"Chord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not love her, how could he answer her? Surely that message could not pass except along the golden chord of love, which ever makes its sweetest music when Pain strikes it with a ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... came energetic whispers of "Sh! Sh!" Three strokes, as of a great mallet, sepulchral, grave, came from behind the wings; the leader of the orchestra raised his baton, then brought it slowly down, and while from all the instruments at once issued a prolonged minor chord, emphasised by a muffled roll of the kettle-drum, the curtain rose upon a mediaeval public square. The soprano was seated languidly upon a bench. Her grande scene occurred in this act. Her hair was un-bound; she wore ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord—but in the same instant, and before Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... him to rise and resume his allotted part with a mouth of acknowledging laughter. Humour, as a beautiful woman's defensive weapon, is probably the best that can be called in aid for the bringing of suppliant men to their senses. And so manageable are they when the idea of comedy and the chord of chivalry are made to vibrate, that they (supposing them of the impressionable race which is overpowered by Aphrodite's favourites) will be withdrawn from their great aims, and transformed into happy ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... being that MacDowell has a distinct and impressive individuality, and uses his profound scholarship in the pursuit of novelty that is not cheaply sensational, and is yet novelty. He has, for instance, theories as to the textures of sounds, and his chord-formations and progressions are quite ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... romance or history is there found a more noble or heroic character than Theodore Koerner (1791-1813). Short as was his existence, he had already struck, with more or less success, almost every chord of the poetic lyre. His dramas, with many faults, abound in scenes glowing with power and passion, and prove what he might have achieved had life been spared to him. But it is his patriotic poems, his "Lyre and Sword," which have invested the name of Koerner ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... compared to those instruments, of which the chords, already diversified in themselves, by the manner in which they have been spun, are also strung upon different notes: struck by the same impulse, each chord gives forth the sound that is peculiar to itself; that is to say, that which depends on its texture, its tension, its volume, on the momentary state in which it is placed by the circumambient air. It is this that produces the diversified spectacle, the varied scene, which ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... difference of nation does not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. The whole world is becoming a common field for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, and the world will hear it. A great chord of sentiment and feeling runs through two continents, and vibrates over both. Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to country; every wave rolls it; all give it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas; there are marts ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... did not seek out his words; they came obediently and spontaneously to his lips, and each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the greatest secret—the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... of the mercury in the cistern and the top of the column which is the true height of the barometer. The surface of the mercury column is convex, and in noting the height of the barometer, it is not the chord of the curve, but its tangent which is taken. This is done by setting the straight lower edge of the vernier, an appendage with which the barometer is furnished, as a tangent to the curve. The vernier is made to slide up and down the scale, and by it the height of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... musicians, divided into wind and chord orchestras, accompany a chorus of two hundred executants, and furnish the music for a ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... blended so together as they sang, and the plunge of the sea came on the east-wind in such chiming chord, that they never heeded the old mandolin whose strings in humble remoteness Luigi struck to their tune. But mingling the sound of the sea and the sound of the strings in her memory, it seemed to Eve that Luigi was fast becoming the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hero whose story he is telling. At times a storm will remind this hero of his combats; but he also remembers his moments of love and happiness, and his soul is quieted. Then the music unfolds itself serenely, and rises with calm strength to the closing chord of triumph, which is placed like a crown of glory on the ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... window, there was an oppressive menace about it all. The shadowy figures ashore were more like a death-watch than a guard, and to dispel the gloom of it he lighted two of the lamps in the cabin, whistled, drummed a simple chord he knew on the piano, and finally settled down to smoking his pipe. He would have welcomed the company of Bateese, or Joe Clamart, or one of the guards, and as his loneliness grew upon him there was something of companionship ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... boons,—when was it ever found through effort or desire? In all scenes of beauty or of excitement, in the allurements of society, in solitude and in sorrow, my heart still turned to you with ceaseless longing, as if you alone could touch its master-chord, and waken the harmonies which were struggling for expression. By slow degrees, as I learned to dissever you from the material world, there came a conviction of the nearness of your spirit, sometimes so positive that I would waken from a reverie, in which I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his hay the Tramp awoke, The golden fountain never broke, The lovely sobbing strain. The melody of that brown bird Awoke a delicate, prisoned chord Within ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... a festering sore to the heart of our modern world. If the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life sum up the totality of our being here, why should that crowd on the artist's canvas be represented as moved by an anguish that touches no chord in its soul; which is, indeed, foreign to its every thought, sympathy, and pursuit? So long as men are indifferent about the very question, Why that anguish? vain is the appeal, "To you is it nothing your Saviour should die?" So long as men are utterly ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... quiet chord. Her voice was sweet and tender and full, admirably suited to the song. Every nerve in Hadria answered to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... friend We took our place. The voiceless sympathy The tear, the tender pressure of the hand Interpreted more perfectly than words The purpose of our soul. We speak to err, Waking to agony some broken chord Or bleeding nerve that slumbered. Words are weak, When God's strong discipline doth try the soul; And that deep silence was more eloquent Than all the pomp of speech. Yet the long pause Of days ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... touch such chord be thine, Restore the ancient tragic line, And emulate the notes that wrung From the wild harp, which silent hung By silver Avon's holy shore, Till twice a hundred years roll'd o'er; When she, the bold Enchantress, came, With fearless ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... recently in a picture-gallery of Munich. And at the end a genius paints a portrait of a wrinkled old woman's face, and the world regards and worships. Or all discords have been flung together pell-mell, resolution of them has been deferred perpetually, perhaps even denied altogether, chord of B major has been struck with C major, works have closed upon the leading note or the dominant seventh, symphonies have been composed to be played in the dark, or to be accompanied by a magic-lantern's efforts, operas been produced which are merely carnage and a ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... effect. I think of these old navigators in their small vessels, getting the thick and the thin, just as we do to-day in our own sailing craft; getting well dusted at times, with the salt thick on their cheeks and decks. Taking it all round, the sea is rather a minor chord; so that these Burlington House pictures of the Argo and The Heroes, in orange and rose on a wine-red sea are not convincing. When my patron comes home I will humbly suggest Orpheus singing at the stem, a following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and all around wet air and splashing grey sea, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 90 Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... dunes today with my mother. My hand swept idly over the soft white sand, shifting the order of many thousands of starry worlds. What a chord of music if one could but hear it in its entirety! As it was, I caught wonderful echoes that would light the beauties of many a sunrise. The silent man reminds me of Synge in his drifting life and the fires glowing in his eyes. Today I saw the-beauty of a flower. ... Some day I shall ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... griefs, when fate First leaves the young heart lone and desolate In the wide world, without that only tie For which it loved to live or feared to die; Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er hath spoken Since the sad day its master-chord ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... SULLIVAN, Mus. Doc. From what our Musical Critic has seen of the score, he is able to wink his eye wisely but not too well, and to hint that as Mr. Guppy says, "There are chords"; and to make these chords in combination, the strings are admirably fitted. There is one chord (will it be recognised as belonging to Box?) which— But, as Sir ARTHUR says, "Where will be the surprise, if your Musical Critic tells everything beforehand?" He is right, quite right, and, thank goodness, he is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... proud long-dead kings Stricken no subtler chord, Whereof the memory clings, Love, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... work," she said, "vibrates through me in every form. What a pearl of eulogy is Maltro! What a great work is L'Abuglo! In the first of these poems you reach the sublime of love without touching a single chord of passion. What purity, and at the same time what ease and tenderness! It is not only the fever of the heart; it is life itself, its religion, its virtue. This poor innuocento does not live to love; she loves to live.... Her love ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone, Each spring, its various bias: Then at the balance, let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... to it in the English language. Thelma!" And he lingered on the pronunciation of the strange word with a curious sensation of pleasure. "There is something mysteriously suggestive about the sound of it; like a chord of music played softly in the distance. Now, can I get through this door, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... disorder. The visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard, felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady, without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... For the gold grains to lie in. Virgin gold Lay hidden there—no richer was the dross. She went to gay assemblies, not content; For she had found no hearts, that, struck with hers, Sounded one chord. She went, and danced, or sat And listlessly conversed; or, if at home, Read the new novel, wishing all the time For something better; though she knew not what, Or how to search ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... comforter even at the best of moments, but in this instance, not knowing upon what chord to touch, my speaking could be of very little avail; nevertheless, I hazarded a few consolatory words, such as we always have at hand to exhort sufferers to bear their ills with patience and look beyond the cloud surrounding them to hopes of better ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... deep passion in Scott's poetry is patriotism, the