer the slightest difficulty in ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... the first article of the first number of this Periodical is suggestive. Esperanto! Hope is the Keynote of the whole movement. We hope, therefore we are moving. It is because we hope we publish this paper, we form Esperantist circles and we do all that we can to push a knowledge of Esperanto ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... God, here discover it: and perceive the Presence and the Power, and are ashamed and overawed. Thus our land works its marvel in the sensitive soul. I have sometimes thought that in the waste is sounded the great keynote of life—with which true hearts ever seek ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... beautiful Frank called Fredegond, on whom the King had already cast a too-favourable eye; and the opportunity of his absence on an expedition to the North was seized by the girl in a way which showed at once the unscrupulous and subtle treachery which was the keynote of her character. The Queen was brought to bed of her fourth child, a daughter, while the King was still from home. By Fredegond's suggestion, the infant was held at the font by Audowere herself and christened Hildeswinda. Hlodowig at once took ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... assume the offensive. There is no way in which he can more thoroughly deceive his partner, create greater havoc with the bidding of the hand and cast deeper distrust upon his future declarations than by using the keynote bid to announce strength which his hand does ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... Kenny, perversely taking up the keynote of his son's rebellion literally. "Sunsets! I ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... not to run, I'll spring on you the poem that seems to me to strike the keynote of the matter ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... on shore was the first to scent the coming strangers. He gave vent to a low growl. It was the keynote to the canine choir, which immediately sent up a howl of discord. Forthwith from every hut there leaped armed men, anxious women, and terrified children, which latter rushed towards the cliffs or took ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... subject of sublimity must naturally have attracted a writer whose own moral nature was pure and lofty, who was inclined to discover in moral qualities the true foundation of the highest literary merit. Even in his opening words he strikes the keynote of his own disposition, where he approves the saying that "the points in which we resemble the divine nature are benevolence and love of truth." Earlier or later born, he must have lived in the midst of literary activity, curious, eager, occupied with petty questions and ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... generally felt for myself when he appealed for sympathy, or provoked some pity: but I was past suffering, and letting kindly recollection divest the speech of its verbiage, I took it to my heart. It was true that he had in his blind way struck the keynote of his position, much as I myself had conceived it before. Harsh trials had made me think of my own fortunes more than of his. This I felt, and I thought there never had been so moving a speech. It seemed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mirabell make their conditions of marriage is perhaps the most unquestionable triumph. 'Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together, but let us be very strange and well-bred'—there is its keynote. The dialogue is as sure and perfect in diction, in balance of phrases, and in musical effectiveness as can be conceived, and for all its care is absolutely free in its gaiety. It is the ultimate expression of ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... administration of the respective internal secretions increases the burning up of material in the body, and all of them have a higher rate of tissue combustion than their confreres, with a subthyroid or subpituitary keynote in their cell chemistry, or with insufficient interstitial cell action. Generally the latter have a very dry skin, the former a moist skin. With delayed involution of the ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... as ungenerous this aspersion upon the courage of such men as then served under Hooker, savors of error on the side of leniency. And, inasmuch as these words strike, as it were, the keynote of all the statements which Hooker has vouchsafed with reference to these events, they might be assumed fairly to open the door to unsparing criticism. But it is hoped that this course has been avoided; and that what censure is dealt out to Gen. Hooker in the succeeding ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... to analyzing his emotions. But as he sat in his Katy-bereft 10x12 parlor he hit unerringly upon the keynote of his discomfort. He knew now that Katy was necessary to his happiness. His feeling for her, lulled into unconsciousness by the dull round of domesticity, had been sharply stirred by the loss of her presence. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... apostles, is the glorious Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. Here, the praise of the Greek Church touches its highest note, and pours forth its most enchanting melody. "Christ is risen," and the glad response, "He is risen indeed"—these words constitute the keynote of all that is best and most beautiful in Greek worship. The Knowledge and the Wisdom of God are everywhere extolled, and the attribute of Light is continually and cordially applied to ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... Marduk (Merodach)", as the great king recorded, "brought me to direct all people, and commissioned me to give judgment, I laid down justice and right in the provinces, I made all flesh to prosper."[279] That was the keynote of his long life; he regarded himself as the earthly representative of the Ruler of all—Merodach, "the lord god of right", who carried out the decrees of Anu, the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... profligacy of the papal court was responsible for the widespread moral inertia which was characteristic of the time. The pontiff's chair at the dawn of this century was filled by Roderigo Borgia, known as Alexander VI., and it may well be said that his career of crime and lust gave the keynote to the society which was to follow him. By means of most open bribery he had been elected to his office, but, in spite of these well-known facts, his advent was hailed with great joy and his march to the Vatican was a veritable triumph. Contemporary historians unite in praising him at this ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... is competent for the post. Generally the Minister of Education is a lawyer; the Minister of Commerce, an author; the War Minister, a doctor; the Minister for the Navy, a journalist. Beaumarchais' epigram "The post required a mathematician—it was given to a dancing master!" strikes the keynote much more of a democracy ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... gives is the truth, obscured to all other men when it was given, that one God 'in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.' That solemn utterance is the keynote of the whole. The rest but expands it. It was a challenge and a denial for all the beliefs of the nations, the truth of which Israel was the champion and missionary. It swept the heavens and earth clear of the crowd of gods, and showed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... leaders think and feel and say on this keynote question of polygamy, however much they may seek to hide their sentiments behind a mask of lies, may be found in former utterances from the Church pulpit, made before the shadow of the law had ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... an instance in our own history of India, when a great personality, both in his life and voice, struck the keynote of the solemn music of the soul—love for all creatures. And that music crossed seas, mountains, and deserts. Races belonging to different climates, habits, and languages were drawn together, not in the clash of arms, not ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the chivalry-romance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho's part, but to the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he announces his intention of taking his ass with him. "About the ass," we are told, "Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could call to mind any knight-errant taking ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... altogether a notable gathering, and perhaps the congregational repetition of the General Thanksgiving at the opening of the meeting gave the keynote ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various |