passion of place. In his metrical romances the rush of the narrative and the vivid, picturesque beauty of the descriptions are indeed exciting to the imagination; but it is only when the chord of national feeling is touched that the verse grows lyrical, that the heart is reached, and that tears come into the reader's eyes, as they must have done into the poet's. A dozen such passages occur at once to the memory; the last stand of the Scottish ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... too supremely selfish to esteem another higher than himself, and though it flattered him to know that the young creature was so glad to meet him, it awoke no answering chord, and he merely thought that with her to minister to him he should possibly be happier than he ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... which were conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting, in the Portraits,—these are the characteristics, and that in a surpassing degree, of the Causeries. The whole arrangement, too, is different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. The papers at once acquired a popularity which of course had never attended the earlier ones. "He has not the time to make them bad," was the praise accorded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and sombre, When clouds lie low and dark with rain, A random bell strikes a chord familiar And I hear the Oxford chimes again. Never I see a swift stream running Cold and full from shore to shore, But I think of Isis, and remember The leaping boat ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... measured by their permanent popularity, Walton deserves an enthusiastic mention in literary annals, not for the greatness of his achievements, but for his having touched a chord in the human heart which still vibrates without hint of cessation wherever ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... eagerly, for he had touched a chord which set me thinking—I mean trying to think; "that trouble hanging over us. There ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... and Nigel, blaming himself for having inadvertently touched some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... opened, and she played one or two exquisite things, and afterward tried her voice, but only in scales, and somewhat timidly, for Miss Gale warned her she might lose it or spoil it if she strained the vocal chord while her whole ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... abolir, to abolish, wipe out. abondance, f., abundance. abri, m., shelter; mettre l'—, to shield. absolu, absolute. abuser, to deceive. accabler, to overwhelm, crush. accepter, to accept; ne pas —, to decline. accompagner, to accompany. accord, m., chord (of music). accorder, to grant. accourir, to run, flock. acheter, to buy. achever (de), to finish. acte, m., act. action, f., action, deed. adieu, farewell. admettre, to admit. admirer, to admire, marvel at. adopter, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... perpendiculars let fall from V and c on a b; and d the base of a perpendicular from the point of the cusp to the arch line. Then a b will always be a span of the arch, V p its perpendicular height, V a the chord of its side arcs, d c the depth of its cusps, c c the horizontal interval between the cusps, a c the length of the chord of the lower arc of the cusp, V c the length of the chord of the upper arc of the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... was fortunate enough to strike the golden mean, being neither too anxious nor too indifferent, and if above all he had by the gift of bounteous muck-a-muck [food] touched the chord to which the savage heart always responds, the Indian might go on and tell in broken English or crude Chinook the strange, dark legend of the bridge, which is the subject of ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... determined that wife should receive that gallant husband's message. He replied: "She is very close to me; she is just back of the Union line of battle with the commander-in-chief at his headquarters." That announcement of Mrs. Barlow's presence with the Union army struck in this heart of mine another chord of deepest and tenderest sympathy; for my wife had followed me, sharing with me the privations of the camp, the fatigues of the march; again and again was she under fire, and always on the very verge of the battle was that devoted wife of mine, like an angel of protection and an inspiration ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... available for the pursuit of him were the columns of Knox and Hamilton at Bethulie. Here the river bends round to the south, forming an arc through Norval's Pont towards Zand Drift; and the columns therefore crossed to the right bank and marched eighty miles along the chord, only to find when they reached the Drift on February 12 that De Wet had two days previously crossed by it ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... in that little cathedral town would be most difficult to describe. After the hurry, rattle, and fever of the city, the rare weeks spent here were infinitely peaceful. They were full of a quaint sense of childhood, with sometimes a deeper chord touched—the giant and spiritual things childhood has dreams of. The little room I slept in had opposite its window the great grey cathedral wall; it was only in the evening that the sunlight crept round it and appeared in ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... some practical experience, that they possessed, in addition to all these traits, wonderful shrewdness in the art of swindling. New dodges that he had never dreamt of turned up in the line of debits and credits; he was interested—delighted! A familiar chord was touched. He retracted all he had said; formed the most exalted opinion of the people; reluctantly returned to Glasgow, and there made a fortune in the course of a few years! It is said that he now swears by the eternal Yankee nation—the only oath he was ever known ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... different struck a responsive chord in my memory. I remembered that I wanted different things, and smiled again and dashed the tears away. I arranged my own pictures and few belongings about the room and felt more at home. After I had dressed and stood ready to go down for ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... pleasingness, for different combinations are sometimes pleasing, sometimes displeasing. In the history of music we know that the octave was to the Greeks the most pleasing combination, to medieval musicians the fifth, while to us, the third, which was once a forbidden chord, is perhaps most delightful. Yet we should never doubt that the octave is the most consonant, the fifth and the third the lesser consonant of combinations. We see, thus, that consonance, whatever its nature, is independent ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... supported on carriages, which, traveling on a broad-gauge track above the ditches, moved along the tunnel, section by section, as the work advanced. The panels were hung loosely from joists carrying a platform on the top chord of the carriage trusses, and were adjusted transversely by bracing and wedging them out from the carriage. The small forms for the refuge niches, ladders, etc., were collapsible, and were spiked to the main panel forms just previous to the deposition of the concrete. The concrete ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason
... neck of a hernia. Parts seen from the inside: H, femoral hernia; A, femoral artery; V, femoral vein; E, epigastric artery; O, obturator from epigastric (dangerous); S O, obturator from epigastric (safe); N O, normal course of obturator; I R, internal inguinal ring; Sp C, spermatic chord and its vessels; G, Gimbernat's ligament; , in ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... doubt. She jumped whenever I came round the corner, and used to stand behind trees watching me. Also she used to come to see the dogs fed. Now, when I knew beyond all question the state of her feelings, I borrowed Guido's guitar, and struck one chord upon it at night under her window, and sang but one word—Vieni! In three minutes she came on to the balcony, and we looked at each other. There was a moon, and we could see quite well. We stood looking ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... striking his hand upon his breast and pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time to time during a sustained chord, "Mon honneur et ma foi." In the centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "Jamais, jamais!" striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima donna cried, "Ah, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... red and green, painters use original yellow pigments,—such as aureolin, cadmium, and lead chromate,—each of them also impure but giving a dominant sensation of yellow. Did the eye discriminate, as does the ear when it analyzes the separate tones of a chord, then we should recognize that yellow pigments emit both red ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... fire, he dragged out two lowing, horned cows close to the fire; for great strength was with him. He threw them both panting upon their backs on the ground, and rolled them on their sides, bending their necks over [2517], and pierced their vital chord. Then he went on from task to task: first he cut up the rich, fatted meat, and pierced it with wooden spits, and roasted flesh and the honourable chine and the paunch full of dark blood all together. He laid them there upon the ground, and spread ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... shall quite forget to sound The chord whose music is undying, if She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drowned. Leander dived for love. Leucadia's cliff The Lesbian Sappho leapt from in a miff, To punish Phaon; Icarus went dead Because the wax did not continue stiff; And, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... in the army of the British East India Company, he built his own yacht of 140 tons, practised his crew in the Mediterranean and then set sail for the Malay Archipelago. In his Proposed Exploring Expedition to the Asiatic Archipelago, 1838, are found these stirring words which strike a responsive chord in the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... heroic. Songs sung in the stillness of the evening over the baby's cradle have ever been the mother's consecration for all her sacrifice. Hymns bring back hallowed memories; a strain of song will touch a chord no syllogism could sound; the simple words of an old hymn bring comfort and new hope ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... magnificent waistcoat. A servant in livery then appears, and presents him with a pair of white kid gloves. The illustrious conductor, having taken some time to thrust them upon a very large and red hand, leisurely takes up his baton, rises, grins upon the expectant musicians, lifts his arm, and—the first chord is struck! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... a bit of a twinkle in the corners of those cold gray eyes that told Cuthbert the other was not wholly a man of iron—there was another vein to his character not often seen by his fellows, but which could be played upon by touching the right chord, if one ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... a chord in every human heart that has a sigh in it if touched aright. When the artist finds the key-note which that chord will answer to—in the dullest as in the highest—then ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... a sudden, the machine struck a chord in G, and started for Newfoundland at the rate of ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... appearances, and have no sense of consequences. Nothing more is meant by them than meets the ear: they understand or feel nothing more than meets their eye. The web and texture of the universe, and of the heart of man, is a mystery to them: they have no faculty that strikes a chord in unison with it. They cannot get beyond the daubings of fancy, the varnish of sentiment. Objects are not linked to feelings, words to things, but images revolve in splendid mockery, words represent themselves in their strange rhapsodies. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... aunt's love for them, and she had not been in the conservatories for months. John said a word or two on the cost of keeping them up, and the need of prudence, with a view to providing for Arthur's children. It was the right chord. She looked up, puzzled: her mathematical knowledge ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chord which resolved into one burst of sound all the various motives emitted by the different temperaments in the room. Every one appealed ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... seats was seventeen, divided into wedges by six flights of steps, and in stalls by lines yet visible upon the stone. The upper tiers were approached by vomitories and by a subterranean corridor. The orchestra formed an arc the chord of which was indicated by a marble ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... of anger or animosity, and the grave, kind tones made some way in the winding avenues leading to Royston's heart. Besides this, the last word struck the chord of the misgiving that had haunted him ever since he proposed the flight, and had already made him half repent it. But the fortress did ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the deserted two on Cod Lead must have appealed to the commander. He was profane about it, and talked about elephants and men who owned them in a way that struck an answering chord in the Cap'n's breast. But he finally gave orders for the embarkation of Imogene, and after much more profanity and more slurs which Hiram was obliged to listen to meekly, the task was accomplished, and the cutter proceeded on her way along coast on ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Memoriam"—which I carried off to Barty's and read out aloud one wet Sunday evening, and the Sunday evening after, and other Sunday evenings; and other poems by the same hand: "Locksley Hall," "Ulysses," "The Lotos-Eaters," "The Lady of Shalott"—and the chord of Byron passed in music out ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... prolong one joy, or even to dwell On one rich chord of pain, Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven And drown ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... beheld two unkempt Italians having a piano-organ and a violin. The music was not fine, but it touched a chord in Ayrault's breast, for he had waltzed with Sylvia to that air, and it made his ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... with your rattling and tinkling, Who knows but you give me an inkling How music sounds, thanks to the jangle Of regular drum and triangle? Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, 'tis proven I break rule as bad as Beethoven. "That chord now—a groan or a grunt is't? Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist. No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled— He thought that he sung while ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... silence, broken only by the prolonged chord of the river, as descended upon them now. It was new and strange to the conscious life of Ben, himself, the veritable offspring of the woods; although infinitely old and familiar to a still, watching, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... chords of the 9th, 11th, or the 99th, but a lens far different tells us they are used with different aims from those of Debussy. Emerson is definite in that his art is based on something stronger than the amusing or at its best the beguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuous chord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may float, if the wind blows in that direction, through a voluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy's fondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmosphere from his own voluptuous cheeks. And so ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... that there was something more in it all than the gratification of mere fun and laughter, more even than the rarer pleasure that underlies the outbreak of all forms of genuine humor. Another chord had been struck. Over and above the lively painting of manners which at first had been so attractive, there was something that left deeper mark. Genial and irrepressible enjoyment, affectionate heartiness of tone, unrestrained exuberance of mirth, these are not more ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Aristotle, the founder of political science, that the problem of a statesman is so to adjust these otherwise discordant elements as to form once for all in the body-politic a perfect, a final and immutable harmony. There is, according to this view, one simple chord and one only, which the great organ of society is adapted to play; and the business of the legislator is merely to tune the instrument so that it shall play it correctly. Thus, if Plato could have had his way, his great common chord, his harmony ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... had to play alone, then she struck a chord with Ruby and then had a little run of several notes by herself. Ruby felt very grand when the duet was announced and she walked to the piano with Agnes and seated herself. She was sorry that she was on the side away from the audience, because then her ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... popular sympathy with sailors. It was presumably a cordial recognition of this fact that led Pitt to grant him a pension. It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive poetry more calculated to make the chord of national sentiment vibrate responsively than "Tom Bowling" or that well-known song in which Dibdin depicted at once the high sense of duty and the rough, albeit affectionate, love-making of ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... from,—her eyes melted him when they rested for an instant on his face,—her voice reached those hidden sensibilities of his inmost nature, which never betray their existence until the outward chord to which they vibrate in response sends its message to stir them. But was she not already pledged to that other,—that cold-blooded, contriving, venal, cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... we fail to notice the clear indication of purpose in these passages! The Poet brings Menelaus, as the culmination of his story, to strike the chord which stirs most profoundly the soul of Telemachus. The son is there to inquire concerning his father; without revealing himself he learns much about the character and significance of his parent. The same artistic forethought ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... tied a few flowers together and fastened them on her dress with a pearl pin, either thing was perfectly done—without a false line or a discordant hue. Her face, form, voice and colouring were like a chord of music, harmonious,—and hence the impression of satisfaction and composure her presence always gave. In herself she was a creature of remarkable temperament and character;—true womanly in every delicate sentiment, fancy and feeling, but with something ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... scale can be established which would yield a color correlative to any musical note or chord, there still remains the matter of values to be dealt with. In the musical scale there is a practical equality of values: one note is as potent as another. In a color scale, on the other hand, each note (taken at its greatest intensity) has a positive ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the occupants of the howdahs, this was a final chord from the band, for the huge beasts were thoroughly startled, and the lookers-on noted that similar uneasiness was being displayed by the nine great elephants that appertained to Rajah Hamet's force, these in particular showing a disposition to turn tail ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... one, the glad yet sorrowful eyes of the other, before a word had passed on either side? What was it, that congealed the flood of joyful questionings, with which I went forward to meet them, in an icy lump pressing down upon my brain; and, that snapped a chord in my heart that has never ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Not one of the guests had ever before known the depth of sympathy in the old Bishop till now. Every chord in the nature of each man vibrated to the touch ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance, And must I lose ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... heard at church, their minds were so set on doing what they found in the Gospel, that it passed over them without even rousing their intellect, and so vanished without doing any hurt. Tuned to the truth by obedience, no falsehood they heard from the pulpit partisans of God could make a chord vibrate in response. Dawtie indeed heard nothing but the good that was mingled with the falsehood, and shone like a lantern through a ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... representing herself as my cousin. I was a member of her family who had 'gone astray' and embraced the cause of the rebellion, but was still dear to her! Womanly heart! clinging affection! not even the sin of the prodigal cousin could sever the tender chord of her love! I had wandered from the right path—fed on husks with the Confederate swine; but I was wounded—had come back; should the fatted calf remain unbutchered, and the loving welcome ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the memory of the traveller who first comes upon it clad in spring and summer verdure. The rippling Vire at its very feet gives at once the note; it not only binds and enwraps it like the setting of a precious stone, but adds that one feature which, lacking, would be a chord misplaced. Perhaps no other cathedral in all France, with regard to its bijou setting, certainly no other so accessible to the English tourist, has more dainty charm than this not very grand, but graceful, church at St. Lo. Its towers, though not uniform as to size, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... knew now what had struck that vibrant chord within me! The voice, though infinitely deeper, yet had an unmistakable resemblance to the dulcet tones of Karamaneh—of Karamaneh whose eyes haunted my dreams, whose beauty had done much ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... be going," he said. "Tell young Bohun I shall be waiting for him to-night—7.30—Astoria—" He turned to Vera Michailovna to say good-bye, and then, suddenly, as she rose and their eyes met, they seemed to strike some unexpected chord of sympathy. It took both of them, I think, by surprise; for quite a moment ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... reclaims against this misuse of analogy. Feeling, imagination, instinct are too many for her; and any mood, from fun to earnest, from nonsense to sublimity, may hear a responsive note when this chord is touched. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... the chord, and the girls chimed in weakly. Then, the music, strengthening their hopes as it progressed, made them more cheerful. Loudly, they brought out ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... all happened in an instant. Some chord in him, numbed till then, had begun to throb. It was as if he had awakened from a dream, or returned to consciousness after being stunned. There was something in the sight of her, standing there so cool and neat and composed, so ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... good. The Bounding Zouaves, with one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the conclusion of the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... country men and women said their prayers aloud, and the refrain of "Namu Amida Butsu" seemed perpetually in one's ears. As the conclusion of the service approached, the voices of the choir, the priests, and the congregation increased in strength and volume, and ceased suddenly in a final chord of supplication. For a few moments there was stillness over the bowed heads of the congregation, and then the priests rose and the crowd began to stream down the great flight of steps. In the streets outside were rows of booths, where printed prayers and brightly embroidered ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... too important a part in our Christian organs and organizations today. The music, whoever plays, is bound to be thin when the tops of "Instant Obedience" and "Fiery Valor" are missing or unused, and without them to play the "Lost Chord" ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... building up from beneath, the bounds of which can be distinctly traced. Considerable remains of the terrace-wall at the foot of the slope exist—huge stones twelve or fourteen feet in length by eight or ten in breadth. The chord of the semicircle is near the top of the hill, formed by the perpendicular face of the excavated rock, and is about four hundred feet in length by twenty in depth. Projecting from it at the centre, and hewn out of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... playing until you drop from weariness," she announced ecstatically, when the last wailing, sobbing, soothing chord had died away; and the other ladies murmured, "How delightful!" and whispered ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... doubts and its faith, its sorrows and its triumphs, at each era of its existence. Wonderfully artless and correct—because all utterances which were not faithful to their time, which did not touch some sympathetic chord in their heart's souls, are pretty sure to have been swept out into wholesome oblivion, and only the most genuine and earnest left behind for posterity. The history of England indeed is the literature of England—but one very different from any school history ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... hear Through pureness filtered crystal-clear, And know the pleasure sprinkled bright By simple singing of delight, Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained, Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained Without a break, without a fall, Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, Perennial, quavering up the chord Like myriad dews of sunny sward That trembling into fulness shine, And sparkle dropping argentine; Such wooing as the ear receives From zephyr caught in choric leaves Of aspens when their chattering net Is flushed to white with shivers ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... chord vibrating; the passion inspired in another may be unwelcome, but it will always be gratifying to self-love; this was the case with the old bachelor. After generously pardoning Madeleine, he extended his forgiveness to the other servants, promising to use his influence ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... impart, because it is a produce neither of hand nor brain, but of the player's individual soul. Desmond's fingers were unpractised, but he gave every note its true value; and he played slowly, as though composing each chord as it came, or building it up from memory. It was almost as if he were thinking aloud; and Honor had just decided that she really had no business to be overhearing his thoughts, when an apprehensive "woof" from the Aberdeen brought ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... sights and sounds of a hay-field which seems to touch the same chord in one as Lowell's lines in the "Lay of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... on a chord that was sure to respond. "I have no need to add proofs and arguments in confirmation of my word to Bartolommeo. And I doubt not that this young man's presence is in accord with the tones of his voice, so that, the door being once opened, he will ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... be serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may have ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... streams. The violets, instead of peeping shyly from hedgerows, fall in ripples and cascades over mossy walls among maidenhair and spleen-worts. They are very sweet, and the sound of trickling water seems to mingle with their fragrance in a most delicious harmony. Sound, smell, and hue make up one chord, the sense of which is pure and perfect peace. The country-people are kind, letting us pass everywhere, so that we make our way along their aqueducts and through their gardens, under laden lemon-boughs, the pale fruit dangling at our ears, and swinging showers of scented dew upon ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... stranger. I recognize in it the bounty of Providence. I see the truth revealed, that as magnetism pervades the universe, so there is a sentiment, which, independent of party affections and bubbling passion, pervades the breast of mankind; and that is, the love of Freedom, Justice, and Right. The chord of Freedom passes through all hearts, and whoever touches it, elicits harmony. The harmony is in the chord, not in him who touches it. There is no skill in the breeze which sweeps over the Aeolian harp, yet a sweet harmony bursts forth from its vibrations. ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... superhuman. At the beginning their enthusiasm gave the pitch to their co-disciples;[6172] the institution, through its mechanism, labors to keep this up, and the administrators or professors, by order or through zeal, use all their efforts to make the sonorous and ringing chord vibrate with all the more energy. After 1811, even in a private institution,[6173] "the victories of the Emperor form almost the only subject on which the imagination of the pupils is allowed to exercise itself." After 1807,[6174] at Louis le Grand, the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... more, there was nothing more to hear but the double chorus of frogs in the pools of the island. Our pools, Natacha, are like the enchanted lakes of the Caucasus which are silent by day and sing at evening; there are innumerable throngs of frogs which sing on the same chord, some of them on a major and some on a minor. The chorus speaks from pool to pool, lamenting and moaning across the fields and gardens, and re-echoing like AEolian harps placed opposite ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... absence, and make good use of moments so blissful to hearts that love. There was something in the old man's mournful tone and glance when it rested upon him, that answered strangely and sadly to the spirit-voice breathing in his own bold breast. It seemed to touch that chord indefinably, yet felt by the vibration of every nerve which followed. He roused himself, however, and ere they joined the morning meal, there was a brighter smile on the lip and heart of Agnes than had rested there ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... not mean to strike a tragic chord," she replies; "indeed I did not. As to 'escaping with my life,' it was just a phrase ... for the rest I am essentially better ... and feel as if it were intended for me to live and not to die." And referring to a passage relating to Prometheus she asks: "And tell me, if Aeschylus ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... quarters. There are also several stringed instruments. One of these, which Captain Grant describes, was played by an old woman; it had seven notes, six of which were a perfect scale. Another, which had three strings, was played by a man: they were a full, harmonious chord. A third instrument called "the laced nanga" formed of dark wood, in the shape of a tray, had three crosses in the bottom, and was laced with one string, seven or eight times, over bridges at ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... likely, isn't it?" he said, smiling. "No, my dear, that's not the reason." He paused as though searching for words, then went on quietly: "The silver chord is getting a bit frayed, you know, Nan. I'm an old man, and I'm just beginning ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the right chord. Visions of future wealth and glory rose again before them, confidence in their leader revived, and, shouting bravely, "To Mexico! to Mexico!" the party started off on their perilous march. It was 16th August 1519 when the little army, "buoyant with ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... character. Perhaps, to be circumstantial and abundant in minute detail and in one word ... to be somewhat prosy, is the secret mode of securing a certain necessary degree of credulity from the hearers of a ghost story... The chord which vibrates and sounds at a touch remains in silent ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... she was walking in her sleep," thought Prudy, and turned away to hide a tear; for somehow there was a chord in her heart that thrilled strangely. That "slow winter" came back to her with a rush, and she was sure ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... has no brains for science, I fear!" thought the fairy. "I almost repent my bargain! However, I will not be discouraged quite yet, perhaps the proper chord has not been struck." Accordingly, she invented for him various pretty toys, since then copied by men: the kaleidoscope, with its infinite variety of shifting figures; the orrery; the prism; the burning-glass; the microscope and the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... feel inspired. No one could peruse the article and not feel that henceforth poetry was something more to him and to all life than it had ever been before. Criticism is itself among the evolving sciences. Depreciation was rife. Goldsmith touched a new chord in inspiring and chastening appreciation, a spirit which even now, more and more, in life and letters, men must realize. Unlike Brougham, Goldsmith could chide without unkindness, and prove severe without proving cruel. He threw such a light of love on merit that could and did ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... intelligence made for higher things than spade and oar. As they sat there they were like the notes of a piano, and Kosmaroff played the instrument with a sure touch that brought the fullest vibration out of each chord. He was a born leader; an organizer not untouched perchance by that light of genius which enables some to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... battalion halted; faced to the window, and spontaneously came to "Present!" as the ringing rebel yell rattled the windows of that block. The chord had been touched that the roughest soldier ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... himself, at a signal from the princess, and commenced his playing, if such it could be called, thrumming violently, and jarring every chord of his instrument to a tone of such dissonance, that the attendant girls put their fingers into their ears, and pitied the beautiful ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... wiped the tears from his eyes, happened to strike his arm against the chord of Mad. de Fleury's harp, and the sound echoed through ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... so handsome was he, and so young; so full of hope and spirits and joy of life, of all, in fact, of which he himself had been left coldly bare. Moreover, the ring of the merry voice, the glint of the clear eye awakened in his memory some fitful chord, the key of which he ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... made a serious business. Nothing flatters a woman more than to let her see that she is feared, and the Church by placing chastity in the first place among the duties of its ministers, touches the most sensitive chord of female vanity. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... me, I know nothing of these strange devices—not even the names. But our rule commands us to labour; there can be no harm therefore, in turning this winch—or in placing this steel-headed piece of wood opposite to the chord, (suiting his actions to his words,) nor see I aught uncanonical in adjusting the lever thus, or in ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the warp'd and broken board, How can it bear the painter's dye! The harp of strain'd and tuneless chord, How to the minstrel's skill reply! To aching eyes each landscape lowers, To feverish pulse each gale blows chill; And Araby's or Eden's bowers Were barren ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... to the surface, and the ratio of lift to drift is therefore the same as that of the cosine to the sine of the angle of incidence. But in curved surfaces a very remarkable situation is found. The pressure, instead of being uniformly normal to the chord of the arc, is usually inclined considerably in front of the perpendicular. The result is that the lift is greater and the drift less than if the pressure were normal. Lilienthal was the first to discover this exceedingly ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... pantomime there is nothing to equal these effects of blue and silver.... Numberless are the caves at Capri. The so-called Green Grotto has the beauty of moss agate in its liquid floor; the Red Grotto shows a warmer chord of color; and where there is no other charm to notice, endless beauty may be found in the play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, tinted with yellow, orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, and catching tones of blue or green from the still deeps beneath.... After ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting |
